It was a shame that Gut Wedding had ended in failure. It had been her most impactful work so far, the inside-out concept had proved quite strong and the act of passing through a physical body was a powerful statement. The spectacle of her dedication and her suffering would have moved anyone, but without an audience, or the documentation Swan had promised, her efforts came to nothing. As she thought about this, she became more depressed. It was wrong for an artist to work in isolation. She should have brought someone, an assistant, to observe her. But how could she have done it? Hardly anyone respected her ideas, and among the few who pretended to be interested in her work, such harsh training would have been impossible. It was infuriating. Gut Wedding, in the end, was just a shout in the emptiness.
In spite of the anxieties she felt and her boredom, Ottala had regained her strength during the time she waited for Swan. Her physical pains had largely disappeared and she came out from her cozy hideaway more often to look around. The ocean had receded to the bottom of the sloping wall exposing a portion of the muddy seabed. There was almost no wind, but at night she could hear the water lapping against the mud-slathered debris that was everywhere. All of the surroundings were the color of mud. The mud that formed the shoreline had hardened enough that she could stroll around on top of it. The seawater was the color of mud and, in many spots, muddy bubbles erupted from its depths. Muddy shoals poked up here and there in the distance. The cement slab was coated in gray mud. She wound her way through mud-encrusted trash as she came back from the water’s edge. She climbed the slope for the fortieth or fiftieth time and, as always, went directly to where Swan lay sleeping.
His blanket, which was nearly colorless and without any sort of pattern, looked like a fuzzy mountain except for where his long bony foot protruded from one end. His foot was so white it appeared to glow, and beneath the deep shadows of the overpass, his toenails gleamed like the blank faces of a ghostly little family.
Ottala wondered what else she could do while she waited. It would be nice to have something to wrap herself in while she sat beside the sea. Once again, she leaped up to the edge of the suitcase and hopped down into the jumble of his possessions.
She ran her hands along the dented pencil. She blew out her cheeks at her distorted reflection in the spoon. Was there something small enough to carry to the shore, something clean to sit on? As she dug down through his tangled shirts and trousers she noticed a yellow sheen. It was something made of fabric, neatly folded, buried among his underpants. She had to burrow down to put a hand on it, then she pulled it out.
Even before she could dislodge it, she knew! Her golden blouse looked resplendent, even here in the shadows. Her impulse was to hug it to her body, but she resisted. Her skin was caked in muddy scum.
Why was it here?! Could Swan have puked it up? That must have been what happened. And then he cleaned it and folded it and brought it here for her. It was so incredible. And thoughtful. And her pants and her slippers were here as well! She had clothes again.
Ottala immediately placed them inside an empty bun wrapper and carried them down to the sea. Here was another phase of Gut Wedding that would never be witnessed: the act of washing the leathery filth from her body before she dressed in her beautiful costume. She lay her package down on the bank. When she finished bathing, she’d sit on the bun wrapper to dry off, then she’d dress. And how resplendent she’d look! These were the finest clothes she’d ever owned and it felt almost sacrilegious to wear them in such a gloomy place. The air here felt stagnant. In all the time she’d been here, she’d not seen nor felt the presence of a single ghost or spirit. The lack of spirit energy was a measure of its gloominess, and this thought made her anxious feelings well up again. Why did he never wake up…? Because he was in a coma. What other way was there to explain it? She’d lost count of the days, but it was definitely more than ten…. I need him to wake up! she thought, and then immediately she felt ashamed of her selfishness. Swan’s body must be starving. If he didn’t wake up soon, he’d surely die.
Can a person die without knowing it? He died in his sleep, people say. This made no sense to her. Are they saying a person dreams his death? And if that was so, was there really any difference between waking and dreaming…?
Regardless… he had to eat! Was it safe to push pieces of buns into a sleeping person’s mouth? Even in his coma, Swan’s eyes jittered endlessly. She had to wonder: was it normal for comatose people to dream?
Something had to be done. She’d already tried everything short of wounding him. What if she were to go down under the blanket with her syringe and stab him in the balls…? The thought of this strange mission made her laugh and instantly feel guilty again. It was true: she was a horrible, greedy, wilful girl!
Stabbing him on his penis would be a last resort. If she stabbed his eye, it could damage him, but what about his ear? She remembered how ticklish his ear had been the time she whispered her secret. If she pricked him around his ear hole it really might wake him up.
Leaving her golden costume on the sandbar, she ran back up the slope and, in one bound, leapt into the suitcase to fetch the syringe. Dragging it by the shaft, she rushed up the fuzzy mountain of his blanket and, from the pinnacle of his shoulder, she paused to look down at his face.
His wispy beard had spread all the way up to his pale, waxy cheekbones. How long had it been since she really looked at him? The corner of his gray lip had dried to a web of cracks. His face was utterly still.
In a panic, she dropped her syringe and jumped down to the bridge of his nose. It felt clammy beneath her feet and she hurriedly touched his cheek. It too was cold. She laid her palms on his eyelid. Cold…and still. The whole world felt suddenly still. She reached down with her foot and pushed her toes up into his nostril…. No warmth. And no breath.
Could he have died without her noticing? Without the slightest shudder? She leaned over the end of his nose and thrust her hand between his lips. His spit felt cold and viscous. As she waited for his breath to come, she thought, I’m supposed to be an artist! I should know what to do!
She did not know what to do. She slapped her palms against his face again. She slapped and beat against him as hard as she could.
