“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go home.”
Noah shakes his head, his curls heavy with water. “What about our car?” he reminds her.
She remembers their backseat: the portable pens with the red fox and the badger, the one-winged eagle cramped into a birdcage in the hatchback, the otter at the foot of the passenger seat. Although she has no idea what to do about the animals, she wants nothing more right now than to go home, tumble down onto the couch, and rest her head on her husband’s shoulder.
“We’ll take them with us,” she says to Noah, her tone slightly pleading. “Just for now. Can’t we figure out what to do with them later?”
He turns to her with an expression she cannot read. She assumes that he is reliving last night: the rain, the exhaustion, the ever-present fear that one of the animals would run the wrong way and someone would be trampled or mauled or worse. She glances at the faces of her neighbors, still largely unfamiliar to her, and worries that after the night they have been through, there is bound to be an uproar. She would rather face the talons of the eagle in their trunk than the wrath of the mud-covered townspeople.
Suddenly her husband’s countenance clears. She doesn’t know what fresh hope has illuminated his expression, and since she doesn’t have a chance to ask him before he speaks, his next pronouncement surprises her as much as anyone.
“We’ll take them!” he shouts, spinning around and cupping his hands close to his mouth so that his voice will travel. “My wife and I! We’ll take some home with us!”
The townspeople nearest him settle into a hush, their faces hard with disbelief. Others turn to stare.
“Noah!” his wife whispers fiercely. “What are you doing?”
“It’s all right,” he murmurs back, squeezing her hand. “I’ve got a plan.”
In the sudden calm that has fallen over the square, he takes off toward the front of the crowd. His wife watches his black slicker weaving through the townspeople until he reaches Mrs. McGinn, who stands awkwardly on the podium with her megaphone dangling from her hand. Once there, he turns to address his neighbors.
“It’s only a temporary solution,” he calls out, “until we come up with something better.” When the townspeople’s faces remain blank, he shouts: “Fear not, be not dismayed— Arise and be doing!”
“What the hell?” mutters the town sheriff.
“First Chronicles,” explains Mauro proudly, winking at Noah’s wife. He taps the tip of his nose with his index finger. “The Solomon and the temple.”
For a moment, the only sound is that of the rain pattering along the sleeves of their coats and the tops of their umbrellas. Then, from the weatherman: “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Mrs. McGinn shakes off her shock. Incensed, she whips the megaphone back up to her lips. “It’s generous!” she informs them. “That’s what it is!” Her cheeks flush with the thrill of a new idea. She is not about to let the new minister outshine her in his dedication to this cause. “We’re all going to take the animals!”
While her neighbors erupt with disbelief and indignation, she swings down and confers briefly with the zookeeper. Noah stands to one side, looking out over the sea of angry figures with his face drawn and his fists clenched. Noah’s wife tries to catch his eye, but fails. She wants to tell him that what she meant was for them to keep the animals in their car for a few hours and then return them before lunchtime; she did not intend to invite the beasts into their spare bedroom for an extended stay. Does he not remember how terrible he was with the animals last night? He didn’t trust them, and they didn’t trust him. He wandered through the grounds on his own, lost and overwhelmed. It was a miracle that he didn’t get hurt.
“Ask the beasts, and they will teach you!” declares Noah, his expression illuminated and his poise suddenly returned to him. “And the birds of the air, and they will tell you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this, in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?”
Mauro turns and stares at Noah’s wife. “Job,” she tells him in a small voice. “Chapter twelve.”
The librarian overhears. “Isn’t that the man whose life was destroyed?” she wants to know. “Job? That’s who the minister wants us to remember at a time like this?”
“All right,” announces Mrs. McGinn, saving Noah’s wife from the burden of inventing an interpretation. She straightens up and blasts her air horn. “Here’s the plan. Do you see all of these vacant storefronts? We’ll have the big cats, the wolves, the more dangerous animals divided up and settled down in those. The hoof-foots—”
“Hoofstock,” corrects the zookeeper beside her.
