Ahab's Wife, or the Star-Gazer

  I opened my letter to Margaret by describing the scene—I always enjoy receiving a letter when the writer locates himself or herself in a definite place, and I like to know if there is a cup of tea at hand, or how the light is falling in the room or beyond the window. Such descriptions transcend the barriers of time and space and give reader and writer the illusion that they are together. After fixing myself in space and time, I wrote Margaret something of the judge’s dinner party and of my subsequent visit: “Maria of Vestal Street is something like a Vestal Virgin, attending the fires of Science.”

  While the subject of fathers had only passingly interested Maria—probably because Mr. Mitchell was so satisfactory—I brought up the issue to Margaret, who like me had been oppressed by hers. A far less balanced man than William Mitchell, Margaret’s father had been bent on stuffing her mind—with literature and the arts rather than science—and he often kept her up so late learning Greek and Latin that his instruction became a form of torture. Unlike William Mitchell, he had had no sense of play or spontaneity about him. Even as a child Margaret had had terrific migraine headaches, and she often dreamt of drowning in a rising sea of blood.

  Then I wrote, “I have considered the difference in the ambience at the Lighthouse, when I was a member of that family, and the ambience at the Mitchells’. We at the Lighthouse were more intense and inward, though we, too, were happy. Perhaps our inwardness came from the isolation from other people and from the exposure to the weather. When the value of that haven on the Island, of my aunt, uncle, and cousin sweeps over me, I wince, for I have failed at contact.”

  My letter to Margaret seemed heavier than I had intended, for my initial mood had been buoyant. Happy to make a new friend in Maria, I had vivaciously approached writing a letter to my old friend. But my mood had changed, with the thought of my losses, as though a cloud had passed over the sun.

  Indeed, a cloud had passed over the sun. I looked to the northeast and saw storm clouds on the horizon, moving swiftly inland. The color of the sky drained from blue to gray. A hard breeze rushed through the window and scattered my papers. Quickly, I put down the opposite window, except for an inch. Soon I partially closed all the windows. Still the air puffed in, fresh with excitement, and I saw a crack of lightning run vertical down the sky. I counted the seconds till the thunder and judged the storm about ten miles off. The cupola was topped with a lightning rod, though I would not linger long enough to risk being blinded again. But here was the advantage of an enclosed cupola: a safe seat for watching the approach of a storm, if not the storm itself. The whole sky above the ocean was a roiling gray mass, and the sea changed color to match it. It seemed to spread out at the same time that it blew shoreward. I picked up the telescope to have a last look, for that day.

  There she was! There at the far seam of gray water and gray sky, her white sails filled, running before the storm: the Pequod! “There she blows,” I yelled, as though my husband’s ship were a long-sought whale. But it is the happiest and most excited cry I know. My heart beat against my eyes. Yes, there she was. With a small twist, I fine-tuned the telescope. Unmistakably the Pequod, surely Ahab! The lightning blazed all the way down to the sea betwixt him and me, and I saw the three masts dancing with fire—St. Elmo’s fire—like three lit candles. Thus sailed home my fiery Ahab, in power and in glory! She rode deep, as I knew she would, well laden, not counting the three magic cheeses of golden ambergris.

  Could Ahab, with his glass, see me, or at least my little glass house? He would not look. His hand was surely upon the ivory tiller, but in his mind’s eye, he saw me. Let me die, if that was not true! My Ahab, my captain!

  Every second she plowed the high gray hills and the deeper gray troughs closer toward home. I could see the spray, white and feather-like, off her prow. How the shape of her filled me! I could not put down the glass. Her wooden sides, the decking, the masts, the sails—every part was bent to the proportion and shape that said Pequod, husband, home. How truly, how recklessly, she came.

  Surely there was no heart on the ship that did not unrestrainedly urge Ahab on toward home. Certainly Starbuck wanted every risk taken, and Stubb with his pipe clamped in his teeth was muttering encouragement. Even Daggoo, whose home lay on the other edge of the Atlantic, sympathetically caught the scent of home. “I smell meat,” I could hear him say to Tashtego. And the noble Tash longed for home, marred as it was by the history of his people; even Tash urged the storm-driven ship toward this place where once his fathers walked in pride and plenty.

