Eye of the Whale Read online

  “What do you want me to do?” Nilsen asked with a smile. Kazumi knew Nilsen was always happiest when he had something to do.

  Kazumi’s face was impassive. “We’re going to stop her from proving anything to anyone.” He saw three blows from the whales that Elizabeth had been studying. The Japanese did not yet have permission to whale in these waters—but the local whalermen did. “Don’t you think that Captain Teo would be interested to know about whales so close in?”

  FOUR

  5:20 A.M.

  Next day

  Sunday

  La Pompe, Bequia

  ELIZABETH WAS STARTLED AWAKE by the cacophony of rain on the corrugated metal roof. The air in the one-room house she rented from Milton’s family was thick and moist, and the blades of the wooden fan did little to cut through the heat. The blue walls were peeling, perspiring as everything did in the tropics. Only briefly, after a cold shower or the rare and welcome rain, did she ever get the layer of sweat off her skin.

  She could smell the pungent smoke of the green mosquito coil that had long burned itself out. There was something about being stalked by a blood-sucking creature that robbed sleep of its rest. Fragments of dreams still flashed in her mind like scattered snapshots. She blinked, and recalled an image of a birthday cake floating on the water with burned-out candles.

  She shook her father’s voice from her head. Dreams were not messengers from the spirit world. They were simply the detritus of the brain’s random firings during REM sleep. She was just feeling guilty about arriving back home the day before Frank’s birthday. Maybe he was right. She was always trying to push the limits, get more time with the whales, and make the big discovery that would validate her research. But the new song she had recorded the day before could be that discovery; the extra day really might have made all the difference. She promised herself she would make it up to Frank.

  Elizabeth sat up as her eyes focused on a mosquito that clung to the outside surface of the netting. It was still waiting, wanting, needing the blood protein in her veins that allowed it to lay its eggs. The numerous lenses of its compound eyes detected movement easily, so Elizabeth slowly placed one hand on either side of the fold where it rested. The mosquito did not move, perhaps exhausted by its all-night vigil, its maternal hunger for blood. The sting of her clapping hands was satisfying, but the mosquito was gone. She had missed and would have to leave the safety of the netting.

  As a biologist, she was supposed to love all creatures great and small, but the truth was she disliked most insects. She thought of the disgusting cockroaches that would scurry over the countertops and on her bed in her aunt’s apartment, when she was sent to live in New York at the age of seven. She shivered as she remembered the feeling of their wiggling antennae and their skittering flat bodies and hairy legs.

  “You’ll be better off with your aunt,” her father had said the night they scattered her mother’s ashes over the railing of the Golden Gate Bridge. It had been just the two of them. Elizabeth had tried to see below to where the racing current swept her mother’s remains out to sea, but the lights of the bridge did not shine down to the water’s surface. “The whales will watch over her now,” her father had said. After that, whales had begun to appear in her dreams, always carrying her mother back to her, but inevitably, when she awoke, her mother was still dead, and she would feel her heart break all over again.

  Elizabeth opened the slatted shutters, letting the cool trade winds blow in, and watched the downpour. She leaned out the window and gazed up at the dark clouds, feeling the drops splash on her face. Ever since she was a girl, she had loved rain. It reminded her of when she was young and still living in California, where water was scarce and always needed. It was easy to forget that for most of human history rain was the difference between life and death. Her father used to say that in rain was the secret of everything: Water runs down the rivers to the sea, then rises up to the clouds, and finally falls from the sky. All the things we do are the same. They come back to us just like rain. She watched the water sluice down Milton’s green metal roof and into the pipe where it was captured and stored for drinking. And then the miserly squall stopped as quickly as it had started and the clouds were gone.

  ELIZABETH’S LARGE BLUE DUFFEL BAG was packed. She was ready for the ferry to St. Vincent, then the flights to Barbados and Miami, and finally to San Francisco and home to Frank. Elizabeth remembered her wedding ring, hidden in a pocket of her bag. Her fingers were swollen from the humidity, and the ring resisted her efforts to put it back on. She sucked nervously on her finger, using her saliva as a lubricant, and wriggled the ring over her knuckle.

