Towards White

by Zena Shapter

  It will hurt to be awake but I need to get back. The dark peace is nice. But there are still things I need to do, things outside of this darkness. In my black vision the outline of things have white edging. Are my eyes open?

  The tang of damp rock infiltrates my nostrils. I breathe deeper and the tang turns into a sharp cold that pricks the insides of my tender nose, confirming I’m still in Iceland. I strain to hear more. I need to hear sounds, decipher and cling to them until they pull me up, out of the blackness.

  But the dark persists, even when the rumbling movements rocking my body end with a jerk.

  A rattling noise. A jarring against that metallic edge again. An agonising pain sears across my spine. The hurt wrenches away my strength, though I strive to stay awake, to stay here. If I pass out again, something bad will happen. The weightless black void covets me once more.

  There, I dream of Sydney. I’m sitting on the sofa in my old unit, a bottle of paracetamol in my hand. There are a hundred tablets in the bottle. I empty them onto the sofa and there they sit. They stare up at me, crying, weeping projections of my solitude. Tears cascade down their sides. They sweat tears. Yet they feel so dry as I swallow each one down my tired aching throat, itself worn from crying. Each one absorbs a little more of the moisture lining my tubes, until a powdery dryness sticks to the arch of my mouth. Their sickening chalky sediment snags my tonsils, flavouring my saliva while they await a sip of water to carry them into my stomach. It makes me feel sick. Even my breath starts to irritate the moment. The air tastes like it’s filled with the faint dust that breezes up into sunbeams from old books, or the fine fragments of dirt that bluster up from sweeping pavements free of leaves. I want to retch. Somewhere between my rib cage and my stomach I’m swelling too, ballooning full of dust. I need to rid my mouth of the tablets’ grainy residue.

  So I sip more water—only the water mixes with leftover particles to form a cloudy solution, the tang of which lingers on my teeth long after I swallow, aggravating my thirst. I stop drinking and get back to swallowing as many tablets as I can.

  Slowly, they disappear from the sofa, one by one. They scour their way into my stomach, which churns at the thought of even one more finding its way inside. In the end, I only manage about eighty. If I take any more I’ll be sick, and expel from my body the very things I’m determined not to reject—the tickets to my freedom, my path to eternal relief.

  So I tip the remaining tablets back into their bottle, and wait.

  The waiting makes me nervous and at first I think the reason for my shaking is fear. But a little fear isn’t going to stop me. I have nothing left. No Riley. No career. I’m a pathetic waste of space that needs putting out of its misery.

  So when my body starts to shake vigorously, I do nothing except lie down. Determined to see it through, I shrink away from the world in search of serenity. I find it with surprising ease and it feels nice, quiet. My body breathes, my hands move when I move them, but I’m not there.

  Time passes and I see myself from above. I’m quivering all over in a deadly sweat now. It’s my body dying, me dying. Still I’m not afraid, only curious. What will happen after I’m gone? What will happen to me, my body; what will happen to my family? Is Mark right about the light?

  Wait, a phone’s ringing—my phone. Is that Mark phoning because I’m not answering the doorbell?

  Becky!

  Yes, he’s popped by to say hello, on the off-chance I’m in. He’s on the other side of the front door. I can hear my phone ringing and so can he. He knows I’m in here now, not answering. He’s been knocking for a while. He’s worried.

  Becky?

  At least, I think the voice is Mark’s. He sounds panicked now. He’s kicking at the door. A massive thud makes me shoot back inside my body. Then I feel my brother’s arms around me, shaking, slapping. There’s a siren. It’s not serene anymore; it’s noisy and I want the noise to stop. Mark is crying, begging me to live. I don’t want him to be sad. And all this noise is giving me a headache.

  Hands lift me until I’m rocking inside a vehicle again. The siren is louder now. Its wail pinches at my heart and there’s a sudden high-pitched tone: Mark screaming. I want to tell him it’s okay, he doesn’t need to scream—I’m going to make it. If only the noise could cease and my headache would stop, maybe we could go for a dive together? It’s peaceful down there in the water.

