The Fisherman (23 page)

Somewhere in front of him, there’s an explosion of sound, sounds, a train of them slamming one into the other. A drawn-out yell collides with the thud of one body crashing into another, which smashes into Angelo’s weird speech, which breaks into random coughing. The tree stump Jacob’s fifty feet away from meeting bursts as if it had been projected onto a giant soap-bubble. With it goes the impression of falling, the departure so sudden that Jacob staggers forward a couple of steps. This brings him to where Andrea and Angelo are wrestling in the red dirt, carried off their feet by the force of Andrea’s charge. Angelo is on his back, Andrea half on top of him. Andrea’s left forearm presses across Angelo’s throat, his right arm raises his axe. Angelo’s right hand is under Andrea’s chin, forcing his head back, his left hand grips Andrea’s elbow, holding his axe at bay. Andrea’s eyes dart in Jacob’s direction. Through teeth clenched shut, he hisses, “Come on!”

For a second, Jacob does not understand what Andrea is saying to him. Then the weight of the axe in his hand clarifies it. He hurries to Andrea’s right, where more of Angelo’s body is exposed. Angelo’s gold eyes lock on Jacob standing there, both hands on his axe, and his lips draw back in a snarl. The water coating his face writhes. His legs kick, his hips buck, as he attempts to throw Andrea off. “Do it!” Andrea shouts.

Jacob wants to shout back that he’s trying, but Angelo is twisting around so much, he keeps putting Andrea in the way. The axe over his head, Jacob shifts right, left, right again. “For Christ’s sake!” Jacob bellows and, raising his foot, shoves Andrea out of the way. The move catches Angelo by surprise. He’s been straining so hard to force Andrea up, that his efforts carry him almost to a sit.
Now
, Jacob thinks.

As he does—it’s not so much that time slows down as it is that he’s aware of everything happening around him. Rainer and the Fisherman are in the midst of a fight, of a kind of duel. Each grasps his weapon in his right hand, and knife and axe clash in a rain of sparks. The weapons are followed by their left hands, each of which centers a sphere of Jacob can’t say exactly what, except that the Fisherman’s shines like mercury, while Rainer’s is dark as obsidian. When the spheres collide, the air around the men dims, and Jacob’s teeth ache.

Italo, in the meantime, has reached his final stroke. The edge of his axe is dull, notched, as if he’s done a year’s worth of work in the last five minutes. Like Jacob’s rope, Italo’s is hung with all manner of fishhooks, which jangle as the rope spins, clockwise and counter-, against the forces that strain it. Italo’s exhaustion is evident. His shirt is transparent with sweat. He sways from side to side as if drunk. Nonetheless, he musters the strength for one more heave of his axe. It cleaves the remaining strands of rope cleanly. A thunderclap knocks Italo off his feet, radiates outwards. The rope rears back like a wounded serpent, its rigid straightness released into loops and snarls. Hooks flaring, a length of the rope coils at Rainer. He’s already started to turn his head, probably in response to Italo’s axe slicing through the rope, so he sees the flashing hooks, the curving rope, and, with a speed Jacob would not have guessed he possessed, throws himself to the ground. One of the hooks catches the back of his shirt and as quickly rips free, following the rest of its fellows as the rope rolls above Rainer and into the Fisherman. Maybe he’s been too focused on his contest with Rainer—maybe that black globe surrounding Rainer’s left hand has affected his eyesight—either way, he doesn’t react in time. The rope slaps up and down him, burying a host of the smaller and several of the larger fishhooks in him.

This is Jacob’s moment. Pivoting his hips to give the blow its maximum force, he swings the axe down. In the quarter-second it takes for the blade to traverse the arc up, down, and into the base of Angelo’s neck, where it joins the shoulder, Jacob watches Angelo’s eyes darken from gold to brown, the water slide off his face.
STOP!
his brain screams, but it’s too late. Already, the blade has reached Angelo’s skin. It cuts deep, through the muscle and collar bone, down to the edge of his breastbone. Blood vents from severed arteries. With a cry, Jacob releases the axe and stumbles back. The handle of the axe protruding up like some awkward new limb, blood bubbling red onto his shirt, Angelo attempts to raise himself to his feet. All he manages is to bring his right arm around in front of him, to shift his legs underneath him. As soon as he has, he slumps over, supporting himself on his right arm. Blood pattering the soil, Angelo lurches into a half-crawl. Jacob can’t imagine where he could be headed. Nor is it likely Angelo has much idea. He manages to place one madly trembling hand forward before his arm gives out, dropping his face into the dirt that’s already damp with his blood. His mouth opens and closes, opens and closes, opens and remains open. Though he damns his cowardice, Jacob can’t bear to approach him. It’s left to Andrea to kneel beside their comrade and search his neck for the pulse both men know won’t be there. Italo staggers to their sides, but there isn’t anything he can do.

