The words sent a chilling sensation through me and made me blush, then I shook off my dizzy spell, remembering reading those same words in one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. As I tried to regain my strength, I looked around. There were the usual woven mats on the floor, a stone washing stand, a glazed bookcase.
Mr. Fergins came inside the room and I satisfied him that I was not going to faint again.
He said, gravely, “Milton said that to kill a man is to kill a reasonable creature, but to destroy a book is to kill reason itself.”
“Then why condemn books to that dungeon?” My voice was hoarse and trembling.
“To clear the way. Think of it like this: we will usher in a new age, free of all the shadows that have fallen on literature in the past. Call me quixotic, but this will revolutionize the literary inheritance we leave behind. These islands will be the New World for literature—an Eden of stories. Pilgrims will travel from all corners of the globe to this spot right here, to bask in a living literature, to witness what we have created. One day, I foresee new authors coming here; they will fill these empty halls and occupy these islands and tell their stories to my growing army. Sixty years ago, Emerson tried to make a utopia of storytellers in Concord, but man’s natural selfishness ruined it. Not this time. We are not condemning the books; we are releasing them from their dead skin. No need for the likes of publishers or dealers or lawyers or censors or bookaneers as in the prehistoric era of books—just living, breathing, walking stories free to grow and prosper.”
“The natives in this house will not live forever.”
“Each memorizer will pass on his or her book to another memorizer, who will in turn do the same. Those who hear a story from the lips of one of my memorizers will never forget, just as I did not forget poor Tulagi’s words that, unconsciously, became part of me. Oh, the once-great Library of Alexandria burnt to the ground, but the human soul will live on.”
I was frozen in astonishment as he gesticulated joyfully and broke into his howling laughs now and again.
“Ah, here we are. Thank you.”
Another native girl, as pretty as the first, came in with an open coconut shell, filled with a strong-smelling liquid inside it. “Fa’amoemoeopu,” she bashfully greeted Mr. Fergins, then turned and held her coconut bowl out to me. The brew was bright green.
“Our own version of the ’ava they have in Samoa,” said Mr. Fergins cheerfully. “Have you had any before? This will make you feel all better, by and by, Mr. Clover.”
“Thank you.”
“Why don’t you stay?”
“Another night here?”
“That is not what I mean. Not just a night.”
I looked over the room again—the washing stand, the pile of mats—this was a bedroom. It was to be my room. I turned again to the glazed case and this time noticed there was a single book inside, the glass too cloudy to make out any identifying marks on the book, showing only the reflection of my own sorrow-stricken face.
“There’s plenty of room here, my friend. You would be very comfortable, would never want for anything. I have received letters from people around the world who have heard rumors about what is happening and beg to join us. But the composition must be just right. Yes, you must stay. It is decided.”
The eyes of both beauties remained fixed on me. The two natives who had carried me, a blur of feathers, tattoos, hatchets, and rifles, stood in the far corners of the room, also seeming to await my answer. Mr. Fergins perched on his chair, his smile wide, watching as he waited—waited for me to drink, answer, join.
I looked down at the mucusy brew, which was bubbling over the coconut shell and dripping in warm strands down my fingers. I shivered, thinking of how I slept the previous night, after my meal, as though I was never going to wake again.
Mr. Fergins began to move his right hand and I thought he might take me by the shoulder to try to convince me. But instead he held his hand high. “Repeat after me, if you please. I am the keeper of the story—”
“I am awfully sorry, Fa’amoemoeopu,” I stopped him. “But I cannot stay here now. I am signed on to help with this voyage once our ship finishes repairs. I cannot leave the other men shorthanded. I will come back when it is completed.”
“You always were a good and honest soul,” Mr. Fergins said. “Very well. Promise you will return?”
“I promise,” I said, carefully placing down the shell and rising to my feet.
After he arranged for my departure, he bid me farewell at the shore with talks of our next reunion, his eyes becoming moist again. I don’t doubt I left that speck of earth not a moment too soon.
I sailed far away, and when that ship ran its course, I joined another, and sailed again, all the while telling myself to forget my encounter with the last bookaneer.
Before the canoe had pushed off from the shore of Mr. Fergins’s island to take me to Mangaia, I had been prepared to ask one last thing. I wanted to know why he never said good-bye to me before he left New York City. With this childish question forming on my tongue, I realized that, more than anything else, this was what I had wanted to know all along. If he had said good-bye, had written me a simple card once he’d arrived in London, I might have put aside the story he had told instead of dwelling on its mysteries for all these years. But as I phrased that final question to myself, it sounded pathetic and wistful, and I could not speak. In New York, Mr. Fergins had seen me for my interest in reading instead of the color of my skin, and at that time in my life I would have followed him to the end of the world. Now he had brought me there.