Teo put down the pizza box and looked up uncomfortably. “Liza, afore you go on, I need for you to know I not mean to kill your whales.”
“Kill Elizabeth’s whales?” Connie cut in.
“Teo’s a whaler on Bequia.” Elizabeth had purposefully neglected to mention this fact to Connie.
“You’re a whaler?”
“I pledged my life to it,” Teo said. He turned back to Elizabeth. “But I not know they your whales. I never strike them if I know they yours.”
“I can’t believe you’re a whaler—and I can’t believe you let him stay in your house,” Connie said.
“Teo’s a friend, whaler or not. Look, we can deal with this later,” Elizabeth said firmly. “We have a whale to rescue, remember?”
“Sorry,” Connie spat out.
Elizabeth turned to Teo. “After you harpooned the baby—”
“Harpooned the baby,” Connie said, shaking her head.
Elizabeth was undaunted and continued, “The mother was vocalizing the sounds, eeee—eeee—eeee. A typical distress call, not unlike ones that have been recorded when whales are caught in other kinds of ropes. Do you remember you said you could hear the sadness? It’s like someone marooned on an island calling, “Heeeelp! Heeeelp!’ Even if you didn’t speak the language, you would know what that person was saying. But once the mother was also harpooned—I think once she knew her baby was dead and that she was dying—she changed the call to her escort. EEh—EEh—EEh. The call falls like Watch out! or Run! or Go! I don’t think this is a distress call at all. I think it’s a danger call.”
Elizabeth could see from Teo’s wide eyes that he understood immediately. “What’s the difference?” Connie asked with annoyance.
“A distress call is what an animal uses to get help,” Elizabeth said. “A danger call is what an animal uses to warn others.”
Teo’s discomfort with the idea was written in the wrinkled lines of his forehead. “You saying Sliver trying to save Echo?” Such concern, such feeling in an animal he thought of as food, obviously did not quite sit right. Elizabeth almost thought she saw empathy in his eyes.
“While there was hope, she was calling her escort to come save her and her calf. But when she knew there was no hope, she was telling him to save himself.”
“That explain why he disappear so quick,” Teo said, “not taking the boat down with him.” Elizabeth remembered the terrifying moment when the whale’s tail had battered the boat and Teo had grabbed the bomb gun.
“What does all this have to do with Apollo?” Connie asked, still spoiling for a fight.
“Apollo is repeating the danger call here in the slough. His vocalizations translate roughly as Baby. Baby. Danger.”
“But what exactly is the danger?” Connie asked. Elizabeth didn’t know the answer to the question, but she did know that she’d need to find out soon if Apollo was going to live.
FIFTY
2:00 P.M.
ELIZABETH WAS SITTING OUTSIDE at an aluminum picnic table with Connie and Teo. The day had gotten warmer, and it felt good to be out of the stuffy portable. They were finishing their pizza and watching Apollo surface for a breath every four or five minutes. Elizabeth wondered if the frequency of Apollo’s breaths might indicate that his health was deteriorating.
A Coast Guard seaman opened the door of the portable. “Professor McKay, our base dispatcher says he’s got a whale inspector calling from a ship in the Pacific. His name is Ito? Says it’s urgent.”
Elizabeth and Connie looked at each other as they both stood up. They went into the portable and hit the speakerphone button.
“No one can know I call you…”
“Why are you calling me?”
“My son die to tell world about you, and you must tell world the truth.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Kill my son.” The man was speaking through tears. “They threaten me.”
“Why?”
“I inspector for Ryukyu Maru. I test all whale tissue. Chromium—very, very high.” Elizabeth was surprised. She knew that chromium was a chemical that had caused disease in a whole town when it was released into the groundwater by a California utility some years back. “Also PCBs and phthalates. Lesions and tumors, many, many whales.”
Elizabeth thought of the calf that she’d seen in Bequia. “Have you told anyone about your findings?”
“I try. If anyone know I call…” The man’s voice lowered.
“Don’t worry,” Elizabeth said. “Can you send me any of your test results?”
“They want me destroy, but I not do it. They destroy my life, kill my son.” The man was weeping.
“I am so sorry. I will do what I can.”
“You must tell the world the truth.”
“Will you fax me the data?”
“Yes, I fax you.” He was whispering now. Elizabeth told him the fax number. “I go now. I go now.” His voice was soft and small, like a little boy’s. He hung up the phone.
Connie was crying again. It was true; people died. But those who were left behind were never the same. Elizabeth opened her arms to Connie, who hesitated and then accepted her embrace.
“I’m fine,” Connie said as she wept. “I’m fine.”
A few minutes later, the fax machine in the portable rang. Connie dried her eyes as they watched it spit out paper.
Elizabeth knew she needed to learn more about what was happening to the whales, but she suspected this was not just about the whales. She put her hand on her abdomen and wondered about the meaning of the whale’s song for the baby she was carrying.
“Connie, can you give me a ride?” Elizabeth said, taking the fax. “I need to research these chemicals and find out what the danger really is.”
FIFTY-ONE
2:30 P.M.
