The Tidewater Tales

by John Barth

  JUNE: And if we don’t run into you—which is also most of the time—we die.

  (The SWIMMER nods sad agreement.)

  MAY: We do not! Ma Moon divides the Crimson Creek for us as She did for Grandma Moses, and we pass down to float forever on the Flat Sea!

  (The SWIMMER laughs, JUNE rolls her eyes. Even MAY is clearly no longer persuaded by this conventional wisdom.)

  JUNE (Firmly): We die; I’m sure of it now. Even the three of us are only temporary exceptions. Our promised Moon-Sea is just like their Shore, May: another myth. You and I know there’s no Shore up in the Right and Left Branches, and he knows there’s no Flat Sea down where he came from.

  SWIMMER: I know I didn’t see any; and I could certainly have used one. (He adjusts his glasses.) So. Except on those extraordinary occasions when one of us actually does manage to cross paths with one of you . . .

  MAY: Watch out, Jay-Gee. Here it comes.

  JUNE: I suspect that that’s a myth, too: your one-to-one idea. I was taught that we’d have hundreds of suitors knocking at our doors, so to speak, and that the only problem would be to choose the best among them. We’ve already seen quite a few go by, and it sounds as if even more are on the way.

  MAY: I wouldn’t touch any of them.

  SWIMMER: But then what happens? I’m ready to agree with everything you’ve said so far. But let’s suppose that the miraculous has occurred: There you are, surrounded by hundreds of us Swimmers—

  MAY: Yech.

  SWIMMER: You’ve looked us over; you’ve made your choice. Now it’s time to Combine Identities . . . Fuse, Merge, whatever. . . . How do we do it? I mean you and your chosen one.

  JUNE (Embarrassed): Didn’t they teach you?

  SWIMMER: You’ve taught me to doubt everything I was taught!

  JUNE: Well . . . It has to do with enzymes. The Floater actively constructs a Multicellular Physical Process in a very few seconds to accommodate the Swimmer of her choice, and at the same time she sloughs off her Vitelline Envelope to get rid of the other Swimmers. They’re all hanging on, you see, like drowning sailors to a life raft. . . .

  MAY: Or flies to a honey pot.

  JUNE: And the Floater doesn’t need her envelope any longer. She’s done with floating, and he with swimming.

  SWIMMER: Mm hm. What then?

  JUNE (Covers her eyes): It’s not easy to talk about these things. Especially with you. (She looks at him determinedly.) But we should talk about them. It shouldn’t be dark and dramatic.

  MAY: I was taught that the next step is for us to bite off your head, spit out your tail, and go on about our business. Thff!

  SWIMMER: I was taught that we’re supposed to cry “Love!” and dive into you and get Transfigured. What you said about that physical process of accommodation helps explain the diving-in business, I guess; but I still don’t know what Transfiguration means. Do you?

  JUNE (Shakes her head): Ms. R admitted that she didn’t know, either; but she was pretty sure it had to do with enzymes. She said we’d understand when the time came. (She pauses.) I’m beginning to believe her.

  MAY: Hmp.

  SWIMMER (Gently): Have you yourself ever Merged Identities, ma’am?

  JUNE (Merrily indignant): No!

  MAY: It’s something nobody does twice. Like drowning.

  SWIMMER: Have you ever seen anybody Merge? I haven’t.

  JUNE (Primly): We had excellent illustrated textbooks in the Right Ovarium, even though they were necessarily speculative.

  MAY: In other words, the authors didn’t know what they were talking about. (The SWIMMER laughs and nods.) In the Left Ovarium we had excellent illustrations on our lavatory walls.

  SWIMMER: So did we. Also speculative.

  JUNE (Determined to be serious): Our textbooks agreed that there is some sort of physical . . . combination involved. But we don’t swallow you, any more than you dive into us. (She smooths her hair.) We . . . envelop you somehow, with that Physical Process of ours, and from then on we’re not us any longer. I mean we’re us, but not you and I. I don’t mean you, of course, or me; I mean Swimmer and Floater. Do you know what I mean?

  SWIMMER (Simply and admiringly): I was told that we die of love.

  MAY: I was told that we die of indigestion.

  JUNE (To the SWIMMER): Do you know what I mean? I’m not even sure I do; but I think I do. Gametes . . . Zygotes ... I don’t know.

  SWIMMER (Gently): I believe I’m beginning to understand. Please forgive me for jumping you before. I was ignorant, scared, and exhausted.

  JUNE: I forgive you.

