by Tom Crockett
It took a long while to open her next clear patch of clouds, and, strange as it seemed to her, she did believe she was opening up these places to allow light through. It made no sense to her, but if she could quiet her skepticism, acknowledge her disbelief and let it pass over her, in just those moments she could influence the thickness of the clouds.
Soon the night sky was alive with light. Moonlight broke through clouds to strobe the water. Stars scattered across irregular fields of clear night sky looking like reflections of stars in pools and puddles on the ground. Then there was more light than darkness, more open night sky than clouds. She felt both calm and exhilarated. She felt connected to the light, as though she truly had called it and the light had come to her.
Morning came and it was gray blue, then blue, then purple, then pink, then blue again. There were no clouds in the sky and the colors were crisp and clearly defined.
The Turtle Woman had left her at some point in the night, but Marina found several shell bowls of water in the sand around her when light came. She drank two of the bowls but reserved the third. She could see all around her now, and, though she could probably drag herself across the beach, she could not see where