“The hoofstock,” she continues, running her finger down her checklist. “Most of them can stay in yards and gardens, if they are properly fenced. All the birds who can fly have clipped wings, but it would be best if they were kept confined. Since the penguins will need to be kept cool, we’ll house them in our walk-in freezer at the diner. The tanks of snakes and turtles should not pose much of a problem—those can go anywhere, on any bookshelf or coffee table. I already have an idea as to who should take the most noxious reptiles, anyway.” She smirks to herself and then pulls a pocket-sized notebook from the folds of her raincoat. “Now, what I’m going to do is to assign the remaining animals to specific households. The gibbons, the otters, the sloth, the seals, the ostrich, the peacocks—you name it. If you have any specific allergies or animal preferences, come see me, and we’ll take that into consideration when making your assignment. Are there any questions? Do you all understand? We’ve got no other choice here, people! We need everyone to step up. The survival of our town depends upon this—depends upon you.”
It is a foolish, dangerous idea, but the townspeople submit to the new plan with nothing more than a few low grumbles of halfhearted dissent. Is it because the weather has been so awful for so long? wonders Noah’s wife. Has the rain deteriorated their ability to stand up for themselves? Or has the zoo been so deeply ingrained in the soul of this place and the hearts of its inhabitants that they honestly do not believe that it is possible for them to survive without it?
When Noah descends from the podium and joins her once again at the back of the crowd, his cheeks are so radiant with his success, his eyes so glassy, that she considers reaching up to touch his forehead to test him for a fever.
“Noah,” she says, bewildered. “What is this about?”
He gazes over the crowd, his expression vacant and his smile slightly off. “Don’t you see?” he says. “I came here to help these people, and so I’m helping them. Tomorrow morning we’ll have another service. Look at the mess of this place—peace and order need to be restored. I need for them to see that the Lord is not against them, that we’re all on the same side.”
She stares at him. His face is gaunter than it was when they arrived only a month ago, his beard shot through with several strands of silver. The ravages of weather and worry over the past four weeks, it seems, have left their mark; but if his face is craggier and more melancholy, it is also more striking. He has always been a handsome man, and if anything, his wife now finds him handsomer still. This show of confident determination is not new to her, and in a way she is glad to hear the old stubborn tones of faith in his voice. This is more like the minister she married. She does not want to believe that his plan isn’t sound; she does not want to see the shadow of doubt steal over his face again. And so she makes up her mind to keep her mouth shut, to nod and take his arm, to willingly accept the sign-up sheet when Mrs. McGinn brings it round to them. When they finally return to their car she lifts the otter to her lap as if she has been his keeper for a lifetime, and when she unloads the cages from the back and sets up the pens in the kitchen she does her best to act as though this is the most natural thing in the world.
Her best friend used to scold her for this kind of easy acquiescence, used to frown when she bent over backward to offer her help t
o coworkers, customers, strangers moving in or out of a townhouse down the row. When she threw out her back lifting an armchair for a woman she had never met and whom she would never see again, Dr. Yu prepared a heating pad and sighed.
“You know,” Dr. Yu had said, “if you keep giving so much of yourself away, sooner or later there won’t be anything left.”
fifteen
Dr. Yu receives a call at the hospital from someone who informs her that her father has fallen down at the harbor.
“In the harbor?” repeats Dr. Yu, alarmed. She grips the receiver of her telephone, strides as far across the room as the telephone cord will allow. “How did that happen?”
“Not in the harbor, dear,” says the stranger, whose voice sounds husky and female. “At the harbor. He stumbled over a loose plank in the dock while he was doing his sprints, and then he bumped his head on a mooring bollard. He’s all right—a little dazed, is all, and he probably shouldn’t drive.”
“Tell him I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” says Dr. Yu. “Where can I find him?”
