Barkskins

by Annie Proulx

“Andrew! I do not understand why you and James Bardawulf don’t let me into the company. For God’s sake, it’s the sixties, not the Dark Ages. I have no position.” She had grown up listening to Dieter’s stories of how Lavinia Duke, his first wife, apparently a reincarnation of Elizabeth I, had controlled the lumber business since her youth, and it seemed to Sophia, only vaguely aware of the company’s decline, that she, too, should have a title. Her children were grown, why should she not have a career?

“I told her the company isn’t the monolith she seems to think it is. I told her we had discussed selling out. She blew her top—how could we think of such a thing, ineffective management, lax ways, blah blah.

Andrew Harkiss told Sophia that James Bardawulf had asked that she write out a description of the job she wanted.

“That was easy enough. We can give her the job.” “What job?” “Sophia. The position she wanted. I got her letter this morning. It will suit her and keep her out of business deals.”

Don’t worry, she only wants to be the company historian. She wants to write a history of Breitsprecher-Duke. She wants all the old journals and letters, copies of wires and telegraphs, whatever papers didn’t get burned or thrown out. There are boxes of that stuff in one of the storage rooms. She calls all that junk ‘the Breitsprecher-Duke archives.’ I’m happy to have a door painted with her name and ‘Archival Research’—which is what she wants.”

Is there anything to write about?” “Oh yes. Dieter, of course, and Lavinia—working back to old Charles Duke, who started the company—Charles Duke—Canada, Holland. All over. Yes, there’s a lot back there we don’t know. Have to say I’m interested myself to see if she turns up anything useful. There could be some nice publicity that we could work into ads—you know, ‘Venerable Old Company. Leader in wood products for over two centuries.’ ”

She telephoned her son, Robert, who had recently opened his office, Harkiss Interiors. “Robert, I need your help. Are you very busy?” Robert, who had had only a single commission—the guest room in the apartment of Mrs. Grainley Wiley, with whom he was having an affair—was sick with worry over his upcoming office rent. He needed another commission. He made the usual noises of “let me see” and “I think I can squeeze you in” before he agreed.

“I haven’t been living under a stone for the past fifty years, Robert. I have actually heard about carpet.”

The day came when Sophia, installed in her new office, began reading through pages and pages of crabbed handwriting and atrocious spelling, trying to sort out mysterious characters whose connections to the family were unclear.

Sophia’s plan was to tell of the early travails of a pioneer enterprise that became successful through hard work, and went on to enjoy the fame and fortune of being one of the oldest and most successful logging companies in the nation.

After a year of scratching through the papers a story began to take shape. Charles Duke, a poor French boy, set out for the New World to escape a harsh life on a French farm. Once in North America he began to make his way by hard work and eventually, with the money he earned, bought timberland and opened a sawmill.

These made tiresome reading as they were loaded with advice and maxims and shed no light on Charles Duke’s character beyond commanding his sons to do what he told them to do. He seemed a serious fellow, but one who doted on his children. She skipped over James Duke, a dull stick.

Lavinia, alas, had left behind hundreds of boxes of business correspondence and notes on the lumber industry. Sophia did not understand most of Dieter’s first wife’s descriptions of inventions, meetings, numbers of board feet taken from various forests and shipped to distant destinations. It was enough to say she was a highly respected businesswoman. And, thought Sophia, an insanely busy scribbler.

She came on a folder that Debra Strong had labeled “Genealogy?” containing some torn and yellowed pages. This...

She telephoned James Bardawulf. “I’ve come on something that I don’t quite understand. It’s a report from a private investigator to Dieter’s first wife, Lavinia Duke. I wish you would take a look at it. I think it says there are some unknown heirs. But I don’t know who they are or what they have inherited.”

Sophia, in the grey wool Chanel despite the heat, made a rambling speech about the company history and passed out copies of the fruits of her labors—sixteen pages of company fantasy bound in leather and stamped Breitsprecher-Duke, the Story of a Forest Giant.

“Mr. Tetrazinni is long gone. His son, Chandler Tetrazinni, with whom I spoke at length, inherited the business. He is a lawyer.” Raphael, who knew his father well, recognized the danger signal. If James had respected Tetrazinni he would have said “attorney.” “Lawyer” meant something with greater elements of python.

