Holding the curled rails of the diving ladder, she began taking careful backward steps, finding each rung with the metal tip of her shoe before resting her weight there. Water contracted around her legs with cold energy, suctioning the wrinkles in her jumpsuit pinchingly to her skin. Ice cakes nudged at the dress. Soon the water was at her chest, then lapping the bottom of the faceplate. Anna took a last look up and saw Bascombe and Marle watching her from the ladder. Two more rungs and she was submerged, the green-brown water of Wallabout Bay visible through her four windows. No sound but the hiss of air.
On the last of the ladder’s fourteen rungs, she paused to increase her air supply. Sure enough: the dress inflated slightly, easing the water’s pressure on her legs. She felt for the descending line, swung her left leg around its manila cord, and let it slide through her left glove as she drifted down, the weight of the dress lulling her toward the bottom, the water darkening as she left the surface behind. At last her shoes met the bottom of Wallabout Bay. Anna couldn’t see it: just the wisps of her legs disappearing into dark. She felt a rush of well-being whose source was not instantly clear. Then she realized: the pain of the dress had vanished. The air pressure from within it was just enough to balance the pressure from outside while maintaining negative buoyancy—i.e., holding her down. And the weight that had been so punishing on land now allowed her to stand and walk under thirty feet of water that otherwise would have spat her out like a seed.
There was a single pull on her umbilical cord: Are you all right? She repeated the pull to indicate that she understood and was fine. All is well. She found herself smiling. The air in her nostrils was delicious; even the hiss of its arrival, which Lieutenant Axel had described as “a mosquito you can’t swat,” was welcome and sweet. They’d been told they wouldn’t need to adjust their exhaust valve from the two and a half turns it had been set at, but Anna couldn’t resist tightening the star-shaped nozzle a hair to let more air gather inside the dress. She began just slightly to rise, mud sucking at the bottoms of her shoes as they pulled away. A burst of pleasure broke inside her. This was like flying, like magic—like being inside a dream. She opened the exhaust valve and flushed out the excess air until her feet settled again on the floor of the bay.
A tool bag, perforated with holes that looked comical on land, floated into her grasp by a lanyard attached to the descending line. Inside were hammer, nails, and the five pieces of wood she was expected to hammer together into a box. The challenge would be keeping the wood—and the box itself—from shooting to the surface prematurely. Every diver would be timed, of course. “The clock ticks more loudly underwater,” Lieutenant Axel had warned. “If you have to surface to retrieve your wood, you’ve wasted precious bottom time.”
Anna opened the mouth of the tool bag wide enough to insert a hand. The wood pieces clamored at her wrist, eager to escape, but she managed to remove just two before realizing she’d left hammer and nails inside. She secured the loose pieces under her left arm and felt inside the bag for the hammer. A piece of wood shot from the bag, and in trying to seize it, she released the two from under her arm. She was barely able to block and snatch the three errant pieces before they lofted out of reach. Her heart stammered, and she felt light-headed. Panic, or any exertion underwater, made you exhale more carbon dioxide, which then weakened you when you breathed it back in. Anna returned everything to the bag and closed it. She took a long breath and shut her eyes and immediately felt a new responsiveness in her fingertips, as if they’d suddenly wakened from sleep. Of course. She would keep her eyes closed. Anna loosened the mouth of the bag and let two wood pieces nudge their way into her right hand. With her left, she prised free the hammer and a single nail. She hung the bag on her shoulder and braced the wood pieces at a right angle against the lead blocks of her belt. With a somnolent underwater motion, she hammered the nail until it perforated the soft wood and joined the two slats. Her hands were in charge; she hardly looked. Soon she was hammering the bottom onto the box, wishing it had taken longer to complete. She didn’t want to surface.
Without signaling the tenders, she stowed the box inside the tool bag and tightened her exhaust valve just enough to allow for a sequence of buoyant, floating steps. She felt debris under her shoes, the hidden topography of Wallabout Bay. What exactly was down there? She wished she could kneel and feel it with her hands. Holding up her umbilical cord so as not to get tangled, she turned all the way around, feeling the pressure of tides and currents from the river and the ocean beyond.
Three sharp tugs on her umbilical cord put an end to these antics. Stand by to come up. Her bubbles must have betrayed her; she imagined Bascombe’s annoyance at the sight of them straying from the ladder. His concern would be timing and performance, completing the job before the other team. She looked for the descending line, but the three-inch manila rope had disappeared. She’d hardly moved, it seemed, yet somehow she’d gone far enough for the line to be outside the reach of her extended arms in every direction she walked.
Seven pulls: they’d perceived the problem and were switching to searching signals to guide her. Anna echoed the seven, then received three pulls, which meant turn right. But how could they know which way she was facing? Dutifully, she turned and began to walk, sweeping her arms in hopes of intercepting the line. Her heartbeat squelched in her ears as she imagined the shame of having to be hauled up by her lifeline.
Then it came to her that she could surface without using the descending line at all, simply by adjusting her control and exhaust valves. She let the dress inflate just enough to rise gently, shoes plucking away from the mud. She kept her hands on the two valves, air supply and exhaust, inflating the dress enough to lift her through the brightening water without “blowing up” and flying spread-eagled to the surface.
Her hat broke the water, and daylight poured through her faceplate. The hammerhead crane was in front of her, which meant she was facing away from the barge. By paddling her arms underwater, she swiveled herself around and saw the barge only twenty feet away. She could not swim in the dress, but by pedaling her legs as if she were riding a bicycle, she was able to propel herself slowly forward. Cycling the boots was exhausting; sweat streamed between her breasts, and her faceplate fogged. She knew she should pause and vent her carbon dioxide, but she gave the last of her energy to closing the gap between herself and the ladder. At last she clutched a rail in each glove and let herself submerge again, resting her metal shoes on the lowest rung and trying to catch her breath.
Gasping in the overheated hat, Anna recognized the price of her innovation: she’d no strength left. She tried to climb the ladder, but once her hat was exposed, she had to pause again, reckoning with the weight that five inches at sea level visited upon her spine and shoulders. At last she mustered the energy to drag herself up another rung. She managed three more, bringing the water to her waist, but could go no farther.