An Episode From the History of Whaling
Copper Engraving by Jacob Matham
By Kropotkin Bartleby
Katwijk, Dutch Republic
1598
“Have them draw straws.”
“Who?”
The three, Jac and Betje de Jong and their nephew Eelis Bakker, stood before the groin of what must have been a 50 foot whale that had washed ashore sometime in the past week.
“Sir?”
“Dammit Eelis, look around you. After so many years of destitution we’ve made our riches; God has alas given us our proper destiny with this whale. If it weren’t for Betje’s walk to the beach this morning, we may as well have gone to hell. No more!
“And see, Betje? My ‘toxic flatulence’ after a night of bitterballen does have placement in the Consiliam Magnam,” Jac gestured to the ocean, and continued, “You went for air this morn, and look at us now — around us everyone who’s someone gathers to look at our new property, which is ours by the divine Right of Discovery…”
Betje nodded perfunctorily. “And what about all those many other nights, Jac?”
Jac felt nothing but triumph, unperturbed. “Eelis, gather one of those young people behind us eyeing our prize, and incite them to pop the bloated whale with a deal to cut them in on the spoils.”
And so Eelis went and negotiated with the group, and throughout the time Eelis discussed matters, older, more wealthily dressed others joined the group, too.
Eelis alone returned to Jac and Betje.
“Eelis, what is the matter?”
“It’s van der Lenden, sir.”
“Fucking lawyers...And what doeth he require?”
Van der Lenden grinned at Jac. Betje frowned.
He says it is not yours unless you pop the decomposing whale yourself. He says that is the law now and always has been.”
Jac spit and lowered his head and sighed. His eyes rolled back in their sockets. He flashed with the sadness of their prior economic destitution. So many nights in the hungry, cold dark. And so he raised his arms with his palms up so his hands hovered above his head. He looked to the heavens between his uplifted skinny wrists and said, “Non. Est. Talis. Res. Ut. Liberum. Prandium!” And then Jac opened his eyes, and, after staring into the sun, turned his purple-spotted sight to his wife and rested his hands on her shoulders. “I am sorry, my love.” He knew his odors were only to get worse, excruciatingly so.
Betje imagined a rescue for herself from, say, this ridiculous timeline. If only. She knew this law did not exist. She offered no response, believing he would only smell a week. She would tease him over dinner.
Jac took off his coat and rolled up his plumed sleeves. Eelis held a lance before him and Jac took it. Coughing, he turned to face the whale.
The whale’s penis provided the best path to the top; wrinkles in the foreskin had baked sturdy enough to form reliable handholds. Jac climbed the penis up onto the carcass, and he made way to the bloated center of the overturned whale. Once there, he looked at Betje, and then van der Lenden, and Betje again, then to the beach. He smiled, ready to assume his Right before the audience brought before him that morning, what he guessed were many hundreds of millions of black-smocked dots about the sandy shore. He began to inhale, and raised the spear above his head, and he looked beyond the masses. He thought of how he loved the surreal blueness of the sea, and its salty air, when, WOOOOOSH, by some cruel divinity the spear had left his then convulsing hands early, and fell and punctured the bloated whale, and the gas spouted violently, and in its noisome atmosphere consumed him.
Fin.
Epilogue:
Jac de Jong never would discover the dubious legal claims made by van der Lenden that day. Betje ran a profitable shore-whaling business, and oft reported notes on the whale groins to Jac’s old spot at the kitchen table. Eelis stayed on as Betje’s assistant. He took over her business in 1618, a year he remarked during the celebration of his promotion as one which “will be the most spectacular on record.”