The House at Belle Fontaine

by Lily Tuck

  When the drill is over and still wearing his life jacket, Peter leaves the saloon, saying he is going up on deck to breathe some fresh air, and Maud goes back down to the cabin.

  Of the eighty or so passengers on board the Caledonia Star, the majority are couples; a few single women travel together; one woman is in a wheelchair. The average age, Maud guesses, is mid- to late sixties and, like them—Peter was a lawyer and Maud a speech therapist (she still works three days a week at a private school)—most are retired professionals. And although Maud and Peter learned about the cruise from their college alumni magazine, none of the passengers—some of whom they assume must have attended the same college—look familiar to them. “Maybe they all took correspondence courses,” Peter says. Since his retirement, Peter has been restless and morose. “No one,” he complains to Maud, “answers my phone calls anymore.” The trip to Antarctica was Maud’s idea.

  When Maud steps out on deck to look for Peter, she does not see him right away. The ship rolls from side to side—they have started to cross the Drake Passage—and already they have lost sight of land. When Maud finally finds Peter, her relief is so intense she nearly shouts as she hurries over to him. Standing at the ship’s rail, looking down at the water, Peter does not appear to notice Maud. Finally, without moving his head, he says in a British-inflected, slightly nasal voice, “Did you know that the Drake Passage is a major component of the coupled ocean-atmosphere climate system and that it connects all the other major oceans and that it influences the water-mass characteristics of the deep water over a large portion of the world?”

  “Of course, darling,” Maud answers in the same sort of voice and takes Peter’s arm. “Everyone knows that.”

  Peter has an almost photographic memory and is, Maud likes to say, the smartest man she has ever met. Instead of being a lawyer, Peter claims that he would have preferred being a mathematician. He is an attractive man; tall and athletic-looking, although he walks with a slight limp—he broke his leg as a child and the bones did not set properly—which gives him a certain vulnerability and adds to his appeal (privately, Maud accuses him of exaggerating the limp to elicit sympathy). And he still has a full head of hair, notwithstanding that it has turned gray, which he wears surprisingly long. Maud, too, is good-looking; slim, tall and blonde (the blonde is no longer natural but such a constant Maud would be hard put to say what her natural color is); her blue eyes, she claims, are still her best feature. Together, they make a handsome couple; they have been married for over forty years.

  Maud knows Peter so well that she also knows that when he adopts this bantering tone with her either he is hiding something or he is feeling depressed. Or both. Instinctively, she tightens her grip on his arm.

  “Let’s go in,” she says to him in her normal voice, “I’m cold.”

  In their cabin, the books, the clock, the bottle of sleeping pills, everything that had been neatly stacked on the nightstand is, on account of the ship’s motion, lying pell-mell on the floor.

  Instead of a double bed, their cabin has two narrow bunks, placed side by side. The bunks are made up in an unusual way, a Norwegian way, Maud guesses—the sheet wrapped around the blanket as if it were a parcel and tucked in. In her bed, Maud feels as if she were lying inside a cocoon; also, she does not dislike sleeping alone for a change. As if Peter could read her mind—he has an uncanny ability to do this sometimes—he pats the side of his bunk and says, “Come here for a minute, Maud.” Maud hesitates, then decides not to answer. She does not feel like making love—too much trouble and often, recently, sex does not work out, which makes her anxious and Peter anxious and angry both. Over their heads, on the wall, the public-address speaker crackles and a voice says: “Long before the poet Samuel Coleridge penned his Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the albatross was a creature of reverence and superstition. The sailors believed that when their captain died, his soul took the form of an albatross. Of course I cannot speak for our excellent Captain Halvorsen, but I, for one, would not mind being reincarnated as an albatross.” In the bed next to Maud, Peter snorts and says again, “Maudie, come over here.” Maud pretends not to hear him. “By the way, my name is Michael,” the voice continues, “and in case you have not yet met me I am your naturalist on board.” Peter says something that Maud does not quite catch although she can guess at the meaning. “The albatross has the largest wingspan—the record, I believe is thirteen feet, three inches—and the oldest known albatross is seventy years old. When he is ten, the albatross goes back to where he was born to mate—” Maud tenses for a comment from Peter but this time he makes none. The public-address speaker crackles with static: “. . . feeds at night . . . eats luminous squid, fish and krill.” Maud looks over at ­Peter’s bunk and sees that Peter’s eyes are closed. Relieved, she reaches up to turn down the volume on the speaker as Michael says, “The albatross will fly for miles without moving its wings, or setting foot on land. Soaring and gliding over the water, the albatross’s zigzag flight is determined by the wind.”

