Cold Skin

by Albert Sanchez Pinol

  He screwed the metal dome in place, joining the air tube to its connection at the nape of my neck. I would carry two ropes with me. One would serve as a communication cord. The other was to hoist up the explosives.

  “As you know,” I reminded him, “if I pull on the communication cord once, then all goes well. Two tugs means that a crate is ready to be lifted. If you feel three tugs one after another, cut the tube with the axe and flee.”

  I adjusted the portholes on my helmet. There was one in front and on each side. I made sure the air tube was in working order and began my descent. Before I realised it, I was already under the waves. A shiver ran through me as I was engulfed by the frigid water. I made my way down the face of the reef. The vastness of the ocean was behind me. Dead rock lay only inches in front of my nose.

  I lost my footing for an instant. It was no matter. I tugged once on the cord to reassure Gruner and let myself fall. The lead boots pulled me down slowly with calculated gravity until I landed on bent knee. A languid haze rose up to my waist. But it was just a thin sandy film obscuring the sun. The ocean floor was quite navigable, with a uniformly even surface. It was like walking across a field. But the liquid was palpably dense, and slowed every step.

  Inside the helmet, I could hear nothing but my breathing, sniffles and an escaped moan of desperation. The two cords were in my left hand; my right grasped a knife. I observed my surroundings. There was nothing, not a single monster. Visibility was limited to twenty or thirty yards, perhaps less. The ship’s hull was on my right. It resembled the cadaver of a whale. I sensed the immensity of the ocean before me. Unidentifiable particles floated aimlessly like specks of black snow. Serpent-shaped filaments of seaweed were suspended, practically motionless in the fluid. No door closed on this vast open space, the frontier of darkness was limitless.

  The monsters might appear from out of nowhere any minute. Do not think about them, I told myself, just set your mind to the task. It was at once an eminently reasonable and wholly unrealistic strategy.

  I made my way toward the stern. Gruner was right; the impact had sliced through the steel and twisted the metal sides into an artificial grotto. The vessel was slightly tipped to the starboard. The cargo had been displaced by the disaster and a good part of it was spilling out through the breach. This was a splendid piece of good fortune for it meant there was no need to enter the hold. Small metallic and rectangular containers were scattered about the edges of the wound. I ran my glove over the one nearest at hand. After a few swipes, one could make out the word DANGER! All that remained was to lash a box with the cargo rope and tug on the communication cord once or twice. Gruner hoisted up the freight. The boxes were lifted over my head and out of sight. Gruner untied the dynamite and dropped the rope back down. The rope’s tip was weighed down with a slug of lead. It fell somewhere nearby and I persevered with my labours.

  I toiled with a miner’s fervour until Gruner shook the cord uniting the two worlds. At first, I did not understand. Were we in danger? There was no trace of the monsters. No, no, that was not it. We had most likely collected too many boxes. But I was possessed by a prospector’s fever for gold. One more, Gruner, just one more, I silently implored. Disregarding the jiggling cord, I fastened yet another crate. Gruner hefted it up, but this time the rope was returned with a knot around the lead weight telling me to stop. It required what little wits I had left to heed the warning.

  As contradictory as it may seem, those were the worst moments of my foray. It is said that no soldier wants to be the last casualty of a war. This adage conceals an obscure and yet ever so human truth. To be killed after having plunged into the depths and achieved such an unmitigated success would have been an unthinkably cruel end. The diving suit took on a sudden and unbearable weight. Until then, I had not noticed that my neck was rubbed raw from the metal helmet. I advanced, dragging my feet, in the direction of the reef ’s face. The plodding desperation of my movements was reminiscent of a childhood nightmare. My breathing seemed propelled by some hidden dynamo. I longed to flee that spot, but it was impossible. The combined forces of two minds had not foreseen the most obvious flaw in our plan. The route down had been so precipitous that I could not retrace my steps. The rock face was riddled with cavities like the rotten tooth of a giant. I could not scale it, and Gruner would never be able to heft my bulk out of the water single-handedly. How long would it take for them to arrive? Terror joined forces with my imagination. That liquid expanse was the epitome of an unseen enemy. Gruner could not make sense of the air tube’s bizarre twists and turns from his perch overhead. I scoured the rock in search of a navigable course, finally determining to begin my ascent at a point alongside the ship’s hull. However, it demanded an almost herculean effort. The stone gave way underfoot in places. I slipped, falling five or ten yards in a single plunge.

