Today is Sunday. I know this because the bells of Saint Anne ring faintly even here, and though I have no use in my present circumstances for the names that men assign their days, the bells remind me of who I was some Sundays since; there is an echo of her in me still. I had a name then too, which like the names of days means nothing to me now. For I live in the water, among fish; the fish and I care not that today is Sunday. In the water we are sinless. We have no need of forgiveness.
On land, I might be a woman of 30 years today. I might be walking to Saint Anne now, with others of my age and social standing. But what may be construed of those women cannot be construed of me, for I am no woman, though I bear a resemblance to one–that girl, of whose echo I spoke. She was driven into the sea before her 16th birthday, her legs held fast in a barbarous manner by a pin. My existence began the moment hers ended–when she was plunged into the water, having stood her last upon two feet.
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I discovered I might move about again free of pain, but only in a laborious and sidewinding fashion. I taught myself to crawl adeptly upon my scabrous elbows, dragging my lower extremity crabwise across the sands. This part of me I have come to regard as my tail, for when it is submerged in water I can propel myself a good distance by the use of it, though not so naturally as the dolphin. I keep my tail dressed in various and pretty seaweeds, laced into what remains of my corset. This I do for vanity, though no man has seen me in all my second life–save him that surprised me on the rocks, but he is drowned and may not speak of what he saw.
There is a sea stack that sits upon the water between two steep calanques where, when the tide has waned, small spider crabs can be found in large number, and here I sometimes make a meal of them. If the weather is fair I linger on the stones before my swim to shore. The rocks lie well enough apart that one can swim between them freely, though as one nears the mouth of the inlet, they cluster closer and must be negotiated like the mazes in the gardens at Versailles. In this outcropping I fancy resting on a certain stone; it is smooth and cushioned by a pallet of algae that when fired by the sun is most pleasant to recline upon.
Well, I saw he was intent to make an end of me, so I gripped the skiff by its starboard side and rocked at it mightily until he lost his footing and fell out. He flailed about in a state of panic, cursing me roughly and begging me not to harm him. Then he assayed to climb upon the rocks on which he’d found me.
This pleased me, that a drowned man should come a-sailing into port. For this must surely cause a terrible consternation among the townspeople, give rise to rumor and confabulation, and they will suspect the sea has turned against them and keep their children well away from the waves. They will fear the very waters in which they must make their living, and this suits me well.