  The captain’s cocktail party is held in the saloon—or, as Maud refers to it, Emergency Station 2. She is dressed in her best slacks and a red cashmere sweater, and Peter wears his blue blazer and a tie. The saloon is packed tight with passengers who are all talking at once. Right away, Maud orders a vodka martini at the bar while Peter has a beer.

  “Take it easy,” Peter says, handing her the martini.

  The ship’s motion is more pronounced and Maud hangs on to the edge of the bar with one hand and holds her martini glass in the other. Sometimes Maud drinks too much. She blames her age and the fact that she is thin and cannot hold her liquor the way she used to—not the actual amount she drinks. Standing in the center of the room, Captain Halvorsen is a tall man with thinning red hair; he smiles politely as he talks to the passengers. Maud guesses that he must dread this evening and the enforced sociability. Looking around the room, she does not see the darkly handsome first officer. A woman holding a golf club—which, at first, Maud thinks is a cane—walks over to them and, standing next to Peter at the bar, orders a glass of white wine.

  “If I am not mistaken, that’s a five iron you have in your hand,” Peter says to her in his nasal voice.

  “Yes, it is,” the woman answers. She is dark and trim and does not smile.

  “Do you always travel with a golf club?” Peter, when he wants, can be charming and he can act as if he is completely entranced by what the person he is speaking to is saying. If that person happens to be a woman, Maud tends to resent it, even though she knows that Peter’s attention may not be entirely genuine. Peter continues, “By the way, my name is Peter and this is my wife, Maud.”

  “I’m Barbara,” the woman says. “And, yes, I always travel with my golf club.”

  “As protection?” Maud manages to ask.

  “No,” Barbara frowns. “My goal is to drive a golf ball in every country of the world.”

  “Oh.”

  “And have you?” Peter asks. He does a little imitation golf swing, holding his bottle of beer in both hands. When, in the past, Maud has accused Peter of toying with people, Peter has accused Maud of misreading him.

  “As a matter of fact, I have. Or nearly. Except for Antarctica, which of course is not a country but a continent, and a few African nations, which are too dangerous. I began twenty years ago—”

  Why? Maud is tempted to ask.

  “After my husband died,” Barbara says as if to answer Maud.

  “Can you get me another martini?” Maud asks Peter.

  That night, Maud cannot sleep. Every time she closes her eyes, she feels dizzy and nauseated and she has to open her eyes again; she tries sitting up in bed. To make matters worse, the Caledonia Star creaks and shudders as all night it pitches and lurches through a heavy sea. Once, after a particularly violent lurch, Maud calls out to Peter but either he is asleep and does not hear her or, perve
rse, he does not answer her. To herself, Maud vows that she will never have another drink.

  In the morning, at seven according to the clock that is on the floor—Maud has finally managed to sleep for a few hours—Maud and Peter are awoken by the now familiar voice on the public-address speaker.

  “Good morning, folks! It’s Michael! I hope you folks were not still sleeping! For those of you who are on the starboard side of the ship—that means the right side for the landlubbers—if you look out your porthole real quick, you’ll see a couple of minke whales.”

  When Maud looks outside, the sea is calm and it is raining.

  “Do you see them?” Peter asks from his bed.

  “No,” Maud says. “I don’t see any minke whales.”

  “Michael is lying to us,” Peter says, rolling over on to his other side. “Be a good girl and give me a back rub. This mattress is for the birds.”

