Ahab's Return

by Jeffrey Ford

  “I knew from earlier whaling voyages that there were English and Dutch on the main island the natives referred to as Tungaru, and I knew that I could get my hosts to take me there. From there I intended to ship to Australia or Java, and from there, home. I had landed on one of the farther-flung atolls of the chain. Blue and green and sunlight were the colors of days and Time was drawn out to sea on a strong current. The ocean wind never stopped blowing, some days a rage, some a whisper. The I-Kiribati believed the world was created by a spider and that before people there were half people and spirits.

  “One day I was invited to go on a sea journey to one of the atolls somewhat even farther out. We took a boy a year or two shy of manhood to that island, and we left him there. I learned from my cronies that the island was uninhabited, and that the boy would be expected to subsist alone for ten days. After we returned home, I would think of what the boy was doing and in my imagination, I pictured him as my son. I saw him fishing with a spear, gathering a kind of swamp taro they called babai, sitting alone on the beach in the sunset, staring toward home. At times, my dreams included my wife.

  “The day finally came when we manned the large outrigger canoe and returned to that far-off island to retrieve the boy. When we arrived, we found him alive and well and standing on the shore to greet us. I’d thought it would be an exciting moment to welcome him back, but the hopes of that were dashed by the fact that standing next to him was another boy, his identical twin. I looked around from face to face to find a reaction, but everyone who’d made the journey was quiet and wore a somber expression. We all got back in the canoe and returned home.

  “I wanted to know, of course, where the boy’s twin came from, if he’d been on the island before we’d first arrived or if he’d been brought on a separate journey. My closest friend, the old man Abiaing, shook his head at my questions and offered not a word. Soon after, one of those two boys took ill with some grim wasting disease. His ribs began to show, his eyes grew large and sunken. I would come upon him from time to time hunched in the bushes vomiting what looked like torrents of sand.

  “One afternoon about a month after returning from the island, the poor lad succumbed to whatever horrible disease had attacked him and he dropped face forward onto the ground in the center of the village. No one would move to help him, and when I went to the task, my friend held me back and again shook his head. Almost the entire village was gathered in a ten-foot circumference around the shipwrecked fellow. His healthier twin was also in the crowd. We watched, me in disbelief, as the living corpse shuddered and shivered and suddenly transformed into a dark smoke that drifted out over the ocean. That night, I dreamed of my wife and boy, and the next day I begged my I-Kiribati friends to take me to Tungaru.”

  With that, the captain once again closed his eyes. There was nothing for me to do but continue upstairs to my bed and an uneasy night’s sleep.

  Ahab was up early and impatient to shove off. Before 9:00, we were on the sidewalk, heading west on Fulton Street. At the corner of Fulton and Church, with the last of Garrick’s money, I contracted a hansom cab to take us to Seneca Village, wait while we made our inquiries, and then return us to civilization. I gave the driver instructions to head north on Hudson. Once our journey was underway, I eased back into the seat and stared out at the city.

  “I remember reading in Ishmael’s book that this sailor, Daggoo, was a giant,” I said.

  Ahab, transfixed by the passing sights, said, “Fancy unto fancy linking.”

  “Are you saying my colleague was less than truthful in his depiction of the harpooneer?”

  “Daggoo was of good height, no less than six foot, but not an inch more. He was a powerful man. Could sink the steel deep. His name wasn’t Daggoo, either. I can no longer recall what it actually was.”

  “Why do you think Ishmael made him six foot five in the book?”

  “He’s a sensationalist,” said the captain. “One of your brethren.”

  We watched the buildings thin out and the pastures begin. Cows and horses dotted the passing landscape. When we reached Fourteenth Street, I opened the hatch above us to tell the driver to head over to Eighth Avenue and continue north. The road got more rugged. It was a brisk and beautiful day, and being away from the city, the difference in the air was noticeable. The offal stench of the street had receded; the smoke burdening each breath and blotting out the sun was left in our wake.

  I’d only been to Seneca Village one other time. It was to gather background detail for, perhaps, one of my most fantastic offerings—“The Utopia of Races.” It told of blacks and Irish and Germans living together in harmony. That part was real. Colored farmers had bought the first parcels of land and started the community. Years later, when immigrants came from Europe, they were welcome. There was one midwife who birthed both black and white. All worshipped together at the All Angels’ Church. I couched the piece in terms of female visionary utopias like Three Hundred Years Hence by Mary Griffith. Most of the Gorgon’s Mirror readers took it as a flight of fancy, which is what it was. Others, like the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, nativist groups, and even Samuel Morse, who’d once run for mayor, wrote in to the editorial page of the Mirror to say I should be sacked or, barring that, killed.

  My detractors didn’t realize that I, George Harrow, was not a do-gooder, an abolitionist, a friend to the downtrodden, a lover of Catholics or the sons and daughters of Africa, nor was I in league with the idiocy of the Know-Nothings, indiscriminate haters of anything other than themselves. No, I was merely an opportunist seizing an opportunity when I chose that topic for an article. I knew that nothing sold better than controversy.

