How I Learned to Love the Walrus

by Beth Orsoff

  "Isn’t that dangerous?"

  "That’s why you’re wearing the dry suit."

  That’s also when I started to panic. "Ethan, you’re the one who told me I wouldn’t last five minutes in this water."

  "That was without the dry suit," he said. "With it, you could survive maybe half an hour."

  "Gee, that makes me feel so much better."

  He lifted his binoculars and focused on the walruses. "Don’t worry, I’ll pull you out long before then."

  "Ethan, I’m serious."

  "So am I."

  Yes, I agreed to go to the Arctic and shoot arrows at giant smelly walruses with very sharp tusks. But I didn’t sign up for drowning in icy waters. "Tell me the truth," I said, turning to Mac. "Is it really safe?"

  "It is if you don’t fall in," he said, then laughed at his own bad joke.

  Just what this boat needed, another sarcastic jerk. "Forget it. I’m out. You can take your own damn tissue samples. I’m staying here."

  I left Ethan at the bow while I returned to the back of the boat. I spotted Jill’s video camera in my plastic bag and pulled it out. I doubted Guy would want to use anything I shot, but playing with the camera gave me something to do, and it looked like it was going to be a very long week.

  I was focusing in on the herd when Ethan stepped in front of me. "Can you move, please? I’m recording,"

  He reached for the camera, but I pulled it away. "Sydney, we don’t have time for this."

  I stepped around him and refocused. "Go. I’m not stopping you."

  "You’re acting like a child."

  I paused the recorder and looked up. "Since when is not wanting to drown childish?"

  "Do you honestly think I would let you go out on the ice if it wasn’t safe?"

  "I don’t know, Ethan, would you?"

  From the wounded expression on his face, you’d think I’d shot him with the arrow. He held my gaze for a long time before he finally said, "You’re not going to drown."

  "How do you know? Are you psychic now too?"

  He opened his mouth as if about to speak, then shut it again before cracking a smile. "I haven’t lost an assistant yet."

  "There’s a first time for everything."

  "Yes, but not today."

  I glowered, but he kept smiling at me until I felt stupid. "Oh fine, we’ll do it your way. But if I die, it’s on your head."

  "I’ll take my chances," he said, and didn’t even try to hide his self-satisfied grin.

  After I secured the camcorder in the plastic bag, Ethan handed me two strange-looking arrows. One had a silver pincer at the tip with an orange string of dental floss running through the shaft and out the back. The other was heavier, with a sharp blade that fanned out at the head, and a hockey-puck-sized cylinder with a short antenna sticking out the other end.

  "That’s the satellite transmitter," Ethan said, as pulled the roll of duct tape out of his inside pocket and ripped off several strips. "The rod will fall out, but the transmitter stays embedded in the walrus’s hide," he continued as he taped the dry suit tighter around my ankles, wrists, and neck. "You’re going to shoot the one with the pincers though."

  "What does that do?" I asked, touching the tip of the blade with my finger. I could feel its sharpness even through two layers of gloves.

  "It’ll rip out a slice of the walrus’s hide so we can test it."

  Ouch. "Isn’t that going to hurt?"

  "That’s why we only tag the older ones," he said, and donned his sunglasses. "Their hides are so thick they barely feel it."

  I wasn’t sure I believed him, but I didn’t have a choice. Ethan picked up both crossbows and stepped out onto the ice. Reluctantly, I followed.

  Chapter 34

  I thought the ice would be slippery, but it wasn’t. It crunched under our feet like hard snow. Good for walking but bad for sneaking up on walruses.

  "Get down," Ethan commanded.

  I followed his lead and lay flat on my stomach. I don’t know who Ethan thought he was fooling. Not the walruses. They stared right at us. Even with our white jumpsuits, we still stood out on the ice.

  "I think they see us," I whispered.

  "Just keep your head down and follow me."

