Part 23 (1/2)

'Nothing. Nothing. He couldn't pull himself up. After a while it...went slack. I waited another minute. Then I pulled him up.'

Afterwards Anna found it difficult to grasp that she did what she did. It was even more difficult to understand why she felt excited while it was going on. As if they were engaged in some spine-tingling party game. Sitting around a ouija board or something. It was the only explanation she could come up with. The fact that the whole thing was unreal.

And that-G.o.d forgive me-she and Josef were doing something together again, were fellow conspirators in the name of love as they had always said they were in the days when everything was good between them.

They carried Kaxe up to the house. His clothes were dripping wet, and Anna found herself mopping up with a dishcloth while Josef laid out some black plastic sacks on which to lay the body.

It wasn't until they were standing side by side with their arms folded contemplating their efforts that repudiation sank its claws into her.

'Josef. We can't do this. We have to call the police. Or something. Someone who can...'

Josef shook his head and crouched down next to the dead body. He said, 'Show yourself.'

Anna's eyes widened. He really had gone mad. The here-and-now feeling evaporated, replaced by a succession of days as a single mother, explaining to her child that Daddy's in a place where they're looking after him. Josef was totally focused on the dead body. She was alone. A lonely accessory to a crime.

Silent tears began to flow when Josef kicked the body and shouted, 'I'm going to bury you, understand? You'll never be able to come back if you don't show yourself to her. She's in this too, understand? I promise. I'll burn you down on the rocks. Don't you believe me? I'll put you in the boat, pour petrol over you and...'

Anna stood there paralysed as Josef rained down curses on the corpse, threatening something that could no longer be threatened.

What...

Fluid began to trickle from one of the corpse's hands.

Her lower jaw was trembling as she crouched down beside Josef.

From the gaps beneath the fingernails, fluid was running onto the floor. No, not running. Finding its way out. It didn't spread across the floor like water, but curled into a stream that moved down towards the corpse's feet, curved around them. A snake of water, the thickness of a forearm, continued to pour out from the fingers while its other end worked its way up towards the other hand.

It then split into a delta of five thinner streams that forced their way underneath the fingernails, while at the same time the flow from the other hand ceased.

Anna put her hand to her mouth, whimpering slightly while the water snake grew shorter and shorter as it disappeared back into the body. A few glittering droplets remained on the tips of the fingers, until they too disappeared. It had gone.

She no longer saw a person in front of her. She saw...a sh.e.l.l. A cold burrow where death lived. If the corpse's belly had swollen up when death crept back into its lair, the picture would have been complete.

When the telephone rang she got up on stiff legs, went over and picked up the receiver. It was completely natural. An explanation would be forthcoming: some authority or power would inform them about the new situation. These days it used the telephone.

'h.e.l.lo, Anna speaking.'

Clattering, voices in the background.

'Hi, it's Gabriella. Just wanted to check that you got home OK, you seemed so...Is everything all right?'

Anna looked over at the blackness of the windowpane. Outside there was a mirror image of herself and the room in which she was standing. Behind her, Josef straightened up and went into the kitchen. The corpse was lying motionless on the plastic sacks, which looked like a black hole in the reflection, creating the illusion that the body was hovering in s.p.a.ce. She reached out and touched the gla.s.s.

'h.e.l.lo, are you there?'

Anna nodded. A voice speaking in her ear. In front of her a shadow world. The voice said, 'For f.u.c.k's sake...Anna? Are you there?'

'Yes. Yes, I'm here. Here I am.'

'Is everything OK, you sound so...'

'Everything's fine.'

'OK. Listen, that guy, the one with the dreads, he...'

Anna was no longer listening. Gabriella's voice droned on in her ear, but Anna was caught up in the reflection. If she opened the window she would be able to step into that world, just like Alice in Wonderland. She moved her hand, waved. The other Anna waved. In the background Josef reappeared.

She turned around. Josef was holding one hand as if he had something in it. She couldn't see what it was. With the other hand he gestured towards the phone, telling her to hang up.

Gabriella was still talking. Anna said, 'Sorry, I haven't got time right now. Talk to you soon,' and hung up.

'Who was that?'

'Gabriella.'

'What did she want?'

Anna dabbed at her lips with her fingers, said 'I don't know', then moved her fingers in the direction of the corpse. 'This...this... is very...is very...'

'Overwhelming?'

'No...it's not that...' Her voice sounded distant, as if she was talking to herself on the phone, long distance. '...I'd say, without... that this is absolutely...disgusting. This is absolutely disgusting. I think it's absolutely disgusting. This.'

'But do you believe me now?'

'Yes. Yes. But the idea...the idea that I would want us to...Josef. There's...there's a snake inside him. In our house. Now.'

Josef shook his head.

'It isn't a snake anymore. It's spread right through his body. As it did with me.'

'Yes. But...' The words just wouldn't come to her. She sat down on the sofa, avoided looking at the corpse. 'Don't you think...this is disgusting?'

Josef sat down beside her. She could see now that the thing he was holding in his hand was a needle. He put his arm around her shoulders. Anna could hear the creaking of the boat against the jetty, the sea whispering outside the window. The sea. The snake's home. All those times she had dived, swum in that sea.

She leaned against Josef. 'We were happy as we were. Weren't we?'

Josef nodded. 'Yes. And we're going to be happy. But I couldn't just...once I knew about this...I...'

'No. I understand.' Anna thought for a moment. 'I do understand. Yes, I do.'

'Do you?'

'Yes.'

Suddenly Josef fell on her. He burrowed his head in between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She stroked his head and looked up, gazing at the corpse lying on their living room floor. She understood. If you've survived once, you want to go on. Perhaps he couldn't have done anything else. Perhaps she would have done the same thing. If she'd known.

Josef's hair was damp and stuck to her fingers as she ran them through it. It was several years since the world outside the two of them had any significance. They had talked about this.

If I die, if I go crazy, what will you do?