The Music of Dolphins

by Karen Hesse

  My music is not like Mozart. It is not like the music in the radio. But it is like the sound I know from the sea. I make a long song, all night, one song. Like the whale who is looking for a mate, I make a song that grows and changes and grows longer. The story becomes different stories, different patterns, making one big pattern. By the morning the song is not the same as I started in the night, but it is the same song. It has grown and changed. Justin brings his blanket and sits in the chair by the window and listens. Others come in to listen.

  I forget that I am Mila. I forget everything. It is only the singing I hear. It is my singing.

  I walk down the hall to see Shay. I watch her through the window in her door, sitting in a yellow chair, doing a finger play Doctor Beck taught us months ago. The plastic punching man is in Shay’s room. Doctor Beck unlocks the door and lets me in.

  Shay leans forward in her chair, facing Doctor Troy. Shay’s hair is dark and all around her head. Her eyebrows are thick.

  Doctor Troy sings about the dicky bird flying from a tree. He moves his hands to show the movement of the bird, first in front of him, then behind his back. Shay watches, her head tilted down, her eyes peering up through her lashes. She stumbles along, echoing the doctor. But even with the little dicky bird song, her voice does not sing. It shuffles through the sounds. It stumbles and trips over the notes.

  Suddenly, as I watch Shay, I am angry at her, for what she is doing to the music.

  She stares up at me from her chair. I can see, in her eyes, in the way she moves her head, she knows what I am thinking.

  Doctor Troy takes Shay’s hand and drags her to where I stand. “This is Mila,” Doctor Troy says. “Do you remember Mila?”

  Shay says Mila, but her voice is as flat as the windless sea.

  “That’s right, Shay,” the doctor says. “Mila.” The doctor makes a note in his book. Shay says Mila. Once they wrote, Mila says Shay. But that was so long ago.

  Why have I come so far and not Shay?

  Doctor Troy takes Shay by the hand and leads her back to her seat. He starts the same dicky bird song again. But Shay slides off her chair and sits on the floor, rocking.

  It really doesn’t matter about Shay and the locked door. Shay is locked inside herself.

  I back out of the room. The inflated punching man brushes against my shoulder. Before I know what I am doing, I spin around, pull my hand back, and hit it.

  The punching man swings backward, then snaps up to a standing position. The expression on its face never changes. It stands and takes the hit and still it smiles and waits for more.

  I am filled with something that frightens me.

  When I was with the dolphins, the rain lashed my skin, the waves choked my throat, I felt the sun blister me through a thirst of days. When I was with the dolphins, I did not always feel good in my body. But there was not this feeling.

  When I first came, I was so close to Shay. Together we were different from the others. We were a pod of two.

  But now Shay is left behind.

  The music of Shay is no music at all, and yet it is Shay’s music. If to be human means I can no longer hear the good rough music of Shay, then finally I am human.

  I must ask Doctor Beck, I must ask Sandy, am I human enough?

  I bring the recorder to Shay and help her to hold her hands over the smooth pale body of the instrument. I teach her to blow. Shay blows too hard. It hurts my ears. I feel the lick of anger, but I let it go, like the last sigh of a wave. Shay is happy to make the recorder shriek. If Shay is happy, let her play this way.

  But I cannot listen. I go back to my room and leave my recorder with Shay.

  Doctor Troy comes to my room early. He has a recorder. It is not my recorder. I know when I touch it. I know when I blow into it.

  I give the recorder back to him. This is not mine.

  Doctor Troy brings out another recorder. This one is broken in two pieces.

  Shay has broken my recorder.

  I sit on the floor of my room holding the broken pieces of my recorder, and I cry.

  Sandy explains to me that Shay has stopped making progress. It’s not entirely unexpected, Sandy says. The same thing has happened to every feral child ever studied. Every one, that is, except you.

  Doctor Peach says, Please, Mila, I found a recorder very close to your old one. Please try it.

  The feel is right, the sound is right.

  But it doesn’t matter. My music is fading. Inside me, everything is fading.

