Translated from the German by Mary Tannert
The water was ice cold. There were hands in it, hands that closed around her ankles, tightened their grip, pulled downward. Martine had run down the bank and directly into the water, just as she always did when she trained with her swim club. But here she stopped suddenly, the water barely above her knees. She gasped for breath. The hands clung to her calves, squeezing mercilessly. She’d get leg cramps in a minute if this went on.
Never mind, she told herself sternly. She pulled on her goggles, adjusted her nose clip, raised her arms, and pushed off. Dove under the surface. And came back up again, coughing, breathless. Her feet paddled, wild and uncoordinated, spent one long, panicked moment feeling for solid ground. There was something wrong with the lake. She tore the goggles from her face, gasped again.
Martine Meier, long-distance swimmer. What a spectacle she was making of herself! Thank goodness nobody was around at this time of day to see her. The lake’s beach was deserted in the gray of dawn, the water before her lay leaden and still against the backdrop of mountains so blue they looked like paper cutouts.
She’d woken up at five. Jet lag. Had simply lain there awhile in the unfamiliarly narrow hotel bed, wide awake, eyes open. In the next bed, Joanna snored gently. Four to a room — that was unfamiliar too. Yesterday evening, Joanna had generously doled out sleeping pills from her apparently plentiful supply of medication. Martine had refused them; after all, she was responsible for the little group. But at five in the morning, wide awake, she’d regretted her caution. Finally, she got up, pulled on her swimsuit in the dark, and made her way to the lake in the first shimmer of dawn, through the empty streets of Walenstadt.
At home, she had to drive just to get to the water. To the swim club on the bay, where she did her training every morning in ice-cold, mercury-contaminated water. A mile out, a mile back. 3.2 kilometers in just under forty minutes. A Swiss mountain lake shouldn’t be any trouble. She settled the goggles on her face again, took a deep breath in. Breathed out.
There was something wrong with this lake.
Martine, pull yourself together!
In San Francisco, the water was a chilly fifty-seven degrees, and she swam every day clad only in a short-sleeved neoprene suit. There were big waves in the bay, seals, soft-drink bottles; there was sewage, and now and then even a shark gone astray. By comparison, a mountain lake was nothing! — even if, she admitted, it was a very deep, very dark lake. She pushed off one more time, dived under the surface, and stretched her arms over her head. Across the lake and back, that’s what she’d set herself, but it was clear immediately that she couldn’t do it. Not through the middle of that bottomless lake; it would swallow her, she was sure of it. She forced herself to swim a couple of strokes, swam away from a cold, naked fear, away from herself. But she thought she could see shadows through the goggles; hands, hands that reached for her. After a couple of strokes, she turned around. She didn’t even swim all the way back; she was still far away when she touched bottom, stood up, and waded out. By the time she got to shore, the sun was coming up. It would be hot today, but Martine was trembling.
Her group was already at breakfast at the Hotel Churfirsten when she got back. The jet lag had affected all of them, all except for Joanna, who was still snoring peacefully when Martine let herself into their room to change. Joanna lay on her back, her mouth wide open, both arms wrapped around her light-blue cosmetic bag, which contained her collection of pills. Martine got dressed quickly and went down to the breakfast room; it was her job to help the group manage in these foreign surroundings.
“Over here, honey!” Mr. Zoggan, the tour organizer, waved her over to his table. But Kate, one of the three other women with whom Martine shared her room, rescued her just in time.
“Martine, can you come over here a minute? I really need your help!” They hid behind the menus, giggling like schoolgirls. Another successful escape.
Zoggan had hired Martine to accompany a small group of American hobby genealogists looking for their roots in Switzerland. Fourteen Americans with names like Wenger, Iberg, and Schaerer. Genealogy is a popular pastime in the United States. After all, everybody has roots somewhere. It’s just that, in a nation largely settled by immigrants, this somewhere is somewhere else. And Mr. Zoggan, himself of Hungarian descent, had seen a market opportunity in that fact. He organized trips through Europe that were supposed to help Americans encounter their roots. He’d guided the first few himself, but then he’d begun to hire natives who could help the group negotiate the usual cultural divides.
Martine had imagined the task would be easier than it was — a paid flight to Switzerland, she’d thought, a Switzerland that had seemed small enough after fourteen years in America that she’d have time for a quick visit with all her relatives and old friends, from her grandparents in Ticino to friends in Zurich and Basel, all the way to her brother and his family at Lake Geneva. Especially since the group was staying in Walenstadt. After all, in Switzerland all roads lead to Walenstadt. Or at least through it.
But her charges needed more of her than she’d thought. It started at breakfast: “No eggs? No bacon? Is that all?” they’d asked, staring glumly at the fresh croissants the Swiss called gipfeli, at the homemade jam, the comparatively strong coffee in big jugs, the foamed milk.
“Isn’t there anything normal here for breakfast?” her niece had asked when she’d visited Martine in San Francisco, staring just as glumly at the menu of the Seal Rock Inn, famous all over the region for its breakfast.
“Normal?”
“Müsli. Or maybe a gipfeli.”
“There are fried eggs. Sunny side up.”
Kate turned the croissant in her hands. “All these carbohydrates,” she sighed. “I really shouldn’t. I’m on Atkins.”
“Oh, never mind, they’re so small!” Joanna slid into the empty seat next to Martine and reached for a gipfeli. She looked well rested and fresh, almost wound up. “Just eat half of it! What are we doing today?”
Martine had already helped herself to two gipfeli and was spooning jam onto her plate. Joanna was right. In comparison to American super-sized portions, these really did look small.
“Aren’t we meeting the prince today?” Betty smoothed the lapels of her salmon-pink polyester blazer. They were embroidered with pearls in a floral pattern. Her plump body was encased in a floor-length skirt of the same fabric, and on her feet there were white sneakers. Betty looked exactly like the stereotype of an American tourist. Fat, blond, wearing a camera. She’d gotten hold of Martine on the bus from the airport to Walenstadt and had promptly designated her as her “bus buddy.” And Martine had noticed very fast that she’d underestimated Betty. She ought to have learned by now that it was pretty much impossible in San Francisco to judge anyone by his or her appearance. The muscular young woman with dragons tattooed on her arms could be a student rabbi, the dropout in the baggy pants could be an Internet millionaire, and the overenthusiastic Betty Hoblitzel with her soft Southern accent was one of the most sought-after defense attorneys in the entire city. Who had, moreover, taken Martine aside first thing and asked her in a conspiratorial undertone where to find “those famous coffee shops.” Martine had to stop and think for a minute, because the question seemed so unlikely coming from Betty. “They’re in Amsterdam,” she finally replied in an apologetic tone. “Amsterdam. In the Netherlands.”