The Dolphin
Copyright© 2017 by Colin Barrett
Chapter 25
Maggie speaks to me differently. When I ask her about humans she is uncomfortable to answer sometimes before. It is not that she will not talk or speaks things that are not, but it seems to me sometimes she is not sure how to tell me.
Now she seems more easy in her speech. She tells me more without my asking, and I begin to understand better.
It is as I come to know, that humans live deep in a shadow of their own making. Little of their speech, and of their thinking, is to do with the now, much more is with their strange shadow.
But as Maggie speaks I begin to understand why this shadow is important to them, why it overtakes the now. She compares their lives to our own, and I see how it is that shadow must be a big part of living for them.
And Maggie asks of me how it is that we live, too, and I find that I do not understand that to explain it well to her, and that is not easy in me.
Because of what the new Mike says to me I ask her about what they call “country” and why it is important to them, and she says it is about leaders. Leader is very important for humans. I do not understand why. She asks is leader not important to us. I say it is important but we do not care who is leader, only who can do best and that one does only for that reason, but later she asks more and I think perhaps I am not sure. I ask Kitik about this.
“Of course leader is important,” he tells me. “All wish to be leader inside themselves.”
This surprises me much. I do not wish to be leader. I ask Kitik if he wishes to be leader.
“Yes,” he says. “If we were with the pod I would be leader after Altauk. And I wish this.”
“Why would you be leader?” I ask.
“I am stronger,” he tells me. “Mother”—he means my mother, who takes him together with me—”helps to make me so. You help to make me so. And this body that I have, it will not let me leap so high as you but in other ways it is more powerful than others’ bodies.”
I do not need to ask how he knows this. I see him in play with others in the pod. The males often play strong, they push each other to make their space around themselves and show their strength against each other. Even when Kitik is small he leads such play, and he is the most among the young males.
“Would you be good leader?” I ask him.
“Alone I do not know,” he says. “I see that I may not do all things well. In the time that I am taken”—it is the first he ever speaks of this—”I know that I do not do well. I become afraid and do not swim with sense. You have sense, you tell me what to do, but in my fear I do not do. I am taken and you are not, you must come to me later. In that I am not good leader.”
I do not wish that he feel this way; I come to rub against him as we swim.
“It is you that would make me good leader,” he says. “I do not listen to you then, but now I know better. If I hear you I can be good. I can be better than Altauk, who has not you by his side. Others will follow you in the hunt but not as leader, female cannot be leader because female must look to calves. But others will follow me, and if you help I can lead well.”
“But why do you want to be leader?” I ask. “Why does any want to be leader?”
“Leader is best,” he tells me. “With me, with you with me, all will eat well, make most joy, have best in the now. And all will look to me to know it is because of me that they have the best, and they will see me as leader to the best. That is a good way to feel.”
I never before speak to Kitik of such things, nor he to me. In a way what we say to each other is shadow, it is not the now of our life here. I think it is a shadow that is closer to the shadow of humans than I see before.
The humans’ shadow is very much deeper than what Kitik and I speak, and I know it is not the same. But I can begin to see that the difference between us is not so great as I believe before.
For the past several days the old man had spent most of the daylight hours in a lounge chair near where Maggie was working with Minacou. Each morning he would effortfully emerge from the lobby and take his position, and he rarely left before twilight. He never spoke; at times he seemed to doze, but Maggie noticed that he was often alert and seemingly attentive to her talks with the dolphin.
It was a little unusual; mostly tourists came to the Keys for the fishing, not merely to bask in the sun. But this one was too old and feeble, and his pallor too sickly, for fishing; he seemed content merely to sit and listen. Initially Maggie kept a careful eye on him—she’d been a bit paranoid about attentive strangers ever since Kitik had been shot—but she saw no threat and soon largely ignored him.
The subject of money, to which Minacou kept returning in their talks, had once again arisen. Maggie had still been unable to explain the multi-faceted role it plays in human affairs and even Jason hadn’t been able to help her; she was fumbling through yet another attempt when, for the first time, the old man spoke.
“Excuse me, miss?” His voice was surprisingly strong given his infirm appearance. She turned in surprise.
“I don’t wish to butt in, please tell me if you’d prefer that I not interrupt,” he continued apologetically.
His almost courtly demeanor disarmed her; she gave him a smile. “It’s quite all right,” she said gently. “What can I do for you?”
“Really not a thing,” he said. “But— do I understand correctly that you have established actual communication with this charming creature and are exchanging information about the different ways in which our disparate species live?”
She laughed. “I haven’t quite thought of it in those exact terms, but yes, that’s pretty much it.”
“How ... remarkable. Do you speak only with this one?”
“Yes, only Minacou right now. I’m hoping— but right now it’s just she.”
“And is she as intelligent as your conversations appear to indicate?” he persisted.
“I think so,” Maggie said. “I think they all are, really. But so far I’ve only been able to establish real communication with Minacou.” Reflexively she reached her hand into the water to stroke the dolphin’s snout.
“It is a serious interchange then,” the man said. “So it has seemed to me, and yet it’s so extraordinary that one may have such a dialogue with a creature I have heretofore considered to be only an animal that I’ve had difficulty assimilating what you’re doing.”
“It’s not easy,” Maggie told him. “Sometimes I wonder at it myself. It’s the first time ever, I think.”
“At another time I’d be fascinated to hear how you achieved this astonishing breakthrough,” he said. “But for now, and the reason that I spoke— You seemed to be having some difficulty explaining the human monetary system, am I correct?”
“‘Difficulty’ is putting it mildly,” Maggie admitted. “I’m making a mess of it. Do you have any ideas?”
“Well ... Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Hiram Hightower, an alliteration with which my parents cursed me long ago and which will be of little interest to you. But I am, or was before my retirement last year, a professor of economics whose job it was to teach that subject to a rather motley assembly of human students whose ignorance of it was often on a par with that of your dolphin—Minacou, is it?”
“Yes, Minacou. I’m happy to meet you, Dr. Hightower. I’m Margaret Russell, please call me Maggie, and my field is marine biology, and what I know about economics can be written in very large print on the head of a pin. Care to jump in?”
“Would you mind? If I’m intruding please rebuff me, but I could not resist offering my services for this very unusual student.”
“You’re not intruding at all. Frankly I need all the help I can get. Would you like to come over and sit with me?”
He shook his head. “I regret that I cannot sit easily on the ground,” he told her. “A recent illness ... but perhaps you could help me to move this very comfortable lounge a bit nearer?”
She was a little dismayed to see how difficult it was for him to stand, but once he was up she half lifted, half slid his chair over to the apron’s verge. He declined any assistance in walking with a gesture, but when he’d shuffled over to the new location he sat quickly and spent a little time carefully arranging himself.
“Let me introduce you first,” she said once he was settled. The dolphin had watched the move without comment. “Minacou, this is Hiram. He can tell you about money better than I. Hiram, this is my friend Minacou.”
“Hi-ram,” the animal repeated. “Two sound. You male, Hiram?”
“I am,” Hightower confirmed. “But why would you ask that?”
“Two sound, your name,” Minacou told him. “Is name of male us.”
“I see. Well, I am very pleased to meet you, Minacou. I have listened to your conversations with Maggie and it’s my pleasure to speak with you myself.”
“Will you tell me of money? I not understand. Maggie says money is food, but I think more than food.”
“Money is a symbol,” the old man began. “A symbol is a thing that has no meaning by itself, it has only the meaning that we give to it. We think and we say that it means this, and only because we think and we say that does it have that meaning. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Is shadow. In mind, not in now. You not need ask I understand each time, I say if I not.”
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