Love Is Never Past Tense...

by Janna Yeshanova

  Here the old man winced. He imagined a skeleton standing on the stone, which as the diligent carrier of food delivered it to the bottom of the sea. The mouths of tiny fish poked at the skeleton that was presented to them, biting off tasty morsels. And this skeleton would be him, himself. “Now you are sitting and philosophizing, sipping whiskey, and tomorrow when the sun creeps out of the water again, you will not creep out any more—you will remain there, in darkness forever. Forever!” This word forced him to shudder again. But he immediately took control of himself. “It is enough to become limp! You were preparing for this for a long time. Isn’t it all the same to you, which barracuda will peck you? A couple of minutes of cramps—and I spit on everything … So the business will not go like this! Now you will start to untie yourself.” And so that there was no temptation, the old man threw overboard the diving knife which had not left his side since the time he trained as a diver.

  The sides of the boat lowered right to the surface of the water. Smooth waves did not flow inside yet, but the moment was already close. As soon as sea water rushed through the board it would be too late to count the minutes. The old man already sat on his calves in the water. His feet were cold, though from alcohol his body was warm and did not freeze. Stars amicably lit up in the sky, but everywhere you looked, the ominous blackness of the rapidly coming southern night gaped. It was lighter only on the side where the lights of the big city went up into the sky.

  The old man shook the bottle—there was still a good quarter of un-sipped liquid. But he did not want to sip it. But he also did not want the good liquor to be lost. The old man tightly closed the cork and let the bottle swim. Then he put his elbows on his knees and lowered his head to his palms. For some time he lost consciousness. Many pictures from his own life flashed in front of his eyes, grinning, he could not understand in any way with what speed his thought penetrated the depths of the lived years. Suddenly in front of his eyes built up a line of his close and distant relatives, those living now and those who had already passed. But the memory resurrected the dead. All of them were strenuously peering at him: grandfathers and grandmothers, aunts and uncles, parents, sisters, and his own children. One grandmother was crossing herself; another was whispering something with flattened by time lips. One grandfather shook his fist; the other nervously smoked. The parents were standing pale; the kids were crying. On all their faces he could read one question: To whom will he join now? To those who are alive or dead? “They love me …” As if in a delirium, the old man spoke, and suddenly straightened himself up. “In fact they all love me!” he shouted out, and at the same moment a stream of tears sprung from his eyes. “And do I love all of them? What am I doing? Going away! I am running away from a life on the earth to those who are already underground. No, I am running away from them as well. In fact I am hiding under the water. I duped everyone one time more. Ha, ha, ha!” The old man’s harrowing laugh scattered above the sea. Suddenly a feeling of the deepest tenderness toward all the people he’d ever met flowed through his whole body, and he whispered: “Forgive me! Forgive me and for this I cannot get out of here …”

  Suddenly, the old man felt that someone else was in the boat. This someone was his own corpse. “Oh, here we meet at last,” breathed the old man as he started shivering. It became scary to him; he had never experienced anything like it. A horror stole into him: he clearly saw death.

  A splash was heard. It was a wave that went over the top of the gunwales, and the boat immediately became heavier. “Two more such waves and everything will be over.” The old man spoke in catalepsy, and his hand convulsively stretched out to the ropes. But they had become wet and did not want to be untied. Besides, to unwind them, time was needed. There wasn’t any more time left. The old man began to take out handfuls of water: the instinctive animal actions of a dying person. “The ropes should be cut. But with what? I threw out everything.” Panic possessed him, although he understood that panicking was not allowed. But there was no decision. A chance for rescue did not remain. There was only a sinking boat, a stone, and himself, fatally tied to this stone. No drill, no knife—he even threw out the bottle. Stop! He did not throw out the bottle. He simply launched it near the boat. A hope shone. “Oh, how those who are drowning grasp at straws!” The old man began to drive his hands behind the board, trying to find this hell-bound bottle. But only warm water stroked his palm. And suddenly: a miracle! He heard a quiet knock of something firm against the boards of the boat. The knock was coming from somewhere near the bow of the boat, where he sat on the bench. Slowly, so as not to overturn the little craft, he began to reach with his whole length, to reach this object. There was his bottle of whiskey—he did not have any doubts. He lay down with his chest on the front bench. It seemed to him that he had to scoot Janna over. The delusion was not going away.

