The Seal Wife - Kathryn Harrison [40]
“Is she, is she coming back?”
“I told you no.”
“Then is she here?”
“Here?”
“Is she here in Anchorage?”
“What for?”
“Is she—does she sing here?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Well. I do.”
“In that case, no.”
“But,” Bigelow says, “what if it was someone else who wanted to know?”
“She still wouldn’t be.”
Bigelow steps away from the counter and then back toward it, like a dog trying to clear a fence. “Can I see her?” he says.
“Can you what?”
“Can I see the—can I see your . . .?”
“See?”
“Could I talk with her?”
“She don’t talk.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. What I said. She. Don’t. Talk.”
“She sings.”
“Yes. But that’s all.”
Bigelow nods. “Would you, can I ask her name?” (Because no one knows it. “She doesn’t receive mail, so how would I?” the postmaster said.)
“You can ask,” Getz says.
“Would you tell me it?”
Getz looks at him. “What do you want it for?”
“To know. I want to know it, that’s all.”
“To write her a letter?”
“Yes!” Bigelow seizes the idea.
“No.”
“Listen,” Bigelow tries again. “I have something for her. She might—a thing she might enjoy.”
Getz smiles nastily. “What’s that?” he says.
“A gramophone. And some recordings. Of singing. Opera singing.”
“You want to give her a gramophone?”
“Yes. Well, no. Loan it to her.”
“She has one.” Getz smiles a small, triumphant, checkmate smile.
“Well, then the recordings. They’re—they’re quite good. You can’t get them here. Caruso.”
Getz snorts. “Caruso? Everyone’s got Caruso.”
“Well, then, Ruffo. Scotti. Eugenia Burzio.”
Getz shakes his head. “Get out,” he says. “I know what you’re after.”
THE KITE’S NOT EVEN a mile out when the reel malfunctions; the wire slips off the drum and tangles between two cogs. Bigelow sets the brake and considers the situation. It’s blowing hard, twenty-five or thirty miles an hour the way it’s pulling, the line angle no more than forty degrees, the kite suspended over the inlet, looking deceptively solid and terrestrial, motionless, a house built in midair. He tries stepping on the wire, just a few feet from where it comes off the reel, but it pulls out from under his boot and snaps straight up between his legs, making him jump and grab for his balls. Another inch, and that would have been that. Bigelow examines the place on his caribou work pants; the fur gone, the hide nearly cut through.
Aeolus. Favonius. Caurus. Once he knew all their names. Now he can remember only these three. The wind gods are laughing. Bigelow can hear them, gleeful and malicious.
With a double layer of gloves—rubber-lined, in case the wire has picked up atmospheric electricity—he tries to disengage the reel, but he doesn’t have the strength. He can’t readjust the wire on the drum without relieving the tension, and he can’t pull the kite back in without getting the line back on the drum. So he’ll have to cut the wire and then splice and crimp it after the reel is fixed, just what he wants to avoid, because it will never be as strong again. But what choice does he have?
His eyes watering from the wind, Bigelow tries to pull the kite in a few feet. He hangs on the wire, using gravity, his weight rather than his muscles, but the tension on the line is too high, he can’t get any purchase on its slippery metal surface, and he can’t wrap a loop around his gloved hand—one gust and he’d lose that hand. He’ll have to attach an auxiliary line to the launch platform, through an O-ring mounted there for just this sort of mishap. Then he’ll splice and crimp it to the kite wire before cutting the kite free from the reel. He turns to watch the way it sits, unmoving, in the air. The wind might slacken by nightfall, but what if it doesn’t? He can’t let it fly unsupervised, he can’t leave the bluff until he’s reeled it back in.
There are tools in the shed—a hatchet and a rasp, a hammer, spools of wire, nails, a saw and crimping pliers. Bigelow retrieves the shears and a length of wire, attaches the wire to the O-ring, and then goes to