Only then did despair settle upon the men of the Evening Star, for in autumn when the ice trapped them they had accepted their imprisonment, expecting it to last till the end of March, when spring thawed New England ponds. And at the onset of winter they were almost eager to see if they had the fortitude to withstand its historic blasts and were proud when they did. But now to greet a new year and to realize that summer would be more than six months distant was intolerable, and frictions developed.
Some wanted to shift their quarters to the ship, but the Eskimos warned vigorously against this: 'When ice melts, strange things happen. Maybe worst time.' So Captain Pym ordered them to remain ashore, and each day his inspections were more careful.
He was considerate in dealing with men who gave trouble, assuring them that while he understood their anxieties, he could not tolerate even the slightest show of insubordination.
He was pleased, therefore, when the Eskimos organized hunting trips far out on the ice, which still showed no signs of melting, for then his more adventurous men could accompany them to share the dangers. He himself went once to where a long lane of open water had lured sea lions north, and he had shared in the dangerous task of killing two and then lugging them home over the ice. 'If we keep busy,' he told the men and himself, 'the day will come when we'll break free.'
As the day Captain Pym calculated to be the twenty-fourth of January approached, he encouraged his crew by telling them that the sun, still hiding beneath the horizon, would soon be returning to the Northern Hemisphere, and at a speed that would make the noonday twilight grow longer and brighter. And he explained to those sailors who knew no astronomy: 'Yes, the sun is heading north, and it will keep coming till it stands directly over the Arctic Circle. Then daylight will last twenty-four hours.'
'Tell it to hurry up,' one of the sailors said, and Pym replied: 'As with all things ordained by God, like the planting of corn and the return of geese, the sun must follow the schedule He gave it.' But then he added a curious bit of information:
'The ancient Druids, who did not know God, expressed their joy at the sun's responsible behavior with prayer and song, and since the Eskimos are also primitive people, I suppose we can expect the same.'
But he was not prepared for the things that happened at Desolation Point, for when on the twenty-third of January the sun threw unmistakable signals that on the next noon it would show its face, the villagers went wild, and children cried: 'The sun is coming back!' Drums were produced and tambours made of sealskin fastened to rims of driftwood, but what seemed to be the focus of attention and delight was a huge blanket woven years ago from precious fur spindled into thread and woven into a stout cloth. It was colored with dyes gathered along the shore in summer and from the exudations of sealskin and walrus.
That afternoon Sopilak and two other men in ceremonial garb came solemnly on their skis to the long hut to announce that on the morrow, at high noon when the sun would reappear, the sailors were invited to its celebration, and gravely they bowed as Captain Pym had done when conducting the wedding in his ship. First Mate Corey, speaking for the crew, promised they would be there, but when the Eskimos had gone he said, not spitefully but with a certain cynicism: 'Let's see what these savages are up to,' and half an hour before noon on the twenty-fourth he and Captain Pym led their entire complement of sailors over the frozen snow to Desolation Point.
In the silvery darkness they joined a solemn crowd, a group of people who had lived for many months without sunlight, and there was muffled excitement as the Eskimos looked to the east where the sun had regularly reappeared in years past, a hesitant disk bringing rejuvenation to the world. When the first delicate rays flickered briefly and a gray light suffused the sky, men began to whisper and then cry out in uncontrolled joy as shoots of flame came forth, heralding the true dawn. Watchers from the dark huts smiled, and even the sailors felt a surge of joy when it became apparent that the sun really was going to appear, for they had resented this strange dark winter even more than the Eskimos, and as the villagers gazed in awe when the sun itself peaked over the edge of the world to see how the frozen areas had sustained themselves during its absence, a woman began to chant, and one of Pym's sailors shouted: 'Jesus Christ! I thought it would never come back!'
Then, in the brief moments of that glorious day when hope was restored and men were assured that the world would move as it always had, at least for one more year, people began to cheer and sing and embrace, with the sailors jigging in heavy boots with old women in parkas who had not expected ever to dance again with a young man. And there were tears.
