Down on the floor, he had no idea where to go. Should he follow Monique? He rolled three strides and then stopped. ‘No,’ he thought, ‘ just to hurt her more?’ He looked up into the lively room filled with people, yet Robert felt all alone. He was now truly lost. He turned around completely and passed through the door on the opposite side of the stage. The door that said ‘For Staff Only’. Robert wheeled his way into the hallway. There were only three doors. First, he tried to open the door nearest to him, but it was locked. The next door was locked as well. One door was left, twenty feet farther down, at the end of the hallway. As he wheeled down the corridor, all he could think about was what Monique had just said to him.
“This death we live?”
A furious anger began to burn deep inside him. What the hell does she know about what I am living?
And then telling him how she felt that day when she had heard that he was dead up on Everest and how she and Jenny had to live with that pain...The fire of his anger now really started to rage within him.
Well, that was only one day of pain and suffering she had to go through, but what about me? he thought. I have to live with this for the rest of my life. “Does she realize that? Does anyone see that? I have to be this for the rest of my life?!”
He reached to open the last door. Locked. And then he heard Monique’s voice again saying how it didn’t matter anymore because now she knows he is dead. He tried the door again, but this time he tugged at it a little more vigorously. He was now pulling at the door with both hands, as if he wanted to rip it from its moorings.
Dead? He was now actually yelling it out loud. “Dead?” He didn’t care if anyone heard now. He started banging on the door, finally letting out the flames of anger that raged deep within. “Maybe you’d feel dead too if this had happened to you,” he wailed at the door, attacking it with every ounce of energy he had.
“I...I didn’t ask for this! Maybe you’d feel dead too if...” He kept banging on the door, yelling with all his might. “I DON’T DESERVE THIS! Goddamn it!...Everybody’s always ‘Oh, Roberto, you can do it. If anyone can, Roberto can.’ Well, I can’t!!! I just want to be...I just want to be...”
Robert’s voice and fiery rage started to hollow out, shifting into something like the cries of a child who has always felt left out. With each word spoken, the child’s pain became more pronounced.
“Why doesn’t anybody ever mention all the things I can never do again? Why don’t you talk about that? Oh, Roberto can do it...he can do it...he can be...Yeah? Be what?!!! THIS?!!!”
He reached back and with all his might, he pounded the door one more time. “Who the hell is this anyway?!”
He suddenly stopped.
Slowly, he dropped his hands to the stumps at the end of his knees, delicately touching them as if he had unearthed a rare and precious artifact and didn’t want to break it.
“This death we live? How could she say that? How could she?” His voice was now barely audible. Robert let out such a deep aching sigh that it caused his whole body to sag onto his thighs. He reached behind and roughly rubbed his hands on his back. When his fingers reached the base of his spine, he grimaced in pain. It had been sore and tender ever since he’d tried on his third set of prostheses and he fell repeatedly. Two nights ago, Monique had seen him trying to rub his back and had offered to do it for him, but he turned away from her, saying he was fine. Fine?
His face started to twitch and his mouth began to tremble. Fine? When the hell did every word out of my mouth become a lie? He felt that twitch again. Robert was so used to fighting against this beast of emotion. So many times since the accident, it had tried to claw its way to the surface, but he wouldn’t let it out. He did what he always had done. He arched his head up, struggled to fill his lungs with enough air to calm himself—calm the beast of tears, and keep it from freeing itself.
But he couldn’t shake the sight of Monique’s face just moments ago when she spoke those words. “And now I know you are dead.” His wife, his love, his soul’s partner in life—the woman who always said the reason she loved him was because, “when I’m with you I feel more alive,”—now she spoke of this death they live!
