Decompression

11

We strolled down to the port. The evening was mild. The island enjoys about three hundred mild evenings per year, but this particular evening had something special. The breeze was so soft it made me suspicious again. The contours of people and buildings looked vaguely blurry. On the other hand, all sounds seemed somehow to have sharp outlines. Theo and Jola also noticed something. While we walked along the steep asphalt road, he kept moving closer and closer to her. After we reached the harbor promenade, she allowed him to put his arm around her. She even leaned her head on his shoulder. When I saw that, I felt relief. I let myself drop back a few steps and looked in another direction, as if we weren’t together.

The small group of people stood out even from a distance. Gathered at the spot on the quay where the berths for yachts over twenty meters began, they didn’t appear to be waiting for a table at one of the restaurants. Rather they were gazing across the harbor basin toward the arrival jetty on the inner side of the mole.

“Can you believe these morons?” Jola said. “They’re actually waiting for that Stadler bitch.”

Yvette Stadler was a famous German singer and actress, whose name I’d heard for the first time that morning. Antje’s Spanish was good enough to extract news from the chatter she listened to on Crónicas Radio, and at breakfast she’d relayed a bulletin: the sailing yacht Dorset, chartered by the German protein-bar heir Lars Bittmann, was expected to arrive early this evening at the marina in Puerto Calero. Among the passengers on board was the aforesaid Yvette Stadler. Antje laughed when I asked who that was.

“Just drive over to Puerto Calero and take a look.”

“Are you nuts?” I asked. “Why would I do that?”

And there I was. It had been Jola’s idea, like everything else we’d done over the past few days. She had on insect sunglasses and a fancy turban, accessories to what she called “going incognito.” No matter what disguise she wore, I would have recognized the space between her teeth.

“I’m looking forward to seeing all those dopey faces,” Jola said.

“Just imagine, Sven,” Theo added. “They’ve been waiting two hours, and for a B-list celebrity.”

It was the first time in two days that Theo hadn’t called me “Little Shit.” His eyes were gleaming with happy anticipation, which shone under Jola’s sunglasses as well. The Dorset seemed to mean something to both of them.

“Bittmann always does this,” Jola explained. “He gathers together some members of the cultural jet set, sails halfway around the world, and faxes his guest list to the news agencies. The most famous person on the list isn’t really on board at the time.”

Thinking about German celebrities made me nauseous with indifference. I didn’t understand what was so funny about watching a few island tourists waiting in vain for Yvette Stadler. But Theo and Jola were feeling cheerful for the same reason — the first time that had happened in days — and I spotted Dave among the group of onlookers. He was taller by a head than anyone he was standing with. Theo’s arm was still around Jola’s shoulders. I couldn’t have wished for a better statement to make in public; I even imagined we might be at a turning point. I thought maybe Jola had just been using me in recent days to win Theo back. Women pulled things like that, ultimately harmless tricks that led straight back into normality.

“Dave!”

He turned to us, and I could see him register what he saw, and in what order: me, then Jola and Theo, and then the fact that they were walking arm in arm while I strolled along next to them, relaxed, hands in my pockets. “Hey,” I said to Dave, patting him on the shoulder. We always spoke in English. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Just paying my respects to a world-famous beauty.”

“Yvette Stadler? Don’t tell me you’re a fan.”

“Christ, no.” Dave laughed. “I’m here for the boat!”

“The Dorset’s the biggest gaff cutter in the world,” Jola explained. “Built in 1926, meticulously restored in 2006. Sails under the British flag.”

The look Dave gave her showed his deep amazement. It was as though Jola had just changed from a talking doll to a genuine human person right before his eyes. “So you know about the Dorset?” he asked her.

“She’s a legend! She held her own against modern boats at the Superyacht Cup in 2007, then took two first places at the Saint-Tropez Regatta the following year!”

Another few seconds and Dave would be proposing marriage to her. “You’re saying she can do nine knots?”

That was surely a trick question. No boat wins a regatta with a speed of nine knots. Jola’s mouth spread in a wide grin. “You’ve got to be kidding! Bittmann says she’s done seventeen or more, and she was recorded as breaking twenty-two back in the twenties.”

