Aquarium

by David Vann

  Cars passing beside me, drifting away, this street unbearably long, endless apartments and houses and businesses. A city holds all that we want and a million times what we don’t want.

  You have to be there, I thought. Please be there.

  I burst through the front doors out of breath, sweaty, and had to throw off my coat. The aquarium staff not saying hello, only watching. After our scene, they didn’t want to come anywhere near me.

  I used the drinking fountain and waited for my breath and heart to calm. I was looking down the dark hallway but didn’t see him.

  I dragged my jacket and walked slowly down the corridor. I was early, so it was possible he hadn’t yet arrived, or he could have been looking at the fish. At the first fork, I didn’t know which way to go, but I decided against the larger, brighter displays and sea mammals. I decided to go toward the darker hallways, the nocturnal fish and deep-sea dwellers, and I found him here. Dark tank of black sand and dirt, no rock, nowhere to hide. My grandfather leaned in close to the glass, peering at the ocellated waspfish, one of my favorites. It looked like a moth, pale yellow-green wings and a head that could have been covered in white fuzz. Thin white feelers like insect legs. And then the body of a fish, as if the two had been grafted together, some transformation in darkness unexplained, two worlds that should never have touched.

  So beautiful, I said.

  Caitlin, he said, and he rushed to hug me, pulled me in close against him. Rough sound of his breath and beating of his heart. Dry skin of his hand cradling my head. I wrapped my arms around him. Grandpa, I said.

  Odd ridges and folds of him beneath his shirt, smell of laundry and deodorant and someone old. He was the same as home, as belonging.

  I love you, Caitlin.

  I love you too, Grandpa.

  We just held each other for the longest time. I closed my eyes. Swaying a bit, as if we were in a warm current, our own lagoon somewhere in the Marshall Islands or Indonesian archipelago.

  I’m so sorry, Caitlin. That was an awful thing on Monday. You shouldn’t have had to see that. But things will get better now. It may take a long time for your mother to forgive me, but things will get better.

  I held him as tightly as I could.

  It was such a shock to see your mother up close. She looks the same, just older.

  She won’t let me see you.

  The old man took a big breath and sighed. He let go of me and straightened back up and looked at the waspfish. I don’t blame her, he said. My baby, and I left her. And left her mother. If I could go back, I would.

  I didn’t know what to say. It was hard not to think of him as the old man, and he was suddenly far away. I watched the waspfish cruising just over the bottom in dim light, white feelers exploring, searching for food, for anything buried.

  It was just unbearable, he said. Something in me couldn’t stay. I couldn’t watch my wife dissolve into nothing. The terrible part was the helplessness. I couldn’t do anything to make her well.

  I didn’t want to listen. It was too much, hearing my mother and then my grandfather. I only looked at the waspfish. Folding those pale green wings, then opening them again at any threat, any sense of someone watching behind the glass or a larger shape coming from above. That black sand and dirt should have been the continental shelf, extending out hundreds of miles from New York, and this fish cruising right to the edge, to the drop-off.

  Did you know waspfish bury themselves in sand during the day, with only their eyeballs poking out? he asked me. He always knew when I was panicking. He always knew how to calm me.

  Yeah, I said. But they’re never in less than fifty feet of water, and usually deeper, so it’s not much light. I don’t really see the difference.

  Good point. I guess you learn a certain range in your life. What looks like no change at all to us is day and night for him. And the cold. It’s always cold where he is, but he might feel a change as something enormous.

  Like us now.

  That’s right, like us now. You’re smart, Caitlin.

  He put his arm around me and I leaned into him.

  My life has had a narrow range for too long, he said.

  The waspfish made a quick dash and then turned and opened her wings. I kept expecting her to flutter and break free of that fish half and rise through water become air.

  Do you know how deep this tank is? I asked.

  No.

  It’s forty feet deep.

  No.

  It stacks up way above us to provide pressure for the fish. If she turns into a moth, she has to swim up forty feet before she’s free.

