Drowning Lessons Read online

  “It’s a free lake,” he said. “Come on in.”

  As her body merged with the lake, he felt an odd tingle underwater, as if her bright red bathing suit charged the water with electricity. With her in the water, the lake suddenly felt colder, more quick and alive, while he felt warmer in it. She stood up to her chest in the water next to him. Her breasts were full, and though he tried hard he could not quite keep his eyes from the tawny shadow of her cleavage.

  “Let’s see you swim freestyle.”

  She swam a dozen yards, then turned and looked at him.

  “Not bad. You’ve got a good, strong kick. A little hyperextension in the knees, which is good. But you need to work on your arms and breathing.”

  “I’m all ears,” she said.

  Frank explained. “Pretend the water’s a sideways cliff you’re trying to climb. Reach as far as you can, grab hold, and pull yourself along. As you pull your hands back, make sure that they’re pushing hard against the water, the harder the better. Maximize that resistance. You follow?” The woman nodded. “And keep your fingers close together. Not touching, but close, like so.” He showed her. “That’s very important.”

  “I never knew that.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Frank. “Very important.”

  She swam again, and he watched her. She had a very strong kick.

  “Better,” he said. “Now let’s talk about your breathing. Now when I breathe —” he demonstrated, “— it’s all in the exhale, see? Don’t worry about inhaling. Just worry about exhaling. Push it out. Push it out. If you don’t exhale hard enough, then you won’t have room to get any new air inside your lungs. They’re full of carbon dioxide. That’s why you get winded.”

  “I never knew that, either.”

  “Well,” said Frank, “now you know.”

  Together they swam to the float.

  “How did you get to be such a good swimmer?” she asked as they sat catching their breaths.

  “The funny thing is,” he said, “I didn’t start until I was in my forties.”

  “You’re kidding?” Her eyelashes glistened with water. “Really?”

  “It’s the truth. I hated water. Hated it. Wouldn’t go near it. When I was a kid, I wouldn’t let my mother give me a bath. I never learned how to swim. Naturally, when I got drafted, they put me in the navy.” He pointed with his chin toward the anchor tattooed on his arm.

  “That figures,” said the woman from the Icehouse.

  “I was seventeen, on a Liberty ship. Sick to my stomach every day for thirty-nine days. Then we made the landing at Normandy. I’ll never forget. We had to jump from that big ship into this little lcs down there that looked about the size of a bathtub, and it’s going like this and the Liberty ship is going like that, and I stood there, shaking my head, muttering no way, no way, until some son of a bitch kicks me in the rump and down I go. All of a sudden I’m in this tub, crouched on my belly, praying to God Almighty, waves the size of elephants washing over us. Finally we get to the beach and land and there’s bullets flying everywhere and all I can think is hallelujah; I made it; I’m on dry land; the war is over. And I swore if I survived I would never, ever so much as look at water again.” He shook his head.

  “What changed your mind?”

  “It was the damnedest thing. About thirty years ago I just wanted to do it. I wanted to go in the water. It was like shaking hands with a Nazi soldier, you know? I just made up my mind: I’m not going to have this enemy in my life. Instead I’m going to embrace it; I’m going to learn to love it. So I taught myself how to swim.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t hard.”

  “That’s an amazing story,” said the woman.

  “Is it?”

  “Yes, amazing.”

  He had told Dorothy the same story several times, but he did not remember her being amazed. He wondered if she was watching the float now. No, she was reading her best seller or shucking corn for dinner. Dorothy had long since lost any interest in his swimming. He could have drowned, for all she knew.

  They swam back to the dam. In the shallow water, Frank gave her a few more pointers, showing her how far out of the water to lift her head and explaining to her again about breathing.

  “It’s the most important thing,” he said. “When you swim think of yourself as a breathing machine. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Everything else pretty much takes care of itself.”