“We’ve got him up on our boat now. You won’t have any trouble finding us. Look for a gold hull, with three orange sails. My name is Nancy. And please, try not to worry! He’s in good hands. What a charming man! Has he ever shown you his card tricks?”
Dr. Yu hangs up the phone, worrying. On the drive to the harbor, she speeds and—though usually the most conscientious of drivers—she doesn’t care. The scene at the boat is a blur of colors and sounds: a woman in a powder-blue pantsuit; a dark, quiet man shaking ice in his cocktail mixer while his mustache trembles; her father leaning back in one of their lounge chairs, finishing up an old-fashioned and telling stories to make the man and woman laugh. Dr. Yu thanks the couple briskly for their time and, after turning down their dinner invitation, herds her father off the boat and into the passenger seat of her sedan.
“That’s Stan and Nancy,” explains her father on the drive home. “I just met them. Aren’t they the nicest people? I’ve got to say, I think I made a real impression on them. You should have seen how they looked when I told them to handcuff me and drop me off the edge of the pier. Pure amazement! They didn’t do it, of course—said you were on the way, and all—but still. Maybe next time.”
Dr. Yu grits her teeth, remains silent until they reach the house. Once inside, she sits him down on the sofa and pulls his arm forward. While she holds his wrist on her knees, her fingers pressed to his pulse, she says: “Magic or no magic, you’re not in any shape to be going out to the docks by yourself. I wish you’d stay at home. What on earth would make you start sprinting out there, anyway?”
Her father sighs. “I’ve been telling you for weeks, April,” he says. “To perfect these escapes, I’ve got to be in perfect physical condition. Take the straitjacket trick, for instance—that requires pure muscle. I’ve also drawn up a schedule to start swimming so I can improve my lung capacity. For the greatest underwater escapes, I’ll need to hold my breath for three or four minutes.”
“That’s impossible,” says Dr. Yu. “There’s no way you can do that.”
“Since when do you tell me what to do?” her father retorts. “Since when have I become the child, and you the parent? When exactly did that change occur, and why wasn’t I notified?”
“Papa, please,” she says.
“Don’t ‘Papa, please’ me!” he says. “It’s nice to have a purpose again. You should see the way those crowds gather at the docks to see me perform! The kids love me! And anyway, how else will I be able to take my escapes up a notch if I never try anything in the water?”
Dr. Yu rolls her eyes skyward and takes a deep breath. At first she had been pleased that her father was getting out of the house, going for walks along the water in the salty sea air. She hadn’t realized that his main purpose was to take his scarves and cards and cuffs down to the docks to put on a good show for passersby. More people come to see him every week, and by now his shows have gained a loyal following. Although she knows that he is pleased about his popularity, Dr. Yu still cannot bear to see him. How has her brilliant, science-minded father become this crazy, wild-eyed street performer? Why must he insist on turning himself into a joke?
His escapes seem to be getting more and more complicated: he likes to ask boaters to tie his hands with their ropes, or to bind his legs together with fishing net. He isn’t allowed to perform any tricks with fire on the pier, so he purchased a small skiff in which he rows out beyond the other boats. He’ll transform seagulls into smoke or shoot sparks from his wand into the sky from out there. Dr. Yu is all too aware that recently he has spent several nights on his boat, snoring in fitful bursts on the damp boards that line the bottom of the craft, his ropes and keys in small heaps around him. It’s only a matter of time until he does something more dangerous.
“You’ve been under such strain since Mama died,” she says. “The best thing for you right now is to rest, to keep your strength up.”
“Oh really?” says her father. “Says who? If it’s the doctors who say that’s the best thing, then I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
She considers him evenly, bites her tongue. This is what happens whenever she tells him a story from the hospital or urges him to take better care of himself. He will wave his hand condescendingly, dismissively, and inform her that he does not believe in doctors and he doesn’t care a whit for what they have to say. He used to tell her that he was proud of her, proud that she had succeeded in a career where women were still so few and far between. Sometimes these days, in spite of her effort at self-control, his criticism will get the best of her, and her pained expression will show it; and although in these moments he looks as though he might be considering taking back his words, he never does. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Once the words are spoken, they can never be retrieved.
