The Elusive Language of Ducks

by Judith White

  There was the white towel he flew at while she was putting out the washing, and the white washing basket he jumped onto before he went for her.

  And the attacks were more likely if she had bare feet or, especially, if she was wearing her red sandals. Her white duck feet with the flash of bright red face, from his point of view. She had surmised that her exposed flesh was an obvious target, but now it was looking as though colour might be the trigger for his aggression. White, primarily, with red, or sometimes black, added to it. She wondered whether the predator that killed his mother had been white. She wondered whether he had a sense of his own whiteness. The overnight educator had been hissing in his ear: What are you? Man or duck? Get her, get her. Go on, go! Show her what you’re made of.

  But she was still bemused. Was this normal duck play or was it serious?

  When she investigated through the internet, Hannah discovered a couple of videos on YouTube showing fighting muscovies. Wings batting, necks curling round necks, beaks clamping. She knew the instant bruises those sucking beaks caused. A panicking voice-over was screaming: Look at all the blood. There’s blood everywhere. Are they trying to kill each other?

  She read that muscovies could fight to the death. Territory. She watched video footage of muscovy ducks mating, the male trampling the back of the female, tail furiously sweeping from side to side, beak wedged in her neck. The pair didn’t look much different from the muscovies fighting.

  And then she found the New Scientist slow-motion video of the copulating muscovies. Coitus interruptus. Coitus interruptus scientifica. A scientist was holding a ruler measuring the penis which was coiled like a corkscrew, a corkscrew from the $2 Shop, an uncertain rocket spiralling its skewed and rambling way to its destination. According to the scientist, the penis was twenty centimetres long. The burst from erection to ejaculation took .36 of a second. A third of a second. The cloaca of the female spiralled in the opposite direction of the male, apparently in an attempt by Nature to save the female from forced copulation.

  Why didn’t Nature create a less aggressive creature? How could it be that Nature designed the male and female organs to be so diametrically opposed to each other? Did He who made the he, make she?

  The woman played the video again. She was astonished. This eruption of activity emerging so swiftly from such a depth of feathers? A third of a second! If ‘one hickledypickledy’ was the measure for one second, then it was all over in a hickle. And so many ducklings owed their lives to this!

  The woman laughed.

  Look at this! she said out loud. But of course, the man, who would have had something to say about all this, was not there.

  LANGUAGE

  When she ventured out on her regular walks, Hannah passed strangers who smiled at her. She smiled back. She smiled at others, they smiled back.

  Even when her mother was locked into herself with the disease, her face usually lit up when Hannah walked into the lounge of the rest home.

  And then there was the foreign couple facing each other at the beach who’d been engaged in furious debate. She couldn’t understand their language, or guess the subject of the discussion, but the hostility of the eyes, the curling lips, the jutting chin and their gesticulation made it obvious to her that this was not a friendly conversation.

  She thought of Simon and all the non-contact mannerisms and expressions and micro-expressions she was able to interpret without the need for words. From the insignificant — such as itching his nose, or stroking his beard or tugging his ear — to a more thoughtful frown, or pursing of lips, or craning his neck. The face a rubbery canvas constantly giving out signals which left little doubt as to their meaning. A glance or an expressive hand that was able to stop her, show disapproval, question her whimsically, soften her with love.

  But the duck. The duck hissed, trilled, snorted, whined, panted and made raspy grunts. He rhythmically dipped and bobbed his head this way and that; swayed his head horizontally; tapped the ground or his foot with his beak; faced her alarmingly; shuffled sideways. The crest of his head feathers would shoot up, his wings would flatten, and at times he’d suddenly sit upright, head high, his whole body erect, while an eerie high-pitched quiver of sound leaked from within. He’d silently snap his beak rapidly into the air as if he’d reverted to his babyhood and was begging for food, or was gulping at invisible mosquitoes just out of reach, or was blind and mad, or was trying to tell her something but couldn’t find the words. As if as if as if. Her interpretation of his language was all relative to her terms. Conjecture. The only sound she understood for certain was the happy soft feeding cheep he made when they were out foraging together.

  The overnight educator who formed and informed him had always shoved her aside. Even though she and her duck had lived alongside each other almost from the time he was born, they were unable to reliably communicate. Even though she had observed him so intimately. His language had formed and his range of expression was complex and diverse, even though he had never encountered other ducks of any description to relate to. They were worlds apart.

  TELLING HIM

  We are worlds apart, she said to the duck when she was out digging in the garden, juggling with fat worms (curling and twisting like the penis she now knew he had) which he snatched from her fingers.

  I wouldn’t put it that way, he said. We get along quite well most of the time, sharing the same world quite compatibly.

  I never have any idea of what you are thinking, she said. I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know what your intentions are. I don’t know whether you’re happy or not.

  Does anyone know whether anyone is happy or not? Do you know what other people are thinking?

  I suppose you’re referring to the man? she replied grumpily.

  Not at all, he said slyly. You read too much into everything.

  But nonetheless, he’d hit a raw nerve, and she knew it was intentional.

