Decompression

  Terrine of various fish in octopus mantle over sautéed sugar snap peas.

  I started out of my reverie. Something had changed: the light, the ambient noise, the guests’ looks. I was apparently in a state of extreme sensitivity, in which I could detect the tiniest vibrations. When Bittmann began to speak of Yvette, I knew something was wrong. Or better, I knew something was going to go wrong in a second.

  Yvette was such a dear, according to Bittmann. He’d known her a long time. A fabulous beauty, he said. And of course, a superb actress. Yet despite her accomplishments, she’d remained the same. Still the nice girl next door.

  Maybe the movement I felt beside me was Jola, suddenly sitting up a little too straight. In any case, the noise level around Bittmann’s voice seemed to drop down so far that I could hear every word he said. The music, if in fact any was playing, fell silent. Everybody listened.

  Yvette had sailed on the Dorset before, Bittmann said, and she would have very much liked to come along this time too. A good addition she would have been, because by now she was an expert sailor.

  “But seasick,” the lady director cried out.

  “But seasick,” Bittmann confirmed.

  “Could you all please stop repeating the word seasick?” Jankowski asked.

  “But you refused my pills,” the photographer cried.

  “Ingwer! Please!” cried Jankowski.

  They laughed together about something that had happened on the boat a few days before. It was Theo who took it upon himself to bring the conversation back to its topic. He asked, “So why couldn’t Yvette be here this time?”

  It was clear that all the guests aboard the Dorset knew the answer already. Theo too looked as though he’d been informed. Bittmann had probably told him earlier what Yvette Stadler’s present occupation was. Theo just wanted to make sure that the matter would be gone over in public one more time. When he asked his question, he was looking at Jola, not Bittmann. His face shone with pleasant anticipation. He looked like a man scarcely able to suppress his laughter. I felt Jola tense up beside me. As though her body were preparing for a life-threatening assault.

  “Yvette’s on the shores of the Red Sea as we speak,” said Bittmann. “Beautiful spot. A few years ago, on our legendary tour, we ran into a heavy storm. We were all drenched to the skin, and when we finally reached the new marina in Hurghada, Boris and Til, wearing nothing but underpants, jumped into the water and—”

  “But what’s Yvette doing down there by the Red Sea?” Theo asked impatiently. He was grinning. He’d obviously lost all desire to control himself. I had the impression that Jola was starting to tremble.

  “She’s preparing for a new role,” Bittmann said. Now he too was looking at Jola. “Surely you’ve heard about it? From your father?”

  Jola didn’t react. She extended a hand toward her wineglass, reconsidered halfway there, and put the hand in her lap.

  “What role is that?” asked Theo.

  “Well, they’re making a film about the life of this woman deep-sea diver.” Bittmann was speaking to Jola again. He assumed that such news would be of professional interest to her. “I can’t come up with her name at the moment.”

  “Lotte Hass,” Theo said.

  “Yes, maybe so.”

  Bittmann still had noticed nothing. Everyone except him and the African had lowered their spoon to their terrine bowl. They gazed at Jola, who had turned as pallid as a corpse.

  “In any case, we must keep this among ourselves until the official press conference. I know about it only because it was Yvette’s reason for declining my invitation. Otherwise she would’ve come aboard in Casablanca.”

  Theo turned toward Jola. “Wasn’t that role the reason why we came down here, love?” he asked. “The reason why you’re taking this diving course?”

  “But casting …” Jola cleared her throat. “But casting doesn’t start until the week after next.”

  Her voice toppled over at the end. I admired her. She fought against domination like a bull in an arena. Theo thrust in the next lance. “Wasn’t your heart set on playing the Girl on the Ocean Floor?”

  “What I told you was insider information,” Bittmann said. “They made an internal decision that Yvette absolutely had to get the part.”

  “Didn’t you say”—Theo started laughing again—“didn’t you say this was your last chance?”

  “Jola …” Bittmann looked stricken. “Don’t tell me you intended to try for the role yourself.”

  “Because otherwise you’d never be able to get out of that soap-opera shit?” Theo slapped the table with delight. “You’d never be taken seriously as an actress? You’d just be an aging TV whore nobody would remember in a few years?”

