Ahab's Wife (36 page)

F
OR THE NEXT
three days, I kept myself in Starbuck's tiny cell, or I went below and sat among the barrels. The crew brought down the newly filled casks, nodded to me as they went about their work, and I watched the bins filled to their tops and more barrels stored in the walking spaces between. I did not inquire of Kit. My assumption was that he was much the same; that he lay quietly manacled to Ahab's cabin's wall. I was sure that Ahab had food and drink delivered to Kit, just as he had to me.

I felt like a mole constantly belowdecks. Against the November chill, I wore a heap of coats and scarfs, and I never changed my clothes. When I went to the hold, I carried a candle, and sometimes I warmed my fingers on it. I could not question myself as to why I wanted to sequester myself with the cargo. It seemed the place for me. Had Kit really struck my face? I could not bring myself to think of it, to question its meaning or to contemplate the future.

Often I thought of Uncle Torch and his kindness to me, and of Aunt Agatha and of Cousin Frannie. I pictured myself and my mother at our quilts, the sound of buggy wheels and my father passing the window, leaving the yard. I thought of the night sounds in Kentucky, especially of owls—perhaps because of the dimness of the hold and because the creaking of the
Pequod
's timbers reminded me of those soft, persistent sounds.

And I remembered my father striking my face. One blow as Kit had done. Then twice—a blow for each cheek. Then thrice. The left cheek left swollen and bruised.

Once, when I made my way to Starbuck's cabin for supper, I noted that the corridor had been scrubbed. The next day, no new barrels were delivered below, and so I knew that trying out was complete and that cleaning had begun. In two nights, I found pinned to my door a note from Ahab, stating that this was the last night at sea and would I join him and the mates that evening at the captain's table. My hand went to my hair, which I knew was disheveled. Then I bethought me of my clothes, which were Kit's trousers I had stitched up for climbing aloft.

Upon entering Starbuck's tiny room, I found one of my dresses spread on the bunk, and on it a small round mirror framed in beechnut, and a tortoiseshell comb. On the chair had been set a china bowl and water pitcher for my toilet. I would not have known if this was Ahab's kindness or Starbuck's, except for the fact that I saw these items later in Mary Starbuck's home.

And so the mole emerged and tried her best to become a human being again. When I entered the room, Ahab rose, as did Starbuck and Stubb and Flask, the second and third mates. All were wearing clean clothes and were fresh-shaven and wetly combed.

“Pardon my tardiness,” I said demurely.

“To Mrs. Sparrow,” Ahab replied and raised his cup.

“It's but a rum
punch,
” Starbuck said, as though he questioned the propriety of serving me strong liquor.

“Thank you,” I said, and then tasted and appreciated the hot libation, composed of rum and molasses; a sliver of lemon cut thin as a window glass floated on top and bore a sprinkling of cinnamon powder.

The dinner itself was a meager one. The cook had toasted a slab of the usual ship's biscuit, and each of us had upon it a nice portion of pickled herring with shreds of onion, which was a great treat in terms of flavor, though the ratio of herring to onion could have been vastly increased in favor of the onion.

“What can you tell me of Nantucket?” I asked the company.

“A place to raise a turnip,” Mr. Stubb said, and they all laughed.

“How's that?” I asked.

“ 'Twas William Rawson's turnip,” he said. “Measured three feet two inches in circumference. And berries! None that size, but in abundance—huckleberry, elderberry, blackberry on the moor, cranberries in the bog.”

“There are entertainments,” Mr. Flask put in. He being a very short
man, his face was close to his plate. Nicknamed Little King Post by the crew, he commanded great respect. A king post was the hub of radiating spokes which buttressed from the inside the sides of whalers plying iceberg-laden waters. “There's a bowling alley at 'Sconset, at Bunker Hill on the South Side,” Flask continued politely. “And Peleg Macy's got a bathing establishment on South Wharf.”

“What is the barrel record?” Ahab asked Starbuck.

“That of Captain Frederic Arthur stood for a while. He and the
Swift
brought in over three thousand barrels of sperm. 'Twas in October 1825. Then he topped himself in 1830, on the
Sarah
with almost thirty-five hundred.”