  What I make on the new recorder is such a sad music. It has nothing to do with dolphin life.

  I must get back to the sea.

  I don’t understand anymore what it was I tried to do with the music and dolphin talk for Doctor Beck. My mind cannot grasp the way the music flows unless I read it note for note on the page, following along slowly, simply, like the dicky bird song.

  Shay is going away. The government funding for her to stay here has stopped. When I come into the room, she looks at me. She looks at me and I see her fear. She looks at me the way a solitary dolphin looks at a shark. Have I become one of the sharks?

  But then her fear disappears and I see only an empty look in the eyes of Shay and I know she is already gone.

  She is being moved tomorrow. To more locked doors. I think she knows. I think she knows enough now to know she has failed. She knows what it means to be locked in. She knows what it means to be alone. Before she came to Doctor Beck and Doctor Troy, she lived a life locked in and alone, but she did not know. Now she knows.

  I go back to my room and get my old rubber boots. It has been many months since I wore them. I rub them together to make a dolphin sound. I stroke them with my hand. The good rubber feels like dolphin skin.

  I bring the boots to Shay. Here, I say. A gift for you. Take them.

  I make the dolphin sound for her with the boots. I put the boots on her feet and show her how to make the sound herself. Once that sound made Shay laugh. Now she lets me move her legs, but there is no laughter.

  Shay is too tired to try anymore. She wants, but she doesn’t know what she wants. It is too late for her to go back to what she was.

  And what about me? What do I want? Is it too late for me to go back? I feel cold, and I put on a sweater. When I am hungry, I eat. I do not have to hunt for my food. I do not have to catch it or kill it. My food waits for me. I do not have to go for days with the thick-tongued thirst swelling my throat. When I am thirsty, I pour a glass of fresh water and I drink. I read books and I learn different stories. Mostly they are little stories, they fade like the sunset, like the picture the waves make on the sand, but they are important. I learn a little about my first home. Not the sea. About the people who were my first family. If I should go back anywhere, should I go back to them? They say they want me back, but I think they are not interested in the girl named Mila. I think they are not interested in the girl named Olivia. I think they are interested in the dolphin girl, only the dolphin girl. All my life with humans it will be this way. I will always be this dolphin girl. The humans will be curious the way the dolphin is curious about a piece of garbage floating on the sea. A thing to play with, a thing to drag and toss around, but in the end a thing to leave behind.

  Shay is gone.

  I stood outside between Doctor Beck and Sandy and waved.

  Shay stared straight ahead. She stared with dead fish eyes.

  I sat on the stone curb for a long time after the car pulled away. The warm wind lifted a spiral of sand into the air. I don’t know if it was the sand that made my tears come.

  Shay was wearing my boots.

  During the night I dreamed a pod of dolphins beached itself outside my window. I ran out. I tried to get them back to sea, but as soon as I’d get one free, it would beach itself again.

  I raced to the house for help. Please. We have to set them all free at once. They will not leave unless they all leave together.

  Doctor Beck, Sandy, Justin, Mr. Aradondo, Doctor Troy. They a
ll came. We managed to get the dolphins back in the water on the rising tide. The churned sand stung my legs like the biters that prowl the waving grasses on the margins of the sea. Everyone watched to see if I would go with the dolphins. The doctors, Mr. Aradondo, they thought I would go with the dolphins. The dolphins did not think I would go with them. They knew I did not belong with them. I could not even make the call. I was a mouth speaker, not a nose speaker. They swam away from me. They swam away. I woke trying to remember the sound of their calls. I could not remember.

  I go to Shay’s room. It looks the same. Except the bed is empty. And there is an absence of Shay. Who will come into my room when I am gone and sing my story?

  I have no more appetite. I look at the food, but I cannot bring myself to eat. They will put the needle into my arm again. I cannot change what is happening. But their feeding tube cannot stop what is happening.

  Someone is always in my room. They keep me afloat. I do not know them all, though sometimes it is Doctor Beck or Justin. Sometimes it is Mr. Aradondo. Often it is Sandy. They talk to me. In English. In Spanish. Sometimes there is music. Sometimes there is not. I hear the murmurings of their thoughts. I feel their sadness as they watch me.

