Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel in Five Voices

by Jodie Picoult

  What I would give to be one of them. For a little while, I could trade in my legs for a massive form, a mighty tail. I could run with them along the mountains of the ocean, calling out, understanding. I could sing in the quiet of night with absolute certainty that there would be someone waiting to hear me. I could find her; I could mate for life.

  With three sharp kicks of my fins I swim up to Marble. Keeping my distance, I mark where the gill net has tangled in her mouth, caught no doubt across the baleen. I do not think we will be able to cut it entirely without compromising our own safety. Most likely we will have to rip the net so that she is at least free, and then Marble will have to adapt. Whales have an incredible propensity for adaptation. Think how many have spent years living with broken harpoons in their thick skin.

  When I surface I am pulled into the second Zodiac by two young marine biology students. I roll onto my stomach on the floor of the boat, which shivers like jello with every twitch of Marble’s body. I pull the mask off, unhook the harness with the tank. “It’s tangled around her right fin and pretty much woven through her baleen,” I say. Then I notice the television camera looking down at me. “What the hell is this?”

  “It’s okay, Oliver,” Windy says, “Anne’s from the Center. She’s videotaping for our files.”

  I sit up, panting. I watch the lens zoom closer. “Do you mind?” Still dripping, I crawl into Windy’s Zodiac. I instruct the students in the other boat to start hanging buoys around the whale in any manner they can-looping, hooking, anything, just so it doesn’t hurt her any more. The idea here is to tire her out, keep her floating at the surface so that we have a chance to cut away the net. Windy and I rope a few large sailing buoys around Marble’s tail.

  “Okay,” I say, surveying the whale, now edged in pink floating balls like a decorated Christmas tree. “I want you to get the hell out of the way.” I say this expressly to Samuels, although I mean everyone in his boat. One of the students backs the second Zodiac several hundred feet away, leaving Windy and me alone alongside Marble.

  I lean out of the boat, an arm’s length away from the soft surface-of Marble’s skin. At this point she is so exhausted she doesn’t try to fight as I snip at the net with a grappling hook, leaving entire chunks of it still tangled in her baleen. “You need to get closer to her,” I say, as we approach her fin. “I can’t reach the net.”

  “I can’t get any closer without going right over her.”

  “Then go over her. Just watch your engine.”

  Windy and I argue this point, but in the long run he does move the tiny craft over the tip of Marble’s fin. I am confident that at this point she is tired enough to let us go about our business. I lean out of the boat and try to unravel the gill net.

  Suddenly I am pitched backward. Marble exhales through her blowhole, a fetid combination of stale water and algae, and whacks the edge of the boat with her fin. She hits us twice so forcefully that the Zodiac rises and pitches, on the verge of overturning. “Fuck,” Windy cries, holding onto the rubber handles on the inside of the boat. The students in the other Zodiac begin to scream, and I hear it quite clearly, as if their voices have been attached to a speaker in our boat. Then I realize our Zodiac has been thrown into the air. I am tossed onto my back, on top of Windy, who is lying face down in the boat. It is purely by chance that the inflatable raft landed face up, rather than face down, in the freezing depths of this ocean, in the nether region of a whale. “Get off me,” Windy says. He sits up gently and rubs his arm. “I told you we shouldn’t go over her.”

  “Is the engine all right?”

  “Screw the engine. Are you all right?”

  I grin as he takes inventory of his limbs. “I’m better than you,” I say.

  “You are not.”

  “Always was.”

  “Bullshit,” Windy says. He fiddles with the Evinrude and starts it again. “Where do you want to go?”

  This time, Windy approaches from the back of the whale, sneakingup between the fin and the lower half of the body. After several passes with the grappling hook Marble is free. Windy and I pass around the perimeter of the whale one last time, unhooking the buoys. Then we rev the boat’s engine backwards, floating several hundred feet north of the whale. It takes Marble several minutes to realize she is unencumbered, and then finally she sinks several feet below the surface of the water and swims off. About a quarter mile away, she is joined by a small group of whales. As they are leaving, Marble arches and dives, holding up the underside of her fluke and slapping it against the water with such force that we are all caught in the spray.

