Читать книгу Diving the Wrecks - magdalena zschokke - Страница 5

After Ron got on his bus, Emma walked toward the river. It was a still, gray day and, despite her best attempts, she could not get the feeling of California back into her body. She looked up at the sky: The light was thin and anemic, and, even when the sun shone, it didn’t look blue. The air, on the other hand, was thick, cramped, used over and over. Everywhere she looked there were houses that had been there for centuries. They cut holes into the air, that same air that had been breathed and re-breathed for thousands of years. Her gaze slid down along the street. The houses were all built of light-yellow sandstone. They were magnificent, solid, and stately, built to last. There were many trees in the city, but they still didn’t manage to create enough breathable air.

Maybe walking by the river would make her feel better. She crossed the street using the crosswalk along with a mass of other pedestrians, none of whom jaywalked. When she reached the police station, she headed down the stairs alongside the four-story building. Housing the city police now, it had formerly been an orphanage. Emma usually enjoyed contemplating that irony: from the unwanted to the embodiment of law and order, from the outsiders to the ultimate insiders. On bad days, she tried to make a case for a haunted house, a space that attracted society’s dregs throughout centuries.

The river path was empty of people. There was no wind, and all she could hear was a tiny murmur of water against the bank. Her shoes crunched loudly on the gravel. There were no birds or even squirrels; she might have been alone in the world. In summer, when the water was warm, the air reverberated with the shouts of people floating in the current, letting themselves be carried past the hikers on the path. Dogs barked and music played. But now, in early March, all was quiet. The water was gray; the sky was gray; the trees were mostly bare or a grayish green; and the ground cover seemed dusty, as if there hadn’t been any rain for a long time.

Emma heard the rhythmic thump of feet approaching from behind. “Joggers,” she thought. And there they were, a couple with matching outfits: their tiny shorts bright blue, their sweatbands coordinated in a darker blue, and their matching yellow T-shirts titled with some bright business logo inside a circle. Their faces carried identical frowns, as if they were concentrating on a daunting problem. It wasn’t as though they were in pain. Their legs ran easily. It just looked like serious work.

Their faces were so similar that they might as well have been siblings: spare features and narrow, straight lips. Her lower lip was wider and droopy; his was rigid, so it looked like a horizontal slash inside his narrow, long face. Their hair was an indeterminate brown, rather like a non-color, a well-arranged camouflage. His hair had begun to thin back from his forehead and, what there was, looked fine and limp. Her hair was equally limp, but it was held in a tight ponytail away from her face should she allow herself to sweat.

Emma was trying to read them. Had they had a fight? Maybe they were irritated at finding someone on their path. Maybe they felt she was intruding, and that their important job of running on the path at this time of day was not to be interrupted by frivolous walkers. Maybe it was just that they had to make space for her, adjust their steps, and mess up their routine. Whatever the reason, the woman fell back, the man sped up, and they ran past Emma single file. After passing her, they matched up again and ran abreast. It didn’t seem as though they did it so they could speak. Emma could not hear any voices. Maybe it was a competitive thing—they figured out they’d get along as long as they did not try to outsprint each other.

The trim, hairless four legs disappeared around the corner. The air was still again except for a slight murmur of water against the pilings of the footbridge. Emma walked up the four concrete steps and out onto the bridge. The water moved imperceptably underneath. When she looked down, she couldn’t see fish, water spiders, nor anything else alive, but the water was clear, obviously clean, with a few brown leaves and a couple of small sticks on the river bottom. Otherwise, there were only pebbles and grayish mud.

All in all, it was a study in gray, brown, and black. The water was gray; the river bank brown; the sky dark-gray; the concrete bridge girders were gray; and the railing against which she leaned was black, painted metal. Finally, a silver glint: A tiny fish swam busily past and disappeared downriver. A brown leaf drifted after it. and then everything settled into gray again.

Emma blurred her gaze and imposed a tropical reel onto the scene. A black and white convict fish darted past a parrotfish, red-lipped and shimmering like a gaudily painted prostitute. Then a school of tiny, yellow-dotted angelfish appeared and, from under the rock, the red and black antennae of a crawfish. She could almost see them, but then a thought interfered. If fish couldn’t see color, why would nature waste a whole rainbow? Not only that, even if the fish had been able to see bright-red, blue, and yellow, why waste all that color deep underwater where the sun couldn’t reflect it? If there was a God, why didn’t she distribute some color to this gray prison? Maybe then people might smile or, at least, not frown so much.

“Hey.”

The voice came from behind her. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t exactly aggressive, but she had been so lost in her questioning that she had forgotten her usual vigilance. Her head jerked in the direction of the sound, and she saw a gray man standing below her on the steps that led up to the bridge.

“I say, you’re not going to jump, are you?” he queried once he was sure he had her attention.

“What?” Emma was so surprised she thought she had misheard.

“It’s not high enough a bridge, and the water isn’t all that cold. All you’d do is get wet and feel like a fool if you jump.”

