Authors: Helen de Witt
Taimaimat
K
animajut âniasiortauningine maligaksat sivorlerpângat imaipo
K
: ANIASIORTIB PERKOJANGIT NALETSIARLUGIT
.
The two men turned without a word and returned to their igloos. The only sound was the fine snow drifting through the encampment
.
The boy tried again:
Ilapse ilangat killerpat aggangminik âniasiortib mangipserpâ ajo
K
ertorpâselo kille
K
mangipsertautsainartuksaungmat. Ilanganele killertub mangipta
K
pêjarpâ, kingornganelo tataminiarpo
K
kille
K
â
K
ivalialugane piungilivaliatuinarmat. Nerriukkisê âniasiortib mangipta
K
najumitsainarniarmago uvlut magguk pingasullônêt nâvlugit kille
K
mamitsiar
K
ârtinagô?
Silence was the only reply
.
Desperately he summoned up a few words of greeting from that half-remembered book:
Sorlo inô
K
atigêksoa
K
arjmat unuktunik adsigêngitunik taimaktau
K
atane
K
arpo
K
unuktunik adsigêngitunik, anginerpaujorle tamainit, idluartomik ataniorto
K
inungnik
K
a
K
ortanik
K
ernângajuniglo Kernertaniglo, tagva atane
k
George, ataniojok Britishit atanioviksoanganut. Tâmna atanerivase
.
Suddenly a shot rang out, and the boy fell lifeless to the snow
.
As far as I can see,
The Eskimo Book of Knowledge
is completely useless. ‘The first rule in curing sickness or injury is TO OBEY THE INSTRUCTIONS OF THE WHITE MAN.’ When am I ever going to use that? They should have called it
A Hundred and One Things Not to Say Where the Inuit Can Hear You
.
When one of your people cuts his hand, the Trader covers the wound with a bandage and instructs the man to keep the wound covered. Often the man throws away the bandage and wonders why the wound grows worse instead of better. Do you expect the Trader to hold the bandage round the man’s hand for two or three days until the wound is healed?
That’s going to make us popular.
As there are many different races, so there are many different rulers, but the greatest ruler of all, who governs with justice White Men, Brown Men and Black Men in very many countries, is K
ING
G
EORGE
the ruler of the British Empire. He is your King.
Another winner. Unfortunately it was the only thing on Inuit I could find. Of course, he may not be going where they speak Inuit. I could work out some of the words and grammar if I knew I was going to need it, but Sibylla still won’t say. It would help if she would just tell me
something
about him. I can’t believe I’m almost 11 and the only thing I know is that he’s not Thor Heyerdahl.
Not only is King George a man of great prudence and a hard worker; he is also a great hunter. Whether it be in the hunting of fierce animals like the bear, or in the crafty stalking of the deer or in the shooting of partridges while they fly, no man in the British Empire takes surer aim than our King.
Atane
K
George silatudlartuinalungila
K
angijomiglo sulia
K
arpaklune, ômajo
K
siorteogivorletau
K
—
OK, that’s an exaggeration. That’s not the only thing I know. I also know he’s not Egon Larsen. He’s not Chatwin. She likes Thubron, so he’s out. I think I’ve narrowed it down to 8 or 9. For a while I thought it was Red Devlin: she always laughs at the gap-toothed urchins, and since he was captured five years ago his wife’s been campaigning for his release, so Sibylla might have thought it was safer not to tell me. But then last week James Hatton got back from the Arctic Circle and wrote an article for the
Independent Magazine
that used the phrase ‘veritable cathedral of ice’. VERITABLE CATHEDRAL OF ICE shouted Sibylla and she walked up and down saying veritable cathedral of ice and reading out other priceless phrases and suddenly I had a hunch that it was Hatton. So I got
The Eskimo Book of Knowledge
and started to work on Inuit.
Before returning to London to take pen in hand Hatton walked solo to the North Pole and back without telling anyone where he was going. At one point he was attacked by a walrus. It was so cold the action on his gun wouldn’t work, so he had to throw a knife at it. He got it in one eye (Hatton: ‘Bull’s-eye!’), and then was able to harpoon it. He had to eat some of the meat raw and then trek on another 15 miles, even though he’d been going for 20 hours, because he knew the smell of the blood would attract other predators. At one point the frostbite in one toe was so bad he had to cut it off.
If it
is
Hatton I’ve wasted years learning Xhosa, Swahili, Zulu, Hausa, Quechua, Faroese and Mongolian. If it isn’t I’m wasting my time on
The Eskimo Book of Knowledge
. I think I may be wasting my time anyway.
If you hunters used half the CARE of the White Men in setting your traps skilfully and in keeping your furs free from dirt, every Innuit family would gain greater possessions from the Company’s Trader.
If I get us both lynched my long lost father will probably tell his long lost son to get lost and stay lost.
Sibylla is supposed to be typing and is reading the paper. I’ve got the Kanji dictionary on one arm of my chair, and the little Kodansha Romaji on the other. If she asks what I’m reading I’ll tell her, but she probably won’t ask when she sees the Japanese dictionaries; she knows I’ve got a new book on judo. I don’t want to hear about how pay for schoolchildren, the right to death, homosexual marriage and all the other basic requirements of a culture not irredeemably sunk in barbarism will be commonplace by the year 2065.
No wonder your beautiful damsels prefer to marry a good hunter, a man who is an honour to his camp and can provide for his family comforts and new possessions! In all parts of the world such men are favoured by fair damsels—
OH MY GOD! shouted Sibylla. He’s OUT! He ESCAPED! This is WONDERFUL!