A scream jerks the men’s attention from the crimson pool spreading under Angelo. It’s the Fisherman. He’s struggling against the rope that has stitched itself to him, crossing from his right hip to his left shoulder like a sash. Behind him, the rope has drawn taut, and is pulling him toward the rocky shore, and the dark waves beyond. Although blood streams down his apron from dozens of spots where the fishhooks have pushed through it into him, the Fisherman fights mightily to stay where he is. Grabbing the rope at a spot high on his chest, sucking in his breath as the hooks stab his palm, the Fisherman raises his knife to ease the tip between his skin and the rope. The rope yanks him back a step. He licks his lips, his brow furrowed, as he concentrates on sliding the knife under the rope.

Which is when Rainer steps in close to him, his axe swinging up. It clangs on the blade of the knife, spinning it out of the Fisherman’s grasp. Rainer reverses his stroke, and sweeps the Fisherman’s legs out from under him. The man sits down hard. To his rear, the rope sags, then straightens, slamming the Fisherman onto his back and dragging him in the direction of the beach. His one hand still hooked to the rope, the Fisherman slaps the ground with the other, searching for purchase. His fingers dig into the soil, carve trenches in the dirt as he’s pulled across it. Blood spills and splashes from his apron. His breathing is loud, hoarse, a much larger sound than you would expect from so slight a man. Keeping a few steps behind, Rainer follows him as he’s towed from the dirt onto the stony beach. Rocks clatter and click as he drags over them. Frantic, he tries to dig his heels in among the rocks, but they’re scattered by the force drawing him on.

Maybe halfway down the beach, the Fisherman succeeds in wedging his left foot into a narrow fissure in a long table of a rock. He howls when the rope continues to pull at him, and the howl increases its volume as he pushes his way to his feet, crescendoing in a victory cry that’s interrupted by Rainer hammering the blunt end of his axe head on the Fisherman’s left knee. Bone cracks. Face blank with this new pain, the Fisherman pulls away from it, and in so doing, inclines in the very direction he’s only just succeeded in resisting. When the rope yanks him down, his foot remains caught in the stone that has switched from brace to vise. With the snap of a dried branch, his ankle breaks. For much too long, his foot is caught in the rock as the rest of him is dragged towards the water. Further bones, ligaments, crack, pop. A high, keening sound leaks from the Fisherman’s mouth, which is clamped shut. With his free hand, he pushes at his trapped leg; with his free leg, he kicks at it. At last, his heel slides loose and he’s pulled off the long rock.

This is it. There’s nothing of any size to prevent the Fisherman being drawn the rest of the way to the black ocean. He appears to know this, which is not to say that he accepts it. In his antique German, he lets fly a volley of curses at Rainer. “Go fuck your mother,” Rainer says. The next volley of curses expands its targets to include Jacob, his companions, and their families. “Go fuck your father,” Rainer says. What Jacob assumes is a further round of invective is delivered in a language he thinks is Hungarian. “Go fuck yourself,” Rainer says.

Whatever the Fisherman is about to say next is interrupted by the furthest edge of a wave surging over his face and chest. Coughing, he shouts in German, “I turn my body from the sun! I turn my mind from the sun! I turn my spirit from the sun!” Another wave rolls over him. Rainer has halted his march just beyond the water’s reach. When the wave has subsided from the Fisherman, he raises his head to look at Rainer. “From hell’s heart,” he shouts, “I stab at thee! For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee!” Rainer doesn’t answer. The next wave that falls on the Fisherman is larger; it buoys him up, momentarily, delivering him to the following wave, and the wave after that. Jacob thinks that maybe the dark ocean has hold of him, now, but the water retreats, depositing the Fisherman on sand studded with rocks. He’s pale to the point of white, as if the water has washed all the blood that was left out of him. Tilting his head to the sea, to the vast coil waiting for him, he shouts, “To thee I come, all-destroyer! To the last I grapple with thee! Let me then tow to pieces, tied to thee!”

