It was dark when I walked out. There was a soft summer rain falling. It brought a smell of dust to the air that was almost sweet. I thought I might walk home, all of the way; forty minutes or so it would take me, and if the rain kept up there would not be too much damage. To my jacket, my hair. The damp felt welcome, after the day’s heat. Over the river, up those small ascending streets towards the hills. Jenny would be playing with her dolls in the hallway, always the hallway, for some reason. I would cook, or Sarah would, or wonder of wonders, we both might, and find a way to soften whatever had happened between us. They say a marriage is never truly a marriage until it has dealt with an infidelity. And if that was so, perhaps we were well on our way to being married.
I was on the bridge then, walking alone for once over the brown river, and I stopped to look at one of the carved angels with their immobile feathered stone wings that seemed designed to keep watch over those waters. I twisted the gold band off my finger and looked through it at the currents beneath. There was the circular frame, soft and out of focus, and the dark passage of the river, one enclosing the other. Was that what a marriage was to the vicissitudes of life, I wondered, something barely noticed yet comforting that enclosed all of the chaos in gold. I heard a cough above me then, or a sob, and I turned, too quickly, because the ring slipped from my fingers and fell, slowly it seemed, tumbling over and over, into the brown river below. I remember wondering, would Sarah notice? And if she ever did, when would that day be?
I heard the cough again, but it was more like a choked, suppressed gurgle and I thought of someone drowning. Maybe my ring, drifting and absolutely lost now, towards the mud of the riverbed. Then I saw a shadow by the foot of the stone angel, huddled beneath its glistening, motionless wing. The shadow moved a little, and it was a woman, squatting or crouching there. She was young. Young enough to make me think of suicide and all of the attractions of oblivion. If she wanted to jump it was her choice, I reasoned, but I already knew that reason doesn’t come into such things. So I spoke one word, loud enough that she could hear.
Don’t, I said.
Don’t what? she asked, without turning. And I could tell that her English was good. And I was already climbing up beside her.
Don’t jump, I said.
Why would I jump? she asked.
I don’t know, I said. Why would anybody?
Maybe to know, she said, what it feels like.
She had her head still turned from me. And I edged closer, round the great stone wing of the statue.
The architect jumped, I’ve been told.
Why do you say that? she asked.
I’m not sure, I said.
Just to keep talking, she said. You think if you keep talking, I won’t.
You won’t jump?
And it wasn’t the architect. It was the sculptor of the angels.
Why did he jump?
Because of the eyes.
What eyes?
When the bridge was finished, he realised he’d forgotten to carve out the eyes. So he jumped.
And I said something stupid then, just to keep the conversation going.
So those angels are eyeless?
She said, yes. Blind. Cannot watch over the river.
And she turned to me. Long lashes blinked over a pair of brown eyes.
Stupid historical fact.
And she jumped.
I saw her body fall, in a long straight plumb line to the darkened waters. And I noticed the most irrelevant of details. She had coloured canvas sandals. And something about them made me jump too.
I hit the water as if I was cracking a sheet of ice. And then there was brown, foaming, oily liquid flooding my nostrils, from them to the roof of my mouth. I would have vomited, if I could have. I could see nothing but darkness, probably kept my eyes closed, so would have been no help if she was floundering beside me, and then some instinct took over and I swam up towards the surface. I saw a slicked head, bobbing up beside me like a seal, but it was a girl and she was gasping for breath, so I gripped her beneath her armpits and managed to say, just let me do this. And I swam with her, towards the west side.
She lay against me like a dead weight and I thought I saw a smile on her face.
Kick your legs, I said, if you can.
And I saw those coloured sandals break the surface of the brown foam. So we made our way, together, towards the sloping bank of concrete.
There was the detritus of a great river there, waterlogged pieces of wood, rusted bedsprings, tin cans, old shoes. And I laid her like a piece of flotsam on the concrete bank.
Why you do that? she asked.
Why did I do it, I corrected her. And I honestly don’t know.
If you don’t know, what about me?
You’re alive, at least.
You think?
And I threw up then, whatever liquid I had swallowed. The bile slid down the weedy bank, back towards the river.
You need help, she said.
And I almost laughed.
I do?
You need to drink fresh water, dry your clothes.
And what about you?
Me too, she said. Both of us.
Anywhere.
And she stood. She was like a drowned cat, with dank river mud in her dark hair.
You need a hospital, I said.
You think a hospital would help?
Help what? I wondered. Whatever urge made her take that leap? Whatever urge made me take it too? And then the question seemed absurd.
No, it probably wouldn’t help.
We could stand in the emergency place. For hours until we dry. Ask for hairdryer, maybe.
I can’t just leave you here, I told her.
No?
You might jump again.
From here?
And she looked down at the river. The brown, uninviting foam. There shouldn’t have been foam, but then the water shouldn’t have been brown, either.
What if I didn’t jump? What if I slipped?
Even so, I said. I still can’t leave you here.
So then, she stood. Take me to hospital. Outpatients. You know where it is?
No, I admitted.
Of course you don’t. I will have to lead you there.
Where is it?