But now things happened that the sailors could not have imagined and which, perhaps, had never before happened at Desolation Point, unpremeditated acts which captured the essence of this glorious moment when life began anew. Along the beach, where great blocks of ice protruded like the backdrop to some drama enacted by the gods of the north, a group of girls, eight or nine years old, danced, and their little feet clad in huge fur-lined moccasins moved so gracefully as their bodies smothered in furs bent in unusual directions that the sailors fell silent, thinking of their daughters or little sisters whom they had not seen for years.
On and on the dancing of the little girls continued, elfin spirits paying respect to the frozen sea, feet clomping handsomely in the snow as they performed steps which had graced this day and this seashore for ten thousand years. It was a moment in time that would be frozen in the memory of all the Americans who saw it, and two big sailors, overcome by the sudden beauty of the spectacle, remained in the background but in their own clumsy way aped the movements of the little girls, and old women clapped, remembering those years long ago when they had greeted the returning sun with similar dancing.
But no one watching these little girls reacted in the way Captain Pym did, for as he followed their unaffected steps and saw the joy with which they smiled at the sun, he thought of his own three daughters and unprecedented judgments came to his lips: 'My daughters never showed such joy in their lives. In our home there was little dancing.' Tears came to his eyes, a symbol of his confusion, and he kept staring at the dance; he could not join it as his sailors did, but he understood its significance.
While the sun was still visible on its brief stop to say hello, excitement grew among the huts, where Eskimo men busied themselves with something that Captain Pym could not see, and after a few moments all the Eskimos cheered as Sopilak and his fellow hunters, mature men all, brought forth the big blanket which Pym had seen earlier but whose purpose he had been unable to guess. Laughter and excitement attended its passage to the spot where the girls had been dancing, but still none of the Americans could fathom why a mere blanket should be causing such a flurry. But then it was unfolded, and Pym saw that it had been made in the form of a circle with a rim strengthened to provide handholds, which most of the men in the village now grabbed. At signals from Sopilak, they simultaneously pulled outward, causing the blanket to form the surface of a huge drum, which was instantly relaxed and as quickly drawn tight again.
Under Sopilak's skilled timing, the blanket pulsed like a living membrane, now loose, now taut.
When the men indicated their confidence that they could operate the blanket, Sopilak paused, turned to the crowd, and pointed to a rather pretty girl of fifteen or sixteen with braided hair, a large labret in her lower lip and prominent tattoos across her face. Obviously proud to have been chosen, she jumped forward, flexed her knees, and allowed two men to toss her in the air and onto the waiting blanket, which had been drawn tight to receive her. As watching women cheered, the girl waved to assure them that she would not dishonor them, and Sopilak's men began to make the blanket pulse, lifting the girl higher and higher, but as she had promised the women, she deftly maintained her balance, remaining erect on her feet.
Then, suddenly, the men tightened the blanket furiously, all pulling outward at once, whereupon the girl was tossed high in the air, perhaps a dozen feet, and there she seemed to hang for a moment before fallin
g back to the blanket, upon which she landed still upright on her feet. The villagers applauded and some sailors shouted, but the girl, surprised at how high she had been thrown that first time and knowing that much more was to follow, bit upon the upper edge of her labret and prepared for the next flight.
This time she soared aloft to a considerable height, but still she maintained her footing; however, on the final toss she went so high that gravity and a spinning motion acted upon her heavily padded body and she came down in a heap, collapsing with laughter as the men helped her descend from the blanket.
Kiinak, clutching her husband's hand, told him: 'None went higher than me, but that was last year,' and he, always aware of her pregnancy, said: 'That was last year.'
However, after two more saucy girls went flying up toward the sky, Sopilak relinquished his place on the blanket and came to stand before his sister, saying: 'To make the baby strong,' and gravely she took his hand and accompanied him to the blanket.
'Wait!' Atkins shouted, terrified at the prospect of his gravid wife's flying through the air and landing on the taut blanket with a thump, but Kiinak held up her right hand, indicating that he must stop where he was. Agitated as never before, he watched as she was lifted onto the blanket and her brother resumed his place in the circle of men holding it.