  My heart left off excitement and went serene. I thought of my white bed, still almost bridal, and how in the hush and lamp glow of the room I would open my arms to my husband. There was peace. There was peace. But it gave way to a new anticipation, as though all the excited waves churned within.

  The Pequod came on and on, cutting across the waves. Dear Ahab used the energy of the storm to speed her home. He was glad for the storm! His outward demeanor would be calm, his face set and hatchetlike, but I knew, I alone knew, of the soft glowing within, of Ahab’s manly eagerness for home and hearth and wife. I heard his voice.

  CHAPTER 102: Ahab

  BLAST WINDS! and spank these sails as though they were the flanks of horses and could with mightier effort on their own part draw me faster, ever faster, to my wife, my child, my hearth, my home. Let the spirit of Ahab leave his body, hover behind the sails, spend itself with huffing! Why not? Is not the spirit naught but wind? How often have I wondered it! When breath leaves the body, is that all there is of life? Can breath itself become rarefied, float upward toward the heavens, and yet retain something of the deceased’s own character? Breath, life! let them both flee from me if soon I do not hold my Una, my One, in these two arms! And we three—we two—make one—there’s Unitarianism!

  AHAB: There’s Brant Point—Stubb! Stubb! Look yonder and ye see your twin in that stubby beacon.

  STUBB: I see it, Captain! My very image, had she but a pipe to clamp, and had she but teeth to clamp the smoking pipe, and nose to savor smoke, and face to support the nose, and body, and two short legs!

  AHAB: Don’t quibble, man. Shortness is all!

  STARBUCK: Well spoke. It’s shortness we want. Shortness of time, till home.

  I’ll speak no more to them. They’ll guess what’s in my heart. Starbuck, a married man, half knows. But they’re underlings, and I’ll keep them apart from Ahab. And who is not an underling in this world? For Ahab, only Una is equal. Only Una. Our child? I dare not count that chick till I hold him in my hand. We’ll have another downy one to companion him. How my loins leap toward it! Una shall be my underling this night. None wishes it more than she herself. She is my true bride. Agony, agony aches me. How left I with only that one dent in the marriage pillow?

  How is it but the one letter found me? The letter of the Annunciation, I call it. Not worn as some men might in a pocket across the heart, but stitched into a pocket of my own devising as near the loins as devising can devise.

  Ah, wind and waves, ah, worthy vessel—I am telling thee farewell. I go to my true wife now. Thou hast been but a mistress, a seducer who has led me away from the wholesome bread of home. Yet I thank thee, wind, waves, and vessel, for thy company.

  CHAPTER 103: From Cupola to Wharf

  HOW THE RAIN dashes these windows, obscures not only Pequod, sea, and wharf, but all outside, all obliterated in rushing gray rivulets down the glass. How smug I am—confident in my estimate of her speed. Ahab has but married another sailor boy in me! He waits for no pilot. I can leave cupola for wharf in five minutes, no sooner. I’ll wear men’s oilcloth—perhaps he will mistake me. No. Not that.

  But he thinks I have a babe to show him. Why have I not written otherwise? To have told him with such a space between us would have been crueler than this childless homecoming. Did I fear his stopping with some island maid? Not once. I do not know why, but it is his wife that my Ahab loves, and on her alone will he beget a darling child. We’ll have another. Every f
iber of my body tells me so. To want a child, to want the visitation of one’s husband—this day they are the same sweet ache.

  So, descend. Carefully.

  So, to the bedroom. Whiteness, purity.

  So, my arms into the oilcloth coat, my fingers brushing the coarse weave of its backing.

  So, the umbrella; I squeeze its narrow ribs, spiny within the furled cloth.

  So, storm, wet streets—I raise the canopy of umbrella—and to the wharf, and Ahab.

  THE WHARF MEN were making ready, all abustle with ropes, wheel-barrows, and wagons within the downpour. No sign of either Peleg or Bildad. But in the bustle, on the far end of the wharf, stood a figure who seemed the projection of myself. With her face turned toward the water, she stood wrapped in oilcloth, hers with a hood, and an umbrella spread over her head. How could it be that I myself was already there, waiting for the Pequod? I felt superfluous, redundant. I determined to approach myself. My heart beat fantastically, for how does one address such a usurper?

  “You, there!” I called.

