Songs of the Humpback Whale

by Jodi Picoult

Jane comes around the plane and stands almost directly in front of the spot where I am hidden. This is my chance. I am going to tell her. I am going to start by speaking her name.

  She is close enough to touch. Wind breathes through the wreckage of the plane. It shrieks, an unnatural note. I reach my hand through the blind of corn stalks and stretch out my fingers. �Jane,� I whisper.

  But at that moment Rebecca emerges from the twisted gyves and fetters of metal. Her hands are pressed against the sides of her head. She is screaming, running from the body of the plane with her eyes closed. Jane holds out her arms. She says something I cannot hear and Rebecca�s eyes open. I push aside the corn stalks, revealing myself, but I do not think Rebecca, who is facing me, notices. She falls against Jane�s breast, clutching and gasping. Her eyes pass right over me and they do not see a thing, of that I am sure. Jane smoothes our daughter�s hair. �Ssh,� she says. She sings something very softly, and Rebecca�s breathing turns even again. She grabs fistfuls of Jane�s shirt, over and over.

  I stand only three feet away, but it could be three hundred. I am not privy to this. I cannot heal. If given the chance, Rebecca would not run to me. I am not even sure that Jane would run to me. I let the corn close in around my face and I turn my back to them. Even if I could get Jane to listen to me, get her to understand why it is that I cannot live without her, it is not enough.

  It hits me: I am not part of this family. I would never say I am a scientist without offering proof. How can I say that I am a father, a husband?

  Jane is murmuring to Rebecca. The words get softer and softer and I realize they are walking in the opposite direction. And this is when I make what could possibly be the greatest-and most difficult-decision of my life. I will not call to them when I do not know what to say. I won�t reveal myself without having anything to show. I have much thinking to do, but right now I act purely on instinct. It is hard as hell, but I let them go.

  42 JANE

  After we check into the only motel in What Cheer, I find myself remembering things that I have not thought about for years. I could understand it if I were replaying the crash over and over in my head-that would make sense to me. But instead I am seeing my father, plain as day. He moves around the edges of the motel room, picking up glass tumblers and straightening the bathroom mirror. He flushes the toilet, twice. I do not dare fall asleep; I do not dare fall asleep. Then, just as I have expected, he starts to walk towards my bed. But he changes course and sits instead on the other bed, next to Rebecca. He breathes clouds of scotch and tugs the blanket away, revealing, ripe, my daughter.

  I was nine the first time it happened. My mother and father had a fight, and my mother left to stay with my aunt in Concord. I did everything I was supposed to: I made dinner for Daddy and Joley; I cleaned up the kitchen; I even remembered to put the hose into the sink when I ran the dishwasher. We all avoided talking about Mama.

  But because she was away, and because I felt I had earned it, I decided to go into her room, to her perfume tray. Mama smelled different every day: like oranges and spice, or fresh lemon pies, or cool marble, or even the wind. When she left the room she left a memory, a scent, behind her.

  I knew what I was looking for, a little red glass bottle in the shape of a berry that was called Framboise. The word was etched right on the glass. My mother did not let me wear perfume. Little girls who wear perfume, she said, turn into big girls who are tramps.

  I was very careful with the fragile bottle because I didn�t want to spill a drop. I turned it over on my finger the way I had seen her do every morning, and then I touched this finger, wet with the smell of raspberries, to my throat and my wrists and behind my knees. I turned around and around in a circle. How wonderful, I thought. It is with me no matter where I go.

  I stopped myself by catching my arms around the post of my parents� bed. Standing at the door was my father.

  �What the hell have you been doing?� he said, sniffing the air. He leaned closer to grab my shirt and the smell of whiskey cut through the thickness of berries. �You will bathe. Now!�

  He made me strip naked in front of him, although I hadn�t done that in five years. He watched me from the door of the bathroom with his arms crossed. The entire time, I cried. I cried when the shower, too hot, scalded my skin and I continued to cry when I stepped onto the bath mat and toweled dry. �Go to your goddamned room,� my father said.

  I pulled a flannel nightgown over my head and turned down the covers of my bed. I told myself aloud this was like any other night, and I tried not to lie awake waiting for punishment.

  Joley came into my room on his way to bed. He was only five, but he knew. �Jane, what did you do wrong?� And I told him as best I could explain that I had stupidly been pretending to be Mama.

