Andrea Barrett: Voyage of the Narwhal

Erasmus stroked the wolf skins his youngest brother had sent from the Utah mountains. Just then he would have given anything for an hour’s conversation with Copernicus, who understood what it meant to leave a life. But Copernicus was gone, still, again, and the wolf skins were handsome, but where would they fit? The sledges, specially constructed after Zeke’s own design, had arrived two weeks late and wouldn’t fit into the space Erasmus had planned for them; and he couldn’t arrange the scientific equipment in any reasonable way. Every inch of the cabin was full, and they were not yet in it.

On the Narwhal Zeke slipped his feet from the stay, hung by one hand for a second, and then dropped lightly to the deck. Soon he joined Erasmus among the wharfs clutter, moving the theodolite and uncovering a crate of onions. “These look nice,” he said. “Do we have enough?”

While they went over the provision lists yet again, Mr. Tagliabeau walked up with the news that their cook had deserted. He’d last been seen two days earlier, Mr. Tagliabeau reported. In the company of a red-headed woman who’d been haunting the docks.

Zeke, his hands deep in onions, only laughed. “I saw that hussy,” he said. “What a flashing eye she had! But that it should be Schuessele who got her, with that monstrous beard of his…”

The wind tore one of Erasmus’s lists away and sent it spinning through the masts. “We’re leaving in three days!” he shouted. Later he’d remember this display with embarrassment. “Three days. Where are we going to find another cook?”

“There’s no need to get excited,” Zeke said. “The world is full of cooks. Mr. Tagliabeau, if you’d be so kind as to take a small recruiting tour among the taverns…”

“Wonderful,” Erasmus said. “Do find us some criminal, some drunken sot.”

They might have quarreled had not a group of young men dressed in Lincoln-green frock coats, white pantaloons, and straw hats trailing black ostrich feathers come dancing up the wharf. The United Toxophilites, Erasmus saw, making a surprise farewell to Zeke. The sight made him groan. Once he’d been part of this group of archers; once this had all seemed charming. Resurrecting the old sport of archery, flourishing the arrows retrieved from those first, magical trips to the Plains — as a boy, he’d participated in a meet that drew two thousand guests.

But he’d lost his taste for such diversions after the Exploring Expedition, and he’d let his association with the Toxics lapse. Zeke, though, was part of the new young crowd that had taken over the club.

“Voorhees!” the Toxics cried. All around them, crews from other ships stared. “Voorhees! Voorhees!”

They gave Zeke three great cheers, hauled him down the length of the wharf, and formed a circle around him. Erasmus received courteous nods but no recognition. He listened to the mocking, high-spirited speeches, which likened Zeke to a great Indian chief setting off on a buffalo hunt. One youngster with a shock of red hair presented Zeke with a chalice; an elflike boy offered a patent-leather belt from which dangled a grease box and a tassel. Zeke accepted his gifts with a smile and a handshake, thanking each man by name and showing the poise that had made Erasmus’s sister call him a natural leader.

Yet what had Zeke done? So very little, Erasmus thought as he eyed the grease box. A few years of sailing from Philadelphia to Dublin and Hull on the ships of his father’s packet line, investigating currents and ocean creatures, although often, as he’d admitted to Erasmus, he’d been too seasick to work. Other than that all his learning came from books. As a boy he’d insinuated his way into Erasmus’s family, through their fathers’ friendship and an interest in natural history. Now they were further bound by Lavinia. But that Erasmus should be standing in Zeke’s shadow, setting off for the arctic under the command of this untried youth — again he was amazed by his decision.

Zeke, as if he heard what Erasmus was thinking, broke through the circle of green-coated men, seized Erasmus’s arm, and drew him into the center. “I couldn’t do this without Erasmus Darwin Wells,” he cried. “Three cheers for our chief naturalist, my right hand!”

Erasmus blushed. Was this what he wanted? A kind of worship, mixed with disdain; as if Zeke wanted to emulate him, but without his flaws. But exactly this grudging caution had stranded him alone in midlife, and he pushed the thought aside. When the Toxics presented their green-and-gold pennant, he grasped the end marked with a merry archer and smiled at Zeke. Zeke made a speech of thanks; Erasmus made a shorter one, not mentioning that he’d known the club’s founders or that he’d learned to shoot a bow when some of these men were still children. As he spoke he saw Captain Tyler hanging over the Narwhal’s rail, gazing curiously at them. His face, Erasmus thought, was the size and color of a ham.

The Toxics departed, Zeke climbed back on the Narwhal, and Erasmus was once more alone. He folded the pennant and tucked it into the wolf skins. Then he reconsidered the stowing of the sledges: back to front in a line down the center of the hold? or piled in a tight tower near the bow? He worked quietly for an hour, pushing down his worries by the repeated checking of items against his lists. Mr. Tagliabeau interrupted him, returning to the wharf in the company of a fresh-faced, dark-haired, blue-eyed boy.

“Ned Kynd,” Mr. Tagliabeau said. “Twenty years of age.” Zeke hopped down to investigate. After making introductions all around, Mr. Tagliabeau added, “Ned would like to join our expedition.”

Zeke, hovering once more near the mound of supplies, looked Ned over. “You’ve had experience cooking?”

“In three places,” the boy said shyly. As he listed them, all in the rough area by the wharves, Erasmus noted his heavy Irish accent.

“And have you been to sea?” Zeke asked.

Ned blushed. “Just once, sir. When I made my crossing.”

“But the sea suits you?”

“My… circumstances then were not such that anyone could have enjoyed them. But I believe I would have, if I’d had work and meals and a place to sleep. I enjoyed being on deck very much. I like to watch the birds and fish.”

“You’d be cooking for fifteen men,” Erasmus said. “You’re capable of that?”

“I wouldn’t like to boast, but many a night I’ve cooked for three or four times that number. I was at a logging camp in the Adirondacks for some time, before I made my way to this city. Loggers are hungry men.”

Zeke laid a hand on Erasmus’s shoulder. “If he can feed loggers, he can surely feed us.”

“You’d be bunking in the forecastle,” Erasmus said. “With the seamen. They can be a bit rough.”

“Not rougher than loggers, I wouldn’t guess.”

“Done, then,” Zeke said. “And welcome. Gather your things and say your goodbyes, we leave in three days.” Off he went, bounding down the wharf like an antelope.

And so it was that Ned, hastily engaged to fill Schuessele’s shoes, came to join the expedition. Later Erasmus would think many times how little might have steered Ned away. Mr. Tagliabeau might not have bumped into him beneath the chandler’s awning; the Toxics’ ostrich-feathered hats might have spooked him had he arrived but a few minutes earlier; Zeke might not have been there to interview him had he arrived but a little later. Any small coincidence might have done.

THAT NIGHT ERASMUS was sleepless again. In the Repository, his family’s little natural history museum, he rose and paced the floors and tried to understand what he’d been doing. For twelve years he’d been camped out here, his world contracted to display cabinets stuffed with dead animals, boxes of seeds and trays of fossils, the occasional stray beam of light shining through the windows like a message from another planet. Framed engravings of eminent naturalists leaned down from the bookshelves, watching benignly as he bent to work that wasn’t work, and went nowhere. Who could understand that life? Or how he’d decided, finally, to leave it?