The Sun Chemist

by Lionel Davidson

  I watched them swim easily to the fallen pillars, and heave themselves over, and swim on to the jetty. They didn’t get out, but splashed round to a beach beyond.

  Well, I could do that. It was visible, though. Of course, they hadn’t tried to conceal themselves; they had laughed and called to each other in the water.

  I slowly took my jacket and shirt off, and then my shoes and socks, and my trousers. I kept my underpants. The little bay flashed and glittered like silver in the moonlight. I teetered down the beach toward it. It only took a teeter or two to see that shoes were needed after all, so I returned and put them on again and crouched in a low shamble, and entered the water like that.

  The sea was warm, scarcely cooler than the humid night, and I suddenly realized I was desperately thirsty. I’d drunk nothing since the glass of Scotch earlier in the evening. The water lapped limpidly about me as I went farther out. It was shallow, still well-cobbled, so I shambled a good way, till the sea bed began to shelve, and then abruptly fell away, and I was levitating in it, my shoes suddenly like little rafts of lead.

  The glitter all about was dazzling: totally unreal and hypnotic. I kept myself well down in it and turned and looked back. After the brilliance, the floodlighting was positively mellow, the Crusader town with its three walls open to the sea like an enormous theatrical set. I bobbed in the water and looked at the whole length of it, and wondered how the devil I’d got away with it, scurrying up and down there like a demented beetle. The whole area seemed fully exposed in bland hazy lighting. However, I knew it wasn’t. There were plenty of pools of darkness there, and he was in one of them.

  I’d drifted nearer the columns, and I paddled myself away. Even in the trancelike state induced by the glitter, I knew it wasn’t a good idea to put a moving object near a fixed one. I would appear a small moving object, true, something the size of a football, a piece of flotsam, not very visible. Just then a piece of flotsam floated by, an old waterlogged basket. It actually touched me before I noticed it.

  I put more distance between myself and the pillars, and began a majestic slow breaststroke. Going full out, it would take only minutes to reach the jetty. I wasn’t going full out, and I wasn’t going to the jetty, either. I headed slowly out into the moon-stream, saw the end of the pillars drift past on my left, and began the wide circle that would carry me beyond the jetty to the little beach at the other side I’d spotted the couple making for.

  The sea developed more body as it deepened, the unpredictable sinister lurch well remembered. Everything still very near, though. Music was coming off the end of the jetty, and a couple of waiters were having an argument there. They were doing it on an almost empty restaurant balcony, snapping at each other in Hebrew as they scraped leavings off the plates. The floodlighting went off suddenly at the mosque, and I looked round and saw it dying on the walls of the Crusader city, too. Midnight, evidently. The lion-colored walls had turned ashen gray, all of a sudden terribly old and insubstantial in the moonlight. The harbor below came suddenly into its own, good nights ringing out, cars maneuvering. One backed and turned, its two fingers of light swinging across the water. As they did so, I saw another piece of flotsam bobbing in the sparkle by the jetty.

  I trod water and watched it. It didn’t do anything, just bobbed there. I kept my eyes on it and changed direction slightly, toward the end of the jetty. It still didn’t do anything. I watched so hard I could hardly see it, so I altered direction again, toward the shore.

  The flotsam altered direction, too.

  I thought, Oh, God no, and turned back again and put more steam into the breaststroke. The flotsam did, too. It seemed to be enlarging. All of a sudden there was no strength in my arms as I realized where I was, well out of my depth, floundering, everything suddenly not near but too far, much too far, and no help. Even the waiters had vanished from the balcony. And the flotsam had developed a pair of arms that came suddenly flailing up and down in a fast overarm.

