The Unveiling: A Novel

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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First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: October 2025

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ISBN 978-0-8021-6535-0

eISBN 978-0-8021-6536-7

Grove Press

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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

F

inally 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 at 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.

Mercifully, Percy hit the starter and the zodiac’s engine roared to life, drowning out the sound of the worker stomping on the small head, the gray matter shooting out in all directions. Even over the noise of the engine, Striker thought she could hear the sickening crunch, feel the sensation of the skull splintering, the hot smell of the bird’s brains coating the air.

Lucy turned excitedly to her brown father. Throw me a rag, she said, throw me a rag. A small gray face peeked out from the top of her dry suit, the creature’s head as if sprouting from her throat.

Not now, honey, the man said distractedly, his eyes locked on the mayhem on deck. Slowly the child turned and trained her empty stare on Striker.

I pass, like night, from land to land;

I have strange powers of speech;

That moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me:

To him my tale I teach.

Throw me a rag, the little girl commanded.

Striker found herself searching around for something, anything to toss, but then the brown dad handed his daughter a piece of gum, and the little girl settled down. The other fathers just sat there wide-eyed like they might throw up. The summer air once again bright and scentless.

On the short ride out to the island, they did introductions. The Tech Titan’s husband concluded his by proudly pointing to one of the support boats trailing in their wake. The wife and I brought our own gear, Kevin said. Luckily our kayaks are also red. As a location scout, Striker knew a thing or two about transportation costs. The couple could’ve bought all-new gear, top-of-the-line, for the same amount it probably ran them to ship their boats down to the bottom of the world. Rich people gonna rich, Riley would’ve said.

Taylor loves this kind of stuff, Kevin added. He gazed at the Tech Titan as if her very existence powered the universe, his eyes practically fluttering. She paddles out to Alcatraz at least once a week.

Striker guessed the battered and dented kayak was the woman’s boat. Even at a distance it looked like it had seen its fair share of hairy moments. The man’s had a shiny patina glossing its sides, the thing fresh out of the wrapper.

You’re in paradise right now, aren’t you, hun? Kevin said. His wife looked at him blankly as if battling not to roll her eyes.

Lean out, honey, Striker thought. She smiled inwardly, looking forward to whatever marital fireworks might be on the horizon. In her book, marriage was like buying a gun or dispensing pharmaceuticals—­you needed a license for it, plus in most states there was a three-day waiting period. Judging from the married couples Striker knew, three days wasn’t nearly long enough.

Despite his wife’s obvious disinterest, Kevin kept his adoration on high beams. He rested a gloved hand on Taylor’s knee and took off his sunglasses, presumably so everyone could see the bountiful love radiating from his sockets. Didn’t anybody else sense what it was costing him to keep that sappy smile spackled on his face? A body could fake conjugal bliss only so long before cracking.

"And what do you do?" la Grande Dame asked Kevin, the arch front and center in her voice.

Striker couldn’t look away from the Dame’s luscious head of silvery hair, her perfectly beveled bob reflective like polished steel, one wing of her hair falling enticingly over her eyes. La Grande Dame and her husband the Baron of Industry Who Had Never Worked a Day in His Life and Had the Hands to Prove It were the last two people on earth Striker had ever expected to see in dry suits. The image did not disappoint. Jane and Robert Foley were well preserved, though the Baron skewed a bit on the frail side. Decked out in the gear necessary for kayaking in Antarctica, the couple reminded Striker of Kodiak bears dancing around in tutus. The black lycra spray skirts girding their waists were undoubtedly the most undignified pieces of clothing the pair had ever donned. Rumor had it that the week before the trip, the Baron had had his valet fly down a case of Château Margaux. The first night onboard, the entire dining room had watched as the Baron and the Dame sipped from a bottle costing on the higher end of four figures, more than most of the crew earned all season. The Margaux gleamed dark and menstrual in the glass, an emerald the size of a grape adorning the Dame’s finger. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Baron and the Dame would be riding in two separate tandems and not together. Striker hadn’t seen it listed as an option in the Yegorov activity book, but the Foleys were each to be ferried about in the glacial waters of the Weddell Sea by one of the Russian crew.

