What you have heard, thus far, can
only be unharmonious recollections and rumors. Trust neither. They
will emerge as a confluence of interests. Your mother will tell you heroic
fables. Through the inadvertent devices of your father and the thrones and shepherd’s
crooks he venerates, you will have heard slander. I am fond of your father, but
we agree only on the point the other is misguided. His echoes of slanders
will be free of thorns as he will wish to excuse me of malice if not of
error.
Heroism and a muffled villainy are
the notions left for you to build me. An old song of dual natures will confront
you. Considering many motives is imposing and often left aside. Imagining
the world in some likeness of its actual complexity is a daunting, exhausting,
endeavor.
I
would ask you to consider undertaking this endeavor as a more likely avenue
through which to understand my purposes. Let me assure you, I was neither
continually heroic nor villainous, and in climactic flashes, I was both. Forget
those old tales, and consider what I write here with fresh, sharp, eyes.
You may know I was born on
Ginnesbrooke (now called Shuttley), one of the island colonies, just
commandeered from our ancient foe at the time of my birth, in the mysterious
Novus Mundi. My father was a merchant. He was not a merchant as depicted
in heroic fables. He did not export exotic spices, slaves, or gold, meeting
alien peoples, and fighting pirates with sword and muskets. His charter
included hemp for paper, rope and linens as well as cane sugar and
fruits. He disliked sailing and journeying. He was a sedentary man,
though made strong and straight. His adventures were restrained to a dim, small
office and desk. He was always the hub in a nest of papers and books. He was a coin man
with little imagination and less good humor. He was very stern, taciturn, and
as I recall he wore a perpetual frown. I must confess I cannot recall much
about his manner or behavior, just the atmosphere in his presence. I was too
young to understand any causes for his frown. From this vantage, I can relate
he planned for me to follow designs, to become a credit to my family name and
our place but as with many plans his were tattered and made worthless.
My mother was proud and vain, both
in my memory and from the descriptions of others who recalled her. She was
young and considered beautiful for her time. I have few likenesses of her left,
but as a boy the main house was a temple of paintings in her homage. As I
understand her history, she was the favorite daughter of wealthy yeomen and
treated accordingly. Her marriage to my father was arranged for influence both
through progeny and land acquisition. In those times, and even now, I suppose,
plague was the gamblers tool for advancement. It was not hoped but supposed, a
certain quantity of family would be lost, and it would be wise to benefit from
their losses. Thus, lands could fall to the inheriting families of properly
assigned unions.
I recall many things about my
mother. I recall the small things I said to her as a young child, but I
recall little of her replies, or her embraces, or anything beautiful.
Motherhood is such a fond subject today. Mothers are graces, so they say,
but I can’t pull any gracious memories from my childhood regarding my
mother. She was another person passing before my eyes, in some ways
uninteresting and in others I recall her with a tinge of urgency.
My parents were married with solemn
ceremonies and with God as witness, but there was little affection
evident. The cult of love was left in the hinterlands and small houses.
Love in marriage among the families and societies wasn’t accepted by many
persons, it still isn’t, contrary to many rumors. I have often suspected that my
father loved my mother and that his love was unrequited, I considered this as
being the cause of his demeanor, but this is a speculation. Perhaps he was a
bitter, frustrated, man, perhaps he was natively dour.
My mother had little to do with me
after my birth. She was ill prepared to be a mother. Certain woman should not
be mothers. As I am sure you are aware children are a messy, runny, loud,
business. This has never been a suitable situation for women whose attentions
must remain on perfectly painted faces, artful hair sculpting and perfect
dress. “Upkeep” was how it was discussed, as if old gardens or manner houses in
danger of falling into dilapidation if not diligently attended. My mother was
not a woman with fortitude and wisdom. She was equally lacking in patience and
tolerance as I remember. Many nursemaids and nannies were assigned to attend to
my needs.
Though I should like to state
otherwise, I was not an overly bold child. I was not a hero springing toward
manhood. My father’s glares terrified me, my nannies bullied me mercilessly,
and my mother ignored me or conversely, found me a nuisance. I recall in
a very darkly tinged and indistinct memory, maybe it didn’t happen it is so
unclear, that I told my mother she was very pretty and she snapped angrily at
me and caused me to cry. She screamed for my nannies to get me away from
her. In this memory my nannies are the only clear images and their
shocked, frightened, faces seem to say much to me now. What a strange
time it was then. It seems so indistinct. It is a time of slowly
waking into being. I recall this as though imagining the events of a
familiar but fictitious story, and certainly not as my own tale. How
strange memory is.
