Black Water Read online

  Like a mirror broken and scattered about them, the marshes stretching for miles. Kelly supposed they were lost but hesitated to utter the word for fear of annoying The Senator.

  Am I ready?—it's an adventure.

  In the jolting car they did seem immune to any harm, still less to a vehicular accident, for The Senator was driving in a way one might call recklessly, you might say his judgment was impaired by drink but not his skill as a driver for he did have skill, handling the compact car as if by instinct and with an air too of kingly contempt, so Kelly was thinking, though they were lost, though they would not make the 8:20 P.M. ferry after all, she was privileged to be here and no harm could come to her like a young princess in a fairy tale so recently begun but perhaps it would not end for some time, perhaps.

  The bright flat moon, the glittering patches of water so very like pieces of mirror. A jazzy tempo to the radio music now and the beat, the beat, the beat of the surf out of range of their immediate hearing but Kelly believed she could hear it half-closing her eyes gripping the strap at her shoulder so hard her knuckles were white.

  Raising her voice without seeming quite to raise it: "I think we're lost, Senator."

  The word Senator lightly ironic, playful.A kind of caress.

  He had told her to call him by his first name—his diminutive first name—of course. But somehow just yet Kelly had not been able to oblige.

  Such intimacy, together in the bouncing jolting car.The giddy smell of alcohol pungent between them. Beery kisses, that tongue thick enough to choke you.

  Here was one of the immune, beside her: he, one of the powerful adults of the world, manly man, U.S. senator, a famous face and a tangled history, empowered to not merely endure history but to guide it, control it, manipulate it to his own ends. He was an old-style liberal Democrat out of the 1960s, a Great Society man with a stubborn and zealous dedication to social reform seemingly not embittered or broken or even greatly surprised at the opposition his humanitarian ideas aroused in the America of the waning years of the twentieth century for his life was politics, you know what politics is, in its essence: the art of compromise.

  Can compromise be an art?—yes, but a minor art.

  Kelly had thought The Senator had not heard her but then he said, with a mirthless chuckle as if clearing his throat, "This is a shortcut, Kelly." As if speaking to a very young child or to a drunken young woman, slowly. "There's only one direction and we can't be lost."

  Just before the car flew off the road.

  SHE HEARD THE SINGLE EXPLETIVE "HEY!" AS THE CAR skidded into a guardrail skidding sideways, the right rear coming around as in a demonic amusement ride and her head cracked against the window a red mist flashing across her eyes but she could not draw breath to scream as the momentum of their speed carried them down a brief but steep embankment, an angry staccato tapping against the car as if dried sticks were being broken, still she had not breath to scream as the car plunged into what appeared to be a pit, a pool, stagnant water in the marshland you might think only a few feet deep but black water

  was churning alive and purposeful on all sides tugging them down, the car sinking on its side, and Kelly was blinded, The Senator fell against her and their heads knocked and how long it was the two of them struggled together, stunned, desperate, in terror of what was happening out of their control and even their comprehension except to think This can't be happening, am I going to die like this, how many seconds or minutes before The Senator moaning "Oh God. Oh God" fumbled clawing at the safety belts extricating himself by sheer strength from his seat behind the broken steering wheel and with fanatic strength forcing himself through the door, opening the door against the weight of black water and gravity that door so strangely where it should not have been, overhead, directly over their heads, as if the very earth had tilted insanely on its axis and the sky now invisible was lost in the black muck beneath—how long, in her terror and confusion Kelly Kelleher could not have said. She was fighting to escape the water, she was clutching at a man's muscular forearm even as he shoved her away, she was clutching at his trousered leg, his foot, his foot in its crepe-soled canvas shoe heavy and crushing upon her striking the side of her head, her left temple so now she did cry out in pain and hurt grabbing at his leg frantically, her fingernails tearing, then at his ankle, his foot, his shoe, the crepe-soled canvas shoe that came off in her hand so she was left behind crying, begging, "Don't leave me!—help me! Wait!"

