Italo, in the meantime, has reached his final stroke. The edge of his axe is dull, notched, as if he’s done a year’s worth of work in the last five minutes. Like Jacob’s rope, Italo’s is hung with all manner of fishhooks, which jangle as the rope spins, clockwise and counter-, against the forces that strain it. Italo’s exhaustion is evident. His shirt is transparent with sweat. He sways from side to side as if drunk. Nonetheless, he musters the strength for one more heave of his axe. It cleaves the remaining strands of rope cleanly. A thunderclap knocks Italo off his feet, radiates outwards. The rope rears back like a wounded serpent, its rigid straightness released into loops and snarls. Hooks flaring, a length of the rope coils at Rainer. He’s already started to turn his head, probably in response to Italo’s axe slicing through the rope, so he sees the flashing hooks, the curving rope, and, with a speed Jacob would not have guessed he possessed, throws himself to the ground. One of the hooks catches the back of his shirt and as quickly rips free, following the rest of its fellows as the rope rolls above Rainer and into the Fisherman. Maybe he’s been too focused on his contest with Rainer — maybe that black globe surrounding Rainer’s left hand has affected his eyesight — either way, he doesn’t react in time. The rope slaps up and down him, burying a host of the smaller and several of the larger fishhooks in him.
This is Jacob’s moment. Pivoting his hips to give the blow its maximum force, he swings the axe down. In the quarter-second it takes for the blade to traverse the arc up, down, and into the base of Angelo’s neck, where it joins the shoulder, Jacob watches Angelo’s eyes darken from gold to brown, the water slide off his face. STOP! his brain screams, but it’s too late. Already, the blade has reached Angelo’s skin. It cuts deep, through the muscle and collar bone, down to the edge of his breastbone. Blood vents from severed arteries. With a cry, Jacob releases the axe and stumbles back. The handle of the axe protruding up like some awkward new limb, blood bubbling red onto his shirt, Angelo attempts to raise himself to his feet. All he manages is to bring his right arm around in front of him, to shift his legs underneath him. As soon as he has, he slumps over, supporting himself on his right arm. Blood pattering the soil, Angelo lurches into a half-crawl. Jacob can’t imagine where he could be headed. Nor is it likely Angelo has much idea. He manages to place one madly trembling hand forward before his arm gives out, dropping his face into the dirt that’s already damp with his blood. His mouth opens and closes, opens and closes, opens and remains open. Though he damns his cowardice, Jacob can’t bear to approach him. It’s left to Andrea to kneel beside their comrade and search his neck for the pulse both men know won’t be there. Italo staggers to their sides, but there isn’t anything he can do.
A scream jerks the men’s attention from the crimson pool spreading under Angelo. It’s the Fisherman. He’s struggling against the rope that has stitched itself to him, crossing from his right hip to his left shoulder like a sash. Behind him, the rope has drawn taut, and is pulling him toward the rocky shore, and the dark waves beyond. Although blood streams down his apron from dozens of spots where the fishhooks have pushed through it into him, the Fisherman fights mightily to stay where he is. Grabbing the rope at a spot high on his chest, sucking in his breath as the hooks stab his palm, the Fisherman raises his knife to ease the tip between his skin and the rope. The rope yanks him back a step. He licks his lips, his brow furrowed, as he concentrates on sliding the knife under the rope.
Which is when Rainer steps in close to him, his axe swinging up. It clangs on the blade of the knife, spinning it out of the Fisherman’s grasp. Rainer reverses his stroke, and sweeps the Fisherman’s legs out from under him. The man sits down hard. To his rear, the rope sags, then straightens, slamming the Fisherman onto his back and dragging him in the direction of the beach. His one hand still hooked to the rope, the Fisherman slaps the ground with the other, searching for purchase. His fingers dig into the soil, carve trenches in the dirt as he’s pulled across it. Blood spills and splashes from his apron. His breathing is loud, hoarse, a much larger sound than you would expect from so slight a man. Keeping a few steps behind, Rainer follows him as he’s towed from the dirt onto the stony beach. Rocks clatter and click as he drags over them. Frantic, he tries to dig his heels in among the rocks, but they’re scattered by the force drawing him on.
Maybe halfway down the beach, the Fisherman succeeds in wedging his left foot into a narrow fissure in a long table of a rock. He howls when the rope continues to pull at him, and the howl increases its volume as he pushes his way to his feet, crescendoing in a victory cry that’s interrupted by Rainer hammering the blunt end of his axe head on the Fisherman’s left knee. Bone cracks. Face blank with this new pain, the Fisherman pulls away from it, and in so doing, inclines in the very direction he’s only just succeeded in resisting. When the rope yanks him down, his foot remains caught in the stone that has switched from brace to vise. With the snap of a dried branch, his ankle breaks. For much too long, his foot is caught in the rock as the rest of him is dragged towards the water. Further bones, ligaments, crack, pop. A high, keening sound leaks from the Fisherman’s mouth, which is clamped shut. With his free hand, he pushes at his trapped leg; with his free leg, he kicks at it. At last, his heel slides loose and he’s pulled off the long rock.
This is it. There’s nothing of any size to prevent the Fisherman being drawn the rest of the way to the black ocean. He appears to know this, which is not to say that he accepts it. In his antique German, he lets fly a volley of curses at Rainer. “Go fuck your mother,” Rainer says. The next volley of curses expands its targets to include Jacob, his companions, and their families. “Go fuck your father,” Rainer says. What Jacob assumes is a further round of invective is delivered in a language he thinks is Hungarian. “Go fuck yourself,” Rainer says.
Whatever the Fisherman is about to say next is interrupted by the furthest edge of a wave surging over his face and chest. Coughing, he shouts in German, “I turn my body from the sun! I turn my mind from the sun! I turn my spirit from the sun!” Another wave rolls over him. Rainer has halted his march just beyond the water’s reach. When the wave has subsided from the Fisherman, he raises his head to look at Rainer. “From hell’s heart,” he shouts, “I stab at thee! For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee!” Rainer doesn’t answer. The next wave that falls on the Fisherman is larger; it buoys him up, momentarily, delivering him to the following wave, and the wave after that. Jacob thinks that maybe the dark ocean has hold of him, now, but the water retreats, depositing the Fisherman on sand studded with rocks. He’s pale to the point of white, as if the water has washed all the blood that was left out of him. Tilting his head to the sea, to the vast coil waiting for him, he shouts, “To thee I come, all-destroyer! To the last I grapple with thee! Let me then tow to pieces, tied to thee!”
A wall of water crashes down on him. Jacob loses sight of him in the resulting foam, and doesn’t regain it until the Fisherman has been carried a dozen yards from shore. Amidst the rioting waves, it’s difficult to distinguish much with any certainty, but Jacob could swear he sees the Fisherman grasped by a multitude of silvery arms; it’s impossible for him to say if they’re holding the man up, or dragging him under. Then he’s gone, taken by the water.
XXIII
Rainer doesn’t waste any time marking his passing. While Jacob and the others are still squinting at the ocean, Rainer turns and starts up the beach. On the way, he stoops to retrieve the Fisherman’s knife. As he comes closer, Jacob’s eyes are drawn to his face. The white light that’s been focused on his features has brightened to the point they’re almost impossible to discern. He stops next to Angelo’s corpse, and crouches beside it. Jacob — it isn’t so much that he’s forgotten about Angelo, slumped over in a pool of his own blood, as it is that his attention has been commanded by the spectacle of the Fisherman’s undoing. Now that he’s met whatever fate was awaiting him in the ocean, his hold on Jacob has ceased, leaving him to face the man he’s killed.