The beast was getting stronger than ever. He tried to hang on. He took in another huge lungful of air but it didn’t seem to take. There was a breach in his armour. The beast was fiercely fighting back this time and he could feel it climbing ever closer to escape. Robert’s chest started to heave. Every vein in his neck was bulging as he struggled for enough air to hold the creature inside. He fought with all his might, again arching his head to fill his lungs. “I can’t cry. I can’t cry,” he said. He knew that this beast would pull him away, like an old rotted stump that needed to be yanked from the earth. But then, that question came again. When the hell did every word out of my mouth become a lie? And this time, it was too late. His pride, his stubborn will to not give in to the beast, had finally abandoned him.
The beast violently shook and pulled until the weight of Robert’s entire body was ripped from the ground, leaving him with all his roots exposed. Now, lying there unconnected to all he knew, every single part of Robert’s anatomy cried.
He wept.
As a climber, Roberto Sanchez’s nickname was “The Mighty Oak.” On the highest of peaks, he was always the last man standing against any challenge the mountain might present. No matter what the obstacle was, The Mighty Oak was the last one to call it quits and turn back. He was known as one of the strongest and the bravest. And the Mighty Oak never cried about what happened to him.
He had done everything in his power not to cry. He knew the only reason he didn’t call Monique the night before his first amputation was the fear that he might cry. Even during that dark cold night, he spent on Everest with his legs smashed and his body pinned against some frozen wall—he didn’t cry. Even when he heard no sounds of rescue and knew for certain that he was being left for dead—The Mighty Oak didn’t cry. Hanging upside down for hours upon hours, he chipped and scratched at the ice with only a small penknife, trying to free his legs and yet, not once did he give into the absolutely excruciating pain. He never cried because he knew if he gave in to the beast of tears, it would defeat him. The Mighty Oak knew that not crying was the only way to survive.
Lying in that hospital in Kathmandu, waiting for Monique and Jenny to arrive, Robert had written an unfinished poem in his journal—a poem about tears. He always thought that once he gave in to those tears, they would never stop. He would drown in those tears. In the poem, he described himself as the stump of this great oak tree that had been felled in some horrible freak storm. And now, the stump questioned its identity and its worth. As a stump of a tree, one could no longer be called the tall maple, the sturdy oak or the magnificent redwood. Once the tree became a stump, it no longer had a name. Although it was still deeply rooted and alive, it had lost its worth. The stump knew it would never be that strong, mighty, flourishing tree again. And so, the stump thought the only way to survive was for it to not attract attention; for if it did, then someone might see its uselessness and pluck it from the earth. The stump felt the only way it could survive was to stay firm, deeply rooted and silent.
Robert did exactly that. After the doctor’s fatal diagnosis that there was no way to save his legs, he never cried. His survival demanded he quickly pull away from any prolonged hug or sympathetic gesture from his wife, daughter and friends. If he could stay hidden and silent, perhaps no one would recognize the stump was no longer The Mighty Oak. And so, six months ago, halfway up Mount Everest, tangled in a ladder with his legs wedged in a mountain of ice, Roberto Sanchez had begun his struggle to survive in complete silence.
But Monique’s words—“this death we live”—those were the words that broke through his fortress of solitude. And so The Mighty Oak wept.
The beast roared and ravaged. And he cried. His hands beat hard against his chest. And he cried. Clutching his hair and pulling in every direction, he cried. Slamming his h
ands on the handles of his wheelchair, he cried. And when there was no energy left to hit or slam and pull, he grabbed what was left of his legs, curled into a ball and cried...
Yet, it stopped! The waves of aching tears ceased and his convulsing body calmed. He had no idea how long he cried. The beast just vanished. Robert slowly uncurled himself and tried to wipe the river of tears from his face with the sleeves of his shirt. Soon his breathing lost all its wild panting and became peaceful. As painful as his crying had been, his roots were still firmly planted. He was alive! He cried and he had survived! It was not the end.
“Are you trying to get into the Taj Mahal?” A voice came from behind him.
Robert turned his head to see it was the doorman he met when they arrived in the morning.
“That door is rarely open,” the doorman said as he moved towards Robert. “But today, you’re lucky! I have a key!”
