Ahab's Wife

by Sena Jeter Naslund

  Maria just laughed again. “How I should like to ride a comet to Outer Darkness!”

  Now I laughed. “I can see you—an astronomical witch with a new broomstick to ride.”

  “I fear I will have to content myself with my telescope as a broomstick. Will you watch for Halley’s with us?”

  “Yes,” I answered, but I knew that if my husband was home my nights would be spent in our conjugal bed. When she took me to her rooftop observatory, a platform with railings such as many houses in Nantucket had, I remarked that she could use my cupola for observation if the weather was bad.

  “The cupola has a solid roof,” she said. “And if the weather is bad”—she smiled—“you can’t see through the cloud cover anyway.”

  I felt embarrassed for my lack of logic. “I like the airiness of this,” I replied, gesturing toward the neighboring roofs. “The openness.” Indeed, I did feel much more a part of the green treetops and the surrounding houses than I did in my little well-roofed, window-sided room perched in the center of my house. Maria pointed out a patch of mulberry trees, for silkworms had been imported to Nantucket and they fed upon the mulberry. She pointed out the factory where the silk was unwound from the worms’ cocoons and woven into cloth. But my cupola had a better view of the harbor.

  As we two women stood there, queens of the scene, I blurted, “Your life seems somehow so…successful.”

  “I am doing exactly what I love to do.”

  How blessed, I thought, for a woman to know her path so well. My investments were so much in people, in Ahab now, and before that in Kit, and in Giles. In my mother and my father.

  “I had a stormy youth with my father,” I said.

  “My father and I are much of like minds. But I do not always succeed. The judge asked me to take Pip, the black child rescued from the fire, into my school. I did so, for a week or so, but he was miserable and so was I. The judge took him away.”

  “You don’t think his blackness had aught to do with it?” I asked boldly, thinking of my Susan and her eagerness to learn to sew and write.

  “Not at all. I have taught other black children with success. But Pip can scarce sit still. Only dancing and banging on his tambourine truly please him. He wants to go to sea.”

  “Perhaps Ahab will take him.”

  Again we fell silent, filling our lungs with the sweet, green air.

  “Do you not count your own life a success?” she asked.

  “I’m happy,” I replied. But I didn’t know if I counted that the same as success. Because I wanted her to know me more personally, I added, “Last winter, in Kentucky, I lost my baby and my mother.”

  She put her arm across my shoulders and squeezed me. “I am sorry,” she said. She said nothing else for a while, but with her arm across my shoulders, I breathed again, and I could not help but rejoice in my own aliveness. When she spoke, it was to inquire if I had other kin, and I told her that I had failed to reconnect with them.

  “There is a registry of all lighthouses. It may not be current as to keepers, but you can write to each.”

  Then I knew Maria was, indeed, a friend, in response to my need. Grief seemed a dark storm cloud that was moving off, released, behind my head.

  Maria fixed us and the children an efficient lunch, during which time she was much at their disposal conversationally. They were apparently in the habit of asking her questions so that their educations might be advanced as they ate. She was not the least bit dry or pedantic in her answers. Sometimes she mixed in legend and fable. In answer to the question “How was Nantucket formed?” she replied that once there had been a gigantic sachem. When he walked on the beach at Cape Cod, his great weight made his feet sink deeply, and his moccasins filled with sand. Disgusted, he pulled the sand-filled moccasins off and flung them into the sea. One became Martha’s Vineyard and the other became Nantucket. “Now,” Maria asked, “how else do you suppose Nantucket might have been formed? Think also that we are in a line with the Vineyard, and with Block Island, and even Long Island.”

  After that geological topic was discussed, one of the children fetched a fossiliferous rock. We all stared respectfully at the tiny stone skeleton in the rock. “An autograph of time,” Maria called it. It pleased me that she looked not only to the heavens but also to the earth. These children, and Maria herself, seemed so preoccupied with the outer world that they left their inner feelings to take care of themselves, and the Mitchell brood all appeared to prosper with the regimen.

