Lea said: Man, again, you’re overinterpreting something.
Behind us stood dark firs and the sky above them, somehow pink, I said. Lea said, somehow gray, I said: how gruesome. Lea said, haha. We were wearing long trousers and sweaters over our T-Shirts; it was already chilly.
Sib had spread her legs and kept the oxygen bottle between them. She smiled; one could see it through the oxygen mask. Sib’s wheelchair was missing in the photo. It stood a little farther away, inclined on the flagstones as if it didn’t belong.
The lifeguard and I had lifted Sib out of the wheelchair and sat her down at the poolside. Sib asked him whether he could take a picture of the three of us. The lifeguard took Sib’s phone and began walking. He shuffled around the pool in his flip-flops. The pool had bright turquoise walls and dark lines on the ground to separate the lanes. It was that kind of pool in which it was not enough to push oneself away from one side to get to the other. It was increasing or decreasing in depth, depending on how one looked at it. Basically, the pool was nothing but a clean rectangular excavation.
Afterwards, the lifeguard shuffled back to us. He gave Sib the phone and sat down next to her. His legs dangled twice as far as ours into the pool—he was that tall, and I wasn’t short. He looked at Sib as though he feared for her; as though he was afraid that she could lose her balance and fall into the pool, into the empty one.
The lifeguard sat there, hands on his thighs, back rounded. He asked Sib: How did that happen? A few days ago, you were able to walk just fine when I saw you heading to the boulevard, on your skateboards.
Lea said, looking past me: We rode into the sunset on our skateboards that evening.
I saw Sib nodding. She was facing straight ahead. I wasn’t sure whether Sib wanted to talk about it but then I dared to say: We took that street to the sea, that long street. The one that starts on a hill, between two villas that are hardly noticeable from the street, behind their wild gardens.
The lifeguard said: Ah yeah, I know where.
The sea is visible from the hill. On the hill, you can already cultivate some longing for it, said Sib, laughing into her mask and still not looking at any of us.
We want to get to the sea, I said.
Lea said: On the hill you see the setting sun.
Sib said: I know that there’s low tide this evening. The tide chart that I got from the tourist office and that I studied carefully says: low tide.
We won’t make it to the sea this evening.
We won’t be able to check whether there’s actually low tide.
We’ve developed a longing for the sea and cannot satisfy it.
We’re on our skateboards, moving downhill. We’re looking at less and less of the sea than before, from the hill, less and less. The little red houses with their pointed roofs and their colorful shutters are drifting by; the faded houses with shutters that have lost their paint, exposing bare colorless wood. The wind is hissing in our ears; we can’t hear the sea yet.
Then, you could still stand straight; the backpack with the oxygen bottle on your shoulders, the mask on your face.
How strange we must have looked, I said.
Always strange, said the lifeguard and laughed. Never not strange.
The three of us, on our skateboards, riding down the hill, riding almost parallel.
Also, a little uncanny, I said. It’s evening and not long before dark. I don’t know which one of you is looking sicker. Your hair, Lea, is waving in the breeze. Your face is pale and your cheeks are sunken. Can I stop you from becoming a skull—I don’t think so, I said to Lea.
At least we’re becoming something while you stay the same, Lea said to me.
I watched you, on your skateboard. You’ve got to stand straighter; you’ve got a bad posture. You seem so insecure. Can you get rid of that insecurity at some point—man, I don’t think so.
Alright, fine, said Sib, at some point, I fell. I can remember how low the sun was. I memorized the distance to the horizon. Shortly before the fall I thought, that’s how close the sun is to the horizon. So, I could tell you when. I could tell you where, on that street, on the way to the sea.
I saw how the skateboard drifted away beneath her feet and rolled on for a bit. In my memory it’s still rolling, I said. I don’t know why I focused on the skateboard first and only later on Sib who was lying on the ground.
Sib’s lying on the concrete, crouched. On first sight: Sib’s crying. On second sight: scraped hands and knees. I kneel down next to her, I caress her palms, I kiss them, said Lea.
I’m lying on the street and I know what’s happened. I’m crying, because of that. I’m crying because I know and the others don’t. As they kneel next to me and don’t know anything, said Sib.
I’ve also kneeled down but I wish for them both to get up. I want them to get up and Lea to kiss Sib’s palms, standing upright. I want them to get up immediately and leave the street. Sib’s lying in the middle of the street. I’m thinking of an animal that’s been run over. A wounded animal. I’m wondering which animals die most frequently because of cars. I’m thinking, there must be statistics.
Characteristic for a mathematician, said Lea. You’re someone who says: I’ve weighed all instances; this one is impossible. You look for security in predictability. You do too, I said. After all, you’re with me.
Lea looked at me. I felt very strange.
Sib said: At first, I’m trying to convince myself of the following: Someone was in a garden looking at me, across the fence, across the rhododendron, straight into my eyes, and I did not avert my eyes; I turned my head to this somebody in the garden and looked back—even when I’d already rolled by. And then it happened. At first, I think that the fall is a result of a state of distraction.
I said: I didn’t see anybody.
Lea asked: Which garden do you mean?
