The Sea of Light

by Levin, Jenifer

  “No, Ellie. You haven’t listened. I said that truth is in the body—I did not say that it was the body.”

  “Fine, great. Well, that’s just a little too heavy for me!” And now I’m scared. Because I’ve never talked to her this way: challenging, mocking and nasty. “So where does all this leave me?”

  “With at least two hundred new yards to learn about. Or maybe several thousand. But whichever way you take it, the rest of your life.” The chair thuds upright. She leans forward. “I’m not playing games, Ellie—I’m serious, you know. You must set an example. If you can’t do that by immediate accomplishment, you need to do it by your attitude. Pull people in, help them when they ask—even if they don’t ask out loud. Sometimes the things you need to do to win hurt much, much more than you’d ever believe. That’s probably why losing is normal, in the end—most people don’t win.”

  “Why?”

  “Because normal people cannot stand the abnormal pain of it.”

  I twist my towel, feel myself give in a little. For a second something in me opens up, like a tiny slit or crack through which you can glimpse things. I want to love her again. But the slit closes, leaves me lonely. I can feel how all alone I am inside: lightless, talentless, tiny and desolate, without a win to my name.

  It comes to me as a little voice. When I listen, it’s a plea. But when I say it out loud it is merely bitter.

  “Why me?”

  “Because it’s what you can do.”

  “Thanks,” I spit, “thanks a lot”

  She chuckles—gently. The softness stuns and disarms me. “Ellie, don’t be so hard on yourself. Or on me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know the old saying, my favorite one? Talent gets you fifty yards, the rest is all just guts and work.”

  “Sure. And then there’s Babe Delgado.”

  “Ah,” she says, “but it’s true for her, too.”

  Closest she has ever come to being motherly. For a second I stop hating her.

  “Listen, Ellie, just give it a try. What you simply cannot do, believe me, your body will not do. But at least unexplored territory is always interesting, isn’t it?”

  “Not necessarily.” I stand. Feeling very angry, totally ripped off. Otherwise, I’d never speak to her like this. “And I’ll still do it for you—I’ll do whatever, anything you want. But I want you to know something, too: I intend to tell you from now on, Coach, when I think you’re right. And also when I think you’re wrong.”

  “Then do it,” she sighs, tiredly. “Just do it.”

  I wait at the top of the steps facing her, as if there’s something more to be said. Maybe I’m waiting to be dismissed. Or put at ease. She doesn’t do or say anything, though, just sits tilting the chair gently, back and forth, in the night. After a while I turn and leave her behind on her lookout. The creak of the chair mingles with the breeze, with the faint leafy rustle of trees.

  *

  More talk the next day. More push-ups, sit-ups. More grassy outdoor visualization exercises, during which I take a nap.

  Afterwards, she divvies us up into pairs. Running buddies, she calls it, and everybody groans. I am paired with Babe Delgado. Then she maps out a few cross-country courses to take—over a couple of hills, into and out of woods. The trails are marked, the other edge of the woods not far, and everything borders civilization. Unfortunately, there is no hope of getting lost.

  “Half an hour,” she stays. “Run. Don’t cheat.”

  Delgado, for all her heft, can really move. I find myself chasing her down, stumbling over field rocks and mole holes. Speculating on the general unfairness of it all—here I am, in what is basically the best shape of my life—and here she is, in what is probably the worst shape of hers—and she’s cutting me to ribbons. Reminding me again that she has national-class heart and lungs, whereas I most assuredly do not. When we get into the woods, leave the others to take their own paths, I am nearly brained by swinging branches and have to face facts: I can’t keep up.

  “Hey,” I gasp, “will you just chill, goddammit!”

  She doesn’t hear. Too far ahead, bouncing through the trees. There’s a flash of flopping T-shirt, straining flesh.

  “Babe!” I yell. “Slow down!” Then silence. I wait several minutes. Until I hear her big feet brush mud and moss, the rhythmic crunch of leaves louder. She’s breathing hard now, standing right in front of me with a pleased look on her face that makes me feel mean.