  I love that. I can see her become a moth and rise up toward the light. And you’re right, it’s not a he.

  The tank wasn’t really forty feet high, but I liked to think it was, and I was happy he believed me. I imagined the back rooms like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, a bright land of colorful pipes and bubbles and pumps. I knew it wasn’t like that, of course, but I wanted it to be.

  We drifted on to a tank that was a bubble, dark and under pressure, with king crabs. My grandfather’s arm around my shoulders. Smooth stones, almost black, and this red spiky armor, white underneath.

  It looks like someone put it together piece by piece, I said. You can see all the joints.

  It seems impossible it could grow, my grandfather said. To begin small with all those same plates, and all the plates grew and still fit.

  One of the crabs was reaching high on the glass toward us, legs three feet long outstretched. Underside of its body like fingers interlocked, which looked as if they might open and some other creature emerge.

  I can see myself in the fish, my grandfather said, but not in the crabs.

  Me either. Those tiny eyes on stalks have nothing behind them. And that mouth. You can’t call that a mouth. It’s just more legs.

  He laughed. I feel so lucky to be with you, Caitlin. I wish this aquarium could go on and on for miles, with every fish and crab and other strange thing in the sea.

  He pulled me even closer against him, and I was so happy I couldn’t speak. The king crab would never know this feeling.

  You’re right that it’s the mouth, he said. If it had lips, we’d feel closer to it. All we need are eyes and lips, apparently, and we think we can say hello. I don’t think I realized that before, how much we need the world to look like us.

  My grandfather drove me back to school in a very old Mercedes. Everything polished, as if new, as if we were going back in time.

  I like your car, I said. My mother drives a Thunderbird.

  He smiled. I know. I had to find the two of you, so I’ve seen where you live, and Sheri’s car, and where she works. Please don’t tell her that. She’ll be angry. But I wanted to find you.

  Okay, I said, but I didn’t know what to think of that. How long had he been watching us?

  I’m a mechanic, he said. Or was. I’m retired now. But I worked on diesel engines all my life. This is a diesel. Can you hear the difference in sound?

  I listened, but I couldn’t really tell. Maybe, I said.

  Well listen to the Thunderbird again. It’ll sound smoother, like all one sound when your mother accelerates. The diesel is like hearing pins, and if there’s a turbo, you hear that over the top after the acceleration, as it winds down. Almost like an airplane. This one isn’t a turbo.

  He accelerated then and I listened. It did sound like pins. It sounds like it could break, I said.

  Ah, it lasts much longer. I can go a million miles on this engine, and I can also run it for a week, if I want, without turning it off. Day and night. No gas engine can do that.

  Wow.

  Engines have lives, like people. If something happens, some sign of that remains, always. There’s history in an engine. I’ll be with this engine until the end.

  What do you mean, the en
d?

  Sorry, Caitlin. I meant my end, but it’s not coming soon, I promise. There’s nothing to worry about. I’ll be here for you.

  I felt like crying suddenly, but I just stared out my side window and held it back, and soon enough we were at Gatzert.

  I’m sorry, Caitlin. I didn’t mean to upset you. He took off his seat belt and leaned across the bench seat to hug me. I clung to his arm, which was thick and strong, I noticed now, from his work. And thank you for coming to see me. I’ll be there every day, and we’ll figure out something with your mother. She just needs time.

  I found my backpack in the bushes and sat on a metal bench by the front doors. Sunset, maybe, the light still from nowhere but less of it now. I was bundled up, but it was cold, so I went inside and waited there. Eternal light in long tubes. I don’t think they ever turned off. Just flicked on once until they died and were replaced. So maybe not eternal.

  It was fully dark when my mother arrived. And she was tired. How are you, sweet pea? she murmured.

  Okay, I said. How was work?

  Oh, just more of the same. I could miss every day of work, never go back, and it would all still be the same there. I don’t have any effect. Just doing time.

