“If you refuse, I will tell Fields about your theft.”
He felt himself back in the president of the faculty’s office. His outrage overtook him. “You haven’t any evidence I ever stole anything. Nothing that would hold in a court of law.”
She nodded and removed the proof sheet he had taken from the magazine offices.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
“From your hotel room, Mr. Davenport. The room you are already behind four dollars on paying. This is your hand, is it not, in the margins, critiquing the poor quality of writing? You are very liberal in your exclamation marks. But I know something about you. You do not want to be a writer.”
“Wait a minute. How are you so certain?” Her statement sent a nervous tremor through him.
She had an openmouthed grin. “Because you don’t have to be. Writers must write and they suffer if they don’t. Then they suffer if they do. It is no way to live, and if they could they would do something else, anything else. You can do something else—something that will give you far more control than those writers you admire.” I ought to add that in person Kitten was just who she seemed to be; this was a peculiar trait for a woman who employed disguises and false identities from time to time in her profession, and I think people believed because, when it came to Kitten, you wanted to believe her. But there was no escaping the fact that she was going to take something in return for that faith; it was only a matter of when and how much.
“What is your name?” he asked with juvenile frustration. “I demand to know.”
“I use one name in my temporary employment at the publishing firm. But in my profession, I have come to be known as Kitten.”
“Kitten?” he repeated incredulously. “If I help you, Miss Kitten, then you return or destroy that paper and I am free of any further obligation,” he said after taking a moment to think over the remarkable circumstance. “Then I will be free from playing your game any longer. Agreed?”
She agreed to terms, but perhaps both of them knew that his infatuation had begun: with her, with the new venture into which she was leading him. It would be several years before they would become romantically involved (exactly when is speculation, since Davenport would never talk about it directly), but the moment he took his first step away from the statue and toward her, their fates were interlocked.
IX
Our next visit brought a strange sight never seen at Vailima: the outside boys were standing around doing nothing. Davenport and I exchanged questioning glances. Dismounting before reaching the stables, we approached the cluster of young men. We could see now that they were staring across the property at Charlie. He was naked. Shouting. Swinging an ax. House servants had begun to creep out the front door, keeping a safe distance.
Stevenson came out on the verandah on the upper floor and looked at the scene with grave concern, first at the lunatic and then, angrily, at the rest of us who were standing around, as if to say, “Where are the men in this world?”
“What is he yelling?” Davenport asked.
“Pure nonsense,” said Belial. He had come up from behind and was looking out between the two of us and listening to Charlie. “Something about . . . the devil being among us.”
“Then he is not altogether insane.”
“I never knew you to have a sense of humor, Davenport,” Belial replied cheerfully. “Watch what is about to happen, Mr. Fergins. This is why your master will never win.”
Belial ran toward Charlie. Slowing down at just the right spot, he stepped carefully around the naked native until he saw his opening and tackled him, sending the ax flying out of his hand. The rest of the servants converged on the fallen native and the heroic missionary. I looked up to the verandah and saw a satisfied expression on Stevenson’s face, and, without turning to see, I could feel white rage coming from Davenport.
? ? ?
IT MAY BE SURPRISING to hear that the very first person in history I would classify as a bookaneer appeared long before the first copyright law, and managed to call down the ire of the most powerful man in the world. In 1514, Pope Leo X, an accomplished book collector, granted exclusive papal permission to a printer named Beroaldo to reproduce the works of Tacitus. The punishment for any who defied this order was excommunication. Hundreds of miles away in Milan, one Alesandro Manuziano began printing the same book of Tacitus before Beroaldo was finished—from what I can learn, probably having bribed one of Beroaldo’s employees for the material. Manuziano only escaped excommunication through the intercession of friends. But the question isn’t his punishment. The question is why Manuziano did it. There was profit to be made, yes, but one must also consider that the prohibition simply ate at his heart. I have not yet found a portrait of Manuziano, and I wonder if it would enlighten us as to what kind of man he was. Until I do, I cannot help but imagine this forerunner with the leathery but handsome face of Belial.