David Vann - Aquarium

We hadn’t touched the bread, but Steve passed it around now and poured a bit of olive oil onto each of our small plates.

A dense white bread better than any I’d had before, and oil that was green and not at all like what we had at home. I love this oil, I said.

Our little gourmand, Steve said.

I just thought I might be a chef, my mother said. But then I realized they have late nights. And doctors go through endless residencies and night shifts. And lawyers have ridiculous hours also and have to fight every day. And business school leads to the biggest shark tank. Are there any jobs that don’t involve giving up your life?

My hours are all right, Steve said. You can make choices. I went for less money and more free time.

The key is to escape doing labor for hourly pay, my grandfather said. I never escaped that, and I’m sorry you were stuck there, too, for so many years. Any sacrifice you make to escape is worth it, I think. How many tens of thousands of hours was I reminded of exactly what I was, standing over an engine, working with my hands. The problem was that my thoughts didn’t count, and who I was didn’t count, and there was no shape to any of the work. Just an endless series of engines that someone else could have fixed. It was like not being there but having to be there anyway, and that feeling from work infected the rest of my life, even though I like working on engines. It was the fact of not being free and not mattering. So I hope you’ll do something that doesn’t make you disappear.

Thank you, my mother said quietly. That does help. That’s how it was for me too. I was there but not there.

Well you won’t be going back Monday morning, Steve said. That’s pretty cool.

Yeah, my mother said, but she looked overwhelmed and tired. Slumped down in her chair.

The king crab arrived then. Enormous legs white and red on a long platter, and my mother sat up.

That’s a big one, Steve said.

And here’s some melted butter, the waiter said, setting down a small steel cup. Enjoy. And then he was gone, out of there quickly.

We can share this, my mother said.

I can’t, I said.

It’s not a fish.

I know. But they’re in the aquarium. I don’t love them in the same way, but still I think of those legs moving, reaching up toward the glass.

Okay, my mother said. Please don’t say anything more. I want to enjoy. I don’t want to imagine my food moving. My mother had a bit of a smile when she said it, though, and it felt like the weight was off us. Steve grinned and grabbed a leg and snapped it.

You can use the olive oil instead of butter, he said. Healthier, and I think it actually tastes a lot better. He poured oil onto his bread plate and my mother nodded and he poured onto hers, also, and they dipped long sections of white meat edged in red. Meat made of small strands all radiating from the center, as if the crab had been born in a burst of light, a small sudden explosion on the ocean floor, unnoticed. That’s what I saw then, darkness and cold at depth and each crab winking into existence. They seemed as alien as that, not born of this world.

We all went to bed early that night. I think we were avoiding the possibility of another argument. The house quiet. My grandfather just on the other side of my bedroom wall, so close. Our heads maybe two feet apart as we slept, and I wondered whether he had done this on purpose.

My mother and Steve behind the other wall. I was in the middle, safe. I wished we could be like nurse sharks or clown loaches, just piled up together in the corner of one room, sleeping on top of each other, suspended in the one element, no separation of air, but at least we were all here under one roof and rooms touching. Only Shalini was missing.

It felt very strange to sleep in a new home. Eyes closed, snuggled under the enormous comforter, the bed so much softer than any I’d experienced before, something I could sink into, but I was trying to feel the outlines of the house, trying to reach into every corner to make it familiar. Like sonar in dolphins, closing their eyes and feeling their way through darkness, knowing shape and void. Was it a sense like touch or like sight?

And sharks, able to sense electromagnetic fields. Brains tiny and prehistoric, without feeling or memory or thought but somehow knowing the electrical weight of every living thing, even the faint movement of a fish’s gills or the beating of its small, simple heart. I wanted to know this, too, to have the darkness light up with every movement and breath. I could understand it only as a kind of vision. Impossible to imagine the contact of a new sense.

I wanted to live submerged. The problem was air, too thin and cold, all contact lost. Shalini seemed forever away, unreachable, and even my mother and grandfather. The room would become solid again, walls something that could not be reached through, everything hidden, and I’d open my eyes and see only faint outlines of all that enclosed.

I finally slept, somehow, and when I awoke it was to the smell of bacon. My room cold and comforter soft and warm, and this was perfect, to hide away, smelling breakfast.

I waited until my mother knocked at my door, softly, and then opened it and peered in. Morning, sweet pea, she said. Steve made pancakes.

Mm, I said.

My mother came in and sat beside me on the bed, brushed the hair back from my face. How do you like your new home? she asked.

I love it.

Me too. It’s different to live in a nice place, to look up at the dark wood beams in the ceiling. To not have everything cheap. I can’t explain it, but I feel different inside, as if a nice floor and this furniture can change what I’m worth, the core of me. I know it shouldn’t be like that, but I feel it anyway. A kind of warmth, or relaxing, like it’s easier to breathe.

My mother no longer so hard, so mean. I wanted her always to be like this, softened and happier, but I knew her anger could come back at any moment, without warning.

Plates are on the table, Steve called out.

My mother gave me a pat on the leg. Time to get up, sleepyhead. You can just wear your pajamas and slippers.

My stomach was growling, so I was up fairly quick. It was much warmer in the main room. Steve and my grandfather and mother all sitting at the table, already started eating. I had to pee, and I loved the bathroom with its old toilet that had a water tank up high and a chain to pull with a white porcelain handle. Wood floor in here too, no disgusting carpet anywhere, and a claw-foot tub. It was a big bathroom, which was why my grandfather’s bedroom was so small. A fancy mirror and slats of wood halfway up the walls.

I pulled the handle and washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror, hair sticking up on one side from my pillow. Eyes sleepy, but I looked happy. Pale skin that seemed very thin. If I were a fish, I’d be something for a cave, pale and big-eyed and not used to light. Bones showing through. I puffed my mouth, tried to imagine gills. The sides of my jaw almost the right shape. My hair sticking up could almost be a dorsal fin, a bit lopsided. But my stomach was growling, so I needed to move out of this cave to feed.

My plate was already piled with pancakes and strawberries and bacon. Yay, I said.

Steve smiled. He liked to have his food appreciated.

This is a big step up from my usual cereal, my grandfather said.

There was a knock then, and I knew it was Shalini. I screamed and ran to the door and could hear her scream even before I opened it. We collided in a hug and jumped up and down.

I’m sorry, her mother was saying. You’re having breakfast. We’re too early. I told Shalini, but she demanded to come.

My mother was laughing, though. Caitlin didn’t even tell us. This was arranged on the sneak.