I cannot leave the lower decks anymore so I cannot ask Gaspazha, She will think that I have disobeyed her order. I cannot appeal to her and she will think I should be sold anyway.
I fall on my knees and start to weep, right in front of Yuri.
"All right, all right," he tuts, without much sympathy. "I'll check. Just stop that blubbering ...... Now come here."
He takes the collar in his hand and leads me towards the stairs up to the upper deck - and the collar bites us both, hard.
"Blya!" he gasps pulling his hand away. I squeal and rush back down the stairs as fast as I can.
"Just you stay there, Vyerka. I'll check," he calls to me, still shaking his hand as if somehow that would ease the shock.
Presently he returns. "Go to your cabin and wait!"
So it's true? They are getting rid of me? I slink away. Well, I am just a slave and slaves are property and property gets sold. It's been nice here. Now I will have to do my best somewhere else. But inside I feel horrible, dirty, discarded. I sit on my bed, my feet pulled up to my chest -- and wait.
Yuri appears at the door: "Your collar is well fucked, just like all you little slaves should be!" He gives a throaty laugh at his own joke. "I checked the computer programme and the electronic boundary and that is all OK so it must be the collar. Gaspadeen and Gaspazha have told me you have to have it taken off. I would be careful if I were you, though ...."
.
Careful? Why would I need to be careful? What does he think I am going to do? He unlocks the collar, touching it gingerly at first, not anxious to be shocked again. Gratitude wells up inside me. It's the collar! It's just the collar! I am not being restricted. I am not being sold! I rush off to resume my duties, full of relief and gratitude!
The meal is ready. I have been sent to clean myself up and get changed -- a dress and flat sandals. I have even been given some perfume. Perfume!
I do my very best to look my very best. Actually, without hair, that's much easier! THE MERMAID
I begin to serve the meal as the crew casts off from Strandvägen, where the boat has been moored and we begin our journey home. The yacht turns lazily round and carefully moves east and then south to pass Galäparken and the Vasamuseet. The route will then take us between the islands of Skeppsholmen and Kastellholmen on our starboard side and on the eastern, port side, the islands of Djugården and Beckholmen and then onwards, returning into the Baltic
It is 9 pm. The sun is sinking low in the sky, setting over Skeppsholmen but the eastern side of the harbour is starkly illuminated, like the stage set of a film or a play. We have just begun to pass Galäparken. I am bringing drinks on a tray into the dining room when, across the water, I see them.
A chill runs through my whole body as though I have seen a ghost. I can see them sitting on the quay, perhaps only two a hundred metres away a little ahead of the boat. I have worked hard to forget them but now there they are, all three of them, gazing out over the harbour at the end of the day.
I'm feeling numb. It's so unexpected. I retreat into the world which is now familiar to me. I press on with what I've been told to do, enter the dining room, distribute the new glasses and collect the old. Sveta's eye catches mine. It holds me, interrogating me. I say nothing. As I leave the room, I sense her rise and follow me.
Sveta seems to sense immediately that there is something wrong. She calls me.
"Vyerochka!"
"Da, Gaspazha?"
"Stop! What is it?"
I try to look at her, but my eyes keep being drawn to the three figures, seated quietly on the quay. She looks steadily at me and I look back at her, through tears. I look again over to the quay and back to Sveta.
She stands there, saying nothing as I stand there weeping. It is as though time has slowed down. Sveta seems absorbed in her own thoughts, as though some moment, that she has waited for has finally arrived.
"Vyerochka, do you ever feel the need to give thanks?"
It's an astonishing question after all she and her husband have put me through but sometimes there are good days and I can be thankful.
"Yes, Gazpazha, sometimes. Yes."
"I'm sorry. It's foolish of me to ask," she's confiding in me for some reason I don't understand. The way she is speaking makes it seem as though there is some strong current running beneath her surface. "Giving thanks can be so difficult. Not just being grateful but giving thanks. I do. It's true. I really am grateful for all my good fortune; a career, a successful marriage, material prosperity, a measure of celebrity, a lovely daughter and now my small, pink, wiggly, charming, grandson. I'm glad to be able to share him. I know he is Alana's child but he really feels a bit like mine. Anatoly has given me Alana and Alana has given me Dmitry. But what can I give?"
