A Girl and Five Brave Horses

by Sonora Carver

  Later that afternoon at the top of the tower, as I waited for Klatawah’s dark form to loom up in the vague grayness, my eyes filled with tears. The next time Klatawah made a dive I would not be riding him. I struggled sadly through the rest of the Sunday performances.

  The following day brought Marie, and Al and I finally went to a doctor. He was considered to be one of the best eye specialists in that part of the country. After I had explained my accident and subsequent developments, he examined my eyes. He told me that the impact of the water had broken tiny blood vessels in my eyes and that the physical exertion of each ride thereafter had increased this internal hemorrhage to the point where more blood had accumulated than could be absorbed. The unabsorbed blood had clotted and began to detach my retinas.

  The term “detached retina” meant nothing to me until he explained that the eye has three layers—the sclera, the choroid, and the retina—which lie one on top of the other, somewhat like the skin of an onion. The retina is the inner one and corresponds to the film in a camera. The blood clots had slipped between the choroid and retina and worked the retina loose, the way sand behind wallpaper will eventually work the wallpaper loose from the wall.

  He pulled no punches in explaining how badly my eyes were injured, saying that he could not impress on me too strongly their serious condition. “I shall do everything within my power,” he said, “to restore the sight in your right eye, but the state of your left eye seems utterly hopeless.” He explained that apparently the retina of my left eye was completely smashed, but the retina of the right eye was still only partially detached. He warned me that hope for the right one was slight, however, because of limited medical knowledge in treating detached retinas.

  The implication of blindness was horrifying. Indeed, the doctor’s suggestion produced a sense of shock so profound that a part of my mind seemed to stop functioning, and the terrified thoughts that had scampered through my brain at the first realization of the possibility of my becoming permanently and totally blind were put away into some inner fastness and I refused to let them out.

  “He’s only trying to frighten me into being a docile patient,” I told myself. “He doesn’t really mean it.” I clung to this rationalization as I followed a nurse down a corridor and into a room where she helped to undress me. So within a matter of hours I was snatched from a life filled with excitement and action to the monotony of a hospital bed.

  Thirteen

  The clinic was a small private hospital used solely for eye cases, for, as the doctor explained, “My patients are seldom ill and so they become restless when subjected to the strict routine of a general hospital. I find it much better to have them here where they may have company whenever they please.”

  His attitude was fortunate for me, since all the people I knew in Atlantic City were in show business and, owing to the schedule of their performances, would have found it difficult to come to see me during regular hospital visiting hours.

  The room assigned to me was as austere as any ordinary hospital room. It had a bleak cleanliness which no amount of flowers or company ever completely abolished. I felt overwhelmed by its atmosphere as I slipped into bed. To Al, who appeared later with my things, I complained, “I never felt better in my life, and to be lying idle in bed seems the silliest thing in the world.”

  “You know what the doctor said,” he replied.

  “Yes, I know, and I’m going to try to co-operate, but I’ll hate every minute of it, so please come whenever you can and tell everyone else to.”

  Al had no sooner left the room that day than I fell asleep. For the next three days I slept almost constantly, waking only for medical treatment, food, and visitors. I had not been aware of being either tired or sleepy before going to the hospital, and I think now that this overpowering urge to sleep was a psychological attempt on my part to escape the dismal picture the doctor had painted. Whatever its cause, after those three days I was surfeited and never again slept so solidly and continuously. Later I often prayed for the ability to sleep in order to pass away endless hours of monotony, but sleep would no longer come.

  The worst part of those early days in the clinic was that I had to lie perfectly still. This was to allow the fluids and blood clots in my eyes to be absorbed so the doctor could better calculate the extent of the damage before attempting to operate. In the complete immobility of my body lay the only hope of saving my eyesight. I could move my arms up and down if I went about it very cautiously, but every other part of me had to remain like stone.

  It is impossible to describe the agony of being absolutely still when you are perfectly well and accustomed to moving constantly. Muscles seem to shriek for movement, and nerves appear to be on top of the skin. There is no chance to relieve pressure on any part of the body, with the result that areas that press constantly on the mattress become desperately sore.

  I was allowed no pillows; my head lay flat on the bed, and the back of it became so sore I could have cried. Having an unusually high curve in my back made my spine hurt even more than the rest of my body. They tried relieving the pressure there by means of a small air pillow shaped like a doughnut, but this was no cure. It merely lessened the ache.

  I was not allowed to comb my hair or brush my teeth or get up to go to the bathroom. I hated all the restrictions, but the bedpan was the worst. Overwhelmed by the desire to get up and go to the bathroom by myself, I dreamed one night that I did but that I had no sooner got there than the doctor found me and gave me such a tongue-lashing that I flew back to bed.

  It occurred to me that throwing a fit would be a relief from the tedium, but common sense prevented such an indulgence. I knew that throwing a fit would be for effect alone and that the effect would serve no purpose, so I told myself that I could hold on and would hold on in order to give myself every possible chance of regaining my sight.