I clearly recall toys were
forbidden me. It is often imagined of children that they sit in gentle reveries
knocking painted wooden toys about, singing or laughing. Fanciful images of
costumed, joyful, children, embracing dogs, singing while herding sheep, stare
at me from these walls as I write. I had no part in this. My earliest
memories are drudging hours of lessons. How I hated it. My father had
planned that I should be honed for business. I was an adequate student but I
recall little of what I learned then. Some men are very silly and imagine their
sons will repair their own disappointments, or amend their own disadvantages,
and believing this enforce habits on their sons that damage and create
disadvantage. With the tiresome instruction I was given, I was also made to
follow strict training of my body. My father could read and this reading
included descriptions from ancient men regarding their perfect societies, and
the strength of their perfect bodies. My father thought it important to
have me perfected. Likewise, he thought a robust, strong, boy would be welcomed
in academy. Arrangements had been made to send me to academy when I became the
age of five. Academies were subtly different in purpose then. Their
concerns were both preservation of traditional philosophy among aristocrats (or
paying yeomen), and introduction of newer discoveries by natural philosophers.
We were not the industrious men produced from academies as today. The
traditional titles and snobbery still exist today, but its application is
mercantile. The characters and oppressions of academies will continue immutably
regardless of party rule, or family ascension, but the purposes of academies
change with the weather vane.
Academy would have to wait. An
unfortunate occurrence on damp, temperate, islands is the rapid spread of pestilence
and black humors. Malady feeds on warmth. Late in the year, before I was to
leave for academy the colonies were ravaged by a great dying. The ships
delivering the news to our island delivered the agent of death as well.
Infected men, animals and goods quickly dispersed among the crowds and death
seeped through the shadows and the cracks. As soon as the word reached my
father I was hastily gathered and placed on a ship heading for a place I had
not yet seen, Home. I don’t recall much more of this time except a sight
from the ship as I departed: the bonfires had begun. Near the dock many
bulging, stained, shrouds were burning among improvised winding cloths
including carpets rolls, beds, and skins.
One of my nursemaids was sent to
tend to me. She was a taut, squinting, sneering, roaring, young woman. Her red
hair was always straggling around her head in a wiry crown. Her clothes never
varied from somber gray. This made her ruddy complexion stand out like a
great soreness, or like she had been abraded until intolerably chapped.
Her disposition matched her appearance. She was given pay and instructions for
when we achieved our destination. I know this because she repeated this often,
as though it were direct authority from a great magistrate giving her license
for anything. She would volunteer this information at every opportunity.
I have no recollections of our
voyage in length or of weather. It seemed long as does any unfamiliar
voyage or new road.
It is my understanding a currier
vessel sped to the port town of Huan with news of our impending arrival, as
well as confirmation of general good health. Messages were eventually
sent back to the surviving families regarding our welfare and requesting
further instruction for the newly orphaned, widowed or destitute.
As I later learned, Huan was spared
the suffering of the people of Ginnesbrooke. There Death was sweeping. Many
souls were lost especially among the native men. Both my parents suffered it.
It was unusual that both survived. The plague did not touch my mother without
leaving its imprint. She began to behave very strangely. As I have been
informed, the changes were subtle, at first, but very rapidly she
declined. She was “touched”, the savages said. Her up keep and “eyes”
consumed her every free thought. She would sit for hours applying paint until
it was cracked and flaking over her face. Her graceful stances were carried out
in extremity. And not long following this every mood and action became
expansive and exaggerated. She became like an animal that yowled, and
begged and roared, scratched, and played. This brought her great respect
among the savages who worked the house, and they believed she was moved by a
favorite Goddess or demon, but my father was disgraced.
I did not despise my parents, as I
hope is clear. I do not suspect they were deliberately malicious or carelessly
cruel, and I do not look at their misfortune without pity. I cannot reply to
any meanness. How could I, so long after, try to distinguish petty meanness, or
folly seen by a child? I don’t want it to appear I have thoughts of some
justice in their sorrows. I cannot judge the adult world in which they lived, I
can guess the subtleties that pressed them, but those guesses would be aloof.
The distance between this dying man and that child are too great to clearly
determine with any justice. I can write, when a child they were my world;
separation from them was terrible. It is a child's nightmare to be apart from
the family that rears them, regardless of how cruel the family may seem to
others, or even themselves. I can imagine they saw me as a lazy, selfish, brat,
and yet I clearly recall my father looked in pain as he saw me off. I was his
burden and also his son, which idea of me he dreaded to lose I cannot discern. Preference
seems as a pendulum.
From Huan we voyaged “Home”.
What this was, in opposition to what I considered my place to live, was
mysterious. I was shipboard for several weeks, but I remember little of this. I
remember little at all of the following months of change. The confusion I felt
still disturbs me upon intense reflection, though I could not say anything
terrible or alarming occurred.
Upon
arrival in an unfamiliar port city, on a gloomy dark day, my nurse and I
disembarked onto Home. We were met by my new guardian, my Uncle Uzziah.
