Jonathan Pais Knapp
The Rain Never Lasts
A man entered the plaza and walked towards the ravaged fountain. He wore a gray, three-piece suit and a pencil-thin mustache. His hair was white and thinning, though neatly combed. He had a dancer’s posture—shoulders back, chin held high—and moved with measured strides, limiting the swing of his briefcase to no more than a few inches with each step. Despite his age and formal bearing, his electric green eyes beamed with youthful pride, like a child entrusted with a special errand.
The plaza occupied two square blocks in a small port city. Low, pastel-colored buildings fronted the plaza on three sides, their colonial era facades dutifully maintained in compliance with local ordinances. On the remaining side of the plaza, a yellow cathedral with two bell towers dwarfed the surrounding structures. The midday sun reflected off the colorful stucco. The heat was stifling.
Before the drought years, atmospheric rivers saturated the cloud forests in the mountains each rainy season, nurturing banner coffee harvests, infusing the local economy with productive capital, liquidity, as it were, that manifested, most importantly, in an abundance of jobs. The fountain in the center of the plaza had been a symbol of civic pride and a beacon for young and old alike. Water would cascade from the rim of the mushroom shaped basin as cherubic feet tottered over a cool mosaic of blue and white tiles. Young mothers would gossip on the periphery, keeping one eye trained on their screeching toddlers, while teenagers furtively circled each other, whispering commitments, and old men shook off their wives to caucus, some debating politics, others exchanging dirty jokes, periodically erupting in laughter, inevitably followed by fits of coughing.
The fountain became one of the first casualties of the dry years, which decimated the coffee export and reduced the port’s marine traffic to a fraction of its capacity. When the city shut off its water, a new force was released and wholly directed at the concrete reminder of more prosperous times. Each arid morning revealed the aftermath of yet another late-night drunken assault on the fountain: shattered tiles, crude graffiti, cigarette butts and broken glass.
The man set down his briefcase near the fountain, whisked a thin layer of dust off a concrete bench with the back of his hand, and took a seat. He unfurled his handkerchief, wiped the sweat from his brow, and closed his eyes. His body was completely still; only his eyelids flickered. He visualized a circle and then willed it to expand outward and multiply, like ripples in a pond.
The man’s eyes opened as a dense flock of pigeons fluttered overhead; the frenzied beating of wings echoed in his ears. Four brothers in threadbare jeans and faded t-shirts chased after a few remaining birds in front of the cathedral, laughing like a pack of hyenas. Their eight-year old sister sat perched in a tree, partially concealed by a sparse canopy of wilting leaves. Though her hair was braided in two pristine pigtails, she wore red overalls with fraying holes in the knees. The girl scanned the plaza as if it were a great savannah populated with wary prey.
The man checked his watch. The gold timepiece lacked a conventional face, which enabled one to peer into its skeletal labyrinth of slowly rotating cogs and cranks. The man polished the watch with his handkerchief, peering across the plaza at a glum man selling popsicles from a pockmarked ice-chest on wheels. As the ice-cream vendor traversed the plaza, rolling his makeshift cart over the cobblestones, the small bell affixed to the cart’s handle clanged erratically.
The man crossed his arms and tapped his left foot. He tracked the movements of an exhausted bricklayer on a bicycle slowly trundling past, carting a basketful of tools and a wooden ladder on his shoulder. The bricklayer hummed a popular ballad as he pedaled.
The man’s watch emitted a staccato rhythm of high-pitched chimes. He silenced the alarm and bowed his head, as if in prayer. A cellular lattice of clouds, like rows of giant cotton balls, materialized in the sky, casting dark, if uneven shadows over the cobblestones. He felt the dappled shadows pass over him but did not look up.
The ice-cream vendor peered at the plump, celestial fingertips in disbelief. The bricklayer stopped singing in mid-breath, mouth agape. The four brothers howled in unison. Their sister regarded the man intently. A clap of thunder resounded through the plaza.