Sib said: There was somebody, but that hasn’t got anything to do with my fall. I’m lying there, then, on the concrete. I rest my head on it; I feel the unevenness of the concrete on my cheek, on my ear—I listen. I listen inward. What I hear is cruel.
We fell silent. The silence felt unbearably long; I had to stop it, I had to say something. So, I said: I keep on thinking of an animal that’s been run over. Scratch the leftovers from the concrete. The next rainfall will wash the blood off. I’ve never seen an animal that’s been run over; one as tall as Sib.
Lea said: Sib’s scraped knee is bleeding, I assess. The sun colors the sky red. Man, you grab Sib like that by her arm—I look at you; are you crazy? Don’t be so rough, you said, what’s wrong with you, man. She should get up, I said.
Sib’s hanging in our hands; we hold her. She’s heavy with that additional weight of the oxygen bottle. We want to make her stand upright; plant her on the ground. One single time, we make the mistake: One of us lets go of her, and she collapses immediately. We don’t want to believe it.
I’m still lying on the ground and know I won’t be able to stand anymore, said Sib. I’m afraid to tell the others. I’m afraid of the situation itself.
Realization comes quickly, but it isn’t easy, said Lea. We’re at a loss. Sib hangs her arms around our shoulders and that’s how we carry her to the side of the street; sit down on the sidewalk. Sib’s eyes are closed and there are tears between her lashes.
The street lamps have been glowing for quite a while already—and we’re still sitting there. Later, we carry Sib back to the hotel together; we’re also carrying our skateboards. The doorman looks at us. For a moment it seems as if he’d do something—as if he’d open his mouth and move—but then we’re already past him. The hotel’s carpeted floor swallows all evidence of our existence. We could get lost in the dimly lit corridors of that hotel. Some moths are circling the lighting. We are tired.
I want to get into the bathtub, said Sib.
Sib wants to get into the bathtub; we’re putting her in it. I see Lea’s tense lips. I see the dark shadows beneath her eyes. I also want to cry like Sib earlier because we lowered her into the bathtub like into a grave. Sib has stopped crying. Nobody cries. Lea turns on the tap.
Thank you, said Sib. Thank you for backing me.
For the first time since we had begun talking, she looked in our direction, but she only did so briefly.
I said: We leave Sib in the bathroom.
At that point I know, said Lea, that we have to do something. She’s been wearing the oxygen mask for months; it hasn’t gotten better. When I look at it like this, I’d say, Sib’s condition is getting worse.
When we sat at the poolside like that and the sky was a different one than in the picture, because of its colors, I didn’t say that I had thought of it in that moment when Lea and I had sat down on the bed in the hotel room and it had flattened a bit—that I had thought of what it would be like having to carry Sib, from here to there, and that I would like to do it; that I would like to be there for her.
The bed was too soft for our circumstances and unusually elevated above the floor. On the first evening that we spent in the hotel, before calling it a day, I caught myself bending forward to have a look at whatever might be there under the bed; there was a dummy on the carpeted floor, but apart from that nothing suspicious. Maybe, it’s still lying there.
Lea was leaning against the bed’s frame. She had taken off her T-shirt—obviously mine. I was already sitting on the bed. I bent forward, put my fingers on the visible curve of her spine, she winced at it, only a bit, but I noticed it. I didn’t understand it. I took my fingers from her skin and she didn’t say anything about it; she didn’t even turn. The next day, I saw that she wished she hadn’t cringe at my touch.
We’ll buy a wheelchair tomorrow, said Lea.
Facing the lifeguard, she said: We’ll meet you again in this city—which is kind of small. It’s a coincidence. It didn’t have to be a coincidence since we’ve also got your number. We accept your offer. And that’s why we are here now.
The lifeguard said that one’s got to have quite some bad luck to break both legs at a fall from the skateboard. The lifeguard briefly rested his hand on Sib’s shoulder.
We sat there in silence. I looked into the empty pool. There wasn’t anything interesting in the pool.
The lifeguard asked: But where’s the plaster?
We remained silent.
As I thought that no one would say anything about it anymore, Sib said: I’ve been feeling my legs losing strength for days. I didn’t say anything. Sometimes, you don’t want to put some things into words because you’re afraid that they’d become real just through that. In the morning—when getting out of the bed—I thought I would collapse. After that I sat on the edge of the bed for an hour, my legs shaking, before I dared to get up again. Afterwards, everything was as it used to be. In the evening, I thought that everything might have been a bad dream.
But why didn’t you tell us anything about it, I asked. Sib avoided my eyes. Lea pinched my skin at my hips through the sweater; it hurt. I felt irritated.
That was the first time we actually talked about it, after all that!
The lifeguard shook his head and said that he didn’t understand much of what had happened—to Sib and generally—but that that was okay.
Lea pulled her one leg out of the pool, sat cross-legged, and because I was sitting between her and the others she looked at me first, and I felt as if I was sitting in her way; I felt that it couldn’t go on like this anymore, with the two of us. But she said and meant something entirely different. She would like to talk about it now—how it should go on, because it would go on.
