Decompression

8

It was like déjà vu: Jola was sitting on the same step at the same time, waiting for me. Alone. I backed the van up to the Casa Raya, got out, and said, “Hello.” The same mistake. I should have stayed behind the steering wheel. When I was in front of her, she grabbed me by the collar and kissed me on the mouth.

“Morning,” she said.

I took a quick look around to check whether Antje or Theo was standing at one of the windows to wave good-bye to us. Thank God we had no neighbors. The geometric pattern of the morning shadows decorated the empty sandlot. “Get in,” I said.

I’d decided to try Famara. The flat, sandy bottom there sloped down gradually, so that on most days the surf swirled up floating particles and clouded your vision. In any case, apart from fields of seaweed, shoals of Salema porgies, and a Mediterranean moray eel that was always in the same crevice, there wasn’t that much to see. But you entered the dive site directly from the old harbor, which meant that you had to change into and out of your diving outfit right there in the village. It was the best place for us not to be alone with each other.

I talked nonstop during the drive to Famara. My mouth and the speech center in my brain carried out a program I’d given no orders for. For some reason, I expatiated on technical diving, on the enormous expense in equipment and planning required to go down a paltry hundred meters into the sea — a distance you could cover on land in a minute without even noticing it. I explained the tremendous difference between descent and ascent, using the shipwreck expedition I was planning as an example. It would be a matter of a few minutes to dive down to the wreck, and after that I’d have only twenty minutes to inspect it. On the other hand, I’d need more than two hours to go back up, stopping along the way, if I didn’t want to endanger my life. The last decompression stop would require me to remain a full hour at a depth of six meters, with light, air, and the dive ship’s hull directly above my head. I’d have to hover there, constrained by water pressure and the accumulation of nitrogen in my body.

No-decompression dives were surely the only kind Jola would go on in her life, and therefore in all likelihood she’d never really understand what no-decompression time was. She looked out the window. She was wearing an olive-green miniskirt. It cost me an effort not to think about the shaved pubes under it. Bernie came toward us in his minibus and waved as he passed. I lifted my hand, and Jola imitated me. As if we’d traveled down that stretch of road together a thousand times and greeted Bernie together a thousand times. I knew he’d ask me about her the next chance he got.

We parked on a narrow side street. Two old fishermen interrupted their chess game. A Spanish woman stepped out of her house and poured a bucket of dirty water at our feet. A German shepherd was dozing in the yard under a jacked-up rowboat. In our black diving suits and with our tanks on our backs, we waddled like extraterrestrials through the dead streets. Although it was still early in the morning, the heat was accumulating between the old facades. Jola’s face reddened with effort. Before we entered the water, she tried to take my hand. I shook her off. I didn’t know what I thought was worse: that things had gone so far the previous day, or that nevertheless I hadn’t actually had her. It was probably the combination of both.

Visibility was atrocious and the water as warm as urine. We bobbed around in the murky swill at a maximum depth of nine meters. Not even the Mediterranean moray was at home. It astonished me to think I had entertained, if only for a few supremely lascivious moments, the idea that I’d met the love of my life in Jola Pahlen. I wasn’t interested in trouble. For the past fourteen years, my existence had been predicated on the wise decision to stay out of other people’s affairs. “Germany” was the name of a system whose entire focus was on what belonged to whom and who was to blame for what. Jola was Germany. She’d come from there, and there she would return. She and Theo had brought a part of the war zone with them to the island. And instead of keeping the greatest possible distance, I’d come that close to plunging in with both feet. There was no undoing what had happened. But a man could swerve and still get back on a steady course.

Today I’d add a caveat: provided he knows how to drive. Slamming on the brakes and jerking the steering wheel around is never the right tactic.

“Fantastic dive!” Jola cried, stumbled over her fins, and fell back into the shallow water.

I wondered aloud how many more times I was going to have to explain that you must walk backward when wearing fins. Moreover, I added, it was about time for her to learn how to adjust her buoyancy instead of continuing to lurch and zigzag through the water. It wasn’t a matter of lack of talent, no one could be reproached for that. It was a matter of engaging with the fundamental principles of the sport. Or was that too much to ask?

