The Sea of Light

by Levin, Jenifer

  Because it’s your race, she says.

  I tell her Sure, maybe.

  No, she insists, it is your race. Your race. Whatever we do that is hardest for us, is the thing we put our most into. Whatever we put our most into, like our time, and sweat, and blood, well, that is the thing we make our own. Because after a while, it smells like us. It tastes like us. After a while, it calls out our name.

  When she talks like that, a part of me thinks it’s just bullshit but another part of me falls more in love. I hold her for a while, remembering she promised to do that for me after the 100; but my race is over for now, and I don’t feel so needy. I wrap both aching arms around her, rest my face against her neck. She usually makes a big deal about how good this feels. Tonight, though, she just sighs, and is silent.

  After a while, I feel her sleep.

  I turn off the lamp.

  It’s not the dark that scares me any more. Darkness never did. What scares me is its end, the morning it always brings, harsh bright light in which you choose between the struggle and the giving up, in which you can’t help but see yourself too clearly, in which the truth about what you’re made of and how you’ll use that cannot be hidden.

  Calmate, I say. My father’s Spanish words, from long ago.

  Tita comes to me. There is fire in my hands.

  I use it, now, for the first time ever—careful to do it correctly: not for my own benefit, but for her whom I love. Quietly, place the tips of my fingers at her different points of light. Silently sing the magic. Into her heart, and lungs, and belly. Into her head, and arms, and legs. Into the dark secret part of her. Until, sleeping, she shudders, and gasps; unconsciously sweats, coughing out globs of poison. Then her breaths come deep and calm. And I sleep, too.

  *

  I sleep, and sleep. I sleep through the alarm of Bren’s traveling clock. Wake up to the day, a soft gray one outside, spring rain pattering through the window and a dull, gentle light through crooked blinds. I gasp, stare at the time. Soft old ticking. It is late morning, Ellie gone. I sit up in a burst of self-horror. Her qualifying heat will be over by now; I’ve missed it.

  Rapid moving. But moving smacks me right between the eyes with reality. Reality of my body—saying, Delgado, you can’t really move so fast or so well any more, or I’ll hurt you pretty bad. I have to slow down. My head pounds with yesterday’s effort, groin and belly ache with each stretch. Thighs are sore. Knees, ankles, feel crippled. Arms and even the backs of my wrists hurt, curved inward against the invisible water; my neck and my shoulders are on fire. I sit there on the bed half naked, and start to cry.

  Oh God, I say, Ellie, Ellie, I’m sorry. So sorry.

  Standing, I pull shit out of a suitcase before realizing it’s the wrong one. I dump all of her stuff on the unmade bed, reach for my own suitcase and pour everything out of it too.

  Then I stop, suddenly feeling very, very pissed. Because why didn’t she wake me? She knows I wanted to be there for her, too; that I wanted to see her swim.

  I glance over at the armchair by a bed table. Two of her suits are gone, but not the ones she’d meant to take. The third one she’d laid out especially for her qualifying heat is still there; only the warm-up suit and the suit she’d planned to use for the final tonight—like there was really going to be a final for her tonight—are gone.

  I splash water on my face, throw on some clothes and head out, passing a couple of swimmers from some other team in the hall.

  “Hey,” says one, “nice race yesterday.”

  I turn blindly. “Look, I’m, um, late for a heat. Are there cabs around?”

  “Sure. Ask at the desk.”

  As I run for the staircase—don’t want to risk waiting for the elevator—I hear it echo behind me, bewildered: But it’s four hundred IM this morning. You’re not even seeded for that, are you?

