Ahab's Wife

by Sena Jeter Naslund

  Following her father’s lead in introductions as well as in science, Maria promptly appeared with a dear friend of hers, the elderly and mathematical Phoebe Folger.

  Of Mrs. Folger, Maria said, “She taught navigation to her husband, and he became, in consequence, the captain of a ship.”

  “Do you know Lucretia Mott?” the old woman quaked. “You look as though you should.”

  “I think that my cousin Frannie has met her,” I replied, “but I have not had the pleasure.”

  “That’s right,” she said, “it would be a pleasure for you to know her. Don’t you have on sailor’s breeches?” The question was sharp, but it smacked more of approval than disapproval.

  “I do, indeed,” I replied. “And I have a right to ’em, having sailed and fished all summer.”

  “I should say you do,” she stated. “Lucretia told me once that when she was a child she saw a woman flogged here in Nantucket. Can you imagine that?”

  “Why was she flogged?”

  “You know, I can’t rightly remember. I believe they thought she was a witch, or some such.” At that Phoebe suddenly cackled so hard that she herself somewhat resembled a witch. “Can she calculate?” Phoebe asked of me, turning to Maria.

  “Una is much interested in science, but she is more qualitative than quantitative in her approach.”

  “Humph!” Phoebe sniffed, and I thought she was going to turn away. “That young man wants to meet you,” she announced. “He’s a sailor, too.” With a crooked finger, she beckoned to one of the strangers to come to us. But he did not come. “I’d like something to eat,” Phoebe said, put out, and Maria politely guided her to the table.

  I followed along; but though the man had not obeyed the summons, he had glanced at us, and I thought for a moment that I recognized him. As the evening moved along, I joined a circle which he was entertaining with sea stories. Maria had long since assumed her “regimentals,” as her sister called them, taken a lantern, and climbed aloft to the observatory.

  “The last time I told this story,” the sailor said, “I entertained some young dons in Lima with it. A priest was passing by and they made me place my hand on his Bible and swear that it was so. Is there a priest about? I believe there is nothing like swearing a story is true to whet the imagination.”

  We all laughed. Several people urged him to begin. Already in his manner I had noted a strange smoothness. There was no doubt he was a skilled narrator, but there seemed something dark and rough beneath that smoothness.

  To my surprise, I asked, “And does a good swig of rum also unloose the tongue?”

  “It did that night,” he answered, looking directly at me. “Do ye have any?”

  Again the group laughed. William Mitchell supplied him with a large snifter of brandy. He swirled it in his hand and then drank a deep gulp of the stuff. “No temperance folk here? Usually where there’s abolition, there’s temperance.”

  “Tell the story,” folk urged.

  “Well, let me ask, do ye believe a dumb beast can be sentient?” When there was no answer, he rephrased his question. “Do ye believe an animal can sometimes have a sense of justice?”

  “Aye,” someone answered, “for I’ve seen a mistreated horse scrape off a master with a tree limb.”

  “Good,” the storyteller answered pleasantly. “But might that not have been a coincidence? Good masters are also scraped off, I think.”

  “I knew a man whose fighting cocks turned on him and ripped him to shreds,” Isaac said.

  “Better,” our speaker said. “But perhaps they had not selected him particularly and would have vented their wrath on anyone who came to their enclosure.”

  “His wife was standing beside him, pleading with him to give up his cruel practice with the birds,” Isaac said melodramatically. “And they didn’t touch her.”

  “Bring him the Bible,” the sailor called. “Bring the Bible and have the man swear to this cock-and-bull, or I’ll not believe it.”

  Nor did anyone else believe it. But we admired Isaac’s quick and logical imagination.

  “No,” the judge said stoutly. “Animals know nothing of justice. That requires rationality and impartiality.”

  “Then you must hear the story that I heard faithfully, from the crew of the Town-Ho.”

  “By all means,” William Mitchell urged. “Another brandy?”

