Middle Age Read Free Page B

with his shorts, his shoes, soaking wet, heavy. Sodden. Like concrete weighing him down. Like trying to swim uphill. (How, pedaling up the steep hill before entering the village of Salthill, passing the old Salthill Community cemetery, where weatherworn, mossy stone markers tilt in the mossy soil like tossed-away playing cards, etched with the faint fading numerals of the s. So long ago, Death couldn’t have been very real.
    Adam, pedaling his bicycle, begins to feel his breath shorten, just perceptibly, a quick strange tightness in his chest he doesn’t acknowledge. Though remembering, since the previous April, how sweat breaks out on his forehead when he ascends this hill, when he hikes too briskly uphill, and Apollo trotting eagerly before him. What is it but weakness, God damn he will not give in to weakness.)
    “Hang on—I’m almost there—”
    Only a few feet away there’s a small blond girl in the water, her hair streaking down her face, face very pale, contorted in terror, she’s buffeted by waves, sinking, rising, clawing at the edge of the boat. The older boy, who’d been the sailor, has disappeared. Maybe he’s on the far side of the boat, maybe he’s under the boat, maybe he’s drowning, or swimming to shore to save himself. Adam sees only the little girl. He swims to her, he’s got hold of her. At last! He’s got hold of her. Grips her small shoulder, meaning now to wrest both himself and the child away from the sailboat, so that he can swim freely to shore, or to a dock, must be a dock nearby, except—Adam’s vision is blurred, he has only the one eye, streaming water. And he’s breathing hard, panting. And the child is kicking and struggling, panicked as a terrorized animal. Adam shouts at her, he’s got her, he will save her, Christ! he’s exhausted suddenly, an old man suddenly, the terrible leaden weight in his muscular legs, his arms, he has always depended upon his strength, now his strength is ebbing from him. Hours have passed, in less than three frantic minutes. Splotched sunlight moves like fireballs in the waves. He’s confused about directions. Which way—?
    There’s another boat, a rescue boat, approaching. A swelling fiery ball in his chest. He’s wanted to hide it, this shameful fact, but it will no longer be hidden. His mouth opens, gasping for breath like a dying fish’s. His left eye, like his right eye, now blind. Except for the life jacket keeping him afloat he would sink, he’s useless now. The hysterical little girl is being lifted out of his arms into a boat. Into the arms of strangers? But where has this boat come from?
    
    J C O
    Adam doesn’t see. The fiery ball in his chest will not be placated. Pain, paralyzing pain of a kind he’s never felt before in his life, except the pain of that original fire, perhaps it’s the identical pain, and something strikes the crown of his head with such violence he’s beyond pain. Not thinking At least—the girl is safe . Not capable of thinking I succeeded in this, at least .
    He has no breath. No strength. His left eye has gone out like a burst light-bulb. Adam Berendt, dying. The life jacket keeps the moribund body afloat like sodden laundry.
    He will not know the name of the blond child for whom he has given his life.
     
    If You Catch Me . . .
    R
    S  . . .
    
    H  your life.A telephone ringing.
    And maybe you’re still waiting for Adam Berendt to call.
    And maybe you’re confused, your heart already pumping absurdly, when a stranger’s voice utters the name Adam Berendt and you answer eagerly, hopefully.
    “Yes? I’m Marina Troy. What—what is it?”
    That instant before fear strikes. Fear like a sliver of ice entering the heart.
    
    Thwaite was the bearer of Adam Berendt’s death. She would learn.
    An ugly name, isn’t it? Though the child’s name, Samantha, is