  Relieved, she flipped open her cell phone and glanced at the photo of Frank. He smiled at her, handsome and confident. She touched the wide, open face and the laugh lines around his cheeks and eyes. Frank’s forehead was broad and strong under short brown hair that was just beginning to recede. His cheeks and squared, dimpled chin had a day or two of a stubbly beard that made him look like he had just rolled out of bed—which was often the case, first as a medical student, then a resident, and now a fellow. His sparkling, mischievous, green-gray eyes stared at her.

  It was these eyes that had first captivated her across the crowd at, of all places, a funeral. Professor Maddings’s wife, Louisa, had died of ovarian cancer, and Elizabeth had left Bequia and the whale season early to go to the funeral. Death always demanded new life, and she was not the only woman who had met her future husband at the grave. Louisa had been one of Frank’s patients during his medical school training. It was rare to meet a doctor, especially a student, who cared so much about his patients, but Elizabeth soon discovered that Frank’s love was wild and fearless.

  Right outside the church, he invited her for dinner. Later that night, when the owner of the Italian restaurant locked the door behind them, it was as if their hours together had been minutes. It may have been his eyes that she noticed first, but it was his questions that made her fall in love with him. He wanted to know everything about her, about the whales, about her world. He seemed to drink her up with the bottle of red wine, and she knew in an intoxicated cocktail of love and desire that this was the man she would marry. There was no careful consideration, no deliberating of variables—just one headlong plunge. From that first night, they spent every possible minute together. They shared a passion for the ocean, and three months later, on the ferry to Nantucket Island, Frank got down on one bended, trembling knee.

  Elizabeth looked at the large diamond ring now. It was impressive but not very practical for field research. She and Frank had very little money: She was a graduate student at Woods Hole, and he was a medical student at Harvard. But they had not needed much. They spent most of their time in each other’s arms and left his apartment only when absolutely necessary.

  Elizabeth had tried to convince Frank to save money on an engagement ring and just get her one for the wedding, so they could take a longer honeymoon scuba diving in Belize. But on the advice of his father, Frank bought a two-carat princess-cut diamond. Frank’s father was a nice man, but from a different generation, when big rings, big weddings, and big families were signs of having made it in America. There were times when Elizabeth wondered if Frank wanted a wife from a different generation.

  Elizabeth plugged the audio cable of her DAT machine into the cheap boom box by her bed. The sound of Echo’s song filled the room. The night before, she had listened to the song over and over again, trying to memorize the phrases and individual units. Now she kept rewinding and listening to one particular pair of upward sweeping sounds: “w-OP-w-OP.”

  “What it mean?”

  Elizabeth looked up through the open window and was startled to see Milton’s dog, Catcher, his mouth open and pink tongue hanging out, panting. The mutt was part sheltie, with bright shining eyes and blond bushy ears that were cocked curiously at her. Elizabeth shook her head incredulously, knowing that the dog had not asked the question. Then, behind the shutter, Elizabeth sa
w Eldon, Milton’s eight-year-old son, and she sighed, relieved that she was not losing her mind.

  “IIt’s a social sound—a contact call,” Elizabeth explained. “The mother uses it to get her baby to come closer when it strays too far.” Elizabeth and other researchers had known about these social sounds for many years, but she was one of the first to try to correlate the sounds with the social behavior. Whales had one of the most diverse sound repertoires of any species, but while song had been studied for decades, the social sounds were just beginning to be deciphered. It was like discovering an entire alien language and trying to understand it. Even SETI—the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence—had expressed interest in her research.

  “Is a funny sound,” the boy said.

  “Whales make all sorts of sounds. Sometimes they sound like elephants trumpeting or dogs barking or birds chirping. Whales can sound like every animal you’ve ever heard.” She knew she was exaggerating, but only slightly. The whales echoed the whole chorus of the natural world.