  THE WOMAN TRIES TO GET PHILOSOPHICAL

  There were moments when Hannah deceived herself into thinking that Simon’s absence was just one of his normal contracts. She was not unused to being alone. He’d had periods away for longer, although usually they kept in touch through phone calls or texts, the odd emails. The frequency of contact had lessened over the years, but when they were apart, their communication, however brief, was like a reassuring touch of a foot under a table.

  Their friends also were accustomed to his trips away, so she didn’t have to offer any explanation. Using her work as an excuse, she avoided invitations out. She didn’t want to see anyone. It had been easy to start nudging the world away, and now it had taken on its own momentum, flowing further and further from the diminishing existence of herself and the duck within the boundaries of the garden.

  But there was the nagging concern, growing as time passed, that Simon’s leaving was more serious than a temporary fanciful tiff. She had no doubt that her sister would have been feeding discontent into his veins over the Christmas break. The Christmas to New Year’s cruise had left her beached, while the others had carried on without her. Had they all been in consultation with each other? Had Toby known when they had walked together so companionably that evening?

  Loneliness is a strange thing, Hannah said to the duck as he poked his beak into the small stones around the pond. She was sitting in the grass watching him. We’re all stranded creatures, stuck on our own little islands of sticks and straw, dealing with life as best we can. Some of us don’t do very well, I’m afraid. We peck around at our feet and worry about the water around us rising and ebbing, and we do things that we sometimes later regret.

  What are you talking about? said the duck. The only water I know is the pond here, and the dishes that barely have enough water to clear my beak, and the rain, and the hose water you squirt all over the place. And how can you regret anything? Whatever is done is done.

  It’s simpler for you. You’re a duck.

  But why is it simpler? You’re a you. What’s the difference?
Every day was tomorrow or will be yesterday eventually.

  You’re down the chain, duckie. You’re not responsible. You don’t have to make decisions. It’s not so simple. Beyond the garden. Or even in the garden.

  You keep saying ‘simple’, ‘simpler’. What does that mean? You are not so different from me, actually. What is there to regret?

  Regret is a stomach ache after you’ve eaten too many worms or corn or cockroaches.

  How could you ever eat too many? You eat and then you stop when you are full.

  All right, then. Biting the hand that feeds you. You might regret that, one day.

  I don’t regret anything. Though I wouldn’t mind a worm, now that you mention it. Right now would be good.

  Right now. Right now, he was busily probing his chest feathers with his beak. Right now, she could screw his thin neck.

  Actually Ducko, to get back to my original subject.

  Original? I didn’t notice anything original?

  Loneliness. It’s a strange thing. You think you just want to be by yourself. You don’t realise that you’re becoming lonely until you suddenly are. And then it’s too late.

  Pardon? Are you riddling again? I never want to be by myself.

  One minute you’re just drifting along and then your mother dies and you know it’s not a bad thing because her body has been disintegrating for some time and you can see it happening in front of your very eyes over years and years. It’s all in the order of things. So there’re no surprises there. You’re sad and you think about her a lot, but you’re not lonely. When she was alive, the two of you just got along with being. Your lives weren’t particularly entangled. Her life and your life. And then when she needed you, you looked after her and then she died and then you miss her and that’s normal. And then there’s a duck in your life and everyone hates you and, and, your husband leaves you suddenly, and that’s strange but your lives weren’t particularly entangled, but then, suddenly, suddenly you’re alone. With a duck that attacks you. And it feels like life attacking you. And you miss him, your husband, and you don’t know why. You miss everything and everybody and you feel so confused. And it feels like everything you ever knew is backing away from you. And that you’re becoming a tiny shrinking dot. And that you have no capacity for love anymore.

  Well. That was an outburst if ever there was one. But I’d like to point out that at least we have each other. We will never be alone while we have each other.

  We might not be alone, Ducko, but we still might feel utterly lonely.

  I’ll never be lonely if I have you, he said.

  Duckie, she said. It’s time you told me your name.

  She reached down and picked him up, arranged his feet upon her thighs. She cupped her hand across his full feathery breast. She wanted to drop her head gently upon his back and close her eyes, but he snorted and hissed, then started to whine pitifully, his feet scrambling over her jeans as he eyed the ground for escape.

  You see, Ducko, she called as he waddled away from her across the lawn. That’s what I mean. You have the capacity to make me feel more wretched than I was even before I knew you.

  The duck stopped and turned around, facing her.

  Well, as we’re getting to the nitty gritty, he houghed in that raspy throaty way of his, why do you always end up handling me inappropriately?

  What do you mean?

  You know I don’t like to be picked up.

  Really? So, you tell me now?

  Yes. I’m telling you now.

  Chapter 21

  EXPERIMENT ON PLANET EARTH

  Across the world, in Moscow, the six men who had been acting out a simulated mission to Mars in a hotchpotch of windowless isolation chambers had arrived. On the fourteenth of February, two crew members clambered into bulky spacesuits and, with a robot rover, they’d made their glorious entrance onto the powdery terrain of the red planet. They carried out virtual experiments, took samples, and planted three flags — one for Russia, one for China and one for the European Space Agency. Now, a week later, before being faced with the tedious eight-month journey back home, they were in the process of conducting the third of these forays onto the surface of the planet, which in fact was another module a few metres away from the so-called orbiting tube. In fact, Mars was just a dusty old sandpit. Afterwards, after the earthquake, Hannah couldn’t help wondering about the power of the imagination. Whether the fantasising cosmonauts, bounding around the improvised faraway planet, without being subjected to any simulation of weightlessness, had had any influence on the monstrous repercussions on the other side of planet Earth.

