For a long time I carried around in my memory a phrase of Chateaubriand’s: Inutile phare de la nuit. I believe I always attributed to these words the power of comfort in disenchantment: as when we attach ourselves to something that turns out to be an inutile phare de la nuit, yet nevertheless allows us to do something merely because we believed in its light: the power of illusions. In my memory this phrase was associated with the name of a distant and improbable island: Île de Pico, inutile phare de la nuit.
When I was fifteen I read Les Natchez, an incongruous, absurd and in its way magnificent book. It was the gift of an uncle who for the whole of his short life cultivated the dream of becoming an actor and who probably loved Chateaubriand for his theatricality and scene painting. The book fascinated me, took my imagination by the hand and drew it with irresistible force through the stage curtains of adventure. I remember some passages of the book by heart and for years I thought that the phrase about the beacon belonged to it. Then it occurred to me to quote the exact passage in this notebook, so I reread Les Natchez, but couldn’t find my phrase. At first I thought it had escaped me because I had reread the book with the haste of one who is merely looking for a quote. Then I realized that not finding a phrase like this partakes of the most intimate sense of the phrase itself, and this was a consolation for me. I also wondered what part the perhaps unconscious forces of evocation and suggestion generated by this phrase might have played in calling me to an island where there was nothing to attract me. Sometimes the directions we take in our lives can be decided by the combination of a few words.
I need only add that on Pico at night no beacons shone.
Breezy and Rupert invite me onto their boat for a farewell drink. They are leaving in the afternoon, since in order to get away from the island they want to take advantage of the seven o’clock calm, a phenomenon which exists here as elsewhere. Moored opposite the water tanks, the Amadeus is blue and white, rocking gently, and it seems impossible to me that such a small boat is capable of crossing oceans.
Rupert has very red hair, freckles, an amusing, Danny Kaye — like face. Perhaps he told me he was Scottish, or perhaps I just think of him as such because of his face. He used to work in a shipping company in London: years and years sitting at a table under electric light, dreaming of the distant ports whence the company’s exotic merchandise arrived. So one day he handed in his notice, sold what he had and bought this boat. Or rather, he had it custom-built to the design of a New York boat architect. And when I go below on the Amadeus I appreciate it isn’t quite the fragile eggshell it seems when you see it from the land. Breezy came with him and they live together on the boat. Welcome to our home, they say, laughing. Breezy has an open, very friendly face, a marvellous smile, and she’s wearing a long flowery dress as if preparing for a garden party, not a transatlantic crossing. The interior is furnished with hard woods and warm-colored upholsteries which immediately convey a feeling of comfort and safety. There is a small, well-stocked library. I begin to browse: Melville, of course, and Conrad and Stevenson. But there is Henry James too, and Kipling, Shaw, Wells, Dubliners, Somerset Maugham, Forster, Joyce Cary, H. E. Bates. I pick up The Jacaranda Tree and inevitably the conversation turns to Brazil. They have only been as far as Fortaleza do Ceará, sailing down the coasts of America. But they are saving Brazil for another trip; first Rupert has to arrange to rent out the Amadeus for a small luxury cruise. That’s how they live, renting out the boat, and usually Rupert stays on board and sails it. The rest of their life is all their own.
We lift our glasses and drink to their trip. May fair winds follow you, I toast, now and always. Rupert slides back the door of a shelf and slips a tape into the stereo. It is Mozart’s Concerto K 271 for piano and orchestra, and only now do I realize why the boat is called Amadeus. The shelf contains the complete works of Mozart on tape, catalogued with meticulous care. I think of Rupert and Breezy crossing the seas to the accompaniment of Mozart’s tunes and harpsichords, and for me the idea has a strange beauty to it, perhaps because I have always associated music with the idea of terra firma, of the concert hall or a cozy room in the half dark. The music takes on a solemn sound and draws us in. The glasses are empty, we get up and embrace each other. Rupert starts the engine, I climb onto the steps and with a jump am down on the wharf. There’s a soft light on the circle of houses which is Porto Pim. Amadeus turns in a wide curve and sets off at speed. Breezy is at the helm and Rupert is hoisting the sail. I stand there waving until Amadeus, all its sails already unfurled, reaches the open sea.
When sailors stop at Horta it is a custom to leave a drawing with name and date on the wall of the wharf. The wall is a hundred metres long, and drawings of boats, flag colors, numbers and graffiti are all jumbled up one on top of the other. I record one of the many: “Nat, from Brisbane. I go where the wind takes me.”
In July 1985, the winds brought Captain Joshua Slocum as far as Horta. Slocum was the first man to sail solo around the world. His yacht was called Spray and the impression you get from photographs is of a tub of a boat, clumsy and unstable, better suited for river sailing than a trip around the world. Captain Slocum left some quite beautiful pages on the Azores. I read them in his Sailing Alone Around the World, an old old edition, the cover decorated with a festoon of anchors.
The winds also brought the only woman whaler I ever heard of to the Azores. Her name was Miss Elisa Nye. She was seventeen years old, and to reach her maternal grandfather, the naturalist Thomas Hickling, who had invited her to spend a year with him in his house in São Miguel, she thought nothing of boarding a whaler, the Sylph, which was travelling under sail from New Bedford to the Western Isles, as the American then called the Azores. Miss Elisa was a bright, enterprising girl, brought up in an American family of frugal and puritan traditions. She wasn’t discouraged by life on the whaler and did her best to make herself useful. Her trip lasted from 10 July to 13 August 1847. In her engaging diary, written with freshness and dispatch, she talks of the sea, of old Captain Garner, gruff and fatherly, the dolphins, the sharks and, of course, the whales. In her free time, apart form keeping up her diary, she read the Bible and Byron’s The Corsair.
Peter’s Bar is a café on the dockside at Horta, near the sailing club. It is a cross between a tavern, a meeting point, an information agency and a post office. The whalers go there, but so too do the yachting folks crossing the Atlantic or making other long trips. And since the sailors know that Faial is an obligatory stopover point and that everybody passes through, Peter’s has become the forwarding address for precarious and hopeful messages that otherwise would have no destination. On the wooden counter at Peter’s the proprietor pins notes, telegrams, letters, which wait for someone to come and claim them. “For Regina, Peter’s Bar, Horta, Azores,” says an envelope with a Canadian stamp. “Pedro e Pilar Vazquez Cuesta, Peter’s Bar, Azores”: the letter was mailed in Argentina and has arrived just the same. A slightly yellowed note says: “Tom, excuse-moi, je suis partie pour le Brésil, je ne pouvais plus rester ici, je devenais folle. Écris-moi, viens, je t’attends. c/o Engenheiro Silveira Martins, Avenida Atlântica 3025, Copacabana. Brigitte.” Another implores: “Notice. To boats bound for Europe. Crew available!!! I am 24, with 26,000 miles of crewing/cruising/cooking experience. If you have room for one more, please leave word below! Carol Shepard.”