Jumping Into Water From a Great Height (Pt. 3)

The third and final instalment, in which a great historical personage appears and a sibling rivalry is stoked.

Eve grabs my hand and leads me down the hallway. I smile a farewell at my friends. Pierre and Nicole both look annoyed. They had counted on me to bring balance to the argument. I notice Corey hang her head slightly.

'There is something I want to show you!' Eve insists again, as we walk through the house. Her grip on my hand is firm and purposeful and incredibly exciting.

We go out into the backyard, which is deserted apart from a few couples making out in the shadows. She leads me to a tall, freestanding shrub near the back fence. The shrub is about the height of a large person and stands in heavy shadow.

'Oh, let me turn the lights on!' Eve exclaims. 'Wait right here.'

'Sure thing.' I reply. She must have known I wasn't going anywhere.

Eve bounds back to the house and a few moments later the yard bursts into illumination via dozens of small lightbulbs that are suspended on wires like plastic birds. She bounds back, her eyes shining, her creamy mane whipping around her face.

'Do you dig it?' She asks.

At first, I'm not sure what I'm looking at. As my eyes adjust, I realize that the hedge has been crudely pruned into the form of a man. The man is stepping forward, and seems to be wearing a folksy worker's cap and a large trench coat.

'It's...a man?' I say, tentatively.

'Not just any man. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!' Eve exclaims, as if it were totally obvious.

'Lenin? Leader of the Bolsheviks?' I ask.

'Yes, can't you see it?' She frowns and sticks out her lower lip dramatically.

'Oh yes. I can see it now!' I say. Indeed, I see now how it could potentially be Lenin, but only in the way that any obscure figure could potentially be anybody.

'Guess what?' Eve asks.

'What?'

'I did it with a chainsaw.' She raises one eyebrow and nods fervently.

'A chainsaw?'

'Uhuh.' Eve continues to nod, as if to say, 'yes yes, I still can't believe it myself'. Under the now bright light I notice for the first time an unnatural tension in her jaw.

'What did the neighbors think?' I ask. I feel like a square for reducing her work of art to the social context of its production, but I am at a loss for words otherwise.

'They are out of town.' Eve shrugs. 'Well, you like it?'

'Very impressive!' I say, nodding in a deep frequency.

At this point it should be mentioned that Eve Dawson, despite the fact that her parents had made a fortune in gold-mining stocks and were amateur art-collectors, was an avowed communist. A hardcore, hammer and sickle on the jacket sleeve sort of communist. She is the person who brings the Soviet flag to a climate march, or international women's day, or just about any protest whatsoever that could be construed as remotely left-wing. She is that person. She loves a protest like other people love going to the mall or to the bar. Somehow, the discordancy between her views and her parents' wealthy lifestyle does not seem to affect her in any significant way. She feels no need to cut herself off from her parents, or to hide their wealth from her left-wing friends. She does not see her parents money as something to be ashamed of. Some, including a few dear friends of mine, view this as hypocrisy of the highest order. I, however, view this attitude as heroic, a triumph of intergenerational poise. Instead of shuddering away from it on ideological grounds, she views her familial wealth as an open palm, from which, as a dove, she can fly forth and, at long last, unite the proletariat. I love her for it, I do. Her sculpting skills on the other hand...

'You don't like it.' Eve says, her eyes narrowing.

'No, no yes I do!' I am scrambling. The chemical factions in my body, specifically the loins and cerebral cortex, are engaged in a sort of guerilla warfare.

'No, you don't.' The delicate shelf of her brow dips and her gorgeous lower lip juts out in a pout. I feel a curtain closing, the horizon darkening.

'No, I assure you I find it very impressive.' I insist, with real vigour. I realize that I am going to need to offer a substantial comment to prove my point.

'He is so... dignified.' I say. 'Sturdy as an oak. You can really feel that he was a revolutionary. He is full of dignity and purpose. You know, it gives me this strangely intense desire to redistribute wealth, perhaps even execute some members of the royal family.'

As I speak, I notice her lighting up, so I continue. 'It's really so very impressive, Eve. Especially with a... chainsaw. Such adverse means of production.'

'Thank you.' Her frown has flown up into a bright smile once again. 'Thank you for saying that.'

I nod and say that I am only calling it like I see it. She smiles back at me, but there seems to be such a tension in her jaw now that it is almost painful to look at.

I suddenly become aware of a loud weeping coming from further back in the yard.

"Do you hear that?' I ask. Eve cocks her head.

'Yes. Weird.' She says.

I walk a few paces into the yard behind us and Eve follows me. I locate the sound to be coming from behind a large bush at the very back. The bush is cedar, just like the one Eve had mutilated.

I pull back the bottom branches and, lo and behold, there is Maya, curled in a ball, her hands around her knees.

"Maya!" She looks up with the slowness of somebody whose rational faculties are under great strain. 'Maya, are you ok?"

I bend down to kneel beside her on the mulch. Her hair and clothes are wet and long black streaks of makeup run from under her eyes. I touch her arm and feel that it is very cold.

'No.' She chokes. Her black eyes are reflective like puddles.