Striker snuck another peek at la Grande Dame and her silver hair shiny as a pith helmet. Yeah, this chick was bona fide trouble, her vibe a complicated scent reeking of unbridled arrogance and a carefully cultivated aloofness. As if for confirmation, the Dame tipped her head from side to side, touching each shoulder, the bones cracking in her neck, the sound like a small whip flaying the air. Yeah, Striker had chosen the right nickname for this one. There was something else off about her, something about the manufactured nature of her smile, but Striker had already been staring at the old woman for too long. Whatever it was would come to her sooner or later. For now, she made a mental note to steer clear of the old bird and her titanium helmet.

I’m a consultant, Kevin said, answering the Dame’s question. Nobody asked in what. If you dug around for specifics, he seemed like the type to launch into some corporate mumbo-jumbo designed to make you feel stupid for needing to ask the follow-up question: what does that mean?

Nice work if you can get it, said Billy Bob, the father of the Texas bunch.

Amen to that, said Billy Bob’s wife, Bobbi Sue.

To be fair, the petite blond with the dark eyebrows didn’t really say this. Since encountering the pair at the breakfast buffet and secretly dubbing them Billy Bob and Bob, Striker would periodically put words in their mouths to go along with the characters she’d created. Now as she learned their real names, she decided to stick with the ones she’d already christened them with. It just made things easier.

Billy Bob and Bobbi Sue had two kids. Any time Striker made eye contact with the girl, the teen began rapidly blinking. Striker liked to think it was some kind of Morse code, the kid begging for help. When they went around the group and introduced themselves, the girl said her name was Anders, her pronouns they/them.

Anna also answers to her given name and she/hers, interjected Bobbi Sue. Isn’t that right, Anna?

Striker was surprised by the brief whiff of compassion that surged in her chest. The parents were probably hoping that by offering as little resistance to Anders as their Texan hearts could muster, the sooner Anders would get shelved. But if Striker had to guess based on the look of things, Anders was there to stay.

Anders’ little brother was a towheaded kid named Mikey who was somewhere around Lucy’s age. Striker could already tell that in the days ahead, Mikey and Lucy would not become fast friends. Mikey was a golden retriever, Lucy a Persian. That these kids were even allowed out on the Southern Ocean seemed like a bad idea. The night before in the sauna, Percy had explained to Striker how young kids got to kayak. Company rules said you had to be at least thirteen, but it happened all the time. Rich families paying an extra calamity fee above the $1500 it already cost to be part of the kayaking expedition. The parents forking it over and promising that their kids would be in a tandem with one of them at all times.

What else Percy tell you in the sauna? Even ten thousand miles away, Striker could imagine Riley thirsting for the gory details.

It was a recent enough encounter that she was still basking in it. Honestly, they’d kept the conversing to a minimum. It was a twelve-day trip. They both knew it and worked fast. When they first entered the sauna, he’d pretended to be insulted when she asked if he was Australian. I’m a Kiwi through and through, he said. She’d nodded, secretly thinking even better. He’d joked that the little girl with three dads had mastered the space-time continuum. He said it while running a finger up Striker’s thigh. Kid’s everywhere at once, he murmured, kissing her neck. She could barely see him through the steam. Don’t tell anyone but someone drowned in the plunge pool two seasons back. He’d nodded at the small, windowless room next to the sauna where the water sat dark as oil. Maintenance must have left the metal safety door open, he explained. Kid was only ten years old. Striker felt her body tighten, her breath becoming labored as though something were swelling inside her throat. Percy continued. Worst part is we had six days left in the trip. Definitely not a lot of fun. His thumb snagged on her medical alert bracelet as he ran his index finger down the inside of her arm. You sick? he asked. Anything I should know?

In the heat of the sauna, she could feel the sweat running down her skin, her body raining. She traced Percy’s nipple with her finger, told him the medical alert bracelet was a gag gift her best friend had given her for Christmas, the inscription a private joke between the two of them. So what’s it say? he said, drawing her wrist toward his face, but she pulled her hand away and put it on his—

In the zodiac, the two married dads sat pawing anxiously at their dry bag. "The seal’s not tight," said the one wearing aviators.

Yes it is, countered the youngest of the three. He looked younger than the other dads by a solid decade, maybe two.

Guys, said the faintly brown dad who’d introduced himself as Hector. He patted the air with his hand, the international signal for keep it down. Striker had already forgotten the names of the other dads, but she knew she’d remember Hector’s plus the fact that he was some kind of environmental lawyer. After all these years her default setting remained set to automatically retain the deets of brown folks she encountered. Not that it had