L.

Debard and Aliette

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L. Debard and Aliette

He is at first a distant wave, the wake-wedge of a loon as it surfaces. The day is cold and gray as a stone. In the mid-distance the swimmer splits into parts, smoothly angled arms and a matte-black head. Twenty feet from the dock he dips below the water; a moment later he comes up at the ladder, blowing like a whale. She sees him step onto the dock: the pronounced ribs heaving, the puckered nipples, the moustache limp with seawater. She feels herself flush, and, trembling, she smiles. ..... It is March 1918, and hundreds of dead jellyfish litter the beach. The newspapers this morning include a story, buried under the accounts of battles at the Western Front, about a mysterious illness striking down hale soldiers in Kansas. ..... The swimmer lifts his towel to gain time, wondering about the strange, expectant trio that watches him. The man in the clump is fat and bald, his chin deeply lined from mouth to jowl. His shave is close, his clothes expensive. A brunette stands beside him, the wind chucking her silk collar under her chin: the fat mans young wife, the swimmer thinks, mistakenly. Before them sits a girl in a wheelchair. The swimmers glance brushes over her, and veers away when he sees her wizened childs face, the diluted blond of her hair, her eyes sunken in the sickly white complexion. A nothing, he thinks. That he looks past her is not his fault. He doesnt know. And so, instead of the lightning strike and fluttering heart that should attend the moment of their meeting, all the swimmer feels is the cold whip of the wind, and the shame at his old suit, holey and stretched out, worn only on the dark days when he needs nostalgia and old glory to bring him to the water. ..... The swimmer is a famous man. He is an Olympian: gold medalist in the 1908 London Olympics in the 100-meter freestyle, anchor on the 4x200 relay. Triple gold in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics: 100-meter freestyle, 100-meter backstroke, anchor again on the 4x200. He was on the American Swim Associations champion water polo team from 1898 through 1911. He is, quite simply, the Worlds Best Swimmer.
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10/10/2013 10:56 AM

L. Debard and Aliette

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10/10/2013 10:56 AM