“Okay, okay. Did you like it when you read it three years ago?”
I hadn’t found Thoreau to be the world’s most likable character—the way he looked down on Emerson, and then used Emerson’s money to build his cabin. “I remember he said the Egyptians wasted their time building the pyramids, because the pharaoh should have been thrown in the Nile like a dog,” I said. “He said the Egyptian slaves should have been out sucking the marrow of life.”
“Sorry, I didn’t hear—what should they have been doing?”
“Sucking the marrow of life,” I said loudly.
“Aha, okay. So he’s some kind of a Communist. How did he end up here, at the pond?”
“He wanted to leave society and experience life firsthand, to build a house with his own hands. In the book he keeps listing the price of every nail and all his groceries, to prove how simple his needs are. Some lady tries to give him a mat, but he won’t take it.”
“I’m sorry, what was the woman wanting to give him?”
“A mat.”
“A mat? Why did she want to give him a mat?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess she felt sorry for him.”
“Aha, okay. Go on. She wanted to give him a mat but he didn’t want it.”
“Right—he said it would have taken up too much space.”
“Was it a big mat?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
We came to a break in the trees, beyond which lay a smaller, completely empty beach covered with smooth pebbles. It looked so clean and clear and perfect, like a metaphor for something.
“Does this look like a good place?” asked Ivan.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good. Let’s change.” Scrambling up the hillside, he disappeared into the woods. I climbed a short distance in a different direction. I sat on a rock and took off my shoes. For a while I held one shoe and stared into space. Then I took off my T-shirt and socks. Leaving the jeans on over my bathing suit, I edged down the hillside. Ivan came running down wearing denim cutoffs, his pants slung over his shoulder, and jumped from the bank onto the path.
We deposited our bags on the beach. I took off my jeans.
“I was wondering whether you would swim in your jeans,” Ivan said.
We waded into the pond. Translucent minnows circled our ankles. They were so alive. It was almost pure life in those little bodies, there was so little room for anything else. The sun was low and there was a breeze. The water felt ice-cold. I felt paralyzed by the thought of going in. Then I resolved myself and dove under. I felt my skin tighten all over, and realized how infrequently one felt conscious of one’s whole body at once, as a continuous surface.
“You should come in,” I gasped, almost speechless with cold. “It’s wonderful.”
Ivan looked really different without his glasses, with wet hair. I said it was like the first time you saw a fluffy dog after it was wet.
“So in your analogy I’m a fluffy dog?” he said.
“Yeah. Although I guess in most ways you’re not really like a fluffy dog.”
“I’m not like a fluffy dog? Now you will hurt my feelings.”
We swam the breaststroke side by side toward the opposite shore, telling each other about how we had learned to swim: me at day camp in New Jersey, him with his parents at Lake Balaton. Ivan asked about day camp. He wanted to know what the deal was. I asked about Lake Balaton. He said his family used to go there every year but now it was too crowded. “Not like here,” he said. “I bet right now there are about two people in this whole lake. Including us.”
“Two people including us?”
“That’s right.”
The trees were etched with tremendous sharpness against the pearly, sooty clouds, and the water was so clear you could see the bottom. Ivan asked how deep I thought it was. He dove under and was gone for what felt like a long time.
“Did you touch it?” I asked.
“No.”
He tried again, raising his arms above his head and plunging feet-first. I floated on my back and stared at the sky.
“Can you lie on your back and look at your toes?” asked Ivan from some unfathomable distance. I looked over. He was right next to me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Not for very long.”
“My father could. When I was a kid, he would lie on his back and stick his toes out and say, ‘I bet you kids can’t do this.’ My sisters and I would try so hard, but he was right—we couldn’t do it. He said it was because we weren’t smart enough. I would get really mad.” He laughed, then looked over at me. “Stop trying, it’s impossible. It’s just because he was so fat. That’s how my father could do it.”
We turned back toward the shore. A calm duck crossed our path, leaving a V-shaped wake. Ivan swam a few strokes right behind the duck. “Ehh,” he said, sounding at once so human and so much like a duck that I couldn’t help laughing. “That one duck in an empty lake—it looks like it’s going to evolve into something.”
I agreed that the duck had a pioneering look.
“Next would be us. What do you think we would evolve into?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I wondered why he kept asking that.
When we neared the shore, Ivan started swimming faster, right up to the edge of the water, then staggered out onto the beach. I slowed down and watched him. He reached for his bag, then seemed to change his mind and picked up mine instead, unzipped it, and took out my towel. It struck me as strange that he should have forgotten his own towel when he had remembered to remind me to bring mine. Also why would he rush out of the water like that and then take my towel? I reached the shallows and started to stand, but it was so cold that I went back in, to wait until he was done with the towel. Meanwhile, Ivan just stood there dripping, holding my towel. It was a beach towel with a design of big multicolored wristwatches.
There seemed to be nothing to do but to get out of the water. I swam in until the sand scraped my knees, then waded to the shore. I walked up to Ivan. He stepped behind me. I turned. His hand touched my shoulder. I moved aside. I realized he was trying to wrap my towel around my shoulders. In a panic, I turned to face him and took the towel from his hands.
“Thanks,” I said.
“That’s okay,” he said. From his laptop bag he produced a blue bath towel and started to dry his back. I brushed my hair and wrung out the water. Ivan picked up his clothes. “Don’t look,” he said.
I turned. I could hear him unzipping his cutoffs. I waded into the water up to my ankles. My feet looked ghostly and white against the pebbles. A school of tiny fish, black this time, darted past like arrows in a siege.
“You’re doing really well,” Ivan said behind me.
I looked up at the opposite shore. “I’m doing well?”
“Yeah, you’re doing way better than me.”
At what? I tried to ask, but couldn’t.
When I couldn’t hear any more clothing sounds, I turned around, but, having received a brief impression of Ivan with only one leg in his jeans, faced front again. I couldn’t get at my own clothes, since they were behind him. I adjusted the towel around my waist and looked at the sky.