Jola said nothing. I reduced our surface break to a necessary minimum and insisted on executing the day’s second dive in the same spot. Because, I said, calm, shallow water was best suited for unsure divers.

We’d set out from Lahora shortly after eight o’clock; it wasn’t yet noon when we completed the second dive. While I loaded the van, Jola stood behind me wearing a white terry-cloth robe, which she’d brought for the first time, and a towel around her head. She looked like a model in a catalog of luxury bath accessories. It would have been fabulous to feel her breasts through that thick terry cloth.

“Shall we go somewhere else?”

“I don’t have enough cylinders for a third dive.”

“Where we were yesterday? Just to go there?”

I turned to her. “To finish what we started?”

She smiled and held out her hand. “Maybe it’s only the beginning.”

I evaded the hand. The effort not to scream made my voice sound choked when I said, “Maybe you could try not to behave like a tramp for a change?”

She sat down on the curb and started to cry. Softly, without a show. She pressed her face into the collar of her bathrobe.

Fuck the old fishermen. Fuck the woman with the dirty water, who was standing in the doorway of her house again. Hardly any of the indigenous islanders knew me, especially not in Famara. The German shepherd under the rowboat stood up, as if he wanted to see what Jola’s problem was. I sat next to her and put an arm around her shoulders.

I said I was sorry.

She asked what I meant.

I said that I’d behaved unprofessionally the previous day and that it would never happen again.

“Sven.” She raised her face. Her nostrils were red and seemed to be vibrating slightly. “I’m in love with you.”

“Nonsense.” I moved a little away from her. “It’s the diving. Diving’s a liminal experience, and I’m your guide over the threshold. That awakens feelings.”

She stretched out her arm and touched my shoulder with one finger.

“Please stop.” I held her finger tight. “You have Theo. I have — a girlfriend.”

She acknowledged my tiny hesitation with a tiny smile. “Is that so?”

Our conversation needed a new direction. I said, “You’re flying back to Germany in ten days.”

“I can stay here. I’ll take over Antje’s job.”

I had an instant vision of Jola seated at the computer in our home office, her legs elegantly folded to one side, applying herself to our bookkeeping. I saw her standing at the stove. I saw my hands slip under her dress while she stirred a pot. She turned halfway toward me — and suddenly it was Antje’s face, sitting on Jola’s neck under Jola’s hair and looking at me sadly. I sprang to my feet.

“What exactly are we talking about here?”

“About love, I assume.”

“Theo loves you, Jola.”

“How do you know that?”

“He told me so.”

She looked up at me thoughtfully. “Really?”

The relief I felt encouraged me. “When we went to dinner,” I explained. “He said that he couldn’t live without you. He said that you’re everything to him.” I didn’t remember his exact words, but that was their general sense.

“And that you can screw me if you want?”

“Of course he didn’t say that.” I tried to sound indignant.

“That he’s got no problem with you wanting me? Because more or less everybody wants me and he’s used to it?”

I said nothing. Jola laughed and then stood up as well. “You’re really sweet, Sven,” she said. She put her hands in the pockets of her bathrobe. The fishermen were openly staring at us. I had to assume they didn’t understand German.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jola went on. “We have time. We can simply wait and see how things develop.”

She started to take off her wet bikini under her robe. Apparently the conversation was over. Even though I didn’t know what conclusion we’d come to, I felt better. It was as if we’d assured each other that we wanted to remain friends.

A little later, she was sitting in the passenger seat. She’d tied her hair in a ponytail, and she appeared to be in an extremely good mood. “Let’s have lunch in Teguise,” she said. “After that I’d really like to visit the cactus gardens.”

I took my place at the steering wheel. “I’d rather go back to Lahora, if you don’t mind.”

She laughed as though I’d made a good joke. “Have you by any chance forgotten what I’m paying you for?” The laughing stopped. “Full service. Twenty-four seven. Drive on.”

