Mason & Dixon Read online

  The Astronomers have a game call’d “Sumatra” that the Revd often sees them at together,— as children, sometimes, are seen to console themselves when something is denied them,— their Board a sort of spoken Map of the Island they have been kept from and will never see. “Taking a run in to Bencoolen, anything we need?” “Thought I’d nip up the coast to Mokko-Mokko or Padang, see what’s a-stir.” “Nutmeg Harvest is upon us, I can smell it!” Ev’ry woman in “Sumatra” is comely and willing, though not without attendant Inconvenience, Dixon’s almost instantly developing Wills and Preferences of their own despite his best efforts to keep them uncomplicated,— whereas the only women Mason can imagine at all are but different fair copies of the same serene Beauty,— Rebekah, forbidden as Sumatra to him, held in Detention, as is he upon Earth, until his Release, and their Reunion. So they pass, Mason’s women and Dixon’s, with more in common than either Astronomer will ever find out about, for even phantasms may enjoy private lives,— shadowy, whispering, veil’d to be unveil’d, ever safe from the Insults of Time.

  7

  Trying to remember how they ever came to this place, both speak of Passage as by a kind of flight, all since Tenerife, and the Mountain slowly recessional, having pass’d like a sailor’s hasty dream between Watches, as if, out of a sea holding scant color, blue more in name than in fact, the unreadable Map-scape of Africa had unaccountably emerg’d, as viewed from a certain height above the pale Waves,— tilted into the Light, as a geometer’s Globe might be pick’d up and tilted for a look at this new Hemisphere, this haunted and other half of ev’rything known, where spirit-powers run free among the green abysses and the sudden mountain crests,— Cape Town’s fortifications, sent crystalline by the Swiftness, rushing by from a low yet dangerous altitude as the Astronomers go swooping above the shipping in the Bays, topmen pointing in amazement, every detail, including the Invisible, set precisely, present in all its violent chastity. A town with a precarious Hold upon the Continent, planted as upon another World by the sepia-shadow’d Herren XVII back in Holland (and rul’d by the Eighteenth Lord, whose existence must never be acknowledg’d in any way).

  The moment Mason and Dixon arrive, up in the guest Suite sorting out the Stockings, which have come ashore all a-jumble, admiring the black Stinkwood Armoire with the silver fittings, they are greeted, or rather, accosted, by a certain Bonk, a Functionary of the V.O.C., whose task it is to convey to them an assortment of Visitors’ Rules, or warnings. One might say jolly,— one would have to say blunt. “From Guests of our community, our Hope is for no disruptions of any kind. As upon a ship at sea, we do things here in our own way,— we, the officers, and you, the passengers. What seems a solid Continent, stretching away Northward for thousands of miles, is in fact an Element with as little mercy as the Sea to our Backs, in which, to be immers’d is just as surely, and swiftly, to be lost, without hope of Salvation. As there is nowhere to escape to, easier to do as the Captain and Officers request, eh?”

  “Of course,” Mason quickly.

  “We’ve but come to observe the Sky . . . ?” Dixon seeks to assure him.

  “Yes? Yes? Observe the Sky,— instead of what, pray?” Smiling truculently, the Dutchman glowers and aims his abdomen in different directions.” ‘Of course,’ this isn’t a pretext? To ‘observe’ anything more Worldly,— Our Fortifications, Our Slaves,— nothing like that, eh?”

  “Sir,” Mason remonstrates, “we are Astronomers under the commission of our King, no less honorably than ten years ago, under that of his King, was Monsieur Lacaille, who has since provided the world a greatly esteem’d Catalogue of Southern Stars. Surely, at the end of the day, we serve no master but Him that regulates the movements of the Heav’ns, which taken together form a cryptick Message,”— Dixon now giving him Looks that fail, only in a Mechanickal way, to be Kicks,— “we are intended one day to solve, and read,” Mason smoaking belatedly that he may be taking his Trope too far.

  For the Dutchman is well a-scowl. “Ja, Ja, precisely the sort of English Whiggery, acceptable among yourselves, that here is much better left unexpress’d.” Police Official Bonk peers at them more closely. It is nearly time for his midday break, and he wants to hurry this up and get to a Tavern. Yet if Mason is acting so unrestrain’d with a Deputy direct from the Castle itself, how much more dangerous may his rattling be in the hearing of others,— even of Slaves? He must therefore be enter’d in the Records as a Person of Interest, thereby taking up residence, in a pen-and-paper way, in the Castle of the Compagnie. Into the same Folder, of course, goes a file for the Assistant,— harmless, indeed, in some Articles, simple, though he appears,— pending the Day when one may have to be set against the other.