  “Aye. To sip, not to quaff. Imagine the Town-Ho, a whaling vessel like to scores ye have sent to sea. And aboard are men of all types, some brought up to the sea, some reformed farmers. Even preachers. Some have whaled before, but many have not, it being such a hard business that men come in and out of the trade as though it were a revolving door. Some men may have shipped a merchant ship a time or two, and then decided to try whaling. I myself was such a one.”

  “On the Town-Ho?”

  “Nay. Another ship. But that’s another story. This very Town-Ho had the usual assortment of men, good and bad. One good and handsome man was Steelkilt, who’d learned sailing on the Great Lakes. One mean-spirited, vengeful fellow, lacking in natural respect for his fellow creature, was Radney. But the unfortunate circumstance was that Radney was over Steelkilt.

  “The Town-Ho had a leak, stabbed perhaps by a swordfish, so the pumps were much put to use, and because Steelkilt was the strongest as well as handsomest man aboard, he was much put to the pumps, and pumped with all his heart and inspired others to, as well. He did it with hearty goodwill, I tell you, sure as if I’d seen him myself, for I know his type.

  “But when he finished his Herculean labor, this Radney sees him no sooner seated and panting than he orders him to sweep and scrub the deck. Now I ask ye, ye being a sea-wise town, whose job is that, rightfully?”

  “The boys,” I answered quietly.

  “Indeed,” he said, almost winking at me. “The boys can do that light work, and they do do it, every blessed evening. Why, I’ve seen the boys wash down the deck in a typhoon, so well established is the practice.”

  “Did Steelkilt obey the order of his superior?” the judge asked.

  “He did not.”

  “ ’Tis mutiny.” Judge Lord enunciated the law on the matter.

  “So it is, and to mutiny it led. But not at first. Steelkilt refused, but he did it as one gentleman to another who had made a mistake. There was no defiance as such in his voice. He spoke rationally and well. This very calmness enraged the ugly Radney, and he grabbed up a hammer and shook it beneath Steelkilt’s nose.

  “Now Steelkilt was not the man to be threatened. As I have said, he was the strongest and most athletic man aboard, and you would likely not find his match among the crews of twenty whaling ships. He was an extraordinary man. Golden-haired and as fair as your liar-and-inventor of cock-tales there”—he indicated Isaac, who blushed as the crowd laughed. But I thought, Now he has put this Steelkilt before them palpably, for they need but gaze on Isaac to see in the flesh the very appearance whom he would create in words.

  “Steelkilt warned him, ‘Shake that hammer not one more time, or ye shall regret.’ But Radney did threaten again, and while he brandished his hammer, Steelkilt drew back his fist, which Radney could not see, and delivered such a blow as drove Radney’s jaw back from its sockets, with blood bursting from his nose.”

  “Now when is the animal coming in?” It was Phoebe Folger’s quaking voice.

  “Too much blood, eh? Yes, this be a pleasure party including ladies. I’m not in South America among the young dons; let me remember that. Quickly, to the animal. Can ye guess what animal this story leads to?”

  A silence fell, and then I said, “A whale.”

  “Indeed, a whale. But let me quickly run over the steps before ‘Enter the Whale.’ Mutiny followed assault. Steelkilt and his sympathizers against the captain and mates. Steelkilt and sympathizers locked below-decks. Steelkilt and sympathizers hung among the yards and flogged. Enough of that, though. And eventually, Steelkilt and sympathizers restored to the crew, when from the
mastheads it comes, ‘There she blows,’ but no ordinary whale. No, it is the white whale, and the captain of the Town-Ho is determined to have the glory of his taking. Now quickly, listen, for Radney is mad with the desire to kill the whale, Radney, who has wronged Steelkilt, and who is it the white monster dashes from the whaleboat? One man, only one man?”

  He paused, and though we all knew what the answer must be, we would not say it, for we had our own woe of Moby Dick, of the Jeroboam, the Delight, and of the Pequod. We were silent.

  The storyteller supplied the answer. “It was Moby Dick who served as jury, judge, and executioner. It was the white whale.”

  “How could the whale possibly have known?” the judge replied. “It was but a coincidence, as you yourself pointed out in the tales of horses and fighting cocks.”