  *

  When I get there, the place looks bizarre for a minute. I realize I’ve never entered one of these natatorium complexes as a spectator before. The lights always seemed so glaringly, inhumanely bright to me. Now, stumbling through the tiers of stands, they seem just right, illuminating the pool without too much reflection, making things seem colorful and clean and appetizing instead of wet and frightening and clammy. The stands themselves seem shabby, a little beaten, definitely smaller. Always, they loomed enormously around me, screaming judgment from every tier; now they are sparsely populated, the few people seated here and there merely observing, gently and with interest, with knowledge and with dignity—different from the yahoos who usually spectate at most college team sports—and they don’t seem threatening at all. Even the pool looks smaller, plenty smaller than it does when you’re gazing down its barrel-end from the knife edge of a starting block. Just a contained rectangle, after all, marked off by floating pieces of plastic in tight-linked rows, a basin filled with cleansing chemicals, and with water.

  Etta notices me first, waves and smiles.

  “Get enough sleep, girl?”

  “I guess.”

  “Then how come you look demented?”

  “Etta, where’s Ellie? How come nobody woke me?”

  “Ellie’s fine. Coach’s orders, doll—if you could sleep late, you were supposed to.”

  Brenna Allen doesn’t turn around to see me. A few of the team members do, and wave me over, and someone pokes Ellie on the shoulder. She is sitting there with a towel around her upper body, sweatpants soaking through. When she sees me she stands, and grins.

  “Hey.”

  “God, baby! I am so sorry! Why the hell didn’t you wake me up?”

  She coughs, clears her throat. “Babe, listen—I qualified.”

  “Go on!”

  “Can you believe it? I mean, I didn’t really think I could.”

  I start to cry, suddenly, effortlessly. “Oh, Ellie, that’s great.”

  “Yeah. I qualified last, absolutely last, by a long shot, believe me—I mean, we’re talking major seconds, and I’m stuck in eight tonight—but, you know, I felt an enormous great big shitload better than I thought I would. So I just went for it.”

  I am sniffling again, feeling pretty mad, broken somehow, tired; but at the same time so happy for her, and relieved, and unexpectedly sorry for myself, because I wasn’t there to see it.

  “I wish I’d been here, Ellie. I feel so bad.”

  “Don’t.” She shakes her head, suddenly very serious. “You know, maybe I wanted to do this alone. I don’t know. I thought about waking you up this morning—I really did, Babe—but you were sleeping so well, and I just thought, what is the point? I mean, she’s not going to qualify for you, you know—”

  “But still—”

  “Still nothing. I figured this would be my final, Babe—this qualifying heat. So I wore the other suit—you know. But now I’ve got to do it again tonight—God, I don’t even believe it, during the backstroke I really just thought I was going to die—”

  “But you did it, baby. I’m so proud of you!”

  “Yeah. I am too.”

  So is everybody else. People are rubbing her back and her shoulders, pounding her chest, telling her to relax so they can massage her temples, stretch out her arms, get her another towel. You’d think she had set a new record, from the stink they are making. I just beam. You can tell, from her reaction, that she’s not used to the attention at all. Good, I think, let everyone else touch her—it’s good for her.

  *

  There is this thing about the magic: You can act as a vessel or a conduit for it, but you cannot really control it. It is just passing through, really, not your own to give.

  Also, it only lasts so long. When it leaves, it is gone.

  *

  I watch the fire leave her by increments throughout the day, until she begins to cough a little again, and clear her throat, and look very tired—almost too tired, she says, to eat a light lunch; she doesn’t know how she can possibly get through it tonight; and she isn’t even thinking about winning, or placing, but
about finishing, about sheer survival.

  Finally, she shrugs. Looking tense and pale, but nevertheless determined. Or resigned. But committed, no matter what. Saying, Well, I guess if worse comes to worst I can dog-paddle four hundred yards.

  Around us, at the table, people giggle and laugh. She does too.

  You won’t have to, I tell her; though I am not sure.

  *

  I am—or was—a sprinter, clear and simple; even the 200 was stretching it for me. This had nothing to do with aerobic conditioning, but with genetic aptitude.

  Not that I had trouble swimming 400, or 1500, or 10,000 meters, for that matter, when I was in reasonable condition—not that my times in distance events were not way, way above average; it’s just that, at the sprints, I excelled.