  In the rubber Zodiac, Maud starts to feel better. The cold air clears her head and she is looking forward to walking on land. Behind her, the Caledonia Star rests solidly at anchor as they make their way across to Livingston Island. The passengers in the boat are all wearing orange life jackets as well as identical red parkas—parkas they were obliged to purchase prior to setting sail. When Maud had inquired about the parkas, she was told that red was easy to see and made it easier for the crew to tell whether any passenger was left behind on shore. And had a passenger ever been left behind? Maud continued to ask. Yes, once. A woman had tried to hide. Hide? Why? Maud had asked again, but she got no reply.

  Holding her golf club between her legs, Barbara sits across from them in the Zodiac. Instead of a cap she wears a visor that has Golfers Make Better Lovers printed on it. Michael, the naturalist, is young, blond and bearded, and he drives the Zodiac with smooth expertise. Once he lands the boat, he gives each passenger a hand, cautioning them: “Careful where you walk, the ground may be slippery. And, steer clear of those seals,” he also says, pointing. “Especially the big fur seal, he’s not friendly.”

  Looking like giant rubber erasers, about a dozen seals are lying close together along the shore; their beige and gray hides are mottled and scarred. Except for one seal who raises his head to look at them as they walk past—the fur seal, no doubt—none of the seals move. Maud gives them a wide berth and makes no eye contact; Peter, on the other hand, deliberately walks up closer to the seals and takes several photos of them.

  A few yards inland, Maud sees Barbara lean over to tee up a golf ball. She watches as Barbara takes up her stance and takes a few practice swings. Several of the other passengers are watching her as well. One man calls out, “Make it a hole in one, Barbara!” The golf ball sails straight toward the brown cliffs that rise from the shore; a few people applaud. Barbara tees up and hits another golf ball, then another. Each time, the sound is a sharp crack, like ice breaking.

  Michael is right, it is slippery. Wet shale and bits of snow litter the ground; also there are hundreds—no, perhaps, thousands—of penguins on Livingston Island. Maud has to watch where she steps. It would not do, she thinks, to break a leg in Antarctica or to crush a penguin. Like the seals, the penguins appear to be oblivious of people. They are small and everywhere underfoot and Maud feels as if she is walking among dwarves.

  When Peter catches up to her, he says, “You think one of these penguins is going to try to brood on a golf ball.”

  “Incubate, you mean,” Maud says. “You brood on a chick.”

  “Whatever,” Peter answers, turning away from her. He does not like being corrected, and although Maud should know better by now, old habits die hard.

  In the Zodiac, on the way back to the Caledonia Star, the wind has picked up and the sea is rougher. In spite of Michael’s efforts, waves slap at the boat’s sides and cold spray wets the backs of the passengers’ red parkas.

  “Tomorrow, we will see icebergs,” Captain Halvorsen promises during dinner. Maud and Peter are sitting at his table along with another couple, Bryan and Janet. Bryan claims to have been in the same college class as Peter and to remember him well (he alludes to an incident involving the misuse of cafeteria trays, but Peter has no recollection of it and shakes his head). Janet, a tall brunette with smooth olive skin and dark full eyebrows, is much younger; she never attended college, she tells Maud, giggling. She took up modeling instead.

  “If the ice were to melt,” Captain Halvorsen tells Peter, “the water would rise sixty-six meters.”

  “Isn’t a meter like a yard?” Janet asks. “I was never any good at math.”

  Sitting next to Maud, Bryan, who is in real estate, is describing the booming building industry in Florida, where he lives.

  “The grounding line is where the ice mass begins to float,” Maud overhears Captain Halvorsen say. “In Antarctica, icebergs form when ice breaks away from large flat plates called ice shelves.”

  “I read that the Ross Ice Shelf is the size of the state of Connecticut,” Peter says.

  “The size of France,” Captain Halvorsen says.

  Leaning over, Janet says something to Peter that Maud cannot hear, which makes him laugh. Maud watches, as still laughing, Peter puts his hand on Janet’s forearm and pats it in a gesture of easy camaraderie.

  “Can you pass the wine, Bryan?” Maud interrupts him.

