Decompression (9 page)

We took each other by the hand. From that point on, we were joined together like Siamese twins, connected to the same air supply by two different hoses. We swam away slowly. I could feel her
trembling; hyperventilation leads to poor blood circulation. She probably felt she was on the verge of freezing. As well as our equipment would allow, I put an arm around her waist and drew her close to me. Naturally, my body heat couldn’t warm her underwater, but freezing, like most things in life, is primarily a matter of attitude.

Theo had observed the scene with interest. Instead of looking out for rays, he’d kept his eyes on us, as though he’d discovered the two most fascinating marine animals in the Atlantic Ocean. I guided Jola close to the coastal rocks and showed her some bright yellow snails and the shrimp that were hiding in crevices between stones and groping toward us with their long feelers. I shone my pocket flashlight on a starfish to bring out its red color. Jola turned her head and smiled at me, and then something happened. I suddenly realized that I liked holding her in my arms. I didn’t want to let her go. I wanted to stay down there with her, I wanted us to observe the creatures of the sea together until the last trumpet. Jola felt how hard I recoiled and pressed herself closer to me. I gently pushed her away and signaled that she should switch back to her own air supply before we started to ascend. The exchange was flawless. We detached ourselves from each other. It felt like an amputation.

When I knocked on the Casa Raya’s door that evening, intending to pick up Theo and Jola and drive them somewhere for dinner, Jola didn’t want to come. She declared that she had to study for her nitrox certification. Then she looked away and
drummed her fingers on the tabletop. Nothing to be done. After the unsuccessful dive a few hours earlier, she’d stood off to one side, wrapped in a towel, with the volcanic panorama in the background. I could still see her like that: shivering piteously and looking small, as if the coldness of the water had shrunk her, with hunched shoulders and blue lips and strands of wet hair stuck to her cheeks and neck. Theo had carried her equipment to the van. Now he glanced over at me with a new, thoughtful look on his face.

Theo and I left Jola in the Casa Raya and drove away. While we rumbled down the gravel road in the direction of Tinajo, I reproached myself. I shouldn’t have expected Jola to execute the difficult water entry at Mala. Instead I ought to have insisted on taking a day off and chalking it up to bad weather. At the very least, I should have kept Jola away from the brink of the ledge. After all, I knew she lacked Theo’s fundamental confidence in uncertainty. I also knew she had a strong will, which caused her to make bad decisions in moments of doubt. In all probability, she’d felt fearful of the sheer ledge and for precisely that reason she’d swum out past it. That wasn’t her fault. Judging how much I could expect of clients was part of my job. If my assessment was wrong, the responsibility was mine and mine alone.

After a panic attack like that, some people never went diving again. That’s why it would have been important for Jola to recompose herself a little more. I would have gladly told her that such a thing could happen to anyone. I knew experienced divers who went out one fine day and for no apparent reason began to hyperventilate. We could have discussed my theory that it was particularly hard for women to feel safe while diving, because
unlike men, women didn’t readily make their lives dependent on technical apparatus. Women liked to maintain control. It was the same reason why they viewed automobiles, computers, and airplanes with mistrust. Above all I wanted to tell Jola that she would become a good diver, more than good enough for the role of Lotte Hass. It was harder to overcome fear than not to be afraid. We would have had so many things to talk about. If she didn’t want to see me, it probably meant she was angry.

At this point I forced myself to stop brooding. It wasn’t my style to try to think my way into other people’s heads. I’d accept their behavior, and in that way I’d get along with them quite well. Now it was a question of winning back a diving student’s confidence. I stopped the van on the side of the road, asked Theo to excuse me for a moment, and got out. While I positioned myself beside a large rock as if I had to pee, I took my cell phone out of my pocket and wrote, “Good luck with your studies. You’re in our thoughts. S.” Because I rarely sent text messages, I needed a long time to tap out those few words. The answer came back so fast it made me jump. It was brief and it hit me like an open hand, delivering either a blow or a caress; I couldn’t tell: “It’s not because of you. J.”

Giselle made a fish soup that was one of a kind, a recipe handed down from her French great-grandmother. Giselle was French-Canadian; her husband came from the Congo. On the walls of their little restaurant, African masks hung beside photographs of Notre-Dame de Québec. We were the only guests. Theo
let me talk, and I talked as though I’d been wound up. One diving story after another. About manta rays, dolphins, and whale sharks. About the wrecked ship I was going to dive down to in the following week and how this exploit would make me famous in diving circles. Along the way I praised his and Jola’s talent and stressed how enjoyable it was to dive with sensible people.

He asked, “You find us sensible?”

Aside from that he sat there in silence, smiling thoughtfully and drinking apple juice. After the meal he suggested we go for a walk.

As a general rule, Tinajo’s streets were lively, but that evening the temperature had dropped below sixty degrees—unusually cool—and there was barely a soul in sight. Theo walked down the middle of the street, swinging his arms and watching his feet. For the moment, he seemed to have forgotten my presence. In the village square, we sat on one of the whitewashed benches near the little church. The dragon trees screened the light from the streetlamps. At regular intervals, the end of Theo’s cigarette glowed in front of his face. Now that we’d come this far, I found myself wishing we had simply walked back to the van after dinner.