  Meet me there.

  White flashes across my eyes until I’m dreaming of a river, its freezing cold bleak sediment swirling around me. I’m drowning in it. But Mark is there too. His beautifully unharmed face lights up on seeing me, his brown eyes sparkle, his lips widen into a warm smile that reminds me of birthday wishes. We hug and sink to the bottom. The swirling stops.

  “Mark, I’m here.” I tell him. “Why did you want me to come?”

  He frowns. “I didn’t. I told you specifically not to.”

  “You said ‘let’s go, to the glacier’ on more than one occasion.”

  “No, I said don’t go to the glacier, it isn’t safe.” He frowns.

  “Don’t go? Oh, I didn’t hear that.”

  “I was trying to trigger the electrical energy in your brain so you’d have certain thoughts—I wanted to make sure you were alright. Perhaps I haven’t quite got the hang of it yet.” His frown lifts. “I should tell you—this is wonderful. Make sure you always wonder. It’s the answer to everything. I love you.”

  “I love you too. But why isn’t the glacier safe? I can’t see what else the government can do, this is nature. What was so important about my reading your autopsy report?”

  He looks at me, cocking his head to one side. “Because I was murdered.”

  I rub my forehead. It’s burning hot like a fever. “Murdered?”

  “You know I was.”

  “Yes.”

  Juddering to life, I thrash at the water like an electric eel marooned in a trawler net. I’m certain I’m awake, yet I’m still in water.

  “Becky! It’s okay, it’s okay.”

  The air stings as I open my eyes. Soaring pains blaze across my body. Tiny white dots sparkle in my vision yet I’m in warm, bubbling water. Steam wafts up from its milky surface. Undisturbed, it tickles the water’s skin like the flames of a small fire. It smells like the shower I had this morning, eggy and oppressive. The comparison brings reality closer: Ari is here, swishing through the water towards me. Vapour twists around him before evaporating into the light air. We are lower than the ground around us and sheltered by a low wall of black tiles. Beyond that is a dimming lilac sky.

  “What? Where…?”

  He puts an arm around me. “Calm down.”

  Different sections of my body scream at his touch. My thigh, my nose, my shoulder, my ribcage… Breathing hurts swellings I can’t see. But the breath itself…oh, sweet breath. Dry and clean. I fill my lungs, expanding my chest and sucking magnificent air into every bronchiole and every alveolus. It feels exquisite, like sun drying freshly laundered flapping clothes, heavenly like glistening saltwater on equator-warming skin, and dry like the first beach day of a Sydney spring. I fill my lungs again and again. Until I notice the expression on Ari’s face. He is preoccupied, anxiously searching the twilight around us.

  “Where are we?”

  “A natural spring,” he answers quickly, “near the glacier.”

  “What happened?”

  “You saved our lives.”

  “I did? How?”

  “No control. You didn’t fight the current.” He caresses my shoulder with a thumb as he explains. “When I was a child, I threw everything I could into the Skepnasá—wood, leaves, rocks. It always ended up in the hole of that boulder. I knew the current would take us there. You blocked the gap. I climbed up you onto the boulder, then I pulled you up.”

  “You used me as a step?”

  “Yes. Thank you, for
trusting me.”

  “I…okay.” I rub my temples, disorientated still. “How did we get here?”

  “The boulder with the hole is near to where we parked the Eroder. You were heavy, especially asleep. You wouldn’t stop shivering so I brought you here. It’s geothermal.”

  I push myself upright, wince as pain stabs at me. We’re in a natural pool of geothermal water, one of several dotted among the lava rock. Wooden walkways connect each pool to a small white building and there’s steam everywhere. From over a mound of rock, I hear voices and splashing, though the pools around us are empty.

  “There’s a swimming pool over there.” Ari gestures over the mound, then continues his surveillance. “We’re the only ones in the hot pots.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Apart from that you are almost dead?”

  He looks at me with such intensity his words don’t resonate straight away. When they strike home, they clang with such fortitude inside my head the noise drowns out any other thoughts.

  I almost died.

