I HEAR THE MERMAIDS SINGING
Nancy Holder
Don’t panic, you stupid bitch. Just write it all down and get it out.
They won’t find this; they won’t ever know you still hear the songs. You’ve conned them this long. What’s to make them grow some brains now?
But so what if they do figure it out? What have you got to look forward to out here, you stupid, crazy loser? What the fuck is the big allure, these wide-open spaces they call the world?
Wide open spaces, ha! Tell me, girlfriend. Tell me about that wide-open space of yours, got you into all this shit in the first place. It was because you wanted that boy, and …
No. No, it went another way. Please, it happened the way you,
the way you,
you dreamed it all.
You dreamed it all. That’s it, period, the end. I wish I could tell you different, hon, but just like on Dallas, it was all a dream. You know, the way you go off sometimes, like that girl in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden; you just zone out, and then
you hear the voices singing,
and you hear them sing you a story:
This, my life:
Once upon a time, I am the most precious of the Sea King’s seven daughters, fondled and dandled, and loved by all. I rule gentle Pacificus for my father, and I am kind and generous.
I am the most treasured, the most beautiful. My tail sparkles and gleams, my hair undulates like sunbeam shafts through the water. My skin is pale and rosy as a pearl. And I live in the most splendid of the seven seas, wonder upon wonder: brilliant Garibaldis and purple sawfish laze and bob; anemone carpets of orange, pink, and yellow spread beneath me as I drift, combing my hair; castles of red coral dot my domain, and majestic jade-green kelp forests, towering in the currents, mark my borders. Elaborate curtains of sponges and starfish adorn my bower, and sea treasure and luxury surrounds me. Seahorses cuddle me; maidens attend me. Young lords come in great haste at my call.
Everything I can possibly want.
And when I am fifteen, I rise to the surface, as is my right, and come into the other world for the first time. The first gasp of air terrifies me, but quickly I get my bearings. New smells enfold me: oranges, pineapples, sandalwood.
And the first sight fascinates me. It is a ship, sailing upon the dark waves! Long and gray, laden with boxes. A freighter, carrying goods to other lands.
Oh, ship, oh, wondrous object! And then sharp flashes of lightning crack open the sky, and thunder’s rumblings shoot across the waves. Water cascades from above—rain, it is rain!—and the bulging ocean tosses the ship like a bauble in its hand.
I am exhilarated. And I sing of its fierce magnificence, this world above, this angel-world. I strain to see men on the ship, for I know there must be some. Those who dwell here possess something called souls, something that allows them to live on, and on, though we of the water live for three hundred years before our bodies break upon the foam. What must it be like, immortality? To live for a hundred thousand storms, a million infinite songs?
The ship sails on, and I sing of its safety. It disappears, and so do I, back into my perfect kingdom.
But I think the whole night of the world I have caught but a glimpse of, and I am preoccupied all the next day. I do not hear the pleadings of my courtiers for my attentions; and the justice I dispense in my court is hasty and arbitrary. I hear sad songs in the spire and halls of my palace, lamenting my unfairness, and I determine to set all to rights on the morrow.
Yet the night was made for the upper world, and I rise again.
The sky is dark, and the round orb they call Moon glows like … like me. Beyond, a beach shimmers silver; and lush treetops wave in zephyr breezes. Enchanted, I swim closer. I hear laughter, and I sing of it. I sing of the joy of these angel-people, who walk and live forever.
I long to see one of them. Down below, I have seen only their dead shells—for I assume they must shed their forms and seek new ones, as the hermit crabs do; else how can they live forever? I want to see one move and walk. I want to touch one of them.
I am bewitched by the thought of meeting one of them.
And then, as if by magic, the moon shines on a glorious, sinewy man, riding a flat chariot over the waves. Each muscle of his brown body gleams in the magic light; his hair is long and blue-black and flies behind him like a tail. His legs are spread wide, and I am mesmerized by them. I swim toward him, singing a greeting.