  Elizabeth took out the tape, labeled it, and carefully packed it away with the others in her equipment bag. She put a fresh tape in the player and packed it in its yellow waterproof case. Like a professional photographer who always makes sure her camera is ready to shoot, Elizabeth always made sure she was ready to record. She felt a tinge of sadness. She wouldn’t be making more recordings until next January, when she would return for the beginning of the whale season.

  “Is a mama whale?” Milton’s son said at last, after thinking about Elizabeth’s explanation of a contact call.

  “Generally, it is the mothers who use the call, but in this case, it’s a male who’s singing. Only the boys sing.” It was strange to find these particular sounds, usually spoken between mother and child, in one of the songs, sung by a male.

  The wooden slatted front door burst open.

  “What is it?” Elizabeth asked as she stood up.

  Milton had his hands on his knees and was trying to catch his breath. He was clearly in a panic. “Teo gone to get the whale family.”

  FIVE

  6:35 A.M.

  ELIZABETH AND MILTON ran down the cracked concrete steps from the road, knowing that at any moment Teo could dig his killing lance into Echo, Sliver, or the baby. They looked down to make sure they didn’t miss a step and then at each landing looked up and out at the horizon, scanning for the whaleboat. With one hand Elizabeth clutched her binoculars, and with the other she clasped her yellow case to her side to stop it from swinging and to protect the hydrophone inside. She had grabbed both instinctively when Milton had shouted to her, but now she regretted having the case, since it was slowing her down. Still, she managed to stay just a step behind Milton. Her feet knew the stairs, having descended them so many times in the predawn dark.

  After stepping over a large rock in the path, Elizabeth was finally down at the beach. Half a dozen fishing boats, each painted a unique combination of bright colors, were hauled up on the sand. Milton and Elizabeth threw down the wooden skids, worn smooth and shiny by the hulls of countless boats. Each was the width of a forearm, and they laid them out like railroad ties.

  Even without help, they could push the small green-and-yellow boat into the shallow water. Elizabeth hoisted herself into the boat, her lungs still burning. She tried to calm her breathing and scanned the horizon with her binoculars.

  Milton released the pin and quickly lowered the Evinrude 35 into the water. He yanked on the starter cable. The engine sputtered but refused to turn over. Milton pulled on it again, but after the whine and complaint, nothing. Another six pulls, and Milton flipped back the engine cover. Elizabeth’s stomach was twisting as she looked back at him.

  “Is the damn wire.” Milton jiggled a loose wire and lowered the cover. He kissed the tips of his fingers and then touched them to a sticker of the Virgin Mary that was stuck strategically to the engine cover. He again primed the hand pump on the tubing from the red gas tank and then gave the starter cable one last pull. The engine sputtered to life.

  Milton gave the engine full throttle. Elizabeth’s unbraided hair was blowing behind her. They were soon cutting through the waves and banging down into the troughs as they sped past Semple Cay. Elizabeth’s heart was in her throat as she looked at the sterile white and gray whaling station. She shook from her mind the image of three carcasses—Echo, Sliver, and the baby—lying dead on the concrete ramp.

  “Can’t this boat go any faster? He’s not going to remember Sliver,” Elizabeth shouted back to Milton. She thought of the promise that Teo had made her many years ago. Echo was the first whale she had identified, and Sliver the first mother. She had made those two whales real for Teo as she pointed out the distinctive patterns on their tails. “Those are your whales, Liza,” Teo had said. “We won’t take them.” But what if Teo didn’t see the fluke pattern?

  “Me pray Teo don’t hurt the whale family,” Milton said.

  “It’s not a family, Milton!” Elizabeth said, not meaning to speak so forcefully. She was trying hard to control her own feelings. Besides, the discovery that Echo was escorting Sliver was not proof of anything.

  “Me know a proud papa when me see one,” Milton shot back, unconvinced.

