I saw the quarterdeck, the main deck, and the bridge. The lifeboats were all properly in place; everything had obviously happened very fast. I noted the signal bridge, the Morse lamp, and the radio mast, which was overgrown to the tiniest branch with mussels and anthozoans. I inadvertently broke off a little stony coral from the bulwark and felt ashamed. I took meticulous care not to get tangled in any of the long-lost fishing nets that clung to the wreck here and there like giant spiderwebs. A hole in the ship’s side allowed me to peer into the engine room. I reached the detached bow, which lay separate from the rest like a wrenched-off body part. The break was a colossal, gaping wound. I guessed the ship was a British collier, maybe a merchant vessel built in the Roaring Twenties and later put into service by the Allies. I’d have to come back here many times to look for the ship’s bell or the shipbuilder’s plaque, for identification plates in the engine room, for dishes or utensils embossed with the shipping company’s emblem, for the manufacturers’ marks on the engine telegraphs and the binnacle, before the secret of the Fiedler would be unlocked.
It was time to return to the anchor cable. I was slowly reaching the point of sensory overload anyway. There were too many impressions. I wasn’t processing them anymore, only registering them. Ground tackle, king posts, fan cowls, deckhouse. Thousands of dolphinfish, amusing themselves by pursuing me. Once again, the ship’s screw captured my attention. It was a four-blade bronze propeller with a diameter of about five meters. The rudder, which had been swiveled hard to the left, could have told an entire story. And I was curious to hear it. I wanted to sit on the seafloor and grow gills so that I could breathe freely. I wanted to cast off my equipment and move into the captain’s cabin. The barracudas would surely have had nothing against that; there was room enough for all. The wreck was as big as an apartment complex. I could have made myself at home in there. After all, I knew how life worked underwater. It occurred to me that during the previous several minutes, for the first time in days, I hadn’t thought about either Jola or Antje or Theo. That was the pass I’d come to. Jola and Theo had brought Germany to the island — and with it a war that wasn’t mine, that had nothing to do with me. Nonetheless, they’d turned me into a combatant. Up there on the land, there was no longer any refuge I could escape to. The whole island was a battlefield. I couldn’t stay out of it anymore. My living space had been destroyed, like the habitat of a creature on the way to extinction. Down here was the only place I could still be. Everything felt right here. The planet Fiedler, discovered by myself. A realm nobody could follow me into. All I’d have to do was take off my equipment, breathe through gills, and …
I reached the anchor cable. Twenty-two minutes; deepest point, 109 meters. Not good, but acceptable. Apparently I’d forgotten the time for a few moments while contemplating the ship’s screw. I was breathing too fast — I had to get a grip on that. From this point on, the old rule from the Bible held good: don’t turn around, don’t look back. I couldn’t be interested in the wreck anymore. Now my entire focus must be on my measuring instruments, with whose help I had to bring the factors of depth, time, and gas mixture into perfect proportion.
I made my way up the anchor cable hand over hand, a little faster at the start because the cable sagged in the current, and then more slowly so as not to surpass the proper ascent speed. My first stop came at seventy-five meters, where I changed gases and then waited a further two minutes without taking my eyes off the dive computer. Constantly monitoring the parameters required my complete concentration. At three minutes per meter, up to a depth of forty-five meters; there a five-minute pause, including another gas change. Then continuing upward with increasingly longer decompression stops to twenty-one meters, where I had to wait twenty minutes and noticed for the first time the increase in the current. My arms and hands were already aching from clinging so tightly to the anchor cable. As soon as I noticed those aches, I started thinking I couldn’t hold on one second longer. Using one hand, I fished the mooring rope out of my pocket and attached myself to the cable. The next hour and a half was taken up with the coordination of ascent and stops, and I had no opportunity for reflection. For the first time, I looked up. The Aberdeen’s oval hull lay obliquely above me. It was a reassuring sight. Some part of me must have secretly reckoned with the possibility that my support ship might disappear. It was hard to imagine that Jola was actually up there. My desire to see her and report on my meeting with the Fiedler was like a pang in my belly. At the same time, I already felt disappointment at never really being able to describe to her what I’d experienced, because there were no suitable words for it. The eternally dusky undersea world, the sleeping ghost ship, the pitiless dimensions of past, ocean, and death — that was all trapped inside my head. No one but me had seen those sights. I’d have to work hard with Jola to help her develop the abilities necessary for diving down there with me someday. Maybe she could do it in a year or two. Then we’d share the same memory forever. The Fiedler would marry us.
Now I was being pulled upward as powerfully as down. Below me was darkness, above me light. The boundary between all conceivable opposites ran straight through me. I hung between bright and dark, above and below, yesterday and tomorrow, life and death. My instruments told me what direction I should move in, and when: higher, immediately. I unhooked the mooring rope and worked my way up the next fifteen meters, making various stops of four to thirteen minutes.
The glass ceiling lay six meters below the surface. I had to remain at that depth for an hour, alternately breathing pure oxygen and bottom gas, while the Aberdeen’s hull was directly above my head, so close it seemed I could touch it by stretching out a hand. Below me was the vitreous blue water mass of the Atlantic, in whose uppermost layer I found myself. There was nothing for eye or hand to fasten on except the anchor cable, which was quickly lost to sight in the deep. Now everything was pulling me upward and nothing down. I wanted out. Out where I could talk, breathe, get dry. So as not to lose my nerve, I strenuously avoided looking up.
Barely ten minutes had passed when I heard a loud splash. Something heavy must have fallen into the water. I raised my head and looked up toward the surface. A person was floating next to the boat.
Now they’re ruining everything, I thought. The careful plan, our agreement, my trust. The spirit of the expedition. Because they got bored. Or too hot. Because they decided to abandon their posts and go for a little swim while I’m finishing down here. Disappointment took my breath away for a moment. Until that moment, everything had gone well — had gone perfectly, in fact. I couldn’t believe I’d been so wrong about Jola. She begged me to go along on this expedition. She’d wanted to be my partner, a person on whom I could rely 100 percent. Or had she? My reason was exhausted, and I could see I was arriving at strange conclusions. All I knew for sure was that the little swimming party up there represented an attack on everything I held dear.
Then I realized that there weren’t two bodies swimming in the water, only one. And that one wasn’t swimming, it was sinking.