He shouts in reply, “Cowabunga!” and I sing to him. I sing of cowabunga, hello; and as I gaze at him, my body hungers. I have only known this hunger for my father and my sisters, as we swim and stroke each other. My father has coupled with all my sisters, producing offspring; when I turn sixteen, he will couple with me.
But now I think of coupling with the legged man, though I can’t imagine how. And I sing to him of my sexual desire, of my lust for his strange, exciting body. I sing and sing, and he shouts “Cowabunga!” in reply.
Then, like the night before, a storm churns the sea into a bombastic symphony. The young god falters on his chariot and tumbles into the sea. I have seen him do this several times before, and he has always recovered and swum to the beach. But now the chariot smacks his head as he surfaces, and his head sinks below the waves.
For a moment I do nothing, because I assume he will simply shed his shell if he is in danger. But something inside me tugs hard and tells me to go to him and carry him to the beach myself, though my father has expressly forbidden us to go near it. I ignore the feeling and sing to him of waking and swimming, but still he remains beneath the waves.
My eyes hurt. As you know, we of the sea cannot make the teardrops the angel-people do. For a moment I ponder that, wondering if that is the secret of their immortality, but my eyes hurt worse, pounding, and I find myself darting through the wild waves toward the spot I saw him last.
I find a shadow in the black water—we can see, even in the dark—and I put my arms around his chest and start for the surface.
And I cannot stop touching him, everywhere, as he lies limp in my arms. I kiss the back of his head, I nip it gently. I want to open for him, but I don’t understand where his parts are. I don’t know, but I’m shaking for him. The sea foams and boils around us and I nearly lose hold of him in my rapture, the rapture that is the deep. I sing of it, I sing of my need for him, my unfathomable yearning. I want the man. I want to couple with him.
The moon shines on his face as I reach the breakers and push him onto the sand. Mixed with my desire is a thrill of terror: If I beach myself I am doomed.
I stare at him, willing him to open his eyes. He lies inert. I run my hands over his body, and I find a hard, stiff shaft between his legs, and I smile: They are not so different, after all.
As I have done for my father, I do for him. I take him into my mouth and suck, for it gives intense pleasure. I suck harder, harder, though the flesh around his shaft is loose. Then I remember the stories of their clothes and realize he iswearing some, and in my haste I rip them off his body, tearing them into pieces that are caught by the waves and carried out to sea like so many little jellyfish.
He is marvelous and thick. He is red and pink and he bobs in my mouth.
And he begins to gasp and sigh and move. He holds onto my head and pushes. He says, “Wha … wha … and then he releases his hot stream into me.
Cowabunga, little mermaid. Cowabunga, angel-god of the flat chariot. Ah, a surfboard. Yes, of course.
He begins to awaken, and I lose my nerve. My father has told me all my life I must have nothing to do with this world, and I am his favorite, most treasured daughter. So I leave.
But I am ruined now, for the sea. I pine for him, for my legged man. I cannot endure without him.
I must couple with him.
I caress my tail; I find my opening and slide my fingers into it. It would not work, he and I. It would not be possible.
But it must be possible. I must make it possible. Without him, my body will dissolve on the foam and I shall become nothing.
Though I say nothing of my dilemma, my sisters strive to comfort me. They touch me and kiss me. My father takes me in his arms and squeezes my breasts as I love him to do. They gather round me, all my family, and I am the most loved, the most adored.
And yet, I am wretched.
I rise night after night to the surface. Sometimes he is there, and sometimes he is not. And he sings that he misses me, too: Cowabunga, cowabunga.
Cowabunga, little mermaid.
I begin to fade away, and my father grows worried. My sisters sing for my recovery from whatever strange illness has befallen me. Dolphins serenade me. The whales chant healing melodies. Even the smallest of snails hum and whistle to soothe me.
And I know I must do something, and do it soon.
Though my father would die if he knew, I go to the sea witch.
Vile is she, with fangs longer than any viperfish; and her bleeding eyes bob on stalks; she is covered with barnacles and pieces of black swallowers; she is an abomination.