  I asked the driver to stop and let us out near All Angels’ Church. The scenery was made up of slow rolling farmland dotted with thickets of pin oak, boulders, and small clutches of whitewashed buildings. Some of the homes were little more than glorified shacks and others were three stories tall, constructed of wood and brick. People were out and about, but now that it was well past harvest season the place was less busy than when I was there in summer. We headed along a dirt path to the church.

  There was an old colored man, dressed in a vest and white shirt, sweeping the aisles between the pews. He welcomed us and asked if we were new to the village. I told him I’d been there a few years earlier to write a story, and he seemed to dimly recall that.

  “We’re looking for a gentleman who might go by the name of Daggoo,” I said.

  “The man’s a sailor, a harpooneer,” said Ahab.

  The fellow remained quiet but continued sweeping, sweeping, sweeping. For a moment, I thought he’d forgotten us, but then he said, “The name’s not familiar, but there’s a man of the sea. Go to the African Union Church just across the way. In the basement, there’s a school. The teacher is Catherine Thompson. She can tell you where to find him. He works for her with the children. I haven’t seen him for some time, but I believe he still lives in a small home by the swamp.”

  We thanked the man and were on our way. Ahab moved like a locomotive toward our quarry. I still was unsure what he hoped to get out of a meeting with his old shipmate. The building we approached was much older than the previous church, somewhat in disrepair and sagging beneath the weight of years. We took the steps to the front entrance, pulled open the door and entered.

  The place was empty and eerily still. Then we heard the sound of children’s voices, muffled as if from afar. Spotting a door along a far wall, I tapped Ahab on the shoulder and we went to it. I opened the door and found a stairway. Putting my hand behind my ear to listen more intently, I heard a children’s chorus give way to a single female voice. “An Evening Thought” by Jupiter Hammon. It was then I felt the tip of a sharp blade pressed against my throat.

  I stole a look at the captain, and he, too, was in the same predicament as myself. A large colored man held him fast from behind, an arm around his chest and a curved blade at his jugular. This, fortunately, was not the first time I’d been in such a si
tuation. My intuitive reflex was to start talking and not stop till my captor either killed me or released me. I rattled off my name and that I was a writer for the Gorgon’s Mirror and that I’d visited and done an article on Seneca Village not too many years earlier, and a very positive article to boot. “Check my bag,” I said. “I’ve only writing implements in it.”

  “Shut yer bleedin’ hole,” came a command. Another large fellow, as pale as the man holding Ahab was dark, moved into view and grabbed the bag. My captor released me as the strap passed over my head, and after my satchel was removed, now simply held the knifepoint to the base of my skull. The large Irishman went through my things and seemed satisfied, dropping the bag upon the floor.

  “What’s this one carrying, Fergus?” said the man holding Ahab.

  The boarding ax and pistol immediately came to light and were seized. This, I knew, was not a good development. “This man is my bodyguard,” I said. “We’ve come north on an investigation.”

  “What investigation?”

  “We’re looking for a man who was in the whaling industry, a harpooneer.”

  “Why?”

  “We shipped together on an ill-fated whaler out of Nantucket, the Pequod,” said the captain.

  The colored man holding him slowly released his grip. He commanded my captor to back off two steps. I had the opportunity to turn and see all three of the men who had accosted us. The man who’d held me was short and stocky.

  “We’re merely looking for information, good sirs,” I said.

  “Fergus, light me a candle,” said the man who’d held Ahab. The Irishman did as he was told and disappeared into the dim shadows of the dark church. The only light in the place came through the spaces between some of the beams above. He returned with a lit taper and gave it to the colored man, who immediately thrust it toward the captain’s face.

  9

  The man holding the candle had short-cropped hair. He wore a loose blouse of a shirt, open at the neck, and a pair of wide sailor’s pants. Slowly, his hand came out toward Ahab’s face. The captain, for his part, didn’t blink. Whereas I was on the verge of crying, I doubt the old seaman’s heart skipped a beat.

  “What manner of magic is this?” asked the man and touched Ahab’s cheek.

  “It’s me,” said the captain. “And don’t tell me I’m dead. Until yesterday, I thought the same of you.”

  The man retracted his hand quickly as if Ahab’s words were fire.

  “I remember you, sir, but I’ve forgotten your name,” said Ahab. “You were once my harpooneer, and an exceptional one at that.”

  “Follow me,” he said to us. We did and he led us out of the decrepit church. Once outside, he told his friends that we were to be trusted and that our business was solely with him. They nodded, grinned at us, and begged our pardon.

  “We can’t be too careful for the children’s sake,” said the one named Fergus. He returned Ahab’s weapons and the other gentleman handed me my satchel.

  Then the man I believed to be Daggoo took us to a large hall a few dozen yards down a path. Inside that structure there was natural light of the clear day streaming through two large windows and a table with many chairs set around it as if for a meeting. Our host motioned for us to sit. He appeared to want to speak but he was obviously dumbfounded by the presence of Ahab.

  “Not in all the world did I ever expect to see you save in my nightmares,” he said to the captain.

  “Ishmael told me you were also alive.”

  “The writer?” said the man. “He and I were rescued by the Rachel. In fact, he was unconscious, and I was keeping him afloat, treading water for us both.”

