Death of a River Guide (35 page)

‘You're insane,' says Sheena from the front of the raft. Her voice is sullen. At this moment she speaks for all the punters.

‘Yeah,' says Aljaz. In the face of their terror he feels the remnants of his excitement ebb away. ‘Maybe,' he says coldly, ‘maybe I am.' Nobody says anything in reply. He senses they will trust him in so far as they have to, but that he now frightens them. He feels distant, sad, cold, separate, like a moss-etched rock looking down upon the raft that bobs around at the base of the huge rapid. But he does not say it. He says words that he thinks may reassure them, that will join them together rather than pull them apart. ‘One more easy portage around the final waterfall, an hour of easy paddling after that and we're out of Deception Gorge.' With buckets they bail out the water they have shipped. ‘What I'm trying to say,' says Aljaz almost pleadingly, throwing a bucket of water into the river, ‘is that you're nearly out of the bloody gorge.'

They watch the Cockroach's crew shoot the rapid. From so far away the Cockroach's raft looks like a bobbing toy boat and they fear for him and his crew almost as much as they just feared for themselves. The Cockroach takes his time. He carefully lines his raft up in the top eddy to avoid the mistake that Aljaz made of being swept sideways. Three times they go to break into the rapid then halt at the last moment as the Cockroach stops because the line is not quite correct. Then they disappear into the waves and reappear at the top of the drop in the correct position. They disappear into the fall and reemerge heading right, making it through the remainder of the rapid easily. Now through the big rapids, Gaia Head unties his small raft from the gear frame and flops it into the river. And jumps in. Although it is only a short distance to the next portage he seems keen to establish some small independence. Together the two big rafts with the small yellow raft drift the remaining few hundred metres downriver.

From above, it looks beautiful. Mist rises from the line at which the river abruptly ends and the waterfall they call the Cauldron begins. The two bright red rafts drift together toward the fall in the dimming afternoon light. Around the rafts are the slow-moving long trails of white froth produced by the big rapids upriver, intricate Paisley designs, all swirls within swirls.

Running down the right-hand side of the Cauldron is a huge sloping rock slab. Only a few metres wide at the top of the waterfall, it is ten or more metres wide at its base, cutting a quarter of the way diagonally across the fall. It is down this slab that the rafts are portaged. Aljaz, knowing the way, goes first. A hundred metres out from the rapid he heads his raft river right, hugging the right-hand cliff face as he approaches the Cauldron. Aljaz only has to be a few metres out from the cliff face, out where the current runs stronger, and his boat will be swept down the waterfall. Rather than steer from the back of the raft as he normally does, Aljaz is steering from the front, holding the furled bow rope between his hand and the paddle shaft. There is a little notch in the rock slab, perhaps a third of the width of the front of the boat, into which Aljaz deftly places the raft. The moment the pontoon touches the rock slab, he is out of the raft scrambling up onto the rock slab with the bow rope. As he anchors the raft, he exhorts his punters to quickly get out. Once the raft is empty of people they drag it up onto the slab so that it cannot be washed down the waterfall, which begins its river-wide cascade less than two metres from where they stand. The punters look across the massive slab and at the huge gorge that seems to close in above and over them. ‘Awesome,' says Marco, looking up. Aljaz looks down, using his eyes to find a secure foothold in the slimy rock.

The Cockroach follows Aljaz's line, choosing to stay in the rear of his raft. He notices a sea eagle sitting halfway up a dead myrtle stag on the opposite side of the river. They hit the rock slab and Aljaz's seizes their bow rope and heaves the front of the raft up onto the rocks. The punters scramble out like some military landing party.

And last comes Gaia Head, who, now fed and with the knowledge that the worst is almost over, has regained some of his former ways. He kneels in his raft, surveying the vastness of the gorge around him, as if he is a mad being who has taken possession of this land and who, as property owner, is allowed to do as he pleases. Like a New Age squire he drifts the final distance toward the waterfall, acknowledging the waves of Aljaz and the Cockroach to come in closer to the dead water at the cliff edge with a slight ironic smile but with no action. He allows his raft to drift further into the main current, believing that because there is no rapid there is no power to the water, believing once again in his own capacity to be whatever he wants, to go wherever he wants. As the waves of the guides turn into yells, he nonchalantly dips the eating-bowl blade of his bush paddle into the river to turn the raft toward the river's edge, to take it toward the notch in the boulder. But the initial stroke has no effect, nor the second, nor even the third nor the more frantic fourth nor the entirely desperate fifth and sixth and seventh strokes. His scrawny arms are flailing the tea-tree connected bowl and enamel plate through the air, the only effect to spin the raft round so that he is being swept ever faster toward the waterfall in a backward rather than a forward position.