  People laughed politely and began to turn away. I saw Mary Starbuck pale as a ghost. Involuntarily she put her hand on her belly, and I thought, They’re going to have a child together.

  “Young man, I suspicion you could tell your own tale of Moby Dick,” Phoebe quaked.

  “Nay,” the man answered. “What if I could? That is not a tale for a pleasure party. Especially not one at Nantucket.”

  He glanced at me, and I saw in his eye that which was identifiably familiar. He was the sailor whose eye I had encountered in the passageway of the Alba Albatross, the merchant ship that had plucked Kit and Giles and me from the open boat. I saw him only once, when, directly before leaving that ship for the Pequod and marrying Kit, I had gone to Sallie’s cabin to get a few items of clothing, to leave a gift under her pillow of tatted lace.

  But that was not the only reason for familiarity. Then, in that short gaze in the passageway within the Albatross, I had thought him the most interesting, the most unfathomable man I had ever met. Memorable, he had become, in a glance. Yes, lifting a brandy snifter in the Mitchells’ apartment of the Union Pacific Bank, Nantucket, it was the merchant sailor of the Albatross. My heart quickened within me, but like the rest of the group, I turned away from him. In an instant I felt his hand on my shoulder.

  I turned, and he said, “I know you. You were the captain’s wife’s friend on the Albatross. Plucked from the sea.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “I am now the widow of Captain Ahab.”

  He blanched to a shade more pale than Mary. “I shipped with Ahab on his last voyage,” he said.

  “That is not possible.”

  His gaze unfocusing, the storyteller seemed haunted.

  “I was the one left, the one picked up by the Rachel, the one buoyed up by the coffin.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ll proffer you a name. Ishmael.”

  CHAPTER 151: Celestial

  AT THAT MOMENT, Maria Mitchell squeezed my elbow. “Una, Una!” she said urgently. “I must speak to you.”

  Never had I seen her so excited. In her excitement, she did not notice that I had received a shock.

  “I have seen it,” she said. “Through the telescope. I think that I am the first person in the history of the universe to have done so.”

  “Seen what, Maria?”

  “I have discovered a comet telescopically. My endeavor—all these years!”

  Now I clutched her in return. “Maria!” It was all I could say at first. Not triumph, but fulfillment irradiated her features. “Are you sure?”

  “I am as sure as I can be. I’m going to ask my father to look. Would you come, too?”

  And so the three of us ascended to the rooftop. For sixteen years now, the king of Denmark’s gold medal prize had been offered to him who found a comet telescopically. As we emerged onto the rooftop observatory, my senses thrilled at the dark open air, the vast sky in contrast to the closed, bright room below, crowded with humans and the voice of the handsome sailor.

  Without a word, Maria looked through her large mounted instrument. It was as long as a broom. Then she turned to her father. With his eye to the telescope, he studied the night sky carefully, consulted charts, looked again.

  “It is an unrecorded comet,” he said. “But we should check again tomorrow and perhaps for a few more days before we announce it.”

  “Yes, of course,” Maria said. But I had never heard her speak with such fervor. I wanted to run downstairs and herald it to the party.

  They had me look through the telescope, and I, too, saw the small dot of light with a hint of a stubby tail, that traveler who swam into our ken from some immense distance. To think that I, no scientist, but only a friend, might be the third person since time began to behold it. “I feel like Noah seeing the white dove,” I said. “What strange joy it brings.”

  My joy was twofold. What I beheld humbled and awed me. At least as important: the victory of my beloved friend; she had watched and waited and won. I softly asked, “Will you proffer it a name?”

  All night I stayed with Maria, and we watched till the pink light of dawn obliterated the comet, and the pleasure party below was long since over.

  CHAPTER 152: A New Friend

  WHEN I ARRIVED the next morning, red-eyed and sleepless, at the home of my old friend Mrs. Maynard, she said, “They told me you were to be on the platform with Maria Mitchell till dawn, so I wasn’t worried. But mercy! you look a fright!”

