Decompression

  I quickly completed the final stage of my descent. From this point on, time would speed by. I couldn’t spend more than twenty minutes at that depth, and twenty minutes was the blink of an eye, particularly considering the size of the object I proposed to investigate. I took a plastic bag from my pocket, inflated it with gas, and released it. It fluttered upward like a frantic jellyfish doing battle with a family of different-size air bubbles. The marker made a beeline for the surface, where Jola would see it and interpret its meaning: I’m down, everything okay.

  Then I started to swim. Against the current, but at a leisurely pace, because haste underwater only used up gas, strength, and nerves. I swam along the ship’s steel walls, which were as high as a house and covered with a closed layer of mussels, sponges, and soft coral, here and there decorated with sea urchins and starfish. It was a living, breathing, and ever-hungry vestment that hardly offered a glimpse of the metal underneath. The barracudas watched me and found me boring. While I had to keep working my legs hard, they hung almost motionless in the current.

  I saw the quarterdeck, the main deck, and the bridge. The lifeboats were all properly in place; everything had obviously happened very fast. I noted the signal bridge, the Morse lamp, and the radio mast, which was overgrown to the tiniest branch with mussels and anthozoans. I inadvertently broke off a little stony coral from the bulwark and felt ashamed. I took meticulous care not to get tangled in any of the long-lost fishing nets that clung to the wreck here and there like giant spiderwebs. A hole in the ship’s side allowed me to peer into the engine room. I reached the detached bow, which lay separate from the rest like a wrenched-off body part. The break was a colossal, gaping wound. I guessed the ship was a British collier, maybe a merchant vessel built in the Roaring Twenties and later put into service by the Allies. I’d have to come back here many times to look for the ship’s bell or the shipbuilder’s plaque, for identification plates in the engine room, for dishes or utensils embossed with the shipping company’s emblem, for the manufacturers’ marks on the engine telegraphs and the binnacle, before the secret of the Fiedler would be unlocked.

  It was time to return to the anchor cable. I was slowly reaching the point of sensory overload anyway. There were too many impressions. I wasn’t processing them anymore, only registering them. Ground tackle, king posts, fan cowls, deckhouse. Thousands of dolphinfish, amusing themselves by pursuing me. Once again, the ship’s screw captured my attention. It was a four-blade bronze propeller with a diameter of about five meters. The rudder, which had been swiveled hard to the left, could have told an entire story. And I was curious to hear it. I wanted to sit on the seafloor and grow gills so that I could breathe freely. I wanted to cast off my equipment and move into the captain’s cabin. The barracudas would surely have had nothing against that; there was room enough for all. The wreck was as big as an apartment complex. I could have made myself at home in there. After all, I knew how life worked underwater. It occurred to me that during the previous several minutes, for the first time in days, I hadn’t thought about either Jola or Antje or Theo. That was the pass I’d come to. Jola and Theo had brought Germany to the island—and with it a war that wasn’t mine, that had nothing to do with me. Nonetheless, they’d turned me into a combatant. Up there on the land, there was no longer any refuge I could escape to. The whole island was a battlefield. I couldn’t stay out of it anymore. My living space had been destroyed, like the habitat of a creature on the way to extinction. Down here was the only place I could still be. Everything felt right here. The planet Fiedler, discovered by myself. A realm nobody could follow me into. All I’d have to do was take off my equipment, breathe through gills, and …

  I reached the anchor cable. Twenty-two minutes; deepest point, 109 meters. Not good, but acceptable. Apparently I’d forgotten the time for a few moments while contemplating the ship’s screw. I was breathing too fast—I had to get a grip on that. From this point on, the old rule from the Bible held good: don’t turn around, don’t look back. I couldn’t be interested in the wreck anymore. Now my entire focus must be on my measuring instruments, with whose help I had to bring the factors of depth, time, and gas mixture into perfect proportion.

