Tortuga

by Rudolfo Anaya

  At first we were only shadows in the green, spring water, then as our eyes grew accustomed to the dark we became beautiful golden fish and graceful turtles sliding through the quiet water. There was no shouting and noisy splashing, only the silent group of male fish swimming slowly around the shy mermaids who had entered the water, calling to them with our bodies, courting them with the prowess of the spring dance. They swam in the inner circle, dipping in and out of the water, coyly calling us. Their glistening, shimmering bodies rode the crest of waves. We laughed, waved at them, listened to their silent song and gurgled with a joy we couldn’t express as we bathed in the moonlit water. Hot and excited we swam the wider outer circle, closing in on the mermaids who swam counter to us and smiled for us to join them. The air was pregnant with a dripping electricity which could not be contained. Like lovers showing off for their beloved, we dove in and out of the clear water, rippling with flesh and fin the water of the mermaids, becoming merman for them, we smiled across the clear water and dove to greet them.

  Oh, Salomón would have cried with joy to see so much beauty! I saw in it a verse to be added to my song. The tension of the spring which had pierced the earth to thaw the land now coursed through our bodies and quivered in our limbs. We were no longer the deformed, twisted bodies which on land limped and dragged the heavy weight of steel; we had become graceful golden mermen and mermaids, part fish and part men and women, swimming to the dance of spring, comingling our terrible energies in the water. Wild cries clawed at our throats until the tension and silence were almost unbearable. The circle tightened as we closed in on the mermaids, swimming like golden fish at spawn, wetting the water with our hot pee and slippery juices, drawn by the fragrance and the song of the mermaids, we dove and splashed towards their beckoning smiles and their virgin, naked bodies.

  I paused and looked to keep from drowning in the beauty which unfolded before my eyes. I saw that in the water we were like birds in the air, full of power, graceful, elegant in our movements. We unfolded like sea flowers in our liquid element, gracefully reaching out to touch fingertips in the strands of golden water. We fanned out like sea moss, undulating back and forth until hands clasped, and the mermen pulled the mermaids to their sides and they swam as one, disappearing into the depths of the water, rising to breathe the warm, spring air, diving again to complete the courtship dance, tinting the water with virgin blood, making it swirl and bubble with the thrashing of their love … then all was silent again, and the water was quiet. Couples rose to rest in the sea castles by the shore …

  The dance dissolved as quietly as it had begun. The melody rested on the water, spent of its energy. Overhead the spring moon shone through the skylight. Across the pool Cynthia smiled at me. She had been my partner in the dance … now she was content to sit by the side of the pool and dry her body in the moonlight, content to dream her dreams in the pale light. Like tired seals we had climbed out of the water and flopped down to rest. We were exhausted from the swim. Around the pool the lovers sat resting, touching hands, quivering from excitement, bathing in the silent intimacy they had shared.

  I sat alone and looked at the glistening bodies of my brothers and my sisters. I was full of joy, as full of joy as I had been with love at the movie. I had shared these moments of ecstasy, felt the present slip into the past until I saw the communion girls swimming in the pool with me, welcoming me and calling to me like Cynthia had called. Somehow I was swept up in the energy of destiny which would force me to join into the fate of those who shared my journey … perhaps that’s what Salomón knew and why he had predicted the blue guitar would come to me. Curse of chance or force of fate, I was entwined in it, seeing at times through the illusion of time and soul with perfect clarity, lost and cursing the dark way most often, wanting Salomón and his vegetables to enjoy moments like this and yet knowing that deep inside they were always with us. So this was only a part of the song … it was not yet complete.

  I stood and draped a robe around my wet body, folded my clothes under my arm and slipped out the door. I walked slowly back to the ward, I was very tired, but when I got to the room I couldn’t sleep. I turned on the radio and wished Ronco was back so I could share one of his cigarettes, maybe that would calm my thoughts. The day had been too full, too loaded with those realizations which kept fitting together like notes into a melody. Each peak and valley of the day had been full of emotion, more than I could take in one day because each one kept sweeping over me and pulling my thoughts back and forth … but through them I was beginning to see what I had to do. I knew Salomón was right.

