“Very pretty. Very, very pretty. We do not too often see furs of such beauty and quality. However, the Russians do bring us furs, so they are not unknown here. And in Guangzhou it is really too warm for furs, but at court and in the north… What do you wish for these?”
Instead of the usual list of luxury goods Duquet named a very high price — in silver. Wuqua pretended to faint, his head slumped to one side but watchful eyes glinting from the slitted lids. He revived and named a small sum that would be bolstered by a few rolls of silk and a bale of tea.
Duquet hurled himself to the floor in a fit of shrieking, spasmodic, disbelieving laughter. Even as he fell he realized he had gone too far. He got up, sure he had lost face in the negotiations and that the morning — perhaps the entire trip — was wasted. He sat again in his chair and looked at Wuqua.
The expression on the businessman’s face was peculiar. Amazement? Disdain? But Wuqua nodded his head, the slightest nod, but it expressed a kind of calculated admiration, an acceptance of Duquet’s behavior as a tolerable and even admirable ploy. Decorum returned. The day progressed, the bargaining continued. They again went to the garden for tea and arranged to meet in two days’ time. At the end of the month of bargaining Duquet accepted a princely sum in silver for his furs. He had gained a staggering profit.
“If you come in a future year,” said Wuqua, “with furs of equal quality and variety they may excite a greater passion.” The servant poured more tea. Wuqua sipped, looked into the distance and then asked offhandedly, “And do you have this in your forests of New France?” From his sleeve he withdrew a gnarled root vaguely shaped like a hunchbacked, three-legged man. Duquet had seen this root before, in the hands of the Indian woman who had saved his life.
“Yes, we have this.”
“Ah. If you bring me a quantity of these roots I will pay as much as for the furs. Perhaps more, depending on the quality and quantity.”
“Very good. And I also have rare woods for fine cabinets,” said Duquet, trembling inwardly, knowing he was on the edge of extraordinarily advantageous arrangements.
“Rare woods are of interest. Especially sandalwood. Scented woods are prized.”
In a stroke Duquet had become a wealthy man and, he thought, after one or two more trips — if Captain Verdwijnen were willing to take him — his forest enterprise would begin. As they spoke of woods Duquet was emboldened to ask a question.
“Sir, honorable Wuqua, as foreigners may not leave the Factory compound I have wondered many times about the forests of China. I see that men in China make gardens that seem the essence of forest and mountain, but in miniature. But what of the real forests? It is my belief that forests are everlasting and can never disappear, for they replenish themselves, but I have seen in France that they are… diminished. And I have noticed that even in New France the forest is drawing back — a little, wherever there are settlements. How far back can a forest withdraw before it replenishes itself?”
Wuqua looked at him as though trying to judge whether or not Duquet had designs on China’s woodlands. He glanced at the translator. He hesitated.
“I can only say that China is very large and very old with many people. More than that I cannot say. Perhaps another time?”
Duquet understood that he was dismissed, rose, bowed and backed away.
• • •
After some months Duquet yearned to leave. It was irritating to wait for the monsoon to shift. Then one day Wuqua requested his presence in the trading room. It was a clear chill day in springtime and outside the wind cast plum blossom petals on the courtyard tiles. There was a different translator.
“You wished to know about our forests,” said Wuqua in a low, hurried voice, pausing impatiently for the translator. “I spoke with an elderly scholar on the subject. He said that our venerated sage Meng-tzu wrote of the people clearing land for crops, pulling grass and weeds, cutting trees ceaselessly, dividing the land and plowing. The people were very numerous even in Meng-tzu’s time, and very poor. People must eat or they die. They need fuel to cook rice. They must keep warm. So trees fall.” A rod of sunlight touched the toe of Wuqua’s black silk slipper. “We are a country of agriculture. You understand of course that land division is the base of all human government.”
“The forests then are diminished?”
“It is an arguable point, for men transplant many trees — bamboo, pine, oak and the valuable ones that produce lacquer or rich oils. Bear in mind that if forests and timberlands are diminished, cropland is very much augmented — more food, more money, more people, more contentment.”
Duquet nodded though he did not see contentment in this recipe. He knew very well that Wuqua hoped to gain his favor by telling him these secret things.
“But even beyond increasing our agricultural land we cut forests for other reasons. For example, do you know the scholar’s four treasures?”
“No. I regret to say I do not.”
“This is a country of scholars, poets and calligraphers,” said Wuqua, “and the four treasures are brush, paper, ink and inkstone, the necessities of calligraphy. But the source of the ink is the soot from the burning of pine trees. Very many pine trees must burn to supply China’s scholars.” The sunlight had moved up Wuqua’s robe and made a bright band across the embroidery. “And there was war. And metalworkers, potters, brickmakers — all craftsmen’s trades demand wood. In some tree-denuded places peasants are forced to gather grass, twist it into hard bundles and burn it as fuel. In other places animal dung.” He whispered. “There are wood shortages…”
“So the forests of France and China are not everlasting,” said Duquet unhappily. “And I have heard that Italy’s mountains are stripped.”
“Perhaps. But nothing is everlasting. Nothing. Not forests, not mountains.”
“But how came the gardens that honor forests and wild country?”
“We do not forget the forests when we have removed the trees. We make gardens to give us the pleasurable illusions of wilderness.”
“I myself,” said Duquet, “despise the gloomy and unruly forest, even while recognizing that it is a source of wealth and comforts. Yet I would never make a garden alluding to it.”
“Of course you would not. You do not understand the saying ‘tian ren he yi.’ It refers to a state of harmony between people and nature. You do not feel this. No European does. I cannot explain it to you. It is a kind of personal philosophy for each person, yet it is everything.”
Duquet thought it likely that the forests of China and France and Italy had been puny in their beginnings; he believed that the uniquely deep forests of the New World would endure. That was why men came to the unspoiled continent — for the mind-numbing abundance of virgin resources. Only he grasped the opportunity.
• • •
Duquet visited the ivory carver, who took a wax mold of his toothless jaws and set to work fashioning teeth. There was a wait of several months until they would be finished. The day came and the carver showed him how to insert the plates of large white teeth hinged with fine gold wires. Duquet looked in a glass for the first time in many years and although the teeth felt monstrous and uncomfortable, they undeniably improved his appearance. The carver told him he would get used to the intrusive feeling, but that the teeth were only for display, not for chewing. “Clean every day with brush, white cloth.” In pantomime he showed Duquet that he must expect they would become yellow over time, especially if he let sunshine fall on them. It could not be helped; it was the nature of ivory. Perhaps he should have a second pair made for spares? Yes, nodded Duquet. He wondered if ceramic teeth could be fashioned, then thought of a likely mouthful of broken shards.