The unveiling, p.1
The Unveiling, page 1
THE
UNVEILING
Also by Quan Barry
Fiction
When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East
We Ride Upon Sticks
She Weeps Each Time You’re Born
Poetry
Auction
Loose Strife
Water Puppets
Controvertibles
Asylum
Plays
The Mytilenean Debate
THE
UNVEILING
A NOVEL
QUAN BARRY
Grove Press
New York
Copyright © 2025 by Quan Barry
Map © 2025 by Keith Chaffer
Jacket design by Kelly Blair
Jacket artwork imagery © shutterstock
Image on page 181: University of Virginia Special Collections
“WAR PIGS.” Words and Music by Frank Iommi, John Osbourne, William Ward, and Terence Butler. (c) Copyright 1970 (Renewed) and 1974 (Renewed) Westminster Music Ltd., London, England. TRO - Essex Music International, Inc., New York, controls all publication rights for the USA and Canada. International Copyright Secured Made in USA. All Rights Reserved Including Public Performance For Profit. Used by Permission.
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For my parents
who chose me
The Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world—a world which yields him no self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
—W.E.B. Du Bois
CHRISTMAS EVE
Finally the lot of them were assembled in the zodiac, their kayaks and gear loaded onto two support boats. Like eggs, Striker thought, a baker’s dozen. Instantly she could hear Riley’s retort. You better hope one of you ain’t cracked.
A passenger was waving at them from one of the upper decks. Since coming through the Drake Passage, the man and his foot-long telephoto had become a fixture near the bridge, the man a birder from New England and on the hunt for some rare Antarctic tern. It seemed like a pointless way to spend your days, but whatever. Striker’s last male friend had been a part-time paparazzo, so who was she to judge?
The birder trained his lens on the group. “Look up here!” he shouted.
“Say ‘waiver,’” said Percy, and the adults laughed. “This’ll be the photo we give the search party,” the guide quipped, but only a handful of them laughed this time.
Striker felt her neck burning as if someone were pointing a magnifying glass at her. She turned around. But of course! There was that creepy little kid sitting at the back of the boat, nestled in among her dads. The kid was watching Striker, her eyes dark spear points. From what Striker had picked up in passing, Lucy was about seven, maybe eight, a small nine tops. While boarding the Yegorov, her scrum of dads let slip that they’d decided to take this trip anyway, even after their Eastern European nanny, who spoke the consonant-crazy language of Lucy’s native country, got called home to visit a sick relative for the holidays.
“We offered to double her pay,” said the youngest of the dads after Lucy knocked over a whole row of suitcases domino-style, “but money ain’t what it used to be.” The guy couldn’t shut up about it, regaling anyone who would listen with the tale of how three years ago Frank and Hector had adopted Lucy from an orphanage in one of the former Soviet republics. Then six months ago, Frank had divorced Hector and married Abbott though Hector was still very much in the picture. “We think she has autism,” the dad whisper-yelled by way of explanation as the suitcases toppled over. Sorry!
Ten minutes before boarding the zodiac for the kayak outing, Striker had the misfortune of running into Lucy alone by the stairs to the launch platform as the kid stood waiting for the rest of the group to suit up. It was like meeting a child in a horror movie. The way those children stare long and hard without blinking, an eerie innocence blanketing their faces.
Striker couldn’t recall which former republic had spawned the child, the kid the very definition of ethnically ambiguous, her skin a toasted brown, her softly almond eyes reminiscent of the Eastern steppes. The little girl reminded her of that actor who played Pharaoh in The Ten Commandments, his ever-shifting claims to Mongolian, Russian, French ancestry. Like him, the kid could pass as native on practically any continent. Well, any one except this.
“Lucy, right?” Striker said. She tried to dial up the casualness in her voice. The child simply gaped, her face frozen. Striker found herself scrambling for something to say. Usually she was okay with awkward silences. Watching people squirm could be fun. But this was a whole new level of unease. The feeling as if earwigs were exploring the surface of her body, searching for a way in. “Happy early birthday. Mine’s tomorrow too,” she’d finally managed to squeeze out. “You ready to rumble?”
It wasn’t the kind of thing one usually said to a small child, but so what? When Striker was a kid, she’d hungered for the moments when adults spoke to her as if she were one of them. Each time it happened, she felt she’d been gifted with a glimpse into the inner sanctum.
“Ready to rumble ready to rumble,” said Lucy. The little girl remained immobile, a kind of recording device, her eyes full of seeing but no one was home.
