The Whiteness of the Whale: A Novel (7 page)

*   *   *

Perrault stood with one arm around the mast for a long while, steadying the binoculars against the surge and roll. Then handed them down without a word. They buzzed in her hand as if filled with bees. When she focused them the dark blur floated above the horizon, shapeless, inchoate, holding no fixed form. It seemed to be upside down. The boat was gyrating, pitching, but somehow whatever was humming inside the binoculars held the image steady, making her instantly seasick. She lowered them hurriedly. “An island?”

“Zavodovski,” the captain said, still gazing toward it. “Northernmost of the eleven South Sandwich Islands. A volcanic chain.”

She swallowed, trying to recall what solidity felt like underfoot. “Will we land?”

“Nothing there. It’s only five miles long. Unpopulated. No harbor. We’ll pass to the north, then come south again at about twenty-six west.”

She looked again. Even through the powerful binoculars it was only a jagged darkness, with clouds of colorless vapor shrouding its upper reaches. “Have you been on it?”

“Never set foot. The Vendée route’s well north of here.”

The round-the-world single-handed race he’d sailed in, where, Eddi said, something had happened. But she didn’t know what, and the captain didn’t seem to welcome personal questions. In fact, he said little that wasn’t directly related to the boat’s condition, or standing what he called a “rigorous watch.” He looked drawn. Black stubble stood out against pallid skin.

“How much farther to the whaling grounds?” Madsen asked in a low voice.

“We could see whales anytime. Or ice. Hope you’re staying alert up here.”

“We are,” Sara said. “Eddi’s just below to warm up. Lars is giving her a short break. We’re staying on the radar.”

“Then why is it off?” the captain asked.

She looked, and sucked a breath. The screen was blank. “Uh, but—it wasn’t a few seconds ago.” She checked the power switch, but it was already in the on position. “There’s no power.”

“The breaker,” Madsen suggested. “It flipped off on our watch, too.”

Perrault said he’d check it out. “Stay on this course.” He looked around once more, and slid back down the companionway.

“I’ll take that,” she said. Lars looked at her, then stepped aside, relinquishing the wheel with a bow.

He took her place huddled between fuel barrels as she resumed wrestling with the helm. “Relax,” he said. “Reach for the Force.”

“Ha. Not much force left in these arms.”

“Think two seconds ahead. Steer from where she’s going to be, not from where she is.”

“I just don’t have it.” She glanced at the screen; it was back on, the island a coruscating yellow-and-orange blotch. Why couldn’t they at least sail closer? Even if they couldn’t land.

“How’d
you
get wrapped up in all this?” he asked, settling back. His windburned flush was fading, replaced with a waxy pallor.

She gave a sanitized version of why she’d left Brown. “I did a position search, but nothing’s turned up yet. Primate ethology’s a small field. Everybody knows everybody—de Waal, Wrangham, Boesch, Matsuzawa—and there aren’t many positions. And my—previous project didn’t—didn’t work out. The only opportunities were in medical research, which meant animal experimentation. Which I don’t care for. I had my 401(k) from the college, so I didn’t need a salary, if I could move out of my apartment. Then I saw the CPL wanted someone.”

He nodded. Rubbed his cheeks as if to massage circulation into them. His fingers were long even in the mittens, his legs thin; the knees poked up. He murmured, looking toward the distant island, “Anybody waiting for you at home?”

So
. She hadn’t been imagining it. “Um, just some cousins. Back in Nantucket.”

“That’s surprising.”

“My parents are dead. I was married, but it didn’t work out. He said I spent more time with monkeys than with human beings.” She hesitated, then added gently, “I’m older than you think, Lars.”

He blinked. “How old do you think I am?”

“I don’t know. Twenty-four?”

He pulled out the corners of his eyes, erasing the squint lines. Tears skittered in the icy wind. “Now?”

She had to chuckle. “Twenty?” Then sobered. “I don’t want to play games. I like you, but there’s no room in my life right now for a … I don’t know, for…” Any word she could think of to end that sentence seemed either too trivial or too serious. “Anyway, no room,” she said firmly. “So, do you know where we’re going? After this island? Dru said south.”

He blotted his cheeks with the backs of his gloves. “Want me to take that again?”

“I’ve got it. But thanks.”

“He’s going to head south between twenty-six and twenty degrees west. Turn right and aim directly for the coast.”