I've never known her to speak like this. It's as though somehow I have triggered some strange unburdening of feelings that have deep and painful roots. But as for me, I'm still peering out across the water barely aware of what she is saying. She may have her grief but mine is almost unbearable.
She looks towards the quay. She knows what it is that I can see.
"Well?" Sveta says.
I can't let myself think anything other than we will never meet. "He will have someone new, he will not want me now ....." I speak through a veil of tears, slowly shaking my head.
"And your parents?" Sveta asks. Why is she putting me through this? She must know that I can't go back. That she and Gaspadeen Anatoly could never let me go back.
I turn to look out again, over the waters of the harbour, at the three people, sitting waiting, now one hundred and fifty metres away.
"He has no one else. He still searches for you. I know, I have watched him."
I cannot understand where this conversation is leading. Why is she telling me this? To taunt me? I know that I have to reply truthfully, the inescapable consequence of my name.
"I have had to work so hard to give them up. It was so painful. All the pain is back here inside me now."
"Here," suddenly Sveta grasps the tray. "Now listen to me, listen to me! Are you a slave?"
"Yes."
"Are slaves obedient?"
"Yes"
"Will you follow the instructions of your Mistress?"
"Yes. Of course, Gaspazha."
"Then here are my instructions. Go! Go now! This is your Jubilee, your time for rejoicing. I am giving you back to Joseph."
I stand transfixed; barely able to believe what she is saying. She takes my arm and pulls me to the ship's rail, pushing me to climb up onto the slippery polished metal.
The yacht is beginning to gather speed. I stand there, perched, one leg either side of the rail, held fast by indecision, scared to leave the ship, scared to leave this world, like a bird which has alighted on a ship in mid ocean. What can I do? What should I do?
As I stand on the slippery rail of my owner's yacht, my owner's wife is telling me to escape. To leave them. To turn my back on everything I have done in order to be their slave. I have learned to be obedient but now I want to disobey. To stay. To be the person they have made me. To live in a world where all I need to be is obedient. To do just exactly as I am told.
But now she is sending me away. I am so afraid. She wants me to leave? Am I really going back? Am I really to go home?
I have to follow her instructions. I have been taught so thoroughly, trained so carefully, always to follow instructions of my superiors. I am standing unsteadily on the rail. Gaspazha holds my hand to steady me. Suddenly there is no hand and she plants a terrific slap on my bum.
It's a signal to my body to do what my mind cannot decide on. By reflex my thighs contract driving me outwards and clear of the boat. For a few moments I am air-borne until I hit the cold harbour waters and disappear beneath with the same chilling shock that I felt when I first stepped outside of the dacha. I hear the roaring of the water in my ears as I disappear beneath the surface and then the vibration of the Yacht's engines growing dimmer and dimmer with each second. The water is cold around me. I arch up to the surface and in an instant my head is in the warm summer air.
As I break water, I hear Sveta's voice, metallic, distorted by a loud hailer. "Mr McEwan! Mr and Mrs Palmer! One moment, please!" she is calling as you might call to someone that has forgotten something. "Mr McEwan! Mr and Mrs Palmer! One moment please!" Sveta's voice carries clear over the water. Other couples and passers-by turn towards it. I see my father look sharply up; then Joe. They are looking out over the water, trying to make sense of why they should be called. I turn one last time, to see Sveta waving and pointing to me in the water. I know now I must try to reach them. I wave and one of them turns towards me, to Vyera or to Jennifer - swimming towards them in the water
As I reach the shallows, I struggle out and clamber onto the quay. I stand before them. They look at me. Astonished. Uncomprehending. Still not understanding what is happening. Not knowing who it is, who stands before them.
I have spent so long aware of the ways in which I am changing that it is almost no surprise to me that I am unrecognizable to my closest family and to my husband. I glance from face to face to face. They look back at me with puzzled stares, my dark skin, a muscular hairless body, naked beneath a borrowed dress, seeming like some alien creature.
I turn to the man I have tried ever-so-hard to cherish in my most secret place, the man that in spite of everything I could not make myself forget. I say, "It is me Joe. I am sorry I have been so long. I can go back if you do not want me anymore?"