  Jola had lost. She’d lost against Theo, against the people around the table, and especially against herself. A gasp escaped her throat. She sprang to her feet and ran out of the salon and up the steep stairs. I wanted to go after her and was already half out of my chair when my eyes fell on Theo. He broke off laughing to raise his eyebrows and shake his head. That meant Let her go. I sank back down. He kept looking at me while his chest began to quiver with laughter again. Now what was that? His eyes seemed to ask. You couldn’t give your new girlfriend any help at all? Fucking beginner.

  Amid the general silence, the African turned his head from one side to the other and asked in English, “What is?”

  After a longish pause, Bittmann said, “I feel very sorry about that.”

  “She’ll get over it,” Jankowski opined.

  “I don’t think so,” said Theo.

  “Dessert?” Bittmann asked.

  Vanilla panna cotta with pistachios and red wine jelly.

  When the dessert plate lay in front of me, I couldn’t hold out any longer. I murmured an apology and left the table. Before I reached the main deck, my cell phone rang. I thought it must be Jola and answered at once. It was Bernie. He spoke in English, and pretty rapidly at that. A stream of mostly incomprehensible language rushed past my right ear. Every now and then, single words I could understand briefly emerged from the torrent: “Fuck”; “Dave”; “Aberdeen.” I heard the word crazy twice.

  “Bernie,” I said. “What’s the matter?”

  “You can have the fucking boat. But don’t ever ask me again.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Aren’t you listening, man? You can take the Aberdeen out tomorrow morning. But forget about us! Dave—is—not—coming—and—neither—am—I, understand? It’s the last thing I’ll ever do for you. You’ve lost your fucking mind.”

  “But, Bernie, why won’t—”

  The conversation was interrupted, because Bernie had hung up. I tried to call him back, but he didn’t answer. I went up the last steps to the deck, stood next to the mast, and stared into space. In front of this space was a section of the ship’s rail. Jola was leaning against it, looking at me. She too had a telephone in her hand, and she held out the illuminated screen so I could see it. For a moment I imagined Bernie had also called her to cancel the expedition.

  “Text message from my father,” Jola said. “Bittmann’s right. Stadler got the part.”

  So much for that, I thought. Weeks of preparation, all for nothing. I had no chance of finding people to replace Dave and Bernie on such short notice. And December would bring the winter currents, which would make it impossible to reach the wreck. At a stroke, my whole project was dead. Deferred until some future date that, try though I might, I couldn’t imagine would ever come. I didn’t even know what the following days would bring. The following week. I felt my life disintegrating into its component parts. For months I’d envisioned celebrating my fortieth birthday, my personal farewell to the first half of my existence, at a depth of one hundred meters. Having to abandon that plan undermined everything else. I didn’t have the slightest idea why Bernie had canceled at the last minute like that. All I knew was I couldn’t rely on anything anymore.

  Jola put her cell phone away. Side by
side, we leaned on the rail and looked out at the massive breakwater formed by the lower edge of the night sky. A cold wind snatched at us from all sides. I wanted to put my jacket around Jola’s shoulders and discovered I wasn’t wearing one; at some point in the course of the evening, I must have taken the coat off and hung it on the back of my chair. Everything struck me as unreal. The Dorset wasn’t a normal ship; she was a seafaring piece of Germany. And that was the way I felt: German. Overburdened, disoriented, disgusted by the world.

  “Is something wrong?” Jola asked.

  I told her about Bernie’s call, and she laughed sardonically. “So we’ve both had the ground under our feet yanked away. Me a little more than you, maybe. But I’m not so sure about that.”

  There weren’t many people who could recognize another’s misery alongside their own. For a while we were silent, gazing out to sea. Then the five minutes began, the five minutes I’ve gone over in my mind again and again during the past several weeks. Never before have I regretted such a short span of time for so long. Jola seized my arm, looked me in the face, and said, “We’ll do it tomorrow.”