  We quickly fell into a routine. We’d lie flat until the walruses closed their eyes or stopped looking in our direction, then we’d slither toward them on our stomachs as fast as we could. Inevitably, the ice crunched under us when we moved, and even though their barking and yelping were much louder than our crawling, the walruses always picked up on the noise and at least a few of them turned around. Once spotted, we’d have to lie still and wait for them to lose interest again before we could move.

  "Are you okay?" Ethan whispered, when he caught me trying to bury my face in my jumpsuit.

  "Yeah, I just can’t stand the smell." Windy conditions don’t help much when you’re the one who’s downwind.

  "They are pretty ripe."

  Which just proved my theory that no one, not even walrus lovers, ever really gets used to the smell. "How close are we going to get?" Even without my binoculars, I could clearly see the pointed edges of their tusks.

  "It’s not the distance that’s the problem," he whispered, rolling onto his side to face me. "It’s the angle. If we shoot from here the tag will just bounce off, and a four-thousand-dollar transmitter will end up at the bottom of the Chuchki Sea." Ethan surveyed the group again before he turned back to me. "Do you see that big one facing east?"

  "Have I not mentioned that my entire sense of direction is based on whether the ocean is on my left or my right?"

  He sighed and pointed to two o’clock. "It’s that way, Magellan."

  "I assume you mean the one in the middle acting as if he owns the place." The cinnamon-colored behemoth dug his tusks into any other walrus that even attempted to climb on top of him.

  "We don’t know it’s a he. That’s why you’re here."

  "What do you want me to do? Start flirting with him and see if he flirts back?"

  Ethan laughed. "As entertaining as I’m sure that would be, I’m afraid it’s not definitive enough for our purposes."

  "Well, if you think I’m going to go over there and check under the hood, think again."

  "No, that’s what the pincers are for. C’mon."

  In an instant he was on his feet, hunched over and zigzagging across the ice. He probably ran about fifty feet, but landed only a few yards away.

  "What the hell was that supposed to be?"

  "Just follow my path," he whispered, "and hurry before he moves again."

  I may have almost flunked biology, but I aced geometry. I knew the shortest distance between two points was a straight line. I’d only taken two steps forward when I heard the crack.

  Ethan spun to face me. If he was worried, he hid it well. "Just lie down flat and crawl back," he whispered.

  I slid down to my stomach and started inching backward, but a few seconds later I heard another crack and felt the ice give way beneath me. I froze again, too scared to move. Ethan didn’t bother with directions this time. He dropped his binoculars, retraced his circuitous path, grabbed me by the ankles, and yanked me back to where I’d started from.

  At first neither one of us spoke, but my heart was pounding so loud I was sure he could hear it too. Ethan’s presence certainly didn’t calm me. His jaw and fists were clenched so tight, I thought he might drown me himself. "It’s not my fault," I finally said. "I just did what you told me to do."

  "No, Sydney," he responded, obviously fighting to keep his voice low, "you did not do what I told you. If you had, this ice floe wouldn’t be about to split in two."

  "Well, how was I supposed to know it would crack?"

  Ethan responded by grabbing my arm and spinning me around on my butt. "Look," he said, pointing to the spot he’d just pulled me from. "See the difference?"

  "Not really." It was gray-white, just like the rest of the ice. Although I’d heard it crack and f
elt it give way underneath me, from this angle it looked like one solid piece.

  He ripped my sunglasses from my head. "Look again."

  The glare off the ice was blinding, but I forced myself to squint. Not only did it appear much whiter without the polarizing shades, but the shadows were more visible too. I still couldn’t see any cracks, but I did notice the tiny holes on the surface, giving the ice a honeycomb appearance.

  "It’s rotten ice," Ethan pronounced.

  "Then why the hell didn’t you just tell me that instead of running in circles for no reason?"

  "Obviously I had a reason, or—"

  We were stunned silent as the ice floe erupted. A hundred formerly placid walruses suddenly began stampeding into the sea.

  "What the—"

  "Get back on the boat," Ethan said.

  "But I—"

  "Now!" He grabbed my arm and yanked me upright, then took off running. He stopped just long enough to snatch our equipment, and ran back, narrowly avoiding the rotten ice himself.