  I dropped the breastroke and went into an overarm myself. But I’d never mastered it and couldn’t now, panic rising, water slapping in my face. I took some in, and choked, and knew I had to relax now, take in air, float. But no time for it. He could simply be out to drown me, no violence, just an arm round my shoulders, down, down …

  I could hardly keep my shoulders up as it was, everything heavy as lead, shoes heavy as lead. I tried to kick them off, but they couldn’t come, so I threshed on, and saw a waiter appearing on the balcony again, and in a last effort raised myself in the, water and shouted at him. But the shout, when it came, came more as a vomit, and he couldn’t have seen the feeble signaling. He paid no attention, anyway, just pitched a bucket of something over the balcony and went back inside and switched the light off.

  I saw I wasn’t going to make it to the jetty, impossible to make it, so I plowed heavily round in the water and began trying to thresh back to the pillars. I thought I might just do it, but as I turned he was barely thirty yards away and coming strong. He was fully dressed, jacket, shirt – tie, even. He must have waited till he’d seen me in the water; had watched and waited for me, had seen what I was up to. The clothing didn’t seem to impede him. He came powerfully on, mouth in the shape of an O and water spewing expertly out of it. He got to me long before the pillars, his last stroke more in the nature of a lunge. It caught me a bat on the shoulder, and I went under right away.

  I didn’t take in water this time. I’d expected it, even nerved myself for it, but it didn’t diminish the horror as I went down, all my worst fears now on me, the childish, irrational ones – although nothing so irrational about it in the case of one who’d had to be dragged out of it. I’d been told at the time that the thing to fear was the panic itself, which wasn’t a great help then. It was some now.

  In a curious way, fully engaged with my own horror, I felt myself detach from it. If this was the worst, I had to accept it – in fact, make the best of it. He could swim better than I, it was obvious. Could he hold his breath better? Could he drown better? I kicked away from him underwater, and came up again, and was in some way behind him, and at once made a grab at his hair. I grabbed it with one hand, and then the other, actually managed to get both knees up and stuck well into his back.

  He lumbered heavily round in the water, so surprised that he tried at first to get his arms up to release himself. He couldn’t do it but he was still trying as we both went under, backward. I’d taken several deep breaths while up on his back, and he was still taking one as we went under. I heard him spluttering, and concentrated simply on keeping him under, jackknifing myself over his head, and grimly counting the seconds, one thousand, two thousand …

  He fought like a big cat in the water, twisting and writhing, trying to pry my fingers loose from his hair. He couldn’t do it, and he scrabbled at my face, my nose, found my ears, and practically yanked them off before I had to let him go. I could feel his clothes fluttering away in the water, but a moment later he was trying to clutch me again.

  He caught a leg, but his hand slid down it and he only managed to grasp the shoe, and it came off. I kicked out at him with the other, the right, pretty hard. It was a solid jolt, not apparently on clothing, and we lost contact. I came up gasping. I couldn’t see him, but I saw the pillars and struck out for them. I heard him behind me but I didn’t look round till I’d got there. He was just resting in the water, coughing and panting heavily.

  Only a section of the pillars showed above water. There was a foundation below, forming a ledge, which was just as well. I could barely manage as it was. I got a foot on the ledge and a hand on the fluted marble, and levered myself up. The ledge was slimy, and the marble, too, covered in a kind of fungus; I slid onto it and lay there for a few moments, exhausted. He was swimming slowly toward me when I looked back, so I kneeled wearily up. His face was bleeding. It seemed to be his nose. He came right up to the pillars, and I got to my feet. I said, ‘Keep away.’

  He didn’t say anything. He got a foot on the l
edge. I said, ‘Ham, I’m telling you!’

  He just pulled himself heavily up, so I swung my right foot and kicked him hard in the face. His mouth was open and hanging loose and it caught him precisely under the chin. I heard his teeth click, saw his head snap back, then the rest of him, and he toppled back into the water. He floated there awhile, not trying to right himself. I saw him feeling his face. Then he came back again.

  I said, ‘Ham – please. Keep away.’

  He didn’t say a word.

  ‘I don’t want to keep doing it,’ I said.