  �There�s nothing you can do,� I said. �Get out before he hits you too.�

  I waited the longest time that night, but my father did not come up to spank me. Maybe that was the worst part: imagining what terrible thing he was thinking up downstairs. A belt? A brush? When I heard him, heavy, coming up the stairs, I dove beneath the covers. I pulled my nightgown tight around my ankles, a drawstring. I counted to one hundred.

  At seventy-seven my father turned my doorknob. He sat down on the edge of the bed and waited for me to pull away the covers from my face.

  �I�m not going to punish you tonight,� my father said, �and do you know why? Because you were such a good little cook. That�s why.�

  �Really?� I asked, amazed.

  �Really.� He took off his shoes and asked if I would like to hear a story.

  �Yes,� I said, thinking this might not be so bad after all. My father started to tell me a story-a fairy tale-about an evil woman who kept her daughter locked in a closet with mice and bats. The girl�s father tried to get to this closet but the woman had huge guard dogs protecting it and he had to kill her, and then the dogs, before he could rescue his daughter.

  �And then what?� I asked, waiting to see what would happen.

  �I don�t know. I haven�t come up with the ending.�

  �You can�t just leave a story hanging,� I protested, and he said we should try to think of one together. But he was getting tired, so could he lie down next to me?

  I moved over on the bed and we talked about the ways the girl�s father might kill the evil woman. Stakes through the heart, I suggested, but my father was leaning towards poisoned tea. We came up with other things that might be lurking in the closet: ghosts and tarantulas and man-eating piranhas. Maybe the girl should try to get out by herself, I suggested, but my father insisted that was not the way it would happen.

  When he got cold he crawled under the covers, so close that when he spoke my hair fluttered. �What do you think will happen to that girl, Jane?� he said, and as he did that he put his hand on my chest.

  It wasn�t right, I knew that, because every muscle in my body tensed at once. It wasn�t right, but then again he was my father, wasn�t he? And he had been so nice. He could have hit me tonight, but he didn�t.

  �I don�t know,� I whispered. �I don�t know what should happen.�

  �Well, what about this? The father drives stakes through the heart of the evil woman and drugs the Dobermans with poisoned tea. That way both of our ideas come into play.� Without hesitation, like he was proud of it, he slipped his hand between my legs, coming to rest like a weight on my vagina.

  �Daddy.�

  �Do you like it, Jane?� my father whispered. �Do you like the ending?�

  I did not move. I pretended that this was some other little girl, someone else�s quivering body, and then when I heard my father�s breathing come deep and even, I slid away. I got out of bed without creaking the mattress and turned the doorknob like a whisper. I started to run as fast as I could. At the bottom of the stairs, I tripped and hit my head. Blood was running down my face when I flung open the front door and ran into the night, barefoot, no longer sure about anything, including who or what I was supposed to be.

&n
bsp; A policeman found me in a neighbor�s yard early the next morning,and brought me back to the house. He held my hand and rang the doorbell and my father came to answer the door. Daddy was wearing his best suit and even Joley had on a nice Sunday shirt and a button-on tie. �We just called the station,� my father said, beaming. �Damn quick service.� He joked with the policeman and invited him in for coffee. He looked at the cut on my forehead and tried to rub over the dried blood with his finger but I pulled away. �Suit yourself, Jane,� he said. �You can take care of it upstairs.� As I crawled up the steps, with Joley behind me, I heard my father talking to that policeman. �We don�t know what the problem is,� he was saying. �It�s those nightmares.�

  �What did he do, Jane?� Joley asked when I had locked the bathroom door behind us. I wouldn�t tell him, but I let him watch as I cleaned my cut with Bactine. He stripped the Band-Aid for me. It did not surprise me that the cut was the shape of a cross.

  I told Joley I had to pee and pushed him outside. Then I locked the door again and pulled my nightgown over my head. I ripped it into shreds and threw it in the garbage pail. On the back of the door was the full-length mirror Mama used when she got all dressed up to go out. I could hear my father downstairs, laughing. I gazed into the mirror, expecting to find outlined the very parts that I could say I hated-but I was standing tall, thin, arms at my sides. I knew from this alien rhythm in my heart that I had become a different person. I did not understand how, under the circumstances, I could possibly look the same.

