Monterey Bay (24 page)

“Is it time?” she asks.

“Sure is.”

By the time they get to the top of the tank, the other aquarists have already arrived.

The volume of water is outrageous, the drones of the chilling and heating units unearthly. There are glaring halogen lights overhead, just like the ones the squid boats use to draw their catch to the surface. It's endless and shimmering and spooky,
and she's hit with the urge to jump: an urge so strong, she has to remind herself she's too old to indulge in something so lamely symbolic. So she leans back from the railing. She cannot see what this water contains, and for a moment, there's a terrible suspicion.
Empty
, she tells herself, scanning the depths.
Completely empty.
But then she sees the familiar shape: a fish that doesn't resemble a fish so much as it does a massive severed head.

“I'm the
Mola
.
M-o-l-a, Mola
,” Arthur sings happily. “You know. Like the banjo player's song.”

She smiles at him and so do the other aquarists, who for the next minute or two do absolutely nothing. They just watch the fish's blunt circumnavigation, its rectangular dorsal and pelvic fins windshield-wiping through the water in awkward inverse. It moves behind the horizontal curtain of the water's surface very slowly, very carefully, an almost prehistoric stupidity in its eyes, an unshakable ignorance of its own place in the world and how that has or hasn't changed as a result of its captivity.

“All right,” Arthur announces. “Let's go.”

The aquarists spring into action. First, they usher the
Mola
out of the big tank and into a small outdoor holding tank via a gated underwater tunnel. Then, they drain the holding tank, a process that commands the better part of a half hour. When the water becomes too shallow for the
Mola
to remain vertical, one of the aquarists helps it flip onto its side and there is a brief murmur from the crowd, an expression of either recognition or
sympathy. The body of the fish is a massive disk, a gigantic communion wafer, fins moving gently and without any visible signs of panic or displeasure. Its upturned eye is a ping-pong ball, its skin a crust of white, its forehead heavy and round and, from a certain angle, reminiscent of the top half of a human profile.

Then, with a sound that reverberates beneath their feet, the pipes are sealed shut. Two aquarists clad in wet suits descend a retractable ladder, step into the water, and position themselves on either side of the fish. One of them guides the sling—an expanse of blue tarp within a ring of PVC tubing—into the holding tank and the
Mola
immediately complies, situating itself calmly, voluntarily, in the exact center of the sling's perfect circle. A measurement is taken. Two hundred seventy-five kilograms. More than six hundred pounds.

And when the helicopter appears, she lets out an audible gasp because it is, in fact, a surprise.

“The fellows at the Naval Postgraduate School were happy to arrange things,” Arthur explains. “Delighted, in fact.”

The vehicle slides over the rooftops and into full view. All faces are upturned now, the sound growing, the column of air above the deck shuddering, the helicopter commencing its descent with the impassive self-assurance of a prehistoric bird, alarming and efficient. The
Mola
, however, remains indifferent. It simply rolls its eyes, flaps its pectorals. A cable drops from the helicopter's belly. The cable is secured to the sling. The last aquarist, a young woman who has cared for this fish since the
beginning, makes her approach. She is holding a plastic bin in her hand. In the bin is a single prawn, a final offering that the
Mola
consumes with what seems like gratitude. When it is done eating, it spits some water from its lips: a sigh made visible in liquid form. Then it begins its labored, surreal ascent: a strange dot in a machine-loud sky, an insect in blue amber flying over the aquarium's roof and toward the mouth of the bay. Suddenly, some cold feet, some second thoughts, some of which she's certain the aquarists share. Say what you will about captivity—that it's involuntary and unnatural and inhumane—but at least it's cozy. Such awful things happening in the wild: sea lions approaching in a dark and swirling horde, tearing off fins and tossing them back and forth like Frisbees, not consuming what they remove but, rather, enjoying it on a level deeper and more necessary than food.

Either way, it's too late now. The sling hits the water. The
Mola
swims away. Tino rolls out a cooler full of beer, opens one, and hands it to her.

“To Margot,” he says, lifting his bottle in stone-faced tribute.

“To Margot,” the aquarists repeat.

She blushes and pretends to take a sip. How well she's taught them, she thinks, how much they've grown. Grown men and women, some of them with children of their own, children in the throes of familiar, formative tortures. Tonight, though, they just want a beer. A nice time. A chance to bid farewell to something they no longer have to care for. Tonight, the bay is vast
and the sky is even vaster, and if they're lucky, they'll go home and dream. They'll dream of swimming in a warm, small space. Of being blind to everything save light and dark. Of hearing someone else's heartbeat. Of breathing through a pair of tiny, fleeting gills: the same ones that, as bean-sized creatures in the aquariums of our mothers' wombs, we all once had.

Thanks to Julie Barer and The Book Group, for their vision and tirelessness; Ginny Smith and Penguin Press, for their faith and expertise; the Monterey Bay Aquarium, for letting me inside; Williams College and NYU, for not kicking me out; Joel Elmore, Matthew Flaming, and Abby Durden, for their talent; Jim Shepard, for his generosity; Allison Lorentzen, for opening doors; Heather Lazare, for her enthusiasm; Bill Priest, for convincing me I could get paid for this sort of thing; Christine Duncan and Fatima Chaves, for the time and space; the Benitez family, for their hospitality in the Philippines; George and Jacquie McClelland, for their patience and support; Brynn Hatton, for her artistry; Carol Hatton, for her immortal grace; Dave Hatton, for being the anti-Anders; Hazel and Agnes McClelland, for being my children; Geordie McClelland, for being my husband.

Small portions of this novel's text were adapted from or inspired
by the following sources:
Renaissance Man of Cannery Row: The Life and Letters of Edward W. Ricketts
, edited by Katharine A. Rodger, The University of Alabama Press, 2002;
Breaking Through: Essays, Journals and Travelogues of Edward F. Ricketts
, edited by Katharine A. Rodger, University of California Press, 2006;
Cannery Row
, John Steinbeck, The Viking Press, 1945;
A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer
, David C. Powell, University of California Press, 2001.

These sources were also indispensable to my research efforts:
Between Pacific Tides
, Edward F. Ricketts, Jack Calvin, and Joel W. Hedgpeth, Stanford University Press, 1939;
The Log from the Sea of Cortez
, John Steinbeck, The Viking Press, 1941;
Beyond the Outer Shores: The
Untold Odyssey of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist Who Inspired
John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell
, Eric Enno Tamm, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2004;
Shaping the Shoreline: Fisheries and Tourism on
the Monterey Coast
, Connie Y. Chiang, University of Washington Press, 2008;
Working Days: The Journals of “The Grapes of Wrath
,”
edited by Robert DeMott, Viking Penguin, 1989;
Beyond Cannery
Row: Sicilian Women, Immigration, and Community in Monterey, California, 1915–99
, Carol Lynn McKibben, University of Illinois Press, 2006;
The Death
and Life of Monterey Bay: A Story of Revival
, Stephen R. Palumbi and Carolyn Sotka, Island Press, 2011;
Storied
Land: Community and Memory in Monterey
, John Walton, University of California Press, 2001;
Octopus and Squid: The Soft Intelligence
, Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Philippe Diolé, Doubleday, 1973.

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