Andrea Barrett - Voyage of the Narwhal

“What do they know?” Zeke asked Erasmus one afternoon, as they paced the walk along the shore. Well within sight of the ship, for safety’s sake, yet far enough away for privacy, Zeke had measured out a promenade and had the men mark it off with wooden wands. Another innovation he was pleased with.

“The whaler’s whole being is oriented toward fishing successfully and then getting home before winter sets in,” he said. “Captain Tyler did well enough transporting us where we needed to go, but he knows nothing about the physical and emotional demands of surviving an arctic winter and keeping a crew healthy and cheerful. Have you noticed how sullen he is after dinner? I’m beginning to wonder if he’s sick.”

“He’s foul-tempered enough,” Erasmus said. “Should we ask Dr. Boerhaave to examine him?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Zeke said.

But he was busy with other things — bubbling with ideas, always cheerful, endlessly energetic. By himself he built a latrine of ice; then, while the men watched curiously, a low wall around it to cut the wind. Ned and Barton joined him when he began a walled lane from the ship to the promenade; Robert Carey, with Zeke’s laughing encouragement, built a little watchtower overlooking the lane, which Zeke crowned with a roughly carved woman’s head. How clever he was, Erasmus thought. Zeke never asked for help, or explained what he was doing. He simply busied himself within sight of the crew and made what he was doing look like fun, until those who lagged behind felt left out. Erasmus was reminded of Zeke’s resourcefulness, one of the qualities

Lavinia loved.

He was drawn in himself — the last two weeks of October, before the sun disappeared entirely, were filled with giddy play. Miniature ice cottages rose on the floes, and ice castles, palaces, gated walls. To the growing village Erasmus added a model of his father’s house, building another, larger and finer, when the ice shifted and crumbled the walls. Dr. Boerhaave built a version of the castle in Edinburgh, and Zeke one of Independence Hall. Mr. Francis and Mr. Tagliabeau jointly sculpted a whale, overwhelming Dr. Boerhaave’s moat. Foolish acts, grown men shaping ice like children raising sandcastles — yet the intent was far from casual. Erasmus noted the men’s lifted spirits, the renewed sense of camaraderie, and was filled with admiration for Zeke’s instincts. Perhaps, after all, Zeke knew what he was doing.

ALTHOUGH ERASMUS NO longer put anything in Lavinia’s green journal except for purely scientific observations, in his bulging letter to Copernicus he wrote:

Let me sketch one day for you, and let it stand for the whole of our autumn. Half past seven and we rise to the ship’s bell, tidying ourselves and our bunks. Some of us tend to the fires; Ned cooks and we breakfast at half fast eight. Then the men turn to under the direction of the mates. Clearing the decks, filling and polishing the lamps, measuring out the day’s allowance of coal and fussing over our precious stoves, banking snow along the hull, chunking ice from the nearest berg for water, hanging wet clothes from the rigging on washdays — all these duties are finished by lunch. After lunch the men pace the promenade briskly, as ordered by Zeke for their health. Sometimes they play games on the ice. When there was still a bit of light, Zeke and I and Dr. Boerhaave and Joe often went out with our rifles, hoping to shoot a bear or a seal to sup- plement our diminishing supply of fresh meat. The light was so dim we were seldom successful, but the hunt gave us an excuse to be away from the others for a while. Sometimes we stumbled on Esquimaux artifacts’, while we’ve as yet seen no Esquimaux, we’ve found remains of ancient encampments: ruins of stone huts, a part of an old sledge, pieces of a stone lamp, harpoon tips. Surrounding these, the bones of walrus and bear.

Later in the afternoon, while the men nap or whittle, play cards or repair their clothing, and while Zeke pores over his maps and boofys or tends to his instruments, Dr. Boerhaave and I catalog the specimens we collected earlier. We talk about what we’ve seen — how nature, in this place and season, is reduced to her bones. In the tropical places I visited with the Exploring Expedition all was lushness, and much obscured by overwhelming detail, but here each thing stands singly and strong. It is so, so beautiful here, despite the danger, despite the discomfort; I would never have chosen to winter here yet it’s as if I was waiting my whole life to see this. I stand on the ice, I watch and watch until the dinner bell rings at six. Afterward, in hours I’ve come to love, we have our school. Close the hatches, open the hatches, dry the bedding, melt ice. Cook, sleep, hunt, study, sleep. This is how my days are shaped. Joe, Ned, and I tilled a bear two days ago, huge and dirty and yellow-white. Before we filled it, it almost tilled us. The sun disappeared for good yesterday, October 30, but this doesn’t mean, as I once imagined, that we’re in con- tinuous night. Instead the nights are black, life our nights at home, but during the days we have twilight — a few minutes less each day but even when the solstice arrives we should still have that glow at noon. The sty is life no sky I’ve ever seen before. Our masts and shrouds, entirely coated with ice, glimmer against that blue-gray cloth.

Zeke said, “We should use our evenings profitably. Let each of us teach what he knows.”

Dr. Boerhaave began teaching the men who couldn’t read their letters; Ned assisted him, wonderfully patient because he’d learned to read so recently himself. When Zeke complimented him, he said, “May I teach one of the men to cook? So we might take turns, so I’d have more time to help Erasmus and Dr. Boerhaave with their work?”

When Zeke agreed, Ned chose Barton DeSouza. During Barton’s apprenticeship the crew swallowed beans as hard as pebbles, but Barton, whose beard was oddly chopped after part of it froze to his hood, took the jibes good-humoredly and soon grew competent.

Scan Hamilton gave a brief course in butchery; Dr. Boerhaave, using the same frozen carcasses, taught basic anatomy. Erasmus found it delightful to see Thomas Forbes, usually so quiet, arguing with Robert Carey over whether the bone on the table between them was a femur or a fibula. Twice a week Erasmus spread before the men samples of all he’d gathered.

“Fucus,” he said, showing them fronds from Godhavn. Isaac Bond was surprisingly interested in the different seaweeds and where they grew.

“Auk,” he said. “From Lancaster Sound.” Barton DeSouza was fascinated by the structure of the feathers and the quills.

As the men, in turn, taught Erasmus the whalers’ names for seals and salmon and cod, he understood that theirs was a different sort of knowledge, but no less valuable than his. He began to know them one by one, and not just as the group of men who did the unpleasant tasks. Scan Hamilton was very quick; Robert Carey was slower but persistent and steady. Ivan Hruska had a wonderful, cheering laugh; Barton DeSouza, who had trouble reading, drew quickly and accurately.

Joe told stories from the Bible, rendered simple and vivid by his long practice preaching to the Esquimaux; he mingled these with tales about the tribes among whom he’d worked. He also gave Zeke language lessons and helped him compile a simple dictionary. In his tattered black book — which still, Erasmus saw, housed the most remarkable hodgepodge of scribbles and extracts and sketches and plans — Zeke noted down words and their English equivalents: idgloo = a house; nanoq = a bear; ben-nesoak = a deer when it is without its antlers. Otypok = the season of fast ice.

Even Captain Tyler and the mates, who usually held themselves separate, were drawn into those pleasant evenings. Mr. Francis demonstrated a whole array of seamen’s knots, while Captain Tyler taught some basic navigation. In the darkness Mr. Tagliabeau, who had a wonderful eye for the stars, led groups to the tops of the icebergs. In air so cold their breath formed clouds of snow crystals, he pointed out the whirling constellations.