In the long term he will become the legendary turtle boy who swam so far out with his young charges that he joined them in spirit and may still be swimming. Perhaps he will age gracefully and live for many decades with barnacles on his shell. Or maybe he turned to the left and swam back to shore farther south to begin a new life as a cabaret mime in Acapulco. He was really very good, you know.
In the moment he only swims, watched by the brother who has witnessed his progression from the edge of their father’s grave to appointment as El Capitán de las Tortugas. Antonio ponders the net effect of brotherly guidance and briefly considers mortal sin as a lingering shadow on a family. One brother is shamed and the other sways like a weed, staring idly through once-idyllic mornings.
What difference does a brother make? What is the difference between watching Baldo over gruel and tortillas and watching him over power brunch? Nada is the answer. Nothing makes a difference. Nothing will help. Nothing is what Baldo will come to, and so too what he touches.
Yet Antonio watches to keep his own peace of mind. He doesn’t worry, because Baldo can’t harm anything by standing on a beach or going for a swim. Tourists pass by, but he only gazes back dolefully, harmlessly, unless they, you know, break the Law of Baldo’s Land.
Which they will, surely as that gang of monkeys will type the National Anthem of Mexico, given a decent chance. Inevitability plagues Antonio’s days no less than the mosquitoes plague his sleep. Here he loses his train of thought at a critical juncture, a point worked toward and longed for, only to find himself forgetting the names of fabulous movies and their stars. He agrees distractedly to Thorny and Sally’s continuing perambulations on margin enhancement, and he watches.
Baldo’s new uniform looks different with a machete on his belt and a mask and snorkel on his shoulder, but not for long. He’s putting the mask on now and taking off the shirt and leaving it in the surf. And, Madre de Cristo, what is that tiny splashing in front of him? Well, he won’t hurt the little turtles. But why release them now? Where is he taking them? Antonio watches his brother’s awkward walk to the sea, his casual disrobing and easy stroke, herding two little swimmers in front. What difference can it make if two little turtles go now? Baldo can swim to the rock and back without flippers if he wants to, even if it’s twelve miles round trip and might take till noon.
But what is he thinking? How can he leave his brilliant new uniform tumbling in the break? Let’s face it; he’s más loco que una cabra. Only Baldo and a goat would shun success. And Antonio might as well eat tin cans as apply reason to one so troubled.
XVII
A Dream Come True
Antonio dreams that he and his brother swim side by side in the dream they now share.
Baldo says he is happy, not in so many words but rather with his inimitable conveyance of what should be known. Baldo says he is home at last with the animal angels, who are no different than the animals that inhabit the depths. This is because the depths are every bit as lovely as they are alluring. He says his migration is ongoing and good, and don’t worry because his recent departure was inevitable, not a learned behavior but hard-wired from the beginning. It was only a matter of time.
Baldo flexes gracefully as a ray and dips below the surface. The machete doesn’t slap his thighs if he’s under water, but waves like a barb at the base of his spine to warn those who may not yet recognize him.
Antonio wakens at two or six in a sweat, each time dripping wet as if freshly emerged from the briny deep. Waking suddenly from such a dream of his brother in the act of finality leaves him with a pounding heart and the disturbing sensation of water all around. He breathes deeply and reaches to feel the air and perhaps to feel Baldo still swimming alongside.
But this is no nightmare. No horror fills the room or constricts the dreamer’s breathing, for the dream is merely what Antonio believes. Or maybe he only thinks he might believe it, or should believe it. At any rate it is the stuff of Antonio’s evolving faith. Faith in what, he cannot say. But he thinks, perhaps, Baldo’s long, easy stroke is tireless if not eternal, that a boy so touched by spirits may in fact find his way back to the land of the living. Or at least he may avoid death, or may have, or maybe not.
Baldo swims ahead into the darkness and fades, as he must.
The morning of the release of all the little turtles is great cause for celebration with ceremony and speeches of self-congratulation. Turtles have been slaughtered but now may be restored and revered; so shall we pause to reflect on what sets us apart from our kind, which is our heroism in the face of massive development.
The two can peacefully coexist. This we have proven here.
Along with the pitter-patter of tiny feet, the hotel guests approach to watch, some in awe and wonder, some in sleepy awareness of this turtle thing they’re making all the hoopla over down on the beach. Some hug each other. Some hug themselves. Some cry for the little turtles, so alone in such a great big sea. Or maybe they cry for all the turtles lost or something else that’s lost. Some carry their tiny wards very slowly, whispering secrets to the young turtles who don’t listen but flip madly for the freedom to begin. Some want to know if the big coffee percolator will be wheeled down to the beach so they can wake up reasonably. God damn, that was a humdinger last night.
Wasn’t it?
Some ask why not wheel the percolator down here where it is needed. It has wheels! Wouldn’t it be perfect if they wheeled a buffet table down here too? They have wheels too, you know, the tables. So why not?
A few guests swim out with the young turtles, but not too far because of potential danger beyond the break, where El Capitán de las Tortugas may have been lost. But maybe he wasn’t lost, or if he was, maybe it happened much farther out. Or maybe he swam back in and has yet to call home. Or come home, since he can’t very well call. Maybe he’s only stepped out for a few decades and will be home later.