Striker realized something was seriously off. “I’m Striker,” she said, recovering her composure. “Nice to meet you.” It was a strategy she’d perfected on the streets of New York. When talking to someone whose electrical box had blown a fuse, just act normal.
“I’m Striker I’m Striker,” said the little girl.
Striker nodded, happy to play along. “Have a nice day, kid,” she said. Already she was turning toward the stairs down to the zodiac, eager to make her exit.
Lucy continued to stare, her dark eyes fiery. “I’m Striker,” the child said one last time. The way she emphasized the pronoun. Her voice down a full octave. “Have a nice death.”
Striker blinked hard, trying to clear her vision. She hadn’t made a mistake. The thing had been hiding under the little girl’s ponytail, but now it crawled out from behind the child’s curtain of dark hair. The kid remained nonplused. She stood softly stroking it, glaring at Striker as if daring her to mention it.
Sitting upright on the little girl’s shoulder was a full-grown rat like something out of a New York City sewer.
People are going ham over their emotional support animals, Striker thought. Didn’t somebody recently try to board a plane with a peacock? This had to be what this was, right? Some flea-infested emotional support animal her dads had managed to smuggle onboard. Technically we’re in international waters, she concluded. I guess anything goes.
Then something landed on Striker’s shoulder.
Startled, she dropped her paddle. The oar clattering at her feet. She couldn’t turn around fast enough.
A pair of eyes were sizing her up. Take a picture, she thought, it’ll last longer. She might be the only one onboard, but geez.
She was standing face-to-face with one of the dads.
At first the man seemed frazzled, exasperated at having to go in search of his child, who once again wasn’t where she was supposed to be. But once he saw Striker, he began to act all friendly-like. White people acting friendly made Striker anything but. The appearance of the dad sobered her up, for the moment the child’s alarming pronouncement forgotten. She was about to nudge the kid in the ribs and say something snarky that showed her age, like “Look out, here comes Wrangler,” but Lucy had already disappeared.
Striker scowled a t the man’s hand still locked on her shoulder. Gently he patted her arm before letting go, apparently proving he was one of the good guys. His kid had given him the slip yet again, but Striker could tell he had decided to make the most of this encounter.
“Any chance you were just talking to my daughter?” he asked.
Up close the man looked faintly brown but in a different way than his child. Striker couldn’t tell if it was genetic or the result of a booth. Knowing her luck it was genetic, the man scoping out possible onboard allies in case something went down. They both knew the score. Excluding housekeeping, it was a boatful of white people and her and this guy plus his antisocial kid. It was a smart move on his part. Striker took another look just to be sure. Yeah, the dude was brown all right but probably not brown enough to keep a running tally. She sure as hell did. Every room, every plane, every restaurant and bar, every nook and cranny, Striker forever sailing in and taking inventory. It was crazy. In a few decades, the country would be a rainbow majority, yet there were still entire swaths of life where hers was the only brown face not pushing a broom. She always wondered if the other people in whatever theater or museum or airport lounge even noticed that the folks manning the Hudson News kiosk looked nothing like them. Recently it seemed like every few weeks some Dick and Jane would tell her a story about the time they’d been the only white people at Sylvia’s up on Malcolm X and how alive it made them feel, Dick and Jane beyond grateful for the chance to finally experience being in the minority even if it only lasted until a tour bus pulled up out front. Tales of white life in the urban jungle always left Striker fighting the urge to twirl her finger in the air and whistle. Whoop-de-doo.
She bent over and picked up her paddle. Any time she was around parents and children who didn’t racially match, a tightness stormed in her stomach. Good luck, kid, she’d always think. You’re gonna need it.
“I wouldn’t call it talking,” she said, hoping it would end there. “Clam lips on that one.”
“Her other dads think she’s on the spectrum,” the man sighed. “I dunno. Could be some form of attachment syndrome. We don’t really know how much time she spent in the orphanage.”
Whoa, Striker thought. I have a two-drink minimum if you want me to listen to your life story. She didn’t stick around to hear more. White people and people who were light enough to pass had a way of floating through the world in search of alliances. Unfortunately for this guy, Striker preferred going it alone.
She knew Riley would understand. It was why they were besties. Being ally-less had its benefits. It meant you didn’t have to make war on anyone if someone attacked Japan. We are the very dictionary definition of resilient, Riley would say. White people need to back the fuck up and stop pushing that ally shit on us just because it makes them feel useful.
