The Navigator of New York (43 page)

D
R
. C
OOK CALLED ME TO HIS STUDY
. H
E SAID THAT ON
December 15, the National Geographic Society would be holding its annual banquet in Washington, D.C., and he and I had been invited. Aside from explorers from all over the world, there would be senators, congressmen, ambassadors.

“And who do you think has been chosen to be the guest of honour?” he said, beaming at me. “Who do you think is to receive the first-ever Hubbard Medal for exploration, a three-inch-wide gold disc embossed with a map of the world?”

“It must be you,” I said, and suddenly his expression changed.

“Yes,” he said, “it must be. In the sense that it
should
be. But it will not be me. It will be Peary. And we shall be on hand to see him get it.”

We went to Washington for the National Geographic Society banquet, which was held in conjunction with the Eighth International Geographic Congress. Dr. Cook was invited to present three papers, the only member invited to give more than two. Peary was chosen to be the president of the congress
and
the guest of honour at the closing banquet.

In Washington, snow fell straight down in large, wet flakes. The city was like some playful simulation of the Arctic, the snow laid on for the amusement of the delegates. Men wearing light coats or none at all strolled about beneath umbrellas, hopping from one bare patch of sidewalk to the next in summer shoes.

It was only the second large city I had visited, so Dr. Cook showed
me about before the conference began. A city of monuments and massive statues. Grave-looking Lincoln seated with his hands gripping the arms of his chair, his manner that of someone who hated nothing more than to have his likeness taken. Thomas Jefferson. Lincoln and Jefferson were each several storeys high, contained on all sides but one by buildings that imitated those of the republic after which this one had been fashioned. The White House. And nearby, the modest house where George Washington had lived when he was president. The dome of the Capitol Building. We crossed the grey, slow-moving Potomac to Virginia, to Arlington Cemetery, whose scores of white crosses I at first could not make out against the snow, endless fields of wooden crosses marking the gravesites of Americans who had died in wars—the Revolutionary War, the still-remembered Civil War, during which Dr. Cook was born. Then it was back to Washington, the snow-covered whole of which seemed commemorative of something, though I could not say exactly what.

New York was New York, the mythical America of picture books, but Washington, said Dr. Cook, was the real America. I did not understand what he meant.

America, he said, was a country that, although young, paid tribute to its own heroes, not the long-dead ones of a mother country its citizens had never seen. Self-orphaned from an empire whose opinion of it did not matter to those few who knew what that opinion was.
Tabula
rasa. America had wiped the slate clean and begun again. Never before had a nation grown to greatness as fast as this one had.

“It is wonderful,” said Dr. Cook. “Or terrible. I cannot decide.”

My mind was reeling by the time we arrived back at the New Willard Hotel, where the congress was taking place and most of the delegates had rented rooms. Mine was next to Dr. Cook’s.

Peary, who lived in Washington and was to give the opening address to the congress, sent word that he was sick. Herbert Bridgman spoke in his place, delivering a rambling speech that was largely a summary of Peary’s accomplishments to date.

Word went about that Peary was not sick—that in spite of being
its president, he planned to visit the congress but once and that was at the closing banquet, where he would be the guest of honour. Speculation began as to why Peary was staying away.

There were stories that he had been seen wandering slowly about the grounds of his house arm in arm with his wife, wearing a dressing gown and looking as though he could not have walked without Mrs. Peary’s help.

Soon the congress was rife with rumours that in his acceptance of the Hubbard Medal at the closing banquet, Peary would announce his retirement from polar exploration. Some said that the choice of Peary as the congress president was an outgoing honour bestowed on the
éminence grise
of expeditionaries, who, after a lifetime of distinguished service, would announce, having made it known to the congress months before, that he was retiring.

Some said that he had for months been preparing his speech, trying to find exactly the right note on which to renounce his quest for good. As for the Hubbard Medal, it was to be given in honour of the retirement about which Peary was said to have confided in a few select members of the Peary Arctic Club, including Morris Jesup and Herbert Bridgman.