  Windy and I watch Marble swim away into the swirling eddies of Stellwagen Bank. “Christ, that’s beautiful,” he says, and I put my hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m only going to say this once,” he says, smiling, “so you’d better listen up. I want to thank you, Oliver. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “Sure you could have.”

  “You’re right. It just wouldn’t have been as much fun.” He laughs and guns the engine toward the shore. “You’re a crazy son of a bitch. I would have taken a dive to check the location of the net, but I sure as hell wouldn’t have taken a nap under the belly of a twenty-five-ton whale.”

  “Yes you would,” I say. “When an opportunity like that presents itself, you don’t fight it.”

  “You’re still crazy.”

  “You’re jealous. You wish you could fight off the paparazzi.”

  Windy rubs his forehead with his hand. “Christ. All the reporters. I forgot. How come nobody gives a damn about a whale until it’s in trouble, and then it become a national event?”

  I smile. “I don’t mind talking to the networks.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since I’m trying to find Jane.” I don’t look at Windy when I say this. “Jane left me. She took my kid and she left. I’m under the impression she’s in Massachusetts, but I don’t know where for sure. So I figure if I make myself into a media hero, I can ask her back over the nightly news.”

  “Jane left you? Jane left you?” He cuts the engine so that we are sitting in the middle of the Atlantic, the other Zodiac speeding off ahead of us. “I’m sorry you came here at all. You should have been looking for her.”

  “You didn’t ask me,” I remind him. “I invited myself.”

  “Is there anything I can do? You know you’re welcome to stay with me as long as you want.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks. The only thing you can do for me right now is get me back to all those cameras and microphones.” The boat rocks back and forth, tossed by a passing wave. “I’ve got to get her back, you know,” I say, more to myself than to Windy.

  “You will,” he says.

  When we come closer to shore Windy lifts up the engine and lets us drift in with the tide. The crowd of newspeople runs down to the edge of the beach. “Dr. Jones,” they call. “Dr. Jones!”

  I have heard that sound so many times; the pitch of twenty, thirty voices singing my name. I can feel the old college rush of adrenaline when I consciously register that it is me they are all waiting to meet. I used to hear that marvelous sound and think that this was my ticket to the top. Then I would go home and tell Jane, and she would ask all the right questions: How many reporters were there? Did you talk long? Will it be on the news? Were any of them pretty?

  None like you, Jane.

  I step off the boat seconds before Windy, who walks me up the beach with his arm around my shoulders. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, interrupted briefly by a hacking cough, “I’d like to introduce Dr. Oliver Jones, affiliated with the San Diego Center for Coastal Studies. Dr. Jones is singularly responsible for the rescue of Marble, the humpback that has been entangled in fishing nets for several days.”

  It comes in a rush, the push of the microphones and the incoherent bubble of twenty different questions being asked at once. I hold up my hands and take a deep breath. “I’ll be happy to answer,” I say quietly, knowing wel
l that first impressions last the longest, “but you need to speak one at a time.”

  I point to a young black man in a yellow rain slicker. “Dr. Jones, can you describe the procedure used to disentangle the whale?” As I start to answer, I see Windy pass behind the throng of reporters. He signals an O.K. sign to me. He takes his cough syrup from his pocket and makes his way towards the group of students who were in the other Zodiac.

  I tell them where the net was caught. I tell them we used a grappling hook to cut it away. I tell them about the whale that came up to Marble and stroked her gently, and I let them know such tenderness is often exhibited among humpbacks. I tell them everything they want to know and then finally someone asks the question I have been waiting to hear.

  “Dr. Jones,” the man says, “was this a case of being in the right place at the right time? Or did you come here expressly to help the whale?”

  “I didn’t know about the whale until I heard of its plight through the efforts of you good folks. I’m in Massachusetts on a different sort of rescue mission. I have been traveling across the country looking for my wife Jane and my daughter Rebecca. I have reason to believe that they are in Massachusetts; unfortunately, it is a very big state and I don’t know where. If you’ll indulge me, I was hoping you’d allow me to send a message to them.”