  The doctor checked my eyes every day and, on the fourth one, decided to operate. Before he left my room he explained the object of the operation and how it would be performed.

  “It will not be painful,” he went on. “I will put some drops in your eyes, and after a moment the surrounding tissue will begin to feel dead. Then I’ll put an anesthetic into the lids with a needle, but you’ll only feel a little pricking. This anesthetic will deaden not only the tissue around the eyeball but the eyeball itself. Once it has taken effect, you will feel nothing at all.”

  So far the doctor had never lied to me and I was confident I would feel no pain. I didn’t, but even so the operation was a grueling business, and when it was over I was covered with sweat. My only sensory experience during the entire operation was the smell of burning flesh, which, as my nurse later explained, had occurred when the doctor cauterized the choroid.

  First the doctor grasped the eyeball, she said, with a special instrument and twisted the eye around in the socket to expose the back of it. Then with a diathermy needle he pierced the eyeball to the depth of the retina.

  When the needle reached a point precisely between the choroid and retina he cauterized a little spot, then another and another and another in a half-moon shape, so that when the cauterized places healed they would cause scar tissue to form and thus reattach the retina to the choroid. It was actually like gluing it back with scar tissue.

  If the operation proved successful (as it did about fifty per cent of the time), some impairment of vision would result, but usually very little. My chances were less than fifty-fifty, however, because the retina was so badly damaged. Though no one had actually said so, I knew it would be a miracle if the operation was successful.

  With the operation over, I had to lie still again, this time not for days but for three to four weeks, and the doctor warned me that immobility was even more important now than it had been before. If I couldn’t manage it on my own, he said, he would put sandbags around me. I loathed the idea of being sandbagged and promised to keep very quiet.

  Since I was not permitted to raise my head, the nurse, Mrs. Davis, fe
d me. From the beginning my greatest problem in connection with eating was timing. If I opened my mouth and the food wasn’t immediately crammed in I began to feel the way a fish looks with its jaw agape. But if I hurriedly closed my mouth the nurse invariably said, “Open.” No matter how hard I tried, we seemed to be continually working at cross purposes, and the results were often frustrating.

  There was also a physical sensation connected with the act of chewing which bothered me considerably. All my Me I had chewed my food slowly and thoroughly, but now I began to wish I could swallow it whole. The act of chewing made the back of my head rub against the mattress, and this, in turn, made me conscious of the slow rhythmic motion of my jaw. Once my attention was riveted on it, it seemed as if my jaw began to grow, expanding in size with every successive chew until it was swollen alarmingly. Although I knew perfectly well this was not so, I could not help wondering if I looked as ridiculous as I felt.

  I was allowed no salt on my food and was given very little liquid—one cup of coffee, one glass of iced tea, and about half a glass of water each day. It was a grim menu, and only once did something happen to brighten my mealtime.

  That day the nurse from next door, who was going off duty, came by to visit Mrs. Davis, who had just finished feeding me my lunch. The lunch tray—containing the remains of an assortment of vegetables, watery potatoes, and some unidentified ground meat—was still on the table.

  “Why didn’t you give her the green pepper the meat was stuffed in?” the other nurse wanted to know.

  “Because,” said Mrs. Davis, “I don’t like it”

  For hours and hours, lacking all company but my own and occasionally the nurse’s, I often retreated into my thoughts to escape present reality, taking shelter in some memory. Sometimes scenes passed in review before me like floats in a parade and I would lie there watching them as if from a special balcony. Most were transitory and fragmentary, but a few that were strong and clear came back not once but several times to reimpress themselves. The memory that kept returning with the greatest persistence was something that happened when I was fourteen years old.

  In my mind’s eye I saw a group of children lounging languidly on the end of a small pier extending out into the liquid amber of St. Johns River. A few huge white clouds drifted overhead like lazy vagabonds, and at the shoreline great masses of lavender water hyacinths floated on the undulating surface of the water. A blazing August sun descended toward the west. The children lingered because it was pleasant with the water lapping softly against the pilings and they were enjoying one another’s company. Idly chatting of this and that, they somehow stumbled on the subject of death. As the discussion developed, a question was posed: since everybody had to die eventually, what age would be best?

  Someone said she didn’t want to die until she was ninety; someone else said fifty. There were various other choices offered simultaneously, but one voice rose above the rest. “I want to die when I’m twenty-seven,” it said—and I recognized the voice as mine.

  This recurring memory continued to frighten me, for I had just turned twenty-seven and, whatever I had said in the past, I did not wish to die. Strange that I had chosen that age, wasn’t it, or that I remembered it now? Was the remembering significant? Had I made an irrevocable choice?

  I would no sooner ask these questions than I’d assure myself they were nonsense and that I was being foolish. Then my healthy supply of common sense would return to back me up—until the next time that compelling scene forced its way into my consciousness.

  Another scene was almost as vivid. In this one a woman was sitting in a chair, wearing a selfish, petulant expression. A family group moved around her, and whenever one of them got in her shadow they seemed to shrink.