  “Where has the bottle gone?” It swam away, probably. His legs were pulled together in pain. Maybe the knock was imaginary? He lowered his hand and with his fingers found the glass. Yes it was his bottle that did not want to leave at all, like a piece of a spaceship that floated nearby. He splashed with his palm, like a flipper, and the bottle neck appeared between his fingers. The old man cautiously lifted his hand and dragged the bottle into the boat, and looked at the bottle as if sure rescue came with it. No, it was just giving him a weak chance. Mainly, it brought some goal orientation into the actions of the old man.

  He crawled back and tried to reach the ropes. He managed this. The boat by some miracle was holding on the surface, but was ready to sink at any moment.

  The old man swung and knocked the bottle on the boards of the boat. It shattered, but in his hand remained the neck with sharp edges. He dove under and groped for the rope which was tied to the stone, and began to cut it. The rope, it seemed, was not impressed. In fury, the old man began to gnash the glass on the stone, assuming that he was sawing the rope. But when he again tried to find a cut, he found nothing. The top boards on the boat were barely 10 centimeters above the water. Very soon it would be completely filled with water—and then everything that was still holding on the surface would slowly and uncontrollably fall into the abyss. The old man became terrified again. He was overcome with a nervous shivering. But he managed to take himself in hand and began to repeat one calming phrase: “Don’t panic! Only don’t panic …”

  Bending over, he seized in a death grip the shackles that he so recently carefully fastened. He loosened a bit of rope from the stone to wedge in a shard of glass, and began to drive it quickly back and forth, like a hacksaw. He did not watch the list of the boat, not allowing himself any distraction, and concentrated only on his work. At last the strings of hemp were cut off. Now he needed to pull out the end of the rope that was reeled around his legs. But the rope was so tightly tied that he immediately abandoned this attempt. He either needed to cut the rope in three places because the stone was tied up like a cross, or to cut the many nylon ropes that encircled his legs. Neither that nor anything else in this situation could save him—he was too pressed for time. “This means that what I conceived will nevertheless come to pass. But while the boat is still floating, I cannot stop. And then, it will be what it will be. In five or ten minutes everything will be over—several convulsive movements, and everything will dim. And then everything becomes absolutely indifferent. But while it has not yet happened, I need to cut.”

  The old man pulled one string of the hempen rope and cut it easily, like with a sharp knife. But there were many loops, and though he managed to finish the remaining coils more easily, insidious time ran more quickly. Then he began to cut the ropes directly on his leg, sticking the sharp glass into his skin. He almost didn’t feel the pain. He only understood that the wound became larger and larger. “As long as I don’t cut a vein,” the old man thought. And suddenly one leg was easily released. He even screamed in gladness. But the other remained tethered. He looked at the boards of the boat and was surprised: they floated under water. The nose was sticking out, and in the s
tern the old man sat up to his waist in water. But the boat was not sinking. Why? He could not find an explanation. “Goodness, this sea monster supports me regardless.” But he needed to unravel himself instead of this riddle. He undertook the second leg.

  “So, if I am holding on the top of water, we shall try to manage without trauma. If I cut holes in myself, it is all the same in the end. Blood in sea water will not cease flowing.” The old man felt like a skilled surgeon, when he began to accurately cut thread after thread on the ropes on his left leg. Already half were gone; here remained only few more waves of his glass weapon …

  Unexpectedly, something with noise jumped out behind his back, and the stern promptly began to plunge. The old man impulsively threw his body overboard the sinking little craft. But the leg, which was carried away by a monstrous force, pulled him downwards. He waved his hands to fill his lungs with air. He immediately came across something firm. It was a cork life jacket. “So this is why the boat was sinking so slowly,” he realized. “It lay under the stern and I did not notice it.” The old man seized this pitiful float and thus remained on the surface. The boat stood almost vertically. In its nose there was still air, but it left singing through thin cracks. The stone became stuck under a bench. Now this vessel will go to the bottom. And all its mass will drag him down, so no life jacket will help. And would the life vest sustain him together with the stone? But for this experiment, he knew, he must as a minimum, take the stone out of the boat. To dive and pull out—in fact it was easy; the stone in water had lost its initial weight. Yes, to pull out the stone was possible, but in doing so he would not emerge any more. In fact, he needed to let the life vest go.