  Although rooming at the Zeemanns’, the Astronomers are soon eating at the house behind, owing to the sudden defection of half the Zeemann kitchen Slaves, gone quick as that to the Mountains and the Droster life. This being just one more Domestick Calamity,— along with Company Prices, collaps’d Roofs, sand in the Soup,— that the Cape Dutch have come to expect and live thro’, Arrangements are easily made, the Vrooms having been Neighbors for years. At mealtimes Mason and Dixon go out by the Zeemanns’ kitchen, on past the outbuildings, then in by way of the back Pantry and Kitchen to the Residence of Cornelius Vroom and his wife, Johanna, and what seems like seven, and is probably closer to three, blond, nubile Daughters. Mealtimes are a strange combination of unredeemably wretched food and exuberantly charming Company. Under the Table-cloth, in a separate spatial domain such as Elves are said to inhabit, feet stray, organs receive sudden inrushes of Blood,— or in Mason’s case, usually, Phlegm. Blood, clearly rushing throughout Dixon, is detectable as well in faces and at bosoms and throats in this Jethro’s Tent they’ve had the luck to stumble into.

  Cornelius Vroom, the Patriarch of this restless House-hold, is an Admirer of the legendary Botha brothers, a pair of gin-drinking, pipe-smoking Nimrods of the generation previous whose great Joy and accomplishment lay in the hunting and slaughter of animals much larger than they. Vroom is a bottomless archive of epic adventures out in the unmapped wilds of Hottentot Land, some of which may even hold a gleam of truth, in among the narrative rubbish-tip of this Arm-chair Commando, wherein the mad Rhino forever rolls his eye, the killer Trunk stands erect and a-bellow, and the cowardly Kaffirs turn and flee, whilst the Dutchman lights his Pipe, and stands his Ground.

  One Morning, the Clock having misinform’d him of the Hour, as he hurries to Breakfast thro’ the back reaches of the two Yards,— edging past a bright-feather’d Skirmish-line of glaring poultry, a bit more forward than the usual British Hen, who stalk and peck as if examining him for nutritional Purposes,— Mason only just avoids a collision with Johanna Vroom, that would have scrambl’d her apron-load of fresh-gather’d eggs, and produc’d, at best, Resentment, instead of what now, even through Mason’s Melancholickally smok’d Lenses, appears to be Fascination.

  How can this be? Assigning to ev’ry Looking-Glass a Coefficient of Mercy,— term it ,— none, among those into which he has ever gaz’d, seeking anything but what he knows will be there, has come within screaming distance of even, say, 0.5, given the Lensman’s Squint, the Stoop, and most of all, in its Fluctuation day by day, the Size of a certain Frontal Hemisphere, ever a source of Preoccupation, over whose Horizon he can sometimes not observe his Penis.

  Between Greenwich and the Cape, however, he was pleas’d to note a temporary reduction of Circumference, owing to sea-sickness and the resulting aversion to even Mention of food, though he did achieve a tolerance at last for ship’s Biscuit,— Dixon, for his part, having by then develop’d a particular Taste for Mr. Cookworthy’s Portable Soup, any least whiff of which, of course, sent his partner queasily to the lee rail.

  As if Dixon had come ashore with Slabs of the convenient yet nauseating Food-Stuff stowed about his Person, the women of the Colony unanimously avoid him. Not only was he swiftly deem’d eccent
ric,— he knows well enough the looks Emerson took whenever he came in to Darlington Market,— how fiercely did his Students then all leap to his defense!— but more curiously, from their first sight of him, the Dutch have sifted Dixon as unreliable in any white affairs here. They have noted his unconceal’d attraction to the Malays and the Black slaves,— their Food, their Appearance, their Music, and so, it must be obvious, their desires to be deliver’d out of oppression. “The English Quaker,” opines Mrs. De Bosch, the Doyenne of Town Arbitresses, “is rude, disobedient, halfway to a Hindoo, either sitting in trances or leaping up to begin jabbering about whatever may be passing through on its uncomplicated journey from one ear to the other. S.N.S., my Children,”— Simply Not Suitable. But Mason is another story. Mason the widower with that Melancholick look, an impassion’d, young-enough Fool willing to sail oceans and fight sea-battles just to have a chance to watch Venus, Love Herself, pass across the Sun,— in these parts exotic even in his workaday earth tones, coming in starv’d from the Sea with all those strange Engines, and obviously desperate for a shore-cook’d meal. None of this has appear’d to him in any mirror he’s consulted.