  I pause long enough to let the cameras start rolling again. I clear my throat and look as honestly as one can into the blind eye of a TV camera. “Jane,” I say, and I realize that it comes out sounding like a question. “I need you. I hope you can see this, and I hope you and Rebecca are all right. I can’t stand being without you. I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me, but I came to save this whale because I knew you’d hear about it on the news and I wanted you to see me. I wanted you to remember how it used to be-we postponed our honeymoon because of a whale, don’t you remember that? Don’t you remember how we cheered and hugged each other when we saw it swimming again, miles off the coast? Well, I saved a whale today. And I want you to know it wasn’t any fun without you. If you’re watching this, I hope you’ll let me know where you are. Call the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies- they’ll know how to get in touch with me.”

  A reporter interrupts. “Do you have a picture?”

  I nod and pull my wallet out of my pocket. I open to a photo taken of Jane and Rebecca less than a year ago. “Can you get this?” I hold it up towards the cameras. “If anyone out there has seen my wife, or this little girl, please call in.” I stare at the grey cataract eyes of the television cameras. Jane’s eyes are grey too, I think, surprised that I can still picture them so vividly. “I love you,” I say. “I don’t care if the whole world knows.”

  58 JANE

  For a long time I watch the different digits materialize on the face of the clock beside the bed. I wait until it says 1:23, and then I stand up and walk around this borrowed bedroom. There’s no moon tonight, so there is no natural light. It is only through the practice of several nights that I do not bump into the dresser, the post of the bed, the rocking chair, as I make my way out the door.

  I hold my breath as I walk down the hall. When I pass Rebecca’s bedroom, I press my ear against the door and I listen to her steady, even breathing. Satisfied by this small thing, I amass enough courage to walk seven steps further down the hallway, to his room.

  Having practiced for twenty minutes on the doorknob of my own bedroom, I find it easy to let myself inside without making a sound. When I open the door, a slice of light from the hall spills onto the floor of his room, illuminating a runway that leads to the foot of the bed. From where I stand, I can see the tangled sheets and blankets.

  I take a deep breath and I sit on the edge of the mattress but all I hear is the sound of my own throat pounding. “I know you’re awake,” I say. “I know you can’t sleep either.” Jane, I tell myself, you are not leaving until you say what you’ve planned to say. “I’ve never been with anyone but Oliver, my whole life,” I say, turning the words over and over in my mouth. “I’ve never even kissed anyone but him. Really kissed. Well, you know, except for this afternoon.” I spread my fingers out in front of me, wondering if there is something there for me to touch. “I’m not saying that today was your fault. I’m not saying there’s anyone to blame. I’m just telling you I don’t know if I’m any good at this.” I wonder why there is no response. What if he hasn’t been thinking these things at all? “Are you awake?” I ask, leaning into the night, and then the air closes in from behind me.

  It envelopes me and wraps itself so tight that I start to scream, until I feel the hand press against my lips and I try to bite it but that’s no use, and it pushes me down against the bed, rolling me onto my back and pinning me by my shoulders and this entire time I am trying to scream, and then my eyes clear and inches away from me is Sam.

  He relaxes his hold on my mouth. “What are you doing?” I whisper, hoarse. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

  “I was in the bathroom. I stopped there on the way to your room.”

  “You did?” I sit up on the edge of the bed, and he is still holding my hands. Our fingers rest, entwined, on top of my leg.

  “And by the way,” Sam says, “I think you are very good at this.”

  I look down at my lap. “Oh, how much did you hear?”

  “All of it. I was waiting at the door, listening. You can’t get mad at me for eavesdropping, either, because you thought I was over there.” He points to the lump of blankets and pillows that have been balled into the center of the bed. Then he takes one of my hands and turns it over in his own, rubbing the warm skin of my palm with his thumb. “So what are you doing in my room?” He leans close.

  I sink down into his pillows. “I’m waiting for the guilt. I figure if the guilt comes, then I can punish myself and feel better. I keep waiting, you know, and I think about you, but no matter what I don’t feel guilty. So then I start to believe that I’m not the person I thought I was at all. And then I figure if I’m awful, I don’t deserve to be thinking about you.” I sigh. “You must think I’m crazy.”