  Mac heard the commotion and had the engine running even before I made it to the boat. "What’s going on?" I asked, as he helped me onboard .

  "Look," he said and pointed to the ice floe.

  Chapter 35

  I turned around and caught sight of the enormous polar bear rushing toward the herd.

  "Oh my God, is he going to eat them?"

  "Not if they get to the water first," Ethan said, as he leapt onto the boat behind me holding the binoculars and both crossbows.

  Mac didn’t wait for instructions. He gunned the engine and got us the hell out of there.

  "What are you doing?" Ethan yelled. "Go back."

  "Are you crazy?" Mac said, before I could. "There’s a polar bear back there."

  "Yes, I’m aware of that," Ethan said, while pulling Jill’s video camera out of my plastic bag. "And I’d like to film the attack while it’s still happening."

  I didn’t need binoculars to know that the polar bear had won. The formerly pristine white ice was now covered with large splotches of red.

  "Why is he growling?" I asked, as I turned away from the sight of the massacre.

  "He’s probably warning off other bears," Ethan said, zooming in.

  "You mean there’s more of them?"

  "There could be."

  I borrowed Mac’s binoculars to scan the horizon. I didn’t see any other polar bears, but I did accidentally catch a magnified view of this one as he grabbed the unlucky walrus by the neck. A flipper came up and swatted the bear in the face. "Oh my God, he’s still alive!"

  "Of course he’s alive," Ethan said, as Mac reached for his binoculars.

  "Well, isn’t he going to at least kill him before he eats him?" I turned away before the sight of it made me puke, but Mac seemed as enthralled as Ethan.

  "He is," Ethan said, still recording the carnage. "The bear will keep biting until he dies."

  The bear growled again, and I looked up involuntarily. His muzzle, paws and the front of his coat were covered with walrus blood. "How can you watch this?" I asked, quickly turning away again.

  "Polar bears need to eat too," Mac told me.

  "Yeah, but does he have to be so vicious?" I closed my eyes and tried to replace the image I’d just seen with the cute and cuddly versions I knew. "Why can’t they be more like they are on TV? Like on that commercial where they share their Cokes with the penguins."

  Ethan finally looked up from the viewfinder. "Please tell me you’re joking."

  "Haven’t you ever seen it? They run it Christmastime every year." It was my all time favorite Coke commercial.

  Ethan handed Mac the camera and turned around. "Okay, Sydney, it’s time for a lesson in reality. Penguins live in Antarctica, that’s the South Pole. Polar bears live in the Arctic, that’s the North Pole. You do understand that those are at opposite ends of the earth, right?"

  "Yes, Ethan, I’m not an idiot."

  "Good. Then you should know that in the real world, a polar bear and a penguin could never meet."

  "What about at the zoo?" The polar bear enclosures were always near the penguins.

  "They’re separated, and for a very good reason. If a polar bear ever met a penguin he wouldn’t be offering him a soda, he’d eat him."

  "You don’t know that."

  "Yes, Sydney, I do. And if you spent a little more time watching the Discovery Channel and a little less time watching Disney movies, you’d know that too."

  "Well, I prefer the Disney version. The animals don’t eat each other, they’re friends."

  "Then you must’ve missed The Lion King," Ethan said.

  "When did you see The Lion King?" I couldn’t imagine him spending five minutes in a theater with a bunch of screaming children, or even watching it on DVD.

  "More times than I care to remember. I thought I’d never get that stupid Hakuna Matata song out of my head. To this day I can’t figure out why on earth my son loved that ridiculous movie."

  At first I was speechless, then just incredulous. "You have a son?"

  Chapter 36

  The existence of a child is not something a parent normally keeps to himself. Ethan grabbed the camera from Mac’s hand and started filming again, but I persisted. I wanted to know why he’d never mentioned his son before today. No matter how many times I asked, he ignored the question.