  I found myself once again on the ocean floor. There was a hollow in the rock on the right. I thought I saw something move within, some form. No, no, it is not them, I told myself. A prodigious effort of concentration followed. I had to find each foothold without looking or considering the monsters’ jaws, so capable of carrying off an arm or a leg. I made sure that three out of four limbs were in place before continuing my ascent, just like a sailor climbing a rope ladder. The surface was already in sight. Gruner’s silhouette encouraged me with his free hand through the water. I felt the damp release of my own urine within the diving suit.

  Gruner leapt over and hoisted me out of the water by the armpits. He began to fumble with my helmet, but I swatted his hands away.

  “Quickly, load the dynamite onto the dinghy!”

  Once free of the suit, I too set to filling the little boat with boxes. The dinghy was so overloaded that it lay low in the water. Incredibly, in minutes we were on the island once again unscathed and triumphant. We left the dinghy quite close to the lighthouse on a small, sharp-stoned beach. Gruner immediately opened several of the containers, employing his axe handle as a lever. Each one contained seventy cartridges of dry and apparently active dynamite.

  But a peculiar dementia smouldered within us. We set to glowering at one another. The snow fell harder than ever. Our hair was soon frosted white. We were of one mind as we looked first at the crates and then each other. I could not fathom an unspoken plot, I could not. There were cases of dynamite. One could wreak ruin with that quantity. But what if we possessed sixty? Why not eighty or one hundred? Our enemies were impervious to hate. They were a force of nature, akin to hurricanes or cyclones. Only now we were no longer powerless and could inflict a bloody revenge; now we were consumed by genuine cruelty. I suppose we had gone mad, so mad that we were conscious of our madness. I could hardly credit the words coming from my own mouth:

  “We shall kill them all. Come, what do you say?”

  “Yes, kill them all! Let’s do it!” And so we returned to the dinghy as if that second suicidal excursion had been planned from the outset, as though someone else were to go in our place.

  We rowed back to the reef and I put the diving suit back on. My movements underwater had improved with experience, they were swifter and better coordinated. There was no excuse. I was at the Portuguese ship’s stern, wandering undefended through monster country. But the sight of those containers of dynamite brought forth visions of sunken pearls. We salvaged three, four, five. Ten, twenty. Finally, after having stirred up the ocean floor to uncover any hidden boxes, it seemed I had collected them all. I gave a tug to the communication cord: all was well.

  There was a rent in the iron plate as if a Titan had bitten through the vessel’s side. I entered with little difficulty. My only concern was whether or not the air tube would be able to follow my trajectory though the narrow passage. The route was ideal as there were no sharp edges to puncture my lifeline. There was the cargo, crammed with containers. I seized hold of one, secured it to the towrope and tipped it out of the vessel. Two pulls on the cord told Gruner to hoist up the load. I went about my work.

  I had re
covered about fifteen or twenty containers, perhaps more. Exhausted, I ceased moving so mechanically. Faint twilight bathed the hold in a dim light. The abundance of iron produced a sensation of claustrophobia. I was within the ship, within the diving suit and within my fears. It was fear and a ratlike heroism that had driven me down to those depths. It was the gloomiest place I had ever known. Walls of industrial metal, instruments half consumed by the salt water, obscured by rust. My lead boots made bizarre noises against the floor, echoing distortedly. The compartment had an open egg-shaped portal at one extreme. And that is where I spotted them, on the other side.

  Only their eyes, peering at me impassively, could be distinguished in the gloom. How long had they been spying on me? I screamed within the narrow confines of the helmet. There was no escape. They were on home ground, manoeuvring the terrain with tremendous ease. I was beset by monsters from all directions, slicing through the water with my knife in a pathetic attempt to keep them at a distance.

