Eye of the Whale (23 page)

Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” filled the portable.
Don’t give up on the music, Elizabeth.
It was Professor Maddings’s voice in her head. She smiled. It was as if he were with her in the room. She remembered what he had always told her:
You can’t understand the communication if you don’t understand the emotion.

It dawned on her that Professor Maddings was not just making some pop-psychology remark. He was proposing a grand theory of biology—making the claim that humans might understand the cries and chatter of other animals if they understood the emotion behind the utterance.

All animal communication was similar in many ways. Maddings delighted in showing his students how a mouse’s squeak, when dropped three octaves, sounded like a lion’s roar. The emotions were the same: fear, anger, concern, and—although no scientist would wager a career on attributing such a human emotion to an animal—perhaps even love.

To her, it seemed so patently obvious: It confirmed that everything humans do comes from the 2.5 billion years of animal life from which they evolved. But for many others, it was extremely controversial, if not impossible, because it contradicted cherished beliefs about human uniqueness and superiority. While living with her aunt in New York, she had attended Hebrew school and had been taught how Adam had been given dominion over the animals but was later banished from the Garden. A flaming sword now hovered above the gate to Eden, forever separating humans from their past and the animals they had once known.

Having finished his coffee and donut, the officer got up to leave. In the reflection on her laptop screen, Elizabeth saw the man put his hand in her backpack and pull out her cell phone.

“Excuse me, that’s my bag.”

“Oh…ah…sorry,” the officer said. “I thought this was Bob’s. He asked me to get him his cell phone.” Elizabeth noticed that this
officer was dressed in the same uniform as the one who had stopped them on the road.

“Are you with one of the enforcement agencies?”

“Ah, no,” the officer said, edging to the door. “Private security.”

“Who do you work for?”

“We’re contracted by the state.” He hurried out of the portable, the door banging behind him.

Elizabeth pulled her backpack next to her and looked over her shoulder nervously, wondering where Lieutenant James was. She would feel safer if he was around, but she also knew that she’d better have some answers for him when she saw him next. Elizabeth opened the door of the portable and saw hundreds of people standing and sitting on the levee road. Some had even brought beach chairs. It was the middle of the day on a Tuesday, but people were putting the rest of their lives on hold for the opportunity to get a glimpse of Apollo.

The phone rang. Connie had arrived with Teo, and they had brought lunch. Elizabeth told security to let them through.

She returned to her laptop and clicked on the audio file from the whale hunt. The recording of the harpooned mother and calf filled the portable along with Barber’s “Adagio,” which continued playing. The anguish of the mother’s calls wove together with the cello’s slow and methodical crescendo. Elizabeth now listened to the emotion, and there it was—in the mother’s calls, she could hear the baby tied against her chest, could hear the moment of the baby’s death, and the mother’s certain knowledge of her own. She heard the distress call change—felt the difference in her body. Her eyes grew wide with understanding.

FORTY-NINE

“I
T’s NOT A DISTRESS CALL
—it’s an alarm call!
A danger call!”
Elizabeth said, hardly able to control her excitement as Connie walked into the portable followed by Teo, a pizza box in his hand.

“What danger?” Teo asked.

“The whale sound—I know what it is.”

“You do?”

“You showed me,” said Elizabeth.

“Did I?” Teo stood up taller, like a proud rooster.

“You explained the two different distress calls the day you arrived. So tonight I went back to the tape I recorded as Sliver and her calf were dying.”

Teo put down the pizza box and looked up uncomfortably. “Liza, afore you go on, I need for you to know I not mean to kill your whales.”

“Kill Elizabeth’s whales?” Connie cut in.

“Teo’s a whaler on Bequia.” Elizabeth had purposefully neglected to mention this fact to Connie.

“You’re a
whaler?
”

“I pledged my life to it,” Teo said. He turned back to Elizabeth. “But I not know they your whales. I never strike them if I know they yours.”

