Chapter 23
By Friday night, I can’t do any more studying or my brain will explode so I’m in the back of the kitchen helping my aunt Marissa, Larissa’s older sister, wash the last of the dishes. My zizi preps for breakfast tomorrow.
“I was talking to Groton this morning, and he said at the last meeting they all agreed with me that something has to be done. The catch has been too poor this season. Everyone knows it. If the winter is too long, forefathers forbid it, we’ll have some problems.”
“My husband’s been saying the same thing,” says Marissa, putting a wet plate on the rack.
“They all say it. Everyone knows it. Only a fool wouldn’t.” My zizi’s voice is grating on my tired ears. I did an analysis for the weather center that involved opera vocals earlier today.
“I think,” she says, and waits until we both stop what we’re doing, “that we need a whale hunt. Now is the time, while they’re migrating. How can anyone not see that! Are they stupid?” my aunt’s voice raises to an impressive pitch. I try to calm her down.
“Zizi, maybe it’s not as bad as they say. Those guys exaggerate a lot.”
“No, Crusa. You haven’t been around as long as I have. Trust me, I know when the catch isn’t good enough.”
“Maybe the winter will be mild. You never know.”
“You can’t count on that. You can’t ever count on New England weather. What would we do if we all just said, ‘oh, well.’ You can’t do that. It’s irresponsible. I don’t know how anyone could do that. Are people just that oblivious? Why don’t those people at your lab see this, Crusa? They should send out the information to us. Crusa, are you listening to me? They call themselves smart but if they don’t see this then they’re stupid. Are they stupid? Somebody tell me. They must be stupid. I tell you, they may be smart but they don’t have any common sense.”
“I guess they just don’t think of it. Plus, the M.S.A. considers whales a protected species,” I mumble. It’s not like she really wants another explanation.
“I know that. But when stupid people make stupid rules why do you follow them? You should just go look up the whales’ locations yourself, if nobody else will do it. Of course they won’t, imbeciles…” she goes on and we finish the dishes.
I zone out but at some point realize she’s switched topics to how exhausted she is and gives a detailed list of all her aches and pains. I massage her back for her, and it finally winds her down enough to go sit by the fire and sew.
I get into my bed, but I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about what she was saying, about nobody at the base paying attention to how we need a hunt.
I wake up, still tired after a night of high-wired dreaming. I feed most of my breakfast to Lium and Hale. I function at work like a good, albeit jumpy, specialist all morning, but by the afternoon I can’t focus on the virtual orchestra. I keep loosing the drums somewhere, and I reprimand them like they’re real people.
It’s then that I decide to close my analysis program for the day. I spin around in my chair for a while. Then I suddenly decide to click on the NOA icon, hands shaking like I’m on a sugar rush. The screens flash by, and before I know it, I have the marine life data pages sprawled across my visual display.
I can only glance at them for a few seconds before I feel like throwing up, but that’s enough. Not only do I logout, but I also shutdown the entire computer and unplug it from the power source before I slip on my heels and go wait at the lobby door.
At five oh five, I kick off the ridiculously high regulation heels and they land in some ferns. I’ll come get them later. Or not.
Possibly.
After practically falling down the side of the island, I find my Uncle Groton fiddling around with some crates on his boat
“Uncle Groton, Uncle Groton!”
“What’s wrong, child?”
“There’s a whole pod of shark-whales off the eastern side of the island, right past the drop-off.” I point out to sea. He looks at me, and that’s about it.
“What dear?”
I have to repeat myself twice and then assure him three times that it is actually true before he can a, actually hear me, b, comprehend what I’m trying to explain, and c, actually take me seriously. The last part takes the longest because apparently the chipmunk voice and bare feet do not lend credibility to a point, no matter how valid.
Eventually, my uncle yells at a fisherman passing by to get the harpoons and hunting skiffs ready, and in a burst the whole marina is off and running about.
I stand, barefoot and panting, as the men scurry around in frantic activity.
I decide to stay and watch, because now I’ll feel guilty for making them run around if the whales don’t come close enough, and I feel like I should be there if they want to yell at me. It’s only fair.
I go down to the end of my uncle’s dock and hang my legs over the edge, and it’s good I don’t have shoes now because I don’t have to worry about remembering them later. I also have to unbutton my blouse and roll up the long cuffed sleeves to my elbows before I can relax.