It was eight in the evening. Antje was sitting in front of the television and I was at the computer when the doorbell rang. As a general rule, nobody rang our doorbell. You don’t arrive by chance at the ends of the earth. If the doorbell did ring, it was one of Antje’s Spanish girlfriends, picking her up to go shopping or dropping off a skinned rabbit. A ringing doorbell was no sign stimulus as far as I was concerned. Ordinarily I didn’t even raise my head. This time, it was pure instinct that made me say, “Stay there, I’ll get it,” and go to the door.

Theo was standing outside in the darkness, and he didn’t look as though he’d come over to borrow a cup of flour. He was wearing suit pants, no shoes, and a misbuttoned shirt. His eyes and nose were red. He smelled of alcohol. I stepped out of the house and closed the door behind me.

“Congratulations!” He sounded stuffed up. “My heartiest congratulations.”

“Theo,” I said. “Are you feeling better?”

“Who’d have thought it would happen so fast, huh?” He laughed.

“Who’s there?” Antje called from inside.

“It’s just Theo!” I called back through the closed door.

“May I step in again?” He pointed at the house. It was hard to tell how well he could be heard inside. His vocal pitch fluctuated between whispering and bawling. “And pay my respects to your little Antje, I mean.”

Theo began to stumble. I stepped aside. He bared his teeth. “You’re scared shitless of me,” he said.

Underwater I found it easy to remain calm in stressful situations. You could even say that the more critical things got, the steadier my nerves became. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case on land. I felt a savage desire to slug Theo. As wobbly on his legs as he was, any child could have taken him. But he was my client.

“Shitless is the key word.” He pressed one nostril closed and blew out the other. The snot landed right next to the doormat. “Maybe you thought I wouldn’t keep my word, was that it? I told you you could have her. I’m only here to get something straight.” He pointed an index finger at me. “You’re a big dick attached to a coward. That’s what you are.” As he repeated this assessment, he nodded slowly.

“Look,” I said. “How about continuing this conversation tomorrow?”

“You see!” He was getting louder. “Scared shitless, like I said. Scared your Antje will hear me. You’re a coward, Sven. I came over here especially to point that out to you.”

“Now you have. That’s enough.”

“That’s enough, just like that? If you have the right to fuck my woman, I have the right to give you a piece of my mind.”

“I didn’t fuck your woman.”

“Ah!” It started out as a scream but after a few seconds turned into laughter. “That’s so lame, Sven! You’re such a chickenshit! At least stick to your guns!”

Suddenly his face was illuminated. His eyes, his shirt, his entire form radiated light. It took me a while to realize that the door behind me had opened.

“Is everything all right?” Antje asked.

I hated the feeling of losing control. Control was the objective of all human striving. Loss of control meant death. I felt my forehead grow cold.

“Voilà Madame!” Theo cried out joyously. “Good evening!”

Antje gave me a questioning look. As always, she was trying to establish an immediate understanding between us. My body did me the favor of shrugging my shoulders and contorting my mouth into a helpless grimace.

Theo turned to Antje. “Not much longer,” he said. Then he pointed his finger at me again: “You don’t dive because you think fish are fantastic. You dive because you feel safe down there.”

His tongue seemed to be loosening; he sounded less drunk. I wondered whether he was putting on an act.

“You think you’re a first-class individualist. A real man who had the balls to drop out. You weren’t going to be stupid and weak like everybody else, you weren’t going to play the game anymore. But you’re no special case. You didn’t even drop out, not really. You weren’t up to the challenge. You’re the overchallenged prototype of the overchallenged twenty-first century. A whole era of unmet challenges! Do you remember how things looked at the end of the last century? The big chance. The big freedom. Everybody wanted to make something out of it. And then, suddenly, everything was too much. Too much world, too much information, too many possibilities. Everyone’s gone into exile, my dear Monstercock. Some escape into bourgeois convention, others choose the countryside or a hobby or nostalgia or even this island. It’s an all-encompassing rearguard action, and you’re right in the middle of it.”