James Bardawulf’s harsh voice continued. “Frankly, I wish I hadn’t contacted him. He heads up Tetrazinni Search Services, which specializes in tracing missing and unknown heirs. He was surprised to hear from me and said he would look in the files. Two days later he called and said he had found the relevant papers and that the case was far from dead. I’m afraid my questions led him to this almost forgotten affair and he smelled the possibility of money. I regret to say that I think that if I had not called him he would never have heard of Breitsprecher. But we can’t undo the situation. I learned from Hazelton that Tetrazinni’s outfit works for a percentage of the inheritance, and to me that means that he now intends to go to the heirs and offer them a contract.

Tetrazinni, the man she hired, claimed to have found legitimate heirs to the Duke fortune, heirs who actually had a more valid claim than Lavinia herself—that is if blood relationship is the criterion.”

“And are you going to tell us who these ‘putative heirs’ might be?” “Believe it or not, they are some Indians up in Canada.”

“Oh no, oh no,” said Conrad Breitsprecher suddenly, his face so drained of color that his black eyebrows seemed drawn on his forehead with charcoal. “That could break up the company.” James Bardawulf was surprised at his agitation. What did he have to worry about? The seedling nurseries were making money as though they had a printing press in the cellar. No red ink there, no covetous Indians with their hands held out. And Conrad took no profits, but poured every penny back into his damn seedlings. His obsession.

Conrad believed the reputation of Breitsprecher-Duke rested entirely on the seedling nursery division, which wasn’t even part of the company. As a young man Dieter had set it up with his cousin Armenius Breitsprecher and made it into a hobby that he fondly believed was an innovative business. But Con...

Conrad is really upset, thought Sophia. She made a suggestion. “Can’t we just rip up the report and forget we ever saw it? Actually part of it was ripped when I found it.” Hazelton Culross laughed. “Not now. James Bardawulf contacted Mr. Tetrazinni and they discussed the report, so Mr. Tetrazinni knows and he knows James Bardawulf and all of you also know.

“We can sell, can’t we?” asked Harkiss. “International Paper has been after us for a year. Shouldn’t we accept their offer, divide the money and reorganize our lives? Most of us active in the company are near retirement age in any case. To me it seems a good time to sell.”

James Bardawulf stuck out his lower lip. “Doing so will not stop Tetrazinni and the so-called heirs. Even if we sold, those heirs could still come after each of us.”

“According to Tetrazinni’s report to Lavinia Duke the heirs would be Mi’kmaq Indians. Canadian Indian. We do not have the names of the present-day descendants.”

“In fact,” said Andrew Harkiss, ignoring her, “the line may have died out? The problem may have solved itself? That report is old.”

“Perhaps. We just don’t know. And the original report found that the Duke descendants as we know them”—he touched his copy of The Story of a Forest Giant—“were only through Charles Duquet’s adopted sons. His only legitimate son was Outger Duquet, Beatrix’s father. That’s where the trouble comes. So Lavinia herself had no direct claim to Duquet ancestry.”

“Before you start to worry,” said Hazelton Culross, sensing the waves of anxiety crashing around him, “consider that Tetrazinni himself may not know if there are any current presumed heirs. He would have to do the legwork to establish names and whereabouts. And if and when he finds them he would have to persuade them that they have a claim worth pursuing. He would likely get them to sign a contract with him and only then would things go forward. If these heirs are Canadian it is another layer of difficulty for Tetrazinni to work through. All those things take time and money and the lawyer would have to bear the cost. And then he would come up against a company that for centuries has been directed and led first by the Dukes, then by the Breitsprechers, accepted as the legitimate owners of the properties and the operators of a legitimate business for almost th...

“To give you some very interesting news. For us, anyway. Hazelton Culross, who takes The Philadelphia Inquirer, called me this morning. He said there’s a back-page story in today’s paper saying that a lawyer named Tetrazinni died in a fight with a burglar over the weekend. The office was wrecked, file cabinets overturned, desk drawers pulled out and the safe wide open. Tetrazinni shot. I don’t know yet if there is anything in the Chicago papers. I’ve sent out for a Trib.”

“Let poor Conrad know. He was so upset that day.” Another of James Bardawulf’s long silences. Then the little voice again. “Maybe he already knows.”

And so, over the centuries Breitsprecher-Duke had risen and fallen like a boat on the tides. Now the tide was out. And International Paper was in. Only boxes of papers and several portraits remained of the old company. And a separate entity called Breitsprecher Seedlings.

When he proposed she said yes, and then, “I am marrying an enemy.” “Enemy? How am I your enemy?” “Do you not know that the Mi’kmaq came here and fought my people? Before the whitemen?” “I did not know this. Was it a battle?” “A battle? It was a war. Mi’kmaw warriors took the whole New England coast. For a little time.” “And now this Mi’kmaw wins again.” He flashed a guess that likely there had been a little infusion of Mi’kmaw into the Wôpanâak in that long-ago time.

