The Swimming Lesson

Nadia could not swim, and everyone in the village seemed to know it.

She had come east for the summer, to her grandma's house at the top of the hill. From the window she could see the whole beach, the long wall of stone, and the water beyond it, blue in the morning and dark by night. Grandma opened the gate at seven every day of her life and walked down to swim before the heat came.

"You will come with me," Grandma said on the first morning.

"I would prefer to stay here," said Nadia.

"Of course you would," said Grandma. "Get your shirt."

The lessons were at nine. The coach was a woman called Vera, in an old red shirt and no hat, who had taught most of the village to swim and did not seem at all worried about Nadia.

"Sit on the step," Vera said. "Put your face in the water. That is the whole lesson."

Nadia put her face in and came up after a second. Her heart went hard. Some boys near the rocks made a noise, and she felt her face go hot.

"Good," said Vera. "Same time tomorrow."

Every day was one small thing. Hold your breath and count to five. Hold the wall and kick until your legs hurt. Let the wall go for two seconds, then three. Vera hardly spoke, and when she did it was always the same advice: the water will hold you, so stop fighting it. Nadia did not believe her. It was, in her opinion, the sort of thing people say when they have forgotten what it is like to be afraid.

Several boys came most mornings. One of them, the one in the tight blue shirt, could swim out to the rock and back without stopping, and he liked everyone to see it. On the third day Nadia got water in her mouth, stood up, and walked out. She sat on the stone with her arms round her legs and looked at nobody.

Vera let her sit for a while, then came and sat down too.

"I am sorry," Nadia said. "I am wasting your time."

"You are," said Vera. "Although not for the reason you think."

That night Grandma was at the gate with a glass of milk, watching the water go dark.

"I could see you from up here," she said. "You come out too early. You give up at the moment it starts to work."

"You have swum since you were a child," said Nadia.

"I could not swim at your age," said Grandma. "I could not swim when I was twice your age. Nobody in this village will tell you that, because I asked them not to."

Nadia looked at her. It was, she decided, the first true thing anyone had said all month.

In the last week Vera pointed at the rock.

"Today you swim to that."

"I cannot."

"That is an opinion," said Vera. "Get in."

The first part was terrible. Nadia's arms were too quick and her breath was all wrong and the beach seemed to be going away behind her. Then something odd happened. Her arms found the same beat as her breath, and the water stopped pushing and started holding her, exactly as Vera had said it would. She could hear nothing but the sea in her ears. She did not think about the boys once.

When her hand hit the rock she was so surprised that she nearly went under.

There was a great deal of shouting from the beach. The boys were on their feet, and the one in the tight blue shirt was the loudest of them. Nadia held on to the rock and looked back at how far the wall was, and she began to laugh, and the laughing nearly finished her. Vera swam out towards her and came back at her side without a word.

Grandma was at the gate with a dry shirt over her arm. She said nothing at all about the swim, which was, Nadia understood by then, how she celebrated things.

"Same time tomorrow," Nadia said.

"Of course," said Grandma, and opened the gate.