He wiped away some sweat. He’d worn himself out talking. His drunkenness had decreased, and so had his hatred. For a while he stared upward, squinting, at the night sky, as though considering whether concluding his speech would be worth the trouble. “Okay,” he declared in the end, “what I want to say is this: your turn’s coming. Dream about your personal plans, dream about complete independence. One day your turn will come, just as it comes to everybody else. When it does, you’ll think about my words. Good night.”

And with that he turned around, walked down the gravel path, and carefully closed the garden gate behind him. We watched him cross the sandlot and disappear into the Casa Raya.

“What was that about?” asked Antje.

“I don’t know,” I said.

She shrugged. “Probably Vicks NyQuil plus Nenad’s red wine.”

“That he got from you?”

“How could I know he’d drink it all at one sitting?”

I had to laugh. I was doing fine. I’d done nothing other than stand there, and nevertheless I’d emerged the victor. Or rather, precisely because of that. Everything under control. Antje looked up at me.

“Why did he call you ‘Monstercock’?”

I briefly stroked her hair. We went back inside together.

JOLA’S DIARY, FIFTH DAY

Wednesday, November 16. Evening.

I’m just wiping something wet off my mouth and looking to see whether it’s blood when my phone rings. It’s Hartmut the Great.

Me: Hello, Daddy. Him: the usual stream of words, without commas or periods. I sometimes wonder what would happen if he dialed the wrong number. Would he notice? Nobody can ask questions more beautifully without wanting to know the answers. With Hartmut the Great, it’s “How’re you doing, good, glad to hear it,” a single unbroken sentence. At some point I stopped being willing to listen to him in mute silence the whole time, and since then our relationship has been difficult. A fact that has managed to escape his notice, as far as I can tell.

The old man’s in the corner, massaging his knuckles and shivering. I point to the cell phone at my ear and soundlessly form the name Hartmut with my lips.

Hartmut talks about all the trouble he’s having with his new project, railing against West German Broadcasting, the North Rhine — Westphalia Film Foundation, his slow-assed screenwriter, his young director, who’s idiotic enough to take himself for an artist, and, of course, his bitchy leading lady.

Occasionally I go “Mm-hmm” and “Golly.” I haven’t said anything to Hartmut about Lotte. He could probably get the part for me. Why didn’t you say so, baby girl? A little telephone call, a bit of pressure. But after that, Lotte would be dead and not my Lotte anymore. For that matter, I could just blow some director so he’d let me play the sidekick in his new comedy.

Hartmut’s still on about the leading lady. What airs she puts on. What she takes herself for. Who does she think she is.

I almost have to laugh. Such relief after the old man’s whacked me one. Now he’ll think I’m laughing at him, I’m not taking him seriously. Which will make him even more furious. At the same time, I’m afraid. The old man has destroyed my soul. Only destroyed souls laugh when someone hits them. I take care to see that it happens regularly. So he can work it off in small doses. If he should let things build up, he might inadvertently bash my head in one day. I’m most afraid when he doesn’t lay a hand on me. If I look at it like that, today’s a good day. I’m not even bleeding. The old man always takes care that no one will be able to see anything tomorrow. He can go ballistic, but systematically, please.

Hartmut next attacks the family. Mama’s got a new hair color again. The Botox hasn’t been a total success. His jokes are the worst: “So I confess to my wife that I cheated on her last night, and she says, ‘But Hartmut, that was me you were screwing.’ ”

How long has it been since his blather could still hurt me? Since I wanted to cry out, Daddy, you’re speaking to your daughter! The woman you’re talking about is my mother! I believe I started putting up barriers before I could spell barriers. A good preparation for the old man. I was a young person developing the abilities I’d need when I was thirty. Maybe I should thank Hartmut. Many thanks, Daddy, for making it clear to me early on what shits men are. And for calling at just the right moment.

Not half an hour ago, while I was sitting up in bed, scribbling away, the old man suddenly appeared in the doorway.

I want to know, right now, what you’re writing and why you’re giggling like an imbecile.

Fuck off.

Give it here.

Never.

Give it here or I’ll break all your bones.