  They met several more times. Her swimming improved greatly. One morning after they had swum together, she invited him for coffee. Inside, the Icehouse was cool, even cold, as if ice were still stored there. And it did smell faintly of mildew. Frank watched her open a can of dog food. Her arms were perfectly shaped, gloriously smooth, firm things. He thought of his wife in her baggy robe holding the bacon skillet and felt a sharp, sudden emptiness in his abdomen, as if he’d been gutted.

  That same night, with his belly full of corn and zucchini, Frank slept poorly. Several times he awoke from nightmares of which he remembered nothing more than bubbles, black bubbles. He lay there, touching his forehead with a trembling hand. Beside him Dorothy lay fast asleep, breathing deeply, snoring. He shook himself awake. He wanted to make a confession, then and there. He wanted to tell his slumbering wife everything, say to her, I have reached the bottom of my willpower. I have loved and been faithful to you for thirty-six years, but enough is enough. I have met another woman. The woman in the Icehouse. Juliet. I have fallen in love with her. She swims.

  He had an erection.

  He got up and took a cold shower. Afterward, he stood dripping in the doorway of the screened porch where they slept, listening to the electric noise of crickets. Gray dawn seeped in through the rattan shades. Turning, he stood at the foot of their bed.

  “Frank, is that you?”

  “Swim with me,” he said.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Tomorrow. Today. This afternoon. I want you to swim with me. Will you swim with me?” He stood naked in the dark.

  “You know I don’t swim, Frank.”

  “I’ll teach you.”

  “Frank, for goodness —”

  “Please,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “It’s important. I want you to swim with me, Dorothy. I need you to swim with me.”

  “All right, all right; I’ll swim with you, for godsake.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and bent down and kissed her.

  “But not this morning. I need to sleep.”

  “This afternoon will do fine,” said Frank.

  He went for his morning swim alone. He wasn’t surprised to see the woman from the Icehouse waiting for him, already in the water.

  “Practice makes perfect,” she said, treading.

  They swam out to the float. When they reached it, the sun had broken over the tops of the trees to bathe it in yellow light. They rested, drying and breathing together, their bodies touching. Frank lay on his back with his eyes closed, letting the sun paint its Rothkos and Mirós. It took him no time to doze off. He found himself back in the dream he’d had during the night, in which he chased — or was chased by — black bubbles. The bubbles rose from a hideous depth into his face, blinding him. With a gasping start he awoke, startling the woman from the Icehouse, who’d been watching him doze.

  “You had a nightmare,” she said.

  “I know,” said Frank.

  “You grind your teeth. Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.” He smiled. “Please don’t tell my dentist. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “Your secret is safe with me.”

  She put a hand on his shoulder, looked at him. Her green irises held tiny flakes of brownish red — like rust. Frank swam in them. A drop of water from her hair landed on his lip. She bent forward to kiss him. Frank broke away. “I’ve got to go,” he said, untying the rowboat.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you’d like it.”

  “It isn’t a question of like,” said Frank, climbing in. “
I’m old enough to be your grandfather.”

  “Oh, so it’s a question of age, is it?” Before he could say anything, she reached forward and kissed him again, a slow kiss on his lips.

  He watched her red bathing suit get smaller and smaller as he rowed, turning into a red dot as he hurried back to his wife.

  That afternoon he held Dorothy up in the shallow water. He did the same the next afternoon, helping her practice her breathing, teaching her to reach with her arms and turn her head from side to side. She wore her green one-piece bathing suit. It made her skin look ghostly white.

  “Kick,” said Frank, buoying her up. “Kick!”

  “I’m kicking!”

  “Hello, Frank.”

  The woman from the Icehouse stood there, on the dam, holding her dog on a leash.

  “Kick,” said Frank, ignoring her.

  They spent the rest of the afternoon practicing in the shallows, with Frank teaching Dorothy to kick and tread water. He taught her the freestyle stroke and had her practice it with her feet touching bottom. “Frank, my arms are tired,” she kept saying, until finally he relented. “Fine,” he said. “You’re doing fine. We’ll pick up tomorrow.” The next day, before lunch and after his morning swim (he had not seen the woman from the Icehouse, which both relieved and disappointed him), he brought his wife with him out to the float.

