Rock Me Gently (23 page)

‘She could have drowned!’ I clutched Ben’s arm. ‘Couldn’t she? She could have drowned!’

Avatel walked slowly around the pool, her eyes wide and frightened. ‘I don’t know how it could have happened. One moment she was in the shallow end, and the next she wasn’t.’

‘It’s OK,’ I said to Avatel, who was nearly crying. ‘It’s OK, she’s OK.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Well done, you swam,’ I said to Danah.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I never drownded.’

The real shock didn’t hit me until later that evening. Then, as I was eating dinner in the canteen, my body went numb. My head filled with strange sounds. A roaring noise. Shouts.

‘Judith? What’s the matter?’

Cydney was standing over me, ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m all right.’ I could hardly hear myself; the sounds inside my head were so loud. Someone began to talk with Cydney broken bits of conversation that I could not follow. I made my excuses and headed for my room, holding myself stiffly upright. I saw myself putting my feet one in front of the other. My body felt nothing. Just a scare, that’s all. Delayed reaction.

Fully awake, I lay on my bed with the curtains drawn, a nothingness washing over me. Whatever was happening to me was my own fault. I had done something wrong. Something so huge I couldn’t even see it. I was inadequate and stupid, without worth. Through my neglect, Danah had almost drowned. I was a fool. I might as well be dead. My eyelids felt dry and scratchy as I fell asleep.

I was dreaming.

For miles and miles the sand stretched in front of me in the
moonlight, a cool smooth beach. I fruitlessly tried to identify the
place. It was nowhere that I’d ever been in real life, but whenever
I dreamt of this beach I sensed it was familiar.

A night breeze bent the spiky beach grass flat. I felt so tired. I
lay down, put my head against the sand and felt its grainy
coolness under my cheek.

When I raised my head I saw Frances sitting on a rock in her
red swimming-costume. She looked happy to see me. I held out
my hand to her.

’You need to come with me, Frances.’

A smile broke out over her, like the sun had pierced the clouds.
‘Can’t Judith. Can’t swim.’

Now she was in the water, her chin craning up as she struggled
to keep it raised over the waves.

‘It’s bad out there! You have to come back!’ I stood on the
slippery rocks, reaching for her. Suddenly other children were
behind me, pulling me in a long hand-to-hand chain. Darkness.

Only darkness. The full moon failed to cast a reflection on the
diesel-black water, yet somehow I could see every detail.

I could do nothing to bring her back, and watched helplessly
as she struggled. Shouts, children tugging at me as I felt the sea
lap against my ankles. Suddenly the tide engulfed me, sweeping
me away. I convulsed with panic.

‘Not’ I screamed, ‘I can’t swim!’ I tried to keep afloat.
Something or someone was struggling to pull me to the surface.
I couldn’t breathe and twisted violently on to my back. Then
water filled my eyes and my screams came back to me as echoes
from the bottom of the sea.

I tried to scream and woke myself with the utterance of a tiny sound. I felt first relief, then the security of my room, then remembrance. I sat up in bed, tousled with the nightmare, hugging myself. I could hear the echoes inside my head as the smell of the sea haunted me again. I looked at Cydney’s side of the room. She hadn’t stirred.

The blood tingled in my veins, hot and cold. I felt as if I could shatter into a million pieces. No good to think about it. Don’t think about it, don’t.

It was nearly morning. It would soon be five o’clock. People on the kibbutz would be waking up. Still too early to call on Miriam, though. I scrambled out of bed, quietly tugging on my clothes. Outside I walked swiftly in the cool morning air, without direction. To calm myself. To get away from dreams, because there were worse ones and I didn’t want to remember them, didn’t want to think at all. There were lights on in some of the houses, but no one in sight.

I leaned against a tree, pressing my forehead against the gnarled and fissured bark. I must get less intense, but how to do it? To concentrate on it was to accomplish the opposite. A phrase attached itself to my mind:
Nuns Pray at Sea Rescue.