The Cockroach and Aljaz are now screaming and their screams awaken Gaia Head to his only recently forgotten terror. At which point Gaia Head remembers how the guides could not save Derek and, panicking, stands up in his raft and dives into the water. He swims away from the raft toward the rock slab, which, because it is only three metres away, he thinks he will reach easily, whatever the fate of the raft. He makes some progress, but a metre from the rock slab the current grabs Gaia Head's bobbing body, ungainly freestyling in its kapok life jacket, like a huge hand sweeping a table of crumbs. And drops it over the lip of the waterfall.

From above, on the rock slab, Aljaz and the punters watch the whole event unfold with a sickening sense of doom. As Gaia Head disappears over the drop, the Cockroach manages to get his raft back into the safe dead waters of the side of the river. Aljaz feels his fear creeping through his body, wanting to paralyse him.
Again
, thinks Aljaz with dread.
Again
. And then suddenly, before he has even decided what he will do or if he can do anything, he is shouting out, ‘No,' and he is running, unclipping a throw-bag from his side as he does so, running down the edge of the wet slippery rock slab, and he knows that this time, whatever it takes, this time he will do it. This time he is terrified but he does not care; this time, for the first time ever, he has said no and will not do nothing and will do something. He is exhilarated and he feels free at last, at long long last, and at that precise moment he feels his left shoe lose its grip on the rock and he feels himself tumbling, falling over the edge, feels his body hit the water as a surprisingly gentle rushing softness, feels himself tumbled by the water, and then feels himself suddenly slam to a halt, feels rocks grip around his hips and his chest like tightening vices, feels the water that was for a few seconds benign, change its character immediately to that of a mad rushing sadist that forces his head and body forward and down and under.

And he knows this moment has been a long time coming.

And so I see them all now, standing on the rock slab above my body, below my vision, wondering what to do and what is to happen and whether or not this is the death of a man they are witnessing, and whether they would feel more attracted to the event if I died or if I lived, and feeling bad for thinking such things. The latter event is dramatic, but the former tastes of vicarious tragedy and has greater appeal for them. I can see them all, see their faces, see Otis and Marco, ever sensible, standing back from the edge of the rock slab; Rickie, ever foolish, standing too close to the edge; Gaia Head, lunar dome dripping and only a little chastened by his terrifying swim down the waterfall. And Sheena, sweet Sheena whom I thought crippled, looking at the Cockroach to make sure that what is happening is all right. Last, I see the Cockroach, and he is so scared, because only he knows the full enormity of what has happened and his powerlessness to alter any of it. He takes refuge in activity, ever more frantic activity, and refuses to acknowledge to the punters what he and I both know: that there is no way out, that I cannot be rescued with the water so high and rising all the time. I want to hold the Cockroach like a child and tell him I love him and tell him not to be frightened, because I am not.

But although I can see them, they cannot see me. They stand on the vast rock slab that slopes down the side of the waterfall and stare into the violent, agitated torrent. And sticking up, not very far from the rock slab, is my hand. It is so close that they are able to grasp arms and legs and form a human chain out to my hand. The Cockroach is at the end of the chain, only a metre or so out from the side of the rock slab, dangling dangerously above the water's fury, his fingertips just touching mine. My hand throbs back and forth, in resonance with the violence of the falling cataract, like a jammed tree branch. My fingers and the Cockroach's outstretched fingers entwine. I feel his horror, and through my fingers try to reassure him.

But he cannot see me. I am hidden and being destroyed by this beautiful water, so clean and chill it feels as if someone has taken to my throat with a grinder that has a disc made of ice. This water, this water the colour of tea, this water so famed for its reflective qualities. When I open my eyes and stare into this wild brown turbulence of bubbles and water, I never see myself reflected, only others, only the faces of others, and I am strangely pleased to have their company.

