The Whiteness of the Whale: A Novel (25 page)

“It is.”

“Then we need to refocus. Mick, do you still have their signals?”

“Lost ’em some time ago. But I have a pretty good idea where we should head to reacquire.”

“Captain?” Madsen eyed Perrault. Letting the question hang.

Instead of answering, the Frenchman unfolded from his seat and strolled toward the companionway. He paused there, wiping his face on a paper napkin, which he tucked into a pocket. Then swung up the ladderway and disappeared into the opal light revealed at the top for a moment like the snap of a shutter, before cutting off again.

“Our skipper hath spoken,” Bodine said. “Or not.”

“I’ll have a word with him.” Madsen threw down his napkin.

Sara hadn’t cooked, so the rule was she had to either clear or wash up. “Can you give me a hand with this?” she asked Kimura. He got up quickly, grabbed plates, and followed her into the galley. “Do you wash dishes?”

“Why would you think I do not wash dishes?”

“I’ve heard about Japanese men.”

He seized a sponge. “I can wash dishes with the best. If you will stay and talk to me.”

She leaned back, folding her arms. If she turned her head she could see out the portlight. Fog hugged a black sea.
Anemone
rose and fell with a long croon, only an occasional clank or groan attesting that they were at sea at all and not anchored in some sheltered cove. It didn’t look as if they were making even the eight knots they’d averaged on her watch.

She shivered, a random chill rippling up her spinal cord, and turned her attention back within the galley. Kimura was swilling out the pasta pot, banging metal, making a big production, the way some men seemed to feel they had to when doing what they considered women’s work. “So, you decided to stay with us.”

“You rescued me.”

“But you didn’t have to stay.”

He worked for a time, then said, “That Tehiyah Dorée. She is a very nice lady.”

She started. “You didn’t stay because of—”

“No. No! But she’s inspiring. Very warm. She really cares for the natural—for the natural world. You can see that. She is so famous. But she gives that all up to come out here.” He swayed, smiling as he scrubbed. “You are so lucky, to be her friend.”

She almost had to pinch her lips with her fingers. “I’m sure you can be her friend too, Hideyashi,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound
too
sarcastic. “It’s very easy. Just do exactly what she wants, as soon as she wants it.”

It went right past him. “You, for example, you are researching. Yes? Your theory of spindle neuron deficiency triggering rogue behavior. Very interesting.” He glanced at her and gave a strange intaking hiss. “But I get the feeling you are not really interested in whales. Not as the others are.”

“Well, you’re wrong there, Hideyashi.”

“They called me Hy in my English classes.”

“Oh yeah? All right … Hy. I admit I wasn’t much of an activist when I signed on. And maybe I’m still not as … dyed-in-the-wool as Mick or Lars. Or Eddi. But I’m not about to say, I support killing whales for food. Don’t we have enough pigs and cattle?”

“Well, I agree,” Kimura said.

“And just for the record, I didn’t actually say, spindle—Von Economo—neuron
deficiency
. My hypothesis is a bit more subtle.”

He rinsed, shuddering. She understood; the water in the tanks was icy cold, only a few degrees above freezing. There wasn’t electricity to heat it, and sometimes she wondered why it didn’t freeze solid. “What is your hypothesis?”

“Well, it involves the role of these neurons in slowing down the cascading of transductions in evaluating threats. I think you used the phrase short-circuiting, when we talked before.”

Kimura squinted, a bowl motionless in his hands. “
So desu ka.
That would occur in what I am calling the 4, K area.”

She frowned. “I’m not familiar with that localization nomenclature.”

“I invented it. Usually, when we discuss neurological function, we talk about human structure. We say, ‘in the limbic system’ or ‘in Broca’s area.’ But when we talk about whales, that may lead to false conclusions. Cetacean brains display many features associated with sophisticated cognition. But if it’s not some organic lesion or deficiency, what you are describing is also involving what we call the developmental HPA axis—hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal.”

“Well, I’m not as keyed to structure as you are. I’m the behaviorist, remember?”

“Maybe if you put the two of us together, we would have one neuroethologist,” Kimura said.

“Very funny.”

“Well, I know whales. You know primates. All we would need is someone who knew elephants and we would—I think you say, corner the market?”

“You really do speak excellent English, Hy. Want to hand me that?”

