The Pond

It was early December. We were finishing our supper. My wife went out of the house with a rubbish can to the farther end of the garden where our disposal site is.

She returned soon, put the can back under the sink and said:

“Somebody is swimming in our pond. Imagine this happening in the beastly cold like this! And there’s some woman squatting in the bush and laughing like mad. What do you think it means?”

“It means that drunken tramps refresh themselves”, I ventured a conjecture. “Normal people do not go swimming at such a time in such weather”.

Here I must explain something about our pond. It is located fifty meters or so away from our house. Actually, it adjoins the edge of our garden. There are many other private garden plots on the pond shore. It’s very convenient to take water from the pond for watering the garden. It’s quite big, measuring some forty meters across and over a hundred in length. The depth (I measured it in winter) is up to five meters, so in this respect the pond compares to such small seas as those of Azov and Aral.

The pond has no name. For the locals it’s just The Pond. At one time it was clean. So clean, you could see the bottom from the shore, and even swimming fishes. The shore is like a song in which “willow green bends low over water...” In summer, children have a good time here swimming. In winter they enjoy skating. A heavenly place on earth!

But one day people came over here (such a beautiful and convenient nook could not be left unattended). They built high apartment houses and started dwelling in them. Tins and cans, discarded boots and bottles plus dead cats and dogs emerged on the water surface of the pond. Dear Buddy died? Grab him by the tail and chuck into the water!

The pond quickly overgrew with duckweed. It turned green and became a sump with a whiff of stench.

I tried to clean it. But it’s a hopeless job for a single man. Especially when others keep throwing garbage into the water. Here it is, our pond, a gift from Heaven converted by people into a filthy pit…

We drank some yogurt, watched TV and went to bed.

In the morning my wife learned news, and broke it to me. As it happened, those were frogmen swimming in the pond at night. They were looking for two boys.

Four seventh-form boys were going along the pond shore. Suddenly they wished to walk over the newly frozen ice. And even to thump it and see how water will squirt out the hole. It’s such fun! Three boys stepped on the ice, but one remained on the shore. “I’m afraid”, he said. Those three laughed at the little coward and moved on the ice. They went far to the middle of the pond. And then… The ice cracked and started breaking under their feet. It was, after all, only early December. And the famous Russian winters have become of late so lukewarm. Weathermen are right talking about the global warming. Instantly the boys found themselves in icy water. They floundered and cried. The boy who was on the shore called for help. But there were no people around. So he jerked off his coat and trousers, tied the sleeve and the trouser leg together and crawled over to the hole in the ice. He threw the bundle to his friends. One clasped the coat sleeve and pulled himself up to where the ice was stronger. He climbed out. Two others tried to follow him. One gripped the edge of the ice, started getting out, but the strength left him. The dark stinking water closed over heads of two boys...

… In the morning I came out on the shore of the pond. In the middle I spotted a hole. Stretching from it to the opposite shore was a ragged unfrozen path. The third boy clambered in it yesterday. Now he is at the hospital. Two of his friends are already home.

Three plain-clothed men and a policeman were standing on the shore. One was video shooting the place of the accident.

I went back home. So the “tramps” of tomorrow were actually frogmen. And the sounds reaching from the bushes were the shrieks of a mother gone mad...

The following day was the boys’ funeral. I went to pay homage to the dead. They were classmates and lived in the same apartment building, on the same landing. A huge crowd gathered at the building entrance. Many schoolchildren and a lot of flowers all around. I hate cut flowers.

I went up to the ninth floor. Entered the apartment. It was packed full of people. Relatives, neighbors, and just sympathizers. Sobs and whimpers. Standing by the coffin is a man in his early forties or thereabouts. His son is lying before him. A handsome, but very pale face. A down shows almost imperceptibly on the upper lip. The day before yesterday the boy was to have come home from school. In fifteen minutes he will leave the home for good.

Judging by the apartment interior, this is a rather wealthy family. A computer with a stack of disks stands at the wall. Nobody’s thing now. I feel a lump rise in my throat. I too have a son. We all are in the hands of Providence…

The boy’s friend lies in the neighboring apartment. A red-headed fellow in a chequered suit of clothes.

They are being taken outside. Relatives follow the coffin. One woman, with a face swollen from sobbing, obviously the mother, cries out: “It can’t be true!!!” Her legs give way. She can’t walk.

“What have you done, boys!” says an elderly man in the crowd. “Oh, dear..?” he shakes his head in distress.

The procession approaches two awaiting buses. The hatch lids in their rear are open.

I come back home. My soul is disturbed. The day before yesterday, as I was clicking away on my PC keyboard, such a drama occurred behind my windows. But what could I do? Rush on the ice and increase the number of dead bodies?

I know perfectly well what an ice-hole is. I’d been in it lots of times. As a matter of fact, I’d spent two winters swimming in an ice-hole. I also participated in a Christmas swimming show in the pond of the central urban park. To this end, I’d been carefully preparing myself since midsummer. Every day, without missing a single one, I went into the water, whatever the weather. For my swimming sessions I’d chosen a pond in the Platonovsky forest, not far from where I work. I swam in Adam’s suit given that the place was pretty desolate without a soul around. However, once as I came out of the water I saw two policemen standing in front of me. “Why are you in a guise like this?” queried one of them strictly.

“There are no people around here, sergeant”, I said hiding one place of my boy with a palm. “No one can see me. Besides, carrying wet underwear in the briefcase is so inconvenient”.

“Come along with us!” ordered the other.

I really didn’t wish “to come along” with anybody.

“Okay”, I said and made as if to bend to pick up my clothes. And that very moment I snatched my clothes and bolted away mother-naked and barefooted. The policemen rushed after me. But I imagine they rather ignored fitness training in their police department. I was too fast for them. Stark-naked, I ran out to the city edge, put on the clothes in the bushes and plunged into the first trolley buss that came along.

After this incident, I gave up swimming and soon “came off the form”.

One day my wife asked me to salvage our son’s trousers which she had inadvertently drowned near the shore while rinsing them in the pond.

“Will you manage?” she asked doubtfully.

“Who? Me? I’m a winter swimmer!” I proclaimed and headed for the pond with her. For a start, I warmed up, jumped a little, jerked my arms, did push-ups and worked up a hot sweat which was to withstand the icy water. Then I undressed and went into the ice-hole. I lowered myself to the chin and started groping on the bottom in search of the trousers. I didn’t stay long in the water. I felt something was happening to me. I jumped out and onto the shore. And here a spasm seized all my body as if a huge vice squeezed me. I howled from unbearable pain, my eyes popped out of their sockets. Here is “a winter swimmer” for you. To get the idea, put your hand into a stream of cold water under the faucet at least for a minute. What, then, did you, boys, feel before you switched off…?

A new year came imperceptibly. At long last it started to freeze a little. I came onto the pond shore. Somebody was walking over the ice.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Don’t walk there! You’ll fall through!”

The figure approached me. A youngster of seventeen or so.

“Why bawl, man?” two murky drunken eyes flickered at me.

“It’s dangerous to walk here”, I said. “Two drowned the other day”.

“This won’t happen to me”, declared the young man. Mine is a different lot. Don’t holler, you, fool. You’ll chill your throat”.

He belched and staggered away. I looked at him. He that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned?

… Over the Christmas table we ate tasty food and drank sweet wine. We rejoiced in toasts. I sat thinking about what happiness it is when your loved ones are just alive. Whatever those two families, whose windows face our pond, would give for the life of their children! Sticking in my mind is the shriek of that woman – IT CAN’T BE TRUE!!!

Thank God, this cup has passed us by. May it pass by you, too.