Mr. Geldhaber sailed slowly. The superbly appointed private yacht coasted easily in the wind. He surveyed the smoothness of his bronzed skin with a fair amount of indolent pride. A fly settled on his stomach and rested utterly motionless in the sleepy heat. Time seemed to stand still for one beautiful moment as the sun reached its zenith and the sea seemed even darker than it had, enclosing vast depths of mystery.
This vacation had certainly been well earned, he mused. For months Heinrich had sat at his desk, nearly buried in a mound of papers, and had researched the activities of various prices and indices, deciding where to "stick his oar in" and where to pull it out. As a result of all this sticking in and pulling out he had amassed the funds necessary for the purchase and maintenance of this vessel of pleasure, whilst finding himself also the consumer of only the best. Reflecting on this, his eyes closed and his hearing faded. The calls of the swooping birds overhead became distorted into the bells that rang in his dream.
He dreamed of a station master somewhere near his home town, who let fall a heavy tear as each train entered the station. When Heinrich was just about to be told why, he awoke to find himself lying in about five centimetres of water. Was this the same substance as that which showed such depths, so darkly all around his boat? It was a good deal more transparent, but just as cold and wet. He tried to holler, but managed to produce only a whimper. His beautiful yacht was sinking, together with its owner, and nothing in sight but water. He ran about the leaky vessel in desperation, picking up the items which might save him, should he find land on which to await aid. Some he dropped on realising the encumbrance they would pose to his progress in the water; others he grabbed for their sentimental value, and then reluctantly threw them to the deck in their turn. His head swam, and a mad rage of frustration and panic swamped his faculties, both mental and physical.
Mr. Geldhaber's shoulders were aching and he could hardly feel his legs at all. As he swam (and it seemed to him now that this was the only thing he had done since he left the womb) he felt his waist to ensure that the leather bag attached firmly to his body had not been lost He did this many times. He was actually quite surprised at his own powers of endurance: still he had seen no land, no life, no boat or ship; and still he swam. From time to time he would tread water, float on his back, or plunge beneath the surface in order to provide variety and to retain his sanity. He even derived some perverse pleasure from pretending, a few times, that he had come to the end of his tether and was about to drown. At these moments he would sink feebly below the surface which was such a merciless dividing line between his life and his death, only to rise triumphantly to hear ripples of applause from his bewildered and indifferent audience: the rolling waves.
He thought he saw land or help so many times that when he was finally presented with the chance of survival in the form of a few large rocks, he had to approach and sit on them before he could believe that they really existed. He sat with his mouth open, like a great fish, panting for breath and stunned with shock and relief. He laid his leather bag carefully beside him on the rock, and urinated from the summit The rock was only an island of about ten metres in diameter and about four metres above sea-level at its highest point. But to Heinrich it was a mountain. Certainly, it was the largest of the several boulders which at that point broke through the sea's defiant uniformity. Laying out beside him the shirt and trunks which, other than the bag, were all he had brought with him, he stretched out his limbs like an enormous starfish, and closed his eyes. He assumed this posture both in order that his skin might dry thoroughly and so that any potential rescuers would be more likely to notice him. The overwhelming heat pounded down, breathing fire into his heartbeat, uncontrollably rapid now as he breathed deeply after his exertion. Panic floated slowly up into his throat like a big cold stone to choke him.
From fifty metres above, where the birds flew, his body seemed to have been carved out of the rock itself. After a couple of hours his pulse was almost back to normal and he was completely dry. All he could do now was to wait in the hope that he might be seen. On a few occasions he spotted boats which were simply too far away to be able to see him, although he stood and shouted into the air. He saw some aeroplanes and helicopters too, and this kept his spirits up and fed his hopes. He decided to wait as long as possible before resorting to the use of the provisions which had been so hurriedly stashed away in his leather bag.
"Jeremy, come away from that edge, we're going to have something to eat now!"
The speaker of these words was young and healthy, of slender frame and frivolous thoughts. His wife, a stocky woman who was even younger than her husband, ran towards their three-year old son and picked him up to place him before an inordinately oversized feed for a creature of his appetite. Meanwhile, the winds carried their holiday yacht nearer and nearer to the man whom the priests would say they were "destined" to save. Jeremy ate like a young bird, squealing between mouthfuls, and John and Sandra smiled gormlessly at each other across the deck As he was eating, their son looked up at the horizon. Seeing nothing, he returned his thoughtful gaze to the mounds of food before him. Nauseous at this sight he again lifted his eyes, this time spotting a grey smudge in the distance. As he stared at this intently, his parents turned their eyes towards it too, and all three remained silent as it grew larger and larger. The form of the rock, at first neither clear nor remarkable, gradually became more clearly defined. As the yacht moved quite quickly towards the island, the grey surface was observed to have a distinctly defined shape protruding from it As this form became that of a prostrate human body, Sandra gasped and the Saviours sped towards the fleshy star upon the boulder.
When they had approached to within a metre or so, John jumped, with considerable agility from his boat to the rock. He lent over Heinrich whilst Sandra helped Jeremy ashore. The sea and air were quite motionless, the misty heat heavy as lead. John looked over his shoulder at his family and, blinking his almost transparent eyelids into the sun, cooly proclaimed:
"He's dead".
Jeremy ran to see a corpse for the first time in his life. His mother sat down clumsily on the edge of the rock, overcome with shock. The circumstances were particularly mysterious, for the yacht of Mr. Geldhaber had of course disappeared without trace, and the coast was miles away.
"Perhaps he swam out from the shore without realising how far he was going," suggested John. "Must have been too tired to find his way back."
His son was approaching the leather pouch which lay nearby, apparently stuffed with supplies. It looked as if the dead man had begun to open it for the flap which formed the front of the bag had been partially lifted. Sandra's interest was roused.
"God, surely he didn't die of hunger, then?" John and Sandra both stared in horrified wonder as their son gleefully exposed the contents of Herr Heinrich's leather supply bag: several large bundles of banknotes, bound with elastic bands and chewed at the corners.
Clifford Slapper (Britain)
1 comment:
That's a good short story. Nice sardonic kick at the end. Reminded me of B. Traven.
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