And what if he had read Moby Dick? No pretty women, to be sure.
Two Clouds
Now it was July. Day after day for months, the heat had taken her breath away if she spent stretches of time outside during the day. What had the ancient Hohokam done, with no relief from the temperatures. Or what, for that matter, had anyone done in the summers before 1950.
Sophie jumped; Polly jumped and wiggled under the bed. A cannon must have gone off—or several A-10 C Thunderbolts jets must have lifted from Davis-Monthan Air Base and headed south, right over Sophie’s head. She walked outside, looked up and then around and saw nothing—except two clouds over the Santa Ritas.
Actual clouds! The mere shred of a cloud she had earlier seen had been perhaps a harbinger? Two clouds. What a rarity. Two clouds had crowded up the south side of the mountains. What she had heard was sudden thunder across the thornscrub desert floor.
In the East, clouds seemed ever-present. If there were enough of them, they weighed on people’s spirits and sometimes even drove them mad. So, too, in Seattle—someone had said that the suicide rate there was high. No wonder coffee shops proliferated.
People took clouds for granted. Sophie thought of Emerson in the context of stars. He had written: ‘if the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!”
Now two clouds had appeared here one morning after a thousand years—or so it seemed—of nothing but blue sky. The two clouds made you want to believe and adore.
Sophie studied the clouds, admired the clouds all day. They were not just themselves; they announced the summer monsoon, a term she had often heard. When she went back and looked it up, she saw that monsoon came from the Arabic (wasma, “to mark or brand”; and mawsim, “season”) through the Portuguese (monção). For Arizonans, it amounts to a lesser monsoon system than in East Africa, Arabia, or India; it is a season of shifting winds which brings moisture, mainly from the Pacific, from the Gulf of California, the Mar de Cortés.
As the days went on, she saw that the season was as abrupt and violent as those two clouds and their cymbal-thunder. Some days, the rain was so fine that Sophie thought of Cummings’ poem: “nobody, not even the rain has such small hands.” Other days, there were deluges. The temperature dropped; then it climbed.
The snowbirds, she thought, had not experienced the whole of the desert here if they had never stayed through the summer monsoon. They had no idea of the glories of the land in which they lived: the smell of the creosote, the branching lightning two miles away that she could follow from its source above, flashing in an instant—right down to the desert floor.
Worms do not possess any sense of hearing. They took not the least notice of the shrill notes from a metal whistle, which was repeatedly sounded near them; nor did they of the deepest and loudest tones of a bassoon. They were indifferent to shouts, if care was taken that the breath did not strike them. When placed on a table close to the keys of a piano, which was played as loudly as possible, they remained perfectly quiet.
Although they are indifferent to undulations in the air audible by us, they are extremely sensitive to vibrations in any solid object. When the pots containing two worms which had remained quite indifferent to the sound of the piano, were placed on this instrument, and the note C in the bass clef was struck, both instantly retreated into their burrows. After a time they emerged, and when G above the line in the treble clef was struck they again retreated. Under similar circumstances on another night one worm dashed into its burrow on a very high note being struck only once, and the other worm when C in the treble clef was struck. On these occasions the worms were not touching the sides of the pots, which stood in saucers; so that the vibrations, before reaching their bodies, had to pass from the sounding board of the piano, through the saucer, the bottom of the pot and the damp, not very compact earth on which they lay with their tails in their burrows. They often showed their sensitiveness when the pot in which they lived, or the table on which the pot stood, was accidentally and lightly struck; but they appeared less sensitive to such jars than to the vibrations of the piano; and their sensitiveness to jars varied much at different times.
. . . .
The Peewit (Tringa vanellus,Linn.) seems to know instinctively that worms will emerge if the ground is made to tremble; for Bishop Stanley states (as I hear from Mr. Moorhouse) that a young peewit kept in confinement used to stand on one leg and beat the turf with the other leg until the worms crawled out of their burrows, when they were instantly devoured. Nevertheless, worms do not invariably leave their burrows when the ground is made to tremble, as I know by having beaten it with a spade, but perhaps it was beaten too violently. 20
—Charles Darwin, from The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, with Observations on Their Habits
Worms, Bats
His work on worms was published in 1881. Sophie ordered a copy and began to read. And read. How could one not love a man who had written like this about worms? He was the Dickens of worms. He stood out with a lantern way into the night so he could observe them.
Sophie saw that all over the internet, people spoke of Charles laying thousands of worms out on the billiard table for his experiments. She thought this wonderful but when she researched it, she could find no references to it by scholars. This story must be apocryphal. As far she could tell, he kept his worms in pots while he observed them and regaled them. But it pleased her that apocrypha should grow up around Charles—as long as we know it as apocrypha.
Janet Browne, one of Sophie’s favorite writers on Darwin, had this to say: worms were archaeologists in reverse. 21 When they came to the surface of the earth, they left behind a kind of fertile mould behind—“castings,” Charles called them. And in the castings, a fine tilth. Tilth, from tilling. The worms were tiny cultivators of the soil.