  I made my way up the anchor cable hand over hand, a little faster at the start because the cable sagged in the current, and then more slowly so as not to surpass the proper ascent speed. My first stop came at seventy-five meters, where I changed gases and then waited a further two minutes without taking my eyes off the dive computer. Constantly monitoring the parameters required my complete concentration. At three minutes per meter, up to a depth of forty-five meters; there a five-minute pause, including another gas change. Then continuing upward with increasingly longer decompression stops to twenty-one meters, where I had to wait twenty minutes and noticed for the first time the increase in the current. My arms and hands were already aching from clinging so tightly to the anchor cable. As soon as I noticed those aches, I started thinking I couldn’t hold on one second longer. Using one hand, I fished the mooring rope out of my pocket and attached myself to the cable. The next hour and a half was taken up with the coordination of ascent and stops, and I had no opportunity for reflection. For the first time, I looked up. The Aberdeen’s oval hull lay obliquely above me. It was a reassuring sight. Some part of me must have secretly reckoned with the possibility that my support ship might disappear. It was hard to imagine that Jola was actually up there. My desire to see her and report on my meeting with the Fiedler was like a pang in my belly. At the same time, I already felt disappointment at never really being able to describe to her what I’d experienced, because there were no suitable words for it. The eternally dusky undersea world, the sleeping ghost ship, the pitiless dimensions of past, ocean, and death—that was all trapped inside my head. No one but me had seen those sights. I’d have to work hard with Jola to help her develop the abilities necessary for diving down there with me someday. Maybe she could do it in a year or two. Then we’d share the same memory forever. The Fiedler would marry us.

  Now I was being pulled upward as powerfully as down. Below me was darkness, above me light. The boundary between all conceivable opposites ran straight through me. I hung between bright and dark, above and below, yesterday and tomorrow, life and death. My instruments told me what direction I should move in, and when: higher, immediately. I unhooked the mooring rope and worked my way up the next fifteen meters, making various stops of four to thirteen minutes.

  The glass ceiling lay six meters below the surface. I had to remain at that depth for an hour, alternately breathing pure oxygen and bottom gas, while the Aberdeen’s hull was directly above my head, so close it seemed I could touch it by stretching out a hand. Below me was the vitreous blue water mass of the Atlantic, in whose uppermost layer I found myself. There was nothing for eye or hand to fasten on except the anchor cable, which was quickly lost to sight in the deep. Now everything was pulling me upward and nothing down. I wanted out. Out where I could talk, breathe, get dry. So as not to lose my nerve, I strenuously avoided looking up.

  Barely ten minutes had passed when I heard a loud splash. Something heavy must have fallen into the water. I raised my head and looked up toward the surface. A person was floating next to the boat.

  Now they’re ruining everything, I thought. The careful plan, our agreement, my trust. The spirit of the expedition. Because they got bored. Or too hot. Because they decided to abandon their posts and go for a little swim while I’m finishing down here. Disappointment took my breath away for a moment. Until that moment, everything had gone well—had gone perfectly, in fact. I couldn’t believe I’d been so wrong about Jola. She begged me to go along on this expedition. She’d wanted to be my partner, a person on whom I could rely 100 percent. Or had she? My reason was exhausted, and I could see I was arriving at strange conclusions. All I knew for sure was that the little swimming party up there represented an attack on everything I held dear.

  Then I realized that there weren’t two bodies
swimming in the water, only one. And that one wasn’t swimming, it was sinking.

  I can see him in memory, gently drifting down toward me. In reality, he must have dropped like a stone. Nevertheless, I had endless time to reflect, or so it seems to me today. Jola, I thought. Something’s happened to her. To be more precise, what I thought was: Now it’s happened. As though it had always been a given that something would, to her.

  Against the light, the body showed like a dark spot that grew larger as it came nearer. Its contours billowed in the agitated water. This person has to return to the surface at once, I thought. I’d already let go of the anchor cable and would have simply swum up if the rope hadn’t held me back. My reason seized the opportunity to yell my instinct down: You’re staying where you are!