A swift, sinking feeling clutched the pit of my stomach as I remembered the newspaper articles. The newspapers had pounced on the nuns’ praying, pointing out that they had done nothing to help us. But none of the papers had explained why, or followed up the story.

Oh God,
why
then? What purpose had been served?

I lunged off the tree and started walking again. The sun was coming up, the air around me already hot, but I was shivering, my skin clammy. I made my way down to the citrus groves where the soil was loose and soft among the trees, the leaves glossy, the ground itself fragrant. To sprout such leaves and be hung with oranges would be a blessing. I wished a fibrous woodiness would enter my limbs: I wanted to take root and stay here for ever in this most temperate of places.

The sea was warm as a puddle that day. Frances and I shaded
our eyes against the sun, ankle-deep in the water. I could hear
laughter and shouts on the breeze. There was Ruth, her sleek,
brown head like a seal’s, far out in the water.

‘She’s swimming!’ shouted Frances.

‘No she’s not, she’s just floating!’ I shouted back.

‘Come on in, it’s smooth as a moth’s nose!’ yelled Ruth, as if
she owned the sea.

Frances laughed and waded towards her, stumbling a little on
the shifting sand, her dark hair ruffled by the wind. The water
was warm, soft, but as I watched, thoughts not quite grasped
made my stomach tighten with unease.

‘Hey Frances, wait for me.’

I squinted my eyes and scanned the beach, looking for a
strange seashell, seaweed, anything I could seize to make sense
of this vague shudder of anxiety.

Nothing.

Noisy seagulls dipped and flapped inland on the high wind,
and an angry light was forming out at sea beyond the black
rocks where Ruth was floating.

The weather’s changing,’ Ruth yelled, looking up towards the
veiled sun she hurled a curse at the sky. ‘Damn! It’s as uncertain
as Janet’s bladder.’

Rain clouds began to roll in the sky. Frances was dancing in
the waves, leaping over them as they crashed into the beach.
Judith! Come on!’

As I followed Frances into what now seemed an enormous
sea, I hesitated a moment, my feet beginning to sink slowly in the
quaking sand. Turn back. I ignored the warning in my head and
pulled my feet from the suck as I walked in further. By the time I
reached Frances the sea was up to my thighs. We squatted down
in the water letting the waves wash back and forth over our
shoulders.

‘Shall I teach you both to swim?’ Ruth called over.

‘No thanks,’ I shouted across the water.

‘You’re not scared, are you?’

Yes, I was afraid but did not say so; I was spellbound by the
solitude between the sky and the sea, one as vast as the other.
When I glanced back, the beach seemed like an invisible line, and
the two nuns in charge of us were like distant dots. With the
beginnings of panic, I pictured the immense dark depths below,
where I could sink like a stone.

‘I can do the crawl stroke, watch.’ Frances splashed up and
down in front of me, screwing up her eyes and kicking her legs.

That’s cheating! You’ve got one foot on the ground!’

‘You’re not supposed to have noticed that. It’s easy, you try it.
Just hold your breath and close your eyes. Ready, steady, go and
away!’

I closed my eyes but kept one foot firmly on the ground
thrashing violently with my arms. Gasping then yelping, ‘Oh,
cripes, I’m almost
swimming’
I opened my eyes, blinked away
the spray and saw the blue-green, white-flecked crests of the
advancing waves. It seemed we had moved further into the sea.
The water swirled around my chest, thick and dark. You could
hear the sea thumping the rocks, like a boxer’s fist against a
punchball in training for someone’s jaw. Frances yelped with
laughter. We held our arms above our heads and jumped up as
each wave approached. Now the water seemed warmer than the
air, yet the sea seemed to have become fiercer in the short time
since Frances and I had entered it. The noise of the waves was
overwhelming. The sun had clouded; the high backs of the
incoming rollers were now almost black. I turned around towards
the shore again and over the flecked jumping wave-crests
I could see a distant figure running across the sweep of sand
towards us.

