The rest of them were obviously still swimming. So Babe was not there at the top of the stairs to meet me. Although I had the feeling that, even if I’d lasted the entire workout, she wouldn’t have stuck around then, either. Something about those days was over, kaput. Scared away by truth, and by Mike Canelli.
*
I must have listened to the lecture in Modern European History, because I took plenty of notes. Same with Abnormal Psych. Some time that afternoon I started to cough again, but it went away. I felt better, calmer, like things would work out no matter what, senior year would not be a total disaster, the swimming would get better, I’d work harder than ever if I had to and simply tough myself into a blithering long-distance dynamo, two-beat kick and all, tower of aerobic power, nail my fabulous turn at each of the 64 walls. These thoughts—the first positive ones I’d had in many a week, actually—made me anxious for second workout. I skipped lunch, went to the gym to stretch out, was suited up in the locker room early, and out on the deck before anyone else.
Did you go to Health Service? Brenna Alien asked, examining my face—for something, I don’t know, some sign of weakness probably.
No, I told her, I feel okay now. You know, Coach, twenty-four-hour flu. New strains come over here from China every year—they think they originate and mutate on pig farms. Lucky for us the human immune system is a spectacular interlocking mechanism.
And then, when just the flicker of a smile touched her mouth corners, I grinned fully at her and said: From the annals of Biology 103. Which convinced me that med school was not, after all, my destiny.
“No,” she said, “nor mine.” And grinned back. So that, for a minute, I adored her again.
Then the rest of them spilled from the locker room. I caught a sideways glimpse of Babe, walking slowly out, last as always; I let myself think about her briefly—all the scars that Karen Potalia had made barf noises over, the excess baggage she’d been so hung up about since September—and understood suddenly why she was always last, always so slow to dress and to undress: because she did not want anyone to see her naked, or stare at her body. Because maybe she had some kind of hatred for it herself.
Not that I was any stranger to self-hate.
Not that I was planning to let myself spend perfectly good practice time obsessing about Babe Delgado.
I tried to catch her eye and failed. Something cold clicked shut inside me then, and I decided to ignore her. Succeeded, too. Piling kickboards and pull buoys and hand paddles under the starting blocks. Making sure, very sure, that I did not look her way while heading past for the distance lanes.
I warmed up slowly, slowly. Trying to find something I thought maybe I’d felt once, and lost. Sometimes I nearly had it—throw, reach and there, spear the water and snake pull and there, all the way back elbow up thumb down and there—a feel for the way the water really was, while I moved through it like a respectful and gentle invader—I thought I had it sometimes, then it would leave. But toward the end of the thousand I started to feel the walls, too, and stopped worrying about them. Things got easy. Stroke down, head and neck over, a little pike. Toes on concrete. Perfectly placed each time. It was light, push off, stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe.
The whistle screamed.
“Okay, ladies. It’s Double-Your-Pleasure day.”
Everybody groaned. Except for me. And Babe Delgado. I hung there off the stainless steel bar undercasing of the starting block feeling light, invigorated, like I could float, like nothing would be too difficult today. Gazing over a couple of lanes through the slightly fogged goggles, I saw her hanging too, and wondered if she felt that kind of strong, resilient lightness now—and did she feel it every time? and was it part of the work? or did it just happen, randomly, once in a while—to her, to any of us. Then I caught myself wondering and the cold hard thing clicked shut inside. It felt safe, clicking shut like that; as if I could swim encased in this lightweight remote-control armor invisible to everyone else, an armor which shut me off from things, and was vaguely dangerous somehow, but at the same time comforting, entirely protective. So that I felt I was enough, sufficient—even me alone, solitary, faults and all. Not mediocre any more, really, but in some indefinable way excellent, just excellent.
“Distance people, listen up. Three sets of five times one hundred on the one-twenty. That’s to warm you all up. We build from there.”
The groans sounded all around again. Somewhere, someone barked and whimpered.
“I want to see you move. But I also want even splits. Shake it now, don’t break it!”