  Justin unhooks my feeding tube. He and Doctor Beck help me to walk out of my room, down to the grass beach, to the Hump. The air is so warm. I hear the sounds. The cry of a gull. When I lay my head against the Hump, I hear the roll of waves. I hear the great sea lifting its tons, singing its long tale. I am in the wrong room in a very big house. If I keep walking down the long halls, will I find my way back to the sea?

  I smile at Justin. He is close to his mother. He lets her arm come around his back. He lets her touch him. He leans into her. I say, You would make a very good dolphin, Justin Beck.

  And you would make a very good human, Justin says.

  But I am too weak. Too weak to make anything.

  I say, Doctor Beck, take me back to the island where the Coast Guard found me.

  Doctor Beck looks at me the way she did when I asked for the doors to be unlocked. She explains again about the government money. She explains again about the government rules. She says, You are asking me to break the law. If I do what you ask, I will go to prison.

  I look at her. I am already in prison.

  Sandy says, We have to let her go.

  What can they do to us that’s any worse than what we’ve done to her? We have to let her go.

  I am a face of bones.

  Doctor Beck sees. What she sees is not a curiosity. It is not a laboratory experiment. Not a government project.

  She sees me. The girl they call Mila.

  She says, Maybe we could visit there, but you couldn’t stay, Mila. I couldn’t leave you there.

  I need the roll of the sea, I need the gentle touch of the dolphin. I need home.

  The musicians come and play for me today. A private concert. Someone gives me a recorder. I cannot remember how to play. I cannot remember what the notes mean to the holes. I cannot make the notes on the sheet hold still. They swim up and down the staff, like dolphins.

  Sometimes I have trouble with the words. I try to catch them, but they slip away like little fish through a net. Doctor Beck says I can learn the words again, all the words and more words. They are all in the computer. They are all in my head. I only have to practice. To work. I do not want to work. Only to go home.

  When I can go home?

  I am eating a little. I make a promise to Doctor Beck. I eat a little if she takes me to the sea.

  Sandy is a good friend. She is here when I eat, when I sleep, when I wake. She says soft words. She is touching my hair. I love to close my eyes and feel her touching. She is my friend.

  She says, Mila. We will take you to the sea.

  I am on a boat. Doctor Beck is here. And Sandy. And Justin. Justin is smiling. The wind is in his hair. The air is soft and warm and gentle.

  Home, I think. I am going home.

  Doctor Beck and Sandy are happy.

  There are dolphins swimming with the boat. I do not know these dolphins. I do not know this sea. This is not home.

  Doctor Beck and Sandy think all dolphins are my family. But you cannot walk into any house and say, I am here, I am sick, take care of me. The people say, Who are you? You are a stranger.

  I am a stranger to these dolphins.

  They swim with the boat only because they like the ride.

  Doctor Beck and Sandy do not understand. But Justin, he watches me. He hears what I cannot say. He understands.

  I ask about Shay.

  Doctor Beck says, Shay is happy. She lives in a big house with a man and a woman and other children. Doctor Troy went to see her, but she did not remember him.

  Shay does not wait for me.

  Are my dolphins waiting?

  I’m so sorry, Mila, Doctor Beck says.

  I am surprised. I am not sorry. I think of all the good things human. I think of Doctor Beck and Sandy and Justin. Justin sits with my hand in his hand. I cannot be sorry with Justin.

  Justin says, What makes a whale beach itself? Are you beaching yourself, Mila?

  I say, Justin. It is not difficult to understand. In the dolphin family, if one is lost, all are lost.

  Justin is looking away.

  Is it this way in the human family, I ask? I cannot know. No one is talking.

  Doctor Beck comes to Justin. Her hand is on the back of Justin. Her lips are on the hair of Justin.

  The dolphin, they live for today. But I am human. To be human is to live for tomorrow. Why does tomorrow matter? What is important is now.

  Is it that I can go with the dolphin and forget I am human?