The man remained seated with his forehead resting on his clasped hands for what seemed like an eternity to the girl who, watching him from afar, quivered with anticipation. Finally, there was movement; the man slowly extended his right arm and opened his hand as if he were soliciting a tribute. Raindrops wetted the thin lines that transected the loose skin on his palm. He tilted his hand and the rainwater dotted the bright, parched ground, forming a dark circle between his feet.
The man coaxed a small brass key from his vest pocket and inserted it into both keyholes on his briefcase. The locking mechanisms disengaged. He extracted a red bathing cap and a pair of dark goggles. He donned the bathing cap, carefully tucking stray hairs that poked out around his ears under its elastic ribbing. He removed his watch, took off his suit jacket, folded it in half, down the spine, shrugged off his vest, loosened his bow tie, and stowed it all inside the case.
The man extricated his cufflinks from his starched, white shirt – two glistening gold ovals with bright orbs of lapis lazuli in the center. Thin lines were etched in the blue stones, radiating outward in elegant whorls.
The boys on the far side of the plaza paused to consider the man as he slipped off his polished burgundy loafers, balled up his argyle socks, and removed his slacks, careful to follow the crease as he draped them over his forearm and placed them in the briefcase. He unbuttoned his shirt and folded it with some ceremony. The boys exploded in raucous laughter at the sight of the man, stunningly unclothed except for his red speedo swimsuit and bathing cap. Their sister did not laugh, or even smile, but instead, remained transfixed by the man as he fell into a methodic stretching regiment.
The man placed his right heel on the top of the bench and then doubled over grasping his toes. He felt his rigid, stubborn muscles begin to loosen and switched legs. Though puzzled by their exuberance, the man peered at the boys, fondly recalling how nimble he’d been at their age. One of the boys dropped to the ground, giggling hysterically. The man stepped on to the waist-high wall that encircled the fountain and completed his routine, shaking out his shoulders and rolling his neck.
Cold droplets filled the air, dissipating the heat. The bricklayer tilted his face upwards, relishing the feel of the raindrops on his skin.
The man put on his goggles. The precipitation intensified; sheets of rain buffeted the plaza. The drops seem to be growing larger, congealing.
The boys chased each other, racing in concentric circles with their arms outstretched like wings and then dove headfirst into a splotchy patch of grass, now transformed into a muddy runway, sliding on their bellies, tumbling over one another at the end of the line. Their sister ignored them. Nothing could pry her focus away from the man as she climbed down from the tree.
Blinded by the sudden downpour, the bricklayer lost control of his bicycle and slid to the ground, dropping his ladder and scattering his tools. The bricklayer scrambled to his feet and managed to catch two triangular trowels—used for smoothing wet concrete—before being carried away by a torrent of rainwater. He stuffed the trowels in his waistband and sprinted after his ladder.
The man kneeled and clutched the edge of the fountain as if preparing to spring off a diving block. He felt a familiar, dull ache in his left knee. Giant globs of rainwater descended on the plaza with such velocity that the watery explosions seemed to defy gravity, rebounding back to the clouds. The man sprang off the fountain and surged upward, through the rain, dolphin-kicking into the darkening sky.
The bricklayer clutched the lowest rung of the ladder as water swirled around him, like an inverted whirlpool. The other end of the ladder jerked into the air, disappearing into the frothy vortex. He held on with all his strength. As his feet lifted off the ground, the ice-cream vendor grabbed the cuff of the bricklayer’s trousers with one hand while anchoring himself to his cart with the other.
Fifty meters above the plaza the man fell into a leisurely backstroke. He let his mind drift; thoughts flitted through his consciousness like leaves floating past on a trickling stream. He imagined his late wife standing in the doorway to their small backyard, fresh from gardening, her hands redolent of moist earth. Sorrow burrowed into his chest.