  43 JANE

  I�ve told Rebecca she can plan whatever she�d like for our day in Chicago. Me, I don�t much feel in the mood. I didn�t get much sleep last night, and because I screamed through the nightmare, neither did Rebecca. When I woke up she had her arms around me. �Wake up, wake up,� she said over and over. When I came around I did not tell her what my nightmare was about. I said it had to do with the plane crash. And then, in the morning when she was showering, I called Joley.

  After speaking to him I was inclined to drive straight through to Massachusetts. To hell with Joley and his letters; to hell with my problems charting direction. We could be in Massachusetts by tomorrow morning, according to the legend of the U.S. map. In the car, I asked Rebecca what she thought about this. I expected her to jump at the chance: I�d seen her counting the states left to cover when she thought I wasn�t looking. But Rebecca looked at me and her mouth dropped. �After all this, you can�t just quit halfway!�

  �What�s the big deal?� I said. �The point all along was to get to Massachusetts.�

  Rebecca looked at me and her eyes clouded. She settled into her seat, and she crossed her arms over her chest. �Do whatever you want.�

  What could I do? I drove to Chicago. Even if we decided to drive straight through, we still had to go to Chicago.

  My first choice would have been the Art Institute or the Sears Tower Skydeck, but Rebecca opts for the Shedd Aquarium, an octagon of white marble on the edge of Lake Michigan. The brochure Rebecca picks up on the way inside boasts that it is the largest indoor aquarium in the world.

  Rebecca runs ahead to the huge tank in the center of the aquarium, the Caribbean coral reef complete with rays and sharks and sea turtles and eels. She jumps back as a sand shark lunges at a piece of fish in the hand of a diver. �Look at its belly. I bet they always keep it full. Why bother to eat when you aren�t hungry?�

  The shark rips its teeth into the fish, biting it in half. As it takes the second part, it is more gentle. The diver strokes the shark on its nose. It seems to be made of grey rubber.

  Rebecca and I walk through the saltwater exhibits, where fish congregate in bright splashes like kites against an open sky. They come in the most incredible colors; I have always been amazed by this. What is the point of being fuchsia, or lemon, or violet, when you are stuck under the water where no one can see you?

  We pass polka-dotted clownfish and blowfish that puff up like porcupines when the other fish come too close. There are fish here from the Mediterranean and the Arctic Ocean. There are fish here that have traveled the world.

  I am stuck in front of a magenta starfish. I have never seen anything so vivid in my life. �Come look at this,� I tell Rebecca. She stands beside me and mouths, Wow. �Why do you think that leg is shorter?� I ask.

  A passing woman in a white lab coat (marine biologist?) hears me and leans over the small tank. Her breath fogs the window. �Starfish have the power of regeneration. Which means if a leg gets cut off or ripped in some way, they can grow a new one back.�

  �Like newts,� Rebecca says, and the woman nods.

  �I knew that,� I say, primarily to myself. �It has to do with their habitat, tide pools. In a tide pool, waves come and destroy the marine equilibrium every few minutes, so nothing ever really gets a chance to settle.�

  �True,� the woman says. �Are you a biologist?�

  �My husband is.�

  Rebecca nods. �Oliver Jones. Do you know him?�

  The woman sucks in her breath. �Not the Oliver Jones. Oh, my. Would you mind very much if I brought someone here to meet you?�

  �Dr. Jones isn�t with us on this trip,� I tell her. �So I don�t know as I�d be all that interesting to one of your colleagues.�

  �Oh, you most certainly are. By association, if nothing else.�

  She disappears behind a panel that I didn�t realize was a door. �How did you know about tide pools?� Rebecca asks.

  �Rote memorization. They�re all your father talked about when we were dating. If you�re a good girl I�ll tell you about hermit crabs and jellyfish.�

  Rebecca presses her nose up to the glass. �Isn�t it awesome, that someone in Chicago would know Daddy? I mean, it kind of makes us celebrities.�

  In the oceanic community, I suppose she is right. I hadn�t even associated this aquarium with Oliver, at least not on a conscious level. These delicate fish and quivering invertebrates are so different from the hunkering whales Oliver loves. It�s hard to believe they exist in the same place. It�s hard to believe that a whale wouldn�t take up all the space, all the food. But then again I know better. These tropical fish are in no danger from the humpbacks, which are mammals. Whales don�t prey on them. They screen plankton and plants through their baleen.