  “Are you sure I’m ready for this?” she asked him.

  “Don’t worry,” he said.

  While mooring the boat, Frank saw a red dot in the distance. As they drew closer, the red dot waved. Frank nodded.

  “What is it?” said Dorothy.

  “What? Nothing,” said Frank, turning away. He stepped onto the float. “Come on,” he said, taking her hand.

  “I’m really not sure if I’m ready.”

  “You promised.”

  “I don’t want to do this, Frank.”

  “Please — don’t let me down.”

  She shook her head. “Frank, let me stay in the boat.”

  “Don’t let me down!” He gripped her arm.

  “I’m not letting you down! This has nothing to do with you! I don’t want to swim. I don’t feel like it. Let go of me!”

  “Please.”

  “Let go, Frank!”

  “Damn you.”

  He let go. The boat had drifted away from the float. Instead of falling back onto the seat, his wife fell forward, over the side. She came up thrashing.

  “Frank!” she spluttered.

  “Swim!” he said.

  The woman from the Icehouse stood there, watching, waving. Frank’s eyes darted back and forth from his wife thrashing in her one-piece bathing suit to the woman on shore in her bright red bikini. Though only several hundred yards, the distance may as well have been measured in light years. It was the very same distance, he reflected (dimly aware of his wife’s spluttered cries), that had stood between him and joy, him and the vigor of his youth, that impossible distance of dark, deep water. No amount of swimming, his own or anyone else’s, could broach it.

  Frank!

  To cross that distance you had to do more than swim.

  Frank!

  As he watched his wife struggle, an irresistible force gripped and held him frozen — a vibrating electric force that numbed his shoulders and turned his arms and legs to quivering bars of lead. It came from all the way across the water, from where the woman from the Icehouse stood watching him.

  Help!

  “Jesus!”

  He dove in.

  The water was cold and dark, dark green. Bubbles smashed into his face. He followed them down and down until his muscles and lungs began to cringe, then surfaced to catch his breath, then followed them down again. In the green darkness he saw nothing, only the pale explosions of his breath as the churning water multiplied the bubbles in all dimensions. He groped blindly, kicking at the darkness until his lungs began to explode. He rushed up into the wavering cone of light, his left leg striking something on the way. Snatching a razor-sharp breath from the surface, he plunged again, found her, and brought her up a dozen yards from the float. With one arm around her wide waist and one for the water, he dog-paddled her to the ladder. Somehow, in a series of movements that cut a wedge out of time, he lifted her out and up onto the float, where he lay her on her back and pinched her nostrils and breathed into her, his warm lips pressed against her cold ones as he massaged her heart. She retched back to life. He rolled her on her side and watched her cough water. Then he sat with his hand on her shoulder, his feet over the edge of the float, his face dripping. His heart pounded in his chest like a wire beater thrashing a dusty old rug.

  He looked to shore.

  The red dot was gone. There was no gray car, no black barking dog. No light burned in the Icehouse, which looked as weedy, as empty, as abandoned as ever. A blue heron sailed overhead. A breeze swept the lake in a gray parabola. He closed his eyes and sobbed, tears mixed with lake water dripping from his sagging, creased face.

  “I’m sorry,” he told no one. “So sorry.”

  With his eyes still closed he felt himself drifting; he felt he could drift like that forever. When he opened them, he saw the clouds shifting high above the trees. He looked down at the water in time to see a creature — a pond skater or a water strider — walking there.

  THE WOLF HOUSE

  THAT SUNDAY MORNING when I told her, “Mrs. Wolff is dead,” my mother groaned, cocked her head, pursed her lips, and said, in a voice barely loud enough to hear, “Che peccato.” The next day she lay in her bed, sick, calling to me in her Death Voice, “Alberto? Albert? Sei tu, Alberto?”

  Of course it was me; who else would it be? Not Geordie, my twin, who preaches in Vermont. I stood at her bedroom door, like I’ve always stood there, like I’ve stood there my whole life, helpless. But this time I did something different. “That’s it,” I said, marching over, tearing the bedclothes off her. “I’m taking you to the emergency room. They’ll do a million useless tests; then we’ll go home. Okay?” I felt just like Geordie saying it.