She is my last hope.
Pieces of black swallowers, and the bones of dead angelmen, poisonous plants, and puffer fish. Horrible toxins she has found in leaking drums, dropped by the upper world. She mixes these up and tells me to drink when I reach the surface. She tells me to drink and that she will take my voice in payment.
My voice!
“Your life as a walker will be a living nightmare,” she promises me as she hands me the bottle. “Death and madness are your answers there.”
And I think of nothing but the dark-haired man, thrusting his shaft into me.
The bottle burns my hand as I carry it to the surface; the water bubbles, and blisters rise on my palm. I bite my lip and swim quickly, but I am wondering: What will it be like to swallow such a thing?
And I rise to the world of the air and the night, and I see the glorious beauty of the man, and I swim as close to him as I dare. I uncap the bottle and sing to him one last time, oh, cowabunga, and then I drink:
Lava slides down my throat. Burning it away, burning all away, my voice, my beautiful voice; all my songs, a bonfire in my throat. A conflagration, a holocaust.
In the morning, I awaken. And he is kneeling over me, and I cannot understand a word he is saying.
My life:
I still don’t remember who I am, just some weird chick who tried to kill herself, got drunk, and nearly drowned.
He found me, gave me CPR. When I woke up, his mouth was pressed over mine and his breath thrust through my lungs, hot and humid. I had a strange thought: Now his soulis in me; now I’m immortal—which now I understand is tied up with all that stuff that got me in trouble in the first place.
My hand was wrapped so tightly around the Scotch bottle he almost had to break my fingers to get me to let go of it. We kept the Scotch bottle as a souvenir, and it was the first thing besides his fists that he hit me with.
Keep writing, girl. Keep going. You know you gotta get it out. But god, now you have to remember what a stupid bitch you are. You have to remember all that … that other stuff is a bunch of whacked-out bullshit
that you still believe,
that you still relive.
And you hear songs.
And you hear …
shit. You hear jack shit.
I’m glad for what happened. Don’t get me wrong; we had some good times. Jesus, our sex was incredible. I never could get enough, and for a while, that was all we needed. I guess he got turned on by how weird it all was: Here was this young chick, couldn’t talk, wanted it all the time. He felt like some big hero, taking me in. Found me some clothes of his sister’s, took me to live with him in the little apartment he rented on the beach.
Yeah, it was great at first, and sex was enough. But I couldn’t do anything. It was like I’d never seen a kitchen before. I wasn’t steady on my feet, even. He was worried about that, thought I was a heroin addict or something. The way I shook and moaned. I told him with gestures that it was my legs, and he tried to laugh it off by showing me his surfer’s knees. Knobby beyond belief. But I never went into severe withdrawal or anything, and I had that freckled, turned-up nose and those perky tits, and the tightest little snatch he’d ever had—he told me that a million times. It was good, living with Bobby. Yes, his name. Bobby.
Then I got knocked up. He totally freaked. Wanted me to have an abortion. No way. No way on earth; and I finally realized he didn’t love me, not the way I loved him, or he’dbe jazzed. I was so mad. I was so hurt. I had given up … I knew I had given up something for him. And I was just a piece of tail to him.
I think he was hoping I’d move out, but I kept hoping he’d fall in love with me. He started drinking, and going out, and then he didn’t come home until morning, still drunk.
“Don’t stare at me with those eyes!” he would scream at me, and then he began to knock me around.
You’d think I’d tell him to fuck off and leave, but where could I go? I didn’t even know where I was. Or who I was. And I had this despair inside me. This overwhelming sorrow, that grew stronger and stronger the angrier Bobby got with me. The more he regretted being with me.
Fish out of water, I told myself. That was what I was. A misfit. A freak. I deserved his fists, cuz I was such a drag. I was a burden. I was useless. It made sense that he lost his patience with me.