  Again.

  “Um,” I mutter, looking down at the dense rippling water between us. My bottom lip quivers. Liquid detonates in my eyes. I squeeze them shut to stop tears falling. My parents almost lost both their children, in the same week, in the same place. I’ve let them down.

  “Sorry,” he whispers, moving closer. “I should not say that.” He puts his arm around me, says nothing while I calm myself. “Becky.”

  “Yeah?” I mumble, rubbing at my eyes. I forget about my nose and hit its bruising. “Ow.”

  “Let me look.” He lifts my face and studies me like I’m an exquisite painting. “Is your nose…does this hurt?” He feels for the arch of my nose.

  “Ow! Yes!” It’s agony.

  “At least the bleeding has stopped. And your shoulder?”

  I roll them both to test for pain. They aren’t as bad as my nose.

  “This one was dislocated.” He points to my left shoulder. “I put it back before you woke up. Where else do you hurt?”

  My thigh throbs under the warm water, as do my ribs. I search my ribcage until I find two points of excruciating pain mid-way down my right side. “I think I’ve broken a rib.” I know I have. “Or two.”

  “Don’t move. When you are warm enough, we will go to the hospital. I have some paracetamol in the car. You can take them.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “They will help.”

  I almost laugh at how wrong he is. “No, really. It’s fine. I can’t take paracetamol anymore.” Confusion nips his face but I don’t want to get into that right now. “Long story. Are you hurt?” He must be.

  “Nei. When I fell into the water I put my feet first, so they hit anything, not my head.” The intensity of his look increases. “I am worried about you. I don’t know how to say it, but this has made me…” he searches my eyes as if looking for the right words.

  A red flush comes to my checks. Nervous, I press my lips together, sensing what might come next.

  Sure enough, without another word, Ari leans forward and kisses me. The timing might be all wrong but I don’t care—the gentle pressure of his lips against mine is tender and slow, soft and simmering. I close my eyes and let myself sink into him. The moment quickly thaws from surprise into understanding. Ari cares about me, and life is precious.

  When the kiss ends, we open our eyes and something passes between us—something deep, primal and…instinctive. I can’t remember ever feeling a connection like this through a single kiss. I gaze into his eyes and press my lips together to relive the heat of his mouth. Ari’s smile is slow to arrive but he’s soon grinning. Bashful, I drop my eyes to the warm circles of creamy water bubbling around us. There, a soft smile spreads over my lips too and, as the massaging waters jump up and down, a spasm of hunger tingles through me. I rest my head on Ari’s waiting arm, stretch out my aching limbs and flex my gradually warming fingers. Steam caresses my face with its soft wisps, the hot pot’s natural bubbling plays with the ends of my damp-darkened hair, fanning the strands back and forth over my shoulders, and I’m tempted to forget myself, plunge into the water and pull Ari with me. So close to death, life feels like an exquisite opportunity.

  I look up at him.

  He’s returned to searching the lava rock and hot pots.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask him again.

  “When you are warm, we will go.” His tone is more serious now.

  “Why do you keep looking around?”

  “I…I’m not sure.”

  “Not sure about what?”

  “When I pulled you out of the river, I thought I saw someone walking from the glacier, down the mountain behind the camping grounds. They had a, a…” He makes the chopping motion for an axe.

  I cup water into my hands and splash it over my face, careful of my nose. The water cascades down my neck and shoulders. It gives me a moment to think.

  Why is Ari concerned about someone walking away from the glacier carrying an axe? Ah…

  “The ice, it wasn’t an accident?” I mumble, remembering what Mark confirmed in my dream. “Both blocks? The ice that hit the Eroder and the ice that pushed us into the river?”

  Ari shrugs. “The person I saw drove away in a grey four-wheel drive. And, I’m sorry Becky, but I know him, even though it is not possible for it to be him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He is never at Jötunnsjökull and today he was sick.”

  “Sick?” My heart skips a beat. “Who did you see?”

  “Jón.”

  Chapter 20

  As I hobble along a walkway towards the little white changing room near our pool, anger flares instead of the fear I should have.

