Читать книгу Diving the Wrecks - magdalena zschokke - Страница 10

And so she followed him, her dream of New Orleans tucked away; the urgency of writing a last will once again forgotten. They climbed into bed from either side and pulled up the sheets and duvet so the covers lay flat and even. Both lay on their backs, not touching, not moving. Emma stared at the plaster irregularities above her head that formed a sailboat and then a mountain range. She focused on the boat. It had only been recently that she had realized it was a tall ship—like the pirate ship in her aquarium!

She’d been on a boat once, long before she met Manfred. One of her boyfriends, whose name she couldn’t recall, had a small sailboat on one of the lakes, and he had invited her to sail with him. It had been a cool spring day with a light breeze. The lake had been dotted with sails, and it had looked enchanted. She had been nervous and excited at the same time.

The boyfriend had raised the sail and tightened the sheets, while she sat low in the boat, holding the tiller the way he told her to. Once they had cleared the marina, the boat started to slide through the water, fleet and weightless. It was exhilarating with a tingle of fear just below the surface of the skin.

The farther out they went, the more lost she felt and, in a way, the more liberated. She was afraid of the water, afraid of what lurked underneath the implacable, unbreakable brown-gray surface. She knew from experience that when you swam in these lakes, the bottom was squishy and unfathomable. If you were lucky, you could step on rocks until the water was deep enough for a belly dive. More often, you had to step blindly on rotten leaves and accumulated slime until it was safe to haul your feet back up. There were worms down there, and eels and … well, at the very least, glass shards and sharp pebbles to cut one’s foot on. Her fear, she knew, was primal: atavistic! She had looked it up once, and she liked the word. It contained the visceral truth of that fear, the hair-raising, gut-clenching terror that was caused by stepping blindly into the unseen.

They kept sailing straight out, heading for the middle of the lake. The wind had died, which it was apt to do. The boyfriend had prepared sandwiches and a thermos of tea, and they ate and drank, although Emma had a hard time swallowing. It was the pressure of being alone with anyone who was not family. She didn’t know what to say; she didn’t know how to make small talk. She sat in the stern of the boat clutching her cheese sandwich. Her hands were clammy; her face started to sweat.

“Ahem, this is lovely,” she said and realized she had said the exact same thing minutes earlier. Now she was even more embarrassed. He smiled at her and took a bite while gesturing with the thermos.

“Yes, thank you,” Emma said, taking the thermos from him and unscrewing the lid. It clattered into the bottom of the boat. When she bent over to pick it up, the sandwich fell from her lap and landed in the bilge water. He had bent over to grab the top of the thermos at the same time, and they barely avoided banging heads. Their hands met on the cup, and Emma pulled back as if burned. Then she laughed as if she’d made a joke and, hoping he had missed it, picked up the sandwich and set it next to her on the bench.

He sat up, swished the thermos cup through the lake water, shook it clean, and filled it with tea, holding it out to her like a sacred trophy. She sat absolutely still watching him, feeling a heavy importance settling on her. She reached for the offering with both hands and, just for an instant, their eyes locked. Before she took a sip, she held the metal cup until she could feel the warmth through both palms.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged and reached behind him for his sandwich, which sat securely wedged between an oarlock and the center bench. “It takes time getting used to the motion,” he said kindly, though she knew he really meant to say, “Clumsy oaf!” and “Let’s go back.” But they sat there, uncomfortable and dreadfully aware of each other. The only sound was the tiny tapping of waves against the hull, a halyard clicking against the mast in the rolling of windless motion, and their swallowing.

Emma had never heard herself swallow so loudly even though the sandwich had turned soggy from the bilge. One corner of it was so wet it ran through her fingers as soon as she picked it up. She clamped her hand more tightly around the whole thing in order to hold it together, bit off a large piece, and swallowed it almost whole. She thought she’d gag and throw up, but she managed to keep it in. It hurt all the way down past her sternum, where it seemed to get lodged. She gulped tea, burning her tongue, and inhaled loudly. She blew on the liquid before finishing the rest, which created a loud slurp. Red in the face, she passed the empty cup to him. He took it, filled it, and sipped, looking contented.

When he turned his head, she dangled her hand, pasted with soggy bread and wilted brown lettuce, in the water. It would wash off, and someone would be happy to eat it. Only, the next time she looked down at her hand, she found a whitish mess of gobs and bits floating, spreading through the water. There was a piece of lettuce and, among the slimy bread bits, some cheese. She splashed her hand wildly and gaily shouted, “Look, a gull,” pointing to the opposite shore. “No, right there in line with that church tower. Just look, really!”

She even got up from her seat to stand next to him so she could point better, her eyes in line with his. By the time he had located the pigeon and explained in detail how to tell the difference between a gull and a pigeon, the boat had drifted far enough that the whitish blob was no longer so visible.

That was the main memory she had of sailing: shame. She could still feel the soggy, white-bread paste on her hands, and the way her tongue had gone numb, as if it had grown a second skin, from where she had burned it.

And then the wind had come up. He had instructed her on how to lean her weight against the pull of the wind, but the boat had fallen over anyway. It was freezing cold, shockingly so. The day had been pretty, spring-fresh, and sunny. Suddenly, it was gray; the water was freezing; and she was splashing about in it. What betrayal!

Water this flaccid and tame should be warm or, at most, cool to the touch. When she had trailed her hand in it, it had been that. Now, it was so cold that her head felt like it had gotten caught in a vise. She splashed, trying to decide on a direction for her return to land, although, for one frightened second, she thought she had forgotten how to swim. She sank and came up sputtering and coughing.

By the time he had righted the boat, the day had gone completely gray and windy. The wind had been behind them for most of the return to the marina. Then he dropped the sail and rowed the last few hundred yards. She had stumbled at the ramp, while he held the boat steady with his oars. He unstepped the mast and dismantled the rudder, laid all in the middle of the boat, and together they dragged it up the ramp. Once on its rollers, they bailed. Then he wiped the boat down, while she stood next to him in shivering misery, and finally they pulled the cover over the hull. They walked to his house where there were towels and a comforting, round mother with cookies and tea and a bosom which she wished she could lay her head upon. He had never invited her sailing again. She had liked his mother though.

She jerked out of her memory and realized that she no longer stared at the ceiling, but lay on her side and the ship had been replaced by the edge of the chest of drawers, which held their underwear and sweaters. She turned onto her back and tried to lose herself in the tall ship again. “Frank!” He had said Frank would be over for dinner.

What horrible news!