The Bookman's Promise (20 page)

“No,” he said. “You may
think
you know them, but you can’t understand the volume of material that runs through my mind in the course of a work. In India, just as an example, I had to make my notes in conditions that only one writer in ten thousand would endure. Impossible working conditions, yet there I worked, sitting under a table in an endless rain, the air so hot I could barely breathe, the paper shredding and falling apart even as I wrote on it.”

“You’re right, I don’t understand that. What’s the point of it?”

“Discipline, Charlie, discipline! And it did serve its purpose. Once I had written it down I had it committed to memory, even if the notes themselves didn’t survive.”

Well, at least I could believe that. I smiled wanly and said, “All right,” and we ate for a time in silence. I thought the discussion was over: if so, it had been wholly unsatisfactory from my point of view, for Richard had not yet answered the most difficult question in plain language. I decided to say no more about it, to forget it, but I had made such resolutions before and what had they come to? Once a dark thought crosses the mind, it is there forever.

Then Richard said, “I sympathize with your worry. This is a very bad time for your young nation, more so than I imagined from the other side of the sea. Anything could tip you into war.”

England, for instance, I thought: Britannia, who could not defeat us in two staunch attempts when we were united but might have far easier pickings if we so stupidly divided ourselves. But I said, “Nothing will come of this. These people are noisy braggarts but they are not going to destroy the Union.”

“If you think that, you are naive.”

I shook my head. “In fact, I don’t think that.”

“No. This is a powder keg. It will take just one incident, and these people are itching for that excuse. It is inevitable.”

I shivered at his words, knowing how right he was. Richard had coffee and I joined him across another silence. Eventually he said, “I will give you an answer, but for your ears only.”

I felt myself blush again. “Richard, you know I can’t accept that.”

“Then let’s put it another way. You must never divulge anything of what I say unless it compromises your own sense of loyalty to your country.”

“And then?”

“Then you are free to do or say whatever you wish.”

I was still uneasy. He smiled and said, “That leaves an awful lot to your own discretion, Charlie. I can’t be much fairer or more trusting than that. And if you think about it, this says a good deal about my faith in your honor.”

I was moved by his words, but I knew what he was really saying. My honor could be clear, for any reason of my own choosing, but I knew our friendship would be lost.

Burton sipped his coffee and said, “I’m not spying on you, my friend. It’s just that there are personalities involved. Issues unresolved in England. Things I still haven’t decided how to deal with— personal things that influenced my decision to come here. I don’t want my business scattered about for everyone to know. Isn’t that reasonable?”

“Of course it is,” I said, but I knew my tone was unconvincing.

He made a small gesture of impatience and lit a smoke. “Damn it, you brought this up and now it must be dealt with. The alternative is fairly unattractive for both of us. We must part company in distrust.”

“I cannot accept that. I won’t.”

“Then what do you say?”

I nodded warily.

For a time I thought he still would not tell me. Even when he did speak his talk was rambling and not obviously to the point.

“You may have heard that I came home from Africa as something of an outcast. If that sad news hasn’t yet reached America, it will. And it will only get worse as Speke publishes his opinions. In my own forthcoming book I mention our differences only briefly. But Speke and I are at impossible odds: he has made his claim to the discovery of the big lake, insisting that this alone must be the source of the great Nile River. Never mind that he has no scientific evidence: he saw nothing more than a vast body of water, not even a visual sighting of a river flowing outward, to the north or any other direction. So it all remains unproved, unprovable, really, without another expedition. None of that mattered in the jubilation of the moment. People wanted a hero, and Speke rushed to get home first and give them one. At my expense, if that’s how it had to be.”

He sniffed derisively but there was no missing the hurt in his face. “We had an agreement: discussion first, before any publication or speech making. We would decide together what we had found and what it meant. But I was burning up with fever and Speke hurried home alone. His book, if he writes one, which I can’t imagine—my God, the man is almost illiterate—but you watch, publishers will wheedle it out of him, and such a book will be calculated for one effect above all others: the glorification of Jack Speke. The public already believes it, hook and sinker, so what more does a publisher need? Damn the truth.”

His eyes took on a faraway look. “The Nile,” he said, almost wistfully. “Do you know how many centuries people have been wondering where it comes from? But no one could penetrate that wilderness until Speke and I did it.”