  But just when death seemed imminent, resurrection came. The helmet’s glass amplified the scale of my surroundings. In truth, the monsters were barely a yard tall. Small thin bodies with a brilliant silvery grey band across their loins. It would be years before that strip would fade into the darker tone of their progenitors. The skull, as in human offspring, was disproportionately large. They were tadpoles in every way. The expression on their faces looked much like a dolphin’s smile. They moved with prodigious speed like a flight of birds, eluding my bungled defence tactics. Their fingers pinched at my suit, especially the helmet, and then they shrank away. I imagine they associated the diving suit with some distant relative. Oh Lord, it dawned on me, they were just playing. Oh yes, playing. They had transformed that slag heap into a garden and I was an odd intruder. Their enthusiastic cries could best be described as chirping. My presence must have been an extraordinary novelty. I had expected butchers and found myself instead in the midst of an aquatic ballet.

  I cannot tell for how long I was in their company. Contrary to all expectations, their presence lent that cemetery a beatific light. For the first time since disembarking, I was unafraid. I felt free of horror, as if it were dreadful ballast. The burden of persistent and systematic terror was such that I had scarcely been aware of it. I had lived in fear, both night and day, for months on end. I had wretchedly experienced every nuance of trepidation. Fear was my constant companion. Why, I asked myself, why has terror abandoned you precisely now, here in the bowels of hell? When I grasped one of the little fellows by the arm, the answer became clear. He too was not afraid. It was a monster, or at least a fledgling monster. The thing deserved to be twisted until his spine snapped. But he was unafraid. Just ticklish. He laughed. Yes, an underwater laugh. The tadpole laughed with his mouth, eyebrows and eyes while rubbing his little hands together. That laugh sounded like a hotel gong underwater. How much time had transpired since I myself had laughed? I let him go. Rather than run away, he flew about me like an erratic butterfly, laughing all the while. His little hand touched the helmet’s glass with foetuslike fingers. He touched the glass and the memory of those little grey fingers haunted me for days.

  I left the wreck. The creatures kept me company throughout my ascent. They wound round my body, poking me with sweet impertinence, like playful kittens nipping away. Their numbers lessened the closer I got to the dinghy. Gruner was in a sulk when I got to the surface.

  “I began to think you had taken up residence! Mein Gott, what the devil was going on down there?”

  My legs gave way. He removed the helmet and saw the delirious face of an envoy who, in his exhaustion, no longer recalls his message.

  “Toads?” he asked nervously.

  “No, baby dolphins!”

  Gruner stepped back a pace. He observed me as though attempting to gauge my mental health.

  “You came up too quickly,” he proclaimed. “The hallucinations will soon pass.”

  Suddenly Gruner appeared to have been infected by the very dementia he had diagnosed me with. Muffling a scream, he seized the rifle, which hung from his shoulder. A head emerged from the water close by.

  From atop a rock, I held up my arm. “Do not shoot! For the love of God, Gruner, hold your fire!”

  Gruner’s eyes roved back and forth between me and the motionless monster.

  “Do not shoot,” I insisted, “it is no more than a baby.”

  Gruner was not quick enough. By the time the gun was poised, the ocean was once again an empty surface.

  10

  The landscape had undergone a transformation while we were out on the water. The trees were covered in snow, their branches bowed under a burden of white. The path through the woods had been obliterated, wiped out. Our feet were the first to sully that intact carpet. The habitually grim atmosphere of that inhospitable land had been replaced by an ivory coating, lending our residence a painful sweetness. The snow had buried all evidence of battle, covering the rocks and the lighthouse’s peak. The piles of detritus, which had accumulated some fifty-five yards from the tower, had disappeared from view beneath a blanket of sugar. Even the reefs nearby were swathed in a white heap, lapped by the waves. The sight was intoxicating. I was still overcome by the monsters’ young, and the snow rekindled those sensations of painful tenderness. We unpacked the explosives. Although my body carried out the task, my mind was elsewhere.

