Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel in Five Voices Read online

  My father opened the trunk and extracted the leather case that held the gun and the funny goose decoys Joley and I used as hurdles when we played Obstacle Course. He scattered them through the field, and then he took a pile of dead stalks and created a little hutch for me, and one for himself. “You sit under there,” he told me. “Don’t breathe; don’t even think about getting up.”

  I squatted down like he did and watched the sun paint the sky as it slowly turned into Saturday. I counted my fingers and I took quiet, shallow breaths, as I’d been told. From time to time I stole a glance at my father, who rocked back and forth on his heels and absentmindedly stroked the barrel of his gun.

  After about an hour my legs hurt. I wanted to get up and run around, let free that dizzy feeling behind the eyes that comes when you don’t get enough sleep. But I knew better. I stayed perfectly still, even when I had to go to the bathroom.

  By the time the geese actually arrived (which according to my father, never took this long), the pressure on my bladder caused by squatting was unbearable. I waited patiently until the geese were feeding on the corn field, and then I cried out, “Daddy! I have to pee!”

  The geese flew into the air, deafening, a hundred wings beating like just one heart. I had never seen anything like it, this mass of grey wings blotting the sky like a cloud; I thought surely this was why he had wanted me to come hunting.

  But my father, startled by my cry, missed his opportunity at a good shot. He fired twice but nothing happened. He turned to me; he didn’t say a word, and I knew I was in trouble.

  I was allowed to go to the woods that edged the corn field to pee, and, amazed that my father hadn’t given me any toilet-paper substitute, I pulled up my underpants and overalls feeling dirty. I settled quietly under my cornstalk hutch, much better. My father said under his breath, “I could kill you.”

  We waited two more hours, hearing thunderous shots miles away, but did not see any more geese. “You blew it,” my father said, remarkably calm. “You have no idea what hunting is like.” We were about to leave when a flock of crows passed overhead. My father raised his gun and fired, and one black bird fluttered to the ground. It hopped around in circles; my father had shot off part of its wing.

  “Why did you do that, Daddy?” I whispered, watching the crow. I had thought the purpose of hunting was to eat the game. You couldn’t eat crow. My father picked up the bird and carried it farther away. Horrified, I watched him wrench the crow’s neck and toss it to the ground. When he came back, he was smiling. “You tell Mama about that and I’ll give you a good spanking, understand? Don’t tell your brother either. This is between me and my big girl, okay?” And he gently placed his shotgun, still smoking, in its leather case.

  5 JANE

  “Okay,” I tell Rebecca. “I know what we’re doing.” Adjusting my side mirror, I pull out of the development and onto the freeway that leads to the beach at La Jolla. Rebecca, sensing that we are in for a long drive, rolls down her window and hangs her feet out the window. A million times I have told her that it is not safe for her to do that, but then again I don’t even know if it is safe for her to be with me anymore, so I pretend I don’t see her. Rebecca turns off the radio, and we listen to the hum and grind of the old car’s symphony, the salt air singing across the front seat.

  By the time we reach the public beach, the sun is pushing scarlet against the underedge of a cloud, stretching it like a hammock. I park the car along the span of sidewalk that lines the beach, diagonally across from a late-afternoon volleyball game. Seven young men-I wouldn’t place any of them past twenty-arch and dive against the backdrop of the ocean. Rebecca is watching them, smiling.

  “I’ll be back,” I say, and when Rebecca offers to go with me, I tell her no. I walk away from the game, down the beach, feeling the sand seep into the lace holes of my tennis shoes. It grits cool between my toes and forms a second sole beneath my foot. Standing straight, I shade my eyes and wonder how far out you have to be to see Hawaii. Or for that matter, how many miles off the California coast you must be before you can see land.

  Oliver said once that at certain places south of San Diego you can see whales from the coast, without binoculars. When I asked him where they were going, he laughed. Where would you go? he said, but I was afraid to tell him. In time, I learned. I discovered that Alaska to Hawaii and Nova Scotia to Bermuda were the parallel paths of two humpback whale stocks. I learned that the West Coast whales and the East Coast whales did not cross paths.