Gently, as if dealing with a baby already born, they started the rhythm of the blanket, chanting as they did, and then at a nod from Sopilak they imparted just the right gentle lift, and the pregnant girl rose slightly into the air and was expertly caught as she descended, suffering no shock whatever from her brief flight. When she rejoined her husband, she whispered: 'To make the baby brave.'
A very old woman, one who had soared to the sky when young, was similarly honored, but the lift was too modest for her tastes. 'Higher!' she shouted, and Sopilak warned her: 'You asked us to,' and his men applied just enough pressure to send the old one well into the air, where miraculously she controlled her feet so that she landed upright. The sailors cheered.
And now it was the villagers who did so, because gravely Sopilak stepped before his wife and invited her to leap upon the blanket, which she did without assistance.
For some years, when she was sixteen to nineteen, Nikaluk had been champion of the village, flying with a grace and to a height which no other girl could match, for it was not the men alone who determined how high a girl on the blanket would rise; the use of her half-bent knees and the thrust of her legs helped too, and Nikaluk was bolder than most, as if she hungered for the higher air.
The rhythm started. The blanket pulsed. The excitement intensified as Nikaluk prepared for her first leap, and the sailors leaned forward, for they had been told by Atkins:
'The champion. None higher.' However, both Nikaluk and the men working the blanket knew that on her first three or four tries she was not going to rise very high, because both she and they had to test strengths and calculate just when to snap the blanket with maximum power, timing it with the bending of her knees.
So the first four tosses were experimental, but even so the rare grace of this lithe young woman was apparent, and the sailors stopped talking to watch the elegant manner in which she handled arms, legs, torso and head during her ascension, and upon no observer did her lovely motion have a greater effect than upon Captain Pym, who stared at her floating in air as if he had never before seen her.
Then, with no warning, she shot skyward at a speed and to a height which left him astounded: 'Oh! Goodness!' More than twenty feet above his head she hung motionless, every part of her body in delicate alignment, as if she were a renowned dancer in a Paris ballet, a creature of extreme beauty and grace. And now slowly, then gathering speed, she started downward in a posture that looked as if she would have to land awkwardly, but at the last moment she established control and landed on her feet in the middle of the blanket, smiling to no one and preparing herself and her knees for the next flight, which she knew would carry her even higher.
Coordinating with unspoken signals from her husband, she flexed her knees, took a deep breath, and soared into the air like a bird seeking new altitudes, and as she sped aloft, Captain Pym noticed a strange aspect of her flight: Those big fur boots she wears, her heavy clothing, they seem to make her more graceful, not less, and her control doubly impressive. She was a wonderful flying young woman, and there were not on the entire earth at that moment more than a dozen women, regardless of race, who could have equaled her performance and none who could excel. High in the air, with the sun about to bid her farewell, she hung at the apex of her art and she knew it.
On the last upward thrust of the blanket, she went higher than ever before in her life, and this was not because her husband pulled the blanket especially strongly but rather because she synchronized her whole body in one supreme effort, and she did this solely because she wanted to enchant Captain Pym, whom she knew to be staring at her, mouth agape. She succeeded in making a lovely arc through the sky against the quickly settling sun, and as she returned to earth like a tired bird, she smiled for the first time that morning and looked boldly at her captain in a gesture of triumph. She had been aloft where no woman of that village had ever been before; she had been one with the newly born sun and the great ice field whose days were limited, now that her earth was moving into warmth. And when she was lifted from the blanket she experienced such a surge of victory that she went not to her husband but to Noah Pym, taking him by the hand and leading him away.
THE CELEBRATION OF THE SUN LASTED TWENTY-FOUR hours, and three events in the course of that celebration became part of the tradition of the village of Desolation Point, some treasured, some better forgotten. The young woman Nikaluk went with the Boston captain Noah Pym to a hut where they made love throughout the night. The rough sailor Harry Tompkin from a seafront village near Boston crept down into the bowels of the Evening Star to tap a keg of Jamaica rum which had been stowed aboard for medicinal and other emergencies. With the dark, delicious fluid he and two of his mates got drunk, but what was more significant in the history of Alaska, in their generosity and general mood of celebration, they shared their alcohol with Sopilak, who was staggered physically and emotionally by its stupendous effect. And when the sun came up for a second dawning, certifying that its return was legitimate, the old women of Desolation gave Captain Pym a present which in time would strangle him in a remorse that would never dissipate.