  “We’re supposed to stick together, you know. This isn’t a race.”

  “I’m sorry, Ellie.” She says it gently. “Are you all right?”

  “Nothing surgery won’t fix.”

  She starts to laugh but stops herself. Then slaps my shoulder tentatively, says to come on, there’s a place up ahead, we’re not supposed to cheat but we can check it out, anyway, and take a rest.

  We head off the trail at a jog, step through mud and bushes. Shielded by trees, we hear the sound of other voices—girls running now just past us along the same path.

  What she’s found is some old messed-up cabin, deserted a long time ago.

  She moves the broken door off with one arm, quickly, easily, just shrugs it aside. Insects stop whirring, birds go into a chattering panic punctuated by sudden moments of silence. We step in on the rotting wood floor. Slats have been nailed across the windows, but some are ripped half off, and wherever the holes are light streaks in, zigzagging the floor in zebra stripes, making delicate, dust-laden cobwebs in every corner shimmer like tarnished silver.

  When she walks across the room I notice how her legs bend backwards like bows, feet press out a little penguinish. All those years of breaststroke—it’s a trademark—almost deforming, surely distinctive. She wipes her face on a T-shirt shoulder.

  “Running. God.”

  “Well, at least the sweat’s physical, not mental.”

  She heads for one window that still has shutters locked tight across it, wrenches the lock from the wood to open them. More sunlight floods in, and country air. I get the sense that she’s trying to joke a little, but her face shares no expression. She turns, swallowing nervously, at a definite social loss.

  “How are you, anyway?” I ask.

  She seems startled and blinks. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what’s it like for you—you know, being here. Is it, like, totally freaky? Do you feel sort of weird, or just, I don’t know, just happy to be alive?”

  “Oh. I don’t think about it much.”

  “Really?”

  She leans on the windowsill, backlit by green shade, sun-lined shadow.

  “Well, no, that’s not true. I mean, I think about it a lot, but it’s hard to explain. Some days are good. Some days are bad.”

  Then—I don’t know why—because the silence makes me uncomfortable, or because it seems that there’s an unspoken invitation in her own silence, or because I promised I would, I blurt:

  “What was it like?”

  “Pretty bizarre, I guess. Pretty wet and salty.”

  I laugh a little. She doesn’t.

  “I don’t remember that much about it, to tell you the truth. I lost, you know, I lost some people, my boyfriend, and my best friend. So it’s, um, sort of heavy.”

  I nod. She measures out the words like evenly rounded tablespoons.

  “It’s like, one day you’re a certain person, then something happens and you’re changed. You can’t help it, you just are.” She avoids my eyes. “Sometimes, things remind me. I don’t really go around thinking that they’re dead, or anything like that. There are times I feel they aren’t at all—dead, I mean—and it’s like I’m going to see them again, anyway, in a few hours. Or I notice something about somebody else, you know? And I remember one of them.” She cocks her head. Her tone changes, until it is almost defiant, shaky but insistent. “You, for instance. Liz Chaney—she was my best friend. Sometimes you get this expression on your face, or you joke around a certain way. And you remin
d me of Liz.”

  I walk to the window opposite her, look out and peel a rotting slat off to see more clearly. The sun fills my face, something like sorrow nags my chest, so for a moment I’m choking on this very strange regret, on a heartache throbbing behind some heavy weight that’s been there all my life. I look out at the trees, hear her breathe across the room. Feel that, for the first time ever, she is focused completely on me—caring, now, and waiting.

  I think of all the things I’m a replacement for. Co-captains. Lottie’s Oskar, Zischa’s little girls. Piles of hope gone up in smoke. But still, somehow, there’s this part of me that never was touched by that. Or by lost races, tufts of kitten fur, empty pillows, infant ghosts that would come in the night. Another few thousand yards or meters? Let our Coach make a fool of me, then, what else is new? One thing I’m used to is losing. But no one ever could make me stop working to win. And if I don’t know all that I am, or can be, I basically do know a few things I am not. Like, I am not Oskar. Or Zischa’s girls. Or a world-class swimmer drowned and buried in the sea.