  Where would you go?

  At thirty-five, I still refer to Massachusetts as home. I always have. I tell colleagues I’m from Massachusetts, although I have been living in California for fifteen years. I watch for the regional weather in the Northeast when I watch the national news. I am jealous of my brother, who roamed the whole world and by divine providence was allowed to settle back home.

  But then again, things always come easily to Joley.

  A seagull comes to a screeching hover above me. Batting its wings, it seems enormous, unnatural. Then it dives into the water and, having caught carrion, it surfaces and flies away. How amazing, I think, that it can move so effortlessly between air and sea and land.

  There was one summer when we were kids that my parents rented a house on Plum Island, on the north shore of Massachusetts. From the outside it seemed pregnant, a tiny turret on top that seemed to distend into a bulbous lower level. It was red and needed a paint job, and contained framed posters of tabby kittens and nautical trivia. Its icebox was a relic from the turn of the century, with a fan and a motor. Joley and I spent very little time in the house, being seven and eleven, respectively. We would be outside before breakfast and come in only when the night seemed to blend into the line of the ocean that we considered our backyard.

  Late in the summer, there were rumors of a hurricane, and like all the other kids on the beach we insisted on swimming in the tenfoot waves. Joley and I stood at the shore and watched columns of water rising like icons from the ocean. The waves taunted: Come here, come here, we wouldn’t hurt you. When we got up enough courage, Joley and I swam out beyond the waves and rode them in on our bellies, getting pounded into the beach so forcefully that handfuls of sand got trapped in the pockets of our bathing suits. At one point, Joley couldn’t seem to catch a wave. Floating several hundred yards out in the ocean, he tried and swam as hard as he could, but at seven he didn’t have the strength. He got tired quickly, and there I was, my feet buried by the undertow, watching monstrous swells form a fence that kept us apart.

  It was so quick that no one noticed, no other kids and no parents, but as soon as Joley began to cry, I dove under the water and frogkicked until I was well behind him; I burst to the surface, wrapped my arms around him and swam with all my power into the next wave. Joley swallowed some sand, landing face down on the rocky beach. Daddy came out to get us, asking what the hell were we doing out here in this weather. Joley and I dried off and watched the hurricane through the cross-taped windows of the cottage. The next day, which was bright and sunny, and every day after that, I did not go into the water. At least not past my chest, which is what I will only do now. My parents assumed it was the hurricane that had scared me, but that wasn’t it at all. I didn’t want to offer myself so easily to the entity which had almost taken away the only family member I loved.

  I inch towards the water, trying not to get wet, but my sneakers get soaked when I hold my wrists into the water. For July it is fairly cool, and it feels good where my skin is still burning. If I swam far out, over my head, would I soothe the part of me that hates? The part that hits?

  I cannot remember the first time it happened to me, but Joley can.

  Rebecca’s voice pulls me. “Mom,” she says. “Tell me what happened.”

  I would like to tell her everything, beginning at the very beginning, but there are some things that are better left unsaid. So I tell her about the shoe boxes and Oliver’s records, about the broken carton, about the shattered baleen
samples, the ruined files. I tell her that I hit her father, but I do not tell her what Oliver said to me.

  Rebecca’s face falls, and I can tell she is trying to decide whether or not to believe me. Then she smiles. “Is that all? I was expecting something really big.” She reaches into the sand, shyly, and winds a piece of dried seaweed around her fingers. “He deserved it.”

  “Rebecca, this is my problem, not yours-”

  “Well it’s true,” she insists.

  I can’t really disagree with her. “Anyway.”

  Rebecca sits on the sand and crosses her legs Indian-style. “Are you going to go back?”

  I sigh. How do you explain marriage to a fifteen-year-old? “You don’t jut pack up and run away, Rebecca. Your father and I have a commitment. Besides, I have a job.”

  “You’ll take me, won’t you?”

  I shake my head. “Rebecca.”

