The Water Is Warm

by Jennifer Stawska

  Josh had learnt sign language as a nurse when working in a children’s hospital in Stockholm and he used his hands as part of his communication allowing the gentleness of his tone to be matched by the gentleness of his hand movements as he spoke. He was tactile and very good at listening and comforting. He used touch as a signal of compassion - he would always shake hands with people on encountering them, rich or poor, healthy or unwell. For me, the feel of his hand on my shoulder and the pause in his look were an instant and healing remedy. The skill and formation of his hands were, at least to my mind, unique; he had a pianist’s fingers. In our softer conversations when we were alone, I would trace his fingers with my fingertips, studying them and calming us both. I watched him many a time mending fishing nets, helping Sunil draw, writing, working on rebuilding Raja’s hotel, sifting the sand through his fingers on the beach while talking. I loved his hands.

  It was also the movement of his head when he was listening or observing that was uniquely Josh. He had a habit of tilting his head very slightly to the left when engaged in a conversation. It gave strength to his concentration and leant an air of understanding and interest in what the other person was saying. It also gave a slight hint of challenge and humour. Sometimes, if he thought I was talking rubbish, I would realise he was holding his head in that posture and saying nothing, causing me to feel no end of frustration, usually at myself but sometimes at him. Once I blurted out ‘stop doing that!’ as he looked at me in that way, quizzically, after I said something particularly stupid. His genuine reply was ‘what?’ It was not an affectation; it was just how he was.

  And he had study. I used to love watching him read and seeing the quiet and focus with which he did so. It was as if he had closed down on everything around him while totally absorbed in what he was reading. If I interrupted him he tended to look startled and almost affronted, as if he was bringing himself back into reality from another world. If he were here now in this room he would be reading a book quietly and I would feel his presence around me and, over the noise of the fan, hear him turning the pages of his book as he sat in the chair which is now empty in the corner; his legs would be crossed and he would be deep in concentration.

  And he had a smile. It was always there, waiting to be shown. His mouth would stretch, his eyebrows would rise slightly with an apparent air of near disbelief, there would be a slight exhalation of breath and his whole face would open up. His eyes would shimmer like the sun on the sea as if they had tears in them. It made me happy. Instantaneously.

  And he had joy. I used to watch him leaping around the beach as he played volleyball with Sri Lankans and visitors alike – especially Australians, don’t ask me why. Leaping in the sea as he ducked and dived with Sunil, playing in the waves. Zigzagging the motorbike down the road as we toured the island, sometimes in the heat and sometimes in the pissing monsoon rain. Messing about with me in play. Spinning the conversations that we held with humour. Staring at the stars, lying next to each other on the benches on the beach at night.

  And he had religion. He had been a priest but, in the mid-80s gay priests in Sweden were hardly welcomed with open arms and so he had left to pursue his career in nursing with his faith badly battered. However, he maintained his quest for faith and it was here that he found it in a new and different set of beliefs after he had drawn me into his search and led me also to understand my own spiritual entity. Josh and I learnt to live our lives by the faith that we found and, to me, he became the embodiment of it. Finding God again led Josh to become a truly magnificent and complete man. A confident man – how could he not be, as I kept telling him. And because we shared a journey into faith and developed within it we became cemented together as we achieved a spiritual unity as well as an emotional and physical one. It made us both whole and bound us to each other. It allowed me to wipe the slate clean and build a new life based on fundamental principles in which, for the first time in my life, I believed.

  All that said, Josh was not remotely sanctimonious. He could swear fluently in English and Swedish, occasionally got drunk and smoked cannabis. He was completely open within our relationship about seeking personal and sexual fulfilment with me and we did just that – why not? I can recommend it.

  He could also put on a display of the temper of a fiend, particularly when faced with perceived injustice. I thought he was going to flatten an American tourist once after the American found a toothpick in his chow mein (unwisely Raja had reheated some leftover food and tried serving it up to the guy.) ‘What the fucking hell is this?’ cried the tourist holding the tooth pick to Raja’s face in the eating area. ‘Something I will ram up your fucking arsehole if you ever speak to him like that again,’ Josh told him.

  The Americans were not staying at the hotel and, to our real distaste, we had seen them throwing coins in the sand in front of groups of children and laughing as the children scrambled to find them; just before they were ejected from the eating area by Josh the odious American woman had been telling other embarrassed tourists, a family of Brits, about how they liked to help ‘the little beggar children’ in that way. Josh literally bundled the overweight American out of the eating area, to the yells of protest from his equally fat American female companion and told them to ‘fuck off to one of your faceless American hotels’ – a bit like this hotel where I am now. They left, thankfully, because Josh later suggested to Raja that he should have put a krait in the man’s shoes. ‘Next time,’ the grateful British father suggested to me afterwards, ‘just tell him to piss in his beer.’

  And Josh had a smell. Neither of us used any sort of scented material for washing or shaving, except that no one can avoid the various smells of the soap here. Josh would start the day with a wash from the bucket and, later when we had one, the cold-water shower, completely unabashed by the fact that I was in the same room at the time. Eventually I learnt to do the same but it took me time. As the day wore on and the temperature rose he would develop a smell of fresh, clean sweat. That smell was Josh. No one else smells like that. He smelt of the earth, like my father did when he came in from gardening.