  I turn to Babe Delgado. She seems expectant, almost smiling.

  “Well,” I say, gently, firmly, “I am not Liz Chaney.”

  She nods, a little embarrassed.

  Suddenly I visualize like crazy.

  A perfect mental image comes to me of this race. Burning pain in the water, pale gasping, blue foam. At the end of the eighth lap the wall disappears. The pool stretches on and on, shimmering, limitless. There is no other end. And I say, Okay, come on then. Say: You fucker, I dare you. Just come on and be what you are. And do what you do. One more stroke, pull, reach. Then the water disappears too, and there’s nothing ahead at all. Nothing to move through. No air to breathe. In my mind I’m afraid, but reach out anyway.

  Sunday

  (CHICK)

  Bren called on a Sunday.

  Sunday. Bloody Sunday.

  Saturday Night. But Sunday Morning.

  It’s the day all my depressive clients tailspin. They come in crazy on Monday, which inevitably unfolds as a litany of angst and lamentation. I always supply two extra boxes of tissues then: one near the armchair opposite mine, one near the couch.

  *

  On the phone, she sounded controlled but raw.

  Or was it raw, but controlled?

  I found myself wondering—not for the first time, either—whether her raw, ragged pain was a response to the control, or whether her control was a response to the raw, ragged pain. I suspected the latter. But, with Bren, you never can be sure.

  Could she come down to Boston for a visit the following weekend? she wondered. There was some three-day holiday, Catholic, Jewish, national combined, coming up. Dry-land month almost at an end, her kids would hit the water soon. Then things would get really hectic. But for this upcoming long weekend the place would clear out. She wanted to see me.

  Sure, I told her, I want to see you too.

  Good, then. And there was this other thing—a special request—heck of a time to ask, she knew, but would I consider taking care of Boz for a while? She meant for several months. The dog missed Kay and was out of control, tearing up furniture, urinating on the rugs. She was gone too much of the time to deal with it, was getting to the end of her rope, she needed help. And I’d always liked Boz, always talked of getting a dog myself. Anyway, would I think about it? She had a lot of sorting out to do. Something concerning Kay’s ashes.

  Yes, I would think about it. But I wouldn’t promise anything. Better bring the dog down over the weekend and see how things worked out, I told her. And I asked her to consider this, too: What would she be getting rid of by giving me the dog? What would she be losing herself?

  “Don’t torment yourself, Bren. Just keep these issues in mind, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said. Obviously relieved that the discussion had contained a minimum of what she called “your jargon.”

  As I hung up the phone, it struck me that there was more to this business than just getting rid of a troublesome dog. Not quite the same as some infant handing its mother a used diaper—although there were elements of that in it, to be sure. But I felt entrusted with something precious instead. As if she was giving me a piece of Kay—and of herself along with it—to have and hold for a while.

  *

  There’s this pain inside me, a client told me once, that I can’t get at to cure.

  He said it a little shamefacedly, sitting there in my office. A terribly proper, well-dressed young man with a face that looked like the face of the ruddy-cheeked, blue-eyed Jesus I’d seen gazing back at me in a clear suffering glow from the pages of my childhood catechism. He’d been coming to weekly sessions for six years at the time, sitting on the edge of my office’s big deep velveteen couch every Friday afternoon at five-thirty sharp, and never leaning back. Part of the pain was for love, lack of intimacy. He had a terror, not of sex, but of relationship.

  We’d made some headway, but the going was excruciatingly slow. I wasn’t really sure I cared for him that much. I’d suggested more than once that he consider consultation with another therapist. But he insisted on staying with me.

  Can you tell me about the pain? I’d ask.

  He would only shake his head and murmur that it was a throbbing, deep inside, elusive yet undeniable. And when I asked how long it had been there, he said he wasn’t sure—possibly since birth. At any rate, for many years now. He was dying then, although I didn’t know it yet.

