The Waterproof Bible

by KAUFMAN, Andrew

  Kenneth, looking at the birds, debated. He needed the money, yet the mayor’s fear was giving him considerable joy. For sixty seconds he debated, but then he rapped five times on the window. The birds, all at once, flew away. The room became quiet, with only three sounds remaining: the rain striking the window, the mayor’s pen as she signed her name to a cheque and Kenneth’s ringing cellphone.

  9

  The Hliðafgoð

  Apart from the fact that they are physically as able to live underwater as they are on land, that their skin is green and changes shade depending on their emotional state, that their fingers and toes are webbed and that they breathe through gills on the sides of their necks, the Hliðafgoð are remarkably similar to humans. They tend to marry for life, although divorce is becoming more and more common, and most straight couples have two or three children.

  The Hliðafgoð (the “ð” is pronounced quietly, like the “th” in “rather”) have lived in the deepest parts of the ocean for thousands of years. Aby lived in Alisvín-bær (the “æ” is pronounced like “eye”), a city of 2.5 million in the eastern foothills of the Mid-Atlantic Range in the Northern Atlantic Ocean. She’d lived there since she was a teenager, and she liked it fine enough. She found the pace of city life a little too hectic, and the Gulf Stream made the downtown too hot in the summer. The real estate market had recently gone through the roof, leaving her a renter even though she had a good job as a claims adjuster for a large insurance company. Her apartment was small, but not cozy, and was too dark in the mornings. Nonetheless, after twenty hours behind the wheel of the white Honda Civic, there was nowhere Aby would rather have been. Even the scene of the most grisly accident her job had exposed her to had not scared her as much as driving on the 401.

  Aby didn’t know whether she was nearing Toronto or already in it. It seemed to her that she’d been driving through the same city for an hour and a half. The traffic got thicker, the driving more aggressive, and the three lanes of traffic suddenly turned to six. Just as a seventh lane was added, a red BMW appeared behind her and pulled up so close that she could see the driver’s face in her rear-view mirror. Aby was too scared to slow down or change lanes. The BMW passed her on the right and was quickly replaced by a blue minivan. The van drove just as fast and came just as close. Aby increased her speed to 100 kilometres per hour, concluding that she would be safer if she matched the speed of the traffic around her. This was the fastest she’d ever driven, a speed she felt was well beyond her abilities, but she still wasn’t going as fast as the other cars on the road.

  The blue minivan changed lanes, increased speed and began passing her on the left. At the same time, an eighteen-wheeler began passing her on the right. Both vehicles were travelling only slightly faster than she was. They drove very close to the white Honda Civic, leaving no more than ten inches on either side.

  Aby counted the wheels of the truck as it passed her. At six, her gills flicked anxiously. At twelve, she stopped looking and concentrated on keeping the car in the middle of her lane. When the eighteenth wheel went by, Aby pushed out a sigh. The transport truck pulled ahead and then changed into her lane. If not relaxed, she became at least calm, so calm that she failed to notice that she’d merged with the collector lane. She saw exits for streets named Lawrence and Eglinton and Don Mills. Then a sign that told her she was travelling south on the Don Valley Parkway, not west on Highway 401, and Aby began to panic.

  She crossed two lanes of traffic to take the Bayview Avenue exit, the next one she came to. She had a choice between Bloor Street and Bayview. She took Bloor because the word reminded her of Bwoor, the Aquatic Saint of Hope. Aby turned left on Bloor, hoping to circle around. She drove over a very high bridge, so high she could see the highway below, and turned right onto Broadview, thinking this would take her there. It didn’t. As she drove south on Broadview, Aby became more and more convinced that she was lost. Her gills began to twitch. Spreading the directions across the passenger seat, she hoped to see something that would guide her. When she finally took a quick peek through the front windshield, Aby saw a long black car in the middle of the street and immediately tried to make the white Honda Civic go up, something it still wouldn’t do.

  “Myndað af I am að fara til högg ðessi bíll,” Aby said quietly.