A wall of water crashes down on him. Jacob loses sight of him in the resulting foam, and doesn’t regain it until the Fisherman has been carried a dozen yards from shore. Amidst the rioting waves, it’s difficult to distinguish much with any certainty, but Jacob could swear he sees the Fisherman grasped by a multitude of silvery arms; it’s impossible for him to say if they’re holding the man up, or dragging him under. Then he’s gone, taken by the water.

XXIII

Rainer doesn’t waste any time marking his passing. While Jacob and the others are still squinting at the ocean, Rainer turns and starts up the beach. On the way, he stoops to retrieve the Fisherman’s knife. As he comes closer, Jacob’s eyes are drawn to his face. The white light that’s been focused on his features has brightened to the point they’re almost impossible to discern. He stops next to Angelo’s corpse, and crouches beside it. Jacob—it isn’t so much that he’s forgotten about Angelo, slumped over in a pool of his own blood, as it is that his attention has been commanded by the spectacle of the Fisherman’s undoing. Now that he’s met whatever fate was awaiting him in the ocean, his hold on Jacob has ceased, leaving him to face the man he’s killed.

Not murdered, mind you, but killed, though he doubts Angelo would appreciate such niceties. All at once, the contents of Jacob’s stomach are boiling at the back of his throat. He bends over and empties them onto the ground in one long spasm that sends tears streaming from his eyes, snot spilling from his nose.
Angelo
, he thinks,
I killed Angelo
. The words don’t have any of the weight you would expect from so momentous a declaration. They seem impossible, more fantastic than this place in which they’re standing, the beast rising out of the waves. All the same, when he straightens, neither of his surviving companions is near him. Italo and Andrea have withdrawn, to allow Rainer to assess the scene and deliver whatever verdict on it he deems fit. Jacob is weak, feverish the way you are after you’ve vomited. Though some sense of decorum suggests he should keep his gaze fixed straight ahead, he can’t help himself. He stares at Rainer staring down at Angelo. The expression on his bright face is impossible to distinguish, let alone read. The Fisherman’s knife dangles from Rainer’s left hand. Up close, it’s enormous, more a short sword than a knife. The blade is broad, curved, so sharp Jacob doubts you’d feel it cutting your throat. He knows he should be wracked with guilt over Angelo, should be on his knees weeping for mercy, but the only emotion he can manage is fear of a particularly paralyzing nature. When Rainer sighs and looks up at him, all Jacob can think is that he can’t believe he’s going to die for an act he can’t believe he committed. He’ll lie here beside Angelo, and no one will ever know what became of either of them. Rainer shakes his head, and dips first the knife, then his axe, into Angelo’s blood. He nods at Jacob’s axe, angling out of Angelo. “Take it,” he says.

Jacob doesn’t question him. He bends over, takes hold of the axe handle tacky with Angelo’s blood, and pulls up. Angelo’s body starts to rise with it until, with a wet noise, the axe slides free. The corpse falls face-first into its puddled blood.

Waving the bloody knife, Rainer calls Italo and Andrea over. He points at Angelo’s blood. “Dip your axes in it,” he says. The men exchange glances, but follow Rainer’s command.

So it’s to be the three of them
, Jacob thinks. He supposes it makes sense. If all three men cut him down, then it’s less likely any one of them will reveal his fate.

Rainer stands, holding the knife out. He opens his mouth to speak, and so prepared is Jacob for him to pronounce his doom that that’s what he hears, Rainer saying, “Jacob Schmidt, for the death of this man, your life is required of you.” Jacob closes his eyes, hoping that, when his companions strike, they’ll be quick and accurate. He hopes that Rainer won’t tell Lottie the truth about what happened to him; he wishes he’d requested that of the man. For a dozen rapid heartbeats, Jacob waits in his self-imposed darkness. When he can bear it no longer, he forces his eyes open, fully expecting to be greeted by the edge of an axe speeding into his face. Instead, Rainer is looking at him quizzically, while Italo and Andrea are watching Rainer. “The blood of the innocent,” Rainer says, “has power. It will help us to finish our work.” He’s talking about the ropes, Jacob realizes. That was what Rainer said to them: “We have to cut the rest of the ropes.”