The central problem, she believed, was Egga’s refusal to be Mi’kmaq. He said, “It made my life very bad, being a Mi’kmaw person. I have put it away.” “You can’t put away what you are. Your parents, your brothers and sisters. And all the generations behind them, your people.

And now it is part of our children and they must know it.” Egga rolled his eyes—this was what came from marrying into the matrilineal Wôpanâak.

When he told his parents’ names—Lobert and Nanty Sel—they wanted to write letters, go to Shubenacadie, to Lobert’s log house. They wanted to love these unknown relatives. And perhaps, thought Egga, so did he.

Bren’s nagging made him wonder what being Mi’kmaq could mean beyond pain and humiliation. Bren herself was enthusiastically Wôpanâak, and again he imagined lustful and ancient Mi’kmaw warriors surging into Wôpanâak villages and women.

Bren insisted on a serious commitment to homework. “I want you girls to go to university. I will make the money to send you.” Although from childhood she had wanted to study linguistics with the vague hope of resurrecting the old native Wôpanâak language (which she did not speak), there had been no money in her family for such schooling. When Sapatisia, her older child, started school Bren got the only job available—night shift at the fish plant, socking almost all of her paycheck into their education account. Her girls would have lives of value.

“You know I can’t always tell when I’ll get back—weather could keep me out—even for days. The fish don’t have clocks. And boats don’t have telephones.”

“I won’t ask you why you did this. I know why. You are like I was when I ran away from the resi school.” “I am not like you,” she said. “I am different. And my reasons were different.” “Oh,” said Egga. “Different from me, different from everybody. But you have to live in this world. Accept some of the rules that keep it in balance. Make an adjustment. Or you will die young.”

Egga and Bren had heard nothing about a professor of ecology or botany, only of Sapatisia’s burning interest in the plants and forests of the earth. She seemed to feel personal guilt for eroded slopes and dirty rivers.

“She has a female urge to repair the damage humans have done to nature,” said Bren that evening after Sapatisia was up in her old room. “Yes, and a female urge to destroy men. We are lucky the professor did not press charges.” Silence in the room except for their breathing. Egga sighed and said, “What do you think about letting her go to Nova Scotia?”

Egga and Bren heard nothing for months until a rare letter, postmarked Halifax, Nova Scotia, arrived from their firstborn daughter. I haven’t met Uncle Paul yet or his daughter Jeanne. Aunt Mary May Mius is shy and seems pretty fussy about her son Felix. Felix is nothing to be fussy about! The best one is Aunt Alice. I liked her. It is a pretty big family. Going to Winnipeg next week to study forestry, doing o.k., love, S

And only a few days later an ink-blotched letter arrived for Egga from his father, Lobert Sel. It means so much to us that our strong young granddaughter Sapatisia visited us. She ask many questions about our people and old Sel stories. Egga it has been many years since you left. Can you or other granddaughter Marie come here one time? I grow old. Wish to see you. That bad school that hurt you is closed and burned up. Come home. These letters made Egga tearful and he planned a trip to Shubenacadie. He wrote to Lobert that he would come—yes, he and Bren—the next St. Anne’s Day. But from Sapatisia they heard little more than occasional cards postmarked from different cities.

“She should have been a boy,” said Egga to Bren, thinking of the time when his greasy little toddler had partially disassembled an electric motor and put it back together enlivened with pink plastic stacking rings from her toy box.

She was outspoken and a little brash, but that was a proof to Egga that his younger daughter would not be trodden down.

In December of 1978 she married him. “Yes,” she said, when he proposed, “but I want to keep my job. I like my job.” “I like mine, too, so no argument.”

“Those two, they’re sure tryin hard at their schoolwork. I guess it’s good they got each other. Like brother and sister,” remarked Alice to her sister, Mary May. They sat at the crowded kitchen table with teapot and cups.

That evening, drinking tea after supper to wash down the store-bought cake, she showed it to the others. “It’s an article on this woman, Sapatisia Sel. Suppose she is a relation?”

“It says she collects medicine plants and trees.” “Another one?” said Felix scornfully. Medicine plants! Over the years a stream of white people had come to “study” Mi’kmaw medicine plants and the older women on the reservation were used to being quizzed about traditional cures. “I know Sapatisia,” said Alice, reaching for the page. She read a minute, studied the picture. “That’s Egga’s daughter. She’s a relative from the States. She come here once. This says she knows about old-time medicine plants.” “And she plants trees.”