Voyage of the Narwhal

by Andrea Barrett

  As she cleaned up the kitchen and prepared to make yet another meal, she decided to retrieve the tools and materials she’d left behind at the Repository. She’d seen Erasmus only twice since her hurried departure; he was very low and didn’t seem to be working at all. But despite their altered circumstances they could work secretly, she thought. Quietly, in stolen hours and stolen rooms. Still they might do something worthwhile. She stirred Browning’s favorite soup, and then went to tell him she’d be away from home all the following day, and that he must do without her.

  COPERNICUS WAS PAINTING in the garden. With Zeke and Lavinia gone on a brief wedding trip, he was taking advantage of his freedom; his loose muslin shirt was open over his chest and his forearms were smeared with paint. Blue streaked his hair and daubed his sweating face.

  “Alexandra,” he said. “What a nice surprise.” He darkened a shadow, then stepped back to see the effect. Pinned to a second easel beside him were sketches he’d copied from the notebooks of Erasmus and Dr. Boerhaave. “What brings you here?”

  She fanned herself; even the flagstones were sticky in this heat. “I left some drawing materials in the Repository,” she said. “But I can’t imagine we’ll be working in there again. I thought I’d take them home, and see if I can do something there.”

  “You won’t work here again,” he agreed. “Nor will I.” He wiped his hands on a rag and gestured toward his painting: icebergs, huge and luminous. In the foreground he’d recently added a stump of broken mast and a ringed seal. “As soon as this one’s done, I’m moving.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “I have friends at a boardinghouse on Sansom Street—I’m going to take a room there and share the studio on the top floor. I can’t work here, it’s too odd being around Zeke and Lavinia.”

  He led her toward the Repository. “You won’t believe this,” he said. “Don’t be shocked.”

  Yet she was, when she passed through the high double doors. Inside it was so dim that for a minute, blinded after the glare outside, she could see nothing. Two huge black dogs bounded up to her, bumping their heads against her thighs and licking at her hands—“Zeke’s,” Copernicus said. “He brought them over the day of the wedding.” She wiped her hands on her skirt. Why was it so dark in here? There were skins blocking most of the windows. On the floor Annie and Tom lay in a mass of linen that resembled a pile of sails. Why were there people lying on the floor?

  “Hello,” Alexandra said hesitantly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude. I didn’t know you were staying in here.”

  Annie had lost weight, and her hair was dirty. “Tseke gave us this as our home,” she said. The dogs loped over and flopped down beside her. “Where is Tseke?”

  “He’ll be back in a few days,” Copernicus said. “I promise.” He bent over one of the basins on the floor, dipped a rag in the water, and wiped Annie’s face. “Does that help?” he said. “Is that better?”

  “I feel burning,” Annie said mournfully. “So hot.”

  Tom coughed and spat. Stains and wet spots and the dogs’ round-toed tracks marked the smooth polished wood; drifts of hair rolled under the furniture.

  “Are they sick?” Alexandra whispered to Copernicus. “What’s happened?” Her supplies had been pushed against one set of shelves; Erasmus’s books were scattered and nothing remained of Copernicus’s working area but a stack of crates. By the library table, someone had cast loose herbarium sheets that curled forlornly in the stink sent off by a full chamberpot.

  “Zeke moved them as soon as you and Erasmus left,” Copernicus said, close to her ear. “I suppose he thought they’d be better off here than in the house. But they keep shifting from spot to spot, trying to get comfortable. Nothing seems to help but the cold water. They both have fever—I’m not sure whether it’s a reaction to this weather, or something more serious.”

  “They’re to stay here?” she asked. “Permanently?”

  Copernicus shrugged. “If I had anyplace to take them to, if I had anything at all to say about this—but I don’t, they’re in Zeke’s care.”

  In air so foul she could hardly breathe she gathered her things together; her brushes, which she’d arranged carefully, had been jammed upright in a jar and the tips were spoiled. There were dirty fingerprints on the folder containing her drawings, but the drawings themselves seemed intact. Copernicus found a small box for her pens.

