»Now dive six lengths! Away!”
Photo: imago/Eckehard Schulz
»Prick deep with the palm of your hand! Push your forearm back!” With my eyes closed, I pull my right thumb upwards, starting at my hip, knock off my left hand, turn to the left, and stab my left hand. A stern voice in my head orders: “Keep your back straight. Don’t sag, put more pressure on your forearms and breathe!” Something prickly grabs my hand and I thrash around.
Charlottenburg, a Tuesday afternoon in June. A pair of swans sail past me with three young in tow. I hang on the musty footbridge that frames the 50-meter track and calm my breathing. Yet again! Ever since I’ve been thinking about taking a freestyle swimming course at the community college, I’ve had this nightmare that also appears during the day: a swimming pool, two handfuls of people curled up on the edge of the pool and looking up at a man who gives instructions: “Now Dive six lengths and do four butterfly backwards. Maybe the attitude will work. Off!” He claps his hands, the others swim off like fish, while I follow painfully slowly, choking, despairing.
Above water
private
Anne Hahn is an author of novels and non-fiction books and swims the waters of the world for “nd”.
I push myself off the jetty and make a wide arc through the shimmering dark green lake. My foot brushes against one of his arms Spiked milfoil, it waves yellow-green below me, hard tips tickle my stomach. The swans have reached the park outside the Jungfernheide lido and are now waddling ashore. A couple is startled and backs away. The swans shake their feathers, swing across the meadow and then glide back into the water. The little ones form a pretty, gray, fluffy chain behind their parents.
The Jungfernheidenteich is a good 100 years old and a maximum of four meters deep. Its water enters the lake from the Berlin-Spandau shipping canal through the Nonnengraben and flows back into the Spree in the south. Until the end of last year, the district continued as part of a Project for ecological upgrading The local nature uses aquatic plants such as the common milfoil to combat algae.
The outdoor swimming pool is privately leased, and for eight euros admission you can access the beach, toilets, lawn and volleyball court via the restaurant terrace on weekdays. I am the only person in the lake. After the rain, the group of pensioners also retreated to the terrace. A wetsuit dangles in one of the old trees on the brick roundel. An older couple is lying in deckchairs on the long sandy beach, three young people are having a picnic, and an Arab couple is settling down a little further with three small children. When the sun briefly appears, the woman puts up an umbrella and sits under it, the man plays with the largest child on the edge of the bank.
Now get some coffee, I think and turn from my back to my stomach. As I swim towards the beach, the voice in my head complains again: “Time isn’t up yet! 200 meters of one-sided crawl on the right, then 400 on the left, without legs! Away!”
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