Free The Rowing Lesson by Anne Landsman Page A

listen, there’s a plash in the water (I can’t sit still) or Simon gets tickled and he laughs and the monkeys scatter. Then it’s back down the river to the Rope where we clamber onto a mossy bank and swing into the middle of the river from a gnarled, knotted rope that looks like entrails and hairs and an elephant’s trunk. Another coil and a slither of river and it’s Fairy Knowe where you dropped Simon and Andrew this afternoon, to play tennis. You stopped at the jetty and let them off and Mrs. God was supposed to pick them up later. Clouds were stacking up in the sky but it was still warm. You decided to take the boat back, with me.
    I beg you to teach me how to row and you maneouvre the boat into a quiet spot, away from the speedboats and skiers and swimmers. I sit on the seat next to you, and you put my hand on the left oar and cover your hand with it. I can’t see my own fingers. We dip the left oar in the water together. At first, it skitters in and out of the water, bouncing unevenly, what Simon calls “catching a crab.” The little boat jerks like a marionette bobbing on the end of its string. I feel your warm, dry hand tightening on mine, my fingers slowly going numb. Your mouth tightens too, as if I should know how to do this already. But your movements are slow and steady, and I try as hard as I can to follow them, bracing my feet against the wooden bar set up on the seat in front of us. Hold water! you shout, when a speedboat comes too close to us and I’m not sure if you’re talking to the driver or to me but I freeze anyway, squaring my oar. Back pedal, back pedal, you hiss when we start drifting towards the reeds. All the time, your hand stays clamped on mine, small and square, the skin a reddish-brown, hairs crisscrossing the knuckles. I can smell the scent of Prell in your hair, the sweat dampening your armpits, mixed with the whiff of petrol coming from the orange fuel tank on the floor of the boat.
    Finally, you let go of my hand, and I start rowing by myself, just with the left oar. You have the right one, and every time we dip the oars into the river, you say, Catch, and then Pull, Catch and Pull, Catch and Pull. The oarlocks creak, I breathe in loud, big gusts, and you suck air in between your teeth as the boat slips through the water sweetly and easily. On the other side of the railway bridge, you say, I think we’ve had enough for today. We lift both oars into the boat and you pull-start the five-and-a-half horsepower engine. I climb onto the prow, my favorite place, and try to keep my feet from trailing in the water.
    We chug-chugg past the aerodrome where I once sat on the wing of a small plane and you took a picture. As we round the bend in the river, near the caravan park and the other bridge with the storm-tossed pylons from your own childhood, there’s a low growling in the sky, grey dragons of clouds heaving one on top of the other. The first drops sweep across the surface of the water. I swing my legs into the boat and sit on the seat near the front where you tell me to sit. The boat has to be steady at all times. You can’t have everybody doing whatever they please, especially at times like this, when there are waves in the water. They’re not big waves, but the water isn’t smooth anymore.
    You look at me and I stare back at you. I have black eyes too, black hair and a long nose that won’t be as long as yours, thank God. I’m wearing red shorts, a short-sleeved shirt with puffy sleeves and no cardigan and I’m shivering. You say something about the storm that brought down the pylons in 1926. I look blank. I’m cold, I say. You can see the goosebumps on my arms and the star-shaped scar on my knee where I fell into a rose bush. There’s nothing in the world like looking at the face of your own child but you can’t tell me that. You throw me your old jersey and I wrap it around my legs. Then I crawl into the tiny space right under the prow where I was sitting