  It’s this something ineffable that biochemists and exercise physiologists are always trying to quantify: from event to event, a different kind of energy gets expended, and sometimes it varies greatly and at other times just slightly; but it is always different, and the amount of perfection with which an individual can do a certain event, perform the tasks required, varies from individual to individual, too; so that only the people most brilliantly suited to any one particular event will ever really succeed at it on a world-class or national-class level. There is this matter of inborn ability—which no one likes to talk about—but it’s true: a fact, a reality, that no amount of consistently superb training can overcome.

  On the other hand, it also matters what you do with it.

  Or, as Bren likes to say, talent gets you fifty meters; the rest is all just work.

  Not strictly true. But true enough. No talent, no wonder drug, will ever substitute for the practice and the work.

  I grew up with kids who had all of it together: innate physical talent, mental toughness and desire, a willingness to work. For a while, I possessed all of those attributes, too; and, during that time, I was a champion.

  When I gave up the mental toughness and desire; when I let slip away from me just a tiny fraction of the absolute willingness to work; I was no longer a champion. And this is what happened—long before the plane went down.

  It’s all right. I had other things on my mind and in my heart. Puberty. Family pressure. Betrayal. Love. A nut case for a coach, who wanted only to win at these games called sport, and who was willing to rape and to spill blood for that, and who was copiously rewarded for his efforts.

  When I was no longer a champion, someone else was. Matter always fills empty space, sooner or later.

  It’s all okay, though I do not forgive, or forget.

  I never had a warrior heart—at least, not for keeps.

  What I had was an inquisitive heart. One that preferred to observe, and feel, and ask a lot of questions. I know this about myself now.

  But what we know is not always what we want to know.

  What we know about ourselves is not always what people want to know about us.

  That is why, for the time being, I commit myself to swim for Brenna Allen—this year, and next. Sensitive, arrogant, observant scholar that I am, housed in this warrior’s body. She—like Ellie—has a real warrior heart. And she’s done me some favors. In return, I can lend her team this body, learn from it what I can; I can make it swim another year.

  I’ll stay at State, stay in shape, swim for the team, finish school. Spend the summer with Ellie—with her and the two funny smart little dykes who already seem middle-aged to me—in that ugly old ramshackle house that has tattered furniture and the warm yellow light.

  Who would have thought I’d lust for a place like that? Me, with my trophies, and my Gold Card? Still, it’s true. I wanted to be there from the first time I saw it. Wanted to be myself there—no champion, just me—and to be there with her.

  Let my parents do their own split-up. Invite Jack, even Robo or Toots, up for a visit if things get too rough. Otherwise, stay out of it. They can’t, they won’t, help me mourn. They cannot deal. But I have to mourn—for them, for myself, for Kenny, and for everything now lost. Ellie, though—she can deal. And so can I. Not all the time, and not perfectly, but we can.

  Right now, I can watch her try her best to compete, to swim. I can ache for her suffering effort, can admire her sheer guts; understanding that this fighting, grinding way is the way she’s got to be—her way, not mine—and that it’s all just fine.

  Because the point is not to exalt one way over the other, but to know which way is your own, your very own.

  And later, too, I can hold her.

  Understanding these things, making these decisions, I feel suddenly at peace.

  Finals

  (JACK)

  It started again with little fights. Just a day or two after Christmas—during which everyone was pretty much comatose and in a state of shock. But Ricky and Lucy recovered. And went back to the ways they had never really abandoned.

  Didn’t sound like anything out of the ordinary, at first. Standard guerrilla warfare. Nasty snipes. What had she done with his keys to the Saab—ground them up in the Cuisinart? Why had he stayed so long after work that night, two weeks ago—another wild office party for two?

  But pretty soon this stuff escalated, until it seemed like whenever the two of them were around at the same time they were yelling at the top of their lungs, saying really disgusting shit to each other nobody wants to even know about—and they were making the house such a fucked-up place to be that, on more than one occasion, I found myself stomping around outside through the snow with Roberto, wishing I could spend the night at Cindy’s—not for sex, but to escape—or wishing that indoor practice would last twice as long each day, so I could have more time away.