  I have a vision of a sample falling two stories in a Ziploc bag, smashing against the blue Mexican tiles of the foyer in San Diego. Baleen.

  �Mom.� Rebecca tugs on my T-shirt. Standing in front of me is a bookish man with a goatee and the thinnest eyebrows I have ever seen on a male.

  �I can�t believe this,� the man says. �I can�t believe I�m standing here face to face with you.�

  �Well, I haven�t done anything, really. I don�t work with whales at all.�

  The man smacks himself on the forehead. �I�m such a jerk. My name is Alfred Oppenbaum. It�s an honor-an honor!-to meet you.�

  �Do you know Oliver?�

  � Know him? I worship him.� At this, Rebecca excuses herself and ducks behind a tank of zebra fish to laugh. �I�ve studied everything he�s done; read everything he�s written. I hope-� he leans forward to whisper, �-I hope to be as prominent a scientist as he.�

  Alfred Oppenbaum cannot be more than twenty, which tells me he has a long way to go. �Mr. Oppenbaum,� I say.

  �Call me Al.�

  �Al. I�ll be happy to mention your name to my husband.�

  �I�d like that. Tell him my favorite article is the one on the causality and sequence of themes in humpback songs.�

  I smile. �Well.� I hold out my hand.

  �You can�t leave yet. I�d love to show you the exhibit I�ve been creating.�

  He leads us into that panel of the wall that masquerades as a door. Behind are twenty-gallon tanks filled with crustaceans and fish. Several nets and small receptacles hang from the sides of each tank. From this angle we can also see the backs of the tanks that are displayed in the aquarium.

  Everyone wears white coats that turn faintly blue under fluorescent lights. As we pass by, Al whispers to his c
olleagues. They spin around, their mouths agape. �Mrs. Jones,� they all say, like a line of servants as royalty passes by. �Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Jones.�

  One of the bolder scientists steps forward, blocking my path. �Mrs. Jones, I�m Holly Hunnewell. And I wonder, do you know what it is Dr. Jones is researching now?�

  �I know that he was planning to track some humpbacks on their way from the East Coast of the States to the breeding grounds near Brazil,� I tell her, and there is a resounding, Oh. �I don�t know what he�s going to do with the research,� I say, apologetically. Who knew Oliver had such a following?

  Al leads us to a blinking set of tubes. �Doesn�t look like much, does it? It works under black light.� With a nod to a colleague, the room goes dark. Al pushes a button. All of a sudden his voice fills up the room, a commentary over the yips and churrs of humpback whales. The frame of a whale appears out of nowhere, neon blue, and unfurls its fluke. �In the 1970s Dr. Oliver Jones discovered that humpback whales have the capacity, like humans, to develop and pass down songs from generation to generation. With extensive research, Dr. Jones and other colleagues have used whale songs to identify different stocks of whales, have used the songs to track the movement of whales over the oceans of the world, and have speculated about the changes these songs undergo yearly. Although their meaning still remains a mystery, it has been discovered that only the male whales sing, leading the foremost researchers in the field to believe that the songs may be a way to woo mates.� Fade out of Al�s voice, crescendo the ratchets and oos of a whale.

  �Oliver would be proud,� I say finally.

  �Do you really think so, Mrs. Jones?� Al asks. �I mean, you�ll tell him about it?�

  �I�ll do more than that. I�ll tell him he has to fly here to see it himself.�

  Al almost passes out. Rebecca puts down a small box turtle she�s been tickling and follows me back into the exhibit hall.

  When we are safe in the dark aquarium, I sit down on one of the marble benches that spot the floor. �I can�t believe it. Even when your father isn�t here, he manages to ruin a perfectly good day.�

  �Oh, you�re just cranky. That was really kind of neat.�

  �I didn�t know people in the Midwest knew about whales. Or cared about whales.�

  She grins at me. �I can�t wait to tell Daddy.�

  �You�re going to have to wait!� I say, a little too sharply.

  Rebecca glares at me. �You did say I could call him.�

  �That was back then. When we were closer to California. He�s not home now anyway. He�s on his way to find us.�

  �How come you�re so sure?� Rebecca asks. �He would have found us by now, and you know it.�

  She�s right. I don�t know what is taking Oliver so long. Unless he is jumping the gun by flying to meet us in Massachusetts. �Maybe he went to South America after all.