She tried to remember the chart. “Are there more islands?”

“Not after the South Sandwiches. Just ocean. We’ll have sailed two thousand miles by the time we get down to where the whales should be. Maybe even cross the Antarctic Circle—depends on how the ice looks this year. And where the fleet is. That’ll be the tough part. Finding them.”

The radar peeped. The island flashed on the screen. “Proximity alarm,” Madsen said, and pushed a button. The beeping stopped.

“That’s why Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd spend so long at sea. The whalers are closemouthed about their itinerary. Then they chase the pods. They’ll follow one for weeks, vacuuming up each member, one after the other, until they’re all dead. But this time we have a secret weapon.”

“That’s interesting,” she said casually. “Where’d it come from?”

“The Protection League.”

“Meaning Tehiyah.”

“She and Jules-Louis, they’re supporters, but not the only ones. Some are former Sea Shepherds. Some, former Greenpeace. Others, PETA. Others, just people who want to see whaling stopped, even if risks have to be taken.” He looked at her directly. “I hope you’re of the same mind.”

“I try not to get emotionally attached. But I don’t like seeing an endangered species killed for money, in defiance of international convention. No.” She smiled, then remembered he couldn’t see her face beneath the black wool. “I hope that’s close enough?”

A head bobbed in the bubble dome. The hatch clacked back and Eddi crawled out. She looked around. “Hey. We’re going so fast.”

“Just letting her run.” The Dane slacked the mainsheet and the boat rolled and seemed to sag back, abruptly more sluggish, no longer the seabird leaping from crest to crest.

Sara breathed a sigh, both relieved and saddened. It had felt dangerous but exhilarating, racing at top speed, sending spray flying with each chop of the bow.

Behind Eddi a dark head emerged. Tehiyah Dorée, followed by the captain. “I’ll take it,” the actress said, muffled behind a cold-weather mask. Behind them rose a third form, wraithlike, thin, moving very slowly in a much-too-large mustang suit. The face was bare except for ski goggles, pale, expressionless. It took a moment before Sara recognized her.

“Georgita! You’re up.”

“I feel better,” the assistant murmured, not meeting anyone’s eyes. An uncertain smile curved bloodless lips. She lowered a black waterproof case to the deck, leaned against a fuel drum, and looked around. “We’re really … far out here.”

“Isn’t it beautiful?” the actress said.

“It’s scary. I don’t know what I … what are we supposed to do up here?”

“I’ll show you,” Dorée said. “You can stand watch with me.” Sara glanced at her, taken aback. For a moment, she’d sounded as if she cared.

*   *   *

It wasn’t exactly warm below, but they were out of the wind. She struggled out of the heavy suit, hung it and her boots in the mildew-and-salt-rimed wet-gear locker, and padded into the salon in damp socks. A framework had been swung out of the side of the hull. Perrault was bolting supports into place beneath the bubble. The elevated seat was positioned directly beneath the dome. The buckle of a lap belt pendulumed. “This is where we’ll stand watch from, when the weather gets heavy,” he said to her questioning glance. “When things get really bad, we won’t want anybody out on deck.”

“It’s going to get
worse
?”

“We haven’t even hit a storm yet. I got knocked down twice on my first Vendée. Broke my spreaders, tore my mainsail track out.”

Again she thought about asking, Is that the time you turned back? Then remembered no, Eddi had said that was last year, and he’d said “my first” not “my last.” “Is that likely? Isn’t this a bigger boat?”

“Depends on what we hit. But for a green crew, you’re doing great. Step up here. You’re just about the tallest, except for Lars. I’ll adjust it so you have headroom.”

She obediently climbed the pegs, swung in, and clicked the belt shut. A crank ratcheted and the seat slowly rose until her hair brushed the apex of the dome. She could see all around the horizon. Twisting to look aft, she spotted a shaky Georgita pointing a camera at Dorée. The actress had taken off her mask and shaken out her hair. It streamed like a black flag as she gripped the wheel. She lifted her chin as the assistant continued to record. The bow began to come left. The stern rose. Sara tensed. If a sea hit now … but at the last moment Dorée seemed to realize the danger and hastily steered back.

“Okay, thanks,” Perrault said. The boat lurched as she climbed down; his hand cupped her butt, bracing her. “Sorry,” he muttered, staring past her up into the dome.

“No problem.”