  "C’mon, Ethan, what’s the big secret? Is he one of those nerdy kids who gets beat up on the playground at recess?" I was about to tell him that in elementary school I was routinely picked last for every sports team, which was how I’d ended up in archery, when it occurred to me, "You didn’t walk out on him, did you?"

  "Of course not," he replied, "on both counts," but his gaze never left the ice floe.

  I finally grabbed the camera from his hand so he was forced to look at me. "Then what?"

  In a voice devoid of all emotion he said, "He’s dead."

  Yet another time I wished I’d kept my big mouth shut. "I’m so sorry, Ethan. I didn’t know."

  "Don’t apologize," he roared, and grabbed the camera from my hand.

  His anger was so palpable I took a step back, and even Mac set down his binoculars. "I’m sorry," I said, but quickly realized my mistake. "I mean, I’m not sorry. I mean, why am I not allowed to be sorry?"

  He turned back to the polar bear and spoke so softly I almost didn’t hear him. "Because you’re not the one who killed him."

  I stayed quiet after that, as did Mac, and Ethan too. I had a million questions, but asked none of them. I couldn’t even imagine having a child, let alone losing one. But the silence was oppressive. For a long time, the only sounds we heard were the waves as they slapped against the boat’s pontoons and the polar bear’s grunts while he devoured his prey.

  "It’s getting late," Ethan finally said, turning off the camera. "We should try to tag at least one walrus before we go back."

  "Whatever you want," Mac replied, and started the engine.

  It didn’t take long before Mac found us a small herd hauled out on a tiny patch of ice.

  "Can you hit one from here?" Ethan asked, as we studied them from the bow.

  "You want to shoot from the boat?" I said, confused by the sudden change in strategy.

  "We only approach from the ice when we have to," he said. "My preference is always to shoot from the boat."

  After the rotten ice and the polar bear scare, that was my preference too. "I think so." With the boat rocking, it was harder to keep steady, but my target was as big as a door.

  Ethan inserted the pincer arrow into my crossbow before loading the transmitter arrow into his. Then he kneeled down at the side of the boat with his forearms resting on the edge. "Just make sure you don’t nick the pontoons," he said, as I followed his lead.

  Duh. Did he think I was an idiot? I decided not to ask.

  We lined up our sights and Ethan chose our target—a particularly blubbery one with a broken tusk. Then he counted us down from three.


  Our arrows whistled across the water and seconds later the ice floe erupted into chaos as all twenty-six walruses tried to scramble into the sea at once.

  I scanned the horizon for more of the vicious white predators I no longer thought were so cute. "I don’t see any polar bears, do you?"

  "They’re reacting to us." Ethan replied.

  "I thought you said they couldn’t feel it." I knew he was lying.

  "It’s like a pin prick," he said, reeling in my orange fishing line. "They might feel it, but it doesn’t hurt." When my arrow tip was near, he reached over the side of the boat and pulled it from the water. But when he popped open the silver jaws and shook the contents into a small plastic cup, only a few drops of water dribbled out.

  His sigh told me that’s not what was supposed to happen. "What does that mean?"

  "It means you missed," he said, then walked to the back of the boat.

  I considered following him but decided we’d both be better off if I didn’t.

  Joe, Patti, and George beat us back to the ship. The three of them were halfway through their lunch when Mac, Ethan, and I joined them in the galley. It was a tight squeeze at the U-shaped table, but we all fit. I just made sure I sat on the end and as far away from Ethan as possible.

  "How did it go?" Patti asked, looking from Ethan’s sullen face to mine.

  "Fine," I said when he didn’t answer.

  "Did you tag any walruses?"

  I glanced over at Ethan, but he ignored me as he shoved a forkful of chicken Caesar salad into his mouth. "Just one," I replied. "But we saw a polar bear attack, and Ethan got the whole thing on tape."

  The three of them immediately began peppering him with questions, and those he couldn’t ignore.

  After we finished eating, everyone but me huddled around the camera’s viewfinder to watch the video playback. I still didn’t understand how people who were working to protect walruses could be so gleeful at the sight of one being viciously torn apart.