  This woman was a friend of my mother’s and a rampant hypochondriac. She made her whole family unhappy with her ceaseless complaints; she claimed to suffer from a little of everything. She never lifted a hand to help with the housework, not even such chores as mending, using the excuse of her “illness.”

  I made a resolution then which I had never forgotten: no matter what happened to me, I would never blight the lives of those around me by constant complaining. Now I could only hope that should circumstance change my life and force me, even though authentically, into a situation similar to hers I would have the courage to stick by my pledge.

  Company helped to distract me from introspection, but unfortunately I didn’t have it often. All our friends at the pier were then doing as many as five performances a day, for I went to the hospital at the height of the season. Almost the only regular visitors I had were Arnette and Al, who somehow managed to turn up between their appearances. They could never stay long. For the short time they were there I eagerly fired questions at them. Afterward I clung to every little detail of what was going on at the pier in order to have something aside from myself to think about.

  They both reported that all was not well. Marie’s comeback was not proving a success, and Al didn’t know how much longer she would continue to ride. She had begun on Monday and by Friday had thrown in the sponge as far as riding Red Lips was concerned. “Not that I blame her,” Al said, “because Red is tough to ride and she just hasn’t got what it takes. I’m not trying to be funny when I say she’s a walking, talking bruise. She’s black and blue from head to toe, and many of the bruises have swelled, making her look knobby and out of shape.”

  “How does she get along with Klatawah?”

  “Oh, she says shell ride him if I want her to, but I think she wishes she didn’t have to ride any horse again as long as she lives.”

  “What are you going to do about a rider for Red?”

  “I’ve been thinking about Marty. You know he’s often said he’d like to ride, so tonight when Marie announced she had had enough of Red I asked him if he would be willing to try and he agreed. We’re going out early in the morning to give him a couple of trial rides from the low tower. I think he’ll get along all right because his strength will go a long way toward making up for his lack of experience.”

  Marty sounded like a good idea to me. He was small but extremely husky and a trained athlete. During the winter he worked as a physical education instructor in one of the New York high schools; in the summer he became one of the water-sports gang, riding aquaplanes and driving motor-boats.

  He began practice the next day, but a week passed before he was able to ride Red out of the tank. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about Red,” Al said. “He dives as if he were dumping these new riders on purpose. Which may be the key to the problem. After all, you’ve been his only rider up until now.”

  Of course the idea that Red Lips preferred me to anyone else pleased me immensely. Nevertheless, if he was deliberately trying to knock the riders off he had to be stopped.

  “Maybe if you’d have Marty pal up to him it would help. You know how Red loves attention. Suggest that Marty go around to his stall between performances and talk to him and take him a carrot or an apple. And tell Marty to come and see me when he gets a chance. I think I can come up with some advice that may help him.”

  Marty didn’t waste any time getting himself over to the hospital. He was there the next morning.

  “I hear you’ve been having some trouble,” I said.

  “Boy, I’ll say I have! I don’t do anything with that animal.” And then he proceeded to tell me in great and vivid detail what had been happening. By the time he finished I had figured out part of his trouble.

  “You’re not holding your weight back,” I said. “On a horse that makes a plunge dive your position is less important, but on Red you must be properly balanced. Don’t duck until you’re ready to hit the water. That’s important too. I think if you’ll try just those two things you’ll find you can handle him. You may even find it’s fun.”

  “Lady,” Marty said dryly, “I used to think it would be fun when I watched you doing it, but now I’m telling you that all I’m doing it for is the dough.” Marty’s
motives might have been mercenary, but they didn’t interfere with his learning, for Al reported a few days later that Red Lips was slowly yielding to Marty’s overtures of friendship and that in the meantime Marty was getting enough experience on him at least to get by.

  Al had scarcely straightened out the crisis over Red when another problem arose. Early one afternoon Arnette rushed into my room so out of breath from running she could hardly talk.

  “Marie is gone!” she gasped. “When we got to the pier today Al had a note from her. It said that she had either flu or pneumonia and was going home!”

  “Pneumonia?” I said. “But she rode last night, didn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Arnette replied, “but she’s had a cold for two or three days and she’s pretty banged up, so I guess she just decided she didn’t want to take it any longer. Anyway, she’s gone.” She paused for a minute, still panting. “Al’s going to need another rider,” she said. “How about me?”

  According to Al, Arnette had been badgering him ever since I had had to quit but, aware of my feelings, he had refused to listen.

  “That’s why I’m here,” she went on. “I’ve just finished my first show and have to run right back, but I wanted to get over here ahead of Al so that I could ask you to ask him to let me ride. I think he’d do it for you.”

  In the moment after she stopped speaking every bad ride she had ever made flashed across my mind: the sideways take-offs, the near somersaults, the almost-too-late duck of the head. I recalled the succession of charley horses she had had up the inside of both thighs because she had never learned to take advantage of the “shock-absorber” inner tube behind a horse’s forequarters, which gives a rider something to brace her knees against just before bitting the water.