Red Clocks(36)

“The institution began,” she tells the tenth-graders, “as a fiscal arrangement in which the father’s household transferred land, money, and livestock to the husband’s household, attached to the body of the daughter-bride. Its economic foundations have in recent centuries become shrouded by—some might even say smothered by—the veil of romantic love.”

“Are you married, miss?” says Ash.

“Shut up,” someone says.

“Nope,” says the biographer.

“Why not?” says Ash.

“Shut up!” shouts Mattie.

Silence crackles. Even the half-asleep kids are suddenly alert.

Mattie says, more quietly, “Why did they die?”

From the next desk, Ash rubs her shoulder. “You mean the whales?”

“The independent researcher said their sonar could’ve broken. High-decibel submarine signals can make whales go deaf.” Mattie cups her lunar cheeks.

“My dad said it’s the witch’s fault,” says the son of the local navy hero, “because she lured the dead man’s fingers back to Newville and they messed up the water.”

Shouts and cries: “Yeah, the seaweed poisoned the whales!” “That’s so dumb.” “But there’s been more dead whiting in the nets too—”

“Hold on, people!” says the biographer. “Maybe your dad was joking?”

“My Gramma Costello said the same thing,” says Ash, “and the last time she told a joke was 1973.”

“Also my dad is not dumb,” says the hero’s son.

The biographer contemplates digressions into marine biology and the history of witch persecution in Kingdom and States United, but she needs to end class five minutes early to get to her clinic appointment. Kalbfleisch is insisting that she come in to discuss the PCOS test results. A two-hour drive to receive what is probably—almost certainly—going to be bad news.

“There’s a Buddhist temple,” she says, “on a small island in Japan that used to hold requiems for whales killed by whalers. They prayed for the whales’ souls. They also had a tomb for whale fetuses taken from their mothers’ bodies during flensing. They would give a posthumous name to every fetus they buried, and they kept a necrology that listed the mothers’ dates of capture.” She pauses, scanning the room. “Do you see where I’m going with this?”

“Field trip to Japan!”

“Did the ones on the beach have any fetuses inside them?”

“Did you know a ‘tus’ is a male fetus?”

“We do a requiem,” says Mattie. “But first we need to name them.”

Good girl. Even when distraught, she pays attention.

“Okay,” says the biographer, “there are twenty-four of you. Pair off. Each pair names a whale. You have three minutes. Then we’ll reconvene for a recitation and a moment of silence.”

“But the temple guys named the fetuses, not the grown-ups. You changed the ritual.”

“So I did, Ash. Get to work.”

She opens her notebook.

Things to do with baby:

Take train to Alaska

Burrow in blankets

Gorge on dried mango

Tell stories about the Great Sperm-Whale Stranding

Put toes in waves on year’s shortest day



Her students christen a Moby-Dick, two Mikes, a Spermy, for God’s sake. But then whales are not exotic to these kids. The coastline near Newville is known as the whale-watching capital of the American West. For decades the local economies have depended on injections from tourists eager to see a breaching, lunging, slapping, spraying, spy-hopping colossus. They pay to watch from the decks of boats and through high-powered spotting scopes from the Gunakadeit Lighthouse; or to swim with guides, in wet suits, in the whales’ feeding grounds.

The biographer is closing her backpack, thinking ahead to the traffic on 22—she can miss the worst of it if she hurries—when Mattie comes to the desk. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course. I mean not right now, because I have a doctor’s appointment, but tomorrow?” If she gets out of the parking lot in three minutes, she’ll be on the cliff road in seven.

“Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving.”

“Monday, then.”

The girl nods, staring at her hands.

“I know the whales are upsetting,” says the biographer, “but—”

“It’s not about that.”

“Have a good weekend, Mattie.” Parka zipped, pack shouldered, she bolts.

She read about the stranding in the paper but has hardly thought of it since. Barnacly, fat-lidded blocks of beast—they only feel real in her book, when young Eiv?r watches them die in the grindadráp.

“How late is Dr. Kalbfleisch running?” she asks the front-desk nurse. “I’ve been here almost an hour.”

“He’s a popular guy,” says the nurse.

“Could you give me a general idea?”

“It’s the day before a holiday,” she says.

“And?”

“Sorry?”

“Why should that make a difference?”

The nurse pretends to read something on her computer screen. “I have no way of knowing how much longer the doctor will be. If you need to reschedule, I am happy to help you with that.”