For some time now my mind has felt oddly clear, its contents no longer a hurdy-gurdy of images and faces I cannot keep hold of, but, on the contrary, a bizarre, detached line of thoughts that seek to rationally understand where I am.

This line of thoughts begins in an exploration of my physiological condition, which is clearly unusual and which forms a backdrop to all my other thoughts. From a first-aid course I remember that there are two types of drowning: wet drowning and dry drowning. In the former instance water pours into the lungs and floods them, rendering them useless and their possessor dead in a relatively short time. In the second, more interesting, and more common variant of drowning, a flap of the oesophagus flicks shut to prevent water entering the lungs. The body proceeds to shut down all but its most vital activities, rationing its most precious resource, oxygen, to its most precious organs. The heart can even cease to beat, but the brain remains alive, fed by tiny life-sustaining quantities of oxygen. In this instance it takes considerably longer to drown, and there are documented cases of people being pulled out of the water some hours after entering it, technically dead, yet who are brought back to life.

I can no longer see or feel the water which envelops me, am aware neither of its force, its patterns of movement around my body, nor its intense coldness. To the extent that I feel anything, I feel my body swaying and rocking, presumably from the water sweeping over and about it. But this is only presumption. I can no longer even be entirely sure that it is my body. Perhaps through some strange extra sense I have become aware of the movement of something else. Perhaps it is not a body after all, but the bough of a fallen tree, a myrtle perhaps, washed down by the rising waters. Part of the branch is thrashing around, and part of my mind tells me that this is my rescuers tugging away at my arm. But that also can now only be presumption. I can no longer know whether my arm is being cruelly wrenched this way or that in futile attempts to save me, can no longer know whether I am in agony or whether agony has become so all-encompassing that I no longer have anything to judge it against as my normal state of being. If I no longer feel any physical sensation yet can still think, then surely, I think to myself, surely I am still alive. Aware that I have been entombed in the water for what would seem to those above an infinity, and aware that I therefore should be dead, the notion of dry drowning appears no longer as a thought but as a solace. And it leads to a paradox: if I am only dying in this fashion, I reason, then there is a good chance I might live.

But immediately I think this, I am assailed by all sorts of doubts. The worst, the darkest question that insists upon me acknowledging it is this - who is this drowning?

There is no easy, quick answer. I wish to cry out that is surely me, Aljaz Cosini, river guide; wish to continue seeing in the river my life as evidence of who I am. But these thoughts, these images of childhood, of love and fear, of desire and loss, are weak.

And what is strong, what overrides all sense of progression and cohesion in my life, is the sensation of being nothing more than an outline.

I feel as if I am one of those figures that police chalk around twisted, bloodied corpses at car-accident sites. These chalk outlines remain on the bitumen for days, sometimes weeks, until the elements and countless car tyres eliminate them. People pass by and wonder who these chalk outlines were, with their strange distended limbs and empty faces, without ears to hear or eyes to see. I feel as if I am at once one of those curious passersby and the chalk outline. Who is this? I ask of myself.

And, as if in reply, I realise I am floating above everything that has been my life, my time, my place. And yet, as I look beneath me it all seems so strange, for what should have cohesion, what should have progression and identity, has none of these things. All I can hear is confused and crazed babble. I feel myself nothing more than an outline without substance, without identity or individuality. Below I hear only gibberish. What does it mean, I wonder, all those crazed and contradictory words? How was it possible for me to once root myself in that nonsense and derive meaning and purpose from it? Maddening thoughts assail me. In an age when everything can mean anything, perhaps it is only possible to exist as a cipher, as a thin, fragile outline of a hope etched across an infinity of madness.

I see the figures crudely cut from steel plate by oxy-torch that lined the fence on Molle Street near where Couta lived in Hobart. The feet of the steel figures seek to escape the scorching steel flames that form the bottom of the fence, while their arms are extended toward the sky, toward the immense aqua presence of the mountain behind Hobart, lined at its summit by apricot clouds. Suspended between hell and heaven, simultaneously in agony and knowledge, unable to distinguish between either. Is that me? Is that me?

