Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel in Five Voices

27 OLIVER

I have never been to Salt Lake City, which worries me. What if this impromptu trip was motivated by my own subconscious desires, rather than tapping into the quality of Jane? What if Jane and Rebecca are well into, or through, Colorado by now? If I miss them in Colorado, I will catch up with them in Kentucky. Or Indiana, wherever. As long as I reach them before they get to Massachusetts; as long as I have a chance to offer my side of the story before Joley begins brainwashing Jane again.

Joley Lipton, the bane of my existence. We have never really understood each other. Even after I had won over Jane’s parents- a twenty-year-old dating their teenaged baby-I never got her brother’s approval. Not then, not years later. He almost refused to attend the wedding, until he saw his stubbornness was literally wasting Jane away. So he did come, but sat in a corner throughout the ceremony and the reception. He belched loudly (I assume it was he) when we were pronounced man and wife. He did not offer me congratulations; he never has. He spread a rumor that the salmon mousse was rancid. And he left early.

In my opinion he is terribly in love with his sister, beyond the usual parameters of a brother-sister relationship. He has always been a drifter, and Jane has always been fiercely loyal to him. I don’t find him deserving of such support; I have heard about their childhood and it seems he was the one to get off the proverbial hook. Yet, there is something about him. Perhaps he annoys me because of this: I cannot pin down my emotions about him. He instigates. He fills Jane’s head with ridiculous notions about the institution of marriage-he, whom I have never seen with a woman. He calls at the wrong times and shows up unexpected. If Jane gets to Joley before I reach her, she may never come back. She will have been conditioned otherwise. She will most certainly not listen to me.

This blinding whiteness hits me quickly, a desert of salt. Suddenly I am in its midst, driving, a blot against this expanse. I know better; it is not colorless. White is all the colors in the rainbow, reflected at once.

I pull the car into the shoulder of the road, where several other tourists have stopped to take photographs. The terrain is flat and sweeping. If not for the record heat, I could easily be convinced I am seeing snow. A woman taps me on the shoulder. “Sir, would you mind?” She waves a camera in my face and motions where I have to push the button. Then she runs to the guardrail where her traveling companion-an elderly man in green overalls-is already sitting. “One, two, three, ” I say, and the flash cube goes off. The man has no teeth, I see this when he smiles.

I have always wanted to see the Great Salt Lake because of its incongruity. The idea of it: saltwater in a landlocked state, an ocean away from the ocean. I have heard that it is so large it may as well be an ocean (a small one, anyway). I look at my watch- 5:20. There is not much I will do today, anyway. I can go to the lake, take a look around and check into a motel for the night. If I must travel across America, I might as well enjoy myself.

I try to avoid the route through the city, since there might be a rush hour; if Mormons have rush hours. Instead I skirt the perimeter, bordered on both sides of the road by white earth. From time to time a breeze or a passing truck blows salt onto the asphalt, which swirls in front of the car like a wailing ghost. There are no signs for the lake and I do not want to waste the time to ask at a service station, so I follow the other cars on the road in front of me. Surely one of them, maybe more than one, will be going to the Great Salt Lake. I pass cars earnestly, searching the windows for children or watermelon floats or shining inner tubes, the telltale symbols.

The seventh car has someone in a bathing suit. From my point of view, the passenger is young, female, and wearing a red suit criss-crossed in the back, much like Rebecca’s GUARD suit. It is a station wagon just like Jane’s-same color, same dent in the fender. I try to pull alongside the car because my blood begins to beat in my ears. Who is the driver? I cannot tell, but as I advance I see that the girl has long blond hair, wrapped into a knot of some kind at the back of her neck. Rebecca. I accelerate, my foot pushing hard against the floor of the car, weaving around a slower car in front of me. I pass them, and then swerve into their lane, relying on the rearview mirror. When I lift my eyes, I expect to see Jane, her fingers drumming on the steering wheel, her sunglasses slanted and reflective. Instead I see a burly man with a black beard and a tattoo on his chest that reads COME TO MAMA. The girl is not Rebecca at all, and the driver honks at me for cutting him off.

They are, however, going to the Great Salt Lake, and I follow them until I can see the lake from the car. Then I drive another halfmile down its edge, so that I will not have to face them in person. I park the car in a no-parking zone and walk to the edge of the water.