A part of me almost hopes that he will give his permission. ON THE WATERFRONT
Andrew, Joe and Inga are sitting on the quay, after walking from the restaurant back towards the city. It has been a perfect end to a lovely day except that the days are always stained, stained by the fact that Jenny is no longer with them.
It is not just her absence, it is not knowing what has become of her, whether she is alive somewhere and might come back one day, or whether she has died and is no more.
Each of them feels it differently, each at different times, but all of them feel it. If only they knew, then they could rest, they think. A few months ago, they thought of her every day. Now, they do not think of her so often. She is always close to them, the memory of her is always nearby, but they each notice that the mundane business of 'every day' is pushing her memory aside now, much more than ever it used to.
So they sit. Inga is snuggled close to Andrew watching the world go by and wondering if it might be time to go back to the summer house. A slight chill is in the air, now and the sun is low in the sky. The buildings across the harbour are dark, in shadow because of the brightness of the setting sun. The boats are also dark shapes. Gliding smoothly into births or out of port. Inga is aware of a large yacht moving in front of them on the far side of the channel but she doesn't pay much attention, only recognising that it is passing by, interrupting her thoughts ....
Andrew is thinking about Jennifer's disappearance; asking himself whether she has just left her parents and Joseph for something else. He can't believe it of her. He thinks of the last sighting that is known of her; the report by the old lady of the bare headed girl speaking to another woman. For Andrew that must have been Jennifer, speaking to the person who precipitated her disappearance, or abduction -- or murder. Hardly a day goes by, in which he does not think of her and the pain inside is always the same. Just as real. When he was in the army, death was a constant companion. Now, he repeats again to himself the poem he used to say in his mind when colleagues went out on patrol, never to return:
"Death is nothing at all. I have just slipped away into the next room. Whatever we once were to one another, we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name and speak to me in the easy way you always used. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, somewhere very near ... " (7)
Except that death, in time, brings closure. Disappearance leaves an open, raw, bleeding wound.
On this summer's evening, in the city where he met and fell in love with Inga, he feels these uncomfortable anxious thoughts creep up on him. He sighs. He knows that they had come to say goodbye; to say 'goodbye' to Jennifer. He and Inga brought Joseph so that he would know that they knew he had to move on with his life, too. He wanted them all to leave a good memory of her here, of family holidays, good fellowship with relatives, of a lively little girl growing up towards adult hood, of a loving wife.
Joe was very uncertain about coming on holiday with Andrew and Inga. When he is with Inga and Andrew the loss of Jenny is brought much closer, biting into him more deeply than it does normally and he knew, just knew the moment Inga 'phoned and made the suggestion, he knew that they were all going to Stockholm to say goodbye to Jenny. He knew Inga and Andrew were telling him that if he felt it was time to move on with his life, then they understood and it was OK for him to do the best he could.
Joe is wrestling with a tangled knot of emotions. He wants Jenny back. He doesn't want to say a final good bye but he knows he can't go on as he is. He is infatuated with Gwenda or maybe something more. The time they spent together earlier in the summer still makes his mouth water every time he thinks about it. And yet Gwenda had told him he should come here to Stockholm. And she said she would be in Stockholm too; a sort of analgesic to look forward to if his feelings became too raw, as the days went on. And maybe, Joe thinks, maybe it is neutral ground for me to introduce Inga and Andrew to Gwenda?
So Inga, Andrew and Joe sit on a bench on the Djugården Quay, watching the world go by on a warm summer's evening, enjoying the after effects of a good dinner, and sitting quietly with their own thoughts.
Each of them knows what their thoughts probably are. About Jenny. Jenny as a child. Jenny as a teenager here in Stockholm enjoying holidays with Inga's relatives. Jenny as a university student doing holiday jobs here. Jenny and Joe as a young married couple. And then no Jenny at all. Just an empty void where she once was. But not quite a void. It's a blank space which gnaws and aches and nags them, demanding their attention.