“Wake up! Wake up, you stupid boy!”
Scrambling onto his neck, she pressed her naked body against it. Where was the carotid artery anyway? His stubbly skin felt clammy and thick. She couldn’t detect the faintest throb.
Squatting on the side of his nose, she roughly grabbed two handfuls of eyelashes and pulled them with all her might. The lid was glued closed with the crusty gunk of sleep, but finally she was able to pull it back. She could see her own frightened face reflected in the rheumy eye, widely dilated and still…. Swan was dead. He’d died hours before. There was nothing left for her to do.
Beyond the edge of the pier, the sky had turned a curdled gray. It looked like the bottom of a cauldron.
Ottala started to sob. She slid down his big face and fell in a heap at the edge of the blanket. She sobbed angrily. She kicked and screamed. “What now?! What now?! What else can go wrong now…?”
Ottala, the girl who was always so certain about everything, was lost and completely alone.
Tak Tak Tak, went the sound.
She pushed herself up on her arms. It sounded like a far away motor but it was impossible to tell which direction it came from.
She stood up, wiped her eyes with her palms and rushed back up to the top of his shoulder where she’d left the syringe. Crouching down now, she gripped it like a weapon and scanned the muddy ocean. She couldn’t see anything.
Tak Tak Tak.
Tak Tak Tak.
The sound was getting louder. She raced along his body, paused on the high point of his hip and ran back to his shoulder again. From behind the pillars, it slowly came into view. A boat!
It was coming towards her. Someone must be inspecting the trash that had piled up against the pillars. It was an antique-style motorboat, green, with a dark red stripe at the top edge of its hull and a white one just above the waterline. The person at the wheel was wearing a cap. He sat in an open cockpit at the front of the cabin roof. Ottala watched transfixed. There were other human beings in this desolate place after all.
As the boat came abreast of a floating bottle, her heart leapt. There could be no doubt! It was a boat of her own scale! Her people had come to rescue her! She cried out; a cry of joy, wordless, elated; waved her syringe like a flag as she bounded down the slope of Swan’s body. She scraped the soles of her feet as she half slid down the abutment. “Over here!” She jumped and waved at the edge of the water. The man who drove the boat, whose silhouette she didn’t recognize, turned his head, and two other figures emerged from the cabin and came to the rail to wave.
She’d never seen any of them before.
Tak Tak Tak. The boat moved steadily towards her, and she remembered she was naked.
“Oooola!” cried one of the men standing in the bow.
“Who is it!?” the man at the wheel called almost simultaneously.
Among these three, the captain—the man at the wheel in any case—was the eldest. His beard was so long, the trailing end was hidden behind the cockpit wall. The others looked younger, closer to Ottala’s age. They all wore caps made of the same lumpy stuff with blotches of color as if they’d been daubed with a brush. One was tall. His companion, the one who’d yelled, “Oooola,” had reddish brown side whiskers. He was squinting.
Ottala faced them in a paralysis of surprise. She made no attempt to hide her nudity, thinking that such a gesture would put her at a greater disadvantage. “I’m Ottala,” she finally yelled out. “I’m an artist from the Nature Preserve.”
“I knew she was an artist!” Sidewhiskers said.
“Or a mud puppet,” said the tall man.
Sidewhiskers laughed a hearty belly laugh that instantly calmed her, and she stepped into the water just as the captain gunned the engine and pulled the boat around. He’d noticed the body at the top of the concrete slope.
“Wait!” she cried. “It’s only Swan!”
The reality of Swan’s death, which had so quickly evaporated when the boat arrived, flooded back into her heart.
“He’s dead! He’s no danger—” She’d intended to yell these words but they came out in a cracked whisper. She tried to signal with her hands but that too was impossible. She began to cry again, and twisting her arms together, bent down so low that her matted hair touched the water. She wept uncontrollably and her tears streamed into the ocean. Her emotions were like insoluble chemicals that could not be merged. Her terrible sadness was in rebellion against her relief and elation. It was too much! She staggered a few steps toward the boat, not caring about her nakedness, her tears, or the posture of her filthy body that projected so much pain…. The water was up to her knees now. Then, remembering the plastic wrapper with her clothes, she turned and slogged back to retrieve it. She had not yet determined whether the bag was buoyant, but she heaved it into the sea anyway. It floated easily. Upon seeing this, she dived into the water and began to swim for the boat.
Ottala was an excellent swimmer. She was the best swimmer of her people. As she crawled towards them, she felt the water part around her and the muck of Swan’s body melt away. She swam without splashing, nearly silent. She imagined herself as an ancient animal—a dolphin who, after spending many generations on land with legs and arms and sadness, transforms itself back to a bright silver joyous being with flippers and a powerful tail. The captain had stopped the boat to let Ottala catch up to them. All three men watched her in amazement. She tread water beside the boat, waved and smiled, only to suddenly dive and swim beneath it. When she emerged on the opposite side, she shouted at the back of the captain’s head. He turned and laughed. Ottala felt a rush of warm pleasure. Her rescue had become a new chapter in her art.
As she tread water beside the boat, she recalled her nakedness.
“Please wait!” she cried before swimming to retrieve her bobbing package. As Ottala swam back to the boat she shoved it ahead of her.
When she came alongside a second time, the captain used a long hook to pluck her bundle from the water. The others rushed to grab Ottala’s outstretched hands and pull her, glowing, bursting with health and renewed confidence, into the green boat.
Noah was a fairy! It all makes sense now.