He was my father's brother. Uzziah was ten years older than my father, but in
no way you could discern. He was more robust, active and lively. He had a
loudness that could be seen. He smiled often and this was not an indulgence
taken by my father.
Uncle Uzziah was a witty, humorous
man, of a keen intelligence. "Smarter than God" I once heard a man in
a carnival mask declare. He and my father bore little resemblance to one
another. This does not indicate a black mark against my father. Uzziah was the
First Born son, and favored. He did not squander this advantage. However, I
would be hesitant to write the differences between the two were due to
circumstance alone. Uzziah was a rare man.
He met us on the pier as we descended
the gangplank. He was very tall and his posture was leaning. He squinted over a
crooked, pursed, smile as my nanny dragged me by the right arm. I can clearly
recall she often tugged and pulled by that arm.
My uncle gazed down at me with a
benign, somewhat reserved, smile. I was shy and attempted to hide behind my
nanny. She dragged me from behind her and aimed me, with little gentleness, at
my uncle. My memory informs me of his curious glance at her slightly disguised
rage. He stared in puzzlement, perhaps considering that I was a bad
child, or perhaps he judged her. It was a stare indicating more puzzlement than
condemnation. He looked back and forth at us as we stood in presentation before
him. After crossing the space between us he crouched to my eye level and
brought a wooden toy from his pocket. It was a toy shaped in the likeness of a
savage man of my former home. Its features were exaggerated to appear clownish.
The toy man stood hovering above a toy drum, and from beneath the aborigine
there hung a string at whose end hung a wooden weight. When the wooden weight
was made to swing, the aborigine's arms would tap the drum. He offered the toy
to me.
He said, "A gift for your arrival. Perhaps this small
bribe will earn me some favor." He smiled widely. I reached for the toy
with uncertain hands. My nanny was unused to this indulgence being spent on me,
as my father was in favor of discipline, and restriction. She was used to
having power and charge in a world of servants.
She grabbed me by the wrists and
spun me to face her. She leaned over me, her face ruddy in rage. What she
yelled at me I cannot recall, but what she said and she faced my uncle is very
clear to me. "I have been given charge of this boy to make certain his
days away from his parents are not spent in idleness! I was given warning of
you by my master. He gave me instructions to disallow any..." My uncle
strode forward until he was barely a thumb’s width from her. He stared into her
eyes for some short while waiting for the violence of his presence to bring her
to stillness. When he finally spoke it was even and low. “To whom are you
speaking in such a tone? You are in the presence of an unfriendly master, and
someone in such a predicament would do best to keep her silence." She was
stimmied, and as happens with many persons under threat she sought to redirect
his burdensome presence to one still weaker, and I was the nearest candidate.
She jerked me by the arm, "You stupid boy! Take the master’s toy and be
quick, and respectful!"
The look she gave me was a familiar
one, it spoke in silences: "You will be paid back for this!" or some
equal threat.
Around us a small crowd of
interested persons were watching the small event as it unfolded. I don't
believe they were expecting what came next. As she had grabbed my arms by the
wrists, so my uncle grabbed hers. He held both her wrists in one hand. She struggled
little in utter bewilderment. With his free hand my Uncle grabbed the nurse's
bonnet and pulled it over her face. He then spun her, gave her a small shove,
and kicked her squarely on the posterior. The crowd drew closer laughing and
chirping sounds of approval. The kick was not hard but a gesture. Though
she stumbled away, she did not fall. As she recovered her balance it was
clear she was deeply injured, though her limbs were intact. Humiliation
was a terrible and deep wound for her and she cowered beneath it.
People alone are shabby, but crowds
are worse. They howled and laughed. Uncle Uzziah stood apart from
her pointing his finger like a condemning prophet. "Gather yourself and
your things, I have no use for you." He reached into his vest pocket and
produced a card. He tossed the card to the sobbing woman who was my nanny.
"Contact this man, he will make arrangements concerning your wages and
your return to your master."
My uncle took me firmly but gently
by the hand and led me away to his waiting coach. His attendants spread out
around us, gathering our few goods, and when packed on the coach, we
departed. She was gone and lost to my further knowledge forever.
This
moment stands out starkly in my young memories. Understand, I did not turn my
back on my nurse in with indignation; I didn't set about a new freedom giggling
and without care. I felt very sorry for her; I sobbed as she sobbed. It is true
I never liked her. I felt as one always feels in the presence of a petty
tormentor: discomfort, intimidation, contempt, but at the same time I pitied
her, I felt sorrow for her sufferings, I wished the events hadn't occurred to
send her from me. Perhaps my uncle reckoned something of this as I
wept. He said to me, "Be still, nephew, calm yourself. She will be well
enough, she is unharmed.” We were silent in the coach for a long while
before he spoke again. “Let this come as a new kind of lesson: Everything is
changing. Nothing is certain. The world behind you is gone forever; tomorrow is
full of worries. But you are safe for now. That is the nature of every good
moment, it is surrounded by hardship. Relief comes at hard cost in some way or
another. Weep if you need, but not for too long, only as long as your losses
merit.”
