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I’d left my name with the contact agency several years ago,
long enough to grow discouraged and then push discouragement to
the back of my mind. So your note was a shock, though I’d
invited it — a shock followed by relief and joy. You were
alive! You wanted us to find each other. You weren’t hiding,
weren’t exacting a sullen revenge that might last until I
died.
Particulars.
They mean dates, ages, numbers on certificates. These aren’t
always reliable in our family, as I shall tell. But there can
be no mistake; only your particulars could possibly “appear”
to match my own. This young lady is you. And this older one is
me, who gave you life at sixteen, and gave you away.
•••
Who
are you now? And how and what and where? I’m brimming with
questions. I’m ready for the best, the worst, the in-between.
Like most of us you’re probably in between. And twenty-two
is so damn young, but for the first time in your life you’re
feeling old. You’re thinking of endings and beginnings, which
is why you’ve begun to look for me. But maybe you haven’t
yet made up your mind you’ll even see me. So I’ll go
first: Olivia Wyvern, Cell 15. Your mother.
There’s
this tiresome obstacle to our reunion: I’m imprisoned on
the far side of the world (assuming you’re still in Britain).
It’s not a bad jail. How many have palm trees in the yard,
French bread, an ocean view? And a good friend is moving heaven
and earth to get me out of it. My government — I’m a
Canadian now — is sympathetic. The consul here is on my side.
Ottawa is asking questions about the charge, the so-called evidence.
People are beginning to see that I’ve been framed.
It
can’t be easy finding your mother after all these years,
only to learn she stands accused of murder–well, for complice,
which means “accessory.” But truly there was no murder.
Or if there was it had nothing to do with me. I was simply in
the wrong place at the wrong time.
She
would say that, wouldn’t she? Will you allow me the presumption
of innocence, which is more than I’ve had from the Napoleonic
Code? (Tahiti’s a French colony.) I am not guilty. But I
do plead guilty to a charge concerning you: I threw away the life
we might have lived together. No law sets penalties for that;
it was a crime of the will and the heart. Both you the innocent
and I the guilty have served over twenty years for it.
•••
The
people in London who matched our particulars have also offered
advice on how to proceed. Phone calls out of the blue are not
recommended. Start with a letter, they say — enclose photos,
snippets of hair, take your time. Phone calls and meetings will
come later. Phoning is difficult here, anyway, and a meeting out
of the question. But I have plenty of time. So this is a long
letter to prepare you for the next step, if and when.
Already
I’ve a lot to thank you for. Without your note I might still
be stewing in the bath of outrage, fear, and hate in which I fell
at my arrest. You’ve kept me busy writing this since January.
They let me spend four hours a day in the library. The light’s
good in the morning, a breeze comes through the bars, mynah birds
squabble in the palms, and it’s the only room without a reek
of sewer. This place is so French: good food, bad drains. The
washbasin in my cell is a mixed blessing — no plug or trap
to keep down smells and cockroaches. Until Pua showed me the remedy
(chewing gum and a coin), I thought I might be gassed in my sleep
or nibbled raw. Tahitian roaches are as big as mice and they go
for the dead skin on your feet.
I
don’t mean to make too much of these discomforts. My hotel
in Papeete was much the same, at ninety dollars a night. In French
Polynesia they know how to let off nuclear weapons but they’ve
never grasped the rudiments of plumbing.
I know I should start with I love you. But how can I say that
without it ringing false, the sudden intimacy of salesmen and
seducers? We’re strangers, you and I, despite our blood.
I don’t even know your name. And I may as well tell you straight
that I’ve never been very good at love, though I am working
on it. Often I think love stalled in me the day you went away.
So
this won’t be that kind of letter. What I can give you, for
now, is my story. And in return I hope someday you’ll give
me yours. I’ll try to stick to the point, though it doesn’t
come easily–my mind’s a sackful of cats and they’re
all clawing their way out at once. Be patient while I let them
go in an order that makes sense, at least to me. Mine isn’t
the usual tale of a girlish mistake with a pimply boy in the bicycle
shed. This stretches across a hundred years and half the world.
I’ll start with me, but you must hear from Frank Henderson
too. I’m enclosing copies of his papers. More than a century
ago, when he was about your age, he sailed to the South Seas aboard
a warship. It’s ultimately because of him that I’m here
now.
Excerpted from Henderson's Spear by Ronald Wright Copyright
2001 by Ronald Wright. Excerpted by permission of Knopf Canada,
a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part
of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission
in writing from the publisher.
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