“I can’t believe you’re a whaler—and I can’t believe you let him stay in your house,” Connie said.

“Teo’s a friend, whaler or not. Look, we can deal with this
later,” Elizabeth said firmly. “We have a whale to rescue, remember?”

“Sorry,”
Connie spat out.

Elizabeth turned to Teo. “After you harpooned the baby—”

“Harpooned the baby,”
Connie said, shaking her head.

Elizabeth was undaunted and continued, “The mother was vocalizing the sounds,
eeee—eeee—eeee.
A typical distress call, not unlike ones that have been recorded when whales are caught in other kinds of ropes. Do you remember you said you could hear the sadness? It’s like someone marooned on an island calling, “Heeeelp! Heeeelp!’ Even if you didn’t speak the language, you would know what that person was saying. But once the mother was also harpooned—I think once she knew her baby was dead and that she was dying—she changed the call to her escort.
EEh—EEh—EEh.
The call falls like
Watch out!
or
Run!
or
Go!
I don’t think this is a distress call at all. I think it’s a
danger
call.”

Elizabeth could see from Teo’s wide eyes that he understood immediately. “What’s the difference?” Connie asked with annoyance.

“A distress call is what an animal uses to get help,” Elizabeth said. “A danger call is what an animal uses to warn others.”

Teo’s discomfort with the idea was written in the wrinkled lines of his forehead. “You saying Sliver trying to save Echo?” Such concern, such feeling in an animal he thought of as food, obviously did not quite sit right. Elizabeth almost thought she saw empathy in his eyes.

“While there was hope, she was calling her escort to come save her and her calf. But when she knew there was no hope, she was telling him to save himself.”

“That explain why he disappear so quick,” Teo said, “not taking the boat down with him.” Elizabeth remembered the terrifying moment when the whale’s tail had battered the boat and Teo had grabbed the bomb gun.

“What does all this have to do with Apollo?” Connie asked, still spoiling for a fight.

“Apollo is repeating the danger call here in the slough. His vocalizations translate roughly as
Baby. Baby. Danger.”

“But what exactly is the danger?” Connie asked. Elizabeth didn’t know the answer to the question, but she did know that she’d need to find out soon if Apollo was going to live.

FIFTY

2:00
P.M.

E
LIZABETH WAS SITTING OUTSIDE
at an aluminum picnic table with Connie and Teo. The day had gotten warmer, and it felt good to be out of the stuffy portable. They were finishing their pizza and watching Apollo surface for a breath every four or five minutes. Elizabeth wondered if the frequency of Apollo’s breaths might indicate that his health was deteriorating.

A Coast Guard seaman opened the door of the portable. “Professor McKay, our base dispatcher says he’s got a whale inspector calling from a ship in the Pacific. His name is Ito? Says it’s urgent.”

Elizabeth and Connie looked at each other as they both stood up. They went into the portable and hit the speakerphone button.

“No one can know I call you…”

“Why
are
you calling me?”

“My son die to tell world about you, and you must tell world the truth.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Kill my son.” The man was speaking through tears. “They threaten me.”

“Why?”

“I inspector for
Ryukyu Maru.
I test all whale tissue. Chromium—very, very high.” Elizabeth was surprised. She knew that chromium was a chemical that had caused disease in a whole town when it was released into the groundwater by a California utility
some years back. “Also PCBs and phthalates. Lesions and tumors, many, many whales.”

Elizabeth thought of the calf that she’d seen in Bequia. “Have you told anyone about your findings?”

“I try. If anyone know I call…” The man’s voice lowered.

“Don’t worry,” Elizabeth said. “Can you send me any of your test results?”

“They want me destroy, but I not do it. They destroy my life, kill my son.” The man was weeping.

“I am so sorry. I will do what I can.”

“You must tell the world the truth.”

“Will you fax me the data?”

“Yes, I fax you.” He was whispering now. Elizabeth told him the fax number. “I go now. I go now.” His voice was soft and small, like a little boy’s. He hung up the phone.