Davis
IN THE BIOLOGICAL and agricultural sciences section on the third floor of the library, Elizabeth hurried past the journals bound in blue, green, and black, with sober and dependably practical names like Current Biology, Genes and Development, The Journal of Molecular Evolution, and American Naturalist. These journals, however, were mostly historical. What she needed to know could be found only in the most current database.
Elizabeth saw a computer tucked privately in a corner and sat down. The department had already retracted her log-in privileges. It was surprisingly swift for a bureaucratic university. One would think that they had more important things to do than stop her from remotely accessing the library databases. Fortunately, at the library, she did not need a log-in ID. The whole electronic archives of the university were accessible through the black screen stirring to life in front of her.
Elizabeth was not sure what she was looking for, but she took out Ito’s fax and typed in one of the chemicals on the list. The computer brought up numerous articles, including one entitled “Is Pollution the AIDS of the Ocean? Fire Retardants and Immunological Disorders in Marine Life.”
She typed in the rest of the chemicals and read through dozens of articles, many of them about the effects on whales and other marine mammals. She knew about the plastic island out in the Pacific that was the size of the state of Texas, but what she discovered was that plastics were now in practically every drop of ocean water. She remembered, as a girl, seeing the barges in New York taking the trash out to dump in the ocean, and here she was seeing what this relationship to the marine world had brought. As she researched disease and birth defects in animals, she kept coming across other articles on the possible links to human birth defects. One study had found high levels of birth defects among mothers in the Faroe Islands who had eaten whale meat before getting pregnant. The article and several others explained that a baby inherits the “toxic load” of the mother. In other words, even before it is born, the baby is contaminated with the toxins its mother has been exposed to by her environment.
Elizabeth’s cell phone rang.
“Are you home?” It was Frank.
“Almost.”
“Have you been with the whale?” Frank said. He was trying to be supportive.
“I’m at the library researching birth defects.”
“What in the world would possess you to do that?”
“I got a call today. Something is wrong with the whales and their offspring, and I think that human babies—”
“You should be resting.”
“You know more about this than I do. Can you help me?”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Frank, I need you.”
She listened anxiously for him to say something. “I’m just getting off. I’ll be there in half an hour.”
“DO YOU STUDY here often?” She heard the warm, familiar voice behind her, and her body responded instinctively.
“Only when it’s a matter of life and death,” Elizabeth said, turning around and looking into Frank’s chocolate-brown eyes.
“We have to hurr—”
Frank kissed her lips, gently, sweetly, lingering. “You look beautiful. Pregnancy really suits you.”
“I bet you say that to all of your wives,” Elizabeth replied, then moved quickly through the stacks, with Frank just a step behind.
“Where are we going? I thought you wanted me to help you research.”
“This is research. We need to talk to someone.” As they hustled down the stairs, Elizabeth handed him a printout from a professor’s website. It announced a lecture by a professor named Gladys Ginsburg.
The sliding glass doors opened, and a burst of cold air accosted them. “But this is tonight—in Berkeley,” Frank said.
“In forty minutes,” Elizabeth replied, heading to the car.
“Berkeley is over an hour away,” Frank protested.
“Not the way I drive.”
FIFTY-TWO
7:20 P.M.
University of California, Berkeley
ELIZABETH AND FRANK arrived at Room 22 in Warren Hall just as Professor Ginsburg was being introduced. They would have to wait to talk to her about Apollo and the whales, but Elizabeth was glad to have made it in time for the lecture. The sheer volume of evidence that Elizabeth had discovered in the library suggested that widespread chemicals were affecting animal and human health—especially babies. She hoped that Professor Ginsburg would explain how all of these individual studies might fit together.
The large hall in the Berkeley School of Public Health was filled to capacity, and the only seats were near the front. Elizabeth and Frank walked down the aisle as inconspicuously as possible.
As the dean finished his introduction, the excitement was palpable in the air. “…what I’m trying to say in these rather long introductory remarks is that no one since Rachel Carson has done more to educate us on the role of toxins in our environment and in our lives. It is my privilege to introduce Professor Gladys Ginsburg.” There was a polite and respectful clapping from Professor Ginsburg’s colleagues, whose professional decorum prevented them from expressing the depth of their admiration. Yet this was a public lecture, and throughout the audience, a number of people who did not have to worry about the opinions of their colleagues leaped to their feet and gave her a standing ovation.
“Thank you very much,” Dr. Ginsburg said, smiling, clearly moved. Elizabeth imagined it must be some small validation for the hours she spent in airplanes and hotel rooms around the world, trying to sound the alarm about the dangers she and her colleagues had discovered.
Dr. Ginsburg stood only a foot taller than the wooden podium, with styled gray hair and a grandmother’s warm smile, but her voice was strong and confident. “We all know that we are facing grave dangers in our outer world.”
The first slide appeared on the screen behind her. Four pictures revealed the dangers of global warming: smokestacks spewing carbon emissions into a sky turned gray by pollution, the white spiraling cloud of a hurricane seen from space, the bones of a dead animal in a desert landscape, and a polar bear on a melting ice floe.