She stalked back and forth. I watched her thigh muscles. Then caught myself watching and the safe, lightweight armor shut me off to her, too, so that I was capable and confident again.
“What’s the point here? To know the maximum quality of your own output in the long run. Time goes on, and the things that were easy at the beginning get harder at the end. Your first hundred feels a lot easier than your last. I want you to achieve the same result, regardless. Nice and fast. But something you can settle into. Anyone swimming the sixteen-fifty for us next month”—and I thought, for a moment, that she swiveled my way, whistle flapping against her chest—“ought to take this one very seriously, and I do mean seriously, because the alternative is that when it comes down to competition you will be one hurting puppy. In competition—or under any kind of stress, for that matter—we do only what we have practiced. Only what we are trained to do. Nobody wins by bagging it. You know my favorite saying, ladies: Talent gets you fifty meters. The rest of it is nothing but work.”
She swung the whistle around on its cord. It flashed, silver, past a spot of sweat between her breasts.
Okay, I thought, suddenly not resentful at all. Okay. Let’s do it.
The whistle spun, reflected lights shining off the water. Then it made its way between her lips, everyone shut up completely, and I took a few good breaths.
It sounded and I knew from the first stab of thumb and forefinger into the water that today was my day, the practice I hadn’t even dared to hope for. It was the day my back propelled my shoulders and the arms felt free and easy, painless, slight pressure on forearm and palm with each pull. Like I had accepted the medium completely, and now could dominate it a little—or maybe just dominate myself while I was moving through it, breath, pull, pull, roll, going as fast or as slow as I wanted, nailing each wall at will. I understood, for the first time, that the power of this was not just from the muscles but from the breath: The two were connected, sure. But the basis of it all was the power of breath. Strength could help endurance—or, appearance-wise, cover up a lack of it—but, in and of itself, it was no substitute. Brenna Allen had been right about certain things, anyway. I’d had to sacrifice some strength for endurance, get a little smaller and maybe even a little weaker, somehow—get exhausted, broken down to the right size, in order to build back up again in a different way. And today, today was the payoff.
I aced the first set, even-split everything, maintained the interval. Finished breathing lightly, pushed off to swim down, started to feel glad about things, almost proud of myself. It was a different feeling, really—different from the effort of the sprint. And I didn’t even know if I liked it. But, for sure, I could do it.
Water spilled from my ears. The sturdy voice of our Coach echoed above.
“Nice work, Ellie. But a little frightening!” Those who could breathe laughed, and I laughed with them. “Save something for racing.”
I wanted to tell her not to worry, there’d be plenty left. But I never had the chance, because the whistle blew and the next set began—this one working harder, deeper, making my flesh red with sweat in the calm blue water, skin heat fogging the plastic transparency of goggle lenses, of the waterproof wristwatch face.
*
Nice, they told me later, in the locker room, jokes flying back and forth through the steamy shower air. Couldn’t catch you today, Captain. Is it drugs, or love?
No, I shot back, it
’s deprivation, and hate.
Well whatever it is, can you get me some?
Sure, raving beauty. Take a number.
I passed Babe on the way to the whirlpool. She was stepping out of it, froth bubbling around the surgical scars on her ankle, quickly wrapping a towel around herself and heading for a massage and knee tape-up the way she did every afternoon, stooping slightly, eyes on the dripping tiles, like she was entirely far away and preoccupied. She didn’t notice me; or if she did, she didn’t let on.
I tried to catch her eyes for a second but the big, tall, towel-draped body was limping off with back turned. I stepped down, eased into the hot sweet turbulence, immersed both shoulders and popped up. Thinking: Well fuck you too, Delgado.
And thanks for being part of a wonderful dinner.