“What?”

“That bowl you’re waving around.”

He looked at it, surprised, and handed it over to be dried. Reached for another. “So, expand on your hypothesis.”

“Well, basically, that either physical or infectious trauma, or possibly social disruption, impairs the regulation function of these neurons. You say they’re short-circuited; I say, they fail to regulate. Either way, the result’s massive social dysfunction, and unexplained, sudden violent behavior.”

She glanced away, all at once feeling her face heat. As if she were standing inches from a red-hot metal surface.
Gleaming teeth. White bone
. A sense of imminent doom speeded her breathing. Her heart throbbed oddly, and she had to take a deep breath. Another. The bowl clattered as she forced it into its rack.

“You are disturbed. Something I said?”

“No. No, something that happened to me.”

She glanced behind them. The salon was empty. Snoring came from behind one of the curtains, she wasn’t sure whose. Still, she lowered her voice. “One of my chimpanzees, at Brown. He went—out of control.”

“Wait a moment.” His brow furrowed. “I read of this event. A young woman. You?”

“No—unfortunately.” She kept forcing herself to breathe. The words were hard to say. She had to fight to make her mouth articulate them. “A lab assistant. She lost most of her face, and her … sight.”

A hand gripped her shoulder. “This is most unfortunate. But you could not be to blame.”

She covered her face. Ashamed of the tears, yet unable to stop them. “She was new to the project. I should have been the one he turned on.”

“What happened to the subject?”

“I told you. She—”

“I am sorry. I mean the animal. What happened to it?”

“Shot by a security guard.”

“Was there an examination? An autopsy?”

“I tried to arrange one. The college said no. On the lawyers’ advice. They said if I accepted responsibility, the school would pay a settlement. If I didn’t, there’d be a trial. I don’t have that kind of money. If it went to a civil trial, and I lost, there’d be nothing for the woman who was injured.” She shrugged. “I said it was my fault, for not putting in enough safeguards, giving her enough training.”

He squeezed her arm again. She sniffled, hating herself for crying, and wiped her face with a paper towel. Finally he said, “So that is why you are interested in the rogue phenomenon.”

“Well. Yes.” She blew her nose. Barked a short laugh. “Though there was another one, a very famous one, early in our family’s history.”

“Oh yes,” he said. “Pollard.”

“You know?”

“I put it together. You said you were from Nantucket. I have read the literature. About Captain George Pollard, from Nantucket, and how his ship was attacked by a sperm whale.” He leaned to look out the portlight. “I thought that was why you were out here.”

“Not quite so direct a relationship. But it did cross my mind, when I was invited on this expedition.”

“Your great-grandfather?”

“Oh, much further back than that. And I don’t know if old George was actually a direct ancestor. But there weren’t that many families on the island. We’re all related, the Starbucks and the Coffins and the Folgers and the Pollards. And then there were the—the circumstances of what happened after. After his ship sank, I mean.”

“That I did not read of. What happened?”

She looked away, both ashamed and astonished that such ancient history could still affect her. “Well. After the
Essex
went down—that was the ship the whale attacked—he and his crew were adrift in the Pacific for months. This was in 1820. There weren’t that many places they could land. It’s a long story. Some say one thing, some another. But eventually they ran out of food. So they picked straws, and Captain Pollard’s young cousin lost.”

“And then the book was written.”

“That’s it, though they say Melville only met Captain Pollard after it was published.”

“That was a long time ago, Sara. No need to conceal it.”

“I didn’t
conceal
it,” she flared, then caught herself. “Well, I don’t exactly tell everyone about it either.”

“I understand, believe me. We all have not so happy things in our family history.” He squinted again, not at her, and she got the impression he too was thinking of something personal and specific. But he didn’t share it.

They finished the washing up and she made coffee and they moved out to the salon, where Madsen, smelling the fresh brew, slid back his curtain and joined them.

They sat for a while around the table before the Dane said, out of the blue, “So, you saw whaling up close.”

“All too close—closely—I am afraid. It is not pretty, the business.” He waved toward the galley, for what reason Sara didn’t quite see. “And it
is
a business. Each whale, twenty million yen.”

“About a quarter million dollars, I heard,” Madsen said.