He said, “You’ve got the hots for her, don’t you?”

I started to make some reply to this, but he waved me off. “Forget about it. It’s what she does. It’s like an addiction with her.” He offered me a cigarette, which I declined. “Basically, I just want to warn you.”

It would have been easier for me to listen to him that evening if he’d been drinking. Unfortunately, I knew he was cold sober.

“Jola comes from an old family. They got rich by exploiting other people and managed to preserve their fortune through two
world wars. A woman like Jola has no idea what it means to work for something. She expects to be given what she wants. The only thing she’s never been able to get is recognition. And that’s precisely what makes her dangerous.”

I wasn’t remotely interested in anything he was telling me. Nevertheless, I suddenly wanted him to go on talking.

“Basically, she’s still just a little girl, trying her best to win her father’s respect. Hartmut von der Pahlen. Does that name mean anything to you?”

I shook my head.

“Film producer. One of the most important in the business. Also an asshole. Whatever.”

Theo stubbed out his cigarette and lit himself another one before going on: “I’m a substitute father for her. She’s still looking for paternal love, and that’s where I come in. As long as I don’t give it to her, she stays with me. And exacts her revenge a thousand times a day.”

“Only child?”

I bit my lip. Listening was bad enough. Asking questions was even worse. Normally in such situations, I changed the subject.

“She has two older brothers, one a doctor and the other a banker. Jola’s father never gets tired of enthusing about how successful they are. Whatever.”

A motor scooter drove by. The young woman sitting behind the driver yelled something in his ear. They both laughed.

“I’ll tell you a story,” Theo said. “It’ll help you understand how Jola grew up. When she was a child, she desperately wanted a pet. A guinea pig, a bunny, something she could cuddle with, something she could love. When she got a kitten for a Christmas
present, she was overjoyed. She tended to the little animal night and day and carried it around with her wherever she went. Two weeks after Christmas, the heating in her house went on the blink. So the kitten wouldn’t freeze, Jola took it to bed with her and covered it with her pillow. The next morning she found the kitten under her pillow, cold and stiff as a piece of wood. Jola’s mother threw the kitten into the trash can, and from then on she told the story at parties. She’d pull Jola’s braid and laugh and say, ‘My little murderess.’ ” Theo looked around the square with narrowed eyes. “Whatever,” he said. It seemed that this was becoming his favorite expression. We fell silent for a while.

“Maybe you’re asking yourself what I’m doing with her in the first place,” Theo said at last. “It’s quite simple. I love her. Besides, I can’t get it up with other women. I’ve tried. With assistant directors in theaters, with culture-hungry housewives after readings, with street hookers. Total disaster.”

He turned to me and pointed his index finger at the tip of my nose. “The first rule in dealing with Frau von der Pahlen: never believe what she says. Particularly if it’s anything to do with me. She tells the whole world I’m a man of leisure, a layabout. Whereas the truth is I’m working on a big social novel. It’ll appear in three or four volumes, I’m not sure yet.”

He marked a pause and stretched his back as if we were in the middle of some physically demanding job. Then he went on: “For years I’ve watched colleagues slogging through the quagmire of their own mental states, wearing themselves out in the effort to make sculptures out of sludge. Not me. I’m after the big picture. I can wait. Jola calls it writer’s block; I call it patience.”

Theo moved his fingers in the air as if he were playing piano.
“In the meantime,” he said, “I write short stories. Finger exercises.” He looked at me sideways. “Would you like to read something?”

I cleared my throat. “Unfortunately, where literature is concerned, I don’t get it,” I said.

“So much the better. The enemies of literature are the best readers. Remind me to give you something of mine when we get back.”

He stood up and slapped his pants as though we’d been sitting in the worst kind of filth.

“This is what I really wanted to say: If you’re hot for Jola, I have no problem with that. I would just advise you to be careful. At the moment I don’t know what she’s planning to do. But she’s surely planning something. Shows like the one she put on when we were diving are typical of her.”

I hid my smile behind a yawn. What was really typical was the logic of the war zone: some dark plan lay behind every sort of behavior. You asked a lot of questions, and as a punishment you got the answers. Theo sneezed three times on the way to the car and then lit another cigarette. “Shit,” he said. “I probably caught something on that cliff last night.”

Light shone through the Casa Raya’s closed shutters. Apparently Jola was still awake, studying her nitrox materials. Theo and I bade each other good night with great warmth. I liked him. He was suspicious, but he couldn’t help it. All the inhabitants of the war zone were like that. Suspicion was a natural result of their lifestyle. I felt satisfied. In the course of our conversation, it had
become clear to me that the three of us were going to get along just fine for the remainder of their stay. I’d earn a pile of money, they’d learn how to dive and maybe along the way even how to have a normal relationship. They wouldn’t be the first to figure out what really mattered while underwater.