  These thoughts crossed his brain like lightning while he convulsively tried to pull the life vest onto himself. One hand managed to pass into the half sleeve, but it was impossible for the second to catch the opening. He began to jerk his leg, trying to pull it from captivity. But these attempts were in vain. “My God, what a fool I am. In fact I only need to unwind only three or four threads of this rope … I’m wasting time in vain. While the boat stays here, it means I need to dive and unwind.” The old man looked at the nose of the boat sticking out in the darkness, took some deep breaths and exhalations, breathed in air and slipped out of the life vest. He drew in his foot and, with difficulty, carefully forced himself not to make sharp movements, as he began to pull the rope. He successfully loosened one thread, and undertook the second. It was pulled out quickly … But what was this? His ears began to squeeze. The old man mechanically pinched his nose and blew, but the pressure in his ears kept building.

  He felt the movement of water around him. He understood that the boat had gone under water and pulled him into a chasm. He clamped his nose with one hand and again began to blow out through it, leveling the pressure in his ears. With the other hand he pulled the remaining two strings. One of them would not give in. Then he took up the other—and it quickly slipped off, and then the rest of the rope crawled off too. The old man felt his stomach being pushed under his ribs, and felt the first pangs of suffocating waves run through his body. He made a stroke with his arms, but knew that he had lost his orientation. The leg was at last liberated, but it was not clear which way was the surface or the bottom. He was surrounded by utter darkness. The old man lifted his hand to his mouth, let out a bubble of air, and only the bubbles showed him the way. It appeared that he had somehow swum diagonally deeper, but he instantly changed direction and chased after the bubbles. Attacks of asphyxiation accrued. If only he could hold his breath, and not exhale—otherwise with the next breath, water would pour into him. The old man kicked his legs like a frog, and began greater and stronger strokes with his hands.

  But the long-awaited surface was too far away. “Where has it dragged me—fifteen meters down, or more? To such a depth I didn’t dare dive, even as a youth with flippers …” The feelings of asphyxiation suddenly stopped, and he knew the next step: oxygen starvation and loss of consciousness. And still—he knew he couldn’t exhale, but had to keep going incrementally upwards, without hurry, without panic … It seemed to him, that he was stroking for an eternity, that he already turned into a fish and lived there, in the depths of the sea. Suddenly his hand plunged into something jellylike. With loathing, he tried to swim away from the big jellyfish, but the tentacles nevertheless hooked on him and painfully burnt him. Circles appeared in front of his eyes. They were either going farther, or coming nearer, and they were some strange, dark brown color. “Everything will now become dim,” he thought. “The brain will be disconnected …”

  Already isolated and absolutely fearless, the old man thought hard. His sensations weakened, he easily and resignedly gave in to the charge of death, but still continued to stroke away from this monstrous abyss. His movements were slowed down, and no more strength remained in his muscles. So, haggard with pursed lips, he suddenly appeared on the surface. He took a breath, but not immediately, which is what usually happens. He lay on his back and let out the burnt air, then greedily took a gulp of fresh air. He floated and breathed often, restoring his breath, and watched with interest as life returned to him. Gradually the circles disappeared. He began to distinguish stars in the sky. The light sway of the water lulled him, and he stayed on his back, as though the business was done and there is no need to swim any longer. Indeed, he has no desire to swim anywhere, but felt like lying back and enjoying his second birth. But it would be more correct to say, returning from that other world, the world of the dead.

