Eye of the Whale (11 page)

It was threatening rain, and the whole sky looked gray and gloomy. Teo thought about his grandfather, his mother’s father, who said it was the devil’s work to kill the leviathan. He could hear his voice like a ghost: “When me a young man out fishing, before the Norwegians set up their whaling station at Glover Island, me never afraid of nothing and never felt lonely, neither. Me talk to the whale, and he answer me with his gentle blow—a great sigh—like he understand me and all the trouble of the world. But after a time—only take them two years to fish them out—me sit in me boat with nothing living to be seen anywhere. Me get this lonely feeling in me belly, like the whole world empty. Me miss them whales.”

Something off of Mustique caught Teo’s eye. It was near where Sliver and the calf had been killed. A whale was breaching. It was no
doubt Echo, although from this distance, he couldn’t be sure. All he could see in the gathering dusk was the whale tearing itself from the water again and again.

“Father be proud of you. You caught the whale at last and is the big man.” Milton was standing on the porch. He hadn’t bothered to knock. Family rarely does.

Teo decided not to take offense at Milton’s reference to having gone three years without catching a whale. “Liza get off all right?”

“No thanks to you.”

“I didn’t know the whale was Liza’s,” Teo said. “I gon make it right.” He held up Elizabeth’s tape recorder.

“What you got that for?”

“She leave it in the whaleboat.”

“She gon need it,” Milton said nervously. They both knew that his boat now depended on it.

“I’m gonna get it to her. You have her address in California?”

Milton looked at him suspiciously. “You thinkin she have you just because her husband gon and left her.”

“Did he now?” Teo said, his eyebrows blown high on his forehead by the news. “How you know?”

“I call her bout my boat. Didn’t sound like sheself.”

Teo was already thinking of what tack to take. “Well, maybe is time for tell Liza the truth about what the whale saying.”

“What you know about the whale?”

“I’m a whaler, and
our
father was a whaler and his father before him.”

Milton scowled at this reference to their father’s giving Teo the whaleboat. Teo was an “inside” child and Milton an “outside” child—conceived on one of their father’s fishing trips.

“So what that have to do with Liza? I thought you tell her everything you know.”

“Not everything,” Teo said.

“She better off without you.” Milton no doubt knew that Teo’s desire to see Liza was hardly just an interest in her research.

“Don’t worry about your boat, Milton. Family watch out for its own. Is always a seat on the whaleboat for you.”

“I rather starve.”

“And your children?” Teo got up and went inside to the fridge. Milton followed him and watched as Teo took out a coffee can and removed the cover. There were rolls of ready cash in it, both colorful Eastern Caribbean dollars and green U.S. “You gonna need somethin til Liza can replace your boat.” He handed Milton a roll of Eastern Caribbean bills and put the U.S. in his pocket.

Milton looked down. “We ain’t need a handout,” he said, choking on his pride but taking the money.

“Is not a handout. Is payment for keeping an eye on things while I gone.”

FIFTEEN

6:00
P.M.

K
AZUMI TOOK THE CALL
from the lab technician in a private room where he would not be overheard. The test results confirmed exactly what they had found in the diseased calf.

“You have copies of all the lab work?”

“Yes, sir, everything.”

“Who else have you told?” Kazumi spoke calmly and smiled so that his voice would sound warm and encouraging. He knew that a great deal was at stake. Over 1.4 billion people relied on the oceans for their primary source of protein. Within fifty years, the edible fish in the sea would be largely gone due to overfishing and pollution, and this large percentage of the world’s population would not be able to just start eating more chicken or beef. Baleen whales, which feed mostly on microscopic krill, would survive at least for a while, and the market for whale meat would be enormous, but only if people believed that it was a safe source of animal protein.

“I tried to tell the researcher from the center,” Ito said.