  Our sessions continued—he was never late. In the winter, the windows were framed against a snow-brightened darkness by the time he arrived, and in warmer weather sunlight came rippling through with the sound of traffic from across the river. That year some of these sessions suddenly became very active, very talkative. Others were embarrassingly quiet, as if I was sitting in the presence of a blushing stone.

  As his condition became obvious I watched the deterioration. He lost weight, so that his expensive three-piece suits hung on him. Next to go was the ruddy, beautiful color of his skin, which turned to a strange tone that wasn’t white but a mixture of pale green and gray.

  Week to week the changes were often dramatic. Before one session, I found myself anticipating his arrival by wondering what new physical calamity had befallen him during the last seven days. It was as if I’d given the illness primacy in my own mind, personified it—so that whenever he walked through the door it wasn’t him but his disease wearing a good three-piece suit, nodding slightly, saying hello and sitting neatly on the edge of my deep, soft velveteen couch.

  I caught myself doing this, and had to cut it out. But it was a good lesson in the frailty of even a supposedly well-trained mind: how easily we let the agony of an experience blot out its essential lessons—especially those of the frightening liminal stages of existence, like dying—while conveniently ignoring the human being who is enduring the transformation.

  Of course, this disease deformed him terribly. Gone were the good looks of a South End Jesus. His neck and throat swelled, so that at times he could barely talk. His eyes were forced almost shut too, and his vision became minimal. He began to lose his hair.

  During this phase of illness, he started sometimes to lean back against the sofa. And to talk more openly—not about the present, which he rarely mentioned at all, but about the past: his childhood, parents, school years. His first love.

  Then, one Friday evening, he showed up in casual dress: blue jeans and a flannel shirt. Sitting on the sofa, he kicked off loafers, crossed his legs. The socks were mismatched—one blue, one gray. He began to speak, very gently, about things he’d done in his life that he regretted. How he had run from offerings of love at the first sign of difficulty. Had responded to the experience of tenderness in lovemaking with a kind of rage. How dare anyone come so close? How dare they try, really try, to touch him? To pierce the armor of his control? He had lashed out so often, then. Had caused considerable pain. Now, he wished he had not. And we talked about the futility of regret.

&n
bsp; Another week went by. He came back, on time as usual, wearing a baseball cap, crossed his legs on the couch and sat there looking very dignified.

  Lately, he said quietly, he’d been thinking a lot about his health.

  Sometimes it was hard for him to believe that he was only one man any more. The illness had taken on a personality, often seemed to be lying next to him in bed, like a Siamese twin. He spoke to it, pleaded with it, cursed it. Wished it death—knowing that when it died, so would he. There were even times, he said, when he’d come close to giving it a name.

  What name would you give it? I asked.

  My own, he said. And wept.

  Some invisible weight seemed to fall on him so that he swayed sideways, collapsed on the couch, pulled the baseball cap from his bald, swollen head and held it between his face and the cushions while he cried. I crossed the floor to sit there and hold his hand.

  But the following Friday he showed up in an ebullient mood.

  It was his twenty-eighth birthday, he told me, and I ought to congratulate him.

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  He handed me a thick paperback, with an illustration of a snow-capped mountain shrouded in multicolored mist on the cover, and declared that he had a favor to ask. He’d like the remainder of our sessions together to be more lighthearted. It was a bit of an imposition, he knew, not at all what I was generally paid for—but he was having trouble reading these days, and wondered if I’d mind spending our time together, each Friday, reading various portions of this book to him?

  With some hesitation, and a few professional misgivings, I agreed.

  So during our next few sessions I read out loud.

  Once, I looked up and realized I was no longer in control of my own office. My power had fled, something else had taken its place. It wasn’t him, really—although, at first, it seemed that way—it was some other force, an almost tangible one, that was very present in the room, that entered and left with him. And it wasn’t the disease, either. But it was a strong thing, hovering, waiting. At times it seemed dangerous. At other times benign. Welcoming. Almost loving.