  There’d been a discussion about the experiment on the radio. Strangely, it was particulars like this that made her miss Simon most of all. Should he be listening, he would revel in the details, she knew, and he’d be investigating the scientific data, would be marvelling at the possibility that one day in the distant future men might make the actual voyage to that planet. She, on the other hand, could only see it in relation to their own lives, a bewildering and farcical mission to nowhere.

  With the radio still accompanying her, she prepared to do some gardening with the duck.

  She didn’t feel like lunch but chewed on a couple of dates and a few almonds, had a drink of water, then filled a plastic bottle with more. It was a sunny day. Outside, she shoved her feet into gumboots in case the duck took it upon himself to attack her feet. She gathered her gloves, trowel, weeder and a bucket. The day was chirruping with crickets and cicadas, and the tui was chattering noisily in the kahikatea tree. The duck jumped off his perch under the deck and plodded languidly onto the lawn after her, down to the pond area where she was preparing to do some weeding. She dumped her stuff in the shade.

  The news was on.

  Breaking news.

  Another earthquake in Christchurch. It had only just happened. Bigger than the last one.

  It wasn’t only the information but the panic in the announcer’s voice that was alarming.

  Christchurch.

  Hannah grabbed the radio and rushed back to the house. She rang Simon’s cell phone but was taken straight to his answer phone. She left a message: Ring me. Are you all right?

  She rang again. Still the same. Nothing. She paced around the house. Please, please. She sent a text: Just send me a ‘yes’ if you’re OK.

  She tried to ring Maggie. The same. Then she texted her:

  Are you and Toby OK? Do you know where Simon is?

  She didn’t know Toby’s mobile number. Back to the news, and yes it was a bad earthquake. The city centre crumbling, the cathedral. People hurt. Blood, bodies. A bus crushed. 6.3. Not as bad in magnitude as the last one, but closer to the surface and to the city centre. Roads damaged, and that new word again: liquefaction.

  Hannah was praying, for heaven’s sake. She stood, bumping her forehead against the wall. She pulled at her hair. The radio was now flooded with stories, bad stories. Bricks falling, everywhere bricks falling. And her husband was there. And her heart was clamped in a vice.

  Don’t ring, they said. The system was overloaded. Only ring for emergencies.

  She switched on every radio in the house. The whole house was reverberating with bad news and no news. Helpless, she felt so helpless. The windows. The windows were splattered and cloudy. She hurried down to the laundry and filled a bucket with hot water and white vinegar and detergent. Back in the living area, she started to wipe the windows clean, drying them with crumpled up newspaper until they were sparkling clear. They were nothing but an invisible barrier to the world outside. Then she took a cloth and went around the walls and ceiling, cleaning away smudges and fly spots.

  And then she heard from him. A text. Chaos. Tried to ring you but can’t get thru. I’m OK. Maggie and Toby too. Will keep in touch. Love.

  Love?

  Then a text from her sister. Hi. Mercifully we’ve all escaped injury and major damage. But once again Christchurch is in ruins. Thanks for asking. xxx

  Thank
you thank you thank you. She went outside, sat on the bottom step. The duck was back on his perch.

  It’s all right, she said. Well, it’s not all right — it’s horrendous — but he’s OK.

  What’s not all right? he replied. I thought you were going to come foraging with me.

  She started to cry. She cried and cried, her head buried in the salty warmth of her fingers. Then she stood up.

  Fuck you, she said to the duck. This is all because of you.

  What? he said. What have I done this time?

  FLYING INTO THE SUNSET

  She was on the lawn, in the back garden, with the duck. It was just on sunset — the garden was framed with clouds, tinged with luminescent oranges, pinks and gold.

  Look at that, she said to the duck. My mother would have loved those clouds. She would have painted them.

  The duck flexed his feet onto the tip of his claws and flapped his enormous wings, lifting himself skyward. As he rose, the garden was enveloped in shade. The draft from his wings created a chilling wind that stirred dry leaves about her. And then she realised the dark shadow that was his own had become the night, and he had gone. No signal, no circling, no call of goodbye.

  She fell back onto the grass and waited, watching the steady drift of stars. She was pinned through the heart into the ground. And then the stars peeled from the sky, at first one by one, then in showering clusters to land upon her, burying her in a growing heap of crumbled bricks. The seconds marked by her heart-beat either tumbled over-eagerly against each other, or waited in a silence that rushed like the ocean through her ears. She hadn’t realised that the process of dying would feel so cold.

  The dream was so powerful that she was surprised when she woke up to the cool breeze wafting with the early morning light through the open window. Her bedding had fallen to the floor, and she’d knocked a glass of water from the window sill; the fallen tumbler lay beside the wet patch, soaking the sheet beneath her.