He sipped his coffee. “I have many enemies in London, Charlie. One has to choose what to believe, and a great number chose to believe Speke’s accounts. And his slanders.”

“I believe you,” I said. “I don’t think it’s in you to write an untrue word.”

He smiled gratefully. “I’ll tell you one of the truest and ugliest things about human nature. If a man betrays a friend, even a little, he must then turn completely on that friend and destroy him. That’s what Speke must now do to me. I alone know what happened. I’m the greatest threat in his life so there’s no other way to validate himself. And maybe get rid of a little self-loathing.”

He looked down at his cup. “I swore I would never trust another man after Speke, but here I am, trusting you.”

Yet another long silence passed, as if he of all people could not find the words he sought. “Listen, Charlie. This must not sound like any form of self-pity.”

At once I said, “I would
never
suspect you of any such thing. Never, Richard.”

He cocked his head slightly. “There is a woman I have decided to marry.”

I gave him a heartfelt congratulation and predicted that he would greatly enjoy his wedded life. But he looked doubtful and said, “Her family is furiously opposed. Her mother is impossible.”

My look told him how sorry I was.

He said, “This is how things are. If I had returned a hero, many things might have been different. But getting back to the prime minister.”

“Yes.”

“Lord Palmerston was not unkind to me, as some were. I was invited to his home. We had several confidential chats. It was he, in fact, who suggested that I come here.”

I felt suddenly alarmed: we had moved perilously close to that point of leeway Richard had given me. But he said, “There was no intrigue about it. Palmerston simply said that in my shoes, under the circumstances, he would undertake a new journey, something completely unexpected. To the States, for instance.”

He lit another smoke. “That was the first thought I had of it. But I warmed to the idea at once. Suddenly it felt very right. I couldn’t bear London any longer.”

“And that’s all there was to it?”

“Almost all. The prime minister summoned me to his home again, just before I left, to say he’d be anxious to hear my impressions of America when I returned.”

“But no specific expectations—no
assignments
, so to speak?”

He laughed softly. “No assignments, Charlie. I do have a list of people he wants me to see. To convey his respects.”

“Southern people, you mean. Charleston people.”

“And others. I am going on to the frontier. Your secretary of war was very helpful to me in that regard. He also gave me a letter to the commander at Fort Moultrie.”

I let that pass. There was no use telling Burton of my own personal disdain toward Mr. Floyd. What difference did it make what I suspected or thought?

“But in the main this journey is for my own self-renewal,” Richard said. “Something I needed badly. And am finding, by the way.”

Pointedly he said, “I hope that satisfies you.”

“Of course.”

It had damned better, I thought.

With that we dropped it. But it never really went away.

Richard.

His eyes were so full of mystery, his presence so quietly formidable. He was nothing like I had imagined him to be. With me he was always gentle and respectful, and I found it difficult to imagine him as the intimidating and often feared presence that others saw in him. The pictures drawn by his biographers, by accounts in the press before and after his death, and even in the writings of his widow more than thirty years past the events I am describing, miss much of the Burton I knew. I cannot challenge them: Who am I to challenge anyone? What was I compared with Isabel, or with men who spent years studying his life? I was at best a shirtsleeve authority. Our time together was so brief, and all I can ever be is the authority on those few weeks. Today I see how random it all was: how easily we might have failed to meet and never known what each of us would bring to the other. But we did meet, and I know I had at least a small effect on Richard’s life, and it would be impossible to overstate the vast effect he has had on mine. There has never been a day in forty years that I have not thought of him, written to him, reread favorite passages from his work.