  Having no name to call him as the black water rushed upon her to fill her lungs.

  HE WAS GONE BUT WOULD COME BACK TO SAVE HER.

  He was gone having swum to shore to cry for help... or was he lying on the weedy embankment vomiting water in helpless spasms drawing his breath deep, deep to summon his strength and manly courage preparatory to returning to the black water to dive down to the submerged car like a capsized beetle helpless and precariously balanced on its side in the soft muck of the riverbed where his trapped and terrified passenger waited for him to save her, waited for him to return to open the door to pull her out to save her: was that the way it would happen?

  I'm here. I'm here. Here.

  AT THE FOURTH OF JULY GATHERING AT BUFFY ST. John's that day there were guests arriving all afternoon and into the evening, some of whom Kelly Kelleher did not know but she did know and was known by Ray Annick and Felicia Ch'en a glossy-black-haired strikingly beautiful new friend of Buffy's who had a degree in mathematics and wrote freelance science articles for the Boston Globe and Ed Murphy the finance economist at B.U. who was a consultant for a Boston brokerage house and Stacey Miles of course who'd been a suitemate at Brown and Randy

  Post the architect with whom Stacey lived in Cambridge and there was an ex-lover of Buffy's named Fritz with whom Buffy remained good friends and who had in fact taken Kelly Kelleher out a few times amicably, casually, he'd hoped to make love to her Kelly had surmised as revenge of sorts upon Buffy who would not in any case have cared in the slightest, and there was that tall big-shouldered balding light-skinned black man of about thirty-five a fellow of some kind at M.I.T. whom Kelly had met before, his first name was unusual, exotic, was it Lucius?— a Trinidadian and not an American black and Kelly remembered liking him and knew that he liked her, was attracted to her, so Kelly felt good about that, she had dreaded this weekend having become increasingly uncomfortable at parties like this where so much drinking so much repartee so much gaiety so much frank sexual appraisal put her at a disadvantage, she was vulnerable as if the outer layer of her skin had been peeled away since G----- and if men looked at her she stiffened feeling her jaws tighten her blood beat with dread and if men did not look at her, if their glances slipped past her as if she were invisible, she felt a yet deeper dread: a conviction of not merely female but human failure.

  But there was Lucius. A research fellow in plasma physics. A subscriber to Citizens' Inquiry and an admirer of Carl Spader, or what he knew of Carl Spader.

  There was Lucius, and Kelly was grateful for his presence, and had not shortly past two o'clock a black Toyota turned into Buffy's drive and the murmur went up Is it him?—is it?— Jesus! the two might have become, in time, very good friends.

  SHE DID NOT BELIEVE IN ASTROLOGY, IN THE BREATH-less admonitions and Ben Franklin-pep talks of the magazine horoscopes, nor did she believe in the Anglican God to Whom—in Whom?—for Whom?—she had long ago been confirmed.

  Grandpa Ross when he was dying his flesh shriveling back from the bone but his eyes alert as always, kindly brimming with love for her whom he knew as, never "Kelly," but "Lizzie," his dearest grandchild of the several grandchildren for whom he had been a conduit into the world told her as if imparting a worrisome secret, The way you make your life, the love you put into it—that's God.

  SHE WAS ALONE, HE HAD BEEN WITH HER, AND HE WAS GONE AND NOW SHE WAS ALONE BUT HE HAS GONE TO GET HELP OF COURSE.

  In her shock not knowing at first where she was, what tight-clamped place this was, what darkness, not knowing w
hat had happened because it had happened so abruptly like a scene blurred with speed glimpsed from a rushing window and there was blood in her eyes, her eyes were wide open staring and sightless, her head pounding violently where the bone was cracked, she knew the bone was cracked believing that it would be through this fissure the black water would pour to extinguish her life unless she could find a way to escape unless he will be back to help me of course.

  In fact he was comforting her, smiling, frowning concerned and solicitous touching her shoulder with his fingertips. Don't doubt me, Kelly. Never.

  He knew her name, he had called her by name. He had looked at her with love so she knew.