  “Eighty-five percent of the ice in the world is in Antarctica,” Captain Halvorsen says. Then, as a sort of afterthought, he adds, “And six percent of the ice in the world is in Greenland.”

  And the rest? The nine percent? Maud wishes to ask but does not.

  For years, as a child, Maud had a recurring dream. A nightmare. In her sleep, she always knew when the nightmare was beginning but she was unable to stop it or wake herself up. The other thing, too, was that Maud could never describe it. The dream had nothing to do with people or monsters or violent situations or anything she might know or recognize. The dream could not be put into words. The closest way she could come to describing it was to say that it was about numbers (even so, that was not quite right, as the numbers were not the familiar ones like 8 or 17 or 224); they were something other. (When consulted about the nightmare, the family physician suggested that Maud stop taking math for a while but, at school, math was Maud’s best subject.) The numbers (if in fact they were numbers) in the dream always started out small and manageable—although, again, Maud knew that was temporary, for soon they multiplied and became so large and unmanageable and incomprehensible that Maud was swept away into a kind of terrible abyss, a kind of black hole full of numbers.

  It has been years now since Maud has thought about the dream. Antarctica, the vastness, the ice, the inhospitable landscape, is what she assumes has reminded her of it. When she tries to describe the dream to Peter and mentions the math part, Peter says he knows just what she means.

  “You’re in good company, all sorts of people had it. The Greeks, Aristotle, Archimedes, Pascal.”

  “The dream?”

  “No, what the dream stands for.”

  “Which is?” Maud is not sure whether Peter is being serious.

  “The terror of the infinite.

  “Interestingly, the ancient Greeks did not include zero or infinity in their mathematics,” Peter continues, displaying his fondness for the arcane. “Their word for infinity was also their word for mess.”

  Captain Halvorsen is right. The next morning, they see icebergs. The sea is filled with them. Icebergs of all shapes and sizes. Some are as tall as six-story buildings, others remind Maud of modern sculptures and are tinged with blue—a brilliant aquamarine blue. It is also snowing.

  Despite the snow, Peter spends the morning on deck with his camera, taking pictures. When Maud joins him, he tells her, “Have you ever seen anything like those icebergs? Have you ever seen a blue like that?”

  “Are you warm enough?” Maud asks. A part of her�
��a part she dislikes—resents seeing Peter so happy and excited about the icebergs, and she feels excluded. At the same time, she also envies his ability to be so genuinely absorbed and enchanted by nature—at home, Peter is always pointing out large, beautiful trees to her. His appreciation seems pure and unmotivated and Maud wishes she could share it but she is too self-conscious. Too self-referential, she decides. She cannot look at the stars without wishing for a falling one, or gaze at the sea without thinking “drown.”

  Each time the Caledonia Star runs into a large ice floe, there is a loud thumping noise, but since the ship’s hull is made out of steel, there is no need for concern. Many of the ice floes have penguins and seals on them. When the ship goes by, alarmed, the penguins dive off like bullets; the seals, indifferent, do not move. Often, blood, looking like paint splashed on a canvas, stains the ice around the seals—the remains of their kill. In addition to fur seals, Maud is told, there are crabeater seals, Ross seals, leopard seals, elephant seals and Weddell seals.

  “A marine mammal exhales before he dives,” Michael is saying over the public-address speaker, “and oxygen is stored in his blood, not in his lungs.”

  This time, Maud and Peter are making love on one of the bunks.

  “Shall I turn him off?” Maud starts to move away.

  “No. Stay put.” Peter has an erection.

  “Seals collapse their lungs when they dive. Their heart rate drops and their arteries constrict. In fact, every­thing is shut down—”

  Maud half-listens.

  “Except for the brain, the adrenal and the ­placenta —that is, of course, if the seal is pregnant—”

  Afterward, still lying pressed together on the little bunk, Maud frees her arm, which has gone to sleep, from under Peter and, as if to make up for her movement, which breaks the postcoital spell, she kisses Peter lightly. Also, in spite of herself, she asks, “So what are you going to do with all the photographs you took of icebergs?”