It was all over for Dave. Generously and resignedly, Theo removed his arm from Jola’s shoulders. Once again, he was lending out his girlfriend.

“You know a thing or two about boats,” Dave said.

“My dad’s always been into sailing,” Jola answered as they took a few steps to one side. “I was co-skipper by the time I was twelve. I knew exactly when to reef the sails or start the engine.”

The longing expressed in Dave’s body language was something to behold. He bent his six-foot-four frame slightly so he could come as close as possible to Jola’s face. While she spoke, he stared at her mouth. Theo followed my eyes. His lips curled in the familiar sneering smile. “Anyone who wants to own a mare like that has to be tolerant when other stallions come sniffing around her,” he said.

At first I thought I’d misheard him, and then I didn’t know how to reply.

“Look at me,” he said. He spread out his arms like a Mafia godfather. “I put up with you banging her. So you have to put up with the Englishman gawking at her a little.”

“Scotsman,” I said.

The upper part of a mast appeared over the top of the mole. The ship the mast belonged to must still have been a good distance away. Before long we could see the topsail, and a little later the gaff. Apparently the mast was some forty meters high. The Dorset was big. And fast. No wonder Dave had crossed half the island to welcome her. Even though he now had eyes only for Jola. The others in the waiting group stretched out arms and index fingers and pointed out the tip of the mast to their companions. Some of them carried binoculars.

Theo’s hand gripped my arm. Another favorable statement. Everyone could see how well we got along. I briefly wondered when I’d started using the word statement in connection with appearing in public.

“One advantage,” Theo said, “is that I’ve always got a guy standing next to me who’s going through the same shit I go through.” He patted my shoulder encouragingly.

“Thanks all the same,” I said. “But let me make this clear one more time: I’m not ‘banging’ Jola.”

“Perfectly clear.” He was staring squinty-eyed at the harbor entrance. “You screw her with great tenderness.”

The Dorset was rapidly approaching. The skipper had probably received instructions to head into port under full sail. It made an undeniably impressive sight.

“Not that either,” I said. “Seriously. We’re not having an affair or anything like that.”

Theo spun around as though something had bitten him. All the former friendliness in his demeanor was gone. He said, “Do you know what honor is?”

I shook my head and got angry, both in the same moment. Of course I knew what honor was. I just didn’t understand where the question was leading. Moreover, our public statement looked like it was about to degenerate horribly.

“I thought not.” Theo laughed. “I’ve already explained it to you. Not so long ago. Bang her. Enjoy it. But don’t lie to me.”

“Can you lower your voice a little?”

“Can you act like a grown-up?”

“Look, Theo.” I moved closer to him and spoke softly. “I don’t know what Jola has told you—”

“Get out of here!” He said it loud. A few people near us looked our way. Dave and Jola also turned their heads. “You know it. I know it. The whole island knows it. You two don’t even bother to hide it. So do me a favor and stop with this shit.”

“But we haven’t—”

“Theo!” Jola yelled.

Either she knew him well enough to read his mind, or the past few days had damaged my reflexes. While I was still wondering why Jola was yelling, Theo already had me by the shoulders. I was too flummoxed to defend myself. I saw people jumping out of the way in slow motion. Then I was tipping backward off the quay wall. One crystal-clear thought flashed into my consciousness: Don’t fall on the landing stage. I pushed off before I lost the ground under my feet, did a half turn in midair, and dove into the water. I knew at once I wasn’t hurt. I swam a few strokes close to the bottom. It was surprisingly warm in the harbor basin. Little fish nibbled at the keels of the anchored boats. I kept telling myself, Surface. Breathe. Laugh. My breath was running out. I surfaced, inhaled, saw twenty anxious faces looking down at me from the quay wall, and laughed.

Only the Dorset’s final maneuvers put an end to the laughter and talk about my plunge into the harbor. While the yacht’s sails sank down together, I stood in my own private puddle. We could hear the skipper’s orders. The tourists became deadly serious. Suddenly every one of them was looking through binoculars. The diesel engine started up, and the Dorset sailed majestically into the harbor at Puerto Calero.

