Little Swimmers or Kleine Schwimmer  by SJ Butler

The stillness of a dimly lit swimming pool. Rays of light pouring down from the garland wrapped windows above like searchlights seeking out shipwrecked sailors. The 1930s decor of women triumphantly holding blazing torches reminds her of the Nazis. Briefly gazing up at their determined faces she wonders if they ever had doubts – the stupid Nazis that is. A whiff of chlorine makes her eyes stream. She wipes them childlike with milk-white forearms.

A ripple on the surface; a swirling current from the bottom – an air filter coming to life, setting off a flurry of bubbles, she sits on the calmest edge of the world. A community swimming pool at five in morning; the mystery of it all draped around her shoulders like a shroud. If you were in New York it would be the previous night and 11 pm, she muses – and there she’d be at an after party sipping Martini, chin-wagging with high society. But that was then – not now.

Regrets?

Some.

You had a choice – others didn’t.

Stop!

The game of ping pong in her head is the same. Her tormentor ever present. She sees them as a charmless man with dirty finger nails.

Rose ties the 4lb weight to her toe, compulsively checking that it won’t come loose. One final glance at the clock on the wall she slithers down into water and grips the handrail. At 5.05 she lets go.

Closing her eyes, she straightens, descends, quickly at first then slows to a dignified drop –  a queen in a burial dress, reverently wrapped and parceled for the underworld she drifts down.

‘Sing for us Fraulein.’ The young carefree woman sings – standing silhouetted on a cleared, beer stained table, arms outstretched ‘Lili Marlene,’ pours from a dark distant part of her soul. The crowd cheers, applauds, but she doesn’t hear them. Expressionless, her steady gaze skims their heads and settles on the flakes falling outside – the window like a snow globe gently shaken.

The landing of the weight on the bottom is slight and graceful – a soft thud – a dropped dead bird falling out of the sky. Shackled to the spot her toe gently tugs on the strap, gravity willing her to return to the surface. There’s no struggle. Suspended on one leg in a silent place she spins effortlessly – a ballerina to the deep.

‘Rose – take it,’ insists her father. She can’t look. ‘Please, for us.’

Opening her eyes to the blue blur of the deep, a mosaic sea horse dances on the side of the pool. She’s seen it many times before, but never the smile – something she’d missed. Reaching out Rose traces the contours of the mouth and thinks of her beautiful mother and the reassuring look she’d left her – the memory hiding behind the fear and sadness she really felt.

‘One more song, Fraulein.’

Deep in the depths of the community pool, she hears her own voice – solo at first and then dramatically drowned out by the echoing revelry of a bacchanalian beer hall.

Above, life is stirring. The crackle of a speaker. Music becoming audible, slowly at first, and then echoing in noisy, scratchy, mono. Stretching out her right leg she clutches her toe, raises her free arm towards the light seeping from on high. Bobbing on her bound leg she manages a Pirouette.

The ticket for America – a trip her parents couldn’t take – the solitary journey to freedom, a scrap of sad paper. With each spin the sacrifice bears heavy, threatening, goading and suggesting the worse.

‘Save yourself, Rose.’ Her father’s last words – quivery and flat.

Bubbles slowly escaping; temples clamped tight; dizzy; limbs ready, but unsure of the fight – she reaches out for her mother.

Pressure; ears popping – silence – pure nothingness – a fragile line, taught on a reel ready to snap; reality dull – slowly fading, fading fast.

Could she? Would it be a selfish act?

The sea horse raises its noble head, bows, then seesaws away – tall and proud, a fanfare of bubbles paving its way. The smile remains.

Is it enough?

Shadows streaking the sides of the pool, muffled voices – people arriving. It’s time…

Rose reaches down and releases the weight from her toe and floats majestically to the surface.

The brightness of the new morning – a cool stream of fresh air pushed through by a left ajar door. Life oozing – light fills every corner of the building where shadows now fear to hide. A risen sun floods the floor sending colour spilling across the ceramic tiles in a palette of fuzzy blues, yellows, greens and gold.

Choruses of “good morning!’ greet her.

‘Always a stickler for training.’

‘The early bird rises.’

Taking off her swimming cap and nose clip, Rose rests her chin on the handrail as she catches her breath. The rest of the synchronized swimming troupe are slowly entering the water, pulling on matching purple caps. Many have yet to regain their original shapes and remain thin, but healthy. Most are survivors – their identification numbers faded, but still visible on the outer side of their left forearms. The lucky ones like Rose, untarnished, but scarred by the guilt that they’d escaped – as a voice constantly reminds: ‘why them and not you?’

A nineteen-thirties dance tune begins. The sounds of a happy, yet perilous time – a grim black and white newsreel; a colourful Hollywood bonanza collide – the windmills of the mind in time with the orchestra. The women chatter, laugh, some splash each other – their frolicking youth now within them, returned with girlish abandon.

Forming a circle hand to ankle like a daisy chain they twirl left then right, slow, slow, quick, quick, slow. The tears and hope in their eyes are always there, a dream come true: that they would one day return to where they all began – nobody can trample their beauty nor stamp on the dance.

‘Sing, Rose, sing!’ shouts a tiny slip of a girl with freckles and the wildest of smiles.

As always she obliges. It’s a different song and a story of better times to come. Their grips suddenly become firmer – she sings – they join in –  all holding onto what they have always had.

‘La Vie en Rose.’ (Life in Pink)

S J Butler

Image: view under blue water lit from above. From Pixabay.com