With no Grand Marshall to lead the parade, ceremonial duties fall to Antonio, who understandably begs off in deference to the anxiety and grief he now suffers for his brother. No problema with Milo on hand, who mumbles and laughs over what you’ve been waiting for, and so now here it is.
Clouds drift in and a breeze stiffens but las chicas have only one thought, and they stroke through ninety days of waiting in the next few minutes, making double time for the depths.
What’s the rush? Predators abound. Just look.
A few of the liberated wander north or south in their excitement, but the herd in general heads directly out to sea as if something urgent awaits them there. Stragglers and misfits are redirected to their proper course, and soon all shrink in the distance, gone in the troughs, splashing bravely on the crests.
The last guest waits until the last turtle is out of sight, and then it’s over.
The night after the morning of the release is the occasion of another dream, this one equally fluid and as well removed from the fear or ghastly presence of a nightmare. But this one is different for the toll it takes on a weakened heart. You could call it a bad dream for its wanton taunt of a man’s grief, but then growth often requires pain and more pain, until the carapace of a former self cleaves asunder and the new man swells to his rightful place in the world.
In this dream Lyria comes to Antonio’s bed in the deepest part of the night, where even a light sleeper remains groggy and may think he’s waking up but then knows he only dreams of thinking he’s awake. Just so, Antonio thinks he’s awake even as he realizes the deceptive nature of the dream.
“Sh,” Lyria says dreamily.
He moans and rolls to face the image in the dream and settles again to the depths. He feels a foreign warmth, not fuzzy but smooth, like her body. It feels as he imagined it would feel in texture, firmness, shape and contour. He feels her breath on his neck. Then he feels nothing, until a soft landing on the peninsula of his essential self rouses the troops to attention.
Well, it rouses the rowdiest troop who assures the others that waking is not necessa
ry. Leave this to him; he’ll stand up and look around to see what’s going on.
He, Antonio, opens his eyes in his dream and moves his hands up her body in a slow, soft way he’s never done before but has often imagined.
The nature of a dream allows gentle exploration; a thorough probity unavailable through mere image and waking fantasy. In this embrace the body parts awaken and mesh. Antonio realizes he is having a wet dream and will soon soil the sheet on his hammock. But this dream is too good to will himself awake, so good that it allows tangible difficulties to fade away. This dream is pliable and flexible, allowing ficky fick in a hammock, flowing freely in the dark, in sleep, where no words are required. Yet she whispers, “You are my love,” as he emits into the night. Love sentiments are conjured from his subconscious mind, another facility of a memorable and endless dream that then ends. The broken heart is salved with love, yet the ache is compounded with loss. He sleeps.
In the morning he awakens and grasps at the dream, rising not to a day of days but rather to a solitude stanched by his brother’s absence. He can neither exercise nor count his money.
He needs time to heal, but he fears the process cannot begin. Never and ever can it begin with such a void in his life.
Discounting everything gained and what more was wanted, he thinks only of what he has to do today. It’s another day like the rest. He cleans himself and brushes his hair with perfunctory dispatch, no posing and no adventures in styling. He pushes himself through these tasks, because they define the difference between a man who is alive and one who is not. He dresses simply in a button shirt and Bermuda shorts as conceptual breakfast with his mentors dictates.
Today they will review options relative to the size and shape of the pool and the possible addition of a cabana, which is Antonio’s idea, even though guests want more sun than is good for them. A cabana will open the pool area for commerce in rainy weather. He has the attention of the mentors. He moves like a man in a dream, wondering what to do with it, the attention of his mentors.
Lyria does not salt the wounds between them with her presence but is careful to avoid him. For several days now she has taken an earlier bus in and a later bus out. But today she waits by her front door. She wears a new dress of flimsy but flattering material that clings to her and shows more of her chest than she has shown in the past. The neckline swoops daringly to reveal a lacy brassiere that must be new as well and makes her chichis look bigger.
He smiles briefly and looks away.
She waits, as if the bus will pull up right here and not up the hill, across the road. She gazes softly at his idle movements, movements aimed at nothing and accomplishing only the minimal act of defining a man with a pulse. He feels her gaze but ignores it as he rearranges things out front so she may have an opportunity to leave alone and spare them what they both want to avoid.
She must have slept late. But she waits until he has rearranged everything out front, and she finally calls so softly that she could easily be unheard if he chose not to hear her.
“Buenos días.”
He looks around to see if perhaps a hotel guest has wandered far afield. Or maybe she’s practicing for a promotion to the restaurant. He looks again to see, and yes, that’s what’s different; the new dress reveals more leg and has no sleeves, and all the fuzzy parts are shaved clean. He would ask to see her armpits, but he knows they’re also shaved, and besides, he can’t ask.
She waits until he has nowhere else to turn but to her, and she whispers again, “You are my love.”
A heart so burdened with ache that suddenly hears the words of reprieve can very well burst under the anguish of dying and living. Such pressure from inside and out is too much, even for a man in peak physical condition. He can only stare back, still and silent except for his face, which now reflects all that has come and gone between them, which is mostly a love nurtured since youth and in a very short time gone away, unless you count what lingers.