  (Sound of approaching SWIMMERS.)

  The play’s action having been for some pages at a virtual standstill—though not its plot and certainly not the development of its eschatological theme—Peter interrupts his reading here to check out the voices carrying Storyward from Reprise. Sure enough, Katherine has paddled over there and made friends, as she could do in ten minutes if you dropped her in the Gobi Desert. The murky water and fading light preserve her modesty; her scarfed head and bare shoulders held above water by the ski belt, she’s chatting high-spiritedly with the couple aboard, who are clothed now against the No-See-Ums that pester Chesapeakers between sunset and dark. Time for Peter to get clothes on, too—but now he sees his wife apparently making ready to board the cutter!

  The stocky fellow steps below, out of sight; the woman holds a large striped beach towel ready; Katherine pulls herself hugely up their ladder. Now Peter can just make out that the man has handed up a terry-cloth robe to his companion, who helps our woman into it. He returns to the cockpit with a tray of drinks, and the three resume their talk—Katherine, it seems to Peter, more animatedly than her hosts. At one point she waves and calls something to her husband across the water; the distance is too far for Peter to make out what she says. The man and woman, too, cordially wave to him. He waves back, slaps with the manuscript at a No-See-Um on his inboard calf, envies for the thousandth time his wife’s gregariousness, and goes back to the about-to-be-beleaguered trio on their uterine verge.

  JUNE: I forgive you.

  (Sound of approaching SWIMMERS)

  SWIMMER (To MAY): You too, ma’am. I’m very sorry.

  MAY: Forget it. You’d better swim along, now; we’ve got things to do. (To JUNE) We’ve got to get rid of him and hide.

  JUNE (Rises uncertainly): We hid before. We’re not supposed to hide.

  MAY: You go like a lamb to the slaughter if you want to. I’m hiding. (She starts toward the rear of the ledge.)

  SWIMMER (Urgently, to MAY, as he rises too): You can’t hide here, ma’am. This is the Main Body coming. There’ll be so many that they’ll swarm all over this ledge. (To JUNE) Don’t you want to look them over, at least, before you choose—or get chosen?

  JUNE: Now I’m scared.

  SWIMMER (Tentatively but deliberately touches JUNE’s shoulder; she looks at him sharply, but does not draw away.): Really, ma’am. If this group is like my group, you’re not going to be choosing among suitors. You’re going to be attacked by a horny mob.

  MAY: I knew it. We’ve got to make siege preparations fast!

  (JUNE begins to cry a little, MAY touches her other shoulder.)

  MAY (To the SWIMMER): Get out of here now, Buster. You’ll lead them to us.

  SWIMMER (To both): Listen. Just down the channel and off to one side is a really safe harbor: It’s an absolutely private cove, with an ideal vantage point for inspecting Swimmers without being seen. I stumbled into it on the way up, during one of my rest periods, and stayed there awhile to get my breath. There’s a way to reach it without running into the Main Body, and the entrance is so tricky that only one Swimmer can come ashore at a time, so it’s easy to defend. You’ll be perfectly safe, (MAY is interested.) You can wait there till the whole crowd swims past and drowns, if you want to, and then float on down, (MAY is nodding assent.) Or you can look them over and choose a mate to Combine I
dentities with. . . .

  MAY: Let’s get going, Jay-Gee. (To the SWIMMER) What’s the course from here to that cove?

  SWIMMER: Two ten magnetic. But you’ll never find it by yourselves.

  MAY: We’ll try. Two ten magnetic.

  JUNE (Really frightened now, to MAY): You can’t float properly with what’s left of your envelope, May!

  SWIMMER (To MAY): I’m really sorry about that. (He examines his tail-tip.) I can’t steer properly, either, with this broken tip.

  MAY: Who cares about you?

  (The sound of the MAIN BODY is nearer, MAY and JUNE clutch each other.)

  SWIMMER (Earnestly): Look: Getting to this cove takes cross-current work as well as navigation. There’s a breakwater and another whirlpool. I think the three of us together can do it.

  MAY: Go away.

  JUNE (Quiets her. To the SWIMMER): How?

  SWIMMER (To JUNE): You can float and steer, but you can’t really thrust. She can steer, but she can’t float or thrust. I can thrust, but I can’t float or steer. If you hold onto her and I hold onto you, she can steer for the three of us, you can float for the three of us, and I can thrust for the three of us, as well as tell her where to steer. (He adjusts his glasses.) I honestly think it’ll work.

  MAY (To JUNE): He’ll steer us right to Them.