There are three skiffs in the water, and two of my poppy’s that are too old to hunt watching nearby, by the time I’m comfortable. The skiffs are small, lithe things that sit close to the surface and I don’t know how they don’t tip over every five seconds. I ask my grandfathers, and they say they can.
Ok, then. One says that’s why teams are put together based on body mass as well as hunting skill. I nod and say I hope none tip over. They’re all armed with pointed and barbed harpoons, as tall as they are themselves. My poppy Sal starts going on about all the times they’ve accidentally caught themselves in the hunt. I tell him I don’t think that actually happened. He laughs.
The wood under me vibrates with unhurried steps.
“Hey, Sal, Crusa, what’s going on? We missed you on the path.”
“Sorry, I didn’t take the path.”
Lium comes up with Hale lagging behind him, squinting out at the water. They come to the edge of the dock and sit on either side of me. It’s a little too cozy for my taste, but I try not to fidget. This week, back in our routine, I feel we got back on an even keel, and I don’t want to mess it up again so soon.
“It’s a whale hunt. There’s a pod not too far out. It’s pretty lucky. We don’t usually get them so close to the islands, but the meat and the blubber and the bones are all really good. Have you guys ever hunted shark whales before?”
“No, what are they?” asks Hale, still watching the boats, now numbering at least ten or twelve, with the rest of the men gathering up knives and making space on the beach.
I shrug, “They’re just whales that look like sharks. About the size of that rowboat, there. And they’re grey and have white bellies. They’ve got really pointy teeth because they hunt fish, too. That must be why they’re near us, I bet.”
“We should go join them,” says Hale to his brother.
Lium looks like he’s already thought of that.
“Mm, I don’t think you want to do that,” I say.
I glance over at one of my poppy’s, and he says, “No, shark whales are aggressive, and hard to hunt. You have to circle them in, just right, and then harpoon each one many times before it gets too weak to fight back, and they don’t go quietly. Our men out there have been hunting them forever. But it’s still dangerous, even for them. You two don’t want to be out there today. We’ll teach you, though. Watch carefully, and you can go next time.”
Neither of the boys looks too happy, but there’s really nothing they can do about it since all the skiffs are out. I’m glad of it, but I still feel sorry about their frowning faces.
“Hey, if you guys stick around, you can get a portion of the meat. You just wait, everyone in town will be down here to get some soon, you’ll see.”
While we wait, they tell me their funniest rodeo stories. It’s the first time I’ve heard such stories, since that day Lium first told me about it. I hear about rodeo clo
wns and Lium’s adventures in searching for the cowgirls’ tents and the time Hale wrestled a sheep when he was twelve. Only good memories. They sound like two big honking seals, by the end. No wonder the shark whales are in so close.
I can just barely make out the harpoons. They’ve been floating around out in one area for a while now. Hale’s asleep and Lium and I lean against a pillar.
“Hey!”
“What?”
My poppy who isn’t snoring points. The boats have moved. There are some men sitting low, paddling, spiraling the skiffs around. There’s a burst of white spray and they all start pointing at it.
Someone throws a harpoon and it disappears into the water. They all shift position, and do it again. I glimpse a lump, covered in spikes rising above the surface and disappearing down again. Over and over.
No women will sleep tonight, that I know. No, the men will put the kids to sleep and then crash themselves, but for the rest of us the work is just starting, and it all has to be done right away. I’m going to be very tired at work tomorrow. I’ll have to drink the energy water, I guess.
“Why do they have to hunt these things, anyway?” Lium asks as we walk down the pier. The first shark whale is almost to shore.
“Why? Because of the oil, and the meat, and everything else you get with them.”
“Yeah, but they sound like they’re, I don’t know, different. Predators. Top of the food chain, so there must not be a lot of them, right?”
“I suppose so. We only took a few, though.”
“Yeah, I know. It just sounds like killing and eating a…a wolf, or a horse or something.” He shrugs, but in the night I can’t see his face.
“We have to eat. We use every bit of the animal, nothing goes to waste.” I say, hoping it makes him feel better.
“Well, I think I’m going to pass on this one,” he stops, looking out at the dark lump being dragged onto the beach.
“You sure?”
I look to Hale, and he shrugs before they both turn and walk back to the boats.