  “And he never jotted a word about you having survived in his book?” I said.

  The man laughed. “That book is a farce. I’ve read it. Miss Thompson found a copy of it someone had thrown out for junk. It’s how she collects volumes for the students. She told me about it and she helped me read it. Next to seeing you here, in the flesh, discovering a book that was about a voyage I had been on was the most disturbing thing in my life.”

  “But you are not Daggoo,” said Ahab. “I remember that.”

  “No, I am Madi. I have always been Madi.”

  I could hear the lilt and inflection of someone from Africa as I knew it, or thought I knew it, but his English was unbroken, smooth as a gentleman’s. “And from where do you hail?” I asked.

  “I’m Mandinka, from Guinea. My father was a goldsmith. When I left home, I swam out to a British whaling ship anchored in a lagoon and begged the captain to take me out into the wider world. All I brought with me was my name, Madi.”

  “That cur Ishmael penned you as Daggoo,” said Ahab.

  “He also made me a monster of a man. A giant. But you see . . .” He paused and his look indicated he wanted my name.

  I told him, “Harrow.”

  “Mr. Harrow, I grew up with the fears of white men. The French were with us long before I was born.”

  “Did you feel like a walking spirit since, through the book, the world knew you as dead?” asked Ahab.

  “I was joyful to be alive. I could go to America a free man and make my way.”

  “And then you got here,” I said.

  “Yes, yes, it took me quite a while to understand. On the sea, I was royalty aboard ship for my talent with the harpoon. HereI was shoved aside, spit at, ignored, once beaten. When I heard about Seneca Village, I came here to live with other free Africans. I met Catherine Thompson, the schoolteacher. She taught me to read, to speak better English. She told me I should work to one day own land and to vote.”

  “And what now do you make of our battle with Moby Dick?” asked the captain.

  “Insanity,” said Madi. “You murdered a ship full of men. The book captures well your madness. Do you remember how good my eyesight was for spotting a spouter two miles off?”

  “Yes, I do,” said Ahab.

  “After Ishmael and I were rescued, I was standing on the deck relating to Captain Gardiner of the Rachel about the devastation wrought by the white whale, and off in the distance, in the late-afternoon light, I spotted you in the water nearly a half mile west, waving your arms. I was sure you were crying out but the distance made it impossible for you to be heard. I didn’t blink, or look away, but continued with my tale to its conclusion, and then went below to eat.”

  “You condemned me to death. You’ve a right to it.”

  “I’ve more than a right.”

  “If it be any solace,” said Ahab, “I’ve wrestled with my madness, with the memories of those who were lost, and I am pushing back into the world of the living for one last chance at salvation.”

  “Solace?” said Madi. “Not in the least, for I imagine your good deeds as tainted with self-interest as your acts of madness.”

  “I mean to find my boy and raise him. Whatever parcel of that task I can accomplish is what I’ll spend every second doing.”

  “Where’s your boy?” asked the harpooneer.

  Ahab couldn’t answer.

  I hesitated a moment and then blurted out, “He’s fallen in with a gang, the Jolly Host.”

  Madi held up his hand. “Wait. The Jolly Host?”

  I nodded. “There’s a man named Malbaster involved.”

  “My friends and I ambushed you for this very reason. Strangers in the village now are held in great suspicion. We recently had two children from the school disappear one Sunday evening. Their bodies were found in a ravine out on the path toward the Hudson. I’ve promised Miss Thompson that I would find out who killed them. I’ve traced the crime to the Jolly Host.”

  “What makes you think it was them?” I asked.

  “It’s happened in several colored villages outside the city. Every few months they do something horrible to swamp the people with fear. The same cutting instruments seem to have been used. The same circle within a circle carved into the victims’ backs. These were two children, no more than six years old.”

  �
��Are there no police out here?” I asked.

  “Many of them sympathize with the Jolly Host. Nativists—they want to get rid of colored and Catholic.”

  “How much do you know about them?” asked Ahab.

  “I’ve learned a few things from some of the villagers. A pair of Irish brothers worked for Malbaster for a brief time until they feared for their lives and fled here. He’s known to reel in the sons and daughters of poor immigrants to help him kill and torment their parents. He draws them in with the sweet smoke and then traps them with magic, or so I’ve been told.”

  “There’s a lot of stories out there,” I said. “We’re looking for specifics, though. Places, names, et cetera.”

  “I know of one place from my inquiries,” said Madi.

  “What is the location?” said Ahab. “I must find my boy and give this Malbaster what he deserves.”

  “To give him what he deserves,” said Madi, “would mean only one thing.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “He deserves death, no less. Are you ready to administer that?”

  “Make no mistake, my man, when the time comes, if I find him worthy of it, I will strike him down,” said the captain. “The location.”

  “You’re used to giving orders and forget you’re speaking to a free man.”

  “But aren’t you interested in finding Malbaster?” I asked. “Perhaps we could work together.”

  Madi was still for a few heartbeats. I could tell he was weighing my offer. Finally, he said, “You two could offer me some help. Although I’m free, there are still places I can’t go, places that might get me killed. But if I travel with you in the guise of your trusted employee, the white world would be open to me.”