When Mrs. Agnelli coughed again, Margot could feel the sensation in her own lungs, her own throat.
“And there were women working alongside the men, running into the water to help the men bring in the net, all of them tanned and half-undressed and bareheaded. If you think it smells bad now, you don’t know the half of it. When they would split the squid and dry them on the rocks outside their village, it smelled like the world was coming to an end.”
Mrs. Agnelli paused for a moment and inhaled deeply, as if the smell were still present somewhere, still captured inside the warehouse walls.
“And your father—our dear, young Anders—would sit on China Point and watch them fish. When he wasn’t doing that, he would hang around the Hotel Del Monte. He couldn’t afford a room there, of course, but he would slip onto the grounds whenever he had a chance, pacing the gardens, pretending he belonged. One night, he even crept into the ballroom. Everyone was so happy and drunk they didn’t even notice the poor boy in their midst. He could have done anything he wanted. He could have eaten their food, sipped their wine, but all he wanted to do was confess himself. All he wanted to do was unburden his poor Methodist soul to the Chinese girl who, when she wasn’t busy gutting squid, was busy breaking his heart.”
“I was young,” her father insisted. “And very confused.”
“As was I, once upon a time. But now my name is on the biggest boats in the bay. I own a house ten times as large as the one I was raised in. So tell me: what could you possibly know of this place that I do not? What scheme of yours could prove half as successful as what I’ve already been able to accomplish? What sort of salvation do you plan to grant those of us who have already been saved?”
“I’m doing something I should have done far sooner.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Anders removed his eyeglasses. The air inside the warehouse seemed to spasm. The women shifted, the saint stared. Outside, a sea lion began to howl. When he started speaking again, his words were careful and slow and almost modest.
“It means I’m building an aquarium.”
The walk home was quiet and strained.
She stayed a few steps behind, allowing her father to seethe in peace. Every once in a while, a car would rattle past, headlights flickering as the wheels crunched across a patch of gravel. Otherwise, the only sound was of the ocean, the hiss of its tides growing fainter as they climbed, the sky a rolling swath of green and black. At certain points, it felt as though they were being followed, but she couldn’t tell for sure.
When they returned to the house, Anders retreated to the kitchen and Margot followed. She watched him from the doorway, hoping the additional confessions would pour forth of their own accord. He was already thumbing through his files, though, already consumed by his work.
“Why are you—”
“Where’s my pencil?”
She removed her own pencil from her satchel and handed it to him. He instantly began to scribble something on the nearest sheet of paper, his handwriting illegible.
“I didn’t realize—”
“Please, Margot. Not now.”
Heart racing, she went to the cabinet, withdrew a frying pan, and set it on the stove. Then she opened the icebox and desperately scanned it for something to cook, but it was empty.
“Not now!”
She turned to look at him. His eyes were small and red.
“What can I do?” she asked.
“Leave. And don’t come back until I’m asleep.”
Outside, Tino was sitting on the porch, chin cupped in his hands.
“Were you following us?” she asked.
“An aquarium,” he mused. “That’s wonderful.”
And how could she possibly respond without sounding foolish? How could she possibly tell him there was a part of her that had known it since the beginning? Not the conscious, striving part, but the part that refused to be taught. The part of her that, upon entering Ricketts’s lab for the very first time, honestly believed it had already occurred and that she had been taken captive alongside the fish.
“The new drawings,” she replied instead. “The dirty ones. Who bought them?”
“The brothel.”
“The one on the Row?”
“No. The one on Washington Street.”
“In Chinatown?”
“That’s right. They give them to the customers on their way out. Like souvenirs.”
“I can’t work with you anymore.”
When he winced and rubbed his neck, she was glad of it. Someone else was in pain now, not just her.
“But it’s so much money.”
“I can’t.”
“You’ll proceed on your own, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can I make a suggestion?”
She shrugged.
“Get a camera,” he said. “Sell the real thing.”