“The minting and awarding to Peary of a new medal at this stage in his career can mean only one thing,” said Otto Sverdrup. “I do not know why I did not think of it before.”

It was even said that Peary was going to name the American whom he thought was most likely to be the first white man to reach the pole, and that his doing so would be tantamount to naming his heir, his replacement, who would be accepted as such by the Peary Arctic Club.

No one was more dismissive of these rumours than Dr. Cook. Before and after each lecture we attended at the congress, other delegates huddled about us, including explorers such as the Italian Umberto Cagni, whose farthest north Peary had bettered by a fraction in 1905.

“What do you think, Doctor?” Cagni said on the afternoon of the first day. “Will Peary give up now that he holds the record?”

“Commander Peary would never choose to announce his retirement at an event like this,” Dr. Cook said. “If I were retiring, I would not do so at a congress of explorers of which I was the president, would you? One surrenders as discreetly—as privately—as possible, not in front of all one’s peers and rivals, not to condescending fanfare and unwanted sympathy.”

“What do you think, Mr. Stead?” Cagni asked me. “You from whose strong arm Peary hung between life and death. What is your hunch about this?”

“Commander Peary is the second most determined man I have ever met,” I said. “He will retire someday. His most recent voyage might have been his last one, but we will never hear it from
his
lips.” Dr. Cook gave me a look, as if to remind me that I should not be critical of Peary in public.

“Spoken like a true protégé,” said Cagni, clapping me on the back.

But the other delegates, many of whom had never met Peary, vigorously disagreed, repeating what they said they had been told by members of the Peary Arctic Club.

The Norwegian Roald Amundsen, with whom Dr. Cook had tried for the South Pole on the
Belgica, was
among those who thought Peary would announce his retirement.

“I think Commander Peary’s wife has convinced him,” Amundsen said, “that this way of doing things is best. No—what is your word for it?—no ambiguity. No doubts. Why not fanfare? The more fanfare, the more fuss, the less like a defeat his retirement will seem.”

Dr. Cook smiled as if in fond recollection of the many deeds whose motives the soft-spoken Amundsen had misconstrued because of his too-innocent, too-generous view of human nature.

“My dear friend,” Dr. Cook said, “it is not in Commander Peary’s nature to take direction from his wife in matters such as these. Nor is it in his nature to admit defeat, publicly or otherwise. Even at Etah, during his long confinement in his tent, when he was so delirious that I feared he would lose his mind for good or even die, he did not speak of defeat or retirement, or the wishes of his wife. We would all, if we
followed the wishes of our wives, retire from exploration at this very instant, would we not?”

Everyone laughed, but the rumours persisted and the huddle of explorers, reporters, diplomats and politicians around Dr. Cook and me grew larger with each passing hour of the congress.

We were told of delegates who claimed to have heard from Herbert Bridgman that Peary was practising his farewell speech at home, trying it out on his wife and a few close friends, among them a well-known writer who was helping him revise it. Others said that a copy of Peary’s speech had been obtained by some reporter on condition that his paper not print it until after Peary delivered it in person.

“They say that you are mentioned many times in this speech,” Amundsen told Dr. Cook. “They say that it is you who will be tapped with Peary’s sword. They say that he as good as names you as his successor. Who else could he name? What American would be more deserving of the honour, especially as you saved his wife and child, and Mr. Stead saved him?”

But Dr. Cook only smiled and shook his head, as if the coming banquet address held no suspense for him, however taken in by rumours the rest of them might be.

“There must be some reason that Peary is staying away,” Cagni said. “I believe it is because he wants the drama to build. He wants us to do exactly what we are doing: talk about him for days, speculate. And then at the end, the big moment comes, and he appears at last to get his medal and to bid us all goodbye.”

On the evening of the third day of the congress, after we had finished dinner, Dr. Cook invited me to his room in our hotel. I sat in an armchair, but he went to the window and looked out at the snow-covered street.

“It seems that it is true, Devlin,” he said.

“Peary is finished?” I said, half expecting him to tell me not to be absurd.

