In the River Darkness

by Marlene Röder

  I threw myself on the bed. With one hand, I held the photo in front of my face, and with the other, I pressed the conch shell to my ear. Its weight was heavy and good in my hand. The celluloid sea began to roar.

  I tried to imagine I was sitting on that beach, digging my toes into the hot sand. How the air tasted! Like algae and salt. And the wind was spraying foam into my face so that even my lips tasted salty, and later in the evening, at home, I’d find tiny grains of sand in my clothes.

  I had never actually been to the sea. We didn’t have money to travel.

  Concentrate now! I gathered my thoughts—ocean, space. I sat on the beach, the waves crashing. Back there at the edge of the picture, where the cliffs were, a figure appeared. It was a woman with long blonde hair wearing a white sundress. She ran right along the water’s edge, where the waves break over your ankles and you can feel their pull as they withdraw back into the ocean.

  The woman was my mother.

  Soon, she would sit down next to me and ask, “How are you doing, Skip?” We would sit in the sand and just talk. About little things. Or just watch this glittering, endlessly moving water together.

  I heaved an exasperated sigh. It just didn’t work! Had I forgotten how to do it by now? Maybe it was better that way. Grandma always said that you should keep both feet on the ground. I thought so, too. But then why did I feel so . . . crap!

  My mother’s face was a blurred fleck. When I tried to fill in her features, it was always just the immortalized facial features from the old black-and-white pictures that hung all over our house. The little personal gestures that everyone has were gone. Forgotten.

  Only one image remained: my mother stood knee deep in the river and stretched out both of her hands toward me.

  Wolf once asked me if I hated her. I told him no, and that was true. I could understand that she didn’t want to stay here, in this little town, with this man. The only thing I didn’t understand was why she hadn’t taken Jay and me with her.

  I used to hope that no packet of photographs would arrive for my birthday; that instead, she would be standing at the door again, coming to pick us up.

  It was strange that Jay had never seemed to miss her. I had never seen him cry, and he had never asked about her, either. But he was a lot younger than I was when she took off. He was only five. I was almost seven then.

  And besides, he had me. I looked after him. Always had.

  Damn it! I wasn’t one of those sissies who cried himself to sleep because his mama had up and left. But sometimes . . .

  “Come,” I whispered into the sound of the waves, “please come!”

  Chapter 3

  Jay

  Grounded again! And just because of that stupid Spanish test. Grandma had studied the D on my paper for a long time, as if she could turn it into a B with the power of her gaze, and then growled: “This week you will not set foot outside your room after you get home from school, is that understood? You should spend some time seriously thinking about what you need to change in your life.”

  I liked my life exactly the way it was, and I told her so, too. She just snorted. “I’ll make your life a living nightmare if you don’t learn that Spanish grammar inside and out!”

  So there I sat, chewing on my pencil and looking outside at the rain. “Susan would write a letter if . . .”

  I asked myself who this faceless Susan would write a letter to. She should write my brother a letter. He loved letters and photos.

  Maybe Susan was writing to her mother . . .

  Why weren’t those things ever in the Spanish books? They just left out the most important things!

  “Susan would write a . . .”

  The water gurgled in the gutters while I watched the path of the drops rolling down my windowpane and joining to form little rivulets, then streams . . .

  I had never been able to resist rainy days at the river. Besides, Alina was sure to be waiting for me already. Hopefully, she wasn’t mad because I didn’t come yesterday. And the day before yesterday. Or the day before that, either . . .

  “Susan would . . .” Oh, to hell with this Susan! Alina was waiting.

  Quickly, I slipped into my rain gear and snuck down the stairs in my socks, rubber boots in my hand. Chrr, chrr went the steps, like sleeping dogs. I had to skip the fifth one from the top or it would wake up and bark.

  I was already halfway down when a door opened upstairs. Skip always heard me. I guess that’s the way it is with big brothers. He looked down at me and then whispered, “Be careful not to fall in the river!”