After the calf’s autopsy, Kazumi had sent a memo to the researchers at the center, telling them that all testing beyond basic morphology should be suspended. Managing public perception was essential. Other food industries had been ruined by health concerns, and the whaling industry was struggling to get started again. All seafood had some level of toxicity, and Kazumi was confident that they could show the public there were safe levels of whale consumption, like the
tuna industry had already done. But if whales were showing up diseased and deformed, then it was only a small leap of the imagination for people to worry about what might happen to those who ate them.

“You did the right thing trying to tell him, and you did the right thing calling me,” Kazumi said. “I will make sure the proper authorities are alerted. Fax the tests to me and then shred the copies you have. This is very sensitive information, as you no doubt know, and I will need to handle it personally.”

“Yes, sir, I will do exactly as you say.”

The call was over, but Kazumi could not resist the temptation now that he knew who the lab technician was. “How is your son, Mr. Ito?”

“My son, sir?”

“He works for an anti-whaling group, does he not? We keep a close watch on all of our opponents.”

“We have not spoken in—”

“A son’s actions bring shame on the whole family, don’t they?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Maybe you should speak to him…more often.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I will wait by the fax machine for your transmission.”

SIXTEEN

5:00
P.M
.
Next day
Saturday
Davis

E
LIZABETH SAT
on the brown couch, flipping through a box of photos. Her long hair was tangled and messy and pulled to one side, bound by a black hair band. The television was on with the sound off. She had just over two weeks to complete the final half of her dissertation, though it was no longer her greatest concern. She still wanted answers, but her most pressing questions had nothing to do with the whales. In the box of photos, she searched for reasons, for clues, for mistakes that might be corrected.

Elizabeth had gone to see Frank to apologize again. She had driven up in front of Tom’s enormous plantation-style home in her run-down station wagon when she saw that young, perky nurse, Kim. Maybe Frank was leaving her for someone else after all; someone who would cook all of his mother’s recipes, fill his fridge, and have his children. Elizabeth’s foot instinctively hit the accelerator, and the car lurched forward quickly. She didn’t stop driving until she was home. Only then, in her driveway, did she let her head collapse against the steering wheel. But even as sorrow and regret surged through her body, no tears would come.

It had been four days since he had left, but it seemed as long as the entire six weeks that she was away. Elizabeth continued flipping
through the photos that were jumbled together in the box. She promised herself yet again that she would put these into orderly albums as soon as she had finished her degree. Elizabeth looked at a picture of herself on her fourth birthday, all pigtails and smiles. She was in her mother’s arms, and her father was by their side. Her mother had light brown curly hair and blue eyes and was smiling at the camera. Her father, with his long black ponytail, was stone-faced, as if he knew what was to come. Three years later her mother would be dead from metastatic breast cancer.

After her mother died, her father was never the same. Her parents had loved each other the way people from different worlds can, with an almost desperate love, like two lifeboats lashed together in a storm of disapproval. Back then her father was fishing up in Alaska much of the year, out at sea for months at a time. It was the only fishing he could get with the fish stocks the way they were. She begged him to take her with him, but he said a fishing boat was no place for a seven-year-old girl. There were no other pictures of her childhood.

The rest of the photos in the box were of her and Frank. She stopped and pulled one out. She had found it—evidence of their happiness.

Frank was dressed like a Roman soldier, and in his strong arms he was carrying Elizabeth, wearing a mermaid costume. Her curled black hair flowed around her low-cut top, and her body was wrapped in sequined green fabric that ended in a wide blue tail. It was the Halloween before their marriage—her arms were wrapped around his neck and their eyes were lost in each other’s. Perhaps it was the bright light of the flash, but their faces seemed to shine with love. She had never met anyone who loved being alive more than Frank.

Elizabeth continued flipping through the photos until she found one more piece of evidence. She swallowed, her throat dry, her mouth bitter with regret. The photo was from the last hospital
Christmas party. She wore a black dress with spaghetti straps, and Frank was wearing a blue suit, but it was the looks on their faces that interested her. They were proof positive of their estrangement. She held up the two photos. Like time-lapse photography, they revealed the death of a marriage. Both of their gazes looked vacant, distracted, and lonely. Frank had big bags under his eyes from exhaustion, and Elizabeth was staring away from the camera, clearly wanting to be somewhere else. There was space between their bodies, and his arm was behind her back not out of intimacy but out of formality.