  And he had loyalty and commitment. I had never known anything like it. Once he and I were together he adopted a ‘well, this is it’ approach to our relationship and built his world around it, around me. I will never believe that I deserved it. I watched Josh develop, like a tree opening its leaves and spreading its branches after a long cold winter and it made me immeasurably proud to belong with him, to protect him. It took me forward, too, and away from the mess I had made. We had balance together, purpose and a lot of very good times. Our loyalty and commitment was two-way traffic. Nobody, but nobody, gets anywhere near Josh – that is my one absolute. I protected you in life and I will protect you in death. I could write about you for ever.

  I remember exactly what you were wearing when I first saw you, despite the condition I was in. As I think I may have already said (or did I delete it?), a T-shirt with the motif: ‘Just do it.’ The T-shirt was black and the writing on it was in white. You were wearing beige shorts and flip-flop shoes. I remember the motif well, because the first thing that I said to you was ‘Do what?’

  You smiled and said ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The T-shirt,’ I answered.

  ‘Get better quickly,’ you replied after following my gaze.

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘We need the bed,’ you said, with the beginnings of a smile.

  ‘Well I could peg it. It would have the same effect,’ thinking that English was your native language.

  ‘Peg it?’ you did not understand my use of the vernacular.

  ‘Die.’

  ‘You could. But...no. Too messy and probably too much paper work.’

  ‘Doctor’s orders?’

  ‘No, nurse’s.’ And you whisked off. I could not have managed any more conversation anyway.

  The tent in which I was lying was very hot. By this time, the monsoon in the south was well over and, although the spring dry heat
had not yet struck, it was still hot and, in the tent, very stuffy. There was a man in the bed next to me, a Sri Lankan, who had been badly injured in the tsunami. He had broken bones, multiple cuts and a head injury and it was quite obvious that he was not going to survive. There was nothing like a CT scanner let alone an MRI scanner in the field hospital and only a few places had some meagre electricity. Josh was the self-appointed nurse for our tent and as I lay on my bed there was nothing to do but sleep and watch my surroundings; in particular I watched as Josh attended to the dying man next to me.

  I watched the gentleness and concentration of the care that he gave to the man who was unconscious for much of the time. I saw how he held the man’s hand and spoke to him softly. I saw him summons a Buddhist monk and watched as the monk sought rest and peace for the man through words of comfort that he could not hear. I remember the quietness of that scene as the saffron colour of the monk’s civara stood out against the blue backdrop of the tent like the warm comforting sun in a clear blue sky. The man’s death, which followed inevitably after a few hours, was peaceful, restful and beautiful. There was no obvious pain or distress, he just slipped away in peace. I felt a sense of relaxation and relief afterwards, perhaps because of the peacefulness that I had witnessed but also because it showed me that death holds no fear - if that is what it involves, what is there to fear? After the man had died, Josh and the monk remained by him in stillness for a short while before clearing up and carrying his body from the tent wrapped in a sheet. The man died without any supporting cast from family or friends.

  ‘That was beautiful,’ I said to Josh when he next came into the tent.

  ‘What?’ he replied, seemingly surprised at my choice of words and unsure about what I was talking.

  ‘The way that you cared for that man.’

  ‘I could not let him die on his own.’

  ‘No, but it is more than that. You really looked after him. He died in peace.’

  Josh came across and sat at the end of my bed. ‘I’m Josh,’ you said and touched my hand briefly in introduction. You smiled gently and spoke looking me in the eye.

  ‘I’m Simon.’ And then, feeling confused by your touch, I said ‘I was on the train at Peraliya that got swept away. I got pretty beaten up in the water.’

  ‘You did. But I think that you are through the worst now. How long have you been here in Sri Lanka?’

  ‘Only a few weeks. I was in India for a year before that though. It’s a long story. And you?’

  ‘I came here just before Christmas. I have to go back to Sweden next Thursday.’

  ‘Well, thank you for helping me and everyone else here.’

  ‘How could I not do so? Now I had better go to one of the other tents. You will maybe tell me that story though some time.’

  ‘Only if you tell me yours,’ I replied. ‘We all have a story to tell.’

  ‘It’s a deal. But just make sure that you rest and continue to get better.’ Then you went out of the tent again and I went back to sleep.

  It must have been well after ten o’clock before we spoke again. It was the second night after we had met and so must have been 30 December; I had got up from the bed as I was beginning to be mobile.

  You came to find me and said ‘Maybe I can hear that story now.’

  There were two chairs that you found - the sort with metal legs and orange plastic seats. And so we sat at night, on those chairs, in the middle of the field hospital, talking quietly as strangers can about the past.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  ‘So, that is the long story you mentioned,’ Josh said after I had given him a meandering version of what I have written here. I had been talking for about an hour with Josh only interrupting occasionally to ask a few questions. I had kept asking him ‘and what about you?’ but he wouldn’t have it.

  ‘I’m not very proud of it, but thanks for listening,’ I replied.

