The Red Velvet Crab – Salwa Benaissa
I was seven years old, visiting the Portuguese shore with my family, when my ear caught a family of fiddler crabs arguing. I remember pointing them out and my sister being so unsettled by their snapping orange claws that she scuttled away, squealing. I wasn’t interested in sticking around for the crabs’ discussion about a banal domestic matter, so I followed my sister to a game of beach tennis. And that was that: I wouldn’t give that moment much of a thought over the next twelve years.
See, to a child at the seaside for the first time, a spat among crustaceans is about as startling as tasting salt water. Different, but I didn’t question it. I didn’t have many opportunities for exposure, after all, living in a landlocked country. I never went to lakes or rivers, I never was the outdoorsy type, and I don’t like getting my hair wet. So, following that first seaside trip, seafood menus would be the only place I’d encounter another crab.
I only became enlightened about my “condition” thanks to a fated conversation with my sister at my father’s funeral. We were exchanging memories as mourners do, and came to recall that easygoing beach day on the rocky shore of the Atlantic. I said something to the effect of, “Remember how those crabs were arguing?” Well, my sister’s stupefied reaction was enough for me to question my own memory and soon change the topic.
When I got home and looked up crabs online, it finally began to sink in that the human ability to understand crustaceans on a discourse level was undocumented. Over the next few days, I reached out to friends and family to recount my memory of the squabbling crabs. Sure enough, everyone I spoke to reacted to my report with equal puzzlement and concern. You were only a kid, they pointed out. Might’n’t you have just imagined it?
I understood that there was only one way to prove whether or not my memory was mere fantasy: I would have to come into contact with another living crab.
I knew it would be hard to track down a fiddler crab in my hometown, but my aunt suggested I take a train to the covered market in the suburbs, where a fishmonger keeps a catch of imported live crabs in a glass tank. In retrospect, I’m glad she suggested it, but let’s just say that would be the first and last time I’d lay foot into a fish market. My first glimpse of those poor creatures cramped in that small space was distressing enough. They were much bigger than the ones I had seen on the beach as a child, with beautiful reddish-brown shells, all squeezed into a despondent silence. But when the fishmonger plunged his arm in there, locking a gloved hand around a carapace, the crabs’ submerged screaming and communal cries for mercy damn near deafened me. Before his hand reached the surface I was already weeping myself and, now certain that I could understand this large variety of crab, I ran out of the market clutching my hair.
In between the breakdowns that I suffered over the following months, I wrote to marine research centers around the globe describing my experiences. I would have surely been labeled a madwoman or a witch were it not for Dr. Folling, the highly respected marine biologist from Boston University, who responded to my pleas without cynicism. Fortunately, mine and Dr. Folling’s research is already capturing the attention of dozens of other institutions. Just four months ago, the Australian Marine Conservation Society flew us to Sydney to introduce us to a distinguished red velvet crab. This crab was unusually well-spoken and revealed to me that he and his ilk are not only prone to impatience, envy, and violence, but equally to boredom. He, too, was surprised to hear that we had that in common—as species, I mean. We enjoyed a riveting discussion about the nuances of boredom, all of which might soon become the basis of a new study with Dr. Folling, fingers crossed.
Just today, as I was finishing breakfast, that charming crab’s words returned to me. I had said, “Boredom is a disconnection from the self,” to which he replied, “Boredom is the numbest kind of loneliness.” That’s quite astute, don’t you think? Looking out of my kitchen window at the bare branches of a linden tree, it struck me that I was bored, and that I was, in fact, experiencing a numb sort of loneliness. I felt a sudden urge to call the Australian crab or write him a letter, to express how true his words rang. But of course, crabs can’t read, and they certainly can’t use telephones. I entertained the idea that I might write a letter anyway and read it aloud to him the next time we met. But let’s face it, the crab is already almost three years old, and who knows when Dr. Folling and I will get the funding to return to Sydney.
Given it was a Sunday morning and I had no plans, I ran a hot bath instead. Lying in the tub, I observed my untrimmed toenails and, as the moisture from the humidity collected on my face, I thought about my friend and imagined what it would be like to be boiled alive.
Salwa Benaissa (she/her) is a writer based in Prague.