She walks the few paces between them and stands before him. She touches his face, which responds with a twist and downward squeeze he’s never felt before, much less shared with another.
And there between them evolves another element of his faith. It takes the form of a secret they will share for years, which is this: the heart of a woman with its womanly weakness pounds inside this man, who breaks down and cries, who covers his face with his hands and weeps for what has come to him.
His loss is overwhelming. He can’t go on.
She embraces him softly, briefly, and leads him back into his casa and to the edge of his hammock where she whispers yet again, “You are my love,” in case he forgot. In case he forgot his recent dream, she doffs the new dress in a single slinky shimmy. Then come the lacy brassiere, and finally the panties to match.
Her obtrusive nudity gives rise to a morning of incongruity, the first being the unlikely time for romance at this time of mourning.
Second is the unabashed shamelessness of the woman saved for so long. Of course she blushes and can’t meet him eye to eye but stoops to the task at hand, which is a fervent rousing of his cock-a-doodle-doo, which is also brooding and mourning but will set anything aside for a sensitivity session.
The gentle touch of romance is soon displaced by urgent needs, her own as well as his, and she works as if to get a job done, oblivious to recent events or the morning’s agenda or anything in the world. With knowing efficiency she replaces mourning, death, and pain with what any man is weak to resist, which is brief and intense eradication.
Suffice to say that in a short while Antonio Garza stares at the ceiling again. Again he is dripping as if freshly emergent from the briny depths. But this time it is different, lying beside the former woman of his dreams, Lyria Alvarez. Equally dazed by the rigors of the romp, she too stares at something far away, perhaps something long gone, which is the childhood shared with the man beside her.
Here they are, thrust, as it were, into the future. Just so, the past vanishes as quickly as a wake dissipates to that level which water can’t help but find, which is its own.
She searches the ruins for a keepsake, scans the future for what might be built on this shaky foundation.
Words won’t come to either one of them, and constraint draws tight between them so they cannot express themselves verbally as they did only minutes ago physically.
He looks about the room, in his mind rearranging the clutter. Rolling his way, she stares sweetly. She blinks like a fawn at sunrise to assure him yet again of his place in her heart. He stares at the ceiling, sorting, moving, thinking. She wants to tell him that such mental gyration is circular by nature, that we can only round the bend to round the bend again, that love and life and what each deserves and each gets can only be assessed in the present, not the past. But these thoughts are as new to her as her new dress that fits well and feels good but will take some time getting used to, for all that is revealed. She wants to live by these new thoughts, but she’s not yet ready to share.
So they wait.
In a while he rolls to meet her eyes. He feels her skin and then her breasts with amazement that such fondling is so accessible. Putting his tongue where his eyes have never been, he flicks the tips of her chichis, unseen since sharing the bath so many years ago, assuring her of mutual affection.
She whimpers.
He nibbles, sliding his hand down the lovely curvature to her belly of another curvature, which is not unlovely and may in fact be shaped only as nature intended. Because six-pack abs are for men, and wombs with room for babies are for women.
She reaches for his pinga with her own evolving faith in Mrs. M and is affirmed by thumping resolution, ready again. So she pushes him over, crawls on top and hovers so his eyes can feast and send the message to his brain for forwarding due south. Every man needs a woman to look up to, but she needn’t explain such things to a man who can see for himself.
They look down at the junction as if for proof of their convergence, bumping heads in the space bet
ween them. Together for the first time in this, their new life together, they laugh. They hardly notice the bump or the pain because of the vaster pain displaced.
She slides down the fire pole with five-alarm urgency. Their eyes meet in sweet agony as they wonder if this is love. As if doubting his comprehension, or maybe fearing his blindness to her capacity and range of love, to her commitment and earnest intent, she tells him again, “You are my love.”
Soon he rides the bus alone, after she tells him that she will no longer be a maid in a hotel, because he is her love. Drifting further from his moorings, he spares himself the need for specific bearings.
We can dispense with navigation and logic this close to home. For years the one and only prize bull of Oaxtapec anticipated a grunt and a snort of fearsome dimension that would roll up the hill and down through the valley (or at least the lobby) once consummating his destiny with the essence of purity known as Lyria.
Instead, the future and the world and everything anticipated has come to this: he feels nothing, which can be better than something if the prevailing sensation these days is one of failure. This is the best he’s felt in weeks. He knows she loves him as she always has. She said as much, and said it often.
The mentors have eaten and relax over coffee, assessing tangible benefits to a modern resort like the one next door that will have its own beach peddlers on staff. Pricing will be fixed, so the best peddlers can finagle as expected and make the most money. Meanwhile, La Mexico, the Resort can maximize margins and assure top quality through volume buys, like Costco or Wal-Mart but with authenticity, with the trees and the beach and everything, hecho en Mexico, as it were.
Antonio should eat quickly and hurry to his post. Some guests are napping by the pool already. Worse yet, some are staring and thinking. Worse yet, the fog enshrouding the once-vibrant maestro has settled, unmoving, with visibility close to zero.
Toucan Whisper, Toucan Sing Page 25