  “It’s obvious, Mom. You need space-” here Rebecca makes a sweeping gesture with her arms. “You need room to reconsider. And don’t worry about me. Everyone’s parents are doing it. Reconsidering. It’s the age of separation.”

  “That’s ludicrous. And I wouldn’t take you even if I were leaving. You’re his daughter too. Answer me this,” I say, looking hard at her. “What did your father ever do to you to deserve you leaving?”

  Rebecca picks up a rock, a perfect stone for skimming, and bounces it across the ocean six, no, seven times. “What did he ever do to deserve me staying?” She looks at me and jumps to her feet. “Let’s go now,” she says, “while we can still outsmart him. He’s a scientist and he tracks things for a living, so we need as much of a head start as we can get. We can go anywhere-anywhere!” Rebecca points towards the parking lot. “We only have a limited supply of money, so we’ll have to budget, and I can call up Mrs. Nulty at the pool and tell her I have mono or something, and you can call up the superintendent and tell him you caught mono from me. And I’m up for anything, as long as we drive. I have this thing about air travel . . .” She lets her voice trail off, giggling, and then she scrambles towards me, falling on her knees. “How does that sound, Mom?”

  “I want you to listen to me, and listen carefully. Do you understand what happened this afternoon? I . . . hit . . . your . . . father. I don’t know where that came from, or why I did it. I just snapped. I could do it again-”

  “No you won’t.”

  I begin to walk down the beach. “I don’t know what happened, Rebecca, but I got angry enough and they say these things happen over and over; they say it’s a cycle and it’s passed down, do you follow? What if I hit you by mistake?” The words cough out of my mouth like stones. “What if I hit my baby?”

  Rebecca throws her arms around me, burying her face in my chest. I can tell that she is crying too. Someone near the volleyball net shouts, “Yeah, man, that’s game!” and I draw her closer to me.

  “I could never be afraid of you,” Rebecca says so quietly that I think for a minute it may be the sea. “I feel safe with you.”

  I hold her face between my hands and I think: this time around, I am in a position to change things. Rebecca hugs me, her hands knotted into fists, and I do not have to question what she is grasping so tight: my daughter is holding our future.

  “I have no idea where to go,” I tell Rebecca. “But your uncle will.” Thinking about Joley it is easy to forget Oliver. My brother is the only person I have ever truly trusted with my life. We think each other’s ideas, we can finish each other’s sentences. And because he was there when this all began, he will be able to understand.

  Suddenly I break free from Rebecca and sprint down the beach, kicking sand up behind me, like I used to do with Joley. You can run but you can’t hide, I think. Oh yes, but I can try. I feel air catch in my lungs and I get a cramp in my side and this pain, this wonderful physical pain that I can place, reminds me that after all I am still alive.

  6 REBECCA August 2, 1990

  Sam, who has never in his life left Massachusetts, tells me about a Chinese ritual of death, minutes before I leave his apple orchard. We are sitting in the dark cellar of the Big House, on rusted milk cans from the early 1900s. We have adjusted to the heavy air, the white mice and the wet smell of apples that has been built into the foundation of this place: mortar mixed with cider to form sweet cement. Sam’s back is pressed against my back to help me sit up; I am still not feeling one hundred percent. When he breathes in, I can feel his heartbeat. It is the closest to him I’ve been since we arrived in Stow. I am beginning to understand my mother.

  There are thick beams in the cellar walls, and forgotten cane rockers and cracked canning jars. I can make out the jaws of the animal traps. Sam says, “In China, a person cannot be buried until an adequate number of people have paid their respects.” I do not doubt him, and I do not ask how he knows of this. With Sam, you take things for granted. He reads a lot. “Even tourists can go into the funeral parlor and bow to the widow of a dead man, and they count. It doesn’t matter if you knew the person who has died.”

  A small square of light sits in the center of the dirt floor. It comes from the only window in the cellar, which has been padlocked shut the entire time we’ve been here.

  “Meanwhile, outside the funeral parlor, relatives sit on the sidewalk and fold paper into the shapes of castles and cars and fine clothing. They fold it into jewelry and coins.”