Finally it was seven o’clock, late enough to call on Miriam. I stood motionless on her veranda. I could hear her moving around inside. A cracking headache exploded behind my eyes. My throat ached. I pushed open her door. Miriam had her back to me, reading something. She looked over her shoulder, her face creasing in concern as she took in my expression. I stood in the doorway, silent and staring.

‘What’s the problem, Judith?’

Her gentle use of my name freed me, shattered me. The relief of being here, of seeing her, washed over me.

‘Can I come in?’ I said, my voice a whisper.

Before she could reply, I stumbled forward, slumping into a kitchen chair, and without warning began to cry. I hunched forward as sobs wrenched out of the deepest part of me. The tears were fossilised, older than time. I held my hands over my face, crying like a small child.

‘Something happened yesterday ‘

‘All right,’ Miriam said. She touched my arm. ‘You can tell me.’

But voices from the past still controlled me. I shook my head fiercely, wretchedly, and covered my face.

Irresponsible, the Mother Superior had said. And inexcusable.

As Ruth, Frances and I turned and headed towards land, we
heard Janet’s distant voice calling to us. Then I recognised her
green-spotted cozzie. For a girl with legs as thin as willow sticks
she had reached us at a remarkable speed. She plunged towards
us, beckoning, shouting something I couldn’t hear above the
roar of the sea.

‘Janet, you’d best go back. It’s getting too rough out here,’ I
yelled above the crash of the waves.

‘I’ve been sent to call you and the others in,’ she shouted,
battling through the tide. ‘Can I stay and play with you a bit?’

Before I could reply, the water hurtled against us, pushing us
apart. A wave swept over my head. I fought my way to the
surface, gasping and swallowing sea water. My hands reached
out for something to clasp, but my arms felt like lead. I was
choking and spluttering; absorbed in the task of taking the next
breath, I began to understand the strength of the waves
-
their
great size and how violently they broke. I tried to make my way
towards the stark rocks that loomed out of the water, but the
current seemed to be taking me out to sea. I tried harder, spurred
now by fear.

I called ‘Frances! Ruth!’

Somehow I reached the rocks, stretching out a hand to claw at
them. ‘Get on to the rocks!’ I yelled.

Mindlessly Frances tried to obey, choking as water washed
over her. I heaved myself up on to the craggy rocks, grazing my
arms and legs. My only thought was one of survival. Ruth was
already there with several other girls, all of them crying out to
Frances. Yelling and screaming everywhere. Foam boiled around
the rocks, swift and powerful.

Judith!’ Frances’s eyes were wild. I knelt down, stretching out
and grabbing hold of her arm, but she fell back and tugged away
from me, her feet swept from under her.

By this time, Janet had reached Frances. We watched as Janet
grabbed Frances’s hair trying to keep her head above water.
Then when a wave’s crushing curling descent engulfed them,
Janet’s head disappeared from view.

I stretched out, groping towards Frances, the sharp rocks
cutting into my knees. Take my hand! Take my hand!’

I felt the fierce sea clawing at me. There was no room for fear
as she seized hold of my hand. ‘Don’t let go!’ I shouted.

The sky above us was lumpy with dark clouds. Frances stared
up at me with land-longing eyes. Ruth grasped my other hand
and I saw that she and the other girls were forming a human
chain across the rocks.

‘Full her out!’ someone cried.

‘I’m trying!’ I yelled, but as I tugged at Frances’s hand I
experienced, like an unexpected blow, a sudden exhaustion.
What had happened to the strength that I had a moment ago?
My body was coated with a profound, numbing weakness. ‘I
can’t! It’s impossible!’

‘It’s impossible!’ I dropped my head on my arms. ‘I just want to stop the memories coming. Frances kept a photograph of her mother under her pillow so that her image wouldn’t be taken from her.’

Miriam hesitated. ‘Why is that relevant?’ she asked softly.

I raised my head, holding myself taut. Control. I had to keep myself in check, or all would be lost. I fought back the tears that were rising again. I swallowed hard and took several deep breaths. My body heaved, drowning, drowning. I put my head on my arms again, the comforting warmth of my own breath against my face.