  With that she put me to bed and promised to stand guard like a dragon. Nonetheless, when in the late afternoon two callers appeared, she woke me up. “I won’t have done it,” she said, “but one of them is Phoebe Folger, and who knows when she’s going to suddenly die.”

  Phoebe’s hearing was keen, and she promptly said, from the next room, “I have too much to do to die, my dear.” And she and Maria, who had been enlisted as a kind of backup, were upon me.

  In a manner clearly preliminary, Maria asked, “The house next door to you is still for let, isn’t it?”

  The intrepid Phoebe Folger took over: “I have in mind to take all the Mitchell children there and Mrs. Mitchell for a seaside holiday before the weather turns.” She spoke in a hoarse, conspiratorial whisper. “I do it so I can be next door to you. Now the question is, my dear, if you intend to visit me, and perhaps help Mrs. Mitchell a bit with the children from time to time?”

  “Father and I feel we would benefit from having the house to ourselves,” Maria said, self-consciously mysterious.

  “How I used to hate being interrupted in my calculations,” Phoebe said. “I can sense something very important is afoot, but they won’t tell me.” She paused to inspect Maria’s visage for clues. Finding none, Phoebe went on, “They need peace and quiet—I’m sure of that. And I’d like to live as close to the sea as I can for a time, before I die.”

  “The house stands empty,” I said. “And nothing would please us more than to have you and the less scientific Mitchells as neighbors.”

  “Very good. We’ll come.” Phoebe spoke and acted without hesitation. It was as though she had said, “One plus one is two. Definitely.” She added, “We’ll drive in a buggy alone so we can talk.”

  THUS IT WAS we caravaned back to ’Sconset. As we traveled, Phoebe told me she had been born a Quaker, but she saw that the Unitarians suited her better philosophically, and she intended to change when she came back from ’Sconset. I was startled that a person with such a long history among one group might in old age have new thoughts and take action. My admiration for my new friend increased.

  She had arranged that she and I ride in one buggy to ’Sconset and that Justice and the Mitchell family (minus Maria and her father) come along behind. In a succinct manner, Phoebe told me something of her long mathematical studies and personal life. I had thought that Maria stood alone among Nantucket’s women, but here was Phoebe Folger, who had not only preceded Maria but encouraged her.

  “You know,” she said, returning to the issue of religious affiliation, “the Quakers have disappointed me in the question of the Africans.”

  “How is that?”

  “To get his daughter in the white h
igh school, Absalom Boston had to file suit against the town.”

  “I know Absalom Boston,” I said. “When was this?”

  “Two years ago. You see, dear, there are disadvantages in isolating yourself so completely from civilization.” Her voice teased me. “His daughter was seventeen, when he filed in ’45, and she didn’t get admitted till last year. And Eunice Ross. In ’40, Eunice Ross was seventeen. She graduated from the African School on York Street and passed the entrance exam for the all-white school. Did the Quakers stand up for her? No. They worked against her. Oh, they’re all for abolition, but that’s faraway justice. They might look to effect justice closer to home.”

  “Did you attend Frederick Douglass’s talk?” I asked. We could hear children jabbering behind us and their pleasant laughter, but how wise she had been to isolate us. The horse clopped along nicely, and Phoebe held on to a beautiful, tightly woven oval basket in her lap.

  “Indeed I did,” she answered.

  “And?”

  “Well, it was magnificent. What did you think?”

  “The same. My cousin Frannie works with him.”

  “Does she? I remember seeing both of you there. You so pretty and alive, and she terribly pockmarked, poor child.” She sighed. “It must be difficult for her.”

  “She had a child who died. Drowned at Sankaty.”

  “That’s something I didn’t know,” she replied.

  We fell silent for a few moments, until Phoebe asked, “Tell me, what do you think of the afterlife?”

  I was a bit nonplussed. I had no idea what she thought, but I knew that the question must be of greater interest to someone of her age than to me. But our conversation had been completely honest, and before I could speak, honesty and tact had joined hands in my answer. “I have no faith at all,” I said, “but sometimes I have hope.”