Before I have time to arrive at an answer, I feel a long skinny tube being pushed with some violence into my left eye.

What the Christ is going on!

I resent this action, not so much for the pain it creates, which is negligible compared to the burden of pain the rest of my body is carrying, but because it represents an unnatural indignity. Here I am getting on with the business of drowning - indeed, almost to the point of being resigned to it - when I get a piece of tube rammed into my face. Not only that, but they - whoever my unkind rescuer is, I can only presume it is the Cockroach - begin to blow through the tube, causing a furious bubbling around my face that tickles it.

Madonna santa!

Let me die in peace, I would shout, were it not that I only have water to mouth words with. The tube, after being temporarily rammed up my nose, finds my mouth and penetrates with some force my lips. Air is forced into my mouth, thereby forcing the water in my mouth and throat down into my stomach from which it rapidly returns accompanied by the burnt porridge I had for breakfast. The tube ejects from my mouth followed by a minor eruption of vomit. After a few similar, though smaller, eruptions, my rescuers finally succeed in keeping the tube in my mouth and getting air into my body.

Am I to live? Is my life to be saved? Am I finally to be made visible? Other people who nearly die go down a tunnel and see a great light at the end. But all I have seen are people, the whole lot of them, swirling, dirty, smelly, objectionable and ultimately lovable people, and, I think, if it is to be my misfortune to return into the lamentable physical vessel that has been my body, it is them - these people in the kitchens and office blocks and suburbs and pink leisure suits - that I must learn to make my peace with.

The clammy tube twists and turns and pulses air bubbles into my waterlogged body, bringing it literally back to its senses. This is not pleasant for me. I cease being a chalk outline seeking my world and return to being a mass of agonised, tortured flesh, whose sensations and impressions are only of the most immediately physical: the chill of the water, the fire in my chest, the jackhammer pounding in my head, the screams of my legs and torso, the pain like a red-hot poker across the shoulder of my upright arm. I am struck by the thought that death is nowhere as violent as life.

Suddenly the tube stops ferociously aerating my innards and goes strangely slack within me, then casually writhes out of my mouth like a tired tiger snake to wash away with the furious currents down the waterfall. I cannot see what has happened. I can only presume that someone - perhaps Rickie, perhaps Marco - has accidentally dropped the tube from the rock slab above. Dropped the tube and with it my chance of living.

 Black Pearl, 1828 

My visions are growing shorter and more confused. I am unable to stay for long with those that appear, and before I am even sure what it is I am seeing, it is gone again. I see things, so many things, so many different worlds, though they come into focus but briefly and blur away again before I have time to make sense of them.

Now that my pain has dissolved into something beyond pain, there is not even the progress of my suffering to act as a timepiece to the onset and disappearance of my visions. I no longer know whether the vision I am seeing refers to another vision I've had, or whether my deranged mind with virtually no oxygen is constructing a complete and total world when there is no totality to know, only this bizarre series of fragments that seem so real and seem to somehow make sense. I feel dimly aware that I am seeing less and that I must fight this sensation.

I look through these murky waters, so turbulent on the surface yet here just pleasant swirls of bubbles, and I can see Harry standing beside his grandmother, the one everyone called Auntie Ellie. She looks like a shrivelled dark plum.

But the more I look at her, the more the wrinkles and lines dissolve, until a young girl is looking back at me. She looks at me for quite some time, examines my nose and eyes. She beckons me to come with her, turns and heads away, down through a sandy track around which the fleshy green pigface with its crimson flowers grows. She gives me some to eat. The track winds through dense boobialla bush and we walk for a long time, so long, in fact, that night falls and a near-full moon rises before our journey comes to an end. The track winds down to a beach, at the end of which there is dancing light.

We make our way towards the light and after a time it becomes possible to distinguish a white man and three black women sitting around a fire. The women look bedraggled and drunk. The man looks worse. All four are clad in strange combinations of seal and kangaroo skins crudely stitched together.

And I know, though I have no way of knowing, that this man is a sealer, the women slaves he has stolen from a Tasmanian tribe and brought to this remote island in Bass Strait to slay seals and dry their skins.