  As I walked home that June afternoon, I reflected that I, too, had been very happy in the midst of their curiosity about observable phenomena. But what of the inner life and what of the dark issues of our time—of slavery, of the position of women, of temperance, of the crisis in religious belief? William Mitchell had spoken as an ardent abolitionist at the dinner table, but he mainly invested his time in science. Maria seemed content merely to focus on what she herself wanted to do. Perhaps that was as good an answer as any to the question of the status of women.

  At home, I climbed up to the cupola, though it was yet midafternoon, but I took my writing box with me and commenced a letter to Margaret Fuller. As soon as I stuck my head into the glass enclosure, I felt the intensity of the boxed-in heat. Quickly I flung up the sashes of my windows in all four directions, and at once the breezes cooled the space. Still, because of the opaque roof, the cupola did not feel so free and open as Maria’s roof walk. Yet it was very comfortable and pleasant.

  Before I commenced to write, I took up my own brass telescope and scanned the seas for the Pequod. I saw one, two ships, their sails beautifully luffed by the wind. Like two swans, they approached Nantucket. But neither was the Pequod.

  I opened my letter to Margaret by describing the scene—I always enjoy receiving a letter when the writer locates himself or herself in a definite place, and I like to know if there is a cup of tea at hand, or how the light is falling in the room or beyond the window. Such descriptions transcend the barriers of time and space and give reader and writer the illusion that they are together. After fixing myself in space and time, I wrote Margaret something of the judge’s dinner party and of my subsequent visit: “Maria of Vestal Street is something like a Vestal Virgin, attending the fires of Science.”

  While the subject of fathers had only passingly interested Maria—probably because Mr. Mitchell was so satisfactory—I brought up the issue to Margaret, who like me had been oppressed by hers. A far less balanced man than William Mitchell, Margaret’s father had been bent on stuffing her mind—with literature and the arts rather than science—and he often kept her up so late learning Greek and Latin that his instruction became a form of torture. Unlike William Mitchell, he had had no sense of play or spontaneity about him. Even as a child Margaret had had terrific migraine headaches, and she often dreamt of drowning in a rising sea of blood.

  Then I wrote, “I have considered the difference in the ambience at the Lighthouse, when I was a member of that family, and the ambience at the Mitchells’. We at the Lighthouse were more intense and inward, though we, too, were happy. Perhaps our inwardness came from the isolation from other people and from the exposure to the weather. When the value of that haven on the Island, of my aunt, uncle, and cousin sweeps over me, I wince, for I have failed at contact.”

  My letter to Margaret seemed heavier than I had intended, for my initial mood had been buoyant. Happy to make a new friend in Maria, I had vivaciously approached writing a letter to my old friend. But my mood had changed, with the thought of my losses, as though a cloud had passed over the sun.

  Indeed, a cloud had passed over the sun. I looked to the northeast and saw storm clouds on the horizon, moving swiftly inland. The color of the sky drained from blue to gray. A hard breeze rushed through the window and scattered my papers. Quickly, I put down the opposite window, except for an inch. Soon I partially closed all the windows. Still the air puffed in, fresh with excitement, and I saw a crack of lightning run vertical down the sky. I counted t
he seconds till the thunder and judged the storm about ten miles off. The cupola was topped with a lightning rod, though I would not linger long enough to risk being blinded again. But here was the advantage of an enclosed cupola: a safe seat for watching the approach of a storm, if not the storm itself. The whole sky above the ocean was a roiling gray mass, and the sea changed color to match it. It seemed to spread out at the same time that it blew shoreward. I picked up the telescope to have a last look, for that day.

  There she was! There at the far seam of gray water and gray sky, her white sails filled, running before the storm: the Pequod! “There she blows,” I yelled, as though my husband’s ship were a long-sought whale. But it is the happiest and most excited cry I know. My heart beat against my eyes. Yes, there she was. With a small twist, I fine-tuned the telescope. Unmistakably the Pequod, surely Ahab! The lightning blazed all the way down to the sea betwixt him and me, and I saw the three masts dancing with fire—St. Elmo’s fire—like three lit candles. Thus sailed home my fiery Ahab, in power and in glory! She rode deep, as I knew she would, well laden, not counting the three magic cheeses of golden ambergris.