  If I surfaced now, the nitrogen inside me could expand fatally. Or make me very sick: vomiting, breathing difficulty, paralysis of arms and legs. I might pass out with blood running from my ears. Moreover, I didn’t know what had happened on the Aberdeen. Jola wasn’t making any swimming movements. Had she hit her head and fallen overboard? But then why wasn’t Theo making any attempt to rescue her? Was he asleep in a fog of alcohol fumes? I thought it was something else. I thought Jola and Theo must have had another quarrel. He’d knocked her down and thrown her into the water. Or she’d been injured in the struggle and fallen over the rail. In any case, it was clear, as the seconds went by, that Theo was purposely letting her drown. If I broke the surface with the unconscious Jola, I ran the risk of his attacking us both in the heat of the moment. Or he might simply start the boat and chug away. Even if he didn’t become aggressive, I still couldn’t assume he’d do whatever it would take to get me to the nearest decompression chamber. And not even considering the question of whether I’d survive long enough for that. You solve your problems down here or not at all.

  The interval between the moment when the body hit the water and the moment when I unhooked my mooring rope couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. I swam away from the cable on a course to intercept the sinking body, but I made sure not to ascend as I did so. Our paths intersected at a depth of six meters, a short distance off the port side of the Aberdeen’s bow. I thrust out both hands, grabbed cloth, and got pulled down a little way. I struck out hard with my fins until at last I could free one hand and use it to inflate my buoyancy compensator and thus make up for the additional weight. Swimming on my back, I towed my unconscious companion to the anchor cable. My unconscious male companion. With one arm around his chest, I used my other hand and the mooring rope to attach myself as tightly as possible to the cable again. Technical diving, my instructor always said, is the art of doing everything with one hand. Without looking.

  Time changed tempo and direction. Up until then, events had gone past as though in slow motion, but now they rushed at me with the speed of light. In retrospect, I see a vortex, at whose center I’m struggling to save a life. Before me is a face with closed eyes and half-open mouth. An underwater face. A face that seems to belong to a corpse. Theo’s face. Not Jola’s.

  From 1992 to 1995, I spent a large part of my semester breaks as a rescue diver. I knew how drowning worked. In the first phase, the victim made uncoordinated movements, gasped frantically for air, and therefore swallowed water. In phase two, a reflex closed off his larynx. That was what gave Theo a chance. As far as I’d seen, he’d been already unconscious when he fell into the water and had therefore skipped phase one. It was possible that this was a case of dry drowning, and that no water had reached his lungs. Even on land, freeing the breathing passages from water was a difficult undertaking. I’d never yet heard of anyone who rescued a drowning man while remaining submerged. But maybe Theo had entered the suffocation phase, which would be followed by spasms and apnea, but not before two or three minutes had elapsed. If that was the case, I could reactivate his breathing reflex by giving him oxygen, and I wouldn’t have to resort to resuscitation measures.

  That wasn’t something I thought. It was something I knew. There was no time for thinking. I’d long since switched to trimix, and in one hand I was holding the diving regulator with pure oxygen, ready to put it in Theo’s mouth. The greatest danger for both of us was the possibility that he’d come to and panic. It’s by no means unusual that drowning people kill their would-be rescuers. But I couldn’t think about self-defense, not as long as Theo and I were hanging on an anchor cable six meters underwater. It wasn’t possible to put any distance between me and the drowning man. The only reason he wasn’t still sinking was that I was still holding on to him. If he started thrashing around, he could easily rip out my own air tube. He could cling to me in a panic, damage my equipment, immobilize me. Drowning men possess superhuman strength. They’re more dangerous than any hammerhead shark.

  And that was the moment when it happened. A tiny moment that showed me who I’d become in the last fourteen years.

  I hesitated.

  I asked myself for whom or what I was about to put my life on the line. For a man who terrorized the woman I wanted. Who would never give her up, because he considered her his property. Who had no real occupation and was of use to no one. Who missed no chance to point out that he was weary of life. I had only to release my grip. I could let Theo go and look away while he vanished silently into the lower depths. No one would ever connect me with his death.

  It was only for a brief moment, but I hesitated.

  Then I shoved the diving regulator between Theo’s teeth. I took pains to close his lips around the mouthpiece in such a way that the least possible amount of water could get in. I held his nose and pressed the purge button. A rush of air bubbles shot up. The pressure pumped air into Theo’s lungs. He suddenly opened his eyes very wide. He couldn’t see much in the brine. He could only sense my embrace and the cold water and the likelihood that his life was about to end. He dug his fingernails into my forearm and whirled around like a fish. As best I could, I protected my air hose from the imminent attack.