The phone rang cheerfully. Elizabeth looked over as it continued to ring. The number “6” blinked red on her answering machine. She needed to call Professor Maddings back, but she could not bring herself to tell him that she was about to be kicked out of her program and that Frank had left her. Professor Maddings had been at their wedding.

Finally, the answering machine picked up. After a moment’s pause, she could hear the message through the tinny speaker: “Elizabeth, it’s Maddings again, calling you from Chile, where I’ve found the aggregation grounds of the blue whales. They are gathering by the dozens. I’m ringing you on a sat phone—must be costing the university a fortune…”

Her hand ached to pick up the phone.

“Elizabeth, you were right about the song change. It’s been recorded in half a dozen other locations around the globe. I mobilized a team of graduate students, and they’ve time-mapped its diffusion…the radiation dynamics are classic—it’s beautiful—like ripples of water in a pond. Elizabeth, what I’m trying to say, in my long-winded way, is that it all began with you in Bequia—”

Elizabeth lunged for the phone. Her heart was pounding. She got the handset to her mouth, her fingers trembling. “Professor Maddings.”

“Elizabeth.”
Maddings uttered her name with such warmth that
it was as if he were greeting his own daughter. Her whole body relaxed. “I knew that if I prattled on long enough, you might just pick up the phone and talk to me.” Elizabeth smiled. He always could see right through her. “We also witnessed bizarre gatherings and breaching behavior at the breeding grounds off Socorro. And I’ve heard from three colleagues that these kinds of behaviors are being observed in other populations around the world—Elizabeth, I can tell something’s wrong. You haven’t given up on your music, have you?”

“Wrong? Why do you think something is wrong?” Professor Maddings was always after her about her music.

“I haven’t heard you gasp with excitement once or interrupt me with your own even more brilliant ideas. So all I can think is that you have been neglecting your violin.” Professor Maddings had often told her that music would get her through the low points that accompany any career dependent on the vagaries of discovery.

“It wasn’t just my violin I was neglecting,” Elizabeth said, looking down at the photo.

“If I have to tell you again, I will—don’t give up on your music. It will lead you into the heart of whale song. Now tell me what is wrong.”

“Frank left.”

“Left? You? Good Lord, what has gotten into him? You are the best student I’ve ever had. Doesn’t he understand the first-class mind he’s dealing with?”

“I guess he wanted a wife with more than a mind.”

“What on earth does that deranged husband of yours—I know he’s a good man and only temporarily certifiable for leaving you—but what does he want?”

“A family.”

“Oh…” Professor Maddings said, realizing the evolutionary depth of the problem. “Well…we are no different than the rest of the animals in that desire. That’s a hard one, but don’t give up on the
whales. They need you. We need you…Oh dear, my battery’s running low, but I’ll be watching you and that wonderful wayward husband of yours. Just show him that you want him—that’s all we men, weak as we are, need to know—and then you can do what you please. Louisa always did. I’ll be calling back to hear the happy—”

Elizabeth listened for a few moments to the dead line, not wanting to hang up. After putting the phone down, she walked over to the closet. She hesitated before opening it and again as she stared at the black case. At last she pulled out the delicate violin with its dark brown belly and long black neck. She cradled it in her arms as she adjusted the tension on the bow and placed it under her chin. She drew the bow across and then stopped to tune each of the four strings.

The feeling of the instrument came back to her as she began to play Professor Maddings’s favorite piece, “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber. He had said it intensified all emotion—joy or sadness, grief or exultation. Often she and three other graduate students had played it with Professor Maddings in the middle of a particularly thorny bit of analysis. He would tell them to rest the left hemisphere of their brain and relax into their right, to go beyond reason, beyond thought and into feeling and understanding. These were rehearsals of what he called his “research quartet.”