Her mother used to tell him that the tongue is like a lion in its cage: once it is loose, it is bound to do some damage. Her mother used to keep him in line.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he might say, trying to soften the blow. “You know that I’m proud of you. All I’m saying is that pouring all of your faith into the miracles of modern medicine is a bad idea. You’re bound to be disappointed.”
Dr. Yu releases his wrist and reaches up to touch the coarse black strands of her hair. Whenever she is anxious, she chops some of it off. As her mother had grown sicker, Dr. Yu’s hair had become shorter—half inch by half inch—until it was shorn into a bob higher than her chin, the ends flipping under her ears. Every time she cut it she collected the glossy scraps from the bathroom floor and threw them outside because her mother used to tell her that birds could use the hair to build their nests.
She considers taking the kitchen scissors to the bathroom and shearing it again now.
“Papa,” she says, “you know that’s not true.”
“Do I?” he snaps back. “Do you?”
Dr. Yu wishes that her best friend were here; her best friend, who always knows what to say to make peace. They have not been able to speak as often as she would have liked in the month since her best friend moved away. The one or two times they tried, the connection was so awful that the two of them could only exchange a few pleasantries before the line went dead.
The last time they spoke, Dr. Yu believed that she detected something unusual in her best friend’s voice: some kind of strain, tight and high-pitched. Is she upset because Dr. Yu has been so unavailable? Dr. Yu knows she ought to make good on her promise to go and visit them, but how can she leave the city when her work is so demanding and her father needs so much looking after? There is always next month, she tells herself. She will get to her best friend eventually. In the meantime, there is little she can do from where she is, and so she tries to put her friend out of her mind for now.
Her father has told her, in wounded exasperation, that he doesn’t see how she can still profess such faith in her field after everything that has happened. He doesn’t see how she could have s
tood beside him in the sun at the cemetery, staring down at the stone while her shadow tumbled into the grave and the sweat ran in streams from her stooped shoulders to her surgeon’s hands—how she could have heard the words and touched the dirt and then thrown on her white coat and gone into work again the next day as if nothing had happened. As if she still believed that medicine had the power to save.
They have talked about this constantly over the past few weeks. They have fought with each other until they are both so irate that they go several hours without speaking. He has tried to explain to her about the silence in his house—how much it still unnerves him, how it makes him uneasy and uncertain. He devotes himself to his new hobby and his new audience in large part to keep himself out of the house. On the water, at the harbor, it is never silent. There is always the tender hush of the wind against the waves, the plaintive cries of gulls.
Dr. Yu, accustomed to his mood swings, doesn’t respond to him now. What is there to say? She wishes that he were kinder, more empathetic than he is, and she tries to attribute his skewed opinions on her work and her life—one and the same, really—to the effects of grief and loss. She tries to remind herself that it isn’t personal.
Since her mother died, he has not been himself. Dr. Yu is concerned for his stability, for his emotional and physical health. He should not be spending so much time on these high-energy escapes. He should not be allowing himself to become so excited. She wants him to ease up; she wants him to eat better. She wants him to read the large-print mystery books that she checks out for him at the library. She doesn’t want him to be wandering around the harbor, falling down on metal poles, asking people to throw him into the sea.
“What if you had fallen in the water after you’d hit your head?” she says. “Did you ever think of that? Or what if you’d been handcuffed underwater and you’d knocked against something and fallen unconscious? You’ve got to be more careful!”
“Why’s that?” he demands. “You’re not going to save me from an untimely death, sweetheart. Every death is untimely. That’s the nature of things. All you’ll manage to do is prolong a lonely life, and I’ll tell you what—no, don’t interrupt me—I’ll tell you what: sitting in this house doing nothing will kill me a lot faster than this will.”
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