Robert again rubbed his face, using both his shirtsleeves to dry his tears. He felt a bit raw and exposed and wondered how much the doorman had seen of what had just happened.
“So if I can just slide you back for a second.” The doorman took the back of Robert’s wheelchair and rolled him a couple of feet away so he could get in front of him to put the key in the lock. “I’ll show you what I was talking about this morning and trust me, wait till you see it! This room is truly magical!”
Robert felt an intense embarrassment. He avoided looking at the doorman, to whom he still hadn’t said a word. How much had the doorman seen or heard? Here he was, alone in this closed-off hallway, screaming and crying. The doorman was sure to have seen him wiping his face, which must look quite red and flushed at the moment. Did it matter? He wanted to ask if the doorman had heard him banging or seen him crying so he could explain himself, but the doorman’s smiling happy voice told him that he was oblivious to the storm that had just swept through this hallway.
So Robert did what he always had done for the past six months, and pretended the emotions he had just gone through had not happened. “Yes, I was interested in seeing the room after you mentioned it this morning, but the door was locked so...um...Great, thank you.”
The doorman put the key into the handle and turned to Robert. “My pleasure! Mr. Sanchez, right?”
“Yes, that’s right.” Robert wiped his face one more time and still didn’t look up. He caught himself staring at how shiny and bright the silver key looked in the doorman’s dark-skinned hand. He watched him slide the key into the hole and then was shocked at what he saw next.
As the doorman opened the door, Robert saw that the man’s other hand was simply not there. Robert closed his eyes and looked again. Where the doorman’s left hand should be was just a stump at the end of his wrist. How had he not noticed that this morning? How had he not seen this man was missing a hand? The doorman had helped him from the car and even walked with him all the way to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. How had he done that? And then a crazy thought hit him as well: How could a hotel have a doorman with one hand? How could he do his job?
The doorman then purposely stood directly in front of Robert, blocking the entrance and his view of the room. “Okay, you ready?”
For the first time Robert looked up at the doorman, he noticed how the doorman’s smile seemed to fill his whole face, and it was so—the only words Robert could come up with were—it was so absolutely genuine! Robert wondered when was the last time he smiled like that—smiled because he felt it, because he felt a reason to smile.
“All right, Mr. Sanchez, I introduce to you The Taj Mahal!” The doorman then walked into the room to give Robert the full view.
The first thing he saw from that doorway was the stage at the front of the room. It was a painted rendering of what the real Taj Mahal must look like at dusk. There were three domed tops, looking as if they were fading into the night. The freestanding white pillars were given more dimension by a huge, white full moon behind them. Gleaming on the stage floor and looking colourfully majestic was the Taj Mahal’s reflection. The walls were painted in a pink stone pattern. Two huge red and gold carpets, each with a beautiful flying peacock in the centre, hung on two sides of the room. And just like the Leaning Tower of Pisa room, there were fake windows painted on the walls, exposing the beauty of the Indian landscape. Golden, textured arches framed each window. The floor was also a colourful carpet designed to look like stone. Along the outside wall were four tall glass windows and doors that opened up on a beautiful gardened terrace.
“I love coming in this way because you see the stage right away. And you get the full splendour of what it must be like when you first arrive at the Taj Mahal. Hey wait,” the doorman interrupted himself. “Did you see me with a coffee?”
Robert shook his head, thinking, ‘Okay, you’re tossing that key in the only hand you’ve got and I’m quite sure it’s not in your pockets, so...’
“Ah, I put it down behind you before I opened the door. Hang on.” The doorman quickly went back into the hallway and came back with a Starbuck’s coffee cup. He held it against his chest with his left stump as he closed the door with his right hand. As the doorman walked passed him, Robert noticed something he hadn’t seen before. Robert squinted to get a better look at the side of the man’s head. He blinked and rubbed his eyes to see if they were playing tricks on him. He looked again. It was true! The doorman’s right ear was missing. How could he have not noticed the man was missing a hand and an ear this morning?