  Until June, most of their obs will be of Jupiter’s Moons playing at Duck and Ducklings, and of fix’d Stars such as Regulus and Procyon, as well as the zenith-Star at the Cape, Shaula, the Sting in the Tail of the Scorpion,— all so as to establish the Station’s Longitude as nearly as possible. Many nights in that Season proving to be stormy or clouded over, there will be plenty of time for Mischief to shake her Curls, pinch some color into her Cheeks, and, assuming ev’ryone ’round here is not yet dead, feel free to make a few Suggestions.

  “Meet my Daughters,” Cornelius is ever pleas’d to introduce them to Strangers, “— Jemima, Kezia, and Kerenhappuch.” They are, in fact, Jet, Greet, and Els, as he fails, in fact, to be quite Job.

  Jet, sixteen, is obsess’d by her Hair,— as if ’twere a conscious Being, separate from her, most of her activities thro’ the long Cape Quotidian are directed by its needs,— from choosing Costumes to arranging Social schedules, to assessing, from the way they behave when in its Vicinity, the suitability of Beaux.

  The middle Daughter Greet having chosen good Sense as a refuge when she was seven, Attention to her Hair,— as her older sister has more than once chided,— is limited to different ways of covering it up. Withal, “I am the Tavern-Door ’round here,” she cries of her Rôle as Eternal Mediatrix, for should Els grow too frolicksome, Greet must team up with Jet to restrain her,— yet, should Jet pretend to wield Authority she hasn’t earned, Greet must join with Els in Insurrection.

  Els, tho’ a mere twelve by the Calendar back home, down here in the Southern World began long ago the active Pursuit of Lads twice her age, not all of them unwilling. Of the three Sisters, she seems devoted most unreflectively to the Possibilities of Love, her judgment as to where these may best be sought being the nightly Despair of her Sisters. She never needs to touch her Hair, and it is always perfect.

  Cornelius Vroom, anxious as others in the House upon the Topick of Nubility and its unforeseen Woes, has forbidden his daughters to eat any of the native Cookery, particularly that of the Malay, in his Belief that the Spices encourage Adolescents into “Sin,” by which he means Lust that crosses racial barriers. For it is real,— he has known it to appear, more than once, here and up in the country, where his Brothers and their families live. He keeps loaded Elephant-Guns in both the front hallway and the Dispens in back. Deep in the curfew hours, in bed with his pipe, he imagines laughter outside the windows, even when the wind drowns out every sound,— slave laughter. He knows they watch him, and he tries to pay close Attention to the nuances of their speech. Somewhat as his Neighbors each strenuous Sunday profess belief in the Great Struggle at the End of the World, so does Cornelius, inside his perimeter of Mauritian smoke at the hour when nothing is lawfully a-stir but the Rattle-Watch and the wind, find in his anxious meditations no Release from the coming Armageddon of the races,— this European settlement so precarious, facing an unknown Interior with the sea at their backs, forced, step after step, by the steadfast Gravity of all Africa, down into it at last. . . . It is another way of living where the Sea is ever higher than one’s Head, and kept out only provisionally.

  The first moment they find themselves in a Room together, Jet hands Mason a Hair-Brush. “There’s a bit in back I can’t reach,— please give it a dozen Strokes for me, Charles?”

  “Nor does she allow just anyone do this,” Greet entering, crossing, and exiting, “I hope you feel honor’d, Sir,” with a look back over her shoulder that is anything but reproachful. A moment later she’s back, with Els, who comes skipping over to Mason, and without a word, lifting her skirts, sits upon his lap in a sinuous Motion, allowing the Lace Hems to drop again, before squirming about to glance at his Face. “Now then, my English Tea-Pot,” reaching to pinch his Cheek, by now well a-flame, “shall I tell you what she really wants you to do with that Hair-Brush?”

  “Els, you Imp from Hell, I shall shave your Head. Mr. Mason is a Gentleman, who would never have such designs upon my bodily Comfort,” putting out her hand for the return of the Hair-Brush, “— would you, Charles?”