  I sat by the window and looked across the valley at the mountain. It was clothed in the blue velvet of the spring night, but like me Tortuga, too, was restless. I felt him tugging at his moorings, nervous to toss aside his shackles and swim into the sparkling night sky. It was a strange spring madness, full of the sounds of home which were calling me, full of Ismelda’s love which slept in the night, thick with the tragic love songs which flowed from Buck’s radio.

  It was the radio that should have warned me. For an instant it blared loudly, the sound came crashing into the room like death’s call. And in the valley the lights of the town flickered brightly, and then as quickly as the energy had come it found its equilibrium and settled to its former level. It was as if a star had died in the galaxy and charged the earth with its dying gasp … or as if a new sun had been born and lighted anew the golden strands of light that anchored our earth to space. I had been dozing and the brief flicker of light nudged me awake, I shook my head and wondered what it was, then the unsettling darkness drew me down again and I slept. If I had looked carefully I would have seen Tortuga angrily rear his head and curse the night.

  I tossed restlessly in the troubled waters of sleep, pulled back and forth by the energy which filled the night sky and made it glow, bothered by the dry gusts of wind which shook and rattled the hospital. Sometime during the night I heard Mike and Ronco drag in and fall asleep … the sounds of music drifted through the night. I dreamed a mermaid came to sing to a crippled turtle-man, and he strummed the strings of a dark, blue guitar, strings woven from her long, black hair. She sang a song, and when the song was done they swam north on the rising crest of the river.

  24

  I will remember it the way Ismelda told it to me. She sat by me and held my hand for a long time, and I knew she was afraid that she would cry when she told me they were all dead, that someone had pulled the switch that night and sent the entire ward into darkness … They had no chance, locked up in their iron lungs, without the force of the air to lift their lungs they suffocated quickly … All of them.

  I will always remember the way the sun rose over Tortuga’s hump, bringing with it the wail of the sirens and the terrible screams of terror which filled the halls. At first I thought it was a part of the terrible nightmare that haunted me that night, but no, the sun was up and shining, covering everything with its light … it would admit only the truth, and the truth was that Dr. Steel had sealed off the ward and we weren’t to leave our rooms, not even above Mike’s protest and mine. So all morning long while the police cars and the ambulances moved up the hill we could only watch from the window … and we knew immediately what had happened. Someone had pulled the switch in the vegetable patch … everyone was dead … all of them.

  I will remember the screams of terror which filled the ward, the shouts of the nurses and the doctors, the small kids crying … and then the silence which fell over the ward as we sat by the windows and looked out as they carried the small plastic bags out of the ward and loaded them on the ambulances. Once only did someone say—somebody pulled the switch—and then no more was said. Once only did Mike and I say, we should be there—and when Steel shook his head we returned quietly to our room. There was no need to be there. Their end had come.

  Then there was the silence which followed. We did not look at each other, we did not speak … words were useless, and we had been through it before. Now there w
as only the shock, the terrible fatigue which lay in our stomachs and throats and made us numb, now there were only the questions which we had asked so many times before tumbling through our tormented minds. Then Ismelda came. She sat by me and after awhile she told me she had been to Salomón’s room. He had not been afraid. There was a smile on his angelic lips. Filomón had come for him, and tenderly they had lifted him into the wagon which had originally brought him here. So he has good care for the new journey, she said. I opened the window in his room, she told me, then I opened all the windows to let in the sun and the spring breeze. I looked into her eyes and saw myself reflected in them, saw her opening the windows, felt the grief in her heart. It was over very quickly, she said, like most tragedies … now all that remains is for us to live with it. How will you be, Tortuga. I told her that I had seen Salomón that evening and played my song for them … and then in my troubled dreams I had seen her, and finally I told her that I would have to leave in the morning. I wanted to get out as soon as possible. I did not want to be consumed by the grief, it was not what Salomón would want. He would want me to start my own journey home. I know, Ismelda said. She kissed me lightly on the cheek and then she disappeared.

