The Crossings

by Deborah Larsen

  —from Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London

  March 14, 1837

  A New Species

  Sophie looked up and then down and noticed that Polly, her erstwhile secret sharer, was not in her usual spot next to the sliding glass doors. She called: “Polly?”

  She could hear nothing in response but that was not unusual for one whose hearing was getting so bad. Whatever form she took in the next life, she knew she would have her hearing back. If, after she finished with Charles, there was any next life left in her thinking.

  “POLLY.”

  Polly appeared in the doorway. “Whereas I heard you for the first time.”

  “Listen. The new rhea’s, the new ostrich’s tarsi were reticulated in front instead of—”

  She caught herself. Polly looked at Sophie and then walked back out of the room.

  When she looked up scutellated she found that the scutes were shield-like overlapping structures as found in the ducks whereas the reticulates were net-like structures that didn’t overlap (as found in the swans).

  This was not just the house that Charles built. He had fellow construction-workers.

  In this case, Sophie toted up the numbers of persons who had collaborated or in one way or another contributed in ways large and small. Who were they?

  First the gauchos, that’s who. At the Rio Negro, in Northern Patagonia, Charles said he “repeatedly” heard the gauchos talking about a rare bird; they called it Avestruz Petise; they called it “less than the common ostrich…but with a very general close resemblance”; they said it was “more easily caught by the bolas than the other species.”

  Secondly, in the Strait of Magellan, Charles found a “half-bred” among the Patagonian Indians who was familiar with both the northern and southern provinces. This man said that the eggs were fewer in the nest of the Petise than with “the other kind.”

  Then, M. A. D’Orbigny, and Dobrizhoffer, those crumpled horns, contributed. The former noticed a variant rhea in 1834; the latter made note much earlier, in 1749.

  The great chain of being went all the way back to Henslow who put Charles forward as a candidate to sail on the Beagle. Don’t forget the person who packed up the tattered and torn remains of the rhea for Charles. Mr. Martens was the one who gave the kiss of death to what would be the new species: he shot the forlorn creature.

  Don’t forget all those on the voyage who cooked so Charles didn’t have to do that. Don’t forget Mr. Gould.

  They should all have blushed and taken some credit. Charles was part of an octopus—that “blushing” octopus he had described—whose head surely could not have said to its tentacles, “I have no need of you.”

  The purported sole discoverer of rhea darwinii was on the move, thinking about the links between species and between the animal and the human. He was contemplating facial expressions. He would eventually pursue the ancient roots of blushing in persons. Now the idea of “transmutation” was on his mind.

  `

  This is the question

  Marry

  Children — (if it Please God) — Constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, — object to be beloved & played with. — —better than a dog anyhow. — Home, & someone to take care of house — Charms of music & female chit-chat. — These things good for one’s health. — Forced to visit & receive relations but terrible loss of time. —W My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. — No, no won’t do. — Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. — Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps — Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St.

  Marry — Marry — Marry Q.E.D.

  Not Marry

  No children, (no second life), no one to care for one in old age.— What is the use of working ‘in’ without sympathy from near & dear friends—who are near & dear friends to the old, except relatives

  Freedom to go where one liked — choice of Society & little of it. — Conversation of clever men at clubs — Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. — to have the expense & anxiety of children — perhaps quarelling — Loss of time.— cannot read in the Evenings — fatness & idleness — Anxiety & responsibility — less money for books &c — if many children forced to gain one’s bread. — (But then it is very bad for ones health to work too much)

  Perhaps my wife wont like London; then the sentence is banishment & degradation into indolent, idle fool —

  It being proved necessary to Marry

  When? Soon or Late

  The Governor says soon for otherwise bad if one has children — one’s character is more flexible —one’s feelings more lively & if one does not marry soon, one misses so much good pure happiness. —

  But then if I married tomorrow: there would be an infinity of trouble & expense in getting & furnishing a house, —fighting about no Society —morning calls — awkwardness —loss of time every day. (without one’s wife was an angel, & made one keep industrious). — Then how should I manage all my business if I were obliged to go every day walking with one’s my wife. — Eheu!! I never should know French, — or see the Continent — or go to America, or go up in a Balloon, or take solitary trip in Wales. . . . — poor slave. — you will be worse than a negro — And then horrid poverty, (without one’s wife was better than an angel & had money) — Never mind my boy — Cheer up — One cannot live this solitary life, with groggy old age, friendless & cold, & childless staring one in ones face, already beginning to wrinkle. — Never mind, trust to chance —keep a sharp look out — There is many a happy slave — 16

  —Excerpts from Darwin’s Handwritten Notes

  Speculating about the Prospects of Marriage

  Up in a Balloon

  Before Charles died he had told Emma that she should not forget what a good wife she had been. Sophie now learned Charles had agonized about whether or not to get married. He made a list of pros and cons and Sophie was reading them with affection and amusement when her phone rang.

