High as the Waters Rise

by Anja Kampmann

  Mátyás called the room Haven, after a tanker that had sunk off the coast of Liguria, and in fact it was like a place that occasionally succumbed to the waves, when they came back after weeks to switch out their things and then lay themselves down behind the closed shutters to sleep for a long time. It was still warm. The sound of a few last Parchís players drifted up from the café, he saw their outlines in the bluish neon light. Waclaw heard the dice hitting the glass, otherwise all was nearly still. He let both bags fall, only the hinge creaked loudly as he leaned against the door. He took the steps quickly, without turning on the light.

  The bathroom in the hallway belonged to their room. As he passed, he thought he saw a bare shoulder behind the yellowish ribbed pane, someone was changing their clothes, but it couldn’t be Mátyás.

  He opened the door to the room. Some light fell in from the streetlamp, outlining the low grate on the outside of the window. There were two large wardrobes, one on each side of the room. Both were closed—last time they’d had a few extra minutes to tidy up. The mattress leaned against the window. He dragged it to the opposite corner, laid it next to the wall.

  Then, a bit later, there was soft music coming from the street, still the same darkness. He was no longer someone who belonged to the left-hand wardrobe or to the right, he stood up, went to the window, then out, and stopped where the alley grew steep, stood a long time, searching. Soon they would just be two wardrobes. High above the whitewashed façades he saw the stars of the Big Dipper tipping forward, and he wondered why people wanted to see a dipper, of all things, in these stars, and why the dipper was empty.

  He had been lying awake for a long time when he reached for the little floor lamp next to the mattress. He sat up. The two bags lay in front of the wardrobe. He thought of Petrov, who had held the second bag for him, the dark tobacco stains on his teeth, the zipper of his overalls that didn’t close all the way, the graying chest hair underneath. The cold on their skins that had reminded them both that they were still there, while the Puma flew around the platform, lower than usual, for a few moments its searchlights slid over the water like the anxious scribbling of a child. Just the noise, and the fact that Petrov stood next to him, the Puma coming to rest on its skids, both of them yelling something, pressing the hearing protection to their ears.

  It was hot. He took off his second sock. On his sole there was still a brownish mark from their cabin. Dust and sweat.

  It was still dark when he pressed open the door to the roof. A cottony fog lay in the distance over the bay. He was so tired and groggy he could hardly keep his eyes open, he didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to be far from himself. To shut himself out, like one shuts out a dog begging for the last piece of meat. The outlines of the room had been too sharp in the darkness. He felt the cool air where the blanket didn’t cover his arms and ankles, the frame of the metal chair pressed his sides. His head nodded to his chest a few times.

  It grew light slowly. Above him the hurried bellies of the birds, the bright lines they drew taking off from the steep walls of the Portuguese fortress, down over the antennas and nested roofs to the harbor. The dirty gray-white of the air conditioners, the cacti in pots on the roofs. Dew lay in small drops on the tile table. The light was not yet warm, the air in the distance white and foggy.

  It had been almost a ritual. Every time they returned, they met on the roof, lay stretched out for a long time listening to the muffled sounds of the streets, children in sandals and the rattling of handcarts, not needing to do anything. They’d stay here in the mornings, talking little, feeling the sun growing warmer on their skin.

  Now the palm trees were swaying and he wanted nothing to do with it. He heard steps on the stairs, someone opened the door from inside. A shadow followed a large basket, and he saw Darya, carrying wet laundry against her hip. She hauled the bedsheets up to the roof. Darya was short and thickset, and dark hair fell messily out of her braid in front.

  She wore the long, embroidered shirt that Waclaw knew, sequins that reflected the sunlight. She laughed easily. He could sense her gaze, gliding over him and farther across the roof. He closed his eyes. She was Rasil’s sister and helped to rent the rooms. At thirty-two she was still unmarried, and it had started to seem like she was always waiting for their return; she would stand near Mátyás in the courtyard when he sat smoking on one of the benches. She’d certainly heard the key last night.