  Jón just tried to kill us.

  Ari wants to call someone for advice, either his father or Ólaf. He hopes there’s a reasonable explanation for Jón’s actions. I just want to plant a fist in Jón’s face. I’m not a violent person. I’ve never been in a physical fight, even close to one. Yet if I were to see Jón now I’d charge him with the power of a rhino, smash his own nose deep into his head, knee him, then sidekick his ribs as he doubled over. Would I boot-kick him once he was on the floor? Hell yes! I’m ready for it. How dare he even think he could get away with this!

  Fact: he almost did.

  My towel tight around me, I peer over the lava rock mound. Another larger white building sits beside a rectangular swimming pool. While I was climbing out of the water, Ari ran to this building to fetch us towels and a first aid kit. A family of four now stands at the pool’s deep end, getting ready to jump. Thankfully they’re too far away to see the mess my face must be; they probably don’t even know we’re here. Ari said he parked the Eroder close to the hot pots so he could carry me straight into one. He’s promised to turn its heater on as soon as he’s dry, though says to take my time with my wounds. He must have injuries too, but didn’t take anything from the first aid kit in my hands.

  I’m about to let the changing room door swing shut when, over my shoulder, I see him standing in his wet clothes, watching the family. His shirt’s so wet I can see his torso muscles underneath, but he isn’t shivering. He’s looking over the geothermal springs, warmed by the drifting steam. I follow his gaze. The father is holding hands with his two young sons as they wait to jump into the deep. The mother stands in the warm azure water shouting out their countdown. As the father glances from one son to the other, unadulterated pride seeps into his expression. They jump through the steamy air and plummet into the milky surface. Swirls of white froth gurgle out from where they disappear.

  Ari waits until they surface, then continues into the male changing room. I wonder what he saw that I didn’t—although my hand already knows. It’s fallen to my abdomen to cradle the ache tugging at me again.

  Shivering, I let the door
go. I don’t have time to linger on some medical prediction that might not come true, from a doctor who only saw what he wanted to see after a single appointment.

  Still, as I peel off my wet clothes before the mirror, and my eyes evaluate my battered body, they can’t resist assessing the wobble around my middle that refuses to disappear. Rebelling against me, it bulges defiantly with the fat it’s storing until the famine it perceives changes to abundance.

  From behind, I may very well look like a skeleton moving under a transparent pink coat, as the doctor described when showing me in his mirror last month. But from my front it’s the opposite. Sighing, I consider doing some star jumps. Of course when I go to lift my arms and wince at the pain in my ribs, I laugh at the stupidity of the idea. This is not the time to be doing anything about the fat creeping into my thighs and onto my hips from that baguette at lunchtime. This is the time for treating wounds, then getting Jón taken into custody somehow.

  The first bruise I uncover is a dark purple cloud on the right side of my abdomen. I’m pretty sure I can’t do anything about broken ribs. Still, I’ve seen people wrap bandages around them in movies, so copy what I’ve seen.

  Next I look at my left shoulder, find the ruby streaks that mark some post-dislocation tenderness, then realise I have nothing to treat that either.

  My nose is a bulbous mess of burgundy and sapphire with a black split across its bridge, which might be bigger if not for my icy exposure. I find a thin adhesive dressing and cover the black split, pushing it together as best as I can.

  Amazingly, the Leukostrips on my thigh still hold the gash together, though a trail of fresh crimson blood drips from it. I clean and dry it, find a large adhesive dressing to protect it.

  Once I’ve checked for other injuries, I unfold the second towel to wrap it around me, only to find it’s a bathrobe. When I leave the changing room, I find Ari wearing one as well. Pacing beside his car, steam swirling around each step, he’s scratching at his stalk-stubbled jaw with a vigour that hints at the disorder in his mind.

  When he sees me though, he rushes to help me reach the car. As I move, my ribs pinch like cramps and my limbs shake like they’ve run a marathon. I thrust them forward with what little coordination I can manage and, as soon as I’m in the Eroder, check my dressings aren’t leaking. They’re not.