  When they first started to really yell, too, a lot of it was about Babe.

  You always rode the kid so hard, Barbara, it breaks my heart! You never really loved her!

  Look who’s talking! Look who’s talking about love! A man who barely takes the time between adulteries to zip up his fly!

  Why can’t you be a real mother, Barbara? What on earth is wrong with you? Why can’t you just be a mother, and love your own child?

  Do you love her, Phil? All you ever did was shovel money down her throat whenever she won. To the detriment of everyone else around here, may I add. At least I tried to instill certain values—

  Values? What values? Your cold little privileged white Mayflower values?

  Privileged? White? I’m the only one around here who is white, señor. And nobody around here was ever privileged, really, except you—and her, when she had goals, and a decent body, and a worthwhile life—but you, you, have always just gone ahead and done what you pleased, never mind about the rest of us!

  What bullshit! I put in hours of slave labor for you, woman! To buy the house you wanted! With all the things in it you and your stupid parents wanted! To support all those children that you said you wanted!

  I wanted!

  You!

  *

  And so on. After a while, it got so you could tell when things were about to blow. Then I’d grab my bomber jacket and head out for the garage. I’d hang around watching Roberto smoke for a while. Sometimes the two of us would just sit inside the Volvo or the BMW, silently, waiting for the storm to pass. I’d think about Teresa, who was in there curled up in bed pretending to be asleep but really hearing all of this, this nasty bullshit, and I’d cringe, I’d want to go in and take her away somehow, take her away and save her. But, I realized, there is nowhere else to go. And I’m sixteen years old. Barely old enough to drive. How the fuck am I going to save anybody?

  Things didn’t get better; somehow, this time, unlike all the other times, I knew that they wouldn’t. When the old man told me, I wasn’t surprised. It was even kind of a relief. But I still wanted to cry and, when no one was looking, I did.

  *

  Weird fucking family. Now I am here, this mediocre high school cross-country runner who, let’s face it, can’t pass for black and can’t pass for white, with my so
on-to-be divorced Cuban refugee father, watching the Jew girlfriend of my self-admitted queer ex-champion sister get on the starting block for some stupid final or some stupid swimming event in some stupid nothing division.

  That’s America for you. Bunch of refugees. Makes you feel like you landed on Mars. Makes me wonder if any of us will ever feel at home here. But, what choice do we have—us refugees—I mean, what other home is there? Everyone needs one, has to make one—a home. Me too. Even though I am losing the home I thought I had, and don’t know where to go.

  The buzzer goes off and I watch, feeling pissed and mean. The whole bunch of them, eight chicks in tight racing suits, sort of smash into the water at once. A couple of them looked really great, standing there—you could practically see their tits. I take off my jacket and bundle it over my lap.

  Butterfly, they are doing butterfly. Which I think is pretty cool, I like the way they sort of plunge forward up and out and in again with both arms, like some mad ghost monster attacking something defenseless, pouncing, just pouncing, then kick, and up again, dolphin-like. Ellie Marks is in lane eight, which means she’s the slowest, and after a few seconds I swear I don’t know why the hell Babe wanted me to watch—I mean, as a swimmer, it’s clear that she pretty much stinks. She manages to keep up with the rest of the field for the first lap or so, then starts falling back, and falling back, and it doesn’t look like she’s ever going to catch them. In fact, by the end of the third lap of butterfly it looks like she’s really tired, and slowing down, and when she makes a sloppy turn into the fourth lap I start to blush—I mean, I am actually humiliated for her—and I start to fidget, and wish that I hadn’t promised to watch.

  The other seven of them all finish up the final twenty-five of butterfly pretty tight together—more than a body length ahead of her already—and, looking very strong, almost inhuman, they all one by one turn gracefully at the wall for the next hundred yards of backstroke.