  SWIMMER: Damned if I will, ma’am!

  MAY: You want our Identities all to yourself in that private little cove of yours!

  SWIMMER (Out of patience with her at last): I wouldn’t have your Identity as a gift! (The sound of the MAIN BODY grows.) For pity’s sake, let’s get going; they’re practically here!

  MAY (Links arms with JUNE): And here’s where we’ll fight them off. If we go under, we’ll take as many of them with us as we can. We don’t trust you.

  SWIMMER (Directly to JUNE): I beg you to, ma’am. Here they come.

  JUNE (To MAY): I think we should trust him, May. . . .

  MAY (Shakes her head; she has seen this coming.): Not me. You go with him, Jay-Gee: I think you’ve found your Mister Right.

  JUNE (Embraces her): I have not! (MAY accepts the embrace, then stiffens as the MAIN BODY sounds again.)

  SWIMMER: Come on!

  MAY (Waves them both away): Go on. Here they are.

  (The roar of the MAIN BODY is now upon them, followed at once by a various throng of SWIMMERS from downstream, more densely packed than before, but otherwise behaving in much the same fashion as the ADVANCE GUARD. As the FLOATERS were forewarned, the SWIMMERS’ very number thrusts a few of them willy-nilly up onto the ledge. Three of them now lie or kneel there, dazed, getting their breath and bearings; the three prior occupants crouch at the rear of the ledge. The throng in the Mainstream thrashes on.)

  FIRST MAIN BODY SWIMMER: Hey, guys! We’ve reached the Shore!

  SECOND M.B.S.: Damned if we haven’t! (He points.) Is that a She?

  THIRD M.B.S. : Looks to me like a whole Shoreful of Shes!

  (The original SWIMMER has snatched MAY’s envelope back, to her considerable dismay, and coiled himself as before. Now he rolls out onto the ledge before the newcomers, calling to them in falsetto.)

  SWIMMER: Here I am, boys! (The three MAIN BODY SWIMMERS, shouting ‘‘Love!” and other things, jump him. As he fends them off, he calls to JUNE and MAY.) Around this rock and two ten magnetic!

  (While he wrestles with the three MAIN BODY SWIMMERS, MAY begins to lead JUNE away as he directs. She resists. Now the attackers gleefully tear MAY’s envelope off the SWIMMER, fling it away—in JUNE’s direction—and discover their prey to be one of themselves.)

  SECOND MAIN BODY SWIMMER (Holds up the swimmer’s tail): Look what she’s got!

  FIRST M.B.S.: Fa-ther!

  THIRD M.B.S.: Drown the faggot!

  (They drag the struggling SWIMMER toward the edge, over which now more MAIN BODY SWIMMERS are clambering onto the ledge, JUNE rushes to help him, ignoring MAY’s cries to her, and leaps upon the first MAIN BODY SWIMMER. He and the second grapple with her as the newcomers pile upon the SWIMMER.)

  FIRST M.B.S. (Grips JUNE from behind): Hey, this one don’t have no tail! He’s got other stuff!

  SECOND M.B.S.: It’s a She, egghead!

  THIRD M.B.S. (Jumps at once off the SWIMMER and dives at JUNE): Combine her!

  (The fray now becomes general: JUNE tears loose and defends herself energetically with the assistance of the swimmer, who has seized the opportunity to rush to her side. But more main body swimmers are swarming upon the ledge than the two of them can dispatch back into the Mainstream: It is a losing battle until MAY, who has retrieved her envelope, wrapped herself in it as in a sarong, and steeled herself for this moment, mounts a natural dais in the center of the ledge. She strikes an awkward pose in imitation of June’s earlier one and calls to the main body swimmers in what she hopes is an alluring voice.)

  MAY: Here it is, guys: the hottest Identity in the Mainstream!

  (The MAIN BODY SWIMMERS notice her, falter, and turn away from JUNE and the SWIMMER—who continue to get in their licks for a while, in particular shoving would-be new arrivals back into the Mainstream, MAY does a striptease to hold their attention: Singing “Onward and Downward” to a burlesque rhythm, she divests herself slowly of the retrieved portion of her envelope and tosses it over their heads, to JUNE. The main body swimmers gape, cluster, wave and thump their tails appreciatively, whistle and shout encouragement, MAY removes the bit of envelope that has been covering her breasts and looks imploringly toward JUNE and the SWIMMER. The MAIN BODY SWIMMERS move in closer, surrounding the dais. The SWIMMER, understanding MAY’s strategy, grimly and carefully leads JUNE, horror-stricken, toward the rear upstream corner of the ledge.