  Could Ahab, with his glass, see me, or at least my little glass house? He would not look. His hand was surely upon the ivory tiller, but in his mind’s eye, he saw me. Let me die, if that was not true! My Ahab, my captain!

  Every second she plowed the high gray hills and the deeper gray troughs closer toward home. I could see the spray, white and feather-like, off her prow. How the shape of her filled me! I could not put down the glass. Her wooden sides, the decking, the masts, the sails—every part was bent to the proportion and shape that said Pequod, husband, home. How truly, how recklessly, she came.

  Surely there was no heart on the ship that did not unrestrainedly urge Ahab on toward home. Certainly Starbuck wanted every risk taken, and Stubb with his pipe clamped in his teeth was muttering encouragement. Even Daggoo, whose home lay on the other edge of the Atlantic, sympathetically caught the scent of home. “I smell meat,” I could hear him say to Tashtego. And the noble Tash longed for home, marred as it was by the history of his people; even Tash urged the storm-driven ship toward this place where once his fathers walked in pride and plenty.

  My heart left off excitement and went serene. I thought of my white bed, still almost bridal, and how in the hush and lamp glow of the room I would open my arms to my husband. There was peace. There was peace. But it gave way to a new anticipation, as though all the excited waves churned within.

  The Pequod came on and on, cutting across the waves. Dear Ahab used the energy of the storm to speed her home. He was glad for the storm! His outward demeanor would be calm, his face set and hatchetlike, but I knew, I alone knew, of the soft glowing within, of Ahab’s manly eagerness for home and hearth and wife. I heard his voice.

  CHAPTER 102: Ahab

  BLAST WINDS! and spank these sails as though they were the flanks of horses and could with mightier effort on their own part draw me faster, ever faster, to my wife, my child, my hearth, my home. Let the spirit of Ahab leave his body, hover behind the sails, spend itself with huffing! Why not? Is not the spirit naught but wind? How often have I wondered it! When breath leaves the body, is that all there is of life? Can breath itself become rarefied, float upward toward the heavens, and yet retain something of the deceased’s own character? Breath, life! let them both flee from me if soon I do not hold my Una, my One, in these two arms! And we three—we two—make one—there’s Unitarianism!

  AHAB: There’s Brant Point—Stubb! Stubb! Look yonder and ye see your twin in that stubby beacon.

  STUBB: I see it, Captain! My very image, had she but a pipe to clamp, and had she but teeth to clamp the smoking pipe, and nose to savor smoke, and face to support the nose, and body, and two short legs!

  AHAB: Don’t quibble, man. Shortness is all!

  STARBUCK: Well spoke. It’s shortness we want. Shortness of time, till home.

  I’ll speak no more to them. They’ll guess what’s in my heart. Starbuck, a married man, half knows. But they’re underlings, and I’ll keep them apart from Ahab. And who is not an underling in this world? For Ahab, only Una is equal. Only Una. Our child? I dare not count that chick till I hold him in my hand. We’ll have another downy one to companion him. How my loins leap toward it! Una shall be my underling this night. None wishes it more than she herself. She is my true bride. Agony, agony aches me. How left I with only that one dent in the marriage pillow?

  How is it but the one letter found me? The letter of the Annunciation, I call it. Not worn as some men might in a pocket across the heart, but stitched into a pocket of my own devising as near the loins as devising can devise.

  Ah, wind and waves, ah, worthy vessel—I am telling thee farewell. I go to my true wife now. Thou hast been but a mistress, a seducer who has led me away from the wholesome bread of home. Yet I thank thee, wind, waves, and vessel, for thy company.

  CHAPTER 103: From Cupola to Wharf

  HOW THE RAIN dashes these windows, obscures not only Pequod, sea, and wharf, but all outside, all obliterated in rushing gray rivulets down the glass. How smug I am—confident in my estimate of her speed. Ahab has but married another sailor boy in me! He waits for no pilot. I can leave cupola for wharf in five minutes, no sooner. I’ll wear men’s oilcloth—perhaps he will mistake me. No. Not that.