  They worked without speaking, amid Tom’s cough and Annie’s rough breathing and the heavy panting of the dogs. Once they stepped outside again, Copernicus said, “I don’t know what Zeke is thinking. I really don’t. This is no place for them, they’re miserable here. And the Repository is being ruined. If Erasmus saw this . . . as soon as Zeke returns, I’m leaving.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Washington,” Copernicus said. “Zeke is meeting a group of people at the Smithsonian Institution. They’re making a little party for him there, celebrating his discoveries, and he thought Lavinia would enjoy that. They only went for four days, because of Annie and Tom. Meanwhile I’m supposed to be the perfect person to take care of Zeke’s Esquimaux. As if I’d know what to do with them, just because I’ve had some experience with the Indians out west. But Annie and Tom have different habits and different temperaments from any tribe I ever met—I don’t know what to feed them. I don’t know how to help them, or how to make them comfortable.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Not unless you know how to nurse them,” he said. “Not unless you know something they’d like to eat. They don’t like the meat I bring them. Annie wants some green plant she says will make her feel better.”

  “Some herbs?” Alexandra suggested.

  Copernicus spread his hands. “If there’s something you know. I’ll try anything.”

  “There’s some tansy and mint in the perennial border.” She led him there and asked for his handkerchief. Side by side they gathered leaves in the burning sun.

  “I’ll miss this place,” Copernicus said. “I never imagined, when I came back home, that I wouldn’t have a home anymore.”

  The bruised leaves released a scent that began to cleanse the fumes of the Repository from Alexandra’s head. “Is this—is this permanent?” she asked. “You and Erasmus would really let Lavinia take over the house for good?”

  “It’s just for a year or so,” Copernicus said. “I think. Zeke’s father has promised to build them a new house, on a plot of land he owns near Fairmount Park. But they have to draw up plans, and then build it—who knows how long that will take. Meanwhile what can we do but humor Lavinia? She’s been through so much.”

  “You and Erasmus have been through a lot as well,” Alexandra pointed out.

  They knelt side by side in the border. She could smell paint, and the mint they were crushing, and the faint scents of his body and his breath. What would it be like to have him seize her, as Zeke had seized Lavinia on his return? Just as she was thinking this, he reached for a sprig and his forearm drew across her wrist like an arrow across a bow. She froze, thinking how easily she might move her hand a few inches, place her fingers in his palm. Anything might happen after that. He liked her, she knew. Even found her attractive. But he liked everyone; he made no secret of the Indian and Mexican women he’d kept company with out west, nor of the women he met in the theaters here. What she wanted, when she let herself imagine wanting anyone, was someone who might be wholly hers.

  “I’m going to try to get Erasmus working on the book again,” she said, rising and brushing her skirt. “And myself as well. Can I count on you? If he knew you were still painting, and supported what he was doing . . .”

  “I do support him,” Copernicus said, sounding surprised.

  “I know. But . . .” She turned her eyes from his sun-browned throat and squinted at the garden. He was strong and good-hearted, yet perhaps not really reliable. “You’ve been gone for almost five years and maybe you’ll
want to travel again. And there’s nothing wrong with helping your sister’s husband while he’s away. But once he returns—Erasmus needs your help more.”

  “I will help,” Copernicus said. “I said I would, and I will. As soon as they return I’ll let Zeke take care of his Esquimaux and I’ll work on the paintings full-time.”

  Alexandra folded the handkerchief over the pile of fragrant leaves. “Steep these for ten minutes in a quart of boiling water,” she said. “Have Annie and Tom drink the tea while it’s hot, it will bring out a cleansing sweat.”

  She stepped into the Repository again, laying her hand on Annie’s hot forehead and then on Tom’s. “Zeke will be back soon,” she said. She gazed at the chaos around her and moved quickly back into the light.

