The Crossings

by Deborah Larsen

  In high school, she had made “retreats,” based on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius and there she had learned to concentrate, to apply her senses to the mysteries of the faith. She had been present at the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity. She had jumped when John the Baptist leapt in the womb, had smelled the hay and the musk in the stable, had heard and felt the wind in the upper rooms at Pentecost. There was nothing mystical about it. She had simply closed her eyes and learned to concentrate with all her might and all her senses. And now, she felt the wind as the Beagle sailed away from Tenerife, headed toward St. Jago.

  Charles had read that this next stop would be disappointing because St. Jago was a “miserable” place. He regretted that his “first landing in a Tropical country” would not be one of “beauty.”

  He was wrong. The unexpected would occur. Another reversal.

  St. Jago proved a paradise for him; coconut trees, bananas, black rocks; turbaned young girls in white linen who sang wild songs; flowers, coffee plants, sea-slugs, and—dust. He collected five packets of falling, fine dust that were later found to contain sixty-seven different organic forms. And there were white strata in the face of a sea cliff that set him thinking about a book he could write on geology.

  A book. He could write a book.

  Ah.

  On St. Jago, too, he saw a fabled baobob tree with its enormous girth. Together with the Beagle’s surgeon, he shot at the single flower on the tree and brought it down as a specimen.

  Finally, he delighted in inspecting cuttle-fish or octopi. They changed color or “blushed”; they glowed in the dark. They darted; they hid; they attached themselves to crevices.

  Then something else happened. To Sophie. She read his description of the octopi and their blushings and was herself as galvanized as if someone had scratched her own skin with a needle.

  His written accounts of course revealed him as the exquisite observer that everyone at Cambridge thought he was. He must have been a note-taker par excellence.

  But she had not realized what an astonishing writer Charles Darwin was. It looked to Sophie as if he was a master of syntax. His sentences were balanced, varied. He knew how to place the commas, the semicolons, the colons. He was also wonderfully adept with phrases—with their nuances, their qualifiers. And then there was the diction: he varied monosyllables and polysyllables. Here was the Latinate influence; there, the Anglo-Saxon.

  She admired his clarity. She admired his similes and metaphors, his imagery: his arrows, his clouds, his blushes. And, then, the “colours.”

  He was a scientist but he was also an empathetic and imaginative writer. She loved the man and now she loved the writing. Polonius, in Hamlet, need not have advised Sophie to grapple Darwin to her soul with “hoops of steel.” He was her friend. She was already bound to him.

  What if he had been my father? Well, in a way, he is proving to be so.

  Of course, she wanted to follow his thinking, his writing. No matter where it led. She realized she was going to struggle with her own faith, if he concluded that there was no God. If he concluded that God was redundant.

  Wait a minute. We’re not there yet, Sophia. So be it. Get on with it.

  She had paused over the colors in the octopus passage. French grey. Hyacinth red. Brownish purple. Yellowish green.

  “Polly, I bet I know how he came up with that ‘French grey.’ French grey. He has some footnotes in that passage and one of them is to a book on colors that was surely in the Beagle’s library. French grey in that book is ‘grayish white, with a slight tinge of black and carmine red.’ It’s also the color of the ‘breast of the pied wag tail.’”

  “Whereas,” said Polly, “that may be, but I myself would like to bite that French-grey, yellow-spotted octopus head with my English-grey teeth until those colored fluids ooze out. I could catch it because it can’t fly like the pied wag tail.”

  Charles had thought that St. Jago, that miserable place, would yield nothing. He had missed the many-splendored thing: Tenerife. But St. Jago became the many-splendored thing.

  She had had so many reversals in her own life that it was beginning to look like a novel. Some kind of an odd plot. None of it had happened easily; it had taken lots of tacking—the apparently zig-zag tacking that ships often had to do.

  “Polly, there is something called tacking and sometimes that merely looks like a reversal.”

  Polly licked her right paw and then her left. “Really,” she said.