And striding up and down she said that Red Devlin had escaped three months ago and had just walked into the British Embassy in Tbilisi. She said: I’ve actually kind of MISSED those gap-toothed urchins toting Kalashnikovs. She was bounding around as though the gravitational force of the planet had suddenly dropped by a third.
I thought: It’s got to be Devlin.
I read one of his books a long time ago. It was called
Get Out Before I Throw You Out
. He wasn’t much of a writer; his talent was for making outrageous demands which people found impossible to refuse. For instance he once asked to go up with some paratroopers over a war zone and was told this was against all regulations.
Oh go on, said Red Devlin.
X: Oh all right then but no one must know this is strictly on the Q.T.
Red Devlin was equipped with a parachute purely as a safety precaution and then when the paratroopers jumped he jumped out too before anyone could stop him and got some story that no one could have got who had not gone in with the paratroopers. A newspaper hired him on the strength of this story and then fired him for refusing to file some other story, and then another newspaper hired him because he had penetrated a guerrilla hideout by going into a local bar and saying ‘I’d like to visit that guerrilla hideout.’
Barman: Nobody knows where it is. It’s a secret.
Red Devlin: Oh go on, you can tell
me
.
Barman: Oh all right then, you take the first right— Tell you what, we’ll go in my car.
Sceptics had pointed out that there was only Red Devlin’s word for this, but since most of the people he talked to refused to talk to anyone else you could either argue that he must have been telling the truth or that there was no way to prove that he wasn’t.
Red Devlin had once helped a couple to adopt an orphan from Romania. The couple had visited Romania and seen an orphanage and on their return to Britain they had decided to adopt a little girl. They had immersed themselves in Romanian and they had talked to people who had adopted Romanian children and they had tried to initiate adoption procedures and had been told it was out of the question. Both were women so that they were a man short and one woman too many. The couple argued passionately and described in graphic detail the conditions of the orphanage but rules were rules and there was nothing to be done.
The couple went outside and sat shivering in the sun. And now by a piece of luck Red Devlin came down the street. He had lost a job again so his time was his own.
What’s the matter? said Red Devlin.
They explained and he said he would help them.
The couple were so convinced that rules were rules that they thought he was offering to marry one of them. Red Devlin laughed. He said he was a married man. He said he would go to Romania and get the child. The couple explained patiently that you could not get the child out of Romania or into Britain without the adoption papers.
Is that a fact? said Red Devlin.
Red Devlin knew maybe three words of Romanian. They may have meant ‘Oh go on’ to start with; if they didn’t, they did by the time Red Devlin was through with them. He went to the orphanage and asked for the girl, and each time someone objected he brought out his three words of Romanian and the long and the short of it was that in three days he drove out of Bucharest with the girl beside him.
Some people smuggle children over borders in the boots of cars. Some people dress them as giant dolls, or stuff them in suitcases. Some people stick them under a blanket and hope for the best. Red Devlin would drive up to the border with the girl in the front seat.
Official: Where are her papers?
Red Devlin: She doesn’t have any papers.
Red Devlin would explain the situation.
I’m sorry, but she will have to go back.
Red Devlin would explain the situation again.
Believe me, I sympathise, but there’s nothing I can do.
Sure you can, said Red Devlin. Anyone can say it, but Red Devlin really believed it, and every time he said it people who had only been doing their job stopped doing their job. Back he came to Britain with the girl to discuss the matter with a member of the Social Services.
This was not a pushover. The woman said she was only doing her job and Red Devlin said Oh go on, and instead of saying Oh all right then the woman came back with Rules are rules. Red Devlin said Oh go on again and this time the woman said there was nothing she could do. Red Devlin said Sure you can and the woman said My hands are tied. They talked for a whole hour, and the whole time they talked Red Devlin never once argued passionately or said but SURELY or but can’t you SEE or How would you feel if it were YOUR child. They talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and even after an hour of Red Devlin the woman didn’t say Oh all right then, but she said she would see what she could do. The long and the short of it was that the girl got to stay. There were hundreds of episodes like this but then he had been taken captive and held hostage.
Sibylla said what had probably happened was that they had kept him gagged for five years and then one day someone accidentally took off the gag and Red Devlin said I’d like to go home and they said Oh all right then.
I waited for her to say something else but she just walked up and down and suddenly as she walked by she saw
The Eskimo Book of Knowledge
.
What’s this? she asked, and picking it up began to look at it and to read out
as soon as it pleased White damsels to adorn their necks and shoulders with the soft white fur of the fox, then there were many young men eager to make glad the hearts (and the vanity) of their damsels with gifts of white fox skins; and when their wives were sad, husbands learned to make them happy with gifts of white fox-skins
and to say This is amazing and When was it published?
1931 I said.
1931 said Sibylla and this is, let’s see
1998
1998 so that’s 67 years, so in 67 years it will be
2065
2065. Exactly. Just think Ludo in 2065 people will probably consider it absolutely BARBARIC that a child should be condemned to work 12 years without pay in absolute economic subjection to the adults into whose keeping fate has consigned it and BARBARIC that people should be brought into the world into circumstances they did not choose and then COMPELLED to remain REGARDLESS and they will not know which is more surprising, the absolute SILENCE on these subjects at the present time or the absolute RUBBISH routinely published on the subject of marriage between members of the same sex in papers which PURPORT to