turns out, beneath the microscope, to contain shells, miniature in size but magnificent in architecture, glorious spires and intricately incised whorls, cathedrals, each one smaller than a grain of rice. I can imagine him, after the wind turned (because it did turn, finally), drawing these, spending many hours on that long journey home hunched by a candle, separating out, with a pin, these tiny beauties from among the dross, then sketching, sketching. I have seen what he found there: entire cities, miniature worlds, ancient and beautiful catacombs, mysterious curving passages leading to who-knows-what-or-where, glimmering opalescent walls signposted with the runes and hieroglyphs of the sea. I imagine he sees, within their pale pink or golden or creamy white curves, curves softer yet: of a certain cheek, the nape of a neck, of the closed and slightly trembling lid of a downcast eye—
For her there is no solace. There will be no miracle, no chance sighting, no encounter with another vessel that has picked up
a ginger-bearded Frenchman, floating
. No matter how many days she spends at the rail, gazing at that empty blue mirror of a sea, she will never find him. She finds nothing but herself reflected there. Felix Girard is lost, as quick and as sure as her blue shawl would be lost, if she flung it upon the water. He will not be retrieved.
• • •
You see we have so much in common, she and I.
• • •
I turn my face away from what comes next, her loneliness, his obsession, attraction overcoming repulsion, the edging toward and away and toward again, the first touch, then the second, the loss in her, desire in him, that’s it: that they will be together is inevitable now. What else is there for her, after all? Rooms in Bury Place, dead things, and, down below, that vulture Petrook waiting, preening himself, sharpening his claws.
I wouldn’t do that to her. I’ve done enough already.
• • •
In the brightness of the day I can see there’s a hieroglyph outside my window, though I cannot read it: two halves of something brilliant that has been broken, and a gesture that says,
Carlotta, it’s time to go
.
II.
THE BIRDCAGE
It is hard to get in; harder yet to get out.
These are first two things my mother, orphaned now, cast ashore, learns about her new home in Whitby, on Bridge Street, above the River Esk. The house is called the Birdcage. Here it perches, above the river, here with my mother in it, the Birdcage, the narrow, whitewashed, pentagonal house where my parents begin their life together; the house with its two cramped, winding staircases, one designated for up, the other for down, since only with difficulty may two persons pass through either at once; with its thick stone walls and stubborn, low-jambed doors, none of which opens the first time—none willing—all must be pushed, pushed hard, with the shoulder, or, in my mother’s case, because she is slight, pushed with the whole of the body. They must be pushed twice, at least, those doors, if they are to yield; and when they yield at last they do it grudgingly, the wood grating against the uneven flagstone floor up to the final sticking point beyond which it will not move at all, the point at which even my mother, small as she is, must turn sideways in order to slip through, whether into the next room or out into the raw cobblestoned outdoors.
Hard to get in, harder yet to get out.
Like everything else in the house, the doors are swollen with the damp. Rusty of hinge. Disinclined. The house shudders above the river as if it would prefer to rise up and run; but, held fast, it receives, reluctantly, through its foundation, through its floors, its walls, its windows, the rush and suck of the tumbling Esk as it carries toward the sea a malodorous cargo of grease and gut, fin and bone, pulp and tar, bitumen and slag, night soil and glue: the runoff of the blubber works, the fishing fleet, the boatyard, the knacker’s
For her there is no solace. There will be no miracle, no chance sighting, no encounter with another vessel that has picked up
a ginger-bearded Frenchman, floating
. No matter how many days she spends at the rail, gazing at that empty blue mirror of a sea, she will never find him. She finds nothing but herself reflected there. Felix Girard is lost, as quick and as sure as her blue shawl would be lost, if she flung it upon the water. He will not be retrieved.
• • •
You see we have so much in common, she and I.
• • •
I turn my face away from what comes next, her loneliness, his obsession, attraction overcoming repulsion, the edging toward and away and toward again, the first touch, then the second, the loss in her, desire in him, that’s it: that they will be together is inevitable now. What else is there for her, after all? Rooms in Bury Place, dead things, and, down below, that vulture Petrook waiting, preening himself, sharpening his claws.
I wouldn’t do that to her. I’ve done enough already.
• • •
In the brightness of the day I can see there’s a hieroglyph outside my window, though I cannot read it: two halves of something brilliant that has been broken, and a gesture that says,
Carlotta, it’s time to go
.
II.
THE BIRDCAGE
It is hard to get in; harder yet to get out.
These are first two things my mother, orphaned now, cast ashore, learns about her new home in Whitby, on Bridge Street, above the River Esk. The house is called the Birdcage. Here it perches, above the river, here with my mother in it, the Birdcage, the narrow, whitewashed, pentagonal house where my parents begin their life together; the house with its two cramped, winding staircases, one designated for up, the other for down, since only with difficulty may two persons pass through either at once; with its thick stone walls and stubborn, low-jambed doors, none of which opens the first time—none willing—all must be pushed, pushed hard, with the shoulder, or, in my mother’s case, because she is slight, pushed with the whole of the body. They must be pushed twice, at least, those doors, if they are to yield; and when they yield at last they do it grudgingly, the wood grating against the uneven flagstone floor up to the final sticking point beyond which it will not move at all, the point at which even my mother, small as she is, must turn sideways in order to slip through, whether into the next room or out into the raw cobblestoned outdoors.
Hard to get in, harder yet to get out.
Like everything else in the house, the doors are swollen with the damp. Rusty of hinge. Disinclined. The house shudders above the river as if it would prefer to rise up and run; but, held fast, it receives, reluctantly, through its foundation, through its floors, its walls, its windows, the rush and suck of the tumbling Esk as it carries toward the sea a malodorous cargo of grease and gut, fin and bone, pulp and tar, bitumen and slag, night soil and glue: the runoff of the blubber works, the fishing fleet, the boatyard, the knacker’s
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