  He concentrated on the reedy green in the old wall, on the fig tree, clamped between two boulders. Darya set down her basket and looked over at him through the clotheslines. He pulled the blanket tighter around him and closed his eyes. From somewhere below came the smell of fire, lit in some small workshop. He began to sweat under the blanket. He kept his eyes closed as if he were just tired after a very long shift, as if everything were as it always was. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Darya stretching to fasten the clothespins. For a while he heard the steady clinking of her bracelets. He lay there as if just dozing under a sun that was barely high enough to warm him.

  There was no one. The air hung in the whitewashed alleys, the room lay in twilight behind closed shutters, outside he heard people on scooters, smelled the clouds of exhaust, a bluish smoke, he didn’t move. There was the hollow space under his ribs, his hand lying atop it. It wasn’t hunger. The water jug next to him was nearly empty, the blades of the ceiling fan sliced evenly through this day as if it were merely a thought; nothing offered anything resistance.

  They had seen each other cry, they had seen all these countries, but measured against that, what kind of farewell remained? A brief moment by the boot room: shift change, Mátyás took off his oilskin, gray as a spider, the night had left its shadow on his face. All the others surrounded them, the smell of the drying rooms, the clammy oilskin, and Mátyás in his sweaty long underwear, his skin still warm from work, where was that now? The hurry, he had to go out, a quick hug, his overalls were damp and musty. It’s getting stronger, Mátyás said, they hugged quickly, then Waclaw laid a hand on his warm, sweaty shoulder. Everything was steaming.

  It was afternoon when he left the room. He felt the long worn-out linen shoes and the fabric of his trousers against his skin. The stands: black olives and pistachio pastries, a man next to him testing an orange with his thumb. Waclaw took money from his pocket and bought groceries just as usual, he carried the bags in his long arms and felt the weight as he walked. In the night he had remembered the Finn’s accident on the West Capricorn, the nights with Sharam, and he’d asked himself what Sharam would have done if he had been there, and he felt like a thief, lost in the long, shady halls of his own life. The days with Sharam had lain before him like a delicate painting that had to be kept out of the sunlight. He’d taken his old telephone from the wardrobe and thought of what people had started saying about Sharam, the Persian, that he was nothing but a sad drunk, as if all that had happened twelve years ago, when everything was just beginning, had no meaning. He didn’t even know which country the first numbers of Sharam’s telephone number belonged to.

  He sat under the high palms on the Grand Socco, a square of light stone with a fountain and palms, a flock of birds luffed up the hill where a patch of green grew among the metal workshops. He walked in the shade along the narrow street: goat and buffalo horns in big braided baskets, the dull smell of red-hot metal and coal, low walls, then the green, Mátyás on the green, his hands interlaced behind his neck, no different than last time, clearer than anything about this day he lay there, and he walked, Waclaw walked along Mendoubia Park to the calls of the muezzin from the nearby mosque, he saw the men hurrying to prayer, he walked, left it all behind him, the dirt-red minaret, stands with cloths, bags, the big rubber-like trees, the sun-bleached wooden electricity poles, old Mercedes models with long noses that slowed down next to him, Taxi, a few times someone called out to him, the hand of a merchant touched his arm, he walked, walked farther, carrying what he’d bought, tossed a few bits to a stray, its fur eaten away by some ki
nd of mange.

  Without meaning to, he reached the coast. Far away, the dirty gray-white of the huge hotel complexes, a few boys were playing football on the beach, their thin bodies running back and forth before a goal made of two planks, they kept missing the ball, kicking a proportionate spume of sand into the air, they rubbed their eyes, kept playing. To walk. The outline of a camel on the beach had once made him happy, long ago. And perhaps just because he was gone, he saw Mátyás’s face next to him plain as day, his curls flying rebelliously in all directions, tired only in the eyes, his slightly crooked teeth. He heard his voice, but it was different, as if out of tune, the slight sunburn on his forehead.

  The same man as last time sat in the darkness of the kiosk, his large-pored skin between the rows of tobacco and newspapers. Waclaw put down a few dirhams and pointed at one of the papers. On the front page, a soldier in a khaki uniform saluted, two swords crossed on the front of his peaked cap. The vendor looked at Waclaw.

  New president. Egypt.

  He laid his big hand over the coins.

  You read Arabic? Only Arabic.

  He held the newspaper in the light.

  No English, he said again. He waited. Waclaw could see the man’s lower lip protruding under his mustache.