When I burst out into the hallway after taking the stairs two at a time, she wasn’t around. Although I did see the back of her jacket—one of those expensive lightweight things, lined with polypro, fluorescent trimming on the edges, another commodity which, no doubt, her father had purchased for her—rounding a corner near the exit. And another, broader-backed jacket stalking alongside her, little wisp of dyed ponytail straggling out of his collar behind. I glimpsed the side of his face, turning to her once, lips moving quickly, talking, talking. Something stabbed through my insides, left an ache to replace the remnants of the workout glow. I hung around pretending to read notices on some bulletin board. Then headed slowly, cautiously, down the hall, feeling sort of furtive, as if someone would catch me—although what they’d catch me doing, I didn’t know. But she and Canelli were nowhere in sight. I hitched my bookbag over a shoulder, headed outside into a cold gray wind. A fit of coughing stung my throat and chest. I shivered but shrugged it off, figured it wouldn’t snow today but would one day soon. You could feel it.
*
Improving athletic skill is a nice ego-booster. But it does not necessarily mean that the rest of your life will improve. Although you may walk out of practice thinking that, at the time.
Wow, I am a regular King Kong here, a real Godzilla in the water, and now all of my problems will miraculously disappear.
Poof.
In reality, though, you step out onto dry land and things are just as fucked up as ever. You still don’t have money. Or a lover. Or any idea of what to do with your life. And no one’s around to applaud your little athletic prowess, either—at least, not off the pool deck. You realize how little it means in the big, bad scheme of things. I mean, we’re not talking world records, or Olympic Trials, or Pan Am Games, or national teams. We’re not even talking Division I. The minuscule progress of Ellie Marks, mascot/workhorse of the women’s swimming team at Northern Massachusetts State, is not exactly going to set the world on fire. Nor is it likely to set anyone else’s heart aflutter.
Which is why, when Nan makes the crack about my “new girlfriend”—like there was ever even an old one—I wind up bursting into rages, racing upstairs, sobbing into my mattress. The crying does no good. Just kicks off another of the coughing spells which have become more frequent over the last couple of days—and this time, at the height of misery, tears smearing my face and stuffing my nose, I cough out a totally, totally grotesque clot of green stuff from deep inside my throat and chest, and it scares me.
I wait until the coughing fit dies. Then have to face it: there are these grotesque little green clot things probably rattling around inside me, and they’re not going away. I am not getting better, but worse. Brenna Allen was right the first time: I should skip practice, go to Health Service. Still, if I skip practice, I will not peak correctly. The 1650 and the 400 IM and the first meet of the year are coming up next month.
I would like to make Coach proud of me.
I would like to make myself proud.
Because, after all, swimming is the only thing I have left in the world.
This thought makes me cry again.
I dry my face on a sheet, stagger to the phone and dial.
“Howdy, stranger.”
“Danny, it’s me.”
“Ellie!” Somehow he seems disappointed. “Listen, kid, can I call you right back? I’m expecting this sort of long-distance thing—”
“Oh, sure,” I say. Then: “No. I mean, help.”
I start crying again, telling him I am sick, and in love, and if he really has stopped being my friend then there is no hope left in the world for me.
Wait, he says, I will be right over.
*
One thing Lottie never would do is lie down on a doctor’s examining table. She said too many people had disappeared that way in the camps. You got sick, you went to the infirmary. Then you vanished. Poof. A doctor’s not Jewish, don’t trust him.
This thought crossed my mind, I confess, when they scheduled me at Health Service to see some guy named Dr. Heilbronner, and between coughing fits I decided that if he turned out to be the monocle-sporting blue-eyed balding Kraut I assumed he was, with a shit-squeezing Bavarian accent and fat sadistic hands and anti-Semitism oozing out of every pore, I could refuse to submit to any treatment, I would get up and leave. Sitting there in the fluorescent-lit clinic waiting room, with Danny on one side and this skinny kid filling out a VD questionnaire on the other, I started to panic. But I was damned if I’d let anyone know.
Genital warts? I saw, out of the corner of an eye. Unusual discharge? Then: Sexually active with more than one partner? No, Mister Doctor Sir. No such luck.
“Ellie Marks? Hi, I’m Dave Heilbronner. Come right this way.”