  And after a moment, with less irony, she continued, “Whereas, I have tacked almost every day of my life to get to the ultima Thule of such as a rabbit.” And then she said, “Beagles. I cannot the sight of them. Much less the smell. And that stupid droop of the ear and the same droop of the other ear.”

  At St. Jago, on January 22nd, Charles wrote in his diary: “— In the evening I strolled about Quail Island & caught myself thinking of England and its politicks. — It is my belief that the word reform has not passed the lips of any man on board since we left Madeira. — So absorbing is the interest of a new country.”

  “So absorbing is the interest” of a Land Apart, Sophie thought. She thought of sending this passage to Ted, who was actually writing e-mails asking what had happened to her political sense.

  “Sophia, what in God’s name are you doing besides counting caterpillar poop, and sniffing javelinas and cataloging varieties of prickly pear. Have you forgotten that there’s a person or two in this country talking about immigration, about water issues, and a few other insignificant things like that. Do you even know what’s going on down there within your own state?

  Pretty soon you are going to turn into the captain of saguaro-fruit parties (if not huckleberry parties). Don’t they use long-handled instruments to reach the fruit? You’re going to start looking like Don Quixote with a sort of lance in your hands, tilting at saguaros. Or you’ll be looking like Darwin. You are beginning to create yourself as the woman who joined the Beagle expedition. Is that what you want your life to be?”

  She did not write back. She thought about it. She did not know what to say.

  That Mother of a Snake

  When Sophie looked out her side window, there was Stella whom she had not seen for weeks. She looked like Daisy Mae: she wore cut-off jeans, a peasant blouse, silver hoop-earrings, and—hunting boots? Sophie saw that Stella’s upper arms were muscled.

  She was carrying a rake and a long-handled edger and making her way down the riprap that bordered their properties. An edger? Why did people in the desert have edgers?

  Then she saw what Stella was after. There at the base of the riprap was the first rattlesnake Sophie had ever seen in the wild. It must have been five or so feet long. She went for the binoculars she had recently purchased and when she looked through them at the snake, she jumped back. Though she was still in the house, it was so close and so monstrous that it seemed there was no barrier between her and it.

  She could see the triangular head and she thought she could see one of the heat-sensing pits between the snake’s eye and its nostril. The diamonds were a light gray, dark-edged; now she could see the banded black-and-white tail above the rattles. Was it a Western Diamondback or a Mojave? She was betting on the former because the black stripes and the white stripes looked roughly equal in width.

  She had a strange reaction. She thought the rattlesnake a thing of beauty.

  All of a sudden she was outside. By this time Stella had pinned the snake with the rake she had in her left hand.

  “Stand back, Sophie,” she said. “You may not want to see what I’m up to be doin’ here.” She raised the long-handled edger she held in her right hand. “Good thing Jack’s not home.”

  Sophie stood still. She knew better than to say anything.

  With one swift movement, Stella struck the pinned rattlesnake’s neck with the edger, and severed its head. “T
here,” she said. The rattlesnake body twitched; then it twitched again.

  “This guy is the first I’ve seen this season. In case you are wondering, what I’ve done is not illegal,” Stella said. “In case you think it is. Besides, if you think this is bad…”

  Sophie looked at the head. “I thought your husband said he wouldn’t allow you to kill snakes.”

  Stella stared at Sophie. “My husband?” She snorted; then she laughed but no sound came out; her chest heaved. “Girl, I’m not married. I had enough of that in my life. Stuff—I have real stuff to do, lots of stuff. I’m right busy. I don’t have time any more to fool with marriage.”

  “I thought you were married to Jack.”

  Her chest heaved again. “Now that is just plain creepy. The thought of being married to my brother. Ha, ha. I hang out here and keep an eye on him, but I live in Tucson with my cats.”

  “Your brother.”