  He was her friend. He was no one she knew but he was her friend, that she knew. In another minute she would remember his name.

  It was a car that had trapped her, she was jammed somehow in the front seat of a car but the space was very small because the roof and the dashboard and the door beside her had buckled inward pinning her legs and crushing her right kneecap held as if in a vise and her ribs on that side were broken but the pain seemed to be held in suspension like a thought not yet fully acknowledged scarcely any sensation at all so she knew she would be all right so long as she could lift her head free of the seeping black water that smelled of raw sewage and was cold, colder than you could imagine on such a warm midsummer night.

  She would manage to breathe even while swallowing water, there was a way to do it, snorting water out of her nose, thrashing her head from side to side then leaning as far as her strength would allow her away from the smashed door, her left shoulder was broken perhaps, she would not think of it now for in the hospital they would take care of her, they had saved her friend once, her friend from school the girl whose name she could not remember except to know that Kelly was not that girl, she was calling Help, help me!—here—confused because where was up? where was the sky?—he'd been desperate to get free using her very body to lever himself out the door overhead where no door should be, forcing the door open against the weight of whatever it was that pressed it down and squeezing his big-boned body through that space that seemed scarcely large enough for Kelly Kelleher herself to squeeze through but he was strong he was frantic kicking and scrambling like a great upright maddened fish knowing to save itself by instinct.

  And what did she have of him, my God what prize did her silly fingers clutch, her broken nails she'd taken time to polish the night before, using Buffy's polish, what was it for God's sake—a shoe?

  An empty shoe?

  But no: there is only one direction, and he would come to her from that direction. She knew.

  * * *

  Except, she knew also that the car, submerged, how many feet below the surface of the water she couldn't guess, it might be only a few inches in fact, with a part of her brain that remained pragmatic, pitiless she knew that though the car retained air, a bubble, or bubbles, of air, it would fill by degrees, it could not not fill, thin trickles of water pushing through myriad holes, fissures, cracks like the webbed cracks in the windshield, by degrees the water level would rise, must rise, since the car was totally submerged, she'd heard of accident victims surviving in submerged cars for as many as five hours and then rescued and she would be rescued if she was patient if she did not panic but by degrees the filthy black water would rise to fill her mouth, her throat, her lungs though she could not see it nor could she hear it trickling, seeping, draining beyond the blow to her head, the roaring in her ears, spasms of coughing and choking that seized her, black muck to be spat up.

  Except had he not promised her?—he had.

  Except had he not held her, kissed her?— he had.

  Penetrated her dry, alarmed mouth with his enormous tongue?—he had.

  No pain! no pain! she swore she felt no pain, she would give in to no pain, they'd praised her so brave 'Lizabeth, brave little girl when her eye had been bandaged and that was her truest self, he would see, as soon as he helped her free she would save herself, she was a strong swimmer. I'm here.

  TWICE WEEKLY, TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS EVEN IN summer, Kelly Kelleher made the arduous drive in her secondhand Mazda from her condominium up behind Beacon Hill, Boston, out to Roxbury, where in an ill-ventilated community services center she taught, or made the spirited effort of teaching, black adult illiterates to read primer texts. Her classes began at 7 P.M. and ended, sometimes trailed ambiguously off, at 8:30 P.M. Asked what progress she and her several students were making Kelly would say, with a smile, "Some!"

  Kelly was a volunteer of only a few months in the National Literacy Foundation of America program and she felt both enthusiasm and zeal for what she did . .. yet a priggish self-righteousness too, a Caucasian condescension mingled with a very real and visceral fear of physical threat, harm, not within the community services center itself but in the streets surrounding, in desolate Roxbury and along the debris-strewn expressway, in the vulnerability of her white skin.

  This ambivalence so qualified her experience in Roxbury that she had yet to tell her parents about it by midsummer, and rarely mentioned it to her friends.