  Even though he was grinning, I could hear the concern in his voice. He always worried too much, even though I could swim better than him. Skip didn’t like the river.

  “No need to worry, Skip, I can take perfectly good care of myself,” I said quietly. He muttered something and closed the door again.

  Outside, the rain sang with a thousand voices. Drip, drip . . . it whispered in the new leaves, telling them stories of its travels. Just like spelling words into the hands of a blind person. The trees sighed then and were happy. I could hear it.

  With squelching rubber boots, I ran across the wet grass, so fast that I almost fell. I didn’t look over at the neighbor’s yard. And what was more important, I didn’t listen in that direction, either. No.

  But I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about it: how I happened to be passing her house, the house of the crazy girl. And then I heard it, that sound, that sound that wrapped itself around my ankle like twine and pulled me over the fence. I couldn’t do anything else, I had to follow it. It sounded like a violin or something, but deeper, fuller.

  Every stroke of the bow sank into my flesh, vibrated in my bones. How incredible that crazy girl could produce such sounds!

  And then I stood under the window, beneath the cherry tree that blossomed whiter than white. I just stood there and listened. The sounds fell like cherry blossoms on my face, cool and soft. It was like snow and spring at the same time.

  My heart contracted. Maybe it was fear, maybe something else I’d never experienced before that moment. I thought I would die. And I thought that I wouldn’t even mind, as long as the music continued.

  I have no idea how long it lasted. At some point, the music stopped. I didn’t die. Instead, I went home.

  That had been three days ago. I hadn’t told anyone about it, not Skip, not even Alina, and I told her everything. But that . . . that I wanted to keep for myself, somehow. Just for me.

  I could already see Alina on the dock from a distance. She was waiting for me, even if she acted as if she just happened to be standing there because she felt like it right then. A slender shadow in the rain. Her long hair, her clothes, everything dripped with moisture, but she didn’t seem to be cold.

  “Hello,” I lowered my voice involuntarily as I greeted her and was afraid she’d notice. That she could hear the new sound . . . deep within me. It might make her sad. Or furious.

  Her face was serious as she turned to me, and she squinted her eyes. Raindrops hung from her eyelashes. “I thought you had forgotten me.” Every word was a pebble that stroked the water’s surface and then sank into the unfathomed depths.

  “I was grounded,” I said, trying to convince myself it wasn’t a lie. We were quiet for a while and watched the seething river.

  “Promise me,” Alina finally exclaimed. Her voice sounded like a willow rod then, lashing, hard. “Promise me that you’ll never forget me!”

  I spit into my hand and swore like I had always promised her, even as a kid: “I’ll never, ever forget you!”

  For a moment, she looked me over—scrutinized me. Then she smiled and climbed into the boat that was tied to the dock. “Come on!”

  Our boat, the Bounty , was in desperate need of a new coat of paint. It had seen better times, back when my brother had still been Skipper, and we waged battles against the South Sea pirates with the other guys. Or fed the Nile crocodiles with wretched mutineers. It all depended on what b
ooks Skip had been reading, or where the last letters had come from.

  The players changed; Matt and Wolf were often with us back then. But my brother was always in charge of the boat, the Skipper. And I was his exploration officer.

  At some point, Skip became Alex. For everyone, except me.

  Now he rarely used the Bounty. And never for adventure trips on the Nile. He didn’t like the river anymore.

  So I had inherited the boat. I took it out often to meet Alina on the island. She sat opposite me, looking in the direction we were traveling, trailing a hand in the water and humming contentedly while I rowed. I put power into the oars and pulled all the way through. After a few strokes, I had found my rhythm. It was a good feeling to have perfect timing and to dip the oars so that they hardly splashed at all. The boat glided through the water like an arrow. On the surface were countless circles that ran together and became part of the river again, like tiny explosions. The river seemed to boil. All around us the rain pattered, tapped, drummed, rustled, murmured. And we were in the midst of it with our boat. I slapped the oars on the surface a few times, hard, so the water sprayed, and imagined we were the kettledrums in this orchestra.