  Elizabeth continued to scan the horizon without her binoculars, which were made useless by the rolling swell. Then she saw it. “There’s the boat!” she shouted. Her heart sank as she saw that the mast had been unshipped. “Faster, Milton! Can’t you make this goddamn boat go any faster?”

  “We fighting the wind and the waves, Liza.”

  As they approached the twenty-seven-foot double-ender whaleboat, Elizabeth could see the hunt that was unfolding. Teo and his crew of five whalemen had harpooned the baby humpback. They had given it about twenty feet of line and were using it to lure the mother, an old trick learned from the Yankee whalers. A mother will never leave her calf.

  Elizabeth knew the baby would be sending out its distress call as it strained against the rope. Elizabeth saw how small the blows were. It had to be confused and terrified.

  Then she saw the dorsal fin of the mother breaking the surface as she circled around her baby and the whaleboat. Elizabeth steadied herself against the gunwale.

  “Teo get an iron in the calf!” Milton shouted, now able to see the rope.

  Elizabeth saw Teo in the bow of the boat, his leg snug in the knee chock as he readied the second iron, preparing to strike the mother as soon as she got close enough. His burnished copper face shone in the sunlight, and the cinnamon-wood harpoon was raised above his head. Jutting out of the shaft was an iron shank as long as his arm, and at its tip was a barbed blade.

  “Stop!” Elizabeth cried, but her voice was swallowed by the whistling wind. She tried waving her arms, but all eyes were on the hunt. “Hurry, Milton, hurry,” she said as they banged over the swell and cut through the wind.

  If only Sliver would fluke up and Teo could recognize her. But she knew that Sliver wouldn’t sound, wouldn’t leave her baby. Then Sliver did something that Elizabeth had never seen a mother do before.

  Sliver’s two enormous white pectoral fins towered out of the water on either side of the calf, curving toward each other. There was no way to describe this but to say that she was embracing her baby. Sliver must have come underneath so her belly could support her newborn. To help the tired baby breathe, Elizabeth thought at first. She had seen another mother whale take her “babe in arms” and strand it on her vast chest, perhaps to calm the calf. But no. That wasn’t it.

  Sliver wasn’t willing to just help her baby die. As the mother whale began to roll away from the boat, Elizabeth realized she was trying to dislodge the harpoon. Sliver kept turning, the three-quarter-inch line wrapping around the mother and calf, yet the barb in the harpoon held fast. The mother was entangling herself, trapping herself as she tried to rescue her baby.

  As they approached, Elizabeth waved her arms again and shouted Teo’s name. But her voice was still lost in the wind. Then s
he covered her mouth in horror as Teo cocked his arm back.

  Teo pitched the harpoon into Sliver’s vulnerable left side just below her flipper. Elizabeth heard a cheer from the boat as the wound started to spray a four-foot jet of watery blood.

  “Oh, God, no, oh, God.”

  The mother had left herself vulnerable to the whalers, and they had struck her near her lung. “Teo!” Elizabeth shouted again, and this time she was close enough to be heard.

  Teo looked up at her.

  “It’s Sliver! Stop! It’s Sliver!”

  Teo’s face fell as he realized what he had just done, but there was no time to answer.

  Sliver continued rotating her giant body away from the whaleboat. The line was soon pulled taut, and the boat started to take on water.

  “Loose the line, man, loose the line,” Teo shouted, trying to save his boat and his crew. The men let the rope run out around the loggerhead.

  “Cut it!” Elizabeth shouted, but the leading oarsman did not reach for the hatchet. Not unless Captain Teo gave the order.

  Sliver continued rolling and quickly took up the slack. She and her baby were now tangled in eighty feet of rope. Elizabeth could see the baby pressed against Sliver’s belly, the rough ropes starting to cut into its delicate skin.

  “Get me closer,” Elizabeth shouted, hoping to put herself and the boat between the whales and the whalers.

  Milton gunned the engine, his eyes wide. He knew they were in danger, and he was nervous. The swell brought them within a few feet of the whale, and when he reversed the motor, it was too late.