The Flood

Abstract

63 MAIA MCPHERSON The Flood  an stood by the window, looking out at the flood. It was approaching noon, and the sun shone between the shifting clouds overhead. The window in the living room stretched from floor to ceiling and faced the narrow cobbled street that ran along the side of the house. The flood water moved lazily. By this point, it had reached to the middle of the first pane of the window. Jan had been concerned that the weight of the water would break the glass. If the water rose to the next set of panes, the window would surely buckle. Or maybe not. Perhaps the floating debris would do it in. Jan’s wife of fifty years, Maud, came into the room and regarded her husband’s back. She put her hands on her hips. The flood had been slowly rising for a week, and yet her husband continued to dress for a normal day. He wore ironed khaki trousers, a clean undershirt, and a white buttondown shirt with a pale teal sweater-vest over it. His white hair and silver rimmed spectacles reflected in the windowpane. With the water pressed against the window, Maud had the feeling of being in an aquarium. The green of the flood filled the living room with an underwater texture. Maud had paced the house nervously for the last three days. Shops had closed, and people had begun to move inland. Many of the other houses in their neighborhood were still and dark at night, their doors muffled with sandbags, the windows shuttered with plywood. Maud combatted her growing anxiety by cleaning incessantly. She made soup and crackers for Jan at lunchtime. She knit by the woodstove and watched the news reports on the little colored television in the kitchen. She repeated the reports to Jan, emphasizing the most troubling facts, as he breathed out loudly. “The rain will stop eventually,” he said. “This is not the ark and Noah.” As the days went by and the flood inched higher, Maud became more insistent, calling on their son in Oslo to convince Jan to go inland. j 64 Jan and Hendrick went back and forth through the receiver. Eventually , Jan ended the conversation. “Son, you’ve become too nervous about uncertainty,” he said. “Here’s your mother.” Jan handed Maud the phone and eased down the hall to his study. The last straw had come that morning, when the district police called to alert them that an official evacuation had been ordered. “We will be fined, Jana!” said Maud, after she hung up the phone. “It’s official ,” she said. “It’s bureaucracy,” Jan replied. Maud and Jan’s neighbor, Mr. Aldermans, came by the house, wearing fishing waders. Jan had stacked sandbags waist high around the front door to keep the water from breaching the front entrance. Mr. Aldermans tapped on the door with the tall walking stick he used to feel his way through the drowning streets. The water was up to his knees. He seemed to be in an especially good mood. His nephew had stored a boat with an outboard motor at Mr. Aldermans’s house before the storm, and they intended to use it to evacuate the area. Mr. Aldermans had come by to offer his services. “Prepare to leave at three o’clock,” Mr. Aldermans said. “I think the rain will be starting again soon. This sunshine is just an illusion.” Maud thanked him and came back into the house. “We should evacuate,” she said to Jan. The clock on the wall slid back and forth, ticking in the still room. Jan did not move from his position at the window. Maud’s arms flopped down to her sides. “I said we should evacuate, Jana.” Jan shifted his weight from one leg to the other and slid his hands into his trouser pockets. The water made a soft, gurgling sound beyond the glass. Maud stepped down into the living room slowly and winced when her house slippers made a soft slap on the wood floor. “Jan, Mr. Aldermans will come back later,” she said, “and we will need to go. I am preparing to go...