Untitled Cartography Story - Part I

Writer's Note: This is an unfinished work, which means you may see more of it in coming months but certainly nothing for a while. The scope of this story will be quite large and this is definitely only the very beginning. If you're interested, I can say that this story will focus in large part on the so-called Lead Masks Case.

----------

UNTITLED CARTOGRAPHY STORY
Dominic E. Lacasse

Part I

It is impossible to render a sphere on a two-dimensional surface. This is the inescapable reality which lies at the heart of all modern cartography; geometrically and mathematically, there can be no perfect map.

   Area, shape, direction, bearing, distance, scale. There are a great many properties which must be accounted for in every map projection. However, because there can be no perfect map, sacrifices must be made between these properties. A map may maintain two or three perfectly, but must distort the rest. A map that adequately represents the equatorial regions may scale into infinity at the poles. A map showing perfect angles for nautical work may strangely distort the shape of a land mass. This arithmetic of sacrifice is the language of cartography; specific applications demand the accuracy of specific properties, and this necessarily makes impossible the accuracy of others. In cartography the language of mathematics, that system of representation which we have long held to be the very speech of objectivity, is unable to account for the pure complexity of nature.

   In the 1800s, James Gall stirred up a famous controversy with his equal-area map projection which, by maintaining accurate area instead of angle and shape, impiously shrank North America and the Continent into mere shades of mighty South America and Africa. Arno Peters revised the map in 1967 and the fallout was just as immense, the familiar Mercator projection revealed again as an unsuspected agent of Western aristocracy. It can be difficult when our perceptions are cast from the comfort of assumed objectivity.

   In 1972, I was working at Grayson and Co., a geological survey firm in Boston. I had been working there for some time, having several years earlier completed my degree and begun my career in earnest. The complex mathematical language of map-making was becoming a second dialect to me, and I felt comfortable, even affectionate toward the stubbornness, the evasiveness of the craft.

   The work we were doing at the time was mainly the charting of forests and other undeveloped areas; even in these places, the surface of our world continually changes, and the government of Massachusetts had decided that a new set of topographical maps was in order. After struggling all winter to earn the contract, we now had before us the task of charting all of Massacusetts' forests, translating the wild chaos of nature into the calm, rational standard of human representation.

   I was the only one in the office when he first came to us. It was a Saturday, and while the more senior members of my firm were resting comfortably at home, I had decided to come in and work. The street outside the door was almost empty and the office itself was silent except for my pencil scratches and a small transistor radio whining away in a far corner. I was perched on a stool, a messy rough draft spread out on a large easel in front of me. To an outside observer, I suppose it would have hardly looked like a map at all; it showed an area with no real points of interest, merely contour lines drawn and redrawn among scrawled mathematical calculations and points of elevation. A cold half-cup of coffee sat nearby, and the floor was littered with pencils, scraps of paper, and measuring tools.

   Into this chaos walked a man with the unmistakable air of the casually wealthy. He was wearing a tailored suit and his hands were impeccably clean. His broad face bore a large, bushy moustache, and the very slightest note of disdain, which he wore almost apologetically, as if to say it was directed not at myself in particular, but rather the world at large. I stepped down from my stool and strode over to greet him.

   He shook my hand quickly and introduced himself as Mr. Elliot Tiberius Lowell. If his mannerisms had not given him away, his name and his accent would have; American aristocracy the way only Massachusetts is old enough to remember, the Lowell family of the famed 'Boston Brahmin.' These were the legendary families that had settled Boston and New England-- Adams, Cabot, Emerson, Phillips, and the rest-- and now in many cases the families had become little more than independent corporations managing their own money. Mr. Lowell's family was stronger in the North, where they had been sent as the emissaries and defenders of British civilization in the days of French colonialism. Even so, I was sure that his name turned heads in Boston, as did that unmistakable Brahmin accent, which rang of Kennedy and the liberal East.

   I offered him some coffee and he accepted. I refilled my own cup and poured one for him, wondering as I did if he had ever drank coffee from a paper cup in his entire life. He raised an eyebrow at the cup suspiciously, as if expecting it to tip of its own accord. He took a sip and seemed nonplussed. Finally he spoke.

   "I may have need of your firm, Mr...?"

   "Bailey," I introduced myself. "Martin Bailey."

   "Mr. Bailey. Well, I am considering purchasing a certain plot of land, and I need a map before I make my decision. I'll be building a large summer home there and my architects will need an up-to-date chart of the area."

   "I'm afraid we don't sell our maps here, Mr. Lowell," I said, "but if you check with the Department of Agricultural Resources, I’m sure they'll have copies of all-"

   "I'm not interested in that, Mr. Bailey. The land I am looking to purchase is not in Massachusetts. It is in Brazil."

   I gave him a long look. "Mr. Lowell, our firm operates almost exclusively within Massachusetts. We have worked occasionally in New Hampshire and in Maine, but you can't seriously expect us to have mapped any area in Brazil. You'll need to get in touch with cartographers from the area."

   The man sighed. He gave me a look that called me a fool without his ever opening his mouth. "No, Mr. Bailey," he said, "I am looking to commission your firm." His eyes settled on a large world map which hung from one wall of the office. "Come," he said brusquely, and moved toward the map. I followed behind.

   "We're quite busy, Mr. Lowell..." I protested as he bent to scrutinize the map. "We have a very important contract that we're working on and-"

   "Shh!" Lowell traced the East coast of South America with a manicured finger. "Here, you see?" He pointed to a tiny island just south-southwest of Rio de Janeiro. "Isla Grande. Finest climate in the world. Warm but not arid, two hundred sunny days in a year. Paradise on Earth."

