The Swan Wife, by Adrienne Clarke. Page 2/8
Husband:
When I was a boy I took a bird from its nest thinking it had been abandoned by its parents. I longed for a pet and believed that I was rescuing it from starvation. But the moment my hand touched its feathery softness I could feel the animal’s panic. I made it a welcoming bed of shredded newspapers and cotton wool that I kept close to me bed so it wouldn’t feel lonely. I spent hours of every day trying to feed it worms from my mother’s garden. But nothing would stop the fury beneath his breast until one day I came home to find him still at last. The image of that small, fragile body came back to me as I watched her sleep that first night in my hotel room. I stayed awake until dawn afraid that if I closed my eyes I would awaken to find her beyond my reach. But I never thought of letting her go; not even when begged me in a voice as raw as an open wound, her body trembling with cold and fear, her eyes large and wild.
None of what happened was planned. It was meant to be a holiday – nothing more. I would revisit my childhood home in Bled and return to Canada as I did every year. The flat terrain of my life in Toronto, spent mostly in a dingy faculty office, small and dark as a cave, would suddenly give way to a dream of a shimmering blue lake surrounded by mountains and I would know it was time to go home. Like the fairy tale worlds of my childhood, Bled was a place of magic whose enchantment had never worn off. Only there did the things I wanted seem possible. And I wanted many things.
I was in Bled two days before I found her. Restless in my hotel room, I decided to go for an early morning walk around the lake before the tourists arrived. It was only the middle of June, but already buses from Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands had arrived in search of the city’s welcoming tranquility. Come mid-morning the cafes would be overflowing with families drinking large mugs of milky-white Bela Kava and eating cream cakes. But when I left the Hotel Toplica the waiters had not yet begun to set the tables. The city was so quiet I might have been its only inhabitant. A light mist swirled around my feet as I walked through the empty streets lined with restaurants, jewelry stores, and souvenir shops. For once, I was not troubled by the sound of my solitary footsteps. I felt the city had forgiven me for leaving it behind. Bled belonged to me still.
As I approached the lake I was disappointed to see that the swans were not out. The water was bare and lonely without them and the pleasure I’d felt being on my own drifted up and out of me like a ghost. The prospect of a long, lonely walk lost its appeal, but the thought of returning to my empty hotel room with its cold, stiff sheets propelled me along on the path that led to the forest. I'd never gone into the forest before, choosing instead to stay close to the main road where I'd see people walking their dogs, or families carrying picnic baskets and beach gear. But that day I forged a new path where the trees grew thick and fast, as if to shut me out. I stumbled over loose stones and overgrown roots that sprung from the ground like trip wire. Twigs and branches scraped my face but still I pressed on until I came to a small clearing.
I cannot explain what happened next. A few feet from where I stood a large pool of silver water glittered strangely, as though a heap of precious metals had been strewn across the forest floor and melted there. The pool was surrounded by tall stalks of water weed that swayed gently back and forth even though no breeze disturbed the air. But what caught my gaze was not the water or its unusual vegetation. On the far side of the pool where the weeds grew thick and fast, a white swan lay nestled in a pile of soft green moss mixed with tufts of downy white.
Not wanting to disturb the creature’s nesting place, I stepped backwards. My eyes never left the swan, but even so, I could not be sure if what I saw was real or a trick of the morning light filtering through the trees. The swan’s body seemed to swell and elongate – the feathers on its wings expanding until the graceful lines of its neck and torso disappeared beneath a blanket of white, growing brighter and brighter until I was forced to look away. When I turned back the swan was gone; in its place stood the tall figure of a woman, her back towards me, wearing a white dress that covered her from the tops of her shoulders to the backs of her heels. When she moved that I saw that it was not an ordinary dress she wore but a close fitting garment made entirely of feathers.
Afraid that my presence would frighten her away I hid in the bushes. She was beautiful, more beautiful than any other woman I’d seen before, but it was not the angles of her face, the colour of her skin, or the shape of her body that made her so. The stillness of her posture was imbued with a grace and purity that did not exist in my workaday world of papers and faculty meetings. And when she reached her arms up behind her neck to unfasten her dress, the feathers fell from her body like rain and I knew I would not leave Bled alone.
I don’t know how long I remained in the clearing after she’d gone, but when I finally crept from my hiding place my knees were sore and wet. I spent the rest of the day in a daze. I wanted her – that I knew. But how to make it happen? I am a man of ideas, not action. I have admired the skill of hundreds of artists, taken pleasure in their use of line and colour, without ever feeling the desire to create myself. But that day, walking through the terrain of my childhood, a plan as fragile as a feather began to form in my mind.
I resolved to return to the clearing the next morning and every morning after that until the swan woman returned. As it turned out I did not have long to wait. The next day I awoke at dawn and dressed quickly in camouflage gear that I had purchased in one of Bled’s overpriced boutiques. I made my way to the lake, following the same path that I had forged the day before. When I reached the clearing I hid in the bushes and waited. I tried to make myself as still and silent as the trees that surrounded me, but my breathing sounded loud and harsh in my ears, and I felt that at any moment the ground would begin to tremble from the weight of my wanting. And then finally, she came. But this time she was not alone – three other swan-women accompanied her, each wearing an identical dress of white feathers. But it was for her that I had come.
I think she sensed my presence almost right away. Her companions undressed easily, talking and laughing amongst themselves, but her movements were slow, deliberate; for a moment I was sure my plan would fail. But her companions kept beckoning her to join them until, finally, she shrugged off her swan skin and stepped into the water’s embrace. I leapt from my hiding place, seized her feathered garment, and thrust it into the garbage bag I’d stuffed into the pocket of my jacket. I don’t know how I knew that by stealing her feathers she would be in my power, but I did. The forest whispers its secrets to those who know how to listen.
Afterwards, the trees seemed to reverberate from the swan women’s high-pitched screams of alarm and the furious beating of wings. Feathers filled the air like a sudden snow squall; the swan woman grabbed whatever she could reach and clutched them to her chest. And then her companions were gone, leaving her behind. When the clearing was still and silent once more she looked into my eyes and what she saw there made her entire body tremble.
“It’s all right,” I said, trying to make my voice calm and reassuring. “I promise I won’t hurt you. That’s not what I want at all.” I took a small step towards her which made her tremble more still. “Here,” I said, holding out the dress I had bought for her along with my camouflage gear and garbage bags. “Please, put this on. You’ll be warmer.”
“I don’t want your dress – I want my feathers. I need them to go home.” Her voice was low, almost harsh; not as I imagined it at all.
“I’m sorry but I can’t give them back,” I told her, the knowledge of what I'd done wrapping itself around my body like a suit of armour.
“If you don’t you’ll kill me,” she said. And whatever you’re planning to do will have been for nothing.”
“I’ll take good care of your dress – I promise.” Destroying it had never occurred to me. It was a work of art in its own right and I could not bring myself to damage something so finely made. “Will you come with me?” I asked, knowing it was not really a question. The blankness in her eyes made me turn away. She would come because she had no where else to go.