  But he thinks I have a babe to show him. Why have I not written otherwise? To have told him with such a space between us would have been crueler than this childless homecoming. Did I fear his stopping with some island maid? Not once. I do not know why, but it is his wife that my Ahab loves, and on her alone will he beget a darling child. We’ll have another. Every fiber of my body tells me so. To want a child, to want the visitation of one’s husband—this day they are the same sweet ache.

  So, descend. Carefully.

  So, to the bedroom. Whiteness, purity.

  So, my arms into the oilcloth coat, my fingers brushing the coarse weave of its backing.

  So, the umbrella; I squeeze its narrow ribs, spiny within the furled cloth.

  So, storm, wet streets—I raise the canopy of umbrella—and to the wharf, and Ahab.

  THE WHARF MEN were making ready, all abustle with ropes, wheel-barrows, and wagons within the downpour. No sign of either Peleg or Bildad. But in the bustle, on the far end of the wharf, stood a figure who seemed the projection of myself. With her face turned toward the water, she stood wrapped in oilcloth, hers with a hood, and an umbrella spread over her head. How could it be that I myself was already there, waiting for the Pequod? I felt superfluous, redundant. I determined to approach myself. My heart beat fantastically, for how does one address such a usurper?

  “You, there!” I called.

  She turned, and the face was not my own. Mary Starbuck. As though to assert her own identity, she pushed back her hood, her head still protected by the umbrella, and I saw golden-haired Mary. Immediately, I felt ashamed, for not once had I made an effort to go out to ’Sconset to see her.

  “Una,” she said, “I’ve meant to come to see thee.”

  I laughed. “And I you. When did you sight the Pequod?”

  “An hour and a quarter ago. My neighbor brought me…”

  “You and Mr. Starbuck must come home with us to Heather’s Moor. We’ve room aplenty.” I thought of them together at the other end of the house, another couple reunited, the double of our bliss.

  With a sudden gust, the wind caught my umbrella and tore it out of my hands. It blew into the water and floated upside down. A wave swamped the fabric bowl, and the umbrella sank rapidly, the crook of the handle being the last part, leaning at an angle, that I saw. Open to the wild weather, my hair and head were instantly drenched and the rain ran inside my collar. With such wind, the Pequod would wait at the mouth of the harbor.

  “Come under my shelter,” Mary called. “Mr. Starbuck will be all eager to see our son. I must decline thy invitation.” The gray waves broke against the pilings, sometimes
dashed our feet with spray.

  “Mary,” I said, as though we were intimate friends. “Captain Ahab does not know. Our baby died.” My teeth began to chatter with nervousness as well as cold.

  “Shall ye go back home, then? Ye be all ashiver. Shall I tell him for thee? Send him to thee at home?”

  One of the wharf men ran up with a new, very large, strong-ribbed umbrella. “Here’s another, Mrs. Captain.”

  “No,” I said to Mary. “No. He would weep to have no welcome.”

  The Pequod, half shrouded by mist and rain, hovered beyond the harbor. The anchor was released, the chains rattling. The ship itself seemed to shudder and beat as though it were a great, gray heart. To our surprise, an eager whaleboat from the Pequod lowered, Tashtego and Daggoo riding it down. Ahab leapt over the gunwale and slid the ropes, followed by Starbuck. Strong Tash, an eagle feather twirling atop his black hair, bowed his back in rowing and made the boat his arrow, and Daggoo pulled beside him.

  “Tell my husband I’ve taken chill,” I said. “Tell him I’m home. Tell him our babe is dead.” I bolted from the wharf. I ran like a child afraid of her father.

  Mary’s voice echoed behind me. “All will be rightly done,” she said, her voice chiming sweet as a small bell through the wind.

  I felt that I had deserted not only my husband but my better, braver self. If I climbed into bed and waited him there, he would find me almost as he left me on our wedding morning. Then, in the beating of my two feet I heard my mother’s words: Be brave.

  Be brave, be brave, be brave. My own feet spoke to me until I turned around and ran back to the wharf.

  I saw Ahab’s head and then his shoulders and chest come up over the edge of the wharf as he climbed the ladder. I ran for him as fast as I could, and by the time he stood at the head of the ladder, I was in his arms. Had he not been a strong, well-rooted man, the rush of my arrival would likely have carried us both backward into the water.