  “How do you like my new snake boots?” She lifted a foot and stuck it out in front of her as if she were a child at Easter showing off her patent-leather Mary Janes. “No snake’s going to bite through this leather—no snake’s going to find my ankles, my Achilles’ heels. These things have a scent-control lining to boot—ha, ha. I love the gussets at the calves and I especially like the buckles.”

  But Sophie was taking the measure of the rattlesnake. Stella eyed her.

  “If you think this is bad, roadrunners have it all over on me. I know, girl. I watch what goes on. I see a roadrunner and I’m watchin’ it, see; and it’s watchin’ the rattler and the rattler is watchin’ it. And pretty soon, the runner flies up and pecks the back of that snake’s neck. I say peck but I mean like stab at. Stab at is what it is. And then another peck-stab. And another.”

  Stella paused. She had a drama to tell. “So, that rattler finally goes limp and the runner picks it up in its bill and runs with it and damn if it doesn’t drag that mother of a snake over to a huge rock. The runner goes wham! Wham! Shaazam! That rattler’s skull is crushed. And its brains are looking pretty tasty.” With that Stella turned to study the rattlesnake she had just beheaded.

  Sophie followed her gaze. The creature had stopped moving. “There’s a strange and glistening beauty about it, Stella.”

  “Not another one of those sentimentalists, are you? Jesus, I hope not.” Stella leaned on the edger. “Have you ever seen a prayin’ mantis eat a hummingbird?”

  Sophie said, “I’m sorry?”

  “…a prayin’ mantis eat a hummingbird.”

  Sophie stared. “Are you making that up?”

  ‘I’ve seen the videos. It can sit around in its prayin’ attitude on a leaf above a salvia or on a hummingbird feeder and when the bird gets close enough, strike with its spiny foreleg. Then—

  Boom! Bam! Impalement—right through the sweet ole feathered-breast and out the living back. Then the mantis just reels that little hummer in. Tell that to the folks who whine about their itty-bitty aches and pains. Ask the creationist dudes: on what day of the week were those man-tis-es created?”

  “Stop.”

  Stella grimaced. Or was it more of a lurid smile? “Then it gets its fill; likes to chomp around in the abdomen and maybe even get a good bite of that little, beatin’ heart. You ever hear that song called ‘I’m Green in the Garden’? Here’s a verse.” Stella put her hands on her hips, looked to one side and started singing, wailing:

  I’m tellin’ you, honey,

  I’m tellin’ you, honey,

  Oh yeah I’m tellin’ you, honey,

  If I can’t bite,

  If I can’t bite,

  If I can’t bite that rovin’ man’s head clean off,

  I’ll just go bite, yeah and I’ll go bite—

  Some hummingbird’s heart.

  As far as my testimony goes, every individual who has the glory of having exerted himself on the subject of slavery, may rely on it his labours are exerted against miseries perhaps even greater than he imagines.

  —Beagle Diary, March 12, 1832

  . . . .

  If to what Nature has granted the Brazils, man added his just and proper efforts, of what a country might the inhabitants boast. But where the greater parts are in a state of slavery, & and where this system is maintained by an entire stop to education, the mainspring of human actions, what can be expected; but that the whole world would be polluted by its part.— 13

  —Beagle Diary, March 17, 1832

  The Dark Ink of Slavery

  The Beagle is approaching the coast of Brazil—Bahia or St. Salvador. By this time Charles has been named the “Philos” (“Ship’s Philosopher”) of the expedition. He is coming into his own.

  Collecting and writing all the time, he is becoming increasingly organized. Not only is he keeping a diary, he is engaged in correspondence and in keeping detailed, scientific logbooks.

  And there it was again: the cabin made him methodical, he said. Everything was at arm’s length. Being on the ship had worked some kind of magic on his habits: “…in the end I have been a gainer. . . .if it were not for seasickness the whole world would be sailors.”

  “Whereas, Polly,” Sophie said, “These lines were the cause of my whole pursuit of this adventure and of this mystery. And the cause of my own becoming more methodical. And the cause of my seasickness, too. For seasickness, read anxiety.”