“Why would you assume I’d do that?”

“You mind if I join you on the bridge?” he asked, slowly moving up the steps in her direction. Emma drew back a couple of feet but then decided it would look as if she were frightened.

He raised his arms as if to demonstrate he was not carrying a weapon. “I just don’t like to yell,” he said soothingly. He stopped once he was on the bridge itself, still about six feet away from her, and leaned over the railing.

“It’s just that not many people stare at the water for as long as you did unless they’re getting up the courage to do something … like jump … ”

Emma leaned her arms on the railing as well, and, for a while, they contemplated the view in silence.

“I’m Andy,” he said. “I live down here.” He pointed vaguely along the path in the direction where the joggers had disappeared. “I come down to the water a lot, and I rarely see anyone stopping on this bridge.”

As Emma still didn’t pick up on the conversation, he went on, “It’s funny. The busiest time down here is on weekends … late … you know, like midnight or so.”

“Yeah, I’ve been down here on a Saturday night myself,” Emma finally said. “We had a school party in the tower.” She indicated the direction with her head.

“They don’t allow that anymore. Safety reasons they claim, but they should make it into a historic site or something. People love that kind of stuff.”

”I remember when I first learned about it. Fourteenth-century prison tower. They said it was the place where they dumped the condemned prisoners.”

“The last slide. Disney could’ve learned from the old Swiss how to create a memorable scenario! At least as good as the walking the plank among pirates.”

“So it’s true?” Emma asked.

“Yep. I read court records. If you were found guilty, they put you back into the prison up there where the police station is now, and then they opened the trap door and off you went, sliding down the tunnel a couple of hundred meters into this dump … probably break a few bones on the way. If not, there were those spikes you landed on. And if that still didn’t do you in, you simply starved to death.”

“Far enough from the city so the smell would be no big deal, and they didn’t have to clean up. The fluids and stuff simply drained into the river. Yuck!” Emma shivered at the image her words created.

“Yes, but it has a sort of honest cruelty, don’t you think?” he said and added, “These days, everyone here is safe. No one gets put to death, and our citizens are the most cosseted, ensured, and protected in the known world. And what do we do? We whine. We are known to be Europe’s least-grateful country.”

Emma shrugged and said, “I just thought about that. But then, the Italians and Spaniards can smile and party. They have the climate for happiness. All we get is gloom. Just look around!” Then, as if she felt guilty for proving his point, she added, “Maybe it’s about preventing calamity. If you smile too much, fate will strike, since you obviously don’t understand that life is about work and suffering.”

“How Protestant of you! Toil and trouble, pain, suffering, and expulsion from paradise? You know, that’s very Huldreych Zwingli. He was way worse than Luther, an unforgiving fanatic who believed in government, the covenant with God, and who fought the Anabaptists as hard as he fought the Catholics. In his image, we became a righteous, stingy, and petty populace embodying the worst of his revolutionary fervor.”

“A bit harsh, isn’t it? And what do you mean ‘we’ embody his shadow?” Emma wasn’t sure she should provoke this gray little man with his unexpected fervor. He might well be insane, but she was interested despite herself.

“You are aware that we Swiss pride ourselves—with little proof, I might add—with knowing more languages, being better educated, and knowing more about the world than almost any other people. We travel the world, but stay in hostels in order not to be ostentatious. We eat the foods of all nations but finally come back to roesti and fondue, because, after all, too much luxury is unhealthy. The French use too much cream. The Germans drink too much beer, and their food is too heavy. The Italians guzzle wine and smell of garlic. The Spaniards and Portuguese are as bad as the Italians: eat too much fish, too much olive oil, and too much grease in general. Ditto the Greeks. And thus we dismiss all of Europe and, by default, become the only nation with insight, balance, and healthy eating habits.”

By now Emma was laughing openly. “Keep going,” she said, “I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.”

“Those travels, performed with due diligence and ardor, are not in search of fun or good food. They are educational and, above all, unusual—a trip only works if no one else has managed to do it.” Andy was laughing too and raised an admonitory index finger. “Take nudism. Most people might think sex and naked bodies and pleasure. Not the Swiss. Have you ever been to a nudist camp?”

She shook her head, so he went on: “We’ve even managed to turn that into an educational event. Carefully walled off from the rest of the world, the nudists march up and down, wrapped in scarves, wearing socks and shoes against the cold, but otherwise naked. They discuss world politics because, of course, they watch the world on their satellite TV screens in many languages and read several newspapers a day in order to be informed. All the while, they’re hiking their naked bodies along the carefully manicured paths in search of rugged health and physical purification.”

“This is not funny anymore,” Emma said. “I thought you were trying to keep me from committing suicide, but, if I hadn’t been depressed before, I certainly would be by now.”

“So, you did think of throwing yourself over the railing?” he asked after a while.

“No! Not that it’s any of your business. It would be too cold anyway. But,” she relented, “had I been suicidal, and you had rescued me, I’d owe you my life or something.”