  Then the vendor pointed to the yellow packs that Waclaw usually bought for Mátyás.

  You want?

  Waclaw hesitated.

  One, he said softly, and pointed to the brand.

  He didn’t need the cigarettes anymore. He stuck the pack mechanically in his pocket, as always. Sometimes, early, when it was already light, they’d stood here. They were on the way back, without a single chip left from the casino, and the waves were a net being cast, briefly shimmering, in vain.

  Farther west the road turned away from the city, toward Rabat. A few high bushes grew there under the cliffs, their leaves already the same ocher and yellow-gray as the sand. The spot could be reached only by water. Here in summer the light multiplied into a blaze, a narrow strip of sand, and years ago Waclaw had discovered a pair of eyes in the bushes. Later Rasil had told him that half the city knew about it, that she was a hermaphrodite and had lived there for years, people brought her food and money because they believed it brought good luck. Once in winter Waclaw had seen her by the dumpsters, just a pair of shy eyes, the skin hardened from the sun. He’d thought about it later, sometimes, when he and Mátyás sat close on the warm rock, as if the light, this onslaught of light, could drive away all the weeks on deck. A seagull sailed over. It probably knew about the little gifts people brought.

  A strange smell rose from the rocks as he set down the bags of groceries. He didn’t try to make anything out in the shadows in the underbrush. He didn’t know if it was true what people said, and he didn’t care. But as he left, he had the feeling that someone was watching him, and he walked slowly, in a straight line through the sand. For a moment he saw himself, a long line, with bulging pockets, the forward-leaning gait that gave it all away, the lower vertebrae, third and fourth, he kept walking. When he finally turned around he could see only the bushes where he’d set the bag down. Just the seagulls in low circles over the cliff. Waclaw walked. The narrow strip of sand ended and he was on the road again. It was too loud to call Sharam. There was hardly enough space to walk at the side of the road, he saw his own reflection in the bright paint of the little car. The coastal cliffs here were made of bright calcarenite, and he noticed how the word made him reel. A warm, salty wind came from the sea.

  It was a memory, this walking, streets punctured with potholes, unlit courtyards. He knew this smell of piss in the stone corners of the streets, the grimy house fronts, bark peeling from the trunks of the trees. Around the next curve the white dome of the radar station emerged from the green like a faded soccer ball, a pale cap stuck on the top of a tower, the cliffs and trees looming, observing everything that moved on the strait.

  He walked up the hill to where the wide street led past the stadium, where the overgrown graves of the Muslim cemetery lay behind a long white wall. A group of young men stood in front of the stadium. They looked toward the center of the circle they formed, taking no notice of the thin man who hurried by, bent forward as if walking into the wind.

  In the evening he’ll no longer know what he was doing there. The street was empty, the first villas crouched behind sprinkled lawns, an ornamental seam before the land fell steeply to the sea. Narrow paths were hewn into the stone between the villas, slippery on rainy days but now it was fine, the blue opened wide to the Atlantic where a few fishing boats bobbed, great distances between them. They were tiny, and his head throbbed, clouds had gathered, it was getting hazy. The smell of freshly cut grass wafted away over a wall.

  The path ended, and he climbed slowly down the cliffs; a few times he slipped and had to hug the stone to keep from losing his balance.

  Waclaw sweated. He had to jump down the final few yards and the wet sand hardly gave. He let himself fall forward and stayed lying there. The water approached, he felt the cold on his hands and forearms. The waves slapped loudly against the stones and split. Some trash danced on the water.