It was only by chance, browsing through a dusty used bookstore in New York, that I first became aware of his name. There I saw in a bargain bin a small volume bound in red cloth: his 1853 book on bayonet exercise. Today it is a rare piece, but then it looked like just another book of narrow interest, to be thrown down among the sales items. What was it about this little book that drew me to him and ultimately led me to this marvelous journey? Was some hand of Providence at work? I remember thumbing through it, ambivalent, waiting for my companion to finish her Christmas buying from a shelf of leather-bound items behind the counter. I looked at the plates and, caring nothing about the subject, tossed it back in its place. I walked away and browsed the shelves, but eventually some compelling force—how else can I put this?—drew me back to the sales bin. I could see from the title page that the author was then a lieutenant in the Bombay army, that he had written of his travels in the Scinde, in Goa and the Blue Mountains. None of that had interested me then, but Burton had also written a book on falconry, and I was a birdman, so that did have some appeal. I bought the bayonet book on a whim, and as we left the bookshop my soon-to-be-wife looked at my purchase and said, “What on earth are you doing with that awful thing?” I joined her in a laugh at Burton’s expense, saying, “It’s no great loss, it only put me half a dime down.” What I could never make her understand was how quickly and deeply my involvement with Burton grew. Even when she knew how and why, years later, she had no idea. Some things, like Burton making his notes under impossible conditions in India, simply can’t be shared. A friend can be told, as I was told, of the table and the rain and the paper shredding as he wrote on it, but no one can ever truly know the experience of another. In the beginning I made light of it, but almost at once I searched out and read his falconry book, then his works on Goa and the Scinde. There was something bigger than life in his words, some mysterious sense of things, an attitude that drew me from one book to another. I sent away to his publisher, John Van Voorst in England, and obtained my own copies of the falconry title. But it was the monumental achievement of his travels to Mecca and Medina that captured my mind and thrilled my imagination. That’s when I became a serious Burton collector.

The hand of Providence guided me to him, then him to me. Call me a self-serving sentimentalist, call me a fool, but that’s what I believe.

We stayed in Charleston a week. On the third day Richard disappeared and was gone almost thirty-six hours.

He had complained of a headache after a night of too much alcohol, and I had gone walking on the Battery alone. In fact I went far beyond the Battery, around the entire city and out on a footpath that ran along the Ashley River. I spent hours walking, watching the people, talking to strangers, and soaking up the sun. I lost track of time with a gang of pickaninnies crabbing from the riverbank, fascinated by their strange language and delighted with their catch. The sun was low over the river when I finally turned back to the city: suddenly I realized I had been gone all day.

At the hotel there was a message in my box:
Looked for you and waited as long as I could. Gone to meet some people. Hoped you would return to join us. Opportunity arose suddenly and might not come again. Will see you tomorrow. Richard.

This was disappointing but I had only myself to blame. Never mind: I would enjoy the evening without Richard’s company. The city was exotic; I would explore its tastes and sounds and sights on my own. I dressed for an occasion and was determined to find one. At the desk I asked the clerk what entertainments might be available and he suggested a musicale and a melodrama, both within walking distance. I could catch either of these and still have time for a good dinner before curtain. He gave me the names of several restaurants; then, as I was turning to leave, he said, “There was a message for you from Mr. Burton this morning. Did you get it?” I said I had and thanked him. “It’s too bad,” he said. “You just missed him.”

I was already out on the street when what he’d said brought me up short. I returned to the desk and asked him to elaborate. He said, “I only meant because he left immediately after you did,” and my heart sank.

I was crushed by this proof that Richard had lied. He hadn’t looked for me at all; he had
watched
for me to leave. If there was any truth in his note, it was only that he had gone to see some people. Yes, I thought bitterly. He’s seeing some people he doesn’t want me to meet or even know he’s met.

I had opted for the melodrama but now I was in too sour a mood to enjoy it. I wasn’t hungry either—normally I am a three-a-day man and I hadn’t eaten since morning, but at that point the prospect of a meal was, to say the least, unappetizing. I walked the streets and I could see only one possible course of action. I must cut the trip short. No more fencing: I would remove even the possibility of further lies by removing myself from Richard’s game, whatever it was. I would simply say that something about the Southern climate had begun to affect my health and I must catch the steamer north at my first opportunity—tomorrow if possible. I could lie if he could, I thought childishly. Richard, of course, would know the reason; he was far too intelligent to be fooled by such a lame excuse, but that was the best I could come up with. The alternative—to remain under pretense—would be intolerable.

I was bitterly disappointed, but once I had decided I felt surprisingly better. Not that I wanted to leave—far from it. I would have given much to have Richard appear that moment with a credible reason for his deception, but I couldn’t imagine what that would be. What I now wanted was to salvage whatever I could of my personal regard for Richard and take my leave while I could still give him some benefit of the doubt.

But out on the street a new thought hit me. I would have to warn someone. Someone had to be told that England was already making plans against us. Someone in our government, high enough to matter, must be told.

Not the treasonous Secretary Floyd, that much was certain.