  The more I had spoken the more I had an overwhelming sense of despair about myself, an inescapable hopelessness into which I slid further and further while each stage of my story unfolded. I was alone. Really alone. Tired, injured and brim full of painkillers, yes, but it was the realisation that I was completely on my own that crushed me as I spoke. It’s not that I felt dislike for myself or even embarrassment because I don’t think that I even got that far. It was just despair where nothing has any boundaries.

  At one point Josh, who obviously picked up how I was feeling, said to me ‘You sound very lonely’ and I replied ‘I suppose I am a bit’ because I did not know what else to say. And I couldn’t bear to look him in the eye and I couldn’t understand why he should want to listen to me speaking like that to him, a complete stranger.

  It was only five months previously that I had finally left the turmoil of England and, since doing so, I had been immersing myself in travel and in running away. I had written to Jennifer occasionally but it was one thing to write about things in occasional letters and another thing entirely to tell it face to face to someone I didn’t know. Of course I had thought my thoughts but I had not heard myself express them like this before. I had met a lot of other people when I was travelling, other westerners on gap years and people like Will in Nepal but my story was hardly one for travellers. Nothing like this.

  By the end, I thought that Josh would view me as a complete inadequate and I expected him to pack up and go to bed, especially after the day that he must have had. But he didn’t; he went on talking to me, quietly and softly. Listening and talking gently, asking me questions and following through what I was saying. Never losing concentration even after everything that had happened that day. Why? Why should he do that? Where would I be now if he had just packed up and gone to bed that night? I think I know the answer to that only too well.

  ‘And the future?’ he asked after I trailed off at the end of the story.

  ‘I haven’t the first clue.’ And that was definitely true.

  ‘Some would think you are very lucky. You have avoided death. You have money. How old are you?

  ‘Forty-two. And you?’

  ‘Thirty-nine. So, we may both have half our lives ahead of us.’ I remember him telling me his age because it was the first bit of personal information that he had given to me.

  ‘Yes. But I don’t know what I am going to do with mine. I was planning to come to Galle to help look after some children here but I imagine that has just been swept away.’

  ‘Why don’t you go back to England?’

  ‘Because there is nothing for me there.’

  ‘And your mother in France?’

  ‘I don’t belong there either. I can’t start pretending to be a French farmer and I don’t want to be the failed son of a very Catholic French widow.’

  We sat in silence for a while. I could feel Josh trying to rationalise what I had been saying and I knew that there was so much more that I wanted to say. So, why not say it? It didn’t matter.

  ‘Actually, it won’t sound nice but do you know what? I am sick to death of not being able to move on from my past. If I picked up the phone to anyone in my family it would only take five minutes before the needle would go round and round in the same groove of the record. Simon, the young child crippled by his background…the one to whom his mother turned, expecting him to be strong. The object of sympathy, the one who makes other people feel that they are being kind to the damaged child made good.’

  ‘So, what would happen if you went back?’

  ‘I would be treated as an emotional paraplegic.’

  ‘Hence marriage and the law?’

  ‘Yes. Hence marriage and the law.’

  ‘Sounds like running a marathon.’

  But I had had enough of talking about myself by then and needed a way out. It wasn’t just that it was painful to talk about. I was bored of it and hated talking about my past. So, I asked him if he would tell me his story, his background. I expected him to say ‘maybe some other time’ and excuse himself on the basis that it was time to get
some sleep. But he didn’t.

  I can’t remember exactly how much he told me then and how much I learnt later but I want to put some of it together as best I can, as I know it now. But before he started he reached forward and touched the side of my arm and looked at me. And he said this: ‘OK, but please don’t close down on everything. Above all, please don’t close down on yourself.’ It took me by surprise because he said it as if he really cared about me, even though we had just met. Then he sat back in his chair and began his story.

  To begin with, when he spoke, it felt as though he was going down a well-trodden path, telling a tale that had been told many times before. It started off as a clean tale told in an orderly and straightforward way as if he was back on his own emotional territory after listening to my confused mess. He spoke slowly, rarely looking up, just staring at the ground and looking at his hands. I noticed though that his voice did not really match what he was saying because it had a tone of reluctance, almost melancholy or world weariness about it. I thought his manner was deliberate as if he was trying not to sound too contented when following on from what I had been saying, that he was trying to be sympathetic to me by lowering his tone. I expected him just to go through the motions of telling me something about his happy childhood, his hobbies and interests, his study, that sort of thing. Safe things, nothing personal, and it left me asking myself how I could have polluted the conversation with my own outpouring.

  Then, at one point which I want to describe, he looked up and saw that I was watching him as he spoke. And he smiled at me, hesitatingly, for the first time – over three years ago, as if he had decided to test whether he could trust me with what he really wanted to say. I remember that moment as if it were yesterday because I smiled back at him and noticed his eyes, even in the half light. I must have held his gaze too long because I became embarrassed and said ‘sorry,’ not knowing what else to say. And he reached across, touched my arm again, laughed and said ‘don’t be.’ I can hear that laugh now. And so we continued, Josh talking, me listening, the silences between us filled with the electric buzzing of the cicada that filled the bushes around us.