  He felt a shiver. He literally shook from the cold, as if something was vibrating somewhere inside him. His teeth knocked against each other. He moved to a vertical position. He began to look around, but except for the sea dissolved in darkness, he saw nothing. He remembered that he wounded himself and that blood certainly poured from him. He grasped his anklebone, and then brought his hand directly to his eyes and saw that even the water did not have time to wash off the black as ink blood in the darkness. He removed his swimming trunks. With difficulty he ripped them and tightly tied up his leg. How long could he swim this way? This was not known to him. But to swim was necessary. Where? Where was the nearest coast? He pivoted around and saw nothing. But then, he saw only the glow of the big city in the distance. But there was no point trying to swim there—it was too far. The coast, though also invisible, was closer on the left side of the glow. He needed to swim about five or six kilometers, guessing the direction, in utter darkness.

  Having made a few strokes, he understood that he had obviously lost his way and was swimming in circles. He lay on his back and tried to orient himself by the stars. Besides the Big Dipper, he knew little. But his luck was obviously drawn in the dark sky. Here, is the Polaris star; directly above the dipper. Peering at it, and then looking lop-sided at the glow, he at last chose a way and swam on his back, trying not to deviate from the planned direction. He swam for a long time, but everything in the sky remained the same. What distance had he covered, and was it in the right direction? He turned over and started the breast stroke.

  Once in a while, he turned around and looked for the saving star. His teeth were clenched from the cold. This hindered his breathing. He tried to swim more quickly to warm up, but became exhausted and switched to a more economical style. All the same, the fatigue was taking him over. He now had to rest for a long time, lying on his back. He almost did not feel his tied up leg. Gradually consciousness was leaving him. He moved like a robot only because it was necessary to move.

  How much time passed—an hour, two, three, maybe more—he did not know. But when, heaven knows, will dawn come? This foolish night can’t last eternally. But the dawn was not coming. He wanted to lie down in a hot bath. And he wanted to drink, a lot and long. The salty water, which he swallowed quite a lot, made him nauseous. “It is strange,” he thought. “The water is all around me, but I could die of thirst.” He turned over on his stomach and swam, trying to keep his movements rhythmical and his breaths even. So he swam, long and fren
zied, seeing almost nothing in front of him. But here again he swallowed sea water. He cleared his throat. He swam some more and after a while again swallowed a big portion. He floated on his back and froze without movement, coming to his senses. He started to understand that he could not cope with this sea. It, evidently, would not release him. Then he would die, and that is what he came there for. It will happen, but not as he planned. But what is the difference? His arms did not move anymore; his leg had become stiff. Soon the waves would start to cover him, and everything will be over. So he reflected, calmly expecting the end. There was no desire to remember anything. The years lived did not pass before his eyes; he simply faded away, having spent all his vital forces.

  Suddenly it seemed to him that the sky brightened. He turned back and saw a thin strip of dawn on the edge of the sea. Encouraged, he again began to spin around, hoping to see the rescuing shore. And he was surprised! The dark lines of the ground were directly before him, as far as the eye could see. But it still remained very far away. Still, it was the coast. The old man strained and swam with an obviously clear aim …

  It was absolutely bright, though the sun had not yet ascended, when he crawled out of the sea. Half a kilometer away, right on the sandy beach, stood several little tourist tents. The old man shouted, but only a hoarse sound came from his chest.

  His legs buckled, and he fell with his face in the sand, unable to utter any more words. He did not remember how he was moved onto a sheet, how they rubbed his body with vodka, and gave him a drink from a flask. He drank, not waking up. Only in the evening he opened his eyes and began to regain consciousness. He was fed fish soup. Night fell again on the shore, and the kind "savages” (as the locals referred to the beach-dwelling tourists) carried him by car to the hotel where he had stopped the day before. His room had been cleaned. All his things lay how he left them. He opened the nightstand. There among the unnecessary papers was the passport in which he had enclosed a short note. “Please do not search for me. Do not waste your efforts in vain. I was born on the sea and decided to remain in it. Consider this as my will. I loved this world, but have not managed to integrate into it. Forgive me all, and farewell …”