  But Theo didn’t attack. In spite of the stinging seawater, he stared into my face at extremely close range. His head was shrouded in a whirl of bubbles. His lungs were pumping so hard that there was barely any distinction between his inhalations and his exhalations. The sight of him acted like a sign stimulus. We were diving instructor and diving student. My student was hooked up to my emergency air supply and hyperventilating. He was staring at me because he loved me, the way helpless nurslings love their mothers. I squeezed Theo’s forearm several times to get his attention. His eyelids fluttered. Some part of his brain made an effort to concentrate, and I nodded encouragingly, as if to say, Good. Like that. He watched as I slowly moved one hand away from my mouth: Exhale. Wait. I brought the hand back to my lips. Inhale. Slowly. I pointed to him and repeated the gesture: Exhale. Inhale. It took a little while, but eventually he joined in. His breathing slowed. We found a common rhythm. His body abruptly relaxed. He became so limp that I had to hold him more tightly. We’d done it. He allowed me to turn him around. I could hold him better from behind. From the way his back shook, I could tell he was weeping. On impulse, I gave him a hasty pat-down. The reason why he was being pulled down so inexorably into the deep was stuck in his jeans pockets: lead. Lead weights, that is, from my reserve supply. I removed the weights, and they headed for the bottom at high speed. I helped Theo take off his shoes and his jeans. The clothing also sank into the dark depths below us, but at a more leisurely rate.

  After that, holding on to Theo was child’s play. I detached my substitute mask from its strap, drew it over Theo’s face, and adjusted it until it sat right. Theo tilted his head back and blew air out of his nose to expel water from the mask. Now he could see me as clearly as I could see him. He raised a hand, made the “okay” sign, and smiled. His lips were blue from cold. As I answered his sign, I felt like crying too. He might have been an asshole, but his fortitude was preternatural. He didn’t even try to ask me, in pantomime, why we weren’t going up to the surface. He’d apparently be
en listening to me closely during the past few days.

  We spent the following thirty minutes switching back and forth between the different gases, checking our air supply again and again, and performing together some gymnastic exercises that were supposed to keep Theo from hypothermia. We did knee bends, rolled our wrists and shoulders, swam one behind the other in little circles around the anchor cable. We were connected by the air supply as though by an umbilical cord.

  When my required decompression time was over and I could complete my ascent without danger, I signaled to Theo that we were going up. I took hold of him from behind again and carried him laterally a little way, until we were no longer directly under the Aberdeen. When we reached a safe distance from the boat, we slowly rose to the surface. The air tasted warm and sweet. Theo began to pant. It’s quite possible that he’d only just grasped where he was and what had happened. By all rules of logic, he should have been dead. Maybe he imagined himself in a next world that looked confusingly similar to this one.

  Jola stood in the stern, waving and seething. “Fucking hell! Why didn’t you send up the deco buoys? Can you imagine how worried I’ve been?”

  I wondered if she’d gone crazy, but there was no time to answer that question or any other. I gave instructions, brought Theo over to the Aberdeen’s stern, and closed his fingers around the side rails of the boarding ladder. He didn’t have enough strength to pull himself up. I explained to Jola how she should grab hold of him and shoved up from underneath until Theo plopped on the deck like a wet sack. He’d used up his last ounce of strength and lay there like a corpse. I hurriedly removed the things I’d put on him while he was underwater—dive mask, hood, gloves. I ordered Jola to pull off his soaked shirt, and then I sent her to get some towels, a thermal blanket, and the emergency oxygen kit. She obeyed. Theo not only lay there like a corpse, he also looked like one. His skin was waxy yellow. His closed eyes were sunk deep in their sockets. His lips, hands, and feet were appallingly blue. A thin stream of blood ran out of the hair near his left ear. I felt a laceration and a great deal of swelling. While we were underwater, I hadn’t noticed the wound. I was just thinking that he shouldn’t be moved for any reason when a coughing spell caused him to rear up. I rolled him into a stable position on his side, and salt water came gushing from his mouth. Jola brought the kit. I pressed the breathing apparatus to Theo’s lips and said to her, “Drive the boat.”