  She turned, and the face was not my own. Mary Starbuck. As though to assert her own identity, she pushed back her hood, her head still protected by the umbrella, and I saw golden-haired Mary. Immediately, I felt ashamed, for not once had I made an effort to go out to ’Sconset to see her.

  “Una,” she said, “I’ve meant to come to see thee.”

  I laughed. “And I you. When did you sight the Pequod?”

  “An hour and a quarter ago. My neighbor brought me…”

  “You and Mr. Starbuck must come home with us to Heather’s Moor. We’ve room aplenty.” I thought of them together at the other end of the house, another couple reunited, the double of our bliss.

  With a sudden gust, the wind caught my umbrella and tore it out of my hands. It blew into the water and floated upside down. A wave swamped the fabric bowl, and the umbrella sank rapidly, the crook of the handle being the last part, leaning at an angle, that I saw. Open to the wild weather, my hair and head were instantly drenched and the rain ran inside my collar. With such wind, the Pequod would wait at the mouth of the harbor.

  “Come under my shelter,” Mary called. “Mr. Starbuck will be all eager to see our son. I must decline thy invitation.” The gray waves broke against the pilings, sometimes dashed our feet with spray.

  “Mary,” I said, as though we were intimate friends. “Captain Ahab does not know. Our baby died.” My teeth began to chatter with nervousness as well as cold.

  “Shall ye go back home, then? Ye be all ashiver. Shall I tell him for thee? Send him to thee at home?”

  One of the wharf men ran up with a new, very large, strong-ribbed umbrella. “Here’s another, Mrs. Captain.”

  “No,” I said to Mary. “No. He would weep to have no welcome.”

  The Pequod, half shrouded by mist and rain, hovered beyond the harbor. The anchor was released, the chains rattling. The ship itself seemed to shudder and beat as though it were a great, gray heart. To our surprise, an eager whaleboat from the Pequod lowered, Tashtego and Daggoo riding it down. Ahab leapt over the gunwale and slid the ropes, followed by Starbuck. Strong Tash, an eagle feather twirling atop his black hair, bowed his back in rowing and made the boat his arrow, and Daggoo pulled beside him.

  “Tell my husband I’ve taken chill,” I said. “Tell him I’m home. Tell him our babe is dead.” I bolted from the wharf. I ran like a child afraid of her father.

  Mary’s voice echoed behind me. “All will be rightly done,” she said, her voice chiming sweet as a small bell through the wind.

  I felt that I had deserted not only my husband but my better, braver self. If I climbed into bed and waited him there, he would find me almost as he left me on our wedding morning. Then, in the beating of my two feet I heard my mother’s words: Be brave.

  Be brave, be brave, be brave. My own feet spoke to me until I turned around and ran back to the wharf.

  I saw Ahab’s head and then his shoulders and chest come up over the edge of the wharf as he climbed the ladder. I ran for him as fast as I could, and by the time he stood at the head of the ladder, I was in his arms. Had he not been a strong, well-rooted man, the rush of my arrival would likely have carried us both backward into the water.

  He stood as unyielding as a cliff against the onslaught of the sea and held me steady.

  All movement ceased.

  Like a double-trunked tree, we stood rooted to the wharf—so rooted that Mr. Starbuck had Tash row to another ladder so that he might meet his Mary. When I heard her soft cry behind me, I knew that they, too, had come together. I turned my head and saw the two of them walk down the wharf, arm in arm, under her umbrella.

  Where my second umbrella had landed, I had no idea, and the rain streamed off both Ahab and me till finally he said, “Home.” Someone placed the umbrella in his flinty, reddish hand, and we, too, moved side by side. He steered us along, with an occasional fond glance down at me. I could not take my eyes from him. I wanted to stand, facing him, on his shoes, as children do when learning to dance.

  CHAPTER 104: Idyll

  WHEN WE GOT to our door, Mrs. Macy-Maynard emerged, saying, “For all it’s being June, I thought you’d like a bit of fire to dry you out.”

  My husband and I merely nodded. I could not speak to any but him, but I’m sure she felt our thanks. The parlor fire was the picture of home, and before it she had set the tea table. What? A second good fairy, vigilant and provident, had visited, for on the tea table were the judge’s creamy, thin Irish dishes, and dainties that all bespoke the goodness of home: hot, fragrant bread, cranberry and huckleberry jam, fine slices of beef, a pat of goat cheese, a small basket of Nantucket apples. But Ahab and I could not eat for a long time, for embracing one another.

