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Show 19 Four Each arm, as he brings it down alongside his body, releases its own distinct wave of bubbles; Robeck works to make them as symmetrical and rhythmical as he can. It is a curious stroke he has devised, a kind of geriatric backstroke with certain affinities to a reverse dog-paddle; he knows it is awkward, but it works. For one thing, it succeeds in keeping his head out of water, now that age makes his eyes increasingly sensitive to the chlorine. And it accomplishes something else as well, though fie wTsh.es he did not need to have recourse to it: his awkward, flailing stroke marks him as an aged and feeble man, and even when the pool is at its most viciously crowded, grants him a berth of relatively undisturbed space. The pool is alive today with huge and heavy swimmers doing brutal sets of laps in cutthroat time; the surface of the water is cut to a froth and the wake of one swimmer slaps the next in the face; even so, Robeck is granted a berth of relatively undisturbed space, and he can perform his old man's swim without fear. Still, they are glad when he leaves; the lifeguard sits back from the edge of his chair, and the small, quiet space he had occupied quickly closes over with the chop of competition. Robeck walks loosely across the tiled deck, eased by his swim, goes into the lockerrooms. It is a wonderland of freely sweating youth: young glistening men unlace their tennis shoes and strip off their shirts and lie limp and fiercely breathing on the benches, or slump into showers; near his own locker, a boy winces gratefully while another binds tape around a freshly injured ankle. Robeck pushes down his trunks, and hangs them in a clot over the door of his |