Young, sturdy. Thick dark hair. A kind, acne-scarred face. New resident—I could tell; he seemed so proud of the stethoscope, so concerned about making me comfortable, meeting my eyes. Obviously in the currently popular revisionist tradition of compassionate medicine for New Age people.
So he wasn’t the aging Nazi I’d expected.
Just a new young doctor who listened to my chest, took a throat culture, took my temperature. Asked about my activities. Admired the swim team. Admired my scholarship. Shuttled me down the hall for X-rays. Examined the results. Expressed concern. Diagnosed pneumonia. A bad break, he said. I was lucky it had not progressed further. But, in any case, it had to be treated immediately. He prescribed antibiotics, and a narcotic cough suppressant, and at least two or three weeks of complete rest followed by a month of no more than moderate activity.
“I can’t,” I told him.
He smiled. “You can’t do anything else.”
I sat there on the examining table staring at a life-sized chart of the human body—all organs, bones, musculature, stripped of the covering skin. All we were in the end, I thought: the flesh. Violable. Combustible. Stronger was better, but not invulnerable. A small piece of metal, or microscopic virus or bacteria, could tear it to pieces. And when the flesh failed, so did the person.
“I want you to take five hundred milligrams every four hours, Ellie. And the cough syrup should help you sleep.”
I saw into the distance of the bleak and immediate future. Visualizing. Watched the short-course season fade away.
“Are you German?” I asked.
“Somebody’s great-great grandfather probably was. My dad’s family is from Texas, though. My mom’s from West Virginia.”
“Oh.”
“What about you?”
“German and Polish.”
“Got family over there?”
No, I told him, not any more.
Walking down an ugly off-white corridor to the Health Service pharmacy, bumping into kids coughing and sniffling and sucking throat lozenges, or sporting crutches or bandage-wrapped wrists, I felt much worse. But also in a way resigned, like I’d accepted illness, believed the diagnosis; whereas, before, when I had ignored it, it had almost seemed okay, something I could get over on my own, without any help at all—certainly not from some German doctor.
Standing in line, I felt tears drip. But the rest of me was numb.
You okay? Someone asked.
> Sure, I said. Nothing Thorazine can’t handle.
*
“Did you tell her?” Danny asked later. “Your Babe, I mean.” He spooned cough syrup into my mouth, made me sip tea through a straw. We sat on the sofa with the usual distorted, static-buzzing black-and-white TV picture flickering in the background, and in my weakened state I realized that he had always been a perfect mother to me.
“Tell her what? That I’m gay?”
“That you’re in love with her.”
“How do you know who I’m in love with?”
“Well, let’s just say that you don’t have to be, like, a genius to figure that one out, Ellie.”
“It’s that obvious?”
He nodded.
I covered my feverish face with a pillow and groaned. Told him about her waiting around for me after practice all the time. Long walks across the library quad. Push-ups face to face in the free-weights room. Whirlpool sessions together. I told him the story of dinner, and smoky catastrophe. Swimming. The shriek of the whistle. Brenna Allen. Mike Canelli.
“So now she’s going out with the biggest, creepiest jerk in the world—”
Danny snorted. “How do you know that’s what’s really going on?”
I let the pillow drop, made a face. “Female intuition, okay?”
He stirred my tea, got up to smash the top of the TV set with his palm and, for a while, the picture cleared. When he sat back down next to me he crossed his arms over his chest, and I could see the biceps swelling out the upper sleeves of his sweater so that for a moment I cursed Brenna Allen and mourned my comparative lack of muscular definition, wondered with a high-pitched feverish buzzing sound in the center of my skull just what, in fact, all the work had been for anyway. Danny sighed.
“I don’t know, kiddo. It seems to me like you’re giving up before you even start trying.”
There are two kinds of giving up, I explained, weakly and feverishly but sarcastically: the first of which is quitting because you are afraid; the second of which is quitting because you understand the waste and futility of continuing an endeavor. I myself was not and had never been a quitter in the face of fear alone. And if he really was my friend, it would be to his benefit to remember that.
The Sea of Light Page 24