The ice-cream vendor lost his hold on the bricklayer’s fraying trousers, the cuff shearing from the pant leg. Untethered, the ladder rocketed into the sky at breakneck speed. The bricklayer desperately wound his arms around the lowest rung.
The brothers solemnly followed the ladder and the dark figure piloting it into the clouds. The oldest brother crossed himself. The three younger brothers followed suit.
The bricklayer peered down at the shrinking cathedral and gasped loudly at the thought of plummeting back to earth, a mass of flesh and splinters on the cobblestones.
The sound of the bricklayer’s panic interrupted the man’s thoughts. The man transitioned into a freestyle stroke, propelling himself higher into the sky. A few moments later he appeared at the bricklayer’s side. He tapped the bricklayer’s shoulder and smiled reassuringly. The bricklayer’s lower lip trembled. The man motioned with his hand, molding a descending slope in the rainwater that retained its shape for a moment before dissolving.
The bricklayer’s eyes brightened. He withdrew one of his trowels from his waistband and began shaping the rainwater around him into slowly dissipating walls. The man nodded approvingly. The bricklayer reached overhead and smoothed the rainwater into a dome. The bricklayer’s body pressed against the watery ceiling as the ladder folded over into a horizontal position, parallel to the ground below. The bricklayer shifted on to the top of the ladder so that he was laying on its wooden rungs, like a surfer resting on his board between waves.
At the man’s urging, the bricklayer cautiously moved to one end of the ladder, sitting on top of it like a toboggan. The ladder pitched downward, starting the descent. The bricklayer smoothed the rainwater in front of him as he plowed ahead, controlling his speed by adjusting the pitch of his path. He leaned forward and flattened the angle of his trowels—like opening the throttle on a motorbike—and sped up. Then he straightened his posture while rotating the tools backwards and slowed down. Moderating his speed in this manner, he slid back down to earth.
The ice-cream vendor and the four brothers rushed to the bricklayer, embracing him. They proudly clutched his shoulders and mussed his drenched hair, while the youngest brother tugged at the bricklayer’s torn pant leg. Hopping with excitement, the boys picked up the ladder, clamoring for a chance to sail into the sky.
The bricklayer and ice-cream vendor exchanged a hesitant look but then gave into the boys’ pleading. The ice-cream vendor parked his cart below the inverted whirlpool. The bricklayer hoisted himself atop it, and the four brothers formed a line behind him. The ice-cream vendor laced his fingers together. The bricklayer placed his right foot in the ice-cream vendor’s hands and held on to his shoulders for balance. With a wink and a nod, the bricklayer straightened his legs as the ice-cream vendor jerked backwards and heaved. The bricklayer sprung up and was immediately drawn into the sky. The four brothers queued up behind the ice-cream cart, eager for their turn.
The girl’s heart thumped in her chest—she was determined to intercept her brothers, to stop them from plunging into the unknown, baiting death. Why were they so stupid! And reckless! She raced towards them, channeling her mother, how, in these moments, infuriated by their idiocy, she would grab for a belt or whatever was in reach. The girl picked up a baseball-sized rock. She felt like the world was spinning too fast, and if she didn’t grab her brothers in time, they would be flung off and she’d never see them again.
The brothers heard the heavy thud of the rock striking the ice-cream cart before they saw their sister, violently motioning for them to back away. The boys laughed but hastened their pace, trailing close behind the bricklayer to follow his example precisely, including the pre-launch wink and nod. With tears of fury blurring her vision, the girl threw more rocks as the boys streamed into the sky, well out of range.
The bricklayer shaped the contours of the four brothers’ ascent, molding a watery tunnel that curved and corkscrewed like a roller coaster. As they slammed into each new bend, the boys whooped with delight.
Pausing for a moment to regain his bearings, the bricklayer eyed the man once again. He was dancing the Tango, making long, fluid strides as he lifted his right arm to turn an imaginary partner. A trickle of rainwater fell from his hand like a climbing plant’s tendrils, weaving together, forming an inverted replica of his open palm, only the fingers were thinner and more delicate. As the narrow wrist and forearm took shape, the bricklayer could see the watery appendage revolving, following the man’s lead.