Twenty minutes’ walk. Five minutes’ taxi. You could also take me home.
Where is home?
A few blocks away.
Blocks. The Americanism sounded odd in her accent. I would have said streets. But she turned then, and walked towards the nearest steps without looking back. And it seemed natural, inevitable, even, that I should follow.
There were metal steps leading through a stone tunnel to the street, with intermittent, fast-driving traffic. And when we crossed the road, she took my damp arm.
You’re wet, she said.
No more than you.
But I don’t wear a suit. You . . . you squish . . .
And I did. I could hear the water ooze from my damp shoes with every step.
Did you save me? she asked.
I wondered. Would she have swum to the other shore, without my help? Would she have even jumped, without my presence there? It was an act that needed to be observed for its dramatic potency. She only jumped to be seen jumping, in the knowledge that she could be saved. And I thought of a riddle I would ask my sister before they cured her harelip, by the promenade and the blue blue sea. What would you rather be, nearly drowned or nearly saved?
Would you have swum to the other shore, I asked her, if nobody was there?
No, she said, as we sidestepped an oncoming pair of headlights and reached the pavement on the other side.
Not the east side.
Why not the east side? I asked.
Because, she said, and, with a gentle touch on my elbow, led me towards the next set of steps, it is not my side.
So, I had saved her. And we both seemed to accept that as we walked past the whores and their pimps who stood in twos and threes in the summer night. I had saved her and her presence on my arm seemed testament to that fact. And I noticed for the first time that the rain had stopped.
Does it come with a responsibility? I wanted to ask her, do I have to validate somehow the life you would have finished? But the question seemed absurd, and I didn’t even know how to ask it. She was alive, and who knows what would have happened had I not been there.
You had better tell me why, I said to her. Why you did the thing you did . . . or wanted to do . . .
And again the question was half-formed, but somehow she understood.
She stopped over a metal grating outside the back of a hotel and the wind from below lifted her skirt.
I think you know, she said.
And I did know. There is only one reason for that urge.
Somebody hurt you.
Hush, she said. That’s enough.
She took two steps backwards and leant her head into the underground breeze. It was like a giant dryer now, lifting her dark hair into a perfect fan.
Stand here, she said, with me.
Why?
You are wet, like me. Dry your clothes.
I walked three or four steps over, so my dripping shoes stood beside her canvas plimsolls. The warm air ran up my legs, making ridiculous balloons out of my trousers.
Open out your shirt.
She pulled at the parts of my shirt that were still tucked in my belt.
My shirt ballooned and I held it out, so even the sleeves filled with the warm air.
Turn, she said.
And she turned. Her dress filled out like a flower, and the dark pistil of her hair seemed to surge upwards, as if it was being pulled from above.
The giant blow-dryer, she said, of the river god.
There is a river god?
Yes, she said. And if you ever get wet again, remember that his blow-dryer is here.
She took my arm then, and led me off the grating, towards a small alley beyond.
Home, she said. I remember. Just a few blocks away.
Blocks. That Americanism again. And it seemed particularly inappropriate for the streets she led me through, small cobbled places, with arches every now and then, that led into communal courtyards.
She stopped by one particular arch and I remember it had decorative tiles, halfway up the walls, covering the ceiling.
Come, she said.
And, as always, the courtyard seemed larger and more fanciful than the arch outside would have intimated.
Come up, she said, and began to ascend one of those circular stone stairways.
I followed again. There was a gleam of yellow light as a curtain was pulled in an adjacent apartment. An older woman stared, behind the reflective glass. And the wet girl turned her head, as if she didn’t want to be seen.
She felt for a handle in the dark, and found it locked.
Keys, I said.
Yes, she said. I had keys.
And she opened the old wooden door and walked inside as if she expected me to follow. And I did.
Hello home, she said in the darkness. and as she closed the door on her peering neighbour, goodbye Mrs.
We stood in the darkness then, before she fumbled for the light.
I remember you.
And the light came on and as my eyes grew accustomed to it I saw one of those crumbling interiors, again larger than the door outside might have intimated. High, unpainted walls, and a patchy ceiling with the cornices falling off. There was an old sofa with a cello lying on it.
She walked to the sofa and plucked one of the cello strings. The note echoed and lost itself amongst the old plasterwork above.
You’re a musician? I asked.
I was, she said. Once.
Can I use the bathroom? I asked.
Over there, she said, and nodded her head.
I walked towards the door she had indicated and closed it behind me. There was a small basin with a cracked mirror above it. I washed my hands under the tap and some sandy residue flowed off them into the plughole. I heard the cello sound from inside, a series of notes from long ago. Something by Bach, I imagined, though music wasn’t my speciality. I washed the mud of the river off my face then and looked at my face in the misted mirror. There was a dark blue robe hanging from a nail in the wall beside me. It was a man’s robe, and it seemed to have its own story, hanging there. I turned from the mirror and dried my face in the old fabric and inhaled the odour of someone else. Male, undoubtedly. And I wondered was he the one who drove her to that place on the bridge. He was vain, whoever he was, I remember thinking, because the towelly fabric smelt heavily of cheap hair oil.