by Annet Schaap
The dwarf’s wife makes up a bed for them on the floor of the caravan. It’s already far too late to go home, says Oswald, and besides they have something to do tomorrow morning.
Lampie feels mushy from the singing, and glowing from the cup of mulled wine she was given, and so she snuggles up next to Fish and goes straight to sleep.
The boy does not sleep, but lies there, looking into the unfamiliar darkness. He has slowly rolled away from the girl, as he is sure that she does not want his cold legs touching her. Tail. Tail—yes, maybe you could call it a tail. His aunt had a tail, the aunt who he had for a moment and has already lost. He thinks about Earl with his grabbing fingers. And he thinks about his father too, and what he would say if he saw him lying here. With the fairground folk, with the dregs, the failures, where his son does not belong. He thinks a thousand things, about the whole day, about his whole life.
And among all those thoughts, there is one, as steady as a heartbeat, which will not go away: what it was like, that instant before the aquarium exploded, when he was completely underwater, and how it felt.
Back at the Black House, Lenny is sitting and waiting by the gate. He will not come inside, not for tea, not for dinner. Martha can call as much as she likes, and she can threaten him too, but he does not come. His eyes wide, he stares through the bars and into the darkness, looking in the direction they should be coming from.
But she does not come, the girl, all night long. It gets cold and dark, and the dogs went inside long ago, but not Lenny. Lenny stays and waits.
letter
Augustus’s eyes are closed, but he is not asleep.
He can still see her standing there in front of him. Every day. Every hour. Every minute.
She is in the middle of the room, with her hands up to her cheek. And her mother is behind her. Both of them are looking at him. They can see him everywhere he goes: in his bed, on the toilet, in the lamp room. Up on the walkway is the only place where the wind blows them out of his head, just a little, and so that is where he spends most of his time.
How could you? their eyes say. How could you?
There is a knock at the door. That woman again with her mush. He does not need anything; his throat is clamped shut.
“I don’t need anything,” he shouts hoarsely. “Just forget about it today.”
“Mr. Waterman!” she persists. What a shrill voice the woman has. “I’ve got something special for you. Come down and get it!”
What could it be? A pudding, something sweet maybe. He has no idea, but he is not getting up out of his chair for that.
“I don’t need anything!” he shouts again. Why won’t she just leave him alone?
“Your daughter was here this afternoon.”
What? Lampie? He feels his heart skip a beat. But how? She is where she is, and she can’t leave, and even if…
“That’s impossible!” he rasps. Don’t go getting my hopes up, woman! he thinks. I don’t want any maybes or what-ifs—that just makes it worse.
“It’s true! Lampie, right? Well, she left something for you. Will you come down and get it? And you can take the soup while you’re at it!”
Something white slides through the hatch and flutters to the floor. A piece of paper. He limps over to it.
“And here’s the soup! Careful though. It’s dripping!”
And indeed, a hot drop of soup splashes onto his neck as he bends down to pick up the paper. Augustus barely notices. He can hear her, the woman, rattling on, waiting for an answer and then, after a while, walking away. He stares at the piece of paper in his hand. There are letters on it, big lopsided ones. For a moment he allows himself to think that it could really be from her. That she has come all the way here from goodness knows where to push this through his door. Which means that she still thinks about him. That she does not want to spit on his name.
He crumples the paper into a ball. Because it’s impossible. It can’t be from Lampie. His daughter can’t read or write; she has never learned how. And neither has he.
He throws the ball of paper into the cold fireplace and slowly limps back up the stairs to where the wind is blowing.
Fish swims
Through the early morning mist, they walk to the harbor, very first thing, even before breakfast. Lanky Lester and Julie, the bearded lady, lead the way. They are the strongest, so they are carrying the dead mermaid in her blanket. The others follow silently behind. All of them except for Olga and Olga, the elderly twins, as it was too far for them to walk. Lampie brings up the rear, pulling Fish in her squeaking cart.
Mermaids do not go into the ground. They have to become sea foam, to return to where they came from.
There is no one at the harbor yet, and they do not stay for long.
At the last jetty, they stand in silence for a while.
Then the dwarf says, “Farewell, Sparkling Diamond.”
They drop the body into the water. It makes a quiet splash. Two quiet splashes.
When Lampie looks back at Fish, the cart is empty.
He is swimming after the body. He can see it dissolving in a flurry of bubbles, as if it is disintegrating. The dull skin, the green hair like seaweed, the black tail—they all dissolve in a fizzing cloud, like the headache powder that Joseph sometimes used to give him. Then something swims out of the cloud, as thin and twisting as a sea snake, but sweeter, more beautiful, with soft hair and a smile. She swims toward him, winds around him, brushes the hair out of his face, puts her mouth up to his ear, and doesn’t speak a word. But he understands her anyway.
Go and look for them, boy. Go and let them find you.
Then she turns greener and more transparent and shimmers away.
He just hears a quiet Thank you, before her voice disappears too. Thank you so, so much.
Fish turns around and around, but there is only water now, green and murky. The light falls through it in slanting rays, and in the distance he can see the dark shadows of ships’ hulls floating above.