  Gruner knew no rest. His bellicose spirit was well suited to the work. We counted and ordered the cartridges. There was enough dynamite to demolish half of London. Our own stores contained hundreds of feet of waterproof wick and three detonators with T-shaped plungers. They formed part of the supplies required for any military building project. The ordinances stipulated that they be used to destroy the lighthouse in case of war. The wicks and detonators, either out of forgetfulness or incompetence, had been left behind in a corner. Or perhaps the island had been evacuated more suddenly than Gruner claimed. Who knows?

  That was where Gruner’s labours ended and my imagination took over. We could always make use of the cartridges as individual hand grenades. But I aspired to greater things. The detonators and wicks gave us an added advantage. My idea was to devise three devastating blasts.

  The first explosions would be aligned directly in front of the rock foundation. That was our last line of defence, and for safety’s sake, it was also the weakest charge. Not being experts, we were unable to gauge the dynamite’s power with any certainty. The entire lighthouse could be blown to bits if we were not careful.

  The second line of charges would be situated approximately twenty yards away, at the edge of the woods. A long wick, buried in the snow, linked the chain of cartridges. That was to be the site of the most potent explosion. It was a logical choice as we anticipated that most of the monsters would congregate there, between the rocks and the forest. Our plan was to scour the terrain from coast to coast, digging little hollows in which to hide the munitions.

  The third line of combat was to be even farther away, within the forest itself, camouflaged by the trees. It served a vital function. The charges could be activated whenever we wished. They might be set off first, sending the monsters in a mass retreat to the second string of explosives. Or they could be detonated afterwards, so as to pick off the few remaining survivors.

  We toiled all day, binding together bundles of ten cartridges, joining them to a single wick and burying them. The entire operation was repeated a bit farther on. The wick was uncoiled once we reached the end of a row, yard by yard, until it reached the lighthouse. The cord was nailed along the stone wall and up to the balcony, where we had placed the detonators. The mascot also helped, without knowing why.

  The darkness gathered about us quickly. But the monsters did not. It was unbelievable. After so many nights of warding off death’s door, they suddenly chose not to appear. As the hours passed, impatience turned to exasperation.

  “Where are they, where the devil are they?” I called into the void.

  Gruner kept a
more composed vigil. He contented himself by tracing the beacon’s path with the tip of his rifle. The light revealed only indolent flakes of snow as it pierced the darkness. There was no trace of a footprint, aside from those our boots had left behind, to mar the snowy landscape. My hands were sweating. I was forever putting on and taking off my gloves or brushing the snow out of my beard. Had they been kept away by the storm?

  The next evening brought little change. We spotted a few, or we heard them I should say. They croaked in an amphibious chorus for no apparent reason. The first rays of sun unveiled two, three, four or five beasts. No, there must have been more. They wandered erratically along the edges of the forest without venturing near. It was not worth wasting a bullet on them, let alone the dynamite. The following nights were the same. They were there and yet they were not.

  The most extravagant ideas flitted through my head, like flies buzzing about a pigsty, as the situation stagnated. I took to investigating the three lines of explosives and the interconnected bundles buried in the snow. Resembling an explorer in every way, I kneeled down to inspect the monsters’ footprints, so as to discover what predatory logic lay behind their actions. Had they somehow sniffed out the dynamite? Did that gregarious horde suspect a new and thus more fearful danger than the already familiar firearms? Sometimes I surprised myself as vapour escaped from my mouth, searching for meaning in the veritable labyrinth of monstrous footprints. What if they were actually as bright as pennies? As much as possible, we had threaded the wick through scrap sections of tube and pipe before burying it. None of this had been touched.

  During this lull, I bedded the mascot yet again. I brought her with me with the habitual excuse of collecting scrap metal. For lack of any other occupation, I spent my days reinforcing cartridges with layers of scrap metal, nails, stones or any other small sharp object on hand. The weather official’s cottage suited my needs perfectly. We literally ransacked the space in search of makeshift munitions. Before or after the sacks were loaded, I splayed the beast across the floor and possessed her.