The bricklayer leaned his shoulder into a tight turn and formed a coiled flume around the man, providing a clear view of his ethereal dance. The bricklayer motioned to the boys, who, at the sight of the man dancing with the phantom limb, hollered even louder.
With his chest held high and his spine rigid, the man took a few more short steps and then threw his torso in the opposite direction. He flicked his right wrist sending his nascent partner swiveling. The head, shoulders and upper torso of a woman comprised entirely of water emerged. The man took two steps backwards and then raised his arm to turn her. She completed the revolution on her own legs. A beam of sunlight refracted through her tall, slender frame, illuminating the meticulous details of her creation: the high cheekbones, fine lines around her eyes, sinewy muscles in her calves, flowing skirt. She rested her back against the man’s chest and they rhythmically swayed in perfect synchronicity as if they had danced together a thousand times.
In the plaza, the ice-cream vendor launched popsicles into the sky. He wound his torso backwards like a discus thrower, and then rotated his shoulders forward, swinging one tightly packed handful of popsicles after another in a circle and then releasing them at the optimal angle. The brightly-colored projectiles rocketed up into the dissipating clouds. The boys elbowed each other, jostling for position, straining to catch as many popsicles as they could until their arms were filled with bouquets of strawberry, lemon, cactus fruit and mango flavored ices.
The man led the woman through a rapid series of perfectly executed turns; as she spun around, the crystalline filaments of her hair brushed against his cheek. The man’s hands dropped to her waist and he lifted her. The woman extended her legs in a front split with her toes pointing away from her body. Though straining from the exertion, the man continued to spin her for several more rotations. Then he abruptly came to a halt. He gently lowered the woman until her tightly muscled frame was parallel to their aerial stage. Kneeling, the man gasped for air, his chest heaving. She tenderly cupped his face in her hands, softly kissed his lips, and then let herself fall. She seemed to float, weightless, for a placid moment and then disappeared, dissolving into so many glistening droplets. Thin shafts of sunlight pierced the clouds, like water streaming through fissures in a dam, casting a filtered spotlight on the man, his eyes brimming with emotion.
The brothers erupted in cheers, fragmented popsicles exploding from their mouths. The rain subsided.
The bricklayer throttled back on his trowels and the ladder slowed to a stop a few feet above the plaza. The ice-cream vendor was standing nearby, waiting for them to touch down. He clasped the youngest brother’s hands and helped the boy disembark as the ladder slowly dropped to the cobblestones. The boys then darted through the plaza, bounding uncontrollably, seemingly in all directions at once. Looking on from a distance, the boys’ sister quietly thanked the heavens for their safe return.
The bricklayer collapsed to the ground, exhausted. The ice-cream vendor fished through his cart and pulled out two purple, cactus-flavored popsicles. He plopped down beside the bricklayer and offered him one. The bricklayer used it as a microphone, serenading his new friend with an old love song. The ice-cream vendor playfully elbowed the bricklayer in the ribs and both men laughed.
The man landed a few yards away. He appeared stunned, lost in his own thoughts. The bricklayer and the ice-cream vendor grew quiet, respectful of the man’s solitude. They smiled at him affectionately and the man bashfully bowed his thanks.
The man opened his briefcase on the bench. He removed his bathing cap and goggles and stowed them away. Then he took out his slacks and put them on. Next, he extracted his white shirt. He slipped his arms through the sleeves, buttoned up the front and then reached inside the briefcase for his cufflinks.
But the cufflinks were gone. And so was his watch.
The man scanned the plaza and the surrounding streets that emptied into it, potholed and crumbling concrete tributaries into a long-forgotten estuary. People were returning to their normal routines following the downpour: waiters unfolded signs advertising lunch specials onto the sidewalk, contractors removed makeshift tarps, and stray dogs resumed their interminable search for scraps. The man spied frenetic movement on a narrow side street—it was the girl, the boys’ little sister, sprinting away from the plaza with clenched fists. She rounded a corner at the end of the block and disappeared from his view.