She was his family, the dwarf had said. Some kind of aunt?
Fine. So he had had an aunt for about half an hour. And then she was gone. Of course. No one ever stays with him, not ever. No one is coming to rescue him either. See? He could just as easily drown in this filthy…
Water.
He has been in the water for some time now, but he still has not drowned. He is breathing as normal.
Or something in him is breathing—something knows how, somehow or other.
He touches his neck, but does not find any gills. When he breathes out, a stream of bubbles comes from his mouth and his nose.
But how?…
And also…
He can’t swim!
He looks down at his legs, at that deformed, clumsy clump of legs down there. He sees it swishing gently back and forth without any conscious effort on his part. That pointed white foot has unfurled into a fin, which is slowly, effortlessly moving in the water.
He is not doing anything at all. It is happening all by itself.
He closes his eyes.
He pinches himself.
He feels the pinch.
He looks again—and he still has a tail.
Then swim, he says. And his muscles obey.
Which they never did up there, up above, where he endlessly cajoled them, cursed them, prodded them: Stand up! Carry my weight! Be strong!
No, here they simply work.
Swish! And he shoots through the water. Turn! The other way. He swims and swims. Through the forest of slippery green jetty posts, left, right, left, he winds his way between them, smoothly, without touching a single one.
He is so fast!
He is so strong!
He is so happy!
He had never imagined that…
No, he had imagined it, just for a moment, in that dirty aquarium; he had f
elt how calm his mind became under the water. Through all the panic, he had noticed, just briefly, that…And then everything had gone crazy.
Could he even?…
He shoots through the water, his tail one big muscle, and with a leap he is up above, his arms open wide, as if he is flying. In a flash, he sees Lampie and the other very short, very tall, very fat silhouettes on the jetty.
“Look!” he yells, getting a mouthful of water as he dives back beneath the surface. He turns and jumps again. “Look at me!” The silhouettes are moving; he does not know if they have seen him. It is still quite dim and misty. He shouts and fills the air with splashing water.
“Look! Lampiieee! Look what I can do! Look at my tail! Lampiieee!”
PART SIX
The Stuff of Heroes
goodbye
Fish does not want to come out of the water. He just keeps doing circuits between the jetty posts and then somersaults and sees how deep he can dive and how far he can leap, but when Lampie calls him, from the high jetty, Fish slowly comes swimming toward her.
“Why don’t you just leave him here?” says the dwarf. “Isn’t it better for him to be free?”
“I don’t know,” says Lampie, and it’s true—she has no idea. What would happen if she went back with an empty cart?
Where is the admiral’s son, girl?
Oh, somewhere in the sea, I don’t know.
At the very least, she’d be fired. And then what about the money, and the seven years, and her father? But what about Fish? Would he have to go back under the bed in that tower?
“And you can come with us, you know,” says the dwarf a little shyly. “If you like. Not as a Phenomenal Freak—you turned out far too neatly for that. But just for fun? For the company?”
“The Black M would go in a heartbeat,” the fat lady with the beard suddenly says. “She’s not scared of anything. She used to sail to the White Cliffs and beyond.”
It is the first time Lampie has heard the woman speak. She has a deep, husky voice, and again Lampie has the feeling that she has seen her before. But she can’t remember ever having met a woman with a beard.
“The Black M? What’s that?” she asks.
“She should be over there somewhere,” says the woman, her bare arm jiggling as she points. “You’re her daughter, aren’t you? And your father was the ship’s first mate.”
“No,” says Lampie. “My father’s a lighthouse keeper.”
Through the mist she can see the light slowly turning, far off in the distance.
“Yes, that’s who I mean,” says Julie. “But she doesn’t sail anymore, the Black M. That’s what they say. I wish I could…”
“Julie,” says the dwarf impatiently. “Shut up about this Black M of yours. Well, what are you going to do?” he asks Lampie. “Do you want to come with us? It’ll be fun. Every place you go is different but still the same. And everyone’s always so happy to see us. So happy not to be us.”
Lampie shrugs. Maybe, she thinks. Being part of a troupe. Traveling all over, making fires in the evening. A postcard from every new place, addressed to the Gray Lighthouse. No, she can’t do it. She shakes her head. She doesn’t want to leave.
“What about Earl?”
“Oh, Earl,” mutters the dwarf. “He won’t do anything. He just sits inside his ticket booth and thinks he’s the boss.”
“Lampie! Did you see me, Lampie? Did you see me?” At the bottom of the jetty post, Fish is shaking the drops of water from his hair, and his golden eyes are gleaming.
“Amazing,” says the dwarf. “My goodness, lad! That’s beautiful.”
“What?” Fish looks over his shoulder to see if there is something beautiful behind him.
“You,” says Oswald with a smile.
“Oh. But did you see it? Did you see me? I did a double somersault, as easy as anything, and I think if I practice, I’ll be able to do a triple one and maybe even…”
Lampie sits down on the edge of the jetty. “Fish,” she says. “Do you want to come home with me or not? Would you rather stay here?”
Here? Fish looks around, at the slimy jetty posts sticking up far above him, at the water around him, with the dead seaweed floating in it, and all the rubbish and the fish heads.