And that tilth, a kind of vegetable mould, piled up on the surface of the earth. It covered things like a blanket. And what did that do? It preserved civilizations; it preserved our history.
For some reason, this worm book caught fire. The slim volume sold. Sophie thought that in this there may be a shred of hope for all writers.
Maybe she would order a worm farm. After all this reading, she wanted to see real worms; she wanted to watch them. But then what would she do with them? She couldn’t set them free. This was the desert, after all, and they would dry up in a minute. She didn’t want them to dry up and die before their time. Ted would say, “A worm farm. At your age?”
Did Janet Browne know she was not only a historian of science but also a philosopher? For that was how Sophie thought about her. The historian of science saw in the worm-study a kind of summation of Charles’s creed. They performed small acts, “small agencies” that had “accumulated effects.” The worms were themselves but they were also a metaphor in more ways than that sober-sided psychoanalyst, Adam Phillips, imagined when he wrote Darwin’s Worms.
They were a metaphor for how to preserve history and how to change it. And they were a guide to how to live one’s life. Do it. Pay attention and let a method become second nature. Do it. Start small. Be patient, be persistent. Take it easy. “Keep it small,” as an aerobics instructor of Sophie’s used to shout out as they were beginning a move. Start small. Then repeat. Small was do-able. Then repeat.
Lightning but no thunder. That was odd. Sophie was doing dishes when she saw the flashes. One and then several minutes later, another. And though Polly looked up from her basket, she was much less restless than she usually was during storms.
Then there were two flashes close together. No thunder. Was her hearing getting that bad? Sophie seldom felt fear from being alone at night, but it suddenly occurred to her that someone was outside with a flashlight.
Sophie turned out the kitchen lights, went to the side window, and saw—so
me twenty feet away— another flash. It lasted long enough to illuminate Jack, with his camera in his hands. When the next flash came, she could see that he was taking pictures of his hummingbird feeder, which Sophie thought was flat-out odd.
“Polly, Jack’s taking pictures of his hummingbird feeder in the dark.”
“Mark. My. Words. The man is daft.”
Sophie was choosing an avocado at JJ Agave.
“I hope I didn’t frighten you the other night.”
She jumped, was annoyed at herself for this, and said to Jack, “The other night.”
“When I was taking pictures in the dark.”
“Oh. You must have seen me watching.”
“I did.”
“I hope I didn’t frighten you.”
“You did not frighten me, Jack.”
“I was photographing bats.”
“Bats.”
“I decided that they must be the ones draining my hummingbird feeders at night. Now I have the evidence.”
You, Jack, are just like Charles. Sophie considered saying this. But instead she said only, “How do they manage to get anything out of the feeders?”
“A long nose, a long tongue. Some have little brush-like structures on the tongue for soaking up nectar.” Jack shrugged. “From now on I’m going to cover those feeders at night.”
“I guess,” Sophie said, “that bats are as hungry as the hummingbirds.”
Jack looked off to the side. “They can eat somewhere else.” Then he walked over and picked up a bunch of scallions. He stared at them, put them down, walked back to Sophie and said, “You goin’ to keep Charles Darwin all to yourself?” Sophie had never heard him speak with that pronounced a Texas accent, dropping his “g”s like that. He did not wait for her answer.
Then, on the other side of the store where she had come to buy wine, she saw his head in the next aisle. She walked around and said to him, “When are you going out again to find birds?”
“In a few days.”
“Where are you going?”
“Buenos Aires.”
“Buenos Aires?”
“Yes, a wildlife refuge south of here. Fairly close to the border.”
“I’d like to go, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
“There’s one thing. I don’t feel like driving.”
“Oh.”
“May I ride with you?”
“Uh…“
She had never heard him say, “Uh…” before.
And later that evening, when she was brushing her teeth, she had an unbidden and frightful thought. The thought was: how could you not love a man like that?
A man who stood out in the dark with his camera. Just like Charles. The Charles who stood out in the dark with his hurricane lamp, scanning for the traces and actions of worms.
Snake Eaters
HEY!”
Sophie had just wheeled the recycling bin to the edge of her front driveway. She looked around.
“HEY! OVER HERE!”
Stella was in Jack’s driveway, bent over a thick piece of plywood held up by two saw horses. She beckoned to Sophie.
“I’m watching the house for Jack for a few days. And I got me a rattlesnake, Ma’am!”
Sophie took a step backward. Stella had surgical gloves on and she held a knife in the air. “Look! Already got the head off this critter.”
“Uh…Stella…”
“Stand back from the head, girl.” She scraped it into a large glass jar, which she capped with a lid. “A severed head can still bite—those old, fangy reflexes hang around for a while. Now—”
“What are you going to do now? I’m not sure I want to watch this.”
“Suit yourself. Here we go. I did this for my neighbor’s twins about a month ago. and they got into it. They’re eleven—whip-smart.”
She regarded her prey. “Now to skin it out.”
Stella was sure and swift with her knife. She slit the snake from its neck along its length.
“Now. All this connective tissue gives me the fits. There’s a trick to this. When you go snip, snip to cut the muscles away, be sure and don’t puncture the skin itself. Work towards the back and then down.”
