Monterey Bay(40)

So in addition to her infantile excitement about his messages, there’s also a reaction far worse: the need to prove she’s received them. In a sense, this was why the aquarium was created in the first place, to make his most famous, most accessible theory flesh. Instead of arranging things the traditional way—by species or taxonomic relativity—she’s arranged things by habitat, by place of residence. Things that live together should go together, he once said. And things that live elsewhere should go elsewhere. She’s even taken it one step further. She’s demanded that, with the exception of special temporary exhibits—the one about the Amazon basin, for instance—everything in the aquarium must be indigenous to Monterey Bay. Every animal, every plant, every alga, every fungus. No cheating, except when she permits it.

And it’s not something she will ever question. It’s not a position from which she will ever back down. The problem, however, is that the bay is getting warmer and the skies are getting bluer, and not in a cyclical, El Ni?o–type way. No, this is something permanent, which means that species from the south—species that would have previously found Monterey unlivably cold—are moving in. The Humboldt squid and the Mola mola: two animals that were once seasonal visitors but now take up year-round aquatic real estate. Accept it, she tells herself. Accept it and move on. But her artist’s eye won’t quite allow it. If everything is embraced, nothing is said. A crowded canvas is proof of an empty mind. There’s a moment at which even the most purehearted tribute becomes an ode not to the person being honored, but to the person doing the honoring. And I’d be honored in return, she tells him, the aquarium’s ambient sound track egging her on, if you’d quote me on that.





14


    1940




“AN ANGEL. SHE LOOKS LIKE AN ANGEL IN THAT dress.”

Mrs. Agnelli’s voice was gentle, off-puttingly so. The laugh, however—the one Margot had heard that day at the house—seemed ready to surface at any moment and break the veneer of her goodwill, like the air-raid sirens that had punctuated their last days in Manila.

“Thank you,” Margot muttered. “It’s new.”

She yanked at the skirt. Yesterday afternoon, in anticipation of churchgoing company, her father had taken her to Holman’s, the local department store. She had expected to be able to find something sturdy and anonymous and reasonable, like what the First Lady wore when she was photographed making speeches or visiting disaster sites. The store, however, offered women’s apparel of only one style: lightweight, lace-trimmed frocks so spectacularly ill suited to both Margot’s tastes and the local climate that even Anders had been amused on account of it.

“Now I know why you always wear that sport coat,” he had said, chuckling.

Margot, however, hadn’t laughed. She had suspected it would happen in time—her chest and hips and stomach resigning themselves to a puffier inevitability—but she hadn’t expected it to happen so fast, and now, looking at Mrs. Agnelli, she could imagine the horrors with which it all might progress.

“Speaking of angelic,” her father redirected, “the Mass was sublime. So many kind tributes to your husband.”

“He is ailing, yes,” Mrs. Agnelli admitted, eyes downcast. “But the prayers of our community will lift him up.”

Anders nodded and appeared to contemplate this in silence. Margot, too, considered the service. In the Philippines, the natives had also practiced Catholicism, but a very specific version of it: riotous and colorful and brutally hierarchical, its practices closer to voodoo sometimes than Christianity. On some of the smaller islands, men fought each other for the honor of being nailed to a cross and paraded through the village streets on Good Friday. Here, however, there was none of that. The bread was not quite flesh, the wine was not quite blood. The same was true of the church’s immediate surroundings. The homes of the boat and cannery owners could have been large and showy, but they weren’t. Instead, they were modest and well maintained: stucco beachheads with red-tiled roofs that looked sturdy and immortal against the white sky. Children played calmly on the porches. Street vendors made their rounds. Big, iron cauldrons bubbled in the backyards atop flaming beds of pine, the intestinal lengths of sardine nets tanning within.

“We had hoped to offer up a blessing for your imminent venture,” Mrs. Agnelli continued. “But I’m afraid it slipped Father Paraino’s mind.”

“No matter,” Anders replied. “I’m not superstitious in the least.”

Mrs. Agnelli’s face flickered with distaste before returning to its previous serenity. She was in her prime today: surrounded by her own kind, proud and at ease, her face absent of perspiration, her breathing unlabored. As for Tino, he looked exactly as sharp and fragile as before, especially in comparison to his brothers. All five were just as burly and bulletproof as he had implied, standing open-mouthed behind their mother in order of descending height like an unpacked set of giant Russian nesting dolls.

“Shall we, then? Our girl has cooked a wonderful roast.”

The brothers turned and began to clomp uphill.

“I’ll be glad to accept your hospitality. Margot, however, will be staying behind. She has business with your son. The small one.”

And there it was again: a shadow of distaste. “In that case, I’d like to speak with her first.”