  The THIRD M.B.S. now reaches out tentatively and touches, then seizes, MAY’s leg at the calf. Her breath catches, JUNE would return to her, but the SWIMMER restrains her; more and more MAIN BODY SWIMMERS are gaining the ledge, attracted by the spectacle.

  MAY shakily resumes her song. The SECOND M.B.S. seizes her thigh, just below the remaining scrap of envelope, MAY cries out, but forces herself not only to resume her burlesque “Onward and Downward,” but to peel off the last of her envelope and throw it to the crowd. The two MAIN BODY SWIMMERS let go of her momentarily to thump their tails in lusty applause with the rest, MAY dashes between them to the ledge-edge farthest from JUNE and the SWIMMER; there she halts, turns, and—her back to the camera, her feet planted well apart and her head lifted proudly—opens her arms. With whoops and shouts, the MAIN BODY SWIMMERS throw themselves upon her from three sides, enwrapping her with their tails and burrowing their heads against her, while others just emerging from the Mainstream seize her legs from behind, MAY’s tearful but defiant cries—“Do it, damn you!”—become screams as the flailing mass of her attackers tumbles with her over the edge, into the water, and out of sight downstream.

  JUNE, still restrained by the SWIMMER, has been screaming after her. At the final assault, she hides her face in the SWIMMER’s shoulder. As MAY takes her assailants over the edge, the SWIMMER curls his injured tail consolingly about JUNE and carefully leads her behind the rock and out of sight, MAY’s envelope trailing forlornly from JUNE’s hand.)

  Katherine Sherritt’s entire yesterday morning in Annapolis we did by summary and recap, keeping the camera so to speak on Peter Sagamore, when in fact the real story line was across town, in May Jump’s apartment, and all P did was read Don Quixote. So

  THIS TIME WE’RE GOING TO BACK UP AND NARRATE KATH.

  Plumply paddling some yards astern of Reprise, Wye I., she calls up cordially from the creek Are you Repreeze or Reprize? The turbid water and failing light sufficiently veil her for the circumstances, she judges; if the guy gets a shot of her tits, tant pis. Were she to break her water, as they say, while in the water, would she know it? Queenstown Creek feels like a great LeBoyer bath.

  The husky gray-beard nods howdy from their transom, leaning on a leg of
the cutter’s divided backstay and looking unselfconsciously her way. Dryly from the cockpit the slim brunette says Dealer’s choice, and Kath feels a sudden surge in herself as if the old amnion has indeed let go. But it is the surge of recognition.

  Lee and Frank Talbott! We met you at Doug Townshend’s once, a hundred years ago!

  Says the fellow, surprised, So you are the Sagamores. We wondered. His wife says to Katherine Your memory’s amazing. Their voices, unlike K’s, are unenthusiastic. Okay: She understands why and feels creepy knowing what she really has no business knowing: that in addition to their several bereavements, the Talbotts have very recently undergone an abortion unilaterally decided upon. They are clearly not overjoyed to see pregnant us. Yet their tone seems not uncordial, only subdued, and Kath is too wowed by crazy coincidence not to splash on. You’re not going to believe this, she chirps to Leah Talbott: We just met your mother and your sister and your nephew over in Annapolis! We spent all yesterday with them!

  Frank Talbott says What?

  Invite me aboard, merry Kath demands. This is too spooky!

  The surprised woman says You saw Ma and Marian? Her husband says Come on up; I’ll get you a beach towel. Katherine remembers having enjoyed his voice before: gentle, but resonant with testosterone. Get her my terry robe too, Lee Talbott instructs him, and asks Katherine hospitably enough Can you manage the ladder?

  K does, slowly and carefully, and is handed first the towel and then the robe belowstairs. She apologizes for dripping all over their cockpit and feels like apologizing further for being so nakedly pregnant in their company, but doesn’t. Unhitching her ski belt and wrapping herself comfortably, she catches Leah Talbott exchanging level glances with her husband as he returns upstairs. Too spooky! she laughs again, pulling off the paisley bandanna and shaking out her hair. Wait’ll you hear.

  But first the three shake heads together over Douglas Townshend’s sudden death, and Katherine takes the opportunity to sympathize with the Talbotts’ late other losses. She herself never met Frederick Mansfield Talbott, she tells them, though her husband in fact did, once. She’s almost sure she met Lee’s half-brother Jonathan, though, at some HOSCA meetings. What a terrible thing.