  NED KYND RECEIVED Erasmus’s letter late one July night, as he was cleaning up after a long stint cooking for a dozen boisterous hunters. Rabbit stew and porcupine pie and sauteed trout; wild mushrooms and venison filet. He had a reliable stove, good supplies, a grateful employer. The patrons called out loud compliments, and if one grew overenthusiastic and came back to the kitchen and then recoiled at Ned’s face, he could claim he’d had a hunting accident and be believed. In these North Woods his was just another legend. “A she-bear tore off that half of my nose,” he’d say. “Then left me for dead. I was lucky.”

  And he was lucky, he thought, washing his hands with strong brown soap. Lucky to have landed here. Behind the hotel the mountains rose in solid ranks, cliffs and ledges jutting like bones through the fur of trees and stars shining, sharp and violent, as bright as those in the arctic. In Philadelphia there’d been nothing for him, only more bad jobs in taverns near the wharves. Only the lowest sort would consider him, because of his face. Some asked if he had leprosy, and if he told them what had really happened they stared at him blankly. On an impulse he’d made his way back to the Adirondack Mountains, to a village mentioned by a man he’d known at the lumber camp: Keene Flats, on the eastern side of the highest peaks. A place, his friend had said, where a few hotels catered to city men eager for a wilderness experience.

  The noise from the dining hall diminished; the hunters shambled off to their beds. After hanging up his apron and changing his shoes, Ned began the long walk along the Ausable River, to the cabin he’d rented near John’s Brook.

  Inside he lit the stove and a pair of candles, then opened the envelope from Philadelphia. He wrote back to Erasmus that same night:

  Your letter reached me with little trouble though I’ve moved since you last wrote—this is a small place, and everyone knows everyone else. Your news disturbed me. I’ve gotten settled here, it’s a kind of new life. I hoped you might have one as well.

  For Commander Voorhees to show up like this—I didn’t wish him dead, I’m glad he’s alive but don’t see why you must suffer for it. You only did what we asked you to, you led us all to safety and should be honored. Those newspaper pages sounded more as if Commander Voorhees is making up an adventure tale than reporting what he saw. Why should he get to say what he wants, and be believed? I know what he did with that meteorite, despite Joe’s advice, yet it seems he was rewarded for his errors. I remember Nessark from my stay at Anoatok, and he didn’t strike me as someone who’d willingly let a family member go. Do you suppose Commander Voorhees deceived them in some way? It’s the Esquimaux who make him a hero—without them he’d have nothing more than you do, just his story. It’s the Esquimaux who set him off from you and me, from Dr. Kane—and I think he knows this, I think he had to bring them back. All this makes me suspicious.

  I feel that if you’re patient your reputation will be restored in time, as will your family’s affections. Perhaps it would be helpful if you left that place for a while. Up here, no one talks about us or any other expedition, they’re busy taming this wild place and no one requires explanations.

  My job as cook is not exciting, but it’s good enough. On my days off, I still practice what you taught me; some of the hunters wish to bring home the skins of the animals they’ve shot, and I do what I can to prepare them. My big triumph lately has been with deer—finally I’ve mastered removing that leaf-shaped piece of cartilage from the ear while keeping the skin intact. For my own amusement I’ve prepared some small skeletons: a bat, a fox, a salamander. You’re a better man than Commander Voorhees. I’m not surprised he’s taken those two Esquimaux from their homes, I always thought he’d do something like this. I wish he’d lost more than his ear. Should you need me you can reach me care of the hotel, at least for the remainder of the season.

  “I’M GLAD HE’S all right,” Alexandra said to Erasmus, when they met in early August by the Schuylkill River. She folded the pages of Ned’s letter neatly. “I was worried about him when you first came back—his poor face. But he’s right that you’re a better man than Zeke. And I agree with both of you about that diary, I had the same reaction when I read the sections in the newspaper. Everything I saw of Zeke before I left—he just seems false to me somehow. Even the way he is with Lavinia. I don’t understand him. I never trusted him, not from the beginning.”