“Did it bring a good price?” I asked, for I knew nothing of the money end of whaling.

“Valued at ninety-eight thousand dollars,” Flask said. He had finished his dinner first and sat clutching his knife in one hand and the fork in the other, as though those wands could conjure up more victuals for their employ.

“There are many churches,” Starbuck said.

“HELL!” It was Kit's voice roaring from behind the wall.

“The Unitarians,” Ahab answered as though deaf, “have added a tower tall as a mast—one hundred and nine feet.”

“With a Portugee bell,” Starbuck added.

“HELL!”

I took a gulp of air and tried to remove my ears and mind from my circumstance. Though I knew only a little of the Unitarians, I remembered that both my mother and my aunt had spoken well of them. Yes, it interested me that they prospered on Nantucket. “What other sects are on the island?” I asked.

Starbuck seemed the church authority and named the African Church on West York Street, the Congregationalists, and the Orthodox body of Quakers.

“There's more choices than that, Mrs. Sparrow,” Mr. Stubb put in. “All in the process of organizing—the Baptists are on Nantucket, the Episcopal, the Methodists with all their disruptions amongst the members. Somebody brought over an elephant and there's some that want to build a church for him!” Stubb laughed. “The Elephantists!” The second mate had a rare sense of humor.

“Nay, it's the Universalist Society,” Mr. Flask corrected.

“What is their belief?” I asked.

“That ye cannot be damned. It makes no difference if ye worship elephant Hindu gods or the crescent moon. There's no hell, they say, and ye can't go to it. Salvation is universal.”

“Hell,” Kit groaned, and I half rose to go to him.

“Mr. Flask,” Ahab addressed the third mate, “earn your name and give him something to soothe his mind till morning. Keep your seat, Mrs. Sparrow.”

The steward appeared and cleared away our dishes. I felt most miserable that I had partaken of company, had eaten and drunk and tried my best to make merry, while my husband lay in chains. But in my feeling guilty, an issue became clear to me. Amongst the barrels in the hold, my face burning from the blow, I had pondered what to think of Kit, of our marriage. When my father struck my face, I slammed shut the door to my heart. Let him knock, it would not be opened. But Kit was mad, suffered in his madness, and that fact lent him innocence, inspired my pity.

“Tonight, Captain Ahab,” I asked, “might I watch over my husband?”

“Ye'll need your strength tomorrow,” he said—not unkindly, but firmly. “Wait till we're ready to quit the ship. We'll have him up and ready. Then walk him off as if he were a normal man and go seek out your friend.”

I blushed with shame, for I knew neither Charlotte's last name nor where on the isle she was to be found. But perhaps Kit's mind would be clear. I would wait and hope. And if he struck me again—well, I would ponder again.

“Now,” Ahab announced, reaching into his coat and drawing out a cloth pouch. “We have five pieces of maple hard candy. Let us taste the mainland! I give you Vermont!” And he rolled out the candy onto the table the way one might roll dice. We all reached over for one of the amber lozenges and quietly tucked them in our mouths. At first, mine tasted of the cloth, but when that layer had melted off, pure sweetness filled my mouth, and I thought of maple trees all scarlet and gold in the fall, for we grew this tree in Kentucky, too.

“I do thank you, Captain Ahab, for your dinner, and for all your hospitality to Kit and me.”

“I wish ye well. Cover your head and hands and walk up on the deck with me. 'Tis the last night ye'll ever stroll the
Pequod
.”

Not having been in the open air for several days, I found Ahab's invitation agreeable. On deck, I was surprised by the cleanliness and tidiness of the ship, all pinked by the sunset. The tryworks had been dismantled and the carpenter's bench taken below, so there was a spaciousness to the boards. The ship moved along smartly, and while the wind was steady and chill, it had no meanness to it. I listened to the slapping of the water against the hull and found the sound familiar and reassuring.

“Ye have sailed the Pacific,” Ahab said, “with the
Sussex
.”

“Yes,” I said—not at all eager to go into detail.

“It's strange to me,” he said, “that though we are this moment completely encircled with water, and it is the same in the Pacific, yet the Pacific always seems to my senses larger, more ultimate. The mind infects the senses, I think, casts an aura over them.”