  “Would you be interested in seeing a Flame-colored Tanager?” It was Jack. “It’s not common but there’s one in Madera Canyon right now.” He paused. “If you have the time. Also, Cassin’s and Botteri’s Sparrows were heard singing around a certain milepost on the way to the canyon.”

  The tanager sounded interesting, but sparrows? They didn’t sound very exciting. She had some sympathy for Ted who said that he only liked looking at birds if they had some sort of red coloring on them. “I despise drab birds,” he had told her.

  “Well—I’d like that.”

  Jack said, “Fine. Let’s go all the way up first and start looking for the Flame-colored. I’ll meet you in a half an hour up there at the amphitheater parking lot.”

  Meet him? They wouldn’t go together in the same car? “Are you already in the canyon?”

  “No, I’m at home. See you before long.”

  “Jack doesn’t want to go in the same car with me to see a bird in the canyon,” Sophie said to Polly.

  “Whereas, he is weird. This is all dubious anyway.”

  Later when over the telephone, she told her daughter about Jack’s odd invitation: silence. “Isabelle, are you still there?”

  “I’m here. Who is this dude?”

  When Sophie pulled into the parking lot, Jack was opening the trunk of his car. He reached in and brought his binoculars out of their case—complicated straps dangled from it and once he had the glasses over his head he literally strapped them to his body until the whole hung there, stable. The neck-strap read “Swarovski.” Oh, Sophie thought, they must make functional crystal as well. The crystalline sublime.

  “O.K.,” he said, when he saw her.

  O.K.? She regretted coming. Why hadn’t
she stayed at home and continued studying the Darwin timeline she had printed from the internet. She was at the point in 1837 where Charles had taken lodgings at 36 Great Marlborough Street, London. He was considering marriage to Emma Wedgwood, his cousin. He was working hard on his projects; he was reading Malthus.

  Sophie and Jack did not see the Flame-colored Tanager. But they saw a girl with her grandparents. She had bangs and the rest of her red hair was pulled back and clipped with barrettes. She was perhaps eight. She was wearing a camouflage blouse and brown shorts and was sitting near her grandmother on the lip of the ravine bank. In one hand she held a bird book and in the other a pencil.

  Jack was smiling, watching the girl and her grandparents. Sophie realized that until now she had never seen him actually smile. As they turned to go, Jack nodded at the child and said, “Well, at least we saw one version of a Flame-colored.”

  On November 11, 1838, Charles proposed to Emma. She accepted.

  Well, I will not marry again. I have proved that I can lead the solitary life. Sophie realized that she, like Charles, wanted to do things like go up in a balloon without being censured.

  Around the Throat

  Sophie felt restless. A Santos dinner-party was just what she needed.

  Stella let her in. “Hey,” Stella said. Lily, Han, Jack, and Jesús were already standing in the living room with a woman in a magenta haberdashery shirt—Ted, who had his suits made in London, would have spotted the shirt in an instant. Michael was nowhere to be seen. Everyone nodded at Sophie and Jesús introduced the new person as Virginia. Lily was in the middle of a story.

  “So, Sophie, I was telling them about what happened at JJ Agave today. A man in a motorized cart started flirting with me.”

  A ring-bedecked hand thrust a round tray with appetizers on toothpicks into their midst. They looked like breaded chicken bits with a chunk of jalapeno fastened on the top.

  “I swear,” Stella said. “Maybe that guy in the store wants a cook and a maid, Miss Lily. Help yourselves. I made them.”

  “How hot is that jalapeno?” Lily asked.

  “Not hot. I’d say a 5.5.”

  She was right. The chicken-and-jalapeno bite was delicious.

  “That wasn’t too spicy,” Lily said. “Spicy enough though.”

  Stella put her hands on her hips. “Would I lie?”

  “How did you make this?” Sophie wanted to know these things.

  “I used a marinade—dijon mustard, malt vinegar, garlic, thyme, parsley, olive oil. When I drained that off, I dredged the bits in flour and deep-fried them.” She turned to Jesús and eyed him up and down. “Have one?”

  “Thank you, no,” Jesús said.

  Santos appeared and said to Sophie, “Would you care for an aperitif?”

  Before Sophie could answer, Stella said, “A pair of teeth? A pair of teeth? Is that what you said?”

  “A drink,” Santos said.

  “Yeah, yeah. OK, OK.” Stella squinted at him. “Santos.”

  Lily took Sophie’s arm and drew her away from the group. Sophie asked where Michael was. “God knows. He took off to help someone get settled in rehab. I want to tell you something. Michael had a nervous breakdown right in the pulpit about a year ago, right in front of the whole congregation at our former church in Phoenix. In front of all those well-heeled, mostly aging people. It was the sermon he preached. Good Lord. Ask him some day if you can read that sermon. Then you’ll understand.”

  They were interrupted by the announcement of dinner. When they sat down, Santos brought two blue platters to the table: roasted cod with a sauce of cilantro, brown butter, and macadamia nuts. There followed, in two blue bowls, couscous on top of chopped baby spinach.