I was going down, really drowning. I started wandering down on the beach, staggering around for hours on end. My legs hurt worse and worse; I didn’t know why, but I thought it had something to do with the baby. Just wandering up and down, all day, falling into the sand over and over, crying. People thought I’d gone out of my mind.
And then one day I found a knife on the beach. It was stuck in the sand and the sun caught it just so, danced off it. I pulled it out and stared at it, with tears running down my cheeks. My eyes burned in the bright light; they always hurt when I cry.
I thought, I’ll just kill the fucker. I’ll fucking kill him.
We went to a surfing tournament, and he did things like imitate the way I walked and squeeze my tits in front of the other couples, and all I could do was stare at him with tears running down my cheeks. Some of the other surfer chicks came over to me while he was in the waves and said, “Christ, Annie (everyone calls me Annie), why the hell do you put up with that crap?”
I couldn’t talk, which was just as well. I had nothing to say.
Bobby won the tournament. There was a lot of partying to celebrate. He won some money, too. He drank more and more, and then he fucked me, hard, and I was scared about the baby. That it might get hurt. I thought of it, swimming around in its peaceful ocean, not knowing how ugly the world is. The sea, the sea, the beautiful, cowabunga sea, and it was going to have to come out and walk on the land with the two of us.
What if Bobby hit the baby?
I had packed the knife in my suitcase. I had pretended not to notice when I slipped it under the beach towels, as if it were some kind of accident; it was like someone was talking to me in my head: Do it, do it, do it. I thought about how I must have had a mother, and a father, and maybe brothers or sisters; how something really awful must have happened, since I didn’t remember them. I dreamed sometimes that my father raped me, or my brother, or my mother abused me. But none of that felt right.
But then again, nothing in my life felt particularly right.
Anyway, Bobby got drunk. He sat facing me in our motel room with a bottle of Jack Daniels in his lap, and a strange smile on his face, and for some reason I was more afraid than I’d ever been before. Something was in the air, something sharp and dangerous and slashing. The air was too cold, and inside the sound of the surf, I thought I heard
singing: Whales gray and kind; or dark-nosed dolphins; or
people; or
one person, one very special man.
Bobby said, “Whatcha looking at, you retard?” I shrank from him. I thought about the knife. My heart pounded. My body was dry as dust, and my skin prickled. My legs ached.
Jesus, they ached.
“I’m going out.” He lurched to his feet. “And when I get back, Annie, you better be gone.”
I stared at him. His face changed. He swore at me, came at me, hit me. Sliced my cheek open. “Goddamnit, I don’t want that kid!” he shouted, and slugged me in the stomach. “I want you gone!”
I doubled over, my hands over my head. I wanted to ask, Did you never love me? Isn’t there something about me worth caring about and sacrificing for?
Did I mention before that Bobby was only seventeen?
My legs couldn’t hold me up, and I collapsed. He turned his back and walked out. My heart dissolved inside my body and I breathed out, in, long and slow, like it was new to me. I felt as if I were floating, looking down through water at what was happening. For a second, I thought I was going to rise up out of the motel room and fly over the ocean. I thought I was fucking dying.
I was so scared, I ran after him. I know, it’s hard to believe: Here he had just beat me up and I was chasing him for more.
But I took the knife.
The waves were racing up the cliff near the motel, just soaring like a typhoon or a tidal wave or something. I had never seen surf like that, and it was violent and terrifying, but somehow it was wonderful, too. The moon was out and I let out a sob, almost a noise, as I looked up at it. The knife was too long to put in my purse, or a pocket; I had to carry it at my side. There was no hiding it.
I had the strongest compulsion to cut my legs; or maybe it was to cut one of them off. Like they were growths, and something wrong. Like they didn’t belong to me, the way I didn’t belong to anybody.
The baby. I could never let him hurt the baby.
But I added that in later; I remembered thinking that later. I was running after him, not from him.
The waves crashed on top of the cliff and they roared like sea monsters. Even at a distance, spray slapped my face. It was the end of the world, I thought, mine and everybody’s. It was all over.