As the doorman closed the door, he spoke in a hushed voice. “I’m not really supposed to be in here. The manager, the one who’s on duty today, has these strict rules that when a room is not in use, we are not to use it. Afraid someone might get it dirty or something, I don’t know. You see, I don’t usually work today, but this morning I got a call to come in to cover three hours for the doorman who—I’m sorry, why am I telling you this?”
Robert tried to hide his surprise at the missing ear and nodded politely. “You’re right, it is quite an impressive room.”
“Yes, yes it is. Every day that I come to work, I make a promise to myself that I will come in here and...Well, you’re lucky the other doorman has just shown up, so I was able to see it now before I left for the day. ” The doorman then walked into the middle of the room.
“Come this way,” Robert wheeled behind him until they were in the middle of the room. The doorman pulled out a chair, sat down and said, “Now look up.”
And as Robert looked up, he saw a stunning ceiling decorated with blue and white glass chandeliers.
The magnificence of it overwhelmed Robert and the words, “It’s beautiful” escaped from him without prompting.
“Oh, it’s too bad. If the sun was out, all the glass up there would reflect the most incredible tiny rainbows all over the room.” The doorman smiled as he took a sip from his coffee but suddenly looked at Robert and said, “Oh my goodness, look at me drinking and you without a drink!”
The doorman then abruptly stood up. “I am so sorry, would you like me to get you something, Mr. Sanchez?”
“No, it’s okay.”
“Anything. Please, Mr. Sanchez. The coffee shop is just at the end of the hall.”
“No, really.” Robert leaned towards the doorman to look at his nametag. “Really, thank you, Aaron.”
“Are you sure, Mr. Sanchez? It would only take a moment.”
“No please, Aaron, I’m really not thirsty.”
The doorman nodded. He looked up at the ceiling once more, smiled, and then sat down again. Robert watched the doorman put his coffee cup on the table. After a few seconds, the doorman picked up the coffee cup and instead of taking another sip, he moved it almost into the centre of the table, as if he had finished drinking it and was putting it away.
Robert politely smiled, shook his head slightly and said, “It’s okay, you can drink your coffee, Aaron.”
The doorman shifted his body and looked directly at Robert. “I like how you say my name.”
Robert shifted hi
s eyes in question. “Is there any other way to say it?”
“No, I’m sorry. I’m not saying how you pronounce my name but more that you actually say it.”
Robert responded with an obvious shrug. “Well, of course, it’s on your name tag.”
“Yes, of course, it is. But you choose to use it. You see, Mr. Sanchez, in one day, I meet many, many people—at their car, in the elevator, at their rooms—and...would it surprise you to know that the majority of those people never use my name?” Aaron let out a laugh. “Ha ha...Most of us that work at the front of the hotel have joked that when they create these name tags, they should just print ‘hey you’ instead of our name, for I think I’ve been called ‘hey you’ many more times than ‘Aaron.’”
“Well, it’s a good name, Aaron Aboga.”
“Thank you, but actually it’s pronounced I-boga. You see, where I come from, in the Acholi language—my language back home—all A’s are pronounced as I.”
As he spoke, Robert watched Aaron bring his left arm to his head and scratch his missing ear with the stump of his missing hand. He couldn’t believe how he moved as naturally as any person who had hands and ears would, scratching a momentary itch on their head. For the past six months at the rehabilitation centre, Robert found that most of the other patients suffering like him seemed to work so hard to find ways to hide and compensate for the loss of their arms and legs. Rarely had he seen anyone just be—be so natural about their loss like this man.
“Okay, nice to meet you Aaron I-boga.” Robert was surprised he was able to engage in this simple conversation, such a short time after being caught in that emotional tsunami.
“And Aboga is actually my first name,” the doorman continued. “Where I am from we do not have last names like here. One of our names is a Christian name and the other name comes from the situation we were born into. Aaron is my Christian name and, well, Aboga comes from my situation.”
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