  In the afternoon I wandered aimlessly around the ward. The kids gathered in small groups and talked about what had happened, but I stayed away from them. I wanted to be by myself. I wanted to feel everything in the hospital exactly as it was that day, so I would never forget it. And I wanted to be alone to sort out my feelings. I didn’t know yet what I would do when I saw Danny, but I knew before the day was up that I would have to see him. I didn’t want to ask him why he had done it … I think I already knew. In a way, we all knew … somehow we had been with him when he threw the switch. But I had to see him, and my concern was not one of anger or justification, it was that I wanted to know if he was fully aware of what he had done. And I wanted to be by him because I felt he needed me.

  I looked for him in the ward, but I couldn’t find him. When I asked Mike he said, “Danny’s in the emergency room. Last night, or early this morning sometime, he took a surgical saw and cut off his arm … He was in surgery all morning. He lost a lot of blood, but I think he’s going to make it—Didn’t you know?”

  No, I said, but it all made sense. All the questioning and all the wondering and the pain had suddenly made some sense to Danny, and that’s why he had done it. So I couldn’t even be angry anymore. Cursing him would just be one more excuse for us. Still, I had to see him, now more than ever, because I knew I would be gone in the morning. So I made my way to the recovery rooms which were part of the surgery unit.

  When I found Danny’s room the nurse who sat by the bed looked up at me and put aside her magazine. “Did you want to see him?” she asked. I nodded. She stood up and walked to the door. “You can only stay a few minutes,” she said, then added, “he’s under sedation … he hasn’t talked.” Then she went out.

  I went to the bed and looked at Danny. His eyes were closed. His face was cracked with pain and age; even his hair had grown gray in spots. The bandage at the shoulder where he had severed his withered arm was spotted with blood. I felt pity for him … any anger I may have felt drained away and I was left feeling weak and tired. I felt sorrow, for him, for all of us. We had all grown old and tired during our long stay at the hospital.

  The steel and the plastic which kept us patched together could not erase the effects of the pain we had felt, that showed in our eyes and faces. Even now while Danny slept, searing pain burned through his veins and throbbed in his heart. They had hooked him up to the machines. A plastic tube dropped from the glass jar which sparkled with light and entered his arm. The yellow liquid drained slowly into his blood … the new bread of heaven, forced in by the very people who had created the hell which brought us here. Drainage tubes carried away the poison the body would use on itself if allowed, and next to the bed sat a stainless steel machine, glistening with bright, polished chrome and colored lights which flashed on and off, secret messages to the panel at the nurses’ station. The machines were new, every day they brought in a new one, everyday the workmen opened the walls to run more wires, wires which could monitor the vital signs of the dying body. And the new respirators, more efficient than the old dark and awkward iron lungs, now lay next to the bed, pumping air, recording, monitoring, forcing the breath of life into Danny’s tired body …

  I wondered if he would rip them away when his sedation lifted … I wondered if he really wanted death, or was it only the death of his arm he had sought? Had he tried to tear the darkness he thought was evil from his body? I sighed because I knew we had failed him.…

  “Danny,” I whispered and touched his forehead. He was hot with fever. He groaned and his eyelids fluttered open.

  “Ah, Tortuga,” he whispered, “you’ve come at last … I knew you would come—I’ve been so afraid, Tortuga, so afraid … A terrible darkness seems to suffocate me … but now that you’ve come, I feel everything’s going to be all right … Oh, such sad things have happened to us …”

  I nodded and rubbed his forehead. “Yes,” I said, “sad things … but it’s all right now …”

  I rubbed his forehead and he closed his eyes and seemed to rest easier. Somewhere I heard the sound of Filomón’s carriage crossing the desert, laden with the dry roots which he would lay to rest in new desert sand. Old desert plants are tough, Salomón had said, they’ll take root most anywhere. You can tear their limbs, burn them, uproot them and keep them from water for years, but then you throw them in new earth, give them a little sun and before you know it they’re sending down that green fuse, seeking water in the sand, sprouting green … yes, green, green buds to greet the sun … and in the path of the sun we’re all constantly growing into different shapes and forms …

  The nurse returned and said my time was up. I nodded and looked at Danny.