“And which sensation do you prefer? The little round or the greater one?”

“When I am one place, I remember the other and want it.”

“ 'Tis a character flaw,” I said and smiled.

“If I develop none worse than that, I will feel that God is pleased with me.”

His answer surprised me, for it contradicted his claim to having no religion. But I said nothing. The end of the pink light caught the ivory fittings of the
Pequod
. The belaying pins, which were in fact the teeth of sperm whale, made me somewhat uneasy, as though I stood not on a deck but upon a tongue inside a great flat jaw.

“When I sat in the hold of the ship, the ribs curving up around me, I thought of Jonah.”

“Many times I've felt the same.”

For perhaps a quarter of an hour, we simply stood silently at the rail. A few dim stars appeared against the sky that still held some sunlight up in their domain. Out of nowhere, I heard my voice again. It rose naturally to the surface, the way I have seen some fish rise from the depth.

“I associate you, Captain Ahab, with the color white,” I said.

“My hair almost gone to white; the bits of ivory about the
Pequod
.”

“You seem the opposite of my father, who always wore black, had black hair, carried a black buggy whip whenever he drove out of the yard.”

“Well, the
Pequod
always sails under white canvas.”

“Do you know of any instance in the whalery when that is not true?” I asked.

“Not in the whalery, but it is an ancient sign. When the Greeks came home in the wooden walls, if the news be bad, they sailed under black. And in medieval times as well.”

I remembered that Starbuck had said Ahab was a learned man, though Starbuck's own reading was confined to the Bible.

“But there is a way that you and my father are much alike.”

“Aye?”

“You both have a wild eye, a fiery eye. I saw yours when you set out to hunt the whale.”

“And what did your father pursue?”

“God.”

“I could chase him, too.”

Ahab's eye roamed the newly starry sky, regarded the wind in the sails, then he bent his eye to the plowing prow of the ship.

“But,” Ahab added, “where is he?”

I was surprised at the pain in his question. “Are you, then, religious after all?” I felt disappointed. He had seemed a fellow skeptic, like Giles, like Kit.

“Religion and God usually have very little to do with each other,” he said. “What do you think of the wind, Mrs. Sparrow? What Arctic news does it blow to Nantucket for the season?”

“What does the word mean, ‘Nantucket'?”

“It's the Indians' name: the faraway land, for its distance from the mainland. And Kentucky—its meaning?”

“Also an Indian word—the dark and bloody land.”

“Beware the treachery of words, Mrs. Sparrow. They mean one thing to one person and the opposite to another. They are like all conventional, land-born habits. Words seem to be well-woven baskets ready to hold your meaning, but they betray you with rotted corners and splintered stays.”

“You mistrust all that is of the land.”

“It pretends to permanence, but even mountains wear away, and the river finds a new bed, deserting the old though it may have served a millennium. So it is with humans.”

“I think it is possible to be at home,” I said. “I have been there.”

“The sea promises nothing, and so it is more to be trusted.”

The night had grown cold, and I decided to terminate my time outside in the wind, but first taking courtesy leave of Captain Ahab, for I knew he would be busy the next day.

He paid no attention to my heartfelt gratitude. Perhaps I expressed it too conventionally.

“The sea,” he finished his comparison, “bears all her changeability on her face, and so is more kind.”

“In her cruelty,” I added as I turned away.

The glitter of the stars discomforted me.

 

O
F ALL THE BERTHS
I'd had on ships, I preferred Starbuck's. It had all the comforts of a coffin. The bed itself was wooden, only a bit wider than myself, but clean. There was an aisle to stand in which was the width of the bed. In it, beside the head of the bed, sat the one small chair, a convenient place to put one's clothes or to set a candle. Beside the door was a tiny writing shelf that could be folded down and suspended on one side by a small-linked chain, for his writing in the ship's log, and the chair could be pulled up under the shelf. Where to put the clothes, if one turned scribe? Well, there were three pegs along the wall, and a chest slipped under the bed. In the ceiling was set a green-glass bull's-eye for funneling down the daylight. A sort of net was fastened against the wall alongside the bed. There Starbuck kept his Bible, and in its leaves there were a few dried grasses, some violets, and a pencil sketch of a woman who was certainly Mary.