I shake myself and go over to the people hauling a carcass in from the shallows. The men hack, stab, yank and slice. My aunts direct over their shoulders with varying degrees of success. Arguments rise and fall against laughter and every person comes up to the animals to announce the goodness of the catch.
“It’s a good catch, tonight.”
“Yes, look how fat he is.”
“He looks strong, too. Must have been a good swimmer.”
“He is fat and strong. I know he’ll taste good, too.”
“How do you know that? Did you just taste him?”
“No, but look at his smile. He’s got clean teeth and he’s smiling. He’s got to taste good.”
“I think you should taste him now.”
“Fine, cut me a piece.”
“Fine.”
“I want a piece, too.”
And so a section of the first whale is cut into soup-sized chunks and handed over the crowd to reaching hands. I find Eleni, and she hands me a chunk. I have to say it is delicious. Bloody, chewy and warm. I lick my fingers and laugh with the others while someone says I-told-you-so.
I get a good share, more than I can fit in the sack my Uncle Groton gave me. I use my blouse as a satchel, and head up the path to the green with Eleni. On the stoop of the meetinghouse, my zizi is waiting.
“How’s the whale?” she takes the heavy sack from my sticky arms and opens it, very serious but pleased with what she smells and sees and pokes.
She sets the squishy bundle on the countertop and more ladies come and we spend all night up to our shoulders in gore, the flesh and bones spread out over all the tables, organized by type and destination.
The briny, metallic, sinuous smell of raw whale meat permeates all of our pores. Saturates our hair, fills our lungs and mouths and noses.
The work is methodical. We get a task from our zizi, who tells us how to do it and shows us, and then we take the knives. She watches for a minute, and then if you’re doing it right she’ll move on. If not, you will be reinstructed until you do, which happens to Eleni so many times that she goes and sulks in a chair and scowls for an hour until Cassie announces she’ll coax her back.
“Hey, Cas.”
“What?”
I slip a slimy bit of some organ into her hand.
She nods, “Hopefully I won’t need this.”
Turns out she doesn’t. Even forgets where she got it from.
I leave the house when we’re mostly done. Someone is out cold on a table, Eleni disappeared upstairs some time well before dawn, and my zizi is talking to herself. She’s gotten to the point where everything I do I’m apparently doing wrong, so we both agree that my part is done.
I tear through the kitchen with my backpack, yelling back something about studying before work. My zizi calls to me to keep my voice down, I’ll wake the ancestors, but I pretend I don’t hear her and keep going. My arms are full and I don’t want her to see what I’m carrying.
There are men around when I get to the docks, but nobody talks so early, so I sound out of place when I cut in.
“Hello? Lium? Hale?” I knock on the side of my uncle’s boat.
Someone sticks a head out the cabin door. A rumpled Lium. A corner of my mouth quirks up.
“Crusa?” His voice is scratchy.
“Yeah, hi, sorry to bother you.”
I flop the bundle down at my feet. “I just wanted to bring you this.”
He comes forward and squints at the sack.
“What’s this?”
“Whale meat.”
He looks up at me, messy eyebrows raised.
“Crus,”
“Lium,” I cut him off, feeling bad, but I keep going. “I know what you said. I really do.” I try to smile but it doesn’t work. I sigh. “The winters here can be harsh. It’s unpredictable.” I shake my head and shrug, put my hands on my hips. “Look, it’s preserved. Mashed up with fat and dried berries. It’ll last a really long time. Just…save it. In case you ever get desperate, I just want you to have it. Please?”
He opens the bag, looks in, and then up.
“You sure you want to give all this away?”
“I’m not giving it away, I’m giving it to you.”
“Alright, then. Thanks.” I step back and wipe my hands on my skirt. I really need a bath and a change of clothes.
He insists on walking with me to the base, even though I swear I’ll be fine. I go straight to the barracks for a shower and fresh clothes, and it’s only when I feel the cold floor on the soles of my feet that I realize I never did get my shoes from the bushes. Unfortunately, the woman at the security desk notices at about the same time.
So, despite smelling like cooked whale and being reprimanded on the importance of taking pride in the uniform and the disrespect I’m showing to the country that clothes and feeds me by running around like a wild animal, it doesn’t bother me too much.
In fact, I feel quite satisfied all day.