'What happened?' I ask.

She shrugs and puts her head in her lap to hide her face.

'Maya?' I prod, my voice the equivalent of a tentative finger.

'It's... Evelyn!' She blurts out. 'She's off flirting with one of those new young girls and she doesn't give a shit about me.'

'Oh no. I'm sure she was just being friendly.' I say reassuringly.

'Yeah, I'm sure hanging off of somebody like a Christmas ornament is just being friendly.' She scoffs. Another deep shudder runs through her body.

'Well, some people are just very touchy.' I reply.

'Well even then, even if she was just being friendly as you suggest, the world is still ending.' She shudders again as she says the word ending and her energy seems to fold in on itself.

'Oh come come, Maya. That is not why we go to parties. Save that thinking for home.' I say. I feel myself becoming angry. I get frustrated when people bring up THE END in situations that are supposed to be fun and exciting. It made it impossible to enjoy the time that was left.

'We still have 135 years.' I say. 'That's four generations at least. You will be well dead by the time it all goes boom.' I say. I look over at Eve. She looks mildly concerned but mostly impatient. She continues to grind her jaw with an admirable degree of dedication.

'Thanks, Henry. Very helpful.' Maya replies viciously. 'That's so self-centred of you to think that way. And also, for your information, with my diet and attention to health I quite clearly am going to live until at least 150 years old. I am going to see THE END. I can feel it in my bones.'

'Is that so?' I ask, piqued. I can feel a sibling row coming on. This is the last thing I want to have happen in front of Eve Dawson, when tonight of all nights, the night when I resolved to finally tell her how I feel, has decided to show me so much attention, has shown me, arguably, her inner soul, which, it turns out, takes the vague outline of Vladimir Lenin. My mind flies from Maya's terror of THE END to a dark bedroom upstairs, in which Charon's hands take their attentions to my body and all things become skin and flame and time ceases.

To diffuse the tension, I ask Maya if she wants a martini or something.

She looks up at me, her eyes glassy and offended. 'No Henry, I do not want a martini. The world is ending. How can all you think about be getting drunk and having fun?'

'You were the one who jumped off the roof. That's pretty fun behaviour if you ask me.'

'Fuck you.' She says, burying her face back in her hands.

'So there's nothing I can do you for?' I ask again.

'No.'

'You don't want to come look at Eve's astonishingly brilliant statue of Vladimir Lenin? It would cheer anyone up. Probably even Republicans. Its beauty is transcendent, utterly non-partisan.'

'No. Go away.' She reasserts her head onto her lap once again, in a posture that I recognize very well from when we were kids and our parents refused to buy us ice cream sandwiches at the grocery store.

'Ok. I'm sorry.' I say curtly. I am not admitting defeat, only that I am powerless in the face of Maya's spiritual death spiral. I stand and brush the mulch off of the back of my jeans. Little jagged impressions mottle my legs and bum like a reminder of all the horrible, irreconcilable dualities in life like soft skin and hard things, like siblings and apocalypses.

Eve and I walk back up the gentle slope of the lawn towards the house. I want to say something to bring the vibe back around to what it was before we found Maya, but I just can't. My mind is now full of THE END, how it lurks behind every hill, building, conversation, and thought like oxygen itself; not seen, but permeating everything, calibrating all of life towards itself like the sun reels in the sunflowers.

I can feel Eve's expectant energy, but I can't think of anything to say. With every passing second, I can feel how my silence is pushing us further apart. C'mon, say something. Anything. Just say something. Nothing comes. My mind is a block of wood.

Fuck you, Maya. I forgot about everything until you showed up. Thanks a lot.

I look at back at Eve and have one last stroke of inspiration.

'Eve, you know what?' I say, as charmingly as possible, hoping to imply that the long silence had been entirely intentional.

'What?' Her eyes paint me back and forth like poster glue.

'I feel like going for a swim.'

'Oh yeah?' She says.

'Yeah' I say.

'That's so fun.' She replies.

'What's the best way to get on the roof?' I ask.

Her eyes light up.

'Henry.' She says. 'That's an excellent idea. Follow me.'

As we enter the house once again I look over my shoulder for a sign of my weepy, melodramatic sister. To my surprise, she has silently followed us most of the way up the lawn, and now stands still, watching us enter the house. She is staring directly at me, her wet hair hanging in a long frizzly band over one shoulder, her makeup running in black rivers down her face. Her shoulders are straight back, as if pinned to a board, and the look in her eyes suggests that not only am I not just a total stranger, but a reviled, ugly one at that. I incline my head, as a gesture of goodwill, but she makes no move to acknowledge it. She just stands still and stares. When we reach the top of the stairs I look out the window again, and there she is, still staring. Her glassy, bloodshot eyes are lit up in the glow of light from the house and she doesn't seem to blink once. I feel a shiver run through me. I can't get up to the roof fast enough.

We emerge from the dormer window and creep down to the edge. When the pool comes into sight below I am astonished by how high up we are. My blood starts to bubble. What the hell am I doing? But there is no time to think. I look down to gauge where to jump, then step back and take a a running leap.