  It was rare my mother was like this. Only when she was really tired.

  Steve is coming over, fixing dinner right now. I hope that’s okay.

  Yeah, I said. I like Steve.

  Yeah. He’s a good guy.

  We drove the rest the way in silence, and I realized I was hiding now, without meaning to. Only a few days earlier, I could have talked with her about anything, but now everything important had to be kept secret. I couldn’t tell her I’d seen my grandfather, couldn’t talk about his life or ask questions, couldn’t share what we’d seen or said at the aquarium. And I couldn’t talk about kissing Shalini, about my entire life changing in every way. And this had all happened in four days.

  I listened every time my mother accelerated, the smooth blow of it, different from the diesel, but I couldn’t say anything. Slow swing of the shocks as we floated on.

  I could smell oil frying when we opened the door. Buongiorno, Steve called. He was wearing a white chef’s hat and a red-checkered apron, grinning at us.

  Holy moly, my mother said.

  Benvenuti, he said. Welcome to Italia and eggplant parmigiana, for the little vegetarian.

  My mother laughed and squeezed up against him for a kiss. She stole his hat and wore it herself.

  Are you even Italian? I asked.

  No, he said with an Italian accent. But in Italy, they know good food. He had his thumb and two fingers pressed together, swinging his hand in the air.

  What are you? I asked. Where do you come from?

  Origins, Steve said. They don’t explain us, you know. They never do. Each of us is our own piece of work. I come from Nintendo. That was one of my parents, my mother. I suckled at the controller. And AC/DC, a late but good set of fathers, Back in Black and shaking me all night long, a good precursor to Nirvana.

  But where do you come from?

  You’re a tough nut. The old country, you want, Steve said in an Italian accent again. Well, it’s Albania, right across the water from Italy, but I was never there. I’ve heard about beautiful mountains on the coast, olive orchards to make your heart ache, calls to prayer in the minarets, the best food this world has ever tasted, but I’ve tasted it only a bit from my grandparents. My parents served Oscar Mayer. So there you go. We don’t come from anywhere.

  I didn’t know any of that, my mother said. She punched Steve in the shoulder. You don’t tell me anything, and then you tell my daughter?

  She’s tough, your daughter. I’m afraid of her.

  My mother laughed. That’s true. She is tough. I’m scared of her too.

  Steve was turning the slices of eggplant, breaded and browned and crackling in the oil. He had a pot of water boiling for the pasta, and a big bowl of tomato sauce. I was so happy I felt like I would pop.

  Where is Albania exactly? my mother asked.

  Ah, poor Albania. No one knows where it is.

  Sorry.

  You know how Italy is a boot?

  Yeah.

  Albania could get kicked by the heel of that boot. There’s a bit of Greece there, too, the Ionian Islands. I want to go someday. We come from a village near the Roman ruins of Butrint, which are supposed to be really amazing. Huge stone walls and an ancient theater and the largest, best mosaic in the world, a large circular floor all done in small colored tiles, with pillars all around.

  It sounds beautiful.

  Yeah, I have to admit, I do sometimes wish I had grown up there.

  Why? I asked.

  Steve was pulling all the eggplant from the pan now and putting it in a large casserole dish with tomato sauce. History, he said. To stand in a place and know that this is where you come from for a dozen generations, or maybe a hundred generations, or maybe more. To know there was a great city two thousand years ago in this place, and that your ancestors helped build it and lived there and worked there. When you walk down a small road, all the others who are walking there with you from before.

  Steve put a final layer of sauce over the top and then picked up a hunk of hard parmesan and a grater. My mother hugged him from behind. I better enjoy you now, she said. Sounds like someone is leaving for Albania.

  Sadly that never happens. We never go back.

  You should, I said. At least to visit. You have to.

  Steve laughed. Okay, then. Commanded. Now it will happen.

  He grated the cheese over the top and then put the casserole dish in the oven. Twenty minutes, he said.

  Why don’t you go lie down, my mother said to me. You look tired.

  So I went to my room to leave them alone. I lay on my bed with the lights out and looked for shapes on the ceiling. Curtain light, bent into waves by the folds. Passing cars like shortened days, rising and falling. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and had no thoughts.

  I woke disoriented. Hungry. I struggled to rise and cross the floor and found them at the table, the dinner dishes stacked on the counter. You didn’t wake me, I said.

  No, sweet pea, you looked so tired.

  But I missed dinner.

  It’s still here, Steve said. I’ll serve you right up. He put his hat back on, stood and waved me over to a seat, said, Bella, prego, and served me a plate of eggplant parmesan on pasta, with a bit of salad on the side. Buon appetito, he said.

  I felt half asleep still, groggy and lost. I took a bite with my fork and it was only warm, not hot, but it was good. I have a grandfather, I said.

  What’s that? Steve asked.

  Stop, Caitlin, my mother said.

  She said she has a grandfather?

  Yes, my mother said. My father decided to reappear after nineteen years to play grandpa.

  Wow.

  I met him at the aquarium.

  You didn’t meet him. He tracked us down. He’s old and lonely now, probably dying and needs a nurse, and since I have such great practice at being a nurse, why not me? Or he feels like a miserable fuck for what he’s done and now he wants to be forgiven.

  Nineteen years, Steve said. That’s a long time.

  Since Caitlin wants to bring you into this, you might as well know he left me to take care of my dying mother. Left us alone with nothing. When I was fourteen.

  I couldn’t eat the eggplant. I was just staring down, pulling it apart with my fork. The dark ribbon around each piece hidden under bread crumbs, soft yellow meat with darker swirls, camouflage, swimming in a thick red sea. Lying flat on the bottom, hidden away.

  Why did you want me to know? Steve asked quietly.

  So you can help, I said.

  Oh, this is beautiful. My mother threw her arms in the air. Thank you both. This is great. Becau
se I’ve been such a bad person, and my father is such an angel.

  No, Steve said. No. I wasn’t trying to say anything.

  Well Caitlin is. Caitlin told me she hates me. I want Grandpa.

  My mother said it in a whining, baby voice, making fun of me. Then she reached over and knocked on my forehead. Knock, knock, she said. You don’t have a fucking grandpa.

  Sheri, Steve said.

  Get out. Get the fuck out.

  Steve looked down, slumped, and we all just waited, silent. I could hear our clock and my mother’s breathing. I could feel my forehead where her knuckles had been. Then Steve rose and grabbed his jacket and walked out. No good-bye, and he didn’t even turn around to look at us.

  My mother pounded the table with her fist, my plate jumping. Is this what you want? she asked, her mouth all twisted up. To take everything away from me? You want me to just work and that’s it? No life?

  No.

  Well then. Wake the fuck up. You get me or him. Not both.

  I burrowed under my blankets and curled into a ball, like a lungfish waiting for rain. Hibernation, but called estivation, since it’s for the hot summer instead of cold winter. When everything is unbearable and exposure too much, the air too hot to breathe. My mother the best person in this world, the most generous, the strongest, but this was her dry season, when she was more like a storm than a person, wind-blown dust, accelerating from somewhere sourceless and vast, and I knew to hide.

  Lungfish can slow to one-sixtieth their normal metabolic rate, but this slows time, also. One night becomes sixty nights. This is the price for hiding. Just hold your breath for one minute and find out what a minute becomes.

  In the morning, I tried to remain invisible. I looked down at my cereal and never looked up. My chewing took forever. We ate again with only the small light from over the sink, which made night shadows of everything, large and distorted.

  He has nothing to lose, my mother said. This whole game costs him nothing. I pay, but he doesn’t pay. Same as it’s always been.

  I knew not to say anything. Anything I said would be an attack. I looked up only in quick glances, my mother’s face in shadow, hidden, the light behind her.