Excerpt T here was once a sailor who swallowed the end of a rope and was hoisted up into the mast by his coiled entrails. Eight-year-old girls don't understand such things. Besides, all the way to the top ... Inez reclines on a deck chair, staring into the pool. The water heaves, laps against the sides. She counts. Eleven, twelve, thirteen. Vera shoots up to the surface, waves her arms, paddles to the side, climbs onto the edge. "Twenty-five." "No, Inez, twenty-six. No cheating now!" The little girl straightens her back, spreads her arms, bends her knees, leaps off the side into the light, draws up her legs, wraps her hands around her knees, plummets into the water. Inez counts. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. The child shoots up, raises herself above the surface, waves her arms, paddles to the side, clambers onto the edge. "Twenty-seven." She straightens her back, spreads her arms, bends her knees, and leaps, draws up her legs, wraps her hands around her knees, and plummets into the water. Inez counts. She shoots up, raises herself above the surface, her long hair whips a spray of droplets across the buddleia, the honeysuckle, the garden statue. She paddles to the side, clambers onto the edge. "Inez?" she calls, breathlessly. "Twenty-eight." Inez screws up her eyes. The water doesn't get a chance to come to rest. Foreground dissolves into background. She gets up from her chair and walks to the house. In the windows she can see Vera's reflection as she leaps up. She shrieks like a bird. Inez opens the sliding glass doors and steps into the cool interior. The blackbird, she thinks. Last summer's blackbird never came back. Inez pours a glass of lemonade in the kitchen and wanders outside again. "Vera, come here!" She has just vanished under the surface, the water splashes on the tiles. She shoots up again, swinging her arms and her head. "Vera, sweetie!" The child races to the side, leaps up, and plummets into the water. Too bad about the lemonade. She leaves the glass on the poolside table and goes back inside. She seats herself in a leather armchair with her back to the window, presses her fingers to her temples. She can sit still in the same position for hours. People who spend a lot of time alone tend to become withdrawn. They end up not needing anyone at all. That's not what she wants. She would rather be with Hans. She follows him in her thoughts. He's lying in bed in his Boston hotel room. She snuggles up to him and lays her hand on his stomach. She always thought she would want children someday. A shrill cry in the distance. A bird in fright. Then all is silent. A schoolyard. A shower of rain. Dappled shade. A swimming pool. Clouds hanging low over the changing rooms. Inez opens her eyes. She gets up and steps outside. "Vera! Vera?" She tries to piece it all together later. The little feet reaching for the bottom so as to get a good thrust upward, kicking, still kicking. Before the body can rise tip to the light of the world, the treetops, the month of August, the summer holiday, the days to come, the surprises, the things you will not be spared, the things you have to deal with so as to put them behind you--before then her last breath will have preceded her in a thousand tiny bubbles ... perhaps inhaled by a bird, a squirrel, or a stick insect. Come on, Inez thinks, up you come. The child is lying on the bottom. Don't play jokes on me! The hair ripples like seaweed. Come on, little girl, enough is enough! Inez jumps fully clothed into the pool, ducks underwater to grab Vera. The child is heavy and slack. Inez raises her head above the surface, takes a gulp of air, and ducks again. She hooks her wrists under the child's armpits and pushes her feet against the bottom for leverage. The water comes up to Inez's chin. Summoning all her strength she hauls the child to the side. The face has turned blue, the brown eyes are wide open. Inez tries to lift her onto the side of the pool but her arms aren't strong enough. She sinks underwater, thrusts her head between Vera's legs, and hoists her up on her shoulders. She heaves her upward and tips her over the edge. She climbs out of the pool and crouches over Vera. The little body is covered in scratches and grazes, the skin is bluish gray, the pupils in the staring eyes are dilated. "Look at me," Inez screams, "it's me, look at me," but the eyes are dull. She pinches the arms and smacks the cheeks. Vera does not react. Her lips and nails are blue. Inez stares at the small chest, it's quite still; she puts her cheek against the nose and mouth, she can feel no air; she lays her index finger on the neck artery and gropes the wrist for the pulse, but there is no life; she lays her ear on the breast, but all she can hear is the pounding of her own heart. Holding the back of the neck with one hand and raising the chin with the other, she takes a deep breath, presses her mouth firmly on Vera's lips, and blows into her lungs. And again she takes a deep breath and blows into the little body. And again and again. Until she has no breath left. Her tears pour over Vera. She shakes the child, slaps the cheeks. "Please move, please," she sobs, "for my sake!" She takes the child's ankles and holds her upside down to let the water run out. She shakes her again, violently, but the body has stopped. She lays her on her back on the tile surround and runs into the house. She sinks onto a wicker chair and fastens her eyes on the bushes and the trees. The summer child turns up with a striped towel around her neck. Holding a plastic bag. She drops towel and bag onto the deck chair, kicks off her sandals, unzips the front of her orange terry-cloth dress and lets it slide down. In her little blue swimsuit she skips over to the water, and then: splash! Vera puts her hands on the edge of the pool and her face breaks into a smile. She climbs out of the water, runs to the poolside table, and raises the glass of lemonade to her lips. She drinks it down in a few gulps and asks for a refill, and a sandwich please. Inez opens her eyes. The water is perfectly still. She tries again. Vera putting her hands on the edge of the pool and her face breaking into a smile. The dullness of the eyes. The trees fanning out and coming to a standstill. The sun standing still, nature standing still, the shadows all gone. She is prepared for her own death but not for anyone else's. Time for action. What does she know about children? She bends down, tries to take Vera in her arms the way you scoop up a baby. She can't get the child off the ground. She has a bad back. Maybe take hold of the wrists and drag. And there's the wheelbarrow. No, she must carry Vera herself. Making a huge effort, she heaves the body over her right shoulder, clenches her arms under the buttocks, and carries her down the same path Vera came up this morning in her little terry-cloth dress. The little dress! She lays the child on the ground and goes back to the terrace, picks up the dress, warm from the sun, takes a quick look in the plastic bag: shampoo, box of crayons, sketch pad, plastic hairbrush. Inez takes the brush and heads back to Vera, her pace unhurried, for she must do all these things as correctly as possible. She opens the dress flat on the ground, lays Vera on top, pulls the arms through the sleeves, zips up the front, raises Vera's head, rests it on her knee, starts brushing the dark hair. "Come along, little girl," she says, "I'm going to take you home." Myriad flecks of light dance on the pale skin, she buries a kiss in the neck, takes the thumb into her mouth, mumbles "Goodbye, sweet, sweet Vera," and "We've got all the time in the world." She takes her in her arms again and tries to lift her up, but she's slippery and slides to the ground, limp, defeated. Inez presses the child to her chest, bears her along the borders with the red poppies, the white fox-gloves, the yellow nasturtiums, the purple-plumed buddleia, the pale marigolds, under the pendulous wisteria blossoms, past the white roses blushed with pink on whippy branches shooting up from the shade to the sun, the velvety lamb's ears, the fleshy sea kale. Inez pauses in a clearing among the trees and bushes. This is where Hans burns brushwood and dead leaves. She sits down on the chopping block. In her arms Vera Klein, head lolling back, arms dangling, legs dangling-drowned, in Inez's swimming pool. The sailor surrenders to the inexorable mechanism of rope and entrails. A dumb animal with no will of his own. It's a matter of ABC. Inez must go the whole way to Calvary, following all the stations of the cross. (Continues...) Copyright © 1999 Oscar van den Boogaard.