  Those things that I had thought would be difficult to say were somehow said without effort. “Safe in the bosom of Abraham” I remembered my father singing once, but I was safe in the bosom of Ahab. I do not know where he learned his kindness—known to all as an unapproachable, moody, hard, and forbidding man, most of his life spent at sea. Now his face had the soft glow reflecting the hearth, not the demonic burning from the try-pots. When I asked him how he had learned his kindness, he replied, “At thy knee, Una,” as though he had been my child.

  Finally, we ate, and his appreciation of the food was very great. I was surprised that he seemed quite as charmed by the dishes as the judge had been. “Ye can almost see through it,” Ahab remarked, holding his teacup toward the fire. “How wondrous delicate.” Then he turned and looked long into my face. “Never till this moment, in my home, beside my dear wife, have I felt so strongly that there might be a God, and he might be good.”

  I kissed him again.

  “Thy lips are sweeter than the berry,” he said. Then he put his hands on my shoulders and held me at arm’s length. “My eyes need to drink thee in.”

  Gladly did I take his gaze, and gladly return it, too. My Ahab, healthy, comfortable, his soul a sweet glowing. Yet this image is linked to the next homecoming.

  OUR SON, Justice, is there, a boy of four. Ahab is carried through the street on a stretcher. The white whale has taken his leg. Half out of his mind with pain, he yet holds my hand while they carry him home. “It’s bleeding again,” Ahab says to me. He is wrapped round and round in blankets, for it is a mean October wind. He is like a cocoon on a stick. When we breach the door, Justice is holding Mrs. Maynard’s hand, afraid, but Ahab calls the boy to him, kisses him, and then says, “Aloft, aloft,” and they carry him up to our bedroom. No longer bridal white, but the patchwork is cozy as a Kentucky home, greens and reds of the Christmas season to come.

  Let not the nightmare come to me so soon!

  Let me spin instead the idyll of Ahab and Una, those summer months in Nantucket when he returned intact from his first voyage after our marriage! Let me sing of dinner parties and picnics. Let me remember our white chamber all lit with whale oil lamps, and the tiny cheerful fire in the grate. Goose dow
n and ironed linen. The fragrance of lavender. Ahab and Una joining as husband and wife.

  AT THE JUDGE’S BOARD, my husband and my friend Maria Mitchell honored each other with much courtesy and information, for Ahab was not lacking in lore of either stars or seas, both that which he had experienced and that he had found in books. Let me tell how Ahab gave the judge an enormous wooden trough, bought off Africa, for a fruit bowl. How he discoursed with the judge on the law systems of the Polynesians, and the ruin the well-meaning missionaries had wrought on that culture. Was there no subject on which Ahab could not discourse? No. All tastes and interests of others he cordially accepted. Let me tell how people stopped me on the street and asked if it was true: three caches of ambergris! How Ahab insisted that we accept the invitation of the Gardners, and how the old banker said, “Ahab, never have I seen anyone so improved by marriage!” And Ahab but chuckled in his throat, though I saw the fiery glance shoot from his eyes like a harpoon as soon as Mr. Gardner turned to admire Mrs. Coffin’s lace jabot.

  Afterward I asked Ahab if he felt himself much changed and if he liked such drawing-room discourse. “I think ye like it,” he answered. “And I will bridle up my tongue, or unleash it, in whatsoever way suits thy world.” But he seemed more himself when we had Captains Peleg and Bildad to dinner, with Aunt Charity.

  She told the tale of the letters and how she had had to pry them away from the caretaking captains, and Ahab laughed and said she was an angel of mercy as well as of charity. Old Bildad was so astonished by Ahab’s demeanor that he must have said a dozen times in the course of the evening, “Thou art changed, Ahab. Thou art changed.” Each utterance more dark than the one before.

  I would savor that first homecoming, be ever nourished by the idyll of that homecoming. For then it was that our marriage bed knew no limits, and I became pregnant with Justice. Together Ahab and I walked the moors and the meadows, and with sheep grazing in the distance we lay down among the violets and clover, the curly-cup gumweed, the heathers and heaths, on mosses and lichens, and studied the sailing clouds, took our bliss in the sunshine.