“Well, you know,” says Lampie, pointing out to sea. “Or you could go farther out to sea to the White Cliffs—where the mermaids live. That’s what she said, isn’t it?”
She looks at the small bobbing head below. She would miss him so much. “But it’s quite a long way, I think.”
Fish looks back across the surface of the water and over the sea, out of the bay to the distant horizon, to the endless sky. There? Him? All on his own? Suddenly he just feels tired, and he really wants to go home, to rest, to sleep in the familiar darkness under his bed. And his father is supposed to be coming home soon, and he shouldn’t be here then, he should be…Maybe though, maybe he could even, yes, maybe he could show his father that…But Fish hardly even dares to think that thought.
Beside one of the tall jetty posts, there is a slippery wooden ladder. Fish pulls himself up as far as he can, and then Lester reaches out a long arm and drags him up the rest of the way. Up on the jetty, Lampie helps him back into his cart.
All around them, the harbor is waking up. Ropes and pulleys are rattling, sails are being hoisted with a swish, and fishermen call out, “Ho!” and, “Hey!” Some of them stare in annoyance at the strange group. What on earth are those freaks doing here?
The dwarf takes hold of Lampie’s hand. “So the answer’s no?”
The girl shakes her head.
“That’s a shame,” says Oswald. “But we come back here every year. So who knows?” He gently pulls her down to his height and gives her a kiss on the cheek.
“Who knows?” replies Lampie. She hugs him and then Lester. She kisses the bird-woman and sends her best wishes to Olga and Olga and to everyone else, except for Earl.
“Come on, people,” says the dwarf. “Time to get this show on the road. Hey, Julie, come on!”
Julie is still standing on the tip of the jetty, staring out to sea, her skirt fluttering in the breeze. Slowly she turns around.
A fisherman walking by spits on the planks, right at her feet. “Disgusting. A man in a dress.”
She clenches her fists, but then steps neatly over the blob of spit and gives Lampie a kiss on the top of her head.
“Don’t forget,” she whispers quietly into her hair. “The Black M. If only I could come too…” Then she quickly scurries after the troupe.
Lampie pulls the blanket all the way over Fish and turns the cart around. The planks rattle under the wheels, and through the gaps she sees one bit of sea after another.
When they are out of the town, they can talk.
“What did that man say to you?” asks Fish. “Um…that woman, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” says Lampie. “Something about a Black M.”
“A black what?”
“I think it’s a ship.”
“Oh. The Black Man maybe? Or the Black Mainmast, or the Black Marlin?”
“Or the Black Monster.”
“The Black Mermaid,” says Fish.
“She said: she sails to the White Cliffs. Maybe we need to go there in a ship.”
“To go where?”
“To your mother.”
“The Black Mother,” says Fish with a shiver.
Lampie struggles to tug the cart up the last part of the hill. Fish seems to have become heavier now; his tail looks fuller, and she has to pull really hard. But before they reach the top, Lenny comes running through the gate, like a very big puppy, hopping and skipping around Lampie, laughing and crying, all at the same time. He wants to hug her, but he is too shy. She gives him Fish to carry, and so he cuddles him a bit instead before striding toward the Bla
ck House with giant steps. Lampie follows, pulling the empty cart.
Lenny keeps looking back at the girl, to make sure she really, truly has returned.
photograph
Martha is angry. She heard them coming from a long way off, the crunching of the wheels, Lenny’s happy cries, and the barking of the dogs, but she does not go to look. She keeps on angrily washing dishes, with her back to the kitchen. Even when she hears them come inside and the girl hesitantly says, “Hello?” she still does not turn around. Her hands keep sloshing suds over the plate she is holding, even though it is already clean.
“That,” she says slowly, “Was. Not. Our agreement.”
“Um…did we have an agreement?” asks Lampie.
“Of course we did. An afternoon off is an afternoon off. Not an evening. Not a night. Not one and a half…Whatever were you thinking, staying away so long? Now of all times, when the admiral—”
“Is he already here?” Fish almost screams the words. “Is…is he upstairs?”
Martha goes on washing the same plate. Behind her back, Nick silently shakes his head.
“Oh, yes. Wouldn’t that have been something! Where’s my son, Martha? No idea, sir. He’s off gallivanting with the maid.”
“That’s not true,” says Lampie crossly. “We weren’t…gallivanting.”
“He is not allowed to go through the gate. I told you that. Not allowed outside. N. O. T. Not! Do I speak too quietly or something? Is that the problem?” Martha throws the plate onto the draining board and takes another one.
Nick puts Fish in a chair and slides two cushions under him, so that he can sit comfortably.
“There’s no harm done, woman,” he mutters. “Don’t get yourself all fired up.”
“We just had to go and figure something out,” says Lampie. “I saw something that…”
Martha turns around and glares at the girl.
“Oh, really? You saw something, did you? Well, I’ve seen a thing or two myself. In fact, I see plenty. But I keep my mouth shut and do my work, and you should do the same. Where are we supposed to go, eh? Lenny and me? What will happen if I get fired? Have you ever thought about that, eh?”