But for Joe, there's an almost sacrilegious moment that comes crowding in as he stares down at his feet. In that moment, as he drops his head, his thoughts have shifted and he is on his knees. He is naked. He is rubbing his lips over Gwenda's bare feet, exploring the spaces between her toes with his tongue, enjoying the warm leathery smell of them. He is plotting his journey to her ankles, up her calves, between her thighs and into her 'gina. To rub his lips over her other lips. To enjoy the heady scent of a woman becoming aroused. A woman starting to get wet. A woman in heat. A woman who wants ...
Suddenly there is a voice: hard, brittle, and metallic, coming from somewhere across the water. "Mr McEwan. Mr and Mrs Palmer. One moment please!"
The three of them respond, slowly at first, not really realizing that they have heard their own names. And then, their own thoughts are rudely pushed aside by the call.
"Mr McEwan. Mr and Mrs Palmer. One moment please!"
The voice seems to come from everywhere and nowhere, echoing across the water. As they look up, a large yacht is disappearing off to their left, and there seems to be a woman on the deck waving, but surely not waving at them?
At first only Joe can sees the swimmer. Has the boat just missed running them down? Is the woman on the boat asking them to look after whoever it is in the water, to see that the swimmer is all right? You can swim in Stockholm Harbour but not usually in this part.
And about the person in the water: have they come from the boat itself? Why should they do that? The boat can only just have cast off, because it is making for the deep water channel out into the Baltic.
In his curiosity about the person in the water, Joe doesn't ask himself how the woman on the boat knows who they are and overlooks the fact that none of them knows anyone with a boat like that.
Andrew, Joe and Inga are all equally puzzled by this bizarre turn of events. Andrew says to Joe, "Clients of yours? You could do with some more who can afford a yacht like that."
And Inga adds, "maybe someone we know must have come into money?"
Joe points out the person swimming towards them. "But look, there is someone in the water"
Completely disconcerted, Joe and the Palmers wait for the swimmer to reach the shore. Other bystanders watch as well, intrigued by what is going on.
The swimmer has had to cover at least one hundred and fifty metres and it takes them several minutes before they reach the shore and rise up out of the water.
Out climbs what looks like a young shaven headed muscular boy except that the boy is wearing a black dress. As the water streams off him, the dress clings to his skin and its quite clear that he is naked underneath and also that he is not a boy at all, but a girl.
For a moment Joe's face breaks into a broad smile. Gwenda! He's sure it's Gwenda! What on earth is the girl playing at? It's not how he would have introduced her to Inga and Andrew and what, for goodness sake, is she doing jumping overboard from a yacht and why was she on the yacht in the first place?
The three of them, Inga, Andrew and Joe, stare at this apparition from the sea as this strange, brown skinned girl looks up at them and says, "It's me Joe. They said I could come back. Do you still want me?"
In that instant, Inga and Andrew know that it is Jenny. All the incomprehension vanishes. They know it is Jenny! Inga knows that it's Jenny because of the way she moves her head as she looks up. She has always moved her head like that, since she was ever-so-tiny. Inga's little girl! It is her! She has come back! And for the moment that feeling crowds out any other questions - 'What has happened to her?', 'How is it that she is suddenly here?' - None of that matters.
Andrew knows that it's Jenny too, though his own first reaction is to ask himself what the hell the girl has been playing at? Has she been in Stockholm all the time? And if she has, why didn't she turn up at the summer house instead of emerging from the water like some sort of Labrador retriever, coming back with a stick? And then his eyes are full of tears, his throat closed up. He glances away, to blink the stinging tears out of his eyes. There is so much he wants to say, but he cannot say anything. He just stands and gazes and slowly shakes his head and smiles, sighs and cries. His little girl is back. Back after, oh, so long. Back as inexplicably as she left. She vanished into thin air and she has returned just as suddenly, but this time from the cold dark waters of Stockholm harbour.
Inga turns to Joe. He is just gazing blankly at the strange apparition, just as lost and unsure and astonished as Inga was. And then she - Jenny - stretches her arms out to him.
And then it dawns on Joe, he is looking ... at Jenny. His disappeared wife, restored as a mermaid from the sea. It's her: it is Jenny! Oh my God, it's Jenny!
He stands there as if frozen in stone. The two of them look at each other. She says "It really is me Joe. I am so sorry I have been so long."
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