I thought of this line: My heart burns for love. That was exactly how I felt. The Dorset showed what true beauty signified: not symmetry, but the combination of power and elegance. Pure power came across as crude; mere elegance was vanity. Only the merger of the two had the force to touch you at the deepest part of yourself, which was exactly where I found myself touched. Jola was standing very straight on the edge of the quay, held by Dave’s and Theo’s arms in turn. The yacht looked as though it was putting into port for her sake. Proud and strong and yet so susceptible to storms. I stood in the background and played the good-natured diving instructor whose clients’ idea of a joke was to toss him into the drink. I felt love and pain and sadness and wasn’t sure whether they weren’t all the same.

Two hours later, behind the wheel of my van, I laughed all the louder, despite the terrible mood that had come over me. My clothes, in the meantime, had dried. All possible jokes — about being launched or getting baptized or cooling off — had already been cracked on the quay. But Jola was still in top form. Her crumpled turban lay among the equipment, her sunglasses hung from the rearview mirror. Her bare feet, which she braced against the windshield, left behind an impression that could still be seen weeks later when the glass fogged up from inside. She and Theo were recapitulating the Dorset’s arrival. Their focus wasn’t the beauty of the vessel, it was the fact that Yvette, as predicted, had not been among the guests. Jola mimicked Bittmann, the way he’d spread his arms out as he stood on the gangway and said, first in German, “My apologies, folks, Yvette has canceled,” and then in English, just in case the entire crowd wasn’t made up of German sightseers: “Sorry, guys, Yvette couldn’t come.” Next Jola parodied the yacht’s five passengers. In Jola’s version, they had gone down the gangway at the exact moment when the disappointed crowd dispersed, and then they’d had to stand around like stranded orphans, hoping that someone would recognize them. I’d simply seen five people leaving a ship. They’d looked perfectly normal to me, but in Jola’s and Theo’s eyes each of them was apparently a laughingstock. Jola bent over with laughter and practically put her face in my lap. On other such occasions, I’d shoved her away from me. I’d begged her not to crowd me. In my best killjoy voice, I’d pointed out that I had an automobile to steer. But now I tried to get ahold of her hair. I wanted her to keep lying on my lap. And it irritated me that she was already leaning toward Theo’s side again. I would have liked to say something. But I knew neither the literary critic nor the woman who directed plays nor the photographer. All that remained to me was my own joyless laughter, designed to show that I belonged.

Back in Lahora, I parked the car and stood for a moment at the gate to watch Jola and Theo cross the sandlot and disappear into the Casa Raya. They had turned down my suggestion that we go to Giselle’s for some fish soup. Jola wanted to cook. I went into the house, found Antje sitting on the terrace with a book, hauled her into the bedroom, and threw her on the bed. Unlike what happened in movies, I had no trouble whatsoever calling her by the right name.

JOLA’S DIARY, EIGHTH DAY

Still Saturday, November 19. Evening.

Little girls wait for the white knight who’s going to lift them up onto his horse and ride away with them. Grown women, on the other hand, negotiate contracts. Our latest deal: the old man will leave me alone if I jerk him off on demand while telling him about Sven. About Sven’s giant cock, which fills my mouth and throat so completely I nearly choke. About Sven’s big balls, which lie in my hands. About how Sven grabs me and fucks me so hard I think I’ll fall apart.

But humiliation is a complicated business. The old man sits there on the sofa, his semi-stiff member between my fingers. He clutches the cushion with one hand and my hair with the other while he listens to dirty stories about me and our diving instructor. The question of who’s humiliating whom in this scene must be neither posed nor answered. He’s a forty-two-year-old writer with just one published novel to his name. His pants are tangled around his ankles, his face red with effort. A tormented, self-tormenting creature.

I told him so. Whereupon our deal was canceled again. He pulled up his pants and ran into the bathroom. The victim had abandoned her own integrity for a sweet moment of triumph. I love to gaze into Theo’s eyes and see something shatter in there. I love to see the infinitely wronged look that comes over them because the traitor who thrust in the dagger was, of all people, me. Such a wonderful feeling. For a few seconds I know — no, I clearly see—how much he loves me. When can you actually see love? It’s a rare and precious experience. I’ll think about that if he comes back and