  She pressed hard on the right pedal, which made the car go faster. Then, using both feet, she stomped on the left pedal. The tires locked and began to squeal, and an ugly smell filled her gills. Her speed diminished, but the long black car kept getting closer. Aby was so convinced that she was going to crash that she kept her eyes open, concluding that very few people had the opportunity to witness their own demise.

  No one was more surprised than she was when the white Honda Civic stopped inches from the back passenger door of the limousine. Aby saw two Siðri looking at her from the back seat of the car. Both had very white skin and seemed to be as relieved as she was. Oddly, Aby was able to feel the woman’s relief. They continued to stare at her, their relief turning to shock. Then, quite suddenly, the long black car pulled away.

  Aby pushed down on the right pedal. When she’d cleared the intersection, Aby looked in the rear-view mirror. She saw the female Siðri get out of the long black car in such haste that her purse opened and several objects tumbled out. One of these things, Aby clearly recognized, was a set of keys. She kept watching, but the woman did not pick them up.

  Wanting nothing but to keep driving, Aby’s conscience got the best of her. She tried to tell herself it wasn’t her fault that the woman exited the black car so quickly. Keeping her keys safe was her own responsibility. Still, Aby felt responsible. She made her first left and attempted to double back, but she drove into a maze of one-way streets. By the time she’d found her way back to Queen and Broadview, the limousine was gone. The keys, however, were still on the asphalt, right where they’d fallen.

  Aby pulled over. Keeping the engine running, she struggled out of the white Honda Civic and stood on the south side of Queen Street. She waited for a break in traffic. She took her first awkward step off the curb just as a cube van rounded Broadview. Forced to stop, the driver honked his horn. Aby jumped. The van remained still, the driver open-mouthed, as Aby teetered to the keys, bent at the waist and picked them up. With her fist tightly closed around them, Aby turned and staggered back to her car.

  Before moving the stick from P to D, Aby examined the key chain. On one side were white letters on an orange background, an “E” next to a “Z.” On the other side was a photograph of a group of people—probably a family, Aby guessed. Aby was sitting in the car, looking at the picture and thinking about her own family, when she suddenly became incredibly thirsty. Unbelievably thirsty. Thirstier than she had ever been before. So thirsty that she began to drive, desperately looking for water. A pond, a stream, a puddle—anything would do. As Aby’s thirst increased, so did her panic.

  Aby drove as fast as she could. Her eyes looked everywhere and at everything. She looked for water on the sidewalks, between parked cars and in third-storey windows. Then, from two blocks away, just as she became desperate enough to try anything, she saw a sign she recognized. The letters “E” and “Z” were in white, set against an orange background. It was the logo from the key chain, and knowing that Siðri needed water too, Aberystwyth pulled into the parking lot of E.Z. Self Storage.

  Parking her car, Aby went to the back door because it was the first one she saw. She began sliding keys into the lock, and the fourth one she tried unlocked the door. The handle was different than any she’d ever encountered, very awkward in her webbed hand, but she made it work. Going inside, Aby began searching for water. There was none to be found on the first floor. She couldn’t find any on the second floor, either. Keeping to the shadows, Aby returned to the staircase, and on the third floor she found a tiny room in which water dribbled from something silver.

  The fact that the tap dripped enabled Aby to recognize its function. Through trial and error, Aby made
the water come faster. Aby drank. She pushed her face all the way into the sink and let the water flow directly into her mouth. She plugged the drain with paper she found attached to the wall, waited until a puddle had collected in the sink, then stuck her head and neck into it. Her gills flapped open and she pulled water through them. She breathed. She breathed again. Her thirst was satisfied, but the effort filled Aberystwyth with homesickness. Leaving the tap running, she fled.

  PART FOUR

  Self Storage

  Rebecca II

  10

  Unit #207

  The day after her sister’s funeral, Rebecca sat behind her desk in the blood testing lab of Mount Sinai Hospital, doing everything she could not to think about her sister, about the foggy emotions that surrounded her memories of Lisa, or about how these emotions continued to feel further and further away. That her work was repetitive and offered little opportunity for independent thought helped her immensely. After a sleepless night as more and more of her memories became affected, she welcomed the simplicity of running routine tests on blood samples.