The lovemaking was a beautiful experience, a splendid Eskimo woman, pride of her village, striving to understand what the coming of this ship to her shore signified, sought to hold on to such meaning as she could discern. She knew that Noah Pym was the finest man she would encounter in this brief life, and since she had for three months longed to be with him, she had deemed it proper to make her desires known at the celebration of the sun when she performed her ultimate act of reverence, the faultless leap to heights never attained before.
Her boldness in leading him to the twilight hut was not surprising in this Eskimo village, for although the older women disciplined the younger, forcing them to marry in an orderly way so that their babies could be protected and reared in security, no one assumed that marriage ended the desires of people, and it was not unusual for a young wife or husband to behave as Nikaluk had done; no stigma attached to it and life went on after such an affair pretty much as it did before, with no one the worse because of it.
But since sailors like those from the Evening Star went home from Eskimo land averring that 'this here husband offered our captain his wife, as hospitality, you might say,' the legend grew that the proffering of a wife to a traveler was Eskimo custom. It was not. About the same amount of affection between traveler and local wife developed at Desolation Point as in a rural community outside Madrid or one close to Paris, or London, or New York.
Nikaluk the Eskimo sky-dancer from Desolation had sisters all over the world, and many of the good things that happened in the world did so because of the desire of these strong-minded women to know of the
world before the world left them or they it.
But Sopilak's disastrous introduction to rum was not a universal experience. White men had distilled this drink, so exhilarating, so liberating, for many decades and they had introduced it to people all over the world, and Spaniards or Italians or Germans or American colonists could imbibe it moderately, celebrate immoderately, and be little affected next morning. But others, the men of Ireland and Russia, for example, or the Indians of Illinois, or the Tahitians whom Captain Cook respected so highly when they were not drunk, and especially the Eskimos, Aleuts and Athapascans of Alaska, could not accept alcohol one day and leave it the next. And when they drank, it did terrible things to them. On the morning that Sopilak, the great hunter, accepted the liquor from the unwitting Harry Tompkin, the long decline of Desolation Point began.
When Sopilak swished that first taste of rum about his mouth he considered it too biting and too strong, but after he swallowed it and felt its effect all the way down to the depths of his stomach, he wanted another sample, and with its warmth began that indescribable swirl of dreams and visions and illusions of endless power.
It was a magical drink, that he realized in those earliest moments, and he craved more and then more. As spring returned he became the prototype of those myriad Alaskans who in later days became addicted to alcohol, prowling the beaches and waiting for the arrival of the next whaler out of Boston. They had learned that such ships brought rum, and no finer gift in the world existed than that.
It was a filthy business the good Christians of Boston were engaged in, Captain Pym's brother and uncle among them: fabrics to hungry buyers in the West Indies, slaves to Virginia, rum out to the natives of Hawaii and Alaska, and whale oil back to Boston.
Unquestionably wealth was created, but the slaves, the whales and the Eskimos of Desolation Point were destroyed.
The present that the old women of the village gave Captain Pym was delivered on the second morning after he had with a remorse never experienced before left the hut of love and taken Nikaluk to her own, where he found her husband lying in a drunken stupor on the ground. In that awful moment he saw two old women pointing at him and Sopilak, and he could deduce that they were praising him for having used sorcery on the fallen man so that he could enjoy his wife. They were criticizing neither Pym nor Sopilak; in a sense they were congratulating the former for a rather neat trick. Then other women appeared bearing in their arms a garment on which they had been working for some time, and after they had raised Sopilak to his feet and slapped his face a couple of times, he took the garment from them, smiled sheepishly at the men who had gathered, and held out his arms to Captain Pym. John Atkins, who approved of all that was happening, translated: