I gave up willing him to turn around to look at me; he was focusing all his attention on the artificial fly out on the water. I came out of the river and sat on the grass, prodding and picking at my numb legs, already changing to grey elephant skin. It wasn’t fair to be the warmest person in the world, sitting next to the coolest thing, and not know how to swim. I wanted to ask my father whether he could teach me right away, but didn’t dare. He cast—up, back, forward, up, back, forward, up, back, forward—until the fly rested on the water. Then the line tightened and he let out a long, low “wowyaa” as he pulled the line through the guides with his hand. There was a flash of heat in my head when I saw how much he cared for the fish. I might have been in the middle of the river, drowning, and if he caught me on the end of his line he would have been disappointed. I watched him for a bit longer, battling with the fish, pulling it in without letting his rod bend too far, allowing it to swim out a little and pulling it in again. A tired and docile trout was dragged through the shallows, while I walked into the woods and sat down in the long grass.
“Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Einer kleiner flish!” My father shouted like a winner.
It was as if I were in a cinema, watching the action on a big screen. What would happen next? When would the hero realize the heroine had disappeared? My father prised the hook out of the trout’s mouth and laid the fish on the ground. He had already selected a heavy rock from the bank, and now he picked it up, lifting his arm high in the air, aiming at the fish’s head. I narrowed my eyes in preparation but didn’t look away. Before the rock came slamming down, my father glanced over his shoulder—to search for me, I supposed. There was a sourness in my chest; I wanted the fish to be beaten and I wanted my father to be shocked that I was no longer on the riverbank. He stood up, letting the rock fall beside the trout. Between the stalks of grass, I could just see the flapping of its tail while it drowned in the summer air. My father went to my scattered clothes and picked up the trousers. He looked underneath them as though I might be hiding there. I put my hand over my mouth to stifle a giggle.
I saw his lips form a word that may have been “fuck.” Then, looking around, he called, “Peggy? Peggy!”
I didn’t answer, but sat still like a creature of the forest, a shadow.
My father gathered up my clothes and held them to his chest. The mud on the trousers marked his shirt with a brown streak; he put them back down and stared desperately out across the water.
“Peggy!” he shouted again, and he waded in, without even taking off his shoes. I winced for him because of the cold. He strode straight in, up to the top of his thighs, so he could look beyond the bushes which hung out over the water. I worried about how wet his shoes and shorts would be and how angry that would make him later. I was no longer quiet because I was hiding, but because I needed to hide. He stood in the water where I had been ten minutes earlier and scanned the banks upstream, shading his eyes against the sun. He turned and stared downstream, cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted with real worry in his voice, “Peggy? Peggy!” and, “Shit!”
I looked where he looked, but there was nothing to see except the rippling shadows of branches and clouds, and the occasional bubble. He came back to the bank and ran in a short burst against the current, then ran back, all the while looking at the water. He reminded me of a Labrador whose stick has been thrown into the middle of a pond and who hesitates for a second before leaping in. Hopping and tripping, my father pulled off his boots and his shorts, now a darker shade of blue. He yanked his shirt over his head, leaving his clothes in a pile on top of mine. His torso was startlingly white against his brown forearms and calves, as if he were wearing a flesh-coloured tank top. He hesitated on the bank, then strode in again, as though he had dismissed the thought of diving into the shallows. I was really scared, scared he would plunge into the river and not resurface. And then I would be the one running up and down the bank, shouting. I wouldn’t know what to do, where to go for help, how to get home. I wouldn’t know how to swim or catch fish, or what to eat. My mind ran on as I watched him. I might be wandering around the forest on my own for years. I would have to sleep in the tent by myself, supposing that I could even put it up, and there would be rustling and howling and small animals scurrying around in the night. Something might be in the woods. That thought made me turn around from my position, hiding in the grass, and look behind me. A mass of trees and darkness loomed.
“Peggy!” my father shouted once more.
“My name isn’t Peggy,” I called out.
He froze, up to his waist in the water. He appeared unsure of what he had heard. He turned his head one way, then the other, trying to work out where my voice had come from. He waded back to the bank.
Louder, I said, “It’s Rapunzel.”
My father looked toward where I was sitting and ran forward, almost tripping over himself in his anxiety. He bent over me and put his face, which changed from white to red, very close to mine. He took me by both shoulders and dug his fingers into the hollows between my bones. And he shook me.
“Don’t ever, ever do that again,” he yelled into my face. “You must always stay where I can see you. Do you understand?” My body was jerking backward and forward in the opposite direction to my head. Tears of pain and terror came, and I wondered if it was possible for my neck to snap from so much shaking.
His underpants were wet, leaking rivulets of water down his legs. He let go of my shoulders and, instead, held me by my wrist and pulled me upright. My father was a tall man. He lifted my wrist as high as he could, raising my arm over my head, so I had to stand on tiptoe in order for my body to follow after it. I started to cry—whimpering at first, then much louder. In bare feet, hopping over the twigs and stones, my father pulled me back to our pile of clothes and scooped them up. He carried on dragging me, howling, down the bank to the fish, which was still giving an occasional weak flap of its tail. He picked up the rock and held it up above my head. Against the bright sun, it was a meteorite spinning toward me. He brought it down fast. I tried to pull away, but his grip on my wrist increased. I kicked against the ground, knocking the slippery fish with my bare toes—turning it over onto my trousers. The hand with the rock whipped past my face by a couple of inches and landed on the trout’s head, destroying it. My father let go of me and hurled the rock into the water.
“Fuck!” he shouted as he threw it. I curled into a tight little ball beside the trout, my fingers locked together over the top of my head, still expecting the blow from the rock to land on me. We were both silent; all the world was silent for a moment.
“I want . . . to . . . go . . . home.” I struggled to get the words out between choking sobs. I tried to not look at the fish with its mashed head.
“Get dressed.” My father gave my shoes a kick toward me. He picked up his own clothes and put them on with fierce movements as if they too had misbehaved. He took his fishing rod apart in angry bursts.
Almost under my breath, I repeated, “I want to go home, Papa.”
“Get dressed!” My father pulled my trousers out from under the fish as though he were performing a magic trick with a tablecloth. He flung them at me. Pieces of crushed fish flesh and skin stuck to them. Still crying, I put them on, then my socks and shoes.