One of the pleasant things in life is the fact that everyone is entitled to his own worldview. I took my perceptions to bed with me. I knew tomorrow would be a thoroughly normal day, a day on which I’d go diving with a couple of clients. Beyond that knowledge there was nothing that needed to be taken into account.
JOLA’S DIARY, THIRD DAY
Monday, November 14. Evening.
I’m choking. I can’t shake the feeling of being unable to breathe. It’s lodged in my throat. As if there’s something stuck in there. A cork. A convulsion. Instead of studying, I jump up every three minutes and dash over to the window. I yank it open and suck air into my lungs. I tell myself, That’s oxygen! Your body inhales it automatically! You aren’t going to die. My heart races so hard it hurts. I try to calm down, to subdue my panic. To breathe slowly, the way Sven taught me to do. If only he were here. If only he would take my hand. Give me his air to breathe. I need a diving instructor on land. Someone who can teach me how to keep from choking on this crappy life.
So the old man came out of the shower with a wet towel over his shoulder and that special expression on his face, and already I felt the air go out of me, I got cold, and my inner voice was hollering, Tough it out! You can stand it! It won’t kill you! Think about something else and hold still, it’ll be over with faster that way!
But the old man just laid a hand on the back of my neck and asked me, friendly as you please, if I really didn’t want to go to dinner with them in the little restaurant in Tinajo. I made a frantic grab for the diving books. A thin defensive perimeter. Then Sven arrived and looked shocked when he found out I wanted to stay in. Now I’m staring at the clock on the wall. It’s set an hour ahead so that vacationing guests won’t miss their programs on German TV.
Studying theory is pointless. Math formulas and page-long descriptions of different pieces of equipment. As if theory could safeguard you in practice. As if the world didn’t have ways and means to sneak up on us from behind. And then there’s the constant blather about your “buddy.” You have to be able to rely on your buddy. You and your buddy must practice underwater communication. Always make sure you’re not endangering yourself or your buddy. I’m sick of my “buddy.”
I know Theo loves me. Not only because he says so. I see it in his eyes. I feel it in the way he puts his arm around me. Comforts me. Tries to protect me from himself. I know it from the efforts he makes. From the way he honestly tries to be someone else. Often enough, I provoke him, I ask for it. Come on, do it then. Give it to me hard. Stick your dick in my ass. You can’t get it up unless you can play the rapist. And so on, until he grabs my neck and forces me to stop talking. To provoke is to maintain control. In some situations, the greatest mercy is the knowledge that at least you’ve brought them on yourself.
Do people have opposites? If they do, then Sven’s the opposite of the old man. Sven watches out for me. How quickly he moved to my side when I swam out over the ledge! He noticed I was losing control well before it became clear to me. His eyes behind the diving goggles. His firm conviction that he could help me. His calm was contagious, and I caught it. He should never have let me go. We would have simply stayed underwater forever.
He sent me a text message a little while ago: “You’re in our thoughts.” He’s always worrying. I’ve never known anyone who worried so much. I can literally see the wheels turning inside his head. Broody wheels, worry wheels. Sometimes I want to grab his arm and hold on until he stops thinking and tell him, You’re a good person.
I try to imagine Sven killing the old man. He grabs him by the throat, pushes him underwater, and holds him down. I’m wearing diving goggles. I sit on the bottom and watch. I see the mortal fear on Theo’s face. The sudden understanding that he’s gone too far. Drowning’s an ugly death. Music by Carter Burwell, as in a Coen brothers film, accompanies the scene. I press STOP.
Everything could be so beautiful. We’re on an island, we have money, we’re healthy. But everything’s ugly. And the more I think and do ugly things, the uglier my life becomes. Like a splendid home furnished with the most tasteless objects. It hurts to have to see that every day. Being inside is unbearable. The open window’s not helping anymore. I have to get out of here.
7
By the next morning, the bad weather had finally moved off. Blue sky, bright sun, a friendly little wind. Jola was sitting on the steps of the Casa Raya, wearing cutoff jeans and a top with a narrow halter holding her breasts. Something was missing from this picture, namely Theo. Jola was alone. I knew immediately that he hadn’t just gone back in to pick up some forgotten trifle, he hadn’t yet left the Casa. I could tell by looking at Jola that Theo wouldn’t be diving with us that morning. She looked back at me as if seeing me for the first time.
I stood in front of her and reflected on how we’d been greeting each other the past couple of days. Handshakes? Mutual shoulder pats? Brief waves and simple hellos? Or were we already such good friends that we had to embrace? I didn’t like this constant cheek-kissing between near strangers. When it became the fashion at the university to greet people by flinging your arms around their neck, I decided not to go to any more parties. One thing was certain: I couldn’t possibly fling my arms around Jola. Not as long as she was wearing that halter top. I realized that on the previous days I’d driven up to the Casa and simply stayed in the driver’s seat while Jola and Theo threw their bags into the backseat and got in the front with me. I couldn’t understand why I’d climbed out of the van on that particular morning.
“Is something wrong?” Jola asked.
“Where’s Theo?”
Her face clouded. She said, “I’m paying your fee.”
“Is he not in the mood today?”
“The old man’s your biggest fan. But he’s in bed with a cold.”
“Antje will bring him something that’ll put him back on his feet by tomorrow.”
“But are you ready and willing to go diving with me without Theo?”
I saluted and said in English, “Yes, ma’am.”
In the van she sat close to the passenger window, leaving an empty place between us on the front seat. When I turned my head toward her, she smiled strangely, showing the spaces between her incisors. This had the same effect on me as if she’d spread her legs. We didn’t speak. I forced myself to keep my eyes on the road.
Everything is will.
Silence on land was something different from silence underwater. It wasn’t a normal condition; it was the mute sound track of failure. After fifteen minutes, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“So how are you coming along with theory?”
“Fuck theory.”
She pronounced the word as if theo-ry had something to do with Theo. Then we fell silent again.
Finally the van was bouncing along the potholed road that led to the dive site at Mala. I considered it important that Jola’s next dive should be in the same spot where she’d had her panic attack the day before. The same principle as getting right back on a horse after a fall. There had been no discussion of this. She hadn’t asked where we were going, and I kept having trouble coming up with the first sentence of every single thing I wanted to say.
We stopped and Jola got out. She stretched her back and looked at the ocean, which shone smooth as foil all the way to the horizon. I opened the back of the van and felt gratitude at the sight of all the equipment. Scuba tanks to unload, buoyancy compensators to prepare, weight belts to find. Jola helped me spread out the tarp we were going to change our clothes on. When she crossed her arms to pull her top over her head, I turned back to the van and rummaged under the passenger seat for a mask.