  “Do it again!” Alina laughed.

  But even that couldn’t silence it, that sound that still resonated in me. For three days already. It penetrated the water concert like a sudden beam of light on a rainy day.

  The sun fought its way in front of the clouds and made the world fragment into a thousand drops. A kingfisher flew above the river, a flapping blue streak. The island appeared in front of us.

  The weather cleared up, and the sky turned blue as I came home again. Lights were on in the kitchen, winking at me invitingly through the twilight. I peered through the window to scout out the situation.

  Uh, oh, there would be trouble! Apparently, I had already missed dinner. There was Skip, helping Grandma with the dishes. He washed. She dried.

  It was strange to watch them . . . my family . . . without me. Alone with my brother, Grandma allowed herself to look older. In the yellow glow of the kitchen light, she seemed almost as fragile as the porcelain plates she dried, carefully, each with the same spare motions.

  She was saying something to my brother; I saw her mouth open and close approvingly. Although I couldn’t hear the words, I understood her meaning: good boy.

  Grandma never said anything like that to me. I was “chaos personified,” a “stray dog,” a “daydreamer. Like your mother.” Configurations of letters that didn’t touch me. Words, just words. The only bad part was how she said them. They sounded like mortal sins, while her lips became a line as thin as a pencil.

  I leaned my forehead on the cool pane of glass and felt the vibration of Grandma’s words in my head: good boy, good boy.

  But Skip didn’t hear it at all, I think, even though he was standing right next to her. I watched him. His hands dutifully scrubbed the dishes, one glass after the other. His glance moved in my direction, but his eyes didn’t see me. Even though I was standing only a few steps from the window, they saw right through me, through the river lying in the twilight and our town behind it . . . at something far, far away from here.

  He always had that expression on his face when he looked at the photographs.

  He only came to when Grandma spoke to him again. Slowly, like a swimmer surfacing out of deep water. He smiled, nodded an answer, and then his face fell as he noticed me standing at the window.

  Unfortunately, Grandma discovered me, too. She tore open the kitchen window. The light carved deep folds in her face, like in the antiquated woodcut of two praying hands that hung over her bed. Yellow light fell on my face and blinded me.

  “. . . sneaking around the house like a thief . . .” Grandma scolded. “Come inside this instant, Jay!” Resistance was futile. Crouched on a stool in the kitchen, I let Grandma rub my hair dry with a kitchen towel while Skip slipped away, grinning.

  “You could have caught your death outside in the rain . . . would have served you right! You’ve been out on the river again, haven’t you? How often have I told you that you shouldn’t go there, that it’s dangerous?”

  I thought about it briefly. “At least three times this week,” I said, and raised my shoulders, ducking another round of her tirade.

  But Grandma just shook her head and grumbled, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!” Then she asked, “Were you at least wearing your chain?”

  I nodded and pulled the narrow silver chain with the cross hanging from it out of the collar of my shirt. Grandma touched the tiny Jesus with a finger. “Our savior certainly has his hands full protecting you,” she sighed.

  She sounded tired, and somehow that sound was worse than her angry voice. “Go get washed, Jay, you’ve got dirt on your face.” She stroked my cheek with her worn-out hand and murmured, “What on earth am I supposed to do with you, child?”

  I studied my own hands with the dirty bands under the fingernails and didn’t have an answer for her.

  Chapter 4

  Mia

  We ran out of chocolate-covered raisins. That’s why I was on my way to that tiny excuse of a grocery story instead of sitting at my observation post at the window.

  I didn’t like to admit it, but in the past few weeks observing the neighbors’ house had become almost a compulsion, like watching one of those soap operas that you absolutely have to see the next episode of. Except it was so much more boring. And at the same time much more interesting . . .

  When people were actually out in the yard, I couldn’t even understand what they were talking about. Nothing more spectacular happened than Alex watering the flowers, or his brother setting off toward the river occasionally. Nonetheless—or maybe because of it—I was glued to the window. I put words in their mouths and untamable, dangerous passions in their hearts. I wrote the screenplay of their destinies: The grandmother was having an affair with the mailman; the boys’ mother—a person who might have played that role in real life hadn’t been spotted over there so far—had filed for divorce because her husband was an alcoholic.

  A hundred times I had sworn to myself I would stop it. But I just couldn’t let it go, couldn’t stop thinking what might be going on in their heads, filling out the contours of the family life that was playing out no more than three hundred feet away from me and yet was completely different from mine.

  The stray dog, which was already waiting for me at the bridge, trotted along behind me when I came by on my chocolate-covered raisin mission. I shouldn’t have fed it the other day; now I’d always have this mutt hanging on my heels.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do than to follow me?” I asked, and stood still. The dog stopped in its tracks. It eyed me attentively from a distance and wiggled its left ear.

  “You don’t belong to anyone, do you? No one wants to have you?” I continued, in a nasty mood due to prolonged chocolate withdrawal. “No wonder, you’re certainly nothing to look at!”

  “Wuff,” the dog replied defiantly, as if to say “You, too!”

  I continued. Occasionally, I turned around to see if the stupid dog was still following me. It was. That made me happy, somehow. Silly, I know, but I felt like we had something in common. If nothing else, we both liked chocolate-covered raisins.

  When I got to the store, the distance between us had shrunk to a few feet. “Wait here, dog,” I said. My hairy companion yawned, as if to let me know, maybe I’ll do it but maybe not. Depends on whether or not I feel like it.

  As I stood in the checkout line, I saw it still sitting outside at the curb.

  With three packages of chocolate-covered raisins in my pockets, I left the store—and almost ran into her. The grandmother! She wore one of her inevitable housecoats, shuffling along the street with her cane in one hand and a giant shopping bag in the other.

  It was a surreal sensation, as if you suddenly bumped into someone who only exists in your imagination and not in your run-of-the-mill, ordinary life. Sort of lik
e running into Johnny Depp in a jogging suit at the gas station.

  While I was still staring after her with a mixture of shame and fascination, one of the handles of her plastic shopping bag suddenly tore. Rice spilled over the sidewalk. A milk container burst and streams of white trickled over the asphalt. Vegetables tumbled every which way; a pepper rolled almost to my feet.

  The dog made the best of this opportunity and took off with a bag of sausages in its mouth. “Hey, dog! Drop it!” I yelled after it. Of course, it didn’t listen.

  The grandmother didn’t curse, like any normal person might have done. She bent over to gather her things, a gnarled branch bending. I thought I heard a brittle crackling and could already imagine the headlines: Old Woman Breaks in Two While Gathering Vegetables—Teenager Watches Without Lifting a Finger.

  There wasn’t anyone on the street except me. I guess there was no way around doing my duty as a citizen, my good deed for the day. On my knees, I chased rolling peppers, and I must have picked up a hundred little teabags off the ground.

  “Um . . . here,” I said, the pockets of my jacket stuffed with carrots and my arms full of yogurt containers. Unfortunately, the old woman didn’t make a move to take the things from me.

  “Should I help you carry everything home?” I asked reluctantly. I had no desire to meet her, let alone to carry her shopping bags. I wanted to continue observing her from the safe distance of my room. But if I hadn’t asked, I would have felt like a socially impaired idiot the rest of the day and that would have been even worse.

  Her blue eyes bored into mine, taking in my baggy velvet pants, the big earrings, my carefully made-up face with dark eyelids. I was sweating and had the feeling my makeup might melt away under her gaze.

  “You’re the girl from next door, aren’t you?”

  “Hmmm,” I answered.

  The grandmother snorted and made a movement with her head that you might interpret as a nod. “Then we’re going the same way anyhow!” With those words, she hobbled away with her tapping cane. I panted behind her.