  Nor did she mention it to The Senator during their several conversations that day at Buffy's... not knowing why, exactly... perhaps hoping to seem, not the zealous volunteer type with whom The Senator like any successful politician was contemptuously familiar, but another type altogether.

  What's a volunteer, especially a lady volunteer?

  Someone who knows she can't sell it.

  As the black water drained into the space that contained her snug as any womb.

  Except: Buffy had been sweet giving her the little-sister's room as they called it, the south-

  east-corner room of the five-bedroom Cape Cod on Derry Road, how many times had Kelly Kelleher been a guest there, a room with a chaste white-organdy brass bed and spare Shaker-inspired furniture and braided rugs and that floral wallpaper predominantly the hue of strawberries so like Grandma Ross's favorite room in the big old house in Greenwich, and with trembling fingers Kelly had washed her warm face, took time to rinse her sun-dazed eyes, brushed her hair in swift brisk excited strokes smiling at herself in the bathroom mirror thinking, It's wild, it can't happen.

  But, yes. Kelly Kelleher was the one.

  At first The Senator was speaking generally, to everyone. Tall and broad-shouldered and vehement and ruddy with pleasure at being where he was, this place, beautiful Grayling Island of which he'd known virtually nothing, he'd visited Maine infrequently since they summered on the Cape mainly, his family place on the Cape, bent upon ignoring how the Cape had changed over the years, so developed, overpopulated... "Some facts of life, things closest around you, you sometimes don't want to see."

  But The Senator's tone was expansive, gregarious. This was a happy occasion, an attractive, younger crowd, he had the air of a man determined to enjoy himself.

  He and Ray Annick: the two older men, you might say: determined to enjoy themselves.

  Actually, the first thing The Senator did after greeting his hostess was to draw Ray Annick off to confer with him, out of earshot of the others; then he asked Bufly could he freshen up, use Ray's shaving kit—he hadn't shaved, he said, since six o'clock that morning in Washington.

  He changed out of his inappropriately formal white cotton long-sleeved shirt into a short-sleeved navy blue polo shirt open at the collar, the knit sleeves tight on his fleshy biceps. In the shallow V of the collar, a bristle of steely-gray hairs.

  He was wearing pale seersucker trousers. That crisp summery puckered look.

  And beige canvas crepe-soled sporty shoes, L. L. Bean.

  So there were drinks, on the breezy terrace, many voices simultaneously, and The Senator easy, friendly, unself-conscious among them though his posture and a certain focusing of speech, a moderation of tone suggested I realize you are memorizing me, but don't for that reason dislike me as they spoke of the outrage of the recent Supreme Court decisions, the ideologically sanctioned selfishness and cruelty of a wealth
y society, how systematic the dismantling of the gains of the civil rights movement, the retirement of Justice Thurgood Marshall, the end of an era.

  The Senator sighed, grimaced, seemed about to say something further, but changed his mind.

  At Buffy's, always there were distractions. New guests arriving, the prospect of an impromptu tennis tournament.

  Shaking Kelly Kelleher's small-boned hand, squeezing. "Kelly, is it? Callie? Kelly."

  She'd laughed. Liking the sound of her schoolgirl name on a U.S. senator's lips.

  He wasn't as I'd imagined him, he turned out to be really warm, really nice, not at all condescending—

  Shaping the precise words that would encapsulate, in her memory, in her recounting of memory to friends, perhaps Mr. Spader himself who had known The Senator years ago but was distant from him now.

  How courteous, genuinely friendly, interested in who we were and what we thought of his Senate proposals, the Medicaid, the welfare reform, yes and he is a visionary, I don't think it is an exaggeration to say—

  How crucial for us to rehearse the future, in words.

  Never to doubt that you will live to utter them.

  Never to doubt that you will tell your story.

  And the accident too, one day she would transform the accident, the nightmare of being trapped in a submerged car, the near-drowning, the rescue. It was horrible—hideous. I was trapped and the water was seeping in and he'd gone for help and fortunately there was air in the car, we'd had the windows shut tight, the air conditioner on, yes I know it's a miracle if you believe in miracles.