  Just before noon her telephone rang. It was an external number she didn’t recognize, so she ignored it. But ten minutes later, when the same number called again, Rebecca picked up the receiver.

  “Blood work.”

  “Rebecca?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Edward. Edward Zimmer.”

  “Hey. How are you?”

  “There’s been an accident.”

  “What?”

  “Perhaps it’s better if we talk in person.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Rebecca said. She hung up the phone, sent an email to her boss describing how severely her sister’s death was affecting her and left the lab.

  Twenty minutes later she stood at the front door of E.Z. Self Storage. She unwrapped a piece of nicotine gum, looked up at the security camera and tried to smile. The door buzzed and unlocked, and Rebecca went inside.

  The office was so sunny that Rebecca could see tiny particles of dust floating through the air. A chest-high counter divided the front from the back, and behind this counter stood Edward Zimmer. His suit was crisply pressed. He ignored her and continued making notes on a thin stack of yellow paper. The scratching of his fountain pen was the only sound in the room.

  “Hello, Rebecca,” he said finally, setting down his pen. He straightened his tie and smiled.

  “Hello, Edward.”

  Zimmer walked around the counter. He approached Rebecca until they stood very close together. They held hands, mutually squeezing only after their grips were strong. Zimmer raised his left hand and clasped it over the handshake. Other than Stewart, he was the only person Rebecca had ever trusted with the secret of her collection. Somehow it had seemed not only permissible, but necessary, to confess to Edward the true nature of the objects she stored in unit #207. It was a confidence he had never betrayed.

  “Good to see you,” Zimmer said.

  “What happened?”

  “We’re not sure.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “We don’t know,” Zimmer answered. He strengthened his grip. “Should we go have a look?”

  Taking a deep breath, Rebecca nodded. Zimmer nodded as well, then let go of her hand. Behind the chest-high counter was a yellow door. On this door, stencilled in large black letters were the words EMPLOYEES ONLY. Taking a ring of keys from the front pocket of his pants, Zimmer walked behind the counter. He unlocked the yellow door and held it open. He waited.

  “It’s okay,” Zimmer said.

  Rebecca took a half-step and stopped.

  “I insist.” He waved her forward.

  Putting her hands in her pockets, Rebecca walked behind the counter. The carpet ended and her high-heeled shoes made a tapping sound on the concrete. Zimmer followed her, closing and locking the yellow door behind them.

  Rebecca was not the only person who rented a unit at E.Z. Self Storage for what Zimmer liked to call “metaphorical purposes.” In unit #357 David Glass stored all the objects he’d inherited from his grandmother. These included a hand-carved rocking chair that both he and his wife had seen his dead grandmother sitting in. Unit #111 was rented to Nancy Dixon and contained seventeen mirrors, each of which reflected scenes from what her life would have been like had she made different choices. Unit #438 held a radio that broadcast advice to Steven Moore. Whether it was good advice or bad, Steven didn’t know, because he’d always been too afraid to take it.

  But as far as Edward Zimmer was concerned, these were not his strangest clients. Far more bizarre to him were those who paid $179.37 a month to store old pots and pans, cheaply made furniture and boxes of shoes decades out of fashion. By contrast, Rebecca Reynolds was one of his most favoured clients. Not only were the items inside her storage space priceless, but she had never been late with her rent, not even once.

  The hallway had no window. Fluorescent bulbs lined the ceiling, although most bulbs flickered or were burnt out. Before her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she felt Zimmer brush by. Rebecca followed, passing equally spaced storage units. All the units had an identical door, and all the doors were painted red and had an identical silver padlock hanging on them. Zimmer and Rebecca walked to the stairwell, climbed to the second floor and stopped in front of unit #207.