   I looked at the island with some skepticism. I wasn't a fan of the heat-- even Boston was a little too warm for me in the summer-- and that aside, South America seemed to me a damn long haul for paradise. I'd travelled enough to find that paradise exists almost anywhere; building a summer home in Rio de Janeiro seemed to me more an act of vanity than anything else. "It sounds wonderful, Mr. Lowell," I said with a note of exasperation. "But again, we don't work in Brazil. I'm sure there are some fine cartographers down there that can help you out."

   Mr. Lowell snorted. "Yes, I'm sure they're just fine," he said, "but I am not employing any foreigners in the construction of this house; I would not feel comfortable doing so. My architects will be American, my engineers and laborers will be American, and they must have a proper American map. A proper Boston map. I will not take no for an answer."

   We stood in silence for a moment, him admiring the tiny blob of ink that represented his paradise, me watching him, wondering what kind of wealth a man must have to be driven to such frivolous and pointless spending. He turned abruptly.

   "You think I'm a fool, don't you?" he asked, his voice curious, not angry. I stared at him, trying to devise a suitable response. He spoke again before I succeeded. "You think I'm some rich fool who has run out of ways to spend his money, am I correct?" I suddenly noticed that beneath his bushy eyebrows, his small blue eyes were piercing and focused.

   "Mr. Lowell, I don't think you're a fool, it's only-"

   "It's only that you don't see the point in sending an American map-maker to Brazil to map a Brazilian island, yes?"

   I nodded.

   "Well, you and I have different goals, Mr. Bailey. Your goal is to get this fool out of your office and resume your normal work. Charting the forests, is it? A noble endeavor. My goal, however, is the speedy construction of this house. Isla Grande has never been mapped by an American firm. My crew will be American, working in American measurements and in the English language. My plans do not include hiring an interpreter simply to explain the map of the area. My plans certainly do not include any grievous errors that could arise from miscalculations of measurement. I see from your face that you consider these scenarios unlikely; I will remind you, however, that this project is being undertaken on the other side of the world, and I am not a man who takes a great many chances."

   He paused and scrutinized me for a moment before turning back to the map and aimlessly scanning the Canadian Rockies. "In any case," he continued, "this is all beside the point. The point, Mr. Bailey, is that you and I have different goals. Since I must have the island mapped, and my research indicates that yours is the best firm for the business, I must find some way of making my goals, your goals." He turned and gave me a wry smile. "Luckily, that is the express purpose of money."

   "I'm not sure you understand exactly how expensive and time-consuming this would be, Mr. Lowell. Measurements, drafting, travel expenses..."

   Lowell waved his hand at the mention of money as though trying to bat away a fly. "Money is no issue," he said, "You shall be flown to Rio de Janeiro. There is a Brazilian survey firm across the bay in Niteroi; you will be given funds with which to hire one of their cartographers for the purposes of translating the current map and assisting with your measurements. Upon your return, I will compensate your firm to the tune of two thousand dollars."

   I held up a hand. "Wait one moment, Mr. Lowell," I said, "I'm still not sure if the firm will sign on to this project, and even assuming they do, I don't expect they'll send me to do the measurements."

   "Your superiors are busy with their new contract," Mr. Lowell said, "and we older gentlemen don't relocate easily. I will insist that it is you who makes the trip; like I said, I leave little to chance, and I have done my homework on you as well."

   Before I could ask what he could have meant by that, he was on his way out the door. He turned in the doorway, reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out a silver case. He opened the case and extracted a business card, placing it carefully on a nearby table. "I will be in touch," he called as he walked out.

   I watched him go, and then picked up his card. It read ELLIOT TIBERIUS LOWELL, and nothing else.

   Lowell’s comments regarding the lethargy of old age proved prophetic; I saw nothing of my employers that day. I sat in silence for the rest of the day, hunched over the easel on my stool, carefully plotting guidelines, marking in the tiny concentric circles indicating the hills and ditches of a plot of land that human eyes would probably almost never see. I put Lowell’s card on my boss’s desk and tried to put it out of my own mind. As I worked, though, I would often lift my head and gaze wide-eyed around the office; I knew I would not find anything, was not even really looking for anything. My mind was telling me that something terribly serious was happening to me—good Lord, Brazil!—and though I attempted to force the thought away, my instinct was to remain aware of my surroundings, lest some other bourgeois tornado come reeling into the room and whisk me off to Dubai or Finland.

   I tried to put Lowell's offer out of my mind, not because I felt he was anything less than completely serious about the project, but because I felt for sure that my superiors would never sign on. The contract we had for the forests would not be completed for almost a year, longer if I were to take off on this ridiculous trip. Despite the man's assuredness regarding the power of money to change a person's goals, we were a small firm and this contract needed to be finished. Responsibilities at home outweighed ventures overseas.

   In point of fact, as the day went on, I became less excited about the possibility of the trip and more irritated by Lowell's presumptuous nature, his dogged determination that his money could gain him anything he desired. Aside from being a paid contract, what we were doing in Massachusetts was important work; our maps would be the standard for the entire state, for as long as they lasted. Having been responsible for what would essentially be a part of the nation's official conciousness-- it's not the world's greatest achievment, but it would be something, something real-- and here this man thinks that he can stroll into my office and throw me some coins, and all of that goes out the window? So I could make his 'proper American map' and he could build his ostentatious pleasure-house with his family's money? The notion began to disgust me.

   At one point my frustration overtook my professionalism and I made a sloppy line on the map, poorly measured, poorly drawn, off-projection so obviously that a child could see. I threw my pencil across the room in anger. It bounced off a far wall and rolled under a filing cabinet. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. The words Brazil, Isla Grande, Niteroi, Lowell had been clamoring through my brain all day and I felt that the sound of them was beginning to drive me mad. I snapped the lights off, locked the front door and stepped out into the night.