River

This is an excerpt from ‘A Suitcase in Berlin’ the novel I’m currently working on.

 

Dark clouds of night still imprisoned the sky over the river and a quarter moon floated in a ring of mist. Leaves rustled in the wind as dawn gradually lightened the sky. The three women in the car, windows open, watched water foaming over the weir, white on cold silver. The clouds thinned to grey and bats darted between trees. Two pelicans coasted low over the water and landed near the row of others still asleep on a small sandbar.

(As they talk, one of the women starts telling a tale.)

“Once upon a time,” Anna interrupted, “three women sat by the river of life. One was a weaver, another a teller of tales and the third, a creator of magical symbols.”

            “That’s not strictly accurate,” Hanne protested.

            “Their lives,” Anna continued loudly, “over a matter of years, had become intertwined like the currents of the river. They shared stories, understood one another’s metaphors and each woman recorded the progress of the river in her own way. Some of the people who walked by the river noticed three odd-shaped rocks that they called the three sisters. Others claimed that late at night they had seen three women sitting under a tree and spinning.”

            At that moment the sun broke free of the horizon and a patch of the river reflected gold.

            “Still others said that on misty summer morning they had heard the sweet harmony of three voices floating over the river.”

            “She’s working everything in,” Hanne said.

            “Shh,” Phoebe whispered. “Look.”

            A dark shadow slipped from the bank of the river into the water with barely a ripple.”

            “Alberich, right on cue,” Anna said.

            “You’re naming beavers now?” Phoebe asked.

            “Poor Alberich,” Hanne said. “He was ugly, awkward, and obnoxious.”

            “It wasn’t all his fault,” insisted Anna. “If the Rhine maidens hadn’t been so nasty to him, and stupid, he probably would never have stolen their gold.”

“And Wagner wouldn’t have had a story.”