I spent the next four years with my
Uncle, and we became very close. He was tirelessly curious, and this condition
is contagious. His home was filled with thousands of books, paintings,
manuscripts written in old tongues, charts, diagrams, musical instruments,
lenses of many shades for experiments with optics, extensive gardens and a
hot-house. His acquisition of knowledge was tremendous but
effortless. His enthusiasm for questions and storytelling was stirring
and compulsive. I loved my Uncle. In many ways, throughout my life, I
wished to follow his path but I did not succeed in any measure.
For my family on Ginnesbrooke,
daily life orbited my mother. My father had sent many letters to my Uncle, and
after two years requested my absence from the family become a permanent
situation. I still possess these letters but as a child I secretly read them
while my uncle was occupied. Admittedly, much of the content was beyond my tiny
skills as a reader, but the sense of it was clear enough. The sneaky act of
reading my uncles mail, paired with my Uncle’s attempt to soften the awkward
situation by overly stating his idea to keep me, made my situation clear.
As described in the letters, my
mother had slipped from peculiarity into disgrace. She had conceived a child
through disgraces with one of the native men. What became of the child or the
father I have never learned. I have left these letters to you with a
substantial endowment should you endeavor to discover what has come of my
sibling and, doubtless, further descendants of that union. I leave it to
you whether you will accept this adventure.
My mother was a madwoman. My father
sent her back to her family's estates where she was kept hidden away in
a chamber for many years.
Innocently unaware of these events
I was quite happy living with Uzziah in his amazing home. He wrote several
letters to my father reporting my progress. My entrance to the halls of academy
was held off. Uncle Uzziah was a fine teacher and we undertook several
subjects: history, grammar, mythology, music, vocal tonics, acoustics, theatre,
art, and some philosophy. Uzziah was very much opposed to my entrance in
academy at a young age. As he often lamented, "They are prisons for the
cruel and unsubtle. They are the dens of predators, who victimize and pollute
everyone they encounter." He assured me, as he taught me to fight, that
violence is an excellent device when used at a proper moment.
When I did enter into my education
I was eight. Due to my Uncle's instruction I was a very good student. But I was
sent away to academy and over the next several years I saw my uncle
infrequently. He would occasionally visit me on free days such as the Sabbath,
or the end of a session. He was a prolific writer and my education was very
much enhanced by the post. His influence on me was a good armor against
the “pollutions” he mentioned, but incomplete. I can claim a sneering
sense of my own importance after a time.
On those occasions when I did visit
him, strangeness always greeted me. On one occasion I arrived at the great
house by carriage, and Uzziah awaited me. He was masked and he insisted I wear
a mask and say nothing. As we approached the house on foot I heard several
voices as at a party. When I entered there were several dozen masked persons,
puzzling over diagrams and geometries. I mingled with them, a boy slipping as a
shadow among babbling demon faced adults. Their conversations were heavily
toned with intrigues, secrets, forbidden words. My Uncle took me aside after a
time. He spoke to me privately in a corner. I remember his mask with pristine
clarity; it was a black laughing bird face with a sun and a moon drawn on each
cheek. It bobbed when he spoke. "Do you wish to know the meaning of this,
Adam? Do you feel drawn to these persons? Do you sense something of difference
here?"
I responded slowly watching the men
and women puzzle, argue, whisper, and conspire. My answer was as honest as I
could contrive: “They are frightening Uncle, they are hiding things, speaking
in codes, they are lying. But there is something exciting, and though I fear
them I wish I knew them, I wish they would speak and lie to me so that I could
overcome them." My Uncle regarded me a while, his eyes searching.
"That is an interesting answer. Perhaps a terrible answer. Consider, Adam,
that sometimes a lie is a matter of time, a prediction or a map. A lie
today is a truth tomorrow. The substance of lies can be made real. A lie
is difficult to tell with any coherence or consistency. If it has those
qualities, the dominant property looks a great deal like the truth. It
may be that these lies are unnoticed or novel- overlooked-truths. They are
contending to have the dominating lie. Do you want to be a part of that?"
There were many of these secret
gatherings. Each sodden with a quality of sanctity. In the elaborate rituals he
and his guests undertook, there seemed something drawn from the divine.
This is inconsistent with my Uncle's opinions, as I understand them. He hated
religion he was without God. I am aware of several treatises he wrote and published
condemning the ecclesiastical authorities. This has always been dangerous,
perhaps somewhat less so then, but he must have had some clear influence in
some powerful to be unpunished and so free spoken.