  Flipping through the keys on his ring, Zimmer cleared his throat. “This is what we know,” he said. “Yesterday we had an intruder. I apologize for this. You don’t know how sorry we are. We don’t know how they got in, or why. There were no signs of forced entry. But for some reason, they plugged the sink in the third-floor bathroom and left the tap running. The tap ran all night. The bathroom in question is directly over unit #208, where there was extensive damage. We can only assume there’s been at least some harm to the contents of #207 as well.”

  Zimmer flipped his keys into his palm. He put the ring back in his front pocket.

  “Okay,” Rebecca said.

  Her second set of keys was already in her hand. She unlocked the padlock, the sound echoing through the hallway. She opened the door of unit #207, and the smell of wet cardboard hit her immediately. She turned on the single bank of overhead florescent lights. The stain started in the middle of the ceiling and flowed to the back left corner. A drop of water was forming at the end of the stain. Zimmer stepped inside the storage space and put his hand on Rebecca’s shoulder. Together they looked up, watching the drop become larger and larger. They watched it splash on the top box of the tallest stack in the back row.

  “I’ll give you some time alone,” Zimmer said.

  “Thank you.”

  Rebecca listened to Zimmer’s footsteps recede down the hallway. When she was no longer able to hear them, Rebecca began to move boxes, although she did not work towards the water-damaged stack.

  Of the hundreds of boxes in unit #207, only eight were not labelled with someone’s name. These were all in one stack located in the right-hand corner at the front of the room. The box on top was labelled BIRTHDAYS. The one below that was labelled SEX. The next five were marked FEARS, CRUSHES, FUTURE PLANS, BODY and CHILDHOOD, respectively. The box at the bottom, the largest box in unit #207, read FAILURES.

  Stretching her arms over her head, Rebecca grabbed the bottom of the top box in the stack and slid it forward until she could lift it off the stack. She set it on the floor, then removed the boxes marked SEX, FEARS, CRUSHES, FUTURE PLANS, BODY AND CHILDHOOD, leaving the box marked FAILURES standing by itself. Picking it up by the edges, Rebecca tipped it sideways, spilling the contents onto the floor. She pushed through the objects with her toe until she uncovered a ring of keys. These keys had belonged to Stewart. She carefully picked them up and held them in her hand. She closed her eyes.

  She stood by the sink in the kitchen of the house she’d shared with Stewart. In her right hand, she held a kettle, which she was filling with water. She hadn’t gotten dressed yet. The phone rang and Rebecca answered it, keeping the kettle in her hand and cr
adling the telephone with her shoulder.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Stewart?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m on my cellphone.”

  “Where?”

  “The bathroom,” Stewart replied. “Upstairs.”

  Rebecca turned back to the sink and shut off the faucet. She walked through the living room and looked up the staircase. She did not attempt to go up, but continued to hold the kettle in her hand.

  “I have to leave,” Stewart said.

  “You’ve said that.”

  “I do.”

  “I know.”

  “You work so hard to keep your true feelings from me. Do you know how that feels?”

  Rebecca walked back into the kitchen and set the kettle on the stove but didn’t turn on the element. She pushed the phone closer to her ear.

  “Every single failure you’ve ever had is still with you,” Stewart said.

  “Aren’t yours?”

  “No. I have to leave.”

  “Now?”

  “Can you go out for a bit?” Stewart asked.

  “How long do you need?”

  “An hour,” he said.

  Rebecca went out for forty-five minutes. When she came back, Stewart’s clothes were gone. So were his toothbrush and deodorant and razor. There was no note, although his keys were set precisely in the middle of the kitchen table.

  Sitting in the armchair in the living room, her coat still on, Rebecca twirled Stewart’s keys in a circle around her index finger. She watched the room get darker and darker. When she finally reached out to turn on a lamp, she changed her mind and went to the door instead. Keeping his keys in her hand, Rebecca drove to E.Z. Self Storage, walked directly to unit #207 and put the keys in the large box marked failures. It was because of this act, and how quickly she performed it, that no one, not even Stewart, ever knew how much pain, grief and sorrow his leaving caused her.