  “Origami,” I say.

  “I guess. They make piles and piles of these, you know, things that the dead person didn’t have when he was alive, and then when they cremate the body they add all these paper possessions to the fire. The idea is that the person will have all these things when he gets to his next life.”

  Someone starts a tractor outside. I am amazed that the orchard is still business as usual with all that has happened. “Why are you telling me this?” I ask.

  “Because I can’t tell your mother.”

  I wonder if he expects me to tell her, then. I wonder if I can remember the way he told it. The exact words would mean so much to her.

  Sam stands abruptly and the imbalance knocks me off the milk can. He looks down at me on the floor but makes no effort to pick me up. He hands me the flannel shirt-Hadley’s-that I have let him hold for a few minutes. “I loved him too. He was my best friend,” Sam says. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

  At the mention of this, I begin to cry.

  Uncle Joley’s face appears in the square of the cellar window. He raps on the glass with such force I think the pane will shatter. I wipe my nose on Hadley’s beautiful blue shirt.

  Uncle Joley has been outside with my parents. He must have been the one to talk my mother into going back to California. No one else here has that much power over her, except maybe Sam, and he wouldn’t tell her to go.

  Sam picks me up in his arms. I am exhausted. I lean my head in the crook of his shoulder and try to clear my mind. Outside is too bright. I shade my eyes, partly because of this and partly because everyone who works at the orchard has come from the fields to see the spectacle, to see me.

  My father is the only one who is smiling. He touches my hair and opens the door of the shiny Lincoln Town Car. He is careful not to get too close to Sam; after all, he is not a stupid man. I look at my father briefly. “Hey, kiddo,” he says under his breath. I feel nothing.

  Sam stretches me on the back seat on top of old horsechair blankets-I recognize from the barn. These remind me of Hadley. He looked nothing like Sam-Hadley had choppy fair hair and pale brown eyes like the wet sands in Carolina. His lip dipped down a little too far in the middle. “These are yours now,” Sam says. He puts a hand to my forehead. “No fever,” he adds, real matter-of-fact. Then he puts his lips to my forehead like I know he’s seen my mother do. He pretends it is to check my temperature.

  When he closes the car door he cuts off the sound from outside. All I hear is my own breathing, still rasping. I crane my neck so that I can watch out the window.

  It is like a beautiful mime. Sa
m and my father stand at opposite sides of the stage. There is a backdrop of willow trees and a green John Deere tractor. My mother holds both of Uncle Joley’s hands. She is crying. Uncle Joley lifts her chin with his finger and then she puts her arms around his neck. My mother tries to smile, she really tries. Then Uncle Joley points somewhere I can’t see and claps my father on the back. He propels my father out of my range of vision. My father turns his head. He tries to catch a glimpse of my mother, whom he has left behind.

  Sam and my mother stand inches apart. They do not touch each other. I get the feeling that if they did, a blue spark would appear. Sam says something, and my mother looks towards the car. Even from this distance, in her eyes I can see myself.

  I turn away to give them privacy. Then Uncle Joley is at the window, rapping for me to roll it down. He reaches halfway into the back seat with his lanky arms and pulls me forward by the collar of my shirt. “You take care of her,” he says.

  When he says that, I start to see how lost I am. “I don’t know what to do,” I tell him. And I don’t. I don’t know the first thing about holding together a family, especially one that resembles an heirloom vase, shattered but glued back together for its beauty, and no one mentions that you can see the cracks as plain as day.

  “You know more than you think you do,” Uncle Joley says. “Why else would Hadley have fallen for a kid?” He smiles, and I know he is teasing. Still, he has admitted that Hadley did fall, that I did fall. Because of this simple thing I sink back against the seat. Now I am certain that I will finally sleep through a night.

  When the front doors open it sounds like the metal seal breakingon a new can of tennis balls. My mother and father slide into their seats simultaneously. On my father’s side of the car, Uncle Joley is giving directions. “Just take one-seventeen all the way down,” he says. “You’ll hit a highway.”