Yeah, everyone knows the worst thing that could ever happen had already happened to Black folk. White people and people who looked white were starting to wake up and smell the proverbial coffee. Striker’s one Native friend Halyn rolling her eyes anytime someone mentioned global warming. “Don’t talk to me about the apocalypse,” Halyn would say. “Been there, done that.” Halyn raising an eyebrow in Striker’s direction, the two of them sharing a look without needing to say a single word.
For a second time that morning, Striker turned and headed toward the stairs down to the waiting zodiac. The storm massing in her stomach only seemed to be ramping up. It wasn’t the first time since boarding the Yegorov two days ago in Ushuaia, the southernmost city on the planet, and steaming through the mad waves of the Drake Passage that Striker was having a funny feeling about cruising around what she’d mentally dubbed the ass of the world. You shouldn’t be here—God made Antarctica inaccessible for a reason, Riley would’ve said. Riley was always the first to tell her what she didn’t want to hear, Riley never afraid to beat a dead horse. People like us don’t go to places like that, her friend had told her, seriously, where are we in the histories? and Striker had countered with it’s for work plus I’m turning forty so just chillax, it’ll be—
The birder with the giant camera was still standing on deck trying to get the kayakers to look up. Just then a shadow swept overhead. The air stank like the breeze over a garbage dump. There was a loud crash and a thud followed by the sound of feet running from all directions. Striker looked to where the man had been standing.
At first the birder appeared fine, just shocked. Then a red line began to snake down from the new groove gouged in the middle of his face, the man’s nose broken, the cartilage visible, a few feathers stuck to the blood on his skin.
“What the hell?” said one of the dads.
The man’s camera was lying at his feet, the telephoto lens smashed beyond repair. Too bad. His homeowners wouldn’t cover it. From her line of work, Striker knew a thing or two about cameras. She priced the lens alone just north of a cool 15Gs.
Something huge and white was flopping around screaming in the broken glass. Ruby drops of blood evenly spraying the scene. “It flew straight into my camera,” the man blubbered. “It came out of nowhere.” The ship doctor with the unforgiving buzzcut had already materialized and was leading him away, the doctor’s hand tightly cuffing the man’s wrist in case he suddenly fell apart.
Several members of the crew, mostly from housekeeping, stood crossing themselves. One of them worked his way through the crowd and knelt beside the thrashing creature, the bird convulsing as if an electric current were being pumped through it.
Striker couldn’t get over the span of it, the creature the length of a compact car. During one of the lectures the onboard ornithologist told them that an albatross can travel distances equivalent to circumnavigating the globe in forty-six days, living upward of seventy years. The expert said that the superstition about killing an albatross originated with Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and that prior to the nineteenth century, the albatross was believed to be the vessel that housed the souls of sailors lost at sea. According to the ornithologist, the curse of the Ancient Mariner didn’t stop famed British explorer Ernest Shackleton from eating a nestful of albatross chicks when he and his men made landfall on South Georgia Island after a harrowing eight-hundred-mile voyage in a twenty-two-foot boat, the men gleefully adding the baby birds to their hoosh. The woman closed her talk with an excerpt, the reading almost comical thanks to her wobbly Katharine Hepburn–like voice.
And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work ’em woe;
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Lying there on deck, the creature’s wings formed an inside-out umbrella. Striker shuddered. There was so much bad luck spewing in the air. Accidentally or not, this magnificent bird’s body was broken, its limbs pointing in nonsensical directions. Someone was going to pay for this. The bad luck had to fall somewhere. Shackleton and the entire crew of the Endurance may have made it back to England, but a few years later during yet another expedition to the white continent, Sir Ernest had dropped dead of a sudden heart attack. The curse of the albatross would not be denied. The guy was only forty-seven years old. A voice bubbled up from out of the Sunday mornings of Striker’s childhood:
Then answered all the people and said,
His blood be on us, and on our children.
The worker cupped the bird’s head in his hands and twisted. The thing shrieked. He twisted again. It shrieked louder, its cries unearthly. With each twist you could hear the bones breaking, then breaking more, like wringing a dishcloth full of chalk. The man stood up and put the heel of his rubber boot on the crown of its skull before thinking better of it. “Someone throw me a rag,” he called. Within seconds something white went sailing through the air. The man took his foot off the albatross and laid the towel over its head. He stood back up and closed his eyes. Striker thought that was a nice touch. Closing your eyes could get you through anything. Closing her eyes had gotten her through forty long ones and would hopefully get her through at least forty more. The problem with Antarctica was the twenty-four-hour sun. Even with your eyes closed the light made it hard to keep out the stuff you wanted to keep out. Stuff like this.