I won’t — you will — I won’t — you will, just like in kindergarten. The winner’s the one who first resorts to violence. Theo ripped a few pages out of my notebook and threw it on the floor. I curled up on the bed while he read them. Interminably. How long can a man take to grasp the information that his girlfriend has fucked somebody else? Finally he crumpled up the pages and let them drop. Very well written in parts, he said. Did I want to be an author now? I didn’t answer. I waited for him to grab me. There was a lot of whining instead: I couldn’t do that to him. He loves me. Was I trying to kill him? I couldn’t leave him. He knows how badly he treats me, he said, how little he deserves me, how often he’s cheated on me or at least tried to — in any case, he hasn’t forgotten that. But it’s different with me, he said, because while he’s a bad person anyway, a devil incarnate, I on the other hand am an angel, his angel, innocent and pure. While he spoke, he started drinking. He drank down the rest of yesterday’s wine straight from the bottle and pulled the cork out of a new one. His little girl mustn’t let herself be soiled by some nonentity, he said, by some diving goon, no matter how completely he stuffs me with his big dick, dirty whore that I am!

And I thought, Hit me and get it over with. Don’t wait too long. Fear tied me up. My face was twitching uncontrollably. My inner voice kept screaming, Pull yourself together! Be strong! Be cold! He can’t do anything to you! He won’t get your soul! But he’s had my soul a long time; what I have left is my body, and it lay there defenseless while the old man poured fuel on his own fire. He told me what a piece of shit I was. Didn’t I have an ounce of self-respect, he wanted to know, doing it with Zero of the Island, a complete loser who ran away from home so he could play the part of a super-Zampanò here, and why should he have any respect for me, would I actually beg for a little respect, and I screamed, Limpdick! and finally he whacked me one, and then my phone rang.

What would Hartmut say if I interrupted him? Sorry, Daddy, I have to hang up, Theo would like to rape me again before he’s too drunk. He’d probably say what he’s saying now: that he’s glad we like the island so much, that he really doesn’t have a lot of time to talk, and that he’s calling for a specific reason, namely to inform me that Bittmann has set sail in the Dorset again and will put in at Puerto Calero, Lanzarote, sometime in the next few days. On board, together with Bittmann himself, there will probably be the usual riffraff, a little theater, a little film, a little literature. In any case, Bittmann wants to give a small dinner aboard the Dorset next week, and it wouldn’t do any harm to be in attendance, no harm at all, especially to a woman in my position.

Hartmut hangs up. I go “Mm-hmm” and “Golly” for a while longer, until the old man’s finished his bottle. Then I say, “Okay, Daddy, talk to you soon,” and put the telephone away.

The old man’s sitting at the table, propping up his head with his hands. That’s the position he feels sorry in. Can I forgive him one more time, he wants to know. I’m completely in the right, he says, to cheat on an asshole like him with another man. Because I deserve someone who’s nice to me. He reaches out a hand. But I’m in no mood for cuddling. The old man’s already so crocked he can hardly open the next bottle. When I see him sitting like that, why can’t I gloat? Why does it just seem sad? He looks so old. And so lonely. I know a couple of other lines from his novel by heart: “Men feel hatred when they should feel compassion. With women, it’s the reverse.”

After today’s diving, Sven asked me if I could imagine moving to the island. He was serious. He’d given it some thought. His intentions were thoroughly honorable. He wouldn’t listen to rational arguments. As if the world might come to an end next week! I could have laughed, almost. I’m already so screwed up that I start backing away even when people mean me well. Sven cajoled me into agreeing to go back to Mala. He could hardly keep his hands to himself. I asked him to give me time. Let things develop. I sounded like the Dalai Lama, he sounded like young Werther. And yet he’s ten years older than I am. Nevertheless, the afternoon turned out lovely. Lunch in Teguise and discreet hand-holding in the cactus gardens. More like a contented married couple than new lovers. The lonely old man faded beyond the horizon.

But there he is now, sitting hunched over the table. It appears that Antje’s supplying him with bottles; he’s always got one in reserve. As long as he boozes and broods, he leaves me in peace. Maybe Theo and Antje could fall in love, and everybody would live happily ever after. The four of us, next-door neighbors.