The man inserted his index finger through the hole in his shirt cuff. He solemnly stroked the cuff’s starched fabric with his thumb. Moving cautiously, as if wary of aggravating an injury, the man rolled up his sleeves, slotted his belt through the loops in his slacks, put on his socks and shoes, and draped his suit jacket over his arm. He did not trouble himself with his vest or bow tie.
The man peered into his briefcase. He closed his eyes and lipped a prayer, or perhaps it was a farewell. The taut muscles in his back released, allowing his shoulders to slump forward. A warm breeze ruffled the man’s wispy hair. He looked up, studying the disintegrating clouds. His lips curled into a grin. He shut the case. The locks nestled behind each of the keyholes engaged with a patter of clicks.
~
The girl raced up a steep street, away from the city’s center, towards her neighborhood, a cluster of brightly painted cement buildings in varied states of completion protruding from the hillside. She rounded a sharp corner and, on instinct, flattened herself against a brick wall as a speeding green and white taxi nearly clipped her face with its passenger mirror. Unfazed by the near collision she peered over her shoulder to see if anyone followed. The street was calm; a few middle-school boys waited for a mini-bus and an old woman slowly climbed the steps carved into the sidewalk, groaning with each footfall. The girl was relieved, yet remained vigilant, unwilling to rest until she was home. She continued on, resuming her breathless pace.
At the blue house she darted to the left up a narrow alley passable only on foot. As the grade steepened, the cracked and crumbling cement gave way to patches of gravel and then dirt, now sodden with rainwater. At the broken chair—a rocking chair cleft in half and partially entombed beneath a small pile of discarded rebar and jagged concrete debris and the point at which her four older brothers invariably slowed down—the girl, as was her custom, pitched forward, digging her sneakers into the wet soil, scrambling ahead. It was a chance to distinguish herself, prove she was faster. And even though no one was there to see her as she summited the peak and strode across the vacant lot next to her house, she felt triumphant, confident that she’d set a new personal record.
The girl pictured her mother somewhere in the city below, selling bread from the basket she balanced on her head until long after sunset. Her mother was a butterfly in the street, smiling at would-be customers, cheerily drumming up business. But by the time she emerged through their battered screen door, she was an angry wasp, ready to sting at the slightest infraction.
Safe in her room, sitting on her bed by the window overlooking the vacant lot, the girl marveled at the interior workings of the watch and the delicate circles etched into the blue stones of the cuff links. These were the most beautiful objects she’d ever held. But it wasn’t their beauty that captivated her; it was the promise, the possibility, the power they seemed to possess.
She surveyed the empty lot where nothing grew but a smattering of weeds and dry grasses. Narrow rivulets of rainwater filled the parched cracks in the dirt.
When the girl’s uncle had visited from the countryside, he’d held the powdery, desiccated soil in his palm and explained, because of the drought years, the earth on the hillside was now afraid of rain. He tossed the useless dirt aside, shaking his head. The girl asked her uncle what it would it take for the hillside to change, to accept the rain. He shrugged and said that things would have to return to the way they were, when the rainy season gently soaked the hillside each year, taught the sloped land how to retain all that water.
The girl clutched the treasured objects in her palms, knelt beside her bed, and shut her eyes. She imagined a bounty of fruit trees and neat rows of vegetable plants, a productive plot that she, her mother, and her restive brothers, who roamed further afield each day, could all farm, together. The girl held her eyes closed for as long as she could.
Outside the rainwater washed away with the topsoil, disappeared into storm drains, or simply vanished, evaporating, as it were. And then there was silence and heat once more.
Jonathan Pais Knapp lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two sons working as an energy attorney and writing fiction whenever possible. He previously published a short story in the pacificREVIEW.