  Having piled her into her mint-condition green ’68 Rambler American, I drove my mother to the hospital, where they’re testing her for meningitis.

  She doesn’t have meningitis.

  So I leave my mother in the hands of experts and go to pick up Lenny Wolff, whose mother is dead. It rains. Lenny’s father, wife, and eight-month-old baby boy huddle in a corner of his childhood living room, surrounded by plastic buckets, Tupperware bowls, and pots catching drops from a leaky roof. Everyone’s saying carefully sentimental things like she’s in a better place now. With his barrel chest, thick neck, and bowed, ruddy head, Mr. Wolff looks like one of the huge red water valves at the reservoir pumping station where he works and where I sometimes visit him. Lenny has a two o’clock appointment with the priest.

  “You’re late,” he says first thing when he sees me.

  “Sorry,” I say. “It’s raining.” As if he hasn’t noticed.

  “I’m on a very tight schedule,” says Father Moynahan, a man with thin blue eyes and thinning hair who speaks in a soft, cautious voice. Everything about the man is cautious, grotesquely moderate. He meets us by the confessional. There’s a wedding in progress, so he doubts there’ll be many “takers.” “They don’t like to come during weddings,” he says.

  Lenny stopped believing in God the year we graduated, the same year he quit smoking. Since then he’s been waiting for the Catholic Church to collapse, as if his piety had been the main thing supporting it. Only his mom’s side of the family remains true to Rome; the rest are lapsed, agnostics, Jews, while most of his friends are atheists like me, Geordie, and Clyde. Though she attended Mass every Sunday, Mrs. Wolff always sat in the last pew, alone, like a shy man in a porno theater. Her mouth would open to sing, Lenny once told me, but no sound ever came out. Father Moynahan, who’ll be performing the service, doesn’t seem to remember her.

  “Was this by any chance the Mrs. Wolff who lived at the Good Samar
itan Nursing Home?” he asks Lenny.

  “She lived with my father,” Lenny answers, his brown eyes narrowing to rusty blades.

  “I see,” says Father M. “That must be another Mrs. Wolff.”

  “Yes, it must,” says Lenny, stabbing him repeatedly.

  Why the hell does Lenny want me here? To keep him from punching the priest? Since the day Geordie and I met Lenny, I’ve always been slightly afraid of him. It was Clyde Rawlings who brought us together on the rock at Bennington Pond back when we were still in puberty. The DePoli twins were the only first-generation Americans in this small New England factory town, the only atheists, our dead father a scientist and inventor. We’d learned to hate and fear Catholic boys, pimple-faced, plaid-necktied hooligans who’d beat us up at the bus stop for being “Guineas” and not believing in God. We expected no less of Lenny, who loomed barrel chested and fierce on our rock like Samson over the Philistines. Clyde made introductions. “Lenny Wolff, God-fearing Catholic, meet Albert and Geordie, blaspheming atheists.” My twin and I froze like headlight deer and remained frozen as Lenny smiled and shook hands with us. Still, there was violence in the guy. You could feel it.

  “And you say there are to be Jews at the service?” Father Moderation asks, drawing out the word “Jews,” stretching it like taffy.

  “My wife among them,” says Lenny.

  “You didn’t want a Jewish service?”

  “My mother was Catholic.”

  “That’s right … that’s right. And your father?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  Father Moderation smiles. “Well, my son, you see, I need to know, if you’ll pardon the expression, just what sort of group I’m ‘up against.’ Non-Catholics can be, well, impatient with our ways.”

  “I can imagine,” says Lenny.

  “At least you won’t be preaching to the converted,” I say, trying to lighten things up a little. The priest turns hopeful eyes to me. “What about you? Are you Catholic?”

  “Lapsed. Apostate.”

  “Oh.” He nods. “I see.”

  The priest turns back to Lenny to discuss his role in the eulogy.