  Mason sits, torpedo’d again. To refuse to return the Brush would be to issue an Invitation she might accept. Yet if he hands it back, she’ll shrug and go flitting on, tossing her Hair about, to someone marginally more interesting, and he’ll face Hour upon insomniack Hour with the Fevers of erotick speculation ever dispell’d by the Cold Bath of Annoyance at himself. Els continues meanwhile to reposition her nether Orbs upon Mason’s Lap, to his involuntary, tho’ growing Interest. Greet comes over to place her hand on his Brow. “Are you well, Sir? Is there anything I may bring you?” Fingertips lightly descending to his already assaulted Cheek, her eyes Crescent and heated. Her Lips, at least as he will recall this later, beginning to part, and come closer.

  “Girls.” Johanna bustling in. “You are disturbing Mr. Mason, ’tis obvious, and,” switching to Cape Dutch, “in here it begins to smell like the Slaves’ Chambers.” The three maidens immediately snap to Attention, lining up in order of Height, trying without success to avoid all Gaze-Catching.

  When they’ve been sent away cackling, their mother places an unpremeditated hand upon Mason’s arm. “As a man of Science, you understand the role of Humors in adolescent behavior, and will not respond, I hope, too passionately. Is that the word, ‘Passionately’?”

  “Good Vrou, rest easy,— these days Passion knows me not, . . . alas.”

  She gazes long enough at his Member, still erect from the posterior Attentions of her youngest Daughter, before looking him in the eye. “I cannot imagine, then, how ’twill be, once you and It are re-acquainted.”

  “Should that occur,” says Mason, fatally but not yet mortally, “pray feel welcome to attend and observe at first hand.” She looks away at last, and in the Release Mason feels an Impulse to smite the Wall repeatedly with his Head. “Then again, your Duties may oblige you to be elsewhere.”

  She brushes against him on her way out the other Door, raking him with a glistening stare. “O, too late for that, good Sir, far too late.”

  What is wrong with this family? He feels stranded out at the end of some unnaturally prolong’d Peninsula of Obligation, whilst about to be overwhelm’d by great Combers of Alien Lusts. He now recognizes the Hair-Brush Dilemma in a different form. This time, whatever he may say in reply, will be taken and ’morphos’d, however Johanna wishes. He feels a sudden rush of Exemption. It does not matter what he says.

  That night, the Sky too cloudy for Work, Mason is awaken’d by the naked Limbs of a Slave-girl, who has enter’d his Bed. Dixon is not yet return’d, tho’ ’tis well past the Gunfire. “What the Deuce!” is his gallant greeting. “And,— who are you, then?” He recalls having seen her in the company of various Vroom Girls.

  “Austra, good Sir,—
’tis a common name here for Slaves.”

  “ ‘The South.’ . . .” He is peering at her in the moonlit room. “I am Mason. Charles Mason.”

  She takes his Chin betwixt her Thumb and Finger. “A few basic points, Sir. First, no unnatural Activities. Second, no Opium, no Dagga, no Ardent Spirits, no Wine, and so on. Third, their Wish is that I become impregnated,— if not by you, then by one of you.”

  “Ehm . . .”

  “All that the Mistress prizes of you is your Whiteness, understand? Don’t feel disparag’d,— ev’ry white male who comes to this Town is approach’d by ev’ry Dutch Wife, upon the same Topick. The baby, being fairer than its mother, will fetch more upon the Market,— there it begins, there it ends.”

  “What, no Sentiment, no Love, no— Excuse me? ‘Approach’d’? Ahrr! Of course,— was I imagining m’self the first? And you, how many of these expensive little slaves have you borne her?”

  “Why be angry with me, Sir? She is the Mistress, I do as she bids.”

  “Why, in England, no one has the right to bid another to bear a child?”

  “Poh. White Wives are much alike, and all their Secrets are common knowledge at the Market. Many have there been, oblig’d to go on bearing children,— for no reason but the man’s pride.”

  “Our Women are free.”

  “ ‘Our’? Oh, hark yourself,— how is English Marriage any different from the Service I’m already in?”

  “You must marry an Englishman, and see.”

  “Not today, Sailor. Yet take warning,— the Mother will set her three Cubs upon ye without Mercy, and make her own assaults as well, all of it intended to keep this rigid with your Desire,— and the only one in the House you’ll be allow’d to touch is me.”