She cut. “Now. I’ve got a grip on it and I’m going to start pullin’.”
She picked up the snake and tugged on the freed flap of skin. With effort, she pulled down its length. After another slit in the tail area, she had it. She held it in the air.
“Good. It’s a beauty. Do you want it? I’ll give it to you. You could use it for a belt, maybe.”
“Thank you, but no.” She thought of Isabelle. “Well, maybe my daughter would like it.”
Stella said, “Done. I’ll tan it.” She tossed it into a small cooler.
“Isn’t that a lot of trouble?”
“Naw. I coil it up a little and put it in a container with rubbing alcohol and glycerin and soak it for a few days. Take the top off the container and stir it once in a while. Snakeskin soup.” She grinned.
“Then I take it out, clean it up some more, rub it with glycerin and let it hang dry for a day or so. I’ll give you some of the meat, too.”
“I believed you served me some one evening at Santos’s house. I didn’t know what it was.”
“Yup. Ok. Let’s get at the rest of this baby. We’re going to work from the other end. The anal vent.”
“Did y’all know these guys have two penises? Look. See those little fluffy, flowery lookin’ things? One of the twins, Luke, wanted to know what they were and I said, ‘male organs,’ and he said, ‘No, but what’s the technical name?’
“The technical name! So I said, ‘Well, then, mister Luke, if you really want the technical name, it’s hemipenis. So there.’ And do you know what he said?”
“No.”
“Luke said, ‘Whoa. Two. Cool!’
“And Martha—she has this little-bitty low voice and she said, ‘Two. Imagine.’
“Then they wanted to see everything else. The kidneys, pancreas, gall bladder, spleen, stomach, lungs, the liver, the heart…
“Now when we got to that point, Martha said, ‘Heart. Rattlesnakes have hearts! Just like us. And they have lungs, just like us. I think that next time I see one, I’ll think of it more like a person. A very flat, skinny, long person who needs to eat and can do it only by poisoning someone. The fangs are like our spears and guns.’”
Stella stopped her story. “Ok, Sophie. Here’s the stomach.” She made a slit with her knife; then she hesitated.
“But we have a small problem here. That is—I’m screwed. Look. See those bits of fur, that gooey mess? That’s a mouse.”
Sophie made herself look. “Oh.”
“And I’m fussier than all get out. I found Mr. Snake dead and he looked good—no big bulges—but now! Here’s this mouse in the house which could have been poisoned by some fine, upstanding senior citizen. I should have guessed it, but I thought I saw a faint tire-track on this rattler. I’m going to have to pitch it. I don’t take any risks with my rattlesnake meat.”
“Stella, where did you learn this?”
Stella put her hands on her hips and regarded her neighbor. She thought for a moment. “My brother, of course.”
“From Jack?”
“Of course, he gave up doing it years ago. He learned it in the army. He was in Special Operations.”
“He was in Special Operations?”
“That he was. He was a Green Beret. Old Jack was one of those guys they call ‘Snake Eaters.’ But don’t tell him I said so. He’d crown me.”
St. Charles
You goin’ to keep Charles Darwin all to yourself?
No, she really didn’t want to keep him to herself. For instance, she wanted to tell people that she found that book on colors th
at Charles had access to on the Beagle. She was now an owner of Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, with Additions by P. Syme.
Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817) “gave” the names of colors to minerals that appeared in nature and Patrick Syme (1774-1845) extended this to the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Thus, Scotch Blue could be seen on the throat of the Blue Titmouse, on the stamina of the Single Purple Anemone, and in Blue Copper Ore.
Dutch Orange on the Orange Chart is the color of the crest of the Golden-crested Wren, the Common Marigold, and the seed-pod of the Spindle Tree. Greyish White on the Whites Chart could be seen on the inside quill feathers of the Kittiwake, on White Hamburgh Grapes, and in Granular Limestone. 22
That Werner and then Syme so loved the world that their book came into being is enough to make me cover my mouth. That Greyish White, titmouse, anemone, and copper ore existed at all. That crests, quill feathers, and seed-pods existed at all. That Abraham Gottlob Werner and Patrick Syme existed at all. It makes me want to swear like Job that I will not ask God any more questions.
She had turned from a statue into a shape shifter. A color sifter.
As a lover of language her earlier self would have admired the names of the colors, but—now. She wanted to go out and see the egg of the grey linnet and while she was there hope for its song. How to get a look at the inside quill feathers of the kittiwake? She daydreamed about where she might be able to find and eat Hamburgh grapes and how far she would have to travel to touch the stamen of the Single Purple Anemone. What was “porcelain earth” and was there any in Madera Canyon? Probably not. And had any of the animals and plants been given different names or gone extinct?
Whoa, she said to herself. You have to wind up your time with Charles first.
Although—she dreaded that finishing.
Lose the dread, she said to herself. That’s sentimental. You could never be finished with him. That’s why you grew to love him. Charles Darwin and all his works (minus in his case the pomps) could not possibly be exhausted.
The Crossings Page 17
