Andrea Barrett - Voyage of the Narwhal

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THE LESS ALEXANDRA worked on the thing she most loved, the more her family appreciated her. The easiest days were those on which she didn’t try to work at all. When she stopped looking so fiercely for a moment she might call her own, when she stopped rushing through her household tasks and simply gave into them, the days had a reasonable rhythm. And it was lovely, in a way, when her family thanked her — yet at night she weighed those thanks against the nagging sense that she’d wasted another set of precious hours. Her family won during the days of Erasmus’s absence. But as soon as she saw him again, she regretted every lost minute.

At the engraving firm, he told her Annie and Tom were sick. Which was terrible, but at least their condition had forced Zeke to stop the exhibitions. Zeke was looking after them and would soon bring them home, where he’d settle down to work on a book that was almost done, and in which Erasmus had no place. “In his book,” Erasmus said, “I am — he said I am a minor character.” He peered over Alexandra’s shoulder. “That’s excellent,” he said. “Our book will be beautiful. You’ve caught the gills and the scales exactly.”

They spent long hours at their desks, working in a kind of splendid trance. Erasmus wrote ten, twelve, twenty pages a day; Alexandra’s drawings accumulated and when they visited Copernicus they found the second painting done, and two more started. Around them the firm was humming, as if their frenzy were contagious. Humboldt concluded negotiations for the plates for a new encyclopedia, which seemed more than usually lucky as businesses elsewhere closed. Pleased with themselves, they all gathered one afternoon in the main office to celebrate over a drink.

The brothers, Alexandra saw, had settled into a new relationship. Perhaps it was their enforced proximity, or the way Erasmus worked so hard, with such clear purpose, and never complained about the small corners allotted to him. Or perhaps Linnaeus and Humboldt, cast for years as the steady, uninteresting middle brothers, were secretly pleased to be doing favors for the eldest. Linnaeus, in particular, seemed to relish his new role. He gave Erasmus frequent advice, visited Lavinia three times each week, no longer criticized Alexandra’s work.

He was with Lavinia now; they lingered over their sherry while they waited for him. There would be an awkward moment, Alexandra knew, when Linnaeus would report that Lavinia was fine, but that she still didn’t want to see Erasmus. It would be awkward, but it would pass. At six-thirty Linnaeus entered the office. Waving away the glass Humboldt held out to him, he flopped down in an armchair, very pale.

“What is it?” Erasmus said. “Is she — unwell, again?” “Zeke is back,” Linnaeus said. “He walked in right after I got there.” Then he drew a long breath.

“Annie is dead,” he said. He rested his hand on Erasmus’s arm; Alexandra had never seen them touch before. “She died two days after you left.”

“She’s dead?” Erasmus said. “How can she be dead?” Linnaeus closed his eyes and then took the glass Humboldt offered again. “I know,” he said. “It’s horrible. He brought Tom with him; he’s recovering but still very frail.”

Alexandra thought of Annie and Tom as she’d last seen them in the Repository. Shouldn’t she have known — shouldn’t they all have known — where this was heading? “But Lavinia and Zeke will take care of him,” she said. “Won’t they? They’ll find a home for him, at least until he’s better and can be returned to his family.”

“Lavinia’s very upset,” Linnaeus said. “She asked Zeke who was more important to him, her or those Esquimaux. If you’d heard her voice — it was terrible. And then, and then…”

“What’s wrong with her?” Erasmus burst out. “He’s just a little boy, and now he’s lost his mother. You’d think she’d remember what that was like.”

“That’s not the worst of it,” Linnaeus said. “She had one of the maids settle Tom in the Repository; he’s to sleep there with only those two dogs for company. Zeke didn’t even try to stop her, he said he’d do whatever she wanted.” “Zeke can’t,” Erasmus said. “Can he?”

Linnaeus curled his lip. “I suppose he can do anything he wants. He claims he was nursing Tom in Washington; I’d like to see him nurse anyone but himself. Then he admitted he’d stayed a few extra days, to take care of Annie’s remains.” “He had her buried down there?” Erasmus asked. Linnaeus gulped at his drink. “There was no burial,” he said. “No body, even. There are men at the Smithsonian who — who do this sort of thing. I don’t know how, I don’t want to know how. I think the man Zeke was staying with had the idea, he knows about bones and skulls. Zeke gave him his permission and he, they, someone prepared and mounted her skeleton for the museum. Zeke stayed to oversee it.”

Erasmus groaned, and Alexandra thought about Toodlamik’s bones and skin. Then about Annie as she’d first seen her, leaning against the windowpane until the sash was raised and she reached, so gratefully, for the air.

“He did it for Lavinia,” Linnaeus continued. “Or so he claims. The skeleton’s to go in a glass case in the hall across from Dr. Kane’s exhibit, with a plaque about Zeke’s expedition. You know how he is, he thinks this will make him famous. Everyone will want to buy his book and then he and Lavinia won’t have to depend on his father’s generosity, they won’t have to worry about anything again.”

“Is that what he’s thinking?” Humboldt asked.

“I don’t know. But Lavinia said she didn’t care what happened to Annie’s remains, she knew all about Zeke and Annie and she’d never been fooled, she wasn’t stupid.”

Humboldt raised an eyebrow and Copernicus said, “Surely we’re not surprised by that? He spent six months in her company, after better than a year without any female companionship. Didn’t we assume…?”

“I don’t know what you assumed,” Linnaeus said. Alexandra could not help glancing at Erasmus; what had she assumed about him? “I assumed that he’d honored his commitment to Lavinia, and that Annie was just what he said. A member of the tribe that saved his life. If she was ever more than that, why would he be so unfeeling as to exhibit her bones?”

“Nothing,” Erasmus said, “has ever gotten in the way of Zeke’s ambitions.”

She was gone, he thought. They’d hardly had the chance to know each other. For a minute Linnaeus’s words drifted past him. When he could bear to listen again, Linnaeus was still discussing Zeke’s plans: returning Tom to Washington, arranging to have him cared for by someone associated with the Smithsonian. Someone who might be willing to take Tom in and educate him. Copernicus turned to Erasmus. “You have to do something.” “I know,” Erasmus said. He reached for Linnaeus’s hand. “It’s not your fault.”

“We’re all at fault,” Copernicus said. “You should have fought back when Zeke returned, and not let him persuade everyone that you acted wrongly on the voyage. We shouldn’t have doubted you. And you and I should have refused to leave our home.”

“I know,” Erasmus repeated. They’d doubted him? “I know.” He stared out the window, toward the river and his lost home on the opposite bank.

FROM THAT HOUSE, in the gathering twilight, Lavinia was gazing back. Somewhere, perhaps along the creek, Zeke was pacing through the haze that had carried the fever to Annie. And somewhere else, she imagined, her brothers were together. When had they ever put her first? Copernicus had traveled across the continent and Erasmus had sailed to both ends of the earth; neither had ever asked if she minded being left behind, alone and waiting for them. What had Erasmus given her? Her mother’s walking shoe; a few odd books and lessons; a promise, which he’d broken. Erasmus let me down, Zeke had told her. When I most needed him. Because of Erasmus, he’d had to go north alone; because of Erasmus he’d ended up staying with Annie’s family, bringing Annie home.