  He just pulled himself out again, streaming water. I couldn’t tell if he’d even heard. His face was dazed and bloody and he looked battered and dead beat. But he kept coming, so I waited till he was in position and did it again. He caught the foot in the air, casually, almost irritably, and hung on to it. For a moment we stood and looked at each other in a ludicrous pas de deux. Then I jerked the leg away and overbalanced, and he was left with another shoe in his hand and also overbalanced, and we went down together, in opposite directions.

  I landed hard on my behind, tried to get up, and went skittering backward on the slippery marble in a series of pacy little skating steps and tumbled off the other end. I tried to clutch the edge of the pillar as I fell, and did, taking it with me, the edge of it, into the water, and went under again.

  I was coughing as I came up, and my only thought was not to let him get near me again. Thoroughly exhausted he might be – he undoubtedly was – but brain still ticked there. He learned. He’d only let me kick him once.

  I still had the piece of marble in my hand. It was a jagged segment and I could feel the fluted surface; it seemed to weigh a couple of pounds. It had waited here a long time to be of further use.

  He hadn’t tumbled into the water himself. I saw him slowly picking himself up, like a mechanical man. He came to the edge of the pillars and looked down at me. There was a strange zombie-like expression on his face. He still hadn’t said a word, and he didn’t now. He just lowered himself slowly and sat on the edge of the pillars and held out his hand to me.

  I said, ‘Go away, Ham.’

  Blood was pouring from his nose. He kept the hand outstretched.

  ‘I am not coming out, Ham. Go away – please.’

  His mouth was opening and shutting. He stepped down from the pillars to the ledge, evidently preparing to join me in the water; so in a panic I gave him a hand, the left one, and kept the other underwater.

  There was no particular expression on his face as he pulled me out of the water; he just looked at me in a dazed sort of way. I let him pull me half out before bringing the other hand over in a tremendous haymaker. The thing caught him such a bloody thump on the forehead I actually said aloud, ‘Oh, God, Ham, I’m sorry!’ and put a hand on his shoulder.

  The look on his face didn’t change. His eyes didn’t even shut. He just continued bending over, and folded on top of me, and we were both back in the water, and I was under again, scrambling and kicking away from him. I still had the stone as I came up and was already wondering – the moment of sympathy undergoing rapid sea change – if I’d hit him hard enough.

  He was floating face down, so I backed off and let him float. He continued doing it, and I approached cautiously and tugged him with my left hand and slewed him round. He came round slowly, head still down, so I raised it, stone at the ready, but he was flat out, blood-tinged bubbles on his mouth.

  I dropped the stone and turned him on his back. He wasn’t breathing. I dragged him to the pillars and tried to roll him on the shelf, but he wouldn’t stay there, so I got out myself and propped him in a sitting position till I could scramble onto the pillars and drag him up. His jacket rode up and he was a dead weight and kept slipping down through it, but I got half of him up, and then went down on the shelf and shoved his legs up, and got back and rolled him over on his face.

  There was still no breath coming out of him. I pressed down on his back, but in my own exhaustion couldn’t press hard enough, so I stood on him. Something spewed out of his mouth, and I did it again, and kept doing it till water pumped out, and a choking wheeze sounded, and he was evidently breathing.

  He was still unconscious and in the most terrible mess. Blood was coming from his head as well as his nose, and mixing with the vomit and sea water he was spewing up. I didn’t know what else to do for him, but he was alive at least, so I slid him out of the pool of vomit and laid him with his head over the edge of the pillars so that he couldn’t choke in any further vomit.

  I waited awhile, regaining my strength. There was no point in walking ashore along the pillars; apart from the slipperiness, they led only to the little sand beach, and beyond were cobbles again. The quickest way to the jetty was the sea way; so I lowered myself wearily once more into the warm water and slowly swam there, keeping to the shallows.

  When I got to the jetty, I was too enfeebled to drag myself up the high wall, so, even beyond swearing now, I continued round to the little beach at the other side, and floundered ashore. My legs were as weak as a kitten’s, but I got on the jetty with them and lurched along it in my streaming underpants and looked for the people. They’d all gone. There was just a spark of life in one of the galleries. A neon sign over it said ‘GALERIE DELILAH,’ but even this went out as I approached, and so did a little light inside. The door opened and a small man with a big mustache and a valise came out. He looked at me a bit sharply as he turned to lock up.