“You would. But then, you wouldn’t owe me much as you wanted to throw it away.”

”I really owe you nothing because I was just looking at the water. For a moment, I thought I owed you for an entertaining hour, but then you turned really depressing. Are you telling me everyone around here is so bloody important that they don’t waste time staring at water?”

“Well, I just explained the misery of the Swiss, so you should be able to figure it out youself. Puritanism suppresses the urge to waste time or take life lightly. However, I’m happy to say you’re looking at the great white exception.” Andy bowed from his waist, and Emma smiled at him.

“How did you get to be that?” she asked him.

“I’d say that falls under the way-too-intimate category of information.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“But then, if you don’t ask, you’ll definitely never find out. I better be on my way. I’m glad you’re planning to stay alive.” He held out his hand. “Bye, whatever your name is.”

She shook his hand. “Emma. Nice to have met you. See you around, I’m sure.”

He turned away. As he moved down the concrete steps and walked along the path, she noticed his limp. From one step to the next, he swung his foot in an arc, and his hips swiveled as if to widen his reach. When his left foot finally touched the ground, his head and upper body copied the circular rotation and settled on a slant. Then the whole motion started again. How could she have missed it the first time around? One of his legs was quite a bit shorter than the other. Quasimodo at home?

She turned her eyes back to the water, but, try as she might, she could not recover the colors of a tropical reef. The river remained gray, dead, and flat.

She turned back to the river path and started walking in the opposite direction from Andy’s. Was it so unreasonable of him to suspect possible suicide? There were years … No. After Karl had been born, she had made a pact with herself she would do her best to stick around for as long as he needed her.

She changed her gait and tried to copy the way he had walked. “Interesting,” she thought. “If one of your legs is shorter, the efficient way to walk is a double circle. Generally, the walking motion is forward, linear, two-dimensional really. But when you add two circles—one lower body, one upper—it makes walking three-dimensional. I wonder if that affects the way you see life?”

She didn’t exactly speak out loud, but sort of muttered. She had decided that putting actual words to thoughts slowed down the mind and stopped her from obsessing.

With a sudden jerk, Emma’s head came up from her focus on her feet, and she pulled back the sleeve of her coat. She knew it! She was late. Everyone would be home in ten minutes, and she barely had time to be there ahead of them, let alone for cooking a meal.

She turned from the river and started walking fast. The path next to the garden plot was narrow, and stinging nettles crowded in from the sides. She rushed past without looking where she trod, and, when a soft squish announced she had stepped on a slug, she didn’t stop to check. The wave of revulsion that swept up her spine stayed with her until she hit the main road. Why such an extreme reaction? It was just a slug: brown, leaving a slimy trail, its bulbous antennae poking into the air. Maybe she would be a slug in her next life. Or had she been one in a former? To be so easily destroyed: no protection, no house to hide under, no legs to run with, no protective coloring except camouflage—brown, invisible, and defenseless. Was she identifying with a slug or simply projecting? And why either?

She crossed the street at a run with cars whizzing by on either side of her, then hurried up the hill on the sidewalk, still caught up with the murdered slug. She kept re-experiencing the moment of impact: the slight resistance under her foot, then the yielding when the shoe pressed fully and the slug body popped, its innards oozing over the ground.

Her eyes were on the ground ahead of her, so she didn’t see the woman until she was inches away. She first noticed a shoe in her vision directly in front of her.

“Watch where you’re going,” a throaty voice said. Emma looked up in time to see a walking stick on its way down onto her head. She raised her arms and caught the blow on her forearm.

“Ouch,” she said. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve got the whole rest of the sidewalk. Why do you need this particular space?”

The brown eyes that stared into hers were empty and dark. The woman’s face was narrow; her features were set close togther as though someone had economized on the elements. The eyes were small, deeply set, and her sparse eyebrows made them seem even smaller. Her pursed mouth was a slit, and the upper lip, wrinkled like an accordion, made her face look as though she’d swallowed something sour.

“This is where I walk. You blunder along as though there were no one else in the world. Can’t you be respectful of other people?”

They had stopped walking and now faced each other, arms and stick down at their respective sides. The woman was nearly the same height as Emma, lumpy in her big coat, and maybe ten years older. Suddenly Emma felt she was looking into the mirror of her future. She stepped sideways to get around the woman but was outflanked. The woman turned with her as though they were performing an oddly complicated dance. Once again facing each other, the woman said, “It’s always the same thing. You people think you own the world.”

The dark-brown eyes seemed to look through Emma, and, remembering she was running late, she decided against asking who “you people” were. Instead, she stepped once more to her right and pushed past the woman, even giving her a slight shove. After several steps, having heard nothing more, she looked back. The woman was still standing in place and staring after Emma, her mouth slightly open.

At the top of the hill, Emma jaywalked against the traffic, having to run when the bus rumbled around the corner. She hurried down the narrow alley behind the apartment blocks that made up her own street, and, by the time she reached her own building, she had her keys in hand.