  I didn’t grasp what she meant at first, though I felt the effect of her smile. It crossed my mind that I’d come up on the deck to comfort her. To help her gather up the shards of her life and build a new life out of them. I took her in my arms. From that moment on, my body made all the decisions itself. Instead of patting her consolingly, I pressed her against me and kissed her throat. She shoved me away so that she could keep looking at me. “You’re diving down to your wreck,” she said. “Theo and I will sail the Aberdeen.”

  My arms took hold of her again. Now my body was asserting its claim. My fingers slid over the sheer fabric of her nearly nonexistent dress. Her scent was a spinning whirlpool, drawing me downward. I wondered fleetingly whether I’d ever mentioned to her that Dave’s cutter was called the Aberdeen.

  “Such a load of shit.” Jola turned but didn’t pull away. “With the old man as master of ceremonies. The devil.” She gave a cooing laugh. “A devil. That’s what he is. Nothing more and nothing less.”

  I’d lost the thread and no longer knew what she was talking about. Which didn’t bother me. While those seconds were passing, there were a great many things I had no interest in. Things that no longer existed for me. The night. The boat. The wind. Past and future. As though they’d all been obliterated. I had Jola’s dress hiked up around her hips, and she, half shoving, half carrying me, maneuvered us onto the foredeck, where two large chests stood.

  “What time does it start?”

  I paused. She’d stiffened her back. Obviously, she was waiting for an answer to her question. I said, “What?”

  “The expedition.”

  “Fuck the expedition,” I said.

  “No!” Jola shook her head so hard that a strand of her artfully braided hair came loose. “The expedition is still on! Lotte Hass is all over for me, nothing can be done about that. But your diving expedition, that’s really going to happen. Now more than ever. Do you understand?” She was getting louder. “I’m … we’re not giving up!”

  Very slowly, it was becoming clear to me that she was serious. “I don’t have a crew for tomorrow,” I said.

  “Theo and I will be your crew.”

  I lowered my hands. “That won’t work, Jola. You need experience for such a thing.”

  “I was steering ships before I could walk. Do you really think a cockleshell like that’s going to be a problem for me?”

  “The wreck’s several kilometers offshore. In that kind of expedition, I’m putting my life in the hands of my crew.”

  “And you’d rather trust the asshole who just left you high and dry? Rather than me?”

  Jola twisted her fingers into my hair. Despite the wind, her hands were surprisingly warm. Her face came nearer. Eyes, nose, lips, all in close-up. Like a flash, I had the feeling I’d gone through that scene once already.

  “The crew has to watch the surface of the water every second,” I said. “They have to read the wind. Interpret the current.”

  Her skirt still up around her waist, Jola sat down on the lid of one of the chests. She leaned back a little; her knees shot out and clamped my hips right and left. Her panties had a silvery sheen. I slipped two fingers under them and watched myself lift up the fabric.

  “Child’s play,” Jola said.

  She was dry. I thought nothing of it at the time. I pulled the silvery material completely to one side, went down on one knee, and separated the folds of skin with my tongue. She laid her hands on my ears. Now it would happen. It had to happen. It was why Antje had left me. It was why the whole island looked at me funny. It was something that fate had long since made a supposition, so attributing it retroactively to fate seemed imperative. Everyone has a right to logic. Jola’s hands pressed against my head as though she intended to crush my skull.

  “Will you take us with you, Sven?”

  I stood up and kissed her. I wanted her to taste herself.

  “Sven! The expedition!”

  She wasn’t wearing a bra. My lips effortlessly found her nipples under the fabric of her dress. I braced her tailbone with one hand and with the other unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans.

  “We’ll get it done tomorrow, the three of us together?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Seriously, Sven!”

  “Yes, dammit.”

  “Do you promise? Do you swear?”

  “Yes.”

  There was nothing behind her for me to lean her against. I would have to hold her good and tight to keep from knocking her off the chest. By the time I’d concluded that train of thought, she was already standing two meters away. Her dress hung smoothly, right down to her ankles. She looked perfect. Except for the loosened strand of hair and the two wet spots on her breast.

  “Come here,” I said fatuously.

  She observed my cock, which was poking out of my open pants. “We should get some rest,” she said.