She clicked her remote, and the full, round belly of a pregnant woman appeared on the screen. The mother’s hands cradled the top and bottom of her near-term womb. “But what about the inner world?” Dr. Ginsburg asked. “We face dangers here that are equally grave.” The screen filled with a picture of the translucent pink body of a baby floating in a black sac, like an astronaut in space. Its tiny hands floated above its chest, its thumb practically touching its lips. “A recent study of umbilical cord blood found over 413 toxic industrial chemicals and on average more than 200 different chemicals per child. Since World War Two, approximately 80,000 chemicals have been invented, and thousands of these have been produced in quantities in excess of millions of pounds per year. Only a small percentage of these chemicals have ever been tested to discover their effects on animals and humans—”
“Dr. Ginsburg,” interrupted a man in the back of the room, “the chemical companies follow strict state and federal regulations. How can you mislead this audience by suggesting that they are putting us and our children at risk?” The man was standing. He had short black hair and wore a double-breasted blue suit. His voice was smooth and deep.
“I am happy to answer all questions at the end,” Dr. Ginsburg said wearily. “However, since you raise the issue of testing, I will address it now. The government only tests chemicals that are known to be health hazards, and very few chemicals are known in advance to cause problems. In other words, chemicals are innocent until proven guilty. In addition, when tests are conducted, they are done on one chemical at a time. We are exposed to great chemical cocktails that compound and exacerbate our reactions. Scientists are starting to discover interaction effects that can dramatically increase the danger.”
The man sat down. Elizabeth could see a smug smile on his face. He seemed satisfied with having sown a little doubt in the audience’s mind.
“Let’s look at what these dangers are,” Dr. Ginsburg said, returning to her presentation. “We are starting to discover that many of these synthetic chemicals play havoc with our physiology and that of other animals. They disrupt the endocrine or hormonal systems that regulate everything from our mood to our development to our fertility. What global warming is doing to the environment, endocrine disruption is doing to our bodies.”
Dr. Ginsburg showed a collection of pictures of fish with enormous, bulbous tumors, frogs with too many legs, alligators with tiny penises, and seagulls with deformed beaks. She explained the exposures that may have caused each of these problems.
“Dr. Ginsburg,” the man interrupted again, “so far, you are talking just about fish and birds. How do we know that the dangers are the same for humans?”
People were turning around and getting impatient with the intrusions, but Dr. Ginsburg seemed to know from experience that it was not possible to leave a heckler’s objections unanswered. “For too long we have thought of the land and the sea as separate and ourselves as somehow different from the rest of life, but increasingly, we are seeing that all life is connected at a chemical level. We share 97 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees and 60 percent of our DNA with something as distant as a fruit fly. Common sense would tell us that what affects them will eventually affect us. But we don’t just need to rely on common sense. Unfortunately, we have mounting evidence of the effects of these chemicals on humans. Let me give you one graphic example.” The next slide was a neck-down photo of a naked baby.
There was an audible gasp in the room. The genitals were very hard to distinguish.
“This,” Dr. Ginsburg explained gravely, “is an extreme case of hypospadias—where the urethral hole of the penis is not in the correct place. Here you can see the rather large hole is at the base of the scrotum, almost like a vagina. The sample of cord blood from this child contained 271 industrial chemicals that did not exist a hundred years ago.”
“How many cases are we talking about here, Dr. Ginsburg?” said the man in the back.
“Hypospadias has tripled in the last thirty years to one in e
very hundred births; undescended testes have doubled; and testicular cancer is also rising. Just as worrisome as these individual conditions is the overall decline in the birth of boys. North of the Arctic Circle, where many of these chemicals end up, twice as many girls as boys are being born. Much closer to home, in the heavily polluted town of Sarnia, Canada, three girls are now born for every one boy. The town only discovered this startling fact because they had so many girls’ softball teams and so few boys’. A recent study has found an unexpected drop in the number of boys throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere. The number of ‘missing boys’ in the U.S. and Japan alone is estimated at over 250,000.”
“Why is this happening, Dr. Ginsburg?” a woman in the front asked, with obvious worry in her voice.
“I guess we might as well take questions as we go. I understand that what I am saying is difficult to hear and raises numerous questions and concerns. Many of these chemicals look a lot like estrogen—the female hormone. Our hormonal and other bodily processes are so sensitive that the presence of toxins in the parts per billion can have profound developmental consequences.”
Another hand shot up in the air. “What kinds of exposures are we talking about?”
“Let me give you one example. Will you hold up the water bottle in front of you for the others to see?” Elizabeth recognized it as the hard plastic bottle favored by backpackers and athletes. Professor Ginsburg clicked past several slides to one of plastic baby bottles. “That water bottle and these on the screen are made out of a plastic that utilizes a chemical called Bisphenol A. It is also used in PVC pipe and to coat children’s teeth so they don’t get cavities. Seven billion pounds of this plastic chemical are produced and put into our environment every year, a little over a pound for each person on the planet. Exposing pregnant rats to tiny amounts of these plastic-making compounds resulted in their babies having precancerous lesions in their breasts when they reached puberty.
Eye of the Whale Page 18