  To scream. To simply lie there. His vertebrae, the third, the fourth. He saw Mátyás before him, the unfathomable exhaustion with which they’d sat here before the shift had begun, heavily clad in rain gear, here on the beach, Waclaw’s legs stretched out, Mátyás’s head on his shoulder, and then later, once he’d fallen asleep, on his thigh, the wind so strong it seemed to be working to make a place for them, the grainy sand blowing over the edge of the little depression in which they lay. He saw the waves lapping, the endless patterns of froth when the water withdrew. And Mátyás slept, heavy on his leg, slept off the weeks he’d spent up there, for the third time now, on the North Sea, the dampness in his clothes and the boundless need for sleep at four in the morning, when the body had long since cried out that nine hours in the icy wind was too much, knowing that the three to come as the first light dawned would be infinitely more difficult. Waclaw had spent the time in a little village on the east coast of England, he’d waited for him, in a town that seemed to consist only of rough men and identical gray stucco houses, and he’d been happy to have him by his side again, Mátyás, who took extra shifts, restlessly, and he didn’t need to explain to Waclaw the exhaustion that had pressed him into the pillow for nearly three days, in something like a coma. When he’d woken up they’d gone out to eat or had ordered the warm, overcooked rice that counted as Thai food here. They’d laughed about it, and Waclaw hadn’t mentioned the cans of baked beans that had kept him alive in the previous dreary two weeks. Every night he’d silently cursed his back and the vertebrae, but he never spoke of it. He needed rest, the doctor he never asked would have said. If it weren’t for Mátyás he would barely have left the house. Mátyás had told him little of Troll, the new platform, other than that it was a dingy hole and that his roommate was a solid, dry family man. Seven photos, Mátyás said, and neither of them laughed.

  People told awful stories of the North Sea platforms: that the rust spread more quickly than four men could fight it, and that the exhausted oil fields left cavities, unstable areas, it was possible for the casing in the borehole to break off, and then no drilling fluid in the world could stop the hot gases that surged upward through the porous layers next to the standpipes. Once more he felt the warmth of their bodies on the cold, deserted sand. There was nothing, no store or café open—the locals were all holed up in the warm corners of their houses. There was only the two of them, his arm on Mátyás’s body, and the damp that had slowly crept into their clothing. They’d spoken little. For a while he’d closed his eyes and felt his arm on Mátyás’s rib cage rising and falling.

  Behind him the rock face rose in a mountain of light yellowish stone. He sat up. The air was dismal and milky, suffused with the smell of seaweed. Northern Dancer. A huge freighter edged along the continent toward Gibraltar. At first he’d tried to remember the names of the ships, as
if they held some great promise. Neptune Voyager. Waclaw had just walked a little way when something dark began to grow visible on the shore. From afar it looked like a long, shapeless sack. It was pushed just far enough up on land that the waves no longer touched it. A body, strangely heavy and distorted.

  As he approached he saw that the dark skin had burst, it was stretched tight across the body. The eye had already been pecked away, the dorsal fin hung listlessly to the side, and only the mouth formed a familiar line, a kind of wave that was traced in a curved row of tiny, perfectly white teeth. They still seemed to be smiling.

  The wind was warm. He saw the sand on the skin that had torn over the mouth, blisters had formed, the carcass lay on its side. The sea spit out what it no longer needed. They’d often seen porpoises on the crossing, they came up to the boats in little groups.

  He tried to breathe slowly, to suppress the nausea. There was a tug in his jaw, and his stomach cramped as if everything wanted to squeeze itself out of him. A cloying hum mingled with the smell of salt water. He turned away. For a second he saw an afterimage of the body, then he walked a bit farther and leaned against the cliff. The stone was cool and Waclaw could hear the waves.

  He stood there awhile. Even the cliffs behind him seemed to be looking at the spot. He saw the water reaching for the tail fin, for the unmoving weight of the body.

  Something pressed against his leg. He dug out the pack of cigarettes and threw it into the sea. It didn’t go far. Even while still in the air, the wind drove it back toward him. He saw the men’s bright T-shirts. He saw the way everything continued: the crane, the pounding of the pipes. He thought of Sharam. How the others would have reacted if he’d been there. Or someone else. He imagined some crisis manager or other making a phone call to the village in Hungary, and he thought of Mátyás, who always spent a long time listening to messages from home before he came up to Waclaw on the roof. Suddenly Waclaw was in a hurry. The strip of sand between water and cliff was so narrow here that there was nothing to do but climb. But he slipped, and the seabirds watched him as they drew their big lazy circles, while every haul of his arms drove a nail deep into the spot between his vertebrae. He couldn’t make it. His fingers searched for recesses in the rock face, one time he slipped down, waded knee-deep in the water to try a less steep route. The sun had nearly sunk by the time he reached the upper plateau. A few shards of light, the stone was still warm. There was a stabbing in his lungs, and the salt water burned his skin.