Джон Бойн - A Ladder to the Sky

‘You see?’ he said, swimming over towards me now. ‘I told you it’s easy. You’re a natural!’

‘I suppose I’ve never tried before,’ I replied, grinning at him and watching as he flipped over on to his back and stretched his arms out to swim away from me, gliding along with the confidence of a shark. I started to swim too, enjoying myself at last, but quite soon I heard the sound of furious splashing in the distance and looked towards my friend, whose arms were flailing uselessly as he disappeared beneath the water and rose from it again, and I realized that he was in distress. I swam over, throwing my body towards him, and although he struggled against me, as a drowning man always will, he soon submitted and I turned him in such a way that his head was above the lake while my hand held steady beneath his chin, using my other arm to direct us back towards the shore. When I dragged us both out we lay next to each other for several minutes, exhausted and gasping for air, until Oskar rolled over on to one side, coughing feverishly as the water rose from his lungs, and I put a hand on his shoulder, telling him that he was all right, that he was alive and had nothing more to fear. We lay there for a long time, the sun beating down on our bodies, and when he dozed off it was with my arm across his chest, a hand stretching low across his abdomen, resting in a spot just below his navel. I was still lying like this some minutes later when he awoke with a start, pulling himself away from me in embarrassment as I sat up. I covered myself quickly with one hand, although it was obvious that he had noticed my tumescence for he turned away with a confused expression on his face and said nothing before standing up and making his way over to his clothes and dressing once again. He kept his back to me throughout all of this and only when I was fully clothed did he speak.

‘I don’t know what happened,’ he said, looking a little embarrassed. ‘I suppose I went in too soon after eating. I got cramp, you see, and my legs wouldn’t work.’

‘It’s over, anyway,’ I said. ‘No harm done.’

‘You told me that you couldn’t swim. But actually, you’re an excellent swimmer. I could tell as you were bringing me to the shore. Why did you lie?’

‘I didn’t lie. I was focussed on helping you, that’s all, and I suppose my natural instincts simply took over.’

He thought about this and I could tell that he was unconvinced. ‘Well, thank you, Erich,’ he said at last, his forehead wrinkling into deep furrows as he considered his brush with mortality. ‘I would have drowned if it wasn’t for you.’

I turned to look at him and we stared at each other, the shared awkwardness unsettling me. ‘We should continue on our way,’ I said finally. The afternoon had been peculiar and disconcerting and I longed to be back on my bicycle, working off my desires through exercise. ‘We still have about twenty kilometres to Potsdam.’

Later, it seemed that we had made a silent agreement not to mention the incident again and we enjoyed a good dinner and more beer, but eventually, tired from the exertions of the day, we retired to bed earlier than usual. I found it hard to sleep, though, disturbed by the unfamiliar sound of his breathing in the next bed, and eventually rose, sitting by the window and opening the curtain a little to stare out towards the fields beyond. The moon was almost full and as the light slipped into the room I turned around to observe the arch of Oskar’s bare back as he slept, appreciating the gift the sheets had given me as they fell from his body. I grew aroused again, laying hands upon myself as quietly as possible, recalling all the things that I had seen that afternoon and what I could see now, climaxing so quickly into a handkerchief that my accompanying cry of pleasure seemed loud enough to wake him. And then, simultaneously satisfied and frustrated, I climbed back into bed and fell quickly asleep.

‘What would you have done had he woken up?’ asked Maurice, looking at me with wide eyes but no trace of embarrassment, despite the crude nature of these memories.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Laughed it off, I suppose. Died of humiliation. One or the other.’

He quizzed me on more aspects of the day, and the conversations that we’d had the following morning, but the recollections, along with the wine, had tired me out and finally I confessed that I could stay up no longer. We finished what was left in our glasses before saying goodnight and retiring to our rooms.

Just before I fell asleep, however, it occurred to me that I had forgotten to tell him what time we should meet the following morning and, as there was no telephone by the bed, I had no choice but to get up, don my clothes and go out into the corridor, making my way down the staircase towards his room, where I tapped cautiously on his door in the contradictory way that one does when one wants to get the attention of the occupant but is also wary of disturbing him. He didn’t answer, so I knocked louder, pressing my face to the wood this time as I half whispered, half called his name. Again, there was no reply and I assumed that he had fallen into a deep sleep from which it would be impossible to wake him. And so I returned to my room and scribbled a note on some hotel notepaper before returning to the lower floor and sliding it beneath his door, having knocked one more time but again been frustrated by the silence from within.

As I made my way back towards the staircase, however, I saw Dash Hardy ascending from the foyer holding a bottle of champagne. He turned in my direction and stopped immediately, as if he had seen a ghost, before pulling himself together and asking whether I had enjoyed my evening. I replied in the affirmative before adding that I was tired, that it had been a pleasure to meet him – which it had not – and continuing on my way.

‘Goodnight, Erich,’ he called after me, before adding in a sing-song voice, ‘Sweet dreams!’

I rolled my eyes impatiently, and it was only as I fell asleep that I began to wonder why he had been carrying two glasses in his hand.

In July, I found myself drinking a glass of rosé outside a bar in Montmartre, a chestnut tree shading me from the late summer sunlight, while I observed the closing moments of a marriage. A woman in her late forties, very beautiful, with short black hair and expensive sunglasses, had been sitting alone since my arrival with a large glass of white wine and an envelope on the table before her. She had already smoked three cigarettes and was lighting a fourth when a man appeared, perhaps a little older than her but dressed just as smartly, holding his hands in the air in apology for his tardiness, and she stood to allow him to kiss her on both cheeks. The waitress brought a second glass and she poured some wine for him as he reached into his bag and removed a similar envelope to hers. They spoke for some time and at one point he laughed and put an arm around her shoulders before they picked up the envelopes and took out two lengthy documents. Turning to the last page of each they allowed their pens to hover over the paper for only a moment before signing simultaneously, then passed each one to the other, whereupon they signed again. Finally, the man returned both forms to his bag and the couple removed their wedding rings, dropping each one into their glasses before standing up, kissing on the lips and walking off in opposite directions, their hands drifting out behind them, their fingers touching momentarily before they disappeared from my sight and, presumably, from each other’s lives.

I was still staring at the empty glasses and their expensive additions when Maurice appeared from around the corner, raising a hand in greeting as he sat down to join me. It was a warm afternoon, and when his beer arrived, he drank a third of it without pausing for breath, sitting back with a satisfied sigh.