She staggered to her bunk, pulled the curtain, and peeled off the track suit. The smell came up in a sickening wave. For a second she debated going to the head, scrubbing pits and crotch, all you could do with the gallon a day Quill allotted. Then shrugged it off. Too cold to even think about splashing near-freezing water over herself. She stank, so what. They all did. Eddi was smart. She’d brought baby wipes. But Tehiyah had borrowed them, and they hadn’t seen them since.

Up forward, on a narrow sole before the equipment void, Auer was a shapeless lump inside her Goofy and Mickey sleeping bag. Sara grabbed the handhold and waited for the boat to take a leap. Then gave a tug and floated up off the deck, twisted, and slotted herself into the thirteen inches between the bunk and the curved white overhead. She groped for the strap and snapped it into place, so she wouldn’t roll out. Put her hand between her legs, rubbed once or twice, but couldn’t muster the interest to continue. She stretched and sighed. Four or five slow deep breaths, her thudding heart quieting, the world and consciousness constricting with each heartbeat. Then darkness hurtled in.

*   *   *

A hand shaking her in the dim. “You want ta eat, get up,” Quill grunted.

Sara blinked and coughed. Every muscle ached. Every tendon twanged. At last she willed herself to grab the handhold and roll out. But was stopped dead, hanging half in and half out, caught between heaven and earth by the bunk strap. She unhooked it and dropped, narrowly missing Georgita as she too crawled out, moaning softly.

When she slid back the curtain Eddi was standing on Goofy’s face, her blue bikini underpants sagging. Sweat showed dark on her German army sleeveless tee, and a smear of brownish red—menstrual blood?—lined the crack of her ass. Sara turned away and rooted in the dirty laundry on the deck for her fleece-lined pants.

In the galley Quill had laid out bread and sliced cheese in a fiddleboard. “Last of the fresh,” the bearded mate grumbled as they took a bounding pitch. Plastic glasses shivered in the overhead stowage. Dishes rattled in the sink. “Canned or frozen from here on.”

If Jamie was here, where was Lars? She craned and saw him ensconced in the dome chair like a fly trapped by a spider. His elbows were braced against the framework; his head was poked up into the bubble as he worked—on some piece of electronics, to judge by the dangling wires. “Where’s Mick?” she asked the salon at large.

“Up forward.”

“I’ll take him a plate.” More easily said than done, but she clamped one of the unbreakable dishes over another with the sandwich and felt her way forward.

Past the salon and the berthing area the coachroof slanted down. She was bowing by the time she got to the semicircular hatch leading to the long narrow forward void. She knocked off the dogs with an elbow and backed in. “Mick. Brought you—”

“Close the hatch. Right now!”

She slammed it, nearly losing the sandwich. To find herself in pitch darkness, surrounded by a high-pitched electronic ululation like theremins in a science-fiction film. A buzzing hiss came and went.

Within the tapered tunnel Bodine crouched in front of a screen, face lit green and pink and yellow. He turned a dial in minuscule increments, head cocked like a curious raven. The buzzing hiss sharpened, each repetition ending with a zipping snap. It grew crisp, then faded again into an all-encompassing hiss.

“What’s that? What’re you picking up?”

“Can you get Dru in here? Or Jamie?” he said, not looking at her. Head still tilted in that listening attitude.

“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

He threw a hard glance over his shoulder. “Just
do it
, Sara.”

Puzzled, angry—this was her space, the lab—she slammed the dishes down. She called into the berthing area, “Dru? Jamie?
Mick
wants you.”

She went back in and perched on one of the equipment cases. The captain came in immediately. He looked at her, then at Bodine. “What is it you have?”

“Two radars, bearing roughly one three zero. Not much angular separation.”

“Japanese?”

“Japanese-made. All I can say for sure.”

Perrault hung over Bodine’s shoulder watching the screen. The hatch creaked open and Madsen came in too. They huddled like husbands at a Super Bowl game. All I need is to put out the chips and beer, she thought.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Her words emerged harsher than she’d meant.

They glanced at her. Perrault started to turn back to the screen, then heaved a sigh. “Mick has direction-finding equipment, to home on the fleet’s radar transmissions. Up in the sea lanes, it’d be hopeless. Hundreds of radars up there. Even back by the Palmer Peninsula, it might be a cruise ship. But out here, if we hear a signal, it’s likely to be them.”