  “Please.”

  “Look at your watch.”

  I was so confused, I obeyed her. Ten after twelve.

  “Happy birthday, Sven.”

  She stepped close to me again and kissed me. I briefly felt her fingers on my stomach.

  “Believe me; tomorrow’s going to be a great day. First your diving adventure, and then the rest.”

  The heels of her shoes resounded sharply on the gangway planks. When she was on land, she turned around. “We leave at eight, as usual?”

  “At six,” I said. “We need the tide.”

  “Good night.”

  “Wait,” I called out. “Let me give you a ride home.”

  She kissed her hand to me and walked quickly along the quay. A taxi was waiting a few meters farther on. There’s no possibility that it was parked at that spot by chance. Somebody must have called it. I stood watching the red taillights for a good while, until the cab reached the end of the rows of shops, turned left, and accelerated up the mountain. The inside of my head contained not even the echo of a thought. I put my clothes in order and went belowdecks to collect my jacket and Theo.

  JOLA’S DIARY, TWELFTH DAY

  Wednesday, November 23. One A.M.

  Small injuries are painful. Banging your toes against the annoying angle between the bathroom and the bedroom, a defect overlooked by some drunken architect when the premises were inspected. Whacking your shin against the coffee table in exactly the same spot where there’s a dent in the bone from your last collision. Tearing off half a fingernail on the upholstery of your car seat. That sort of thing hurts abominably. Your whole body reverberates like an orchestra without a conductor. Bright spots dance before your eyes. And then comes the hate. You want to blow up your car. Smash the coffee table to smithereens. Set your house on fire, annoying angle and all. You’re prepared to kill. For revenge.

  It’s completely different when you’re shot. Your body presents no resistance to the first bullet. Then come the second and t
he third. Bam, bam, bam. The metal bits burrow effortlessly into your flesh until they lodge somewhere. There’s no pain. You look down at yourself, mildly surprised. The bloodstain spreads; your stomach feels warm. Not unpleasant at all. Dying can be easy. Maybe you make a last effort to register the expression on your murderer’s face. Overjoyed by his accuracy, he squeezes off another shot and then another, even though they’re not really necessary. He looks around to make sure everyone has seen that you’re dying. For a moment, you think he’s going to take a bow. He’s chosen his audience carefully. The kind of people who are delighted to be on hand when somebody croaks. To hide their enjoyment of your agony, they stare embarrassed into their fish terrine. They fold their hands piously so as not to applaud. With whatever strength you have left, you turn and run. Just to deny them the pleasure of witnessing your definitive collapse. The murderer laughs. You can hear his voice in your head. Well, how do you like this, it says. And you thought you had me by the balls. I win in the end. Take note of that. You little slut.

  So then I was standing on the deck of a sailing yacht in the middle of the night and waiting for the pains to start. But I waited in vain. No hate, no anger, no longing for revenge. Even Lotte, who’s kept me alive for so long, suddenly lost all importance. I only felt the wind cooling my fever and wondered what was going to happen now. Was I supposed to board an airplane on Saturday, bury myself in my Berlin apartment, and rot away, nice and slow? A gradual process of decay, carefully overseen by the old man? The thought was absurd. Yet at the same time, I had no idea how I could begin a new life. I wasn’t at the end anymore; I’d moved beyond it.

  When I heard steps on the stairs, I thought it was Theo, coming to apologize. Or in other words, to examine at close range the damage he’d caused. But it was Sven. My first impulse was to send him away. The last thing I needed was somebody making clumsy attempts to comfort me. But Sven was already blathering before he reached the deck. He came up to me, stared at my forehead, and talked. Laid his hands on my shoulders, shook me, and talked. At some point I realized he wasn’t trying to comfort me. Not even a little bit. It wasn’t about me at all; it was about his diving expedition. The fabulous shipwreck exploration. His private birthday celebration one hundred meters underwater. It couldn’t happen, he said, because Bernie and Dave, for some reason he didn’t understand, had pulled out. The worst-case scenario. He asked whether I’d be able to assist him. He wanted us to be his substitute crew, me and the old man. Of all people!