  Sam laughs. “Want to know why I was headed to your room? To talk about marriage. Honest to God, I was. I wanted you to know that you were driving me nuts, because here I was thinking about things that I shouldn’t be, knowing you’ve got a family and all. And the worst part of it is: I believe in marriage. I haven’t gotten married because I haven’t found the right woman. My whole life I’ve been waiting for something to just click, you know. And tonight I was lying here, thinking about what you might have looked like the day you got hitched to Oliver Jones, and it all just connected for me. Don’t you get it? He’s taken the woman that I’m supposed to marry.”

  “When I got married, you were the same age as Rebecca. You were just a kid.”

  Sam lies down on his side so that he is facing me. He is wearing a T-shirt and polka-dotted boxer shorts, and when he sees me looking at them he reaches for a sheet and wraps it around his hips. “I’m not a kid now,” he says.

  He reaches his hand towards my face, and traces the length of my cheek and chin with his finger. Then he grabs my hand and holds it to his own cheek. He runs it over the coarse field of stubble, over the break of his jawbone and the soft, dry line of his lips. Then he lets go.

  But I don’t pull my hand away. I keep my fingers against his mouth as it opens to kiss them. I run them lightly over Sam’s eyelids, feeling his eyes moving wild behind. I comb over his lashes and down the bridge of his nose. I explore him as if I have never seen anything of the kind.

  He doesn’t move as I slide the palms of my hands over his shoulders and his arms, over the indentation where his muscles join, into the hollow of his elbow. He lets me trace the sinews of his strong forearms, turns his hands over in my own, feel for the callouses and cuts. He helps me pull his shirt over his head and when I throw it, it lands on the night table.

  If I keep it like this, like an exploration, then I have nothing to be afraid of. It is only if I move to a
different level, to intimacy, that I will have to worry. Sex has never been mystical for me. The earth doesn’t move, and I don’t hear angels, or bells, or all those other things. I am always a little too self-conscious. With skeletons such as mine in the closet, I never expected making love to be magic. The way I saw it, I had done something extraordinary: I had pushed the worst memories out of my mind. The first time was the hardest for me, and having hurdled that with Oliver, I never expected to have to face that problem again.

  But when I feel Sam wrap his arms around my waist, and gently run his fingers over my ribs; when I feel him already hard, pushing against my thigh, I start to cry.

  “What is it? What’s the matter?” Sam pulls me against him. “Did I do something?”

  “No.” I try to catch my breath. I cannot tell him. I haven’t told anyone. But suddenly I don’t want to carry it around anymore, like Atlas’s weight. “When I was little,” I hear myself murmur against his skin. My voice sounds foreign, like I am listening, again, from that far corner, but as I speak I seem to be coming closer.

  Sam holds me at arm’s distance then, and I witness the most amazing thing. He is staring at me, puzzled, waiting for me to tell him about my father. But all I have to do is raise my eyes to his, and look at him, really look at him. And I realize from his gaze that he isn’t waiting for an explanation anymore. “I know,” he says then, sounding surprised at his own words. “I know about your father. I don’t know why, but just then I could tell what you were going to say.” He swallows hard.

  “How?” My mouth forms the word but there is no sound.

  “I-I don’t know how to explain it,” Sam says. “I can see it in you.” Then he winces, and draws back, as if he has been stricken. “You were just a kid,” he whispers.

  He holds me tight, and I hold him back. He is shivering, having found pieces of me that have been missing, having found parts of himself he didn’t know existed. The whole time, I cry like I have never cried before; tears I did not cry when I was nine and Daddy came into my room, tears I did not cry at my father’s funeral. Sam unbuttons the silk nightgown I am wearing, and slides it off my shoulders. He guides my hands to inch off his shorts. Our skin is iridescent in the dark. Sam reaches his hand between my legs. I cover his hand with my own; I urge him. He slips one finger inside me, moist and blossoming, and all the while he is watching my face. Is this all right? Just like that, he has found my center. Sam kisses away my tears, and then he kisses me. Like salt, I can taste my pain, my shame, on his lips.