  It is difficult to think. I am tired.

  Doctor Beck says, Mila, I know you hurt now. But it will not always hurt this way. Being human gets better. I promise.

  Promise is a good thing. I know there is love and care for me, not just for the dolphin girl, but for me, Mila.

  But it cannot get better. Even if Doctor Beck gives a promise. I have been coming back to the sea from the moment I left it.

  I know it. I know home. It is here. It is in me, a knowing of home. I do not understand. But in my heart there it is. I know. I know.

  My family comes. My family of dolphins comes. I am happy.

  I look at them. I know their names.

  They call me. My dolphin name. It is my dolphin mother calling. It is my dolphin aunt.

  Give me to the water, I say.

  Doctor Beck says, No. I can’t do it.

  Please, Doctor Beck. Give me to the water.

  Doctor Beck says, No. The dolphins may leave you to drown. They may turn on you.

  They will not leave, they will not turn. I know them. They are my family.

  Doctor Beck says, I’m afraid. What if you die in the water, Mila?

  I will not die. Please, give me to the water, Doctor Beck.

  Justin comes to me. He makes his arms around me. I close my eyes. It is so good. I am glad in the end to know the arms of Justin.

  Justin says, I will give you to the water.

  I watch the red sun set into a choppy sea. The wind brushes over my skin and tosses my hair like the long leaves of the palm. As I stand, looking west, all the world is water and I, with my two strong legs, with my strong heart and my deep lungs, I belong to it.

  My dolphin family charges, mouths open, into a school of mullet. Seagulls glide overhead, eager for leavings. I stoop, stirring the water with my hands. I breathe in the air laced with seaweed and salt.

  Waves whisper onto the beach, sucking at my heels and my toes. I gaze across the orange-tipped water, glad for each glimpse of my dolphin family surfacing.

  A solitary brittle star brushes past my foot as it hunts for mussels in the twilight. I stand and walk slowly along the margin of the sea.

  Around me the night creatures come to life, scurrying in the sand, creeping along blades of grass, nibbling sea oats.

  I settle into my n
est of leaves and make a sound high in my throat, a sound that forms a picture for my dolphin mother. I say good night to her, to my dolphin aunts, to my dolphin cousins.

  Sweeping my hair back from my face, I breathe in the fresh night smells. It is the end of another dolphin day.

  I sing my name to the first star. All that I am, all that I was, all that I ever will be, I put into my song.

  My dolphin mother hears, and knows, and sings back.

  Wrapping my arms around myself, all at once, unbidden, the past breaks over me. I’m awash in the memory of my fleeting human days; the play on the computer, the music of the recorder, the laughter of Shay. I remember the walks to the pool, and the talk of doctors, and the curiosity of strangers. I remember the sound of traffic, and the taste of sweet cake, and the smell of Sandy. I remember that last moment with the human boy, the beautiful human boy, and how the boat waited and waited so long for me I nearly returned.

  This wanting has come before, and yet each time, I am startled by the fierce and sudden hunger for things left behind.

  But before long the wanting passes.

  I cover myself with my long hair, turn toward the soft blowing of my dolphin family, and give myself to sleep.

  I wish to extend sincere thanks to the following good humans for their insight and counsel: Heather Ahrenholz, Eileen Christelow, Jill Daniel, Esther Evenson, David Hall, Melissa Harman of the Clearwater Marine Science Center, The Immigration and Naturalization Service, Gayle Jamison, Liza Ketchum, Fran and Jerry Levin, Louise McDevitt, Robert and Tink MacLean, Ana Lyla and Esther Mosak, Maryann Ogden, Sunset Sam, Arlyn Sharpe, Kevin Weiler, and the flight crews at the United States Coast Guard Clearwater Station, particularly LJG Lisa Blow and Lieutenant Tom Gauntt. Also to be acknowledged are my daughters, Kate and Rachel, for whom I am forever thankful not only for their insight and counsel, but for their steadfast belief and their joyful companionship. And finally I wish to acknowledge Brenda Bowen, who never fails to hear the beauty in my rough music.