I ran toward it. I ran as fast as I could, even though white-hot pains shot up my legs and into my heart. Throbbed in my throat. Scalding, blinding pain coursed right through me and grew as I got nearer and nearer.
And then I saw Bobby, standing on the edge of the cliff with his arms outstretched, laughing. His head thrown back, wild and free, his hair streaming behind him like a tail; he was brown and handsome, and even then, I wanted him.
He shouted something, like a dare. He laughed again and began to sing, but I couldn’t make out the tune. The waves crashed over him and he staggered backward.
I came closer. The water pelted me like stones. Angry ocean, I thought. Angry at him, angry at me.
Another wave dropped over him. I couldn’t see him. I kept running. And I thought, Oh, God, when I reach him, I’m going to stick this knife into him.
I ran. I ran hard. I was going to do it. I would do it.
Another wave. He turned around and saw me. The laughter died. He screamed at me, “Freak! You fucking freak!”
And I was going to do it. I was going to really do it.
And then I heard the singing:
Beloved, beloved,
most treasured.
The littlest princess,
the littlest mermaid,
the joy of the seas,
the father’s lost darling.
I heard it. I know I heard it. I heard it.
And the wave took him, just reached out with a watery embrace and yanked him off that cliff and pulled him into the water and
your voice moved the world and you screamed.
No, that’s what you think when you’re crazy. That’s what you dreamed.
You pushed him. You know you did, and they knew it, but your lawyers were cagey and got you off as a nutcase. With your scratchy, pathetic voice, and those sad, kick-me eyes, the jury pitied you and let you off, into a barred, safe place full of therapy sessions and medication. The baby was a miscarriage. You were knocked out when they took it, but they promised you it was for the best and looked away when they said it.
Years of medication. And talking, talking, with a new voice. But there was a man in that wave, a powerful man with streaming gray hair and a long gray beard and a crown. There was a man, and he grabbed Bobby.
You stupid lying bitch. There was no man. There was not.
I’m better now. I don’t need this shit. I’m better now, and I don’t, won’t, hear that singing anymore.
This, my life, once upon a time
no, goddamnit, no.
And now I’ll wad these pages up and stick them in that goddamned Scotch bottle, and no one will ever find them cuz they’ll sink like a stone.
Like a dead man.
Like Bobby—never found his body. Shed it. Found a new woman to live inside, hermit crab.
And I don’t know why I’m writing this, except I feel so sick inside; I feel like I can’t breathe and I’m drying up. Shriveling into nothingness, and I really wish someone would really help me. Because I am a crazy bitch, and no one on this earth wants me.
And now I’m standing on the cliff where I pushed Bobby, and throwing this bottle out to sea, cuz I can’t get that damned singing out of my head. I hear it all the time, and it makes me dream. I hate dreaming. I know what the world is: hard, and mean, and ugly. You’re a hungry puppy and it’s the boot connecting with your stomach.
And the hunger’s for something you can’t name, anyway.
And the name of the tune is:
For a day and an hour, the bottle bobs upon the waters. Then it sinks down slowly, slowly, like a pearl in liquid gold, drifting into the outstretched grasp of the Sea King. He cracks it open like an oyster, extracting the morsel within. Reads quickly, as the ink begins to run.
Then he flashes to the surface and screams for his daughter. But she is already walking away.
Tears course down his cheeks, and while it is true that merfolk cannot cry, the laws of fatherhood transcend the laws of nature.
In the ocean blue, home of the little mermaid, sea fantasy and sea dream; aqua, purple, pacific, and serene.
“This, for a boy?” he wails to the cliffs, the waves. “This, for lust?”
And he dives back into the depths, back to his throne and his six beautiful, naked daughters and their sunken Grecian temples, and pulverizes with his fists the bones of the boy who ruined his daughter and drove her mad; pounds the bones, and no heart! No soul!
Pounds the bones, and the ashes
of the beauty of the sea.
I hear the mermaids singing, each to each,
I do not think that they will sing to me.
—T. S. Eliot