  She realized from Polly’s sidelong glance when she said “whereas,” that she had hurt her terrier’s feelings. She apologized and resolved never to use Polly’s own language in jest again. She hated mocking anybody.

  “Reform” may not have passed anyone’s lips as the great coast came into view. Brazil. But as soon as Charles stepped ashore, it must have come slithering into his head like the cuttle-fish and at the same time, like that cuttle-fish, discoloring the water with a dark ink.

  The dark ink was slavery, which Charles saw everywhere in Bahia. He hated it. He called it a “scandal to Christian nations.” He spoke of Englishmen who did not consider blacks as their brothers as “polished savages.”

  Now she did e-mail Ted, simply saying “All right, I won’t bore you with the details of my projects anymore if you’ll cut me some slack. Hands off. Got that? If you want to hear about the rest of the voyage of the Beagle and its aftermath, you’re going to have to go read it yourself. I’ll let you know when I am finished with the wind, sand, sea, and stars. And how Mr. Darwin spoke out against slavery.

  Let me alone for a while. Give me some time. Besides, I am writing a work of philosophy. Philos.”

  That would set him off for sure, but now she wouldn’t have to suffer his comments. She had told him to quit writing her for a while.

  And of course she had been lying about writing pure nonfiction—a work, solely, of philosophy. If she wrote anything it would be a novel. A real mystery novel but not pure fiction.

  Glittering Eyes

  On one of her exploratory drives, headed south and west to Arivaca, Sophie saw two small boulders ahead, at the left side of the road. What kind of rocks were these?

  Except that as she approached, she saw they were not rocks. They were two persons sitting, hunched. The light was low because of the foliage, but as she passed she thought their eyes glittered.

  When she got home, she sat on her patio and watched as the folds of the mountains took on shadows in the sunset. The desert floor was as if breathless at what rose above it.

  Sophie sat on her patio and closed her eyes. There, on the road to Arivaca, she had not stopped the car. Had they been Chiapans? Guatemalans? She thought they might have been mother and son.

  She re-runs the scene. In her imagination she does not pass them. She stops. Glittering. That’s what the Guatemalans’ eyes are doing, mother and son. Their color is the clove brown of the head and neck of the male kestrel. The clove brown of the stems of the black currant brush and of azin
ite, rock crystal. They sit. They do not move.

  Now she is handing the mother the water bottle from her car. It is only half full. They drink; they share it, mother and son, the mother leaving the greater amount for the son. She thinks, what else? What now? Do I bundle them into the car? Would this be legal?

  They do not speak. Brown they are and small, almost little; together they are a brown study in the shroud-like garb they wear.

  She opened her eyes. Why had she not turned around, gone back? She knew why.

  If she had gone back to them, she wouldn’t just stand there. She would have to do something besides offer her water bottle. Would she help them into her car? What then? What would she do; this easterner, who knew no Spanish but who knew some French. French! In the desert. Maybe that’s why Mary Austin had complained—wrongly, Sophie thought—about Willa Cather’s novel and the building of a French-style cathedral in Santa Fe.

  Well, she would go straight to Rachel, a new friend who lived here longer than Sophie. Rachel would tell her what she should do next time. Next time.

  Rachel, patient with Sophie, did tell her, saying, “They were sitting there waiting for the Border Patrol to pick them up and take them back to Mexico. They were exhausted; no food, no drink, probably half dead.” Then, she couldn’t resist: “Sophie. Why else would you, if you were undocumented, sit right at the side of the road? They wanted the Border Patrol, not you. Next time you give them anything you have in the car—food, water—and you call the Border Patrol. That’s what you do. Anyway those guys were probably right behind you—they run back and forth on that road forty times a day. The Patrol. Plenty of them are good people, by the way.”

  Sometimes on ordinary days when Sophie looked at nothing in particular, the eyes of the mother and son looked into hers. Eyes of the mourning doves, only larger. No, eyes of the jaguar. And of the jaguar-woman, who was everywhere.