  Virginia said, “When are the goddamned snowbirds going to leave?”

  Lily turned to Virginia. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

  Virginia was unfazed. “I say what I think. William Blake said, ‘Always be ready to speak your mind and a base man will avoid you.’”

  Stella put her hands on her hips. “That Blake person may be right, but I tell you what: some of those snowbirds are my most delicious friends. Some of them are sharper than the folks who sit down here all summer and get their brains baked.”

  After dinner, Sophie walked over to the sofa table to examine a vintage hourglass that had caught her eye. It must have been more than a foot tall. She guessed that Santos had placed it there as a reminder. What was that line from Andrew Marvell? “But at my back—”

  “Santos says he got that in New Bedford.” Jack was standing a little distance from her, looking not at Sophie but at the hourglass.

  “It’s lovely.”

  Jack said nothing.

  “It reminds me of the line, ‘But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot drawing near.’”

  He looked up at the ceiling and scanned it as if he were looking for a flaw or a leak. Sophie also looked up but when she turned her gaze again to Jack, he was looking down at the floor. He said something she couldn’t understand.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He repeated whatever it was but in such a low tone that Sophie leaned toward him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “My hearing.”

  “Sorry.” He raised his voice. “‘…hurrying near.’”

  Sophie looked at him. What did that mean?

  “…‘Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near.’” He shrugged, which she had never seen him do before.

  “I think it’s ‘drawing’ near.”

  “‘Hurrying near.’ I’m pretty sure.”

  “I always thought it was ‘drawing.’”

  “It’s a fine line,” he said.

  “I didn’t know you read poetry.”

  “I’m not very good at poetry. But I like it.”

  Then he told her that since his retirement he had returned to the reading of his youth, in the days before the physics major. In high school, in some of the boring classes he had propped a novel or a book of poetry on his knees under the lip of his desk. In this way, he had read A Place in the Sun, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Great Gatsby, Leaves of Grass, and North of Boston—He suddenly stopped listing the books and blushed.

  “Anyway,” he said, and when Santos walked over he said, “This is a fine old hourglass.”

  Physics, Sophie thought to herself. Later, she noticed that Jack was having a long conversation with Han. Sophie looked for Lily, but she was gone.

  As they filtered out the door, Santos appeared with a book he wanted to lend Jack, who took it in his hands and started turning it back and forth, half-tossing it as he finished whatever conversation they were having. Sophie suddenly saw Jack’s forearms in detail, starting with the narrow wrists that opened out to the large, spreading hands and the long fingers which looked both sturdy and patrician.

  Jesús walked down the path with Sophie. “Han seems like such a lovely woman.”

  “This is true.”

  “She moves as if she had been a ballerina. Is she a friend of Jack’s?”

  Jesús looked at her. “I would say something other than a friend, Sophie.”

  He waited. Sophie said nothing. Then she said, “I love her name. You know whose name was the same as hers, don’t you?”

  “I do not.”

  “Han Su-Yin, the Eurasian physician who —”

  “That’s interesting,” he said, “Because she herself is also a physician. M.D., PhD. She is an expert in leukemia. And interested in targeted therapy. She lives in Tucson.” Then he said, “Rattlesnake.”

  Sophie stopped. “Where?”

  “Inside you. Stella’s meat was rattlesnake. Probably Western Diamond-back.”

  “Polly. Stella fed us rattlesnake.”

  “That makes me want to vomit. Serves you right for not asking what you’re
eating. That venomous woman. Do you think there were dribble drabbles of venom in it?”

  Later, Sophie closed a book and said to Polly: “Well. He was right. I was wrong. It’s ‘hurrying.’ That’s even more urgent than ‘drawing.’”

  “Whereas I do not know what you are saying,” Polly said.

  “Well, it’s from a poem by Andrew—” Sophie stopped. She didn’t want to explain it to Polly. She didn’t want to hear another ironic remark.

  And then the cold thing that she worked hard to avoid took her around the throat. She thought of her absolute singularity here in this house. Her aloneness. Her dog was a phantasm, important and in some ways nourishing; but somehow inadequate. Polly didn’t want to hear the details about Charles anymore; she didn’t want to hear what he himself had written.

  His documents, his rich and deep language—with whom would she share them? She wanted those she loved to see his writing and to know the man she loved.

  She had come to know the real person through his writing. Perhaps only through his writing.

  The next morning she felt a little queasy. Was it the rattlesnake she had eaten? She hated being alone and being ill. Activity buoyed her spirits and sitting around or lying in bed deflated them.

  Quit it. Buck up. This is the life you set for yourself. You chose this. You have been choosing this for years. It has worked well. You won’t die from being alone or sick and if you do, then you do. At least you will have lived on your own terms.

  She thought about tomorrow. She summoned up John Wayne who had spent lots of time in her area. As John Wayne supposedly said, tomorrow comes “…into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.”

  The notion of tomorrow coming into us very clean at midnight, of something arriving as grace unmerited, did buck her up. It had kept her from biting the dust several times.