  I said, ‘The police.’

  ‘Eh?’

  I could hardly speak. I could hardly even stand. I said, ‘I’ve been attacked. There’s someone down there.’

  He couldn’t at first understand my English, but when he got the idea – it turned out to be not an exact idea – he opened the door in a flash, shuttled me inside, locked it again, and reached for the phone, almost in the same movement. In about half a second he was telling the phone that there were terrorists on the beach, and in response to a quick gabble from it, we moved into an inner room, with the door also locked, and the lights off.

  He didn’t have any water in the inner room, and he wouldn’t unlock the door again, but there was an opened bottle of warm lemonade; so we sat and drank lemonade, Delilah and I, while we waited.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was a strange gray day, Independence Day. I felt strange and gray myself. I’d been booked on the 11 a.m. flight, which meant a hurried departure, but I went to see him first. He was up on a lot of pillows with an enormous bandage round his head. He didn’t turn away from the wall as I entered the room. I thought for a moment he was dozing, but then noticed his eyes slowly blinking.

  I said awkwardly, ‘Well, Ham.’

  ‘Of course, I’ll have my name withdrawn,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry about my superhuman strength.’

  ‘It’s all I can do. I’ll withdraw from everything.’ He was still looking at the wall.

  ‘You’ll have to think that over,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve done that.’

  He had. They had sedated him but he hadn’t remained sedated. He had been talking all night. Marie-Louise’s eyes had been red as she showed me in.

  I said, ‘You know what has been decided, Ham. You know all about that, don’t you?’

  ‘It seemed to me a moral obligation. I did what I could. And I am the chief sufferer.’

  This seemed such an excessively cool remark, taking one thing with another, that I wondered if it was actually meant for me, and looked round to see if anyone else had slipped in. But there were only the two of us. ‘I expect that will remain a matter of view,’ I said.

  ‘All I wanted was your goddam view,’ he said. ‘That’s what I wanted. A life was at stake.’

  ‘That was my view,’ I said.

  He slowly shook his head, wincing. ‘I’ll have to explain it when we meet again.’

  ‘We won’t.’

  ‘Igor –’

  ‘All I want is to see you’ve got it right. Stick
to the story, Ham. Maybe some of your harm can be undone.’

  He was blinking slowly at me. ‘That is a goddam harsh remark,’ he said. ‘If you understand anything, it really is.’

  Perhaps it was; it was certainly, in its latter reaches, somewhat. overripe. However, I couldn’t think of anything better to say, and all of a sudden didn’t want to say anything more to him, so I just nodded and said, ‘Get better,’ and went.

  Marie-Louise was outside. It was hard to tell if she’d been listening. It was hard to tell what this rare couple got up to. Her face had been closed in but composed enough when she’d let me in. It seemed to fall apart now. There was something so helpless about the blind and froglike look there that I unwisely put an arm round her, and she collapsed instantly against me in a gale of weeping.

  I patted the warm and heaving shoulders for a while, and heard Ze’ev give a peep on the horn outside.

  ‘Marie-Louise, I’ve really got to go.’

  ‘I know.’ She dragged herself away, and made some repairs with a damp ball of hanky. She blew her nose in it. ‘Would it be treacherous to say I didn’t know?’ she said.

  ‘I’m not good on the finer points of treachery.’

  ‘For your information, I didn’t.’

  ‘No reproaches, then.’

  ‘What about Rod?’ she said.

  ‘I’m not good on the finer points of treachery.’

  ‘I’m sorry, too.’

  ‘Keep him to the story, Marie-Louise.’

  The story wasn’t doing so badly outside. ‘That was certainly a brave thing he did,’ Ze’ev said. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Bearing up.’

  ‘No other news yet?’