As far as the eye can see there is water. Deep and calm, marbleblue, with the tiny waves one finds on the Great Lakes. Well, it could be the ocean. I sit on the shore and pull off my shoes and socks. Leaning back on my elbows, I try to imagine a whale surfacing in the center of this lake, black and white, like a picture show. Then I listen to the wind and imagine instead it is that tearing sound whales make as they break through the water’s surface, and then the hollow moan through the blowhole, clearing. The sun, on its way down, beats a steady rhythm. What a day, I think. What a day.

I have second thoughts about it but I roll up my pants and take off my shirt, leaving it with my shoes and socks on the banks of the lake. Then I wade in, letting the water mat my underwear against my thighs. I dive underneath and swim as hard as I can to the spot where I pictured that whale.

Amazing, the salt content of this lake. It tastes like the ocean, feels like the ocean, buoys like the ocean. In some places it probably reaches great depths. Children play along its edges, but there is hardly anyone where I stop and tread water. I shake my hair from my eyes and survey the shore. People are starting to leave; it’s dinnertime. I should go too, and rent a room somewhere, so that I can get an early start tomorrow. To wherever it is that I am supposed to be going.

I float face down in the water and then jackknife at the waist, plunging headfirst towards the bottom of the lake. I would love to see what is there: fire coral or anemone or even white-bellied sharks and continental ridges. I kick my feet vigorously until the pressure of the depth threatens to break my eardrums. At this point all I can see is a milky black. I pivot and begin to swim to the surface, breaking with the force of a whale and embracing the air with a skeletal gasp.

A biplane comes remarkably close to the surface of the water and then circles towards the sun. It is the same sun, I realize with relief, that Jane and Rebecca are watching, wherever they may be. For a moment the plane hovers in silhouette like an artificial eagle. Well, I think, at least I don’t have to worry about them leaving the country. Jane couldn’t get Rebecca on a plane come hell or high water.

For a while after the crash we took Rebecca to a local military airport that ran programs for people who were afraid to fly. Behavior modification, really: the patrons would become proficient at a small task and then work their way up to actually flying. The first step was to come to the airport, just to look at it. Then you gave your ticket into the reservations desk the next week. Then came sitting in the terminal, and then walking outside to look at the plane. After that achievements came very gradually: getting onto the stairs of the plane (two weeks’ time), walking onto the plane (two weeks’ time), sitting for an hour on the immobile plane (four weeks). Eventually the plane took off for a fifteen-minute flight around the Bay area.

We took Rebecca although she was very young because the psychiatrist who had treated her recommended the program. She told us that events such as these are the most scarring to children, even though we may not be able to see it. The perfectly adjusted child might one day snap because of an unarticulated fear of flying. So Rebecca (the youngest by far) went to phobia classes. She was everyone’s darling, the other women would fight to hold her and make sure she was all right and that she understood the instructions. Rebecca herself did not mind the attention. After she left the hospital in Des Moines, she did not mention the accident and she did not give any indications of having been involved in such a catastrophe, and because of this we also shied away from the subject. We told her these classes were just a fun thing, like other little girls took ballet or piano lessons. Jane was the one who actually drove her there; I was usually away on business.

I was away on business the time Rebecca temporarily lost control-during the second week of the plane-sitting excursion. The first week, Jane told me over a crackling Chilean phone connection, Rebecca had been fine. And then all of a sudden this Saturday she was uncontrollable, throwing herself across the seats and screaming and crying. The psychiatrist told us we should continue to bring her to the phobia class, in spite of her outburst. She said that the outburst was a manifestation of fear, and as a scientist I was inclined to agree. But Jane refused to take her, and since I was in South America, I hadn’t any leverage. Rebecca was four then, and she has yet to set foot on a plane since.

Of course. They will go to Iowa.

I float, staring up at the sun. How stupid of me. I should have realized-this earlier. I was so busy concentrating on Jane that I neglected to see that Rebecca herself is one of Jane’s biggest clues. Where Rebecca goes Jane will follow. And at her age, Rebecca will want to see the site of the crash; to jog her memory, maybe, or to put it all behind her. Wherever else they choose to go en route to Massachusetts is incidental. Iowa will be the midpoint; Iowa is the sure thing.

Suddenly I am overwhelmed with relief. I will meet them in What Cheer, Iowa; I will stake out the cornfield where the wreckage still sits, until I see them, and then we shall talk. I am one step ahead. I start to smile, and then grin wider, and before I can stop myself I am laughing aloud.