“That is about the same. As there are fewer whales, each is worth more.” Kimura snickered. “Like tigers to Chinese. A very impure business.”

“An interesting word,” Lars said. “I’d use ‘cruel,’ or maybe ‘bloody.’”

“Maybe ‘corrupt’ is the word I want. ‘Impure’ I think has the religious meaning?”

They nodded, Sara thinking how much better his command of the language was when he was discussing neurobiology. “Few Japanese eat whale meat. The ruling party gives subsidies. Gives children whale meat in school. But the fleet is under pressure, too. The commanders of the kill ships, they are driven men. For them, it is a share system. If they do not kill enough, they are not paid; their men lose money too. That is why they hate you.”

“Hate us? Good,” Madsen said. “Do you know Captain Nakame?”

Hideyashi tucked his chin, surprised. “Of course. He is captain of
Maru Number 3
. The ship they sent me to, after they wrecked my lab.”

“He’s the one who rammed our boat season before last.”

“I heard the crew talking of it. You call him ‘Captain Crunch.’ Is that not so?”

Madsen grinned. “Yeah. We do.” He sobered. “Slavery was profitable once, too. But whaling … we’ve got to stop it. Some whales—sperms, for example—have the largest brains that have ever existed on earth. The other groups just want to stop the hunting. But the Cetacean Protection League believes whales and certain other species—great apes, chimpanzees—should have some special status. Maybe like corporations—nonhuman persons, with rights and legal representation. Until they do, even if we stop harpooning them, we’ll keep destroying their environment. The end will be slower, but the same.”

Sara was pondering this when Dorée suddenly appeared, hanging upside down in the companionway. “Come up, come up!” she yelled. Her voice was so high it broke. They stopped talking instantly, and set their mugs aside.

*   *   *

The first thing she noticed was that the wind had died away altogether. For the first time, as far as she could recall, since they’d left Ushuaia. Its absence seemed unnatural. The second was that the sky was, not exactly clear, but brighter than it had been in days. Now and then the sun was even visible, as if through a worn wrapping of old gauze, glowing a cold, strange saffron, as if it had been replaced by some alien star.

Dorée was pointing ahead, to where that sallow light glimmered on a distorted city of pinnacles and towers, top-heavy bulging minarets with flattened tops. With the naked eye they seemed real, but when Sara put binoculars to her eyes they dissolved into wavering blurs.
Anemone
slid silently over a soundless sea, slow, languorous, and somehow oppressive, rippling its gently heaving yet dully mirrorlike surface in her passing. Sara shivered, gazing at the distant bergs that glittered and shone sapphire and aquamarine, topaz and carnelian.

“Over there,” Tehiyah cried in a queer hushed voice. The helm creaked as she put the wheel over, and
Anemone
, silently obedient as some mystically animated conveyance, imperceptibly marched her bow around the horizon.

Toward two tabular bergs whose outstretched arms sheltered an embayment, a patch of open water that, unlike the mirror around the boat, seethed and glittered in the ominous light of that never-setting sun. Bits of berg gleamed redly between their prow and the distant sparkle.
Anemone
passed one at the length of a bow-shot. Penguins stood like patient commuters on a platform, watching them ghost past. The sail shivered as if taking a chill, fell limp, swelled again. She couldn’t feel any wind, but it was still breathing them onward, as if the boat slid on slightly undulating, frictionless ice. Like skating on the frozen cranberry bogs, in the Nantucket winter … Perrault stood with one arm wrapped around the forestay, binoculars in the other hand. The rest came up from below behind her, and the forward hatch slid open to the seal-like hump of Bodine’s head. Yet no one spoke; as if the distant city, the play and glitter of carmine light, were a Tír na nÓg, beyond any map, not to be prattled of, or its spell would be shattered.

“How lovely,” Dorée breathed.

“If you’ll move a little to the left,” Eddi suggested.

The actress flinched and glanced back, as if, Sara thought, she’d forgotten for once cameras existed. She arched her spine and pasted on a smile. “How’s this?”

“Great.”

“Deep in the Antarctic, we relax during a rare break in the heavy weather. When it’s calm, the sea is incredibly beautiful. I can look deep down into it, and watch our shadow moving with us. Ahead, over my shoulder, you can see two large tabular icebergs. Is that something moving, over there? Captain?”