  “Is he going to be all right?” I asked.

  “That depends on him,” she answered, “you know that—”

  Yes, I knew, I nodded and went out, but I couldn’t return to my room. I wandered around the hospital for awhile, seeing it for the last time, looking clearly into every part so I could take it with me when I left in the morning. The pool and the therapy rooms were empty and silent; even the recreation room was deserted. I found my quiet spot by the window and sat to look at Tortuga. The mountain basked in the setting sun. High on its rocky sides little sprigs of green were pushing out of the dark crevices of earth and rock. The long winter sleep was over; it was time to seek the sun. The mantle of lime green fitted the old mountain well. I had to smile. So the old remnants and seeds and dry roots which had lived in the dark bowels of the hospital for so long had moved to Tortuga’s shell where the sun was brighter. That’s what Salomón had said, that bits of moss and algae and small animals sought out the turtle shells to live in peace and without fear. Later, the hot summer winds would come and burn everything away, but the roots would curl into the mountain and live on, and their seeds would be scattered like butterflies in the wind, and after the dreaming in cocoons there would be whispers of the love they had shared … so the cycles kept sweeping over us like the sweet syrup of time, and each passing washed our eyes open to a new form of life.…

  I paused in my thoughts and turned, thinking I had heard Salomón’s voice, but no, I was alone. It was just that my thoughts were making connections with everything, and without knowing I was humming a song. It was a song about the mountain and about Salomón, Ismelda, Mike, Ronco, Sadsack, Jerry, Danny, the doctor and the nurses and everyone who had come into my life at the hospital. I sang to them as I watched the sun set on Tortuga and saw the rich, green mantle turn to royal magenta. I sang and filled myself with hope, a hope against the dark fear which returned to haunt us and force us into dark shells, a hope which rejoiced in what Salomón had said …

  It was in the quiet of evening, when the doves flew against the setting sun and their mates cried along the river, that we gathered t
o begin our procession.

  Throw away your crutches! Ismelda shouted, and we threw away our crutches and braces and wheelchairs and gathered around her and Josefa. They dressed us in thin, flowing robes, robes so airy they made us float, and Josefa lit firebrands for us, torches which we held up in the gathering dusk.

  For a moment Tortuga glowed a soft, salmon pink as the sun kissed the wild horizon of the west, then an Indian war cry split the air as the fiery rider on the unbridled red horse checked his steed long enough for Jerry to dismount and join us, then the jubilant cry thundered again and the flaming horse disappeared into a shroud of clouds to the west. We cheered and welcomed Jerry and embraced him, and he smiled then stood back, silent and inscrutable as always. He had brought a drum and he played for us an evening chant. Someone shouted for me to play the blue guitar and I unslung it and joined Jerry in his praise of the sun and the mountain.

  Is everyone here? Mike asked. He had gone to the front of the line because Ismelda said he could lead the march. I looked around and saw that everyone was with us, even Sadsack was in line. He had groaned and complained once, but when he saw it wasn’t a time for complaining he smiled and joined in the singing. And Danny was with us, quiet and withdrawn but strangely beautiful in his robe of dream-web. Ronco was there, and Billy and Franco, we were all there, climbing and winding down the trail to the river, crossing the bridge over the evening waters and finding Ismelda’s path up the mountainside … behind us the doctors and nurses from the hospital and the people from the town watched in awe as we made our way up the mountain.

  Night fell and the torches lit our way. We danced to the drum beat and the soft notes of the blue guitar as we climbed, and along the way we paused to dance around and sing to the plants and flowers which dotted the side of the path.