“Bridgman himself has shown me the text of Peary’s speech,” he said. He turned around to face me. He smiled when he saw the look
on my face.
His
face was flushed, completely at odds with his voice, which had the noncommittal, faintly reassuring tone of a doctor addressing a patient.

“I know,” he said. “I could not believe it at first, either. Even Bridgman was shocked. It seems that until the congress began, Peary had told no one except his wife. Even Morris Jesup did not know. We are to keep this information to ourselves. In the speech, Peary recommends me as his successor. All the members of the Arctic club have assured Bridgman that they will pledge me their support.”

“That’s wonderful,” I said.

“Bridgman has convinced the congress to change the speakers’ schedule at the banquet. They have asked me to give the closing remarks. Bridgman says that, symbolically at least, this will be my acceptance speech, my inaugural address, in which I should pay fulsome tribute to my departing colleague. All the waiting is over, Devlin. At last. I feel relieved, of course, and elated. But also terrified. The main task of my life will soon begin. There can be no more rehearsals for us from now on. No more Mt. McKinleys. I knew I would not reach the South Pole, so it did not seem when I fell short that I had failed. But now … now everything will be different.”

“When did this happen?” I said. “When did you meet with Bridgman?”

“When I left the hotel dining room during dinner. While you were talking with Amundsen.”

“You were gone only fifteen minutes at the most,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Fifteen minutes. The lives of greater men than me have changed in much less time than that.”

“You were so sure that they were wrong,” I said, laughing. “So sure that it was all just gossip.”

He extended his hand to me, and I stood up to take it.

“Congratulations, Devlin,” he said. I hugged him, still laughing, giddy with this sudden windfall.

T
HE WAINSCOTED WALLS OF THE BANQUET HALL OF THE
N
EW
Willard Hotel were hung with bunting, semi-circles of red, white and blue. The four hundred guests would sit at twelve long, mead hall-like tables on which crystalware, silver cutlery and white bone china sparkled beneath a constellation of chandeliers. Dr. Cook and I would sit near the head of table number six, twenty feet from the centre of the dais where Peary was to give his speech.

That morning, the papers had proclaimed: “PEARY TO BID FAREWELL TO EXPLORATION”; “PEARY TO RETIRE AT EXPLORERS’ BANQUET”; “PEARY: NORTH POLE UNREACHABLE.” All the papers referred to an unnamed source within the Peary Arctic Club. In the very brief stories that accompanied the large headlines, no mention was made of Dr. Cook or the rumours that Peary would recommend as his successor the man who had saved his wife and child.

Bridgman, Amundsen told us, had been unable to resist showing Peary’s speech to others besides Dr. Cook, who had been sensibly discreet. I, too, had told no one, but it seemed that Amundsen was right, that everybody “knew.” Peary was only nominally the guest of honour. It would soon be revealed that the true guest of honour was Dr. Cook.

I was, unlike Dr. Cook, unable to conceal my excitement. I looked so openly expectant, was such a picture of youthful anticipation, that everyone who looked at me could not help smiling. I rendered pointless, almost comic, Dr. Cook’s contained, reserved manner. Standing
there beside him, I was like a caricature of his inward self, the self that he thought he was concealing from the world, but that was following him about the room like a mime whose presence he was unaware of.

There was no sign of Peary yet, though it seemed that almost everyone else was there, including more than twenty senators and twice that many congressmen.

“There is much talk about you, too, Devlin,” Amundsen said. “For the first time ever, Peary and the young man who saved his life will meet in public.”

I was anxious, for there was no telling when Peary might appear at my side, hand extended to shake mine a second time while all around us people gaped. I tried to prepare myself, knowing that if he took my hand, I would recall the first time when he all but crushed it in his, when he spoke about my mother and Francis Stead as though he was casting their curse on me. I had rehearsed a few pleasantries and was prepared to keep smiling for as long as our conversation lasted.

The unmistakable sense in the room that something momentous was imminent grew more palpable as the time for the start of the banquet approached.