  Erasmus looked out at the ducks paddling in the eddies behind the rocks. When the Esquimaux at Disko Bay had tipped and rolled their delicate kayaks, the crew of the Narwhal had tossed them scraps of food, as strollers here might feed these creatures.

  “He’s already got a name for his book,” Alexandra added. “The Voyage of the Narwhal—aping the famous works of exploration, I suppose. Copernicus told me he’s written a hundred pages.”

  Erasmus shook his head. As if sensing that he’d not done a stroke of work since Lavinia’s wedding, she’d asked him to bring some new pages and promised she’d bring some drawings. He had nothing to exchange for the detail of a whale’s mouth she now spread on the bench between them.

  “That’s good,” he said. “It’s really quite close. If you could shade the baleen plates a bit more . . .”

  Her face fell. “I knew I wouldn’t get it right without you,” she said. “And it’s the only one I’ve been able to work on, it’s so hard to get time at home.”

  “At least you’ve done something. I can’t work at all.”

  “There must be someplace,” she said. “Someplace we can go.”

  “We might be able to use the Repository as a studio,” he said. “If we didn’t bother Lavinia, if I didn’t have to see Zeke . . .” Beneath the hem of her dress, one of Alexandra’s shoes inscribed an arc in the dirt. “You don’t think that’s a good idea?”

  “Have you talked to Copernicus?”

  “What do you mean?” She looked so unhappy that, despite his own misery, he felt sorry for her.

  “Probably he didn’t want to upset you,” she said. “But you should know.”

  She told him, then, how Zeke had converted the Repository into a kind of camp for Annie and Tom. He tried to envision it, but failed—bales of skins and puddles of water and dogs lurching against the tables. The precious books and specimens disturbed, and Annie and Tom both ill. Zeke had known and cherished that place as a boy.

  “I’m sorry,” Alexandra said.

  “My father must be rolling in his grave. But it can’t be helped, can it?”

  “You could go back,” she pointed out. “It is your house.”

  “There’s something . . .” he said. “I can’t explain it, but I know as surely as I’ve ever known anything that Lavinia can’t be happy with Zeke in my presence. She thinks I’m judging her, she doesn’t understand it’s him, that I don’t trust him.”

  “Then we have to live like this for a while,” Alexandra said. “I suppose. They’re building a house of their own, they’ll be gone in time.”

  “In time for what?” He thought of Annie and her little boy. “Are they really sick?”

  “They didn’t look well,” she said. “But I don’t know what’s wrong with them.”

  “Zeke,” he said. “Zeke . . . Copernicus offered to let us work at his new studio, but really there isn’t
room without crowding his friends. He said that when Zeke got back from Washington, he was all puffed up from meeting politicians and members of the Smithsonian Institution, and that everyone was pressing him to exhibit Annie and Tom. A sort of lecture tour around the lyceum halls of the Northeast. One night a ventriloquist or a phrenologist, the next some itinerant professor giving lessons in physiology or showing wax models of Egyptian ruins. The next Zeke in his polar-bear pants, exhibiting Annie like another Hottentot Venus. It’s such a dreadful idea, but Copernicus says he’s going to do it. He’s going to hold the first exhibition right here in Philadelphia. But if they’re already sick . . .”

  “Do you think that will stop him?”

  “Nothing stops him,” Erasmus said. “Nothing ever does. If he gives a lecture here, will you go with me? I have to see what he does.”

  “If you want,” Alexandra said. “Of course I’ll come. And I was thinking, in the meantime—what about asking Linnaeus and Humboldt for some space at the engraving firm? All we’d need are two desks near each other. There must be a corner they could spare.”

  She was looking at the river, not at him, but he could see the longing on her face. “I can’t live like this,” she said. “Not after having a chance to do real work. I can’t stand this.”

  “I’ll ask them,” he promised. “If it doesn’t work out, I’ll rent us a workroom someplace else.”

  He let his fingers creep over her knuckles. Her hands were smooth and white, the fingernails clipped short; although her palms were small her fingers were unusually long and her nails, he saw, were deeply arched.