Connie was crying again. It was true; people died. But those who were left behind were never the same. Elizabeth opened her arms to Connie, who hesitated and then accepted her embrace.

“I’m fine,” Connie said as she wept. “I’m fine.”

A few minutes later, the fax machine in the portable rang. Connie dried her eyes as they watched it spit out paper.

Elizabeth knew she needed to learn more about what was happening to the whales, but she suspected this was not just about the whales. She put her hand on her abdomen and wondered about the meaning of the whale’s song for the baby she was carrying.

“Connie, can you give me a ride?” Elizabeth said, taking the fax. “I need to research these chemicals and find out what the danger really is.”

FIFTY-ONE

2:30
P.M.
Davis

I
N THE BIOLOGICAL
and agricultural sciences section on the third floor of the library, Elizabeth hurried past the journals bound in blue, green, and black, with sober and dependably practical names like
Current Biology, Genes and Development, The Journal of Molecular Evolution, and American Naturalist.
These journals, however, were mostly historical. What she needed to know could be found only in the most current database.

Elizabeth saw a computer tucked privately in a corner and sat down. The department had already retracted her log-in privileges. It was surprisingly swift for a bureaucratic university. One would think that they had more important things to do than stop her from remotely accessing the library databases. Fortunately, at the library, she did not need a log-in ID. The whole electronic archives of the university were accessible through the black screen stirring to life in front of her.

Elizabeth was not sure what she was looking for, but she took out Ito’s fax and typed in one of the chemicals on the list. The computer brought up numerous articles, including one entitled “Is Pollution the AIDS of the Ocean? Fire Retardants and Immunological Disorders in Marine Life.”

She typed in the rest of the chemicals and read through dozens of articles, many of them about the effects on whales and other marine
mammals. She knew about the plastic island out in the Pacific that was the size of the state of Texas, but what she discovered was that plastics were now in practically every drop of ocean water. She remembered, as a girl, seeing the barges in New York taking the trash out to dump in the ocean, and here she was seeing what this relationship to the marine world had brought. As she researched disease and birth defects in animals, she kept coming across other articles on the possible links to human birth defects. One study had found high levels of birth defects among mothers in the Faroe Islands who had eaten whale meat before getting pregnant. The article and several others explained that a baby inherits the “toxic load” of the mother. In other words, even before it is born, the baby is contaminated with the toxins its mother has been exposed to by her environment.

Elizabeth’s cell phone rang.

“Are you home?” It was Frank.

“Almost.”

“Have you been with the whale?” Frank said. He was trying to be supportive.

“I’m at the library researching birth defects.”

“What in the world would possess you to do that?”

“I got a call today. Something is wrong with the whales and their offspring, and I think that human babies—”

“You should be resting.”

“You know more about this than I do. Can you help me?”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Frank, I need you.”

She listened anxiously for him to say something. “I’m just getting off. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

“D
O YOU STUDY
here often?” She heard the warm, familiar voice behind her, and her body responded instinctively.

“Only when it’s a matter of life and death,” Elizabeth said, turning around and looking into Frank’s chocolate-brown eyes.

“We have to hurr—”

Frank kissed her lips, gently, sweetly, lingering. “You look beautiful. Pregnancy really suits you.”

“I bet you say that to all of your wives,” Elizabeth replied, then moved quickly through the stacks, with Frank just a step behind.

“Where are we going? I thought you wanted me to help you research.”

“This is research. We need to talk to someone.” As they hustled down the stairs, Elizabeth handed him a printout from a professor’s website. It announced a lecture by a professor named Gladys Ginsburg.

The sliding glass doors opened, and a burst of cold air accosted them. “But this is tonight—in Berkeley,” Frank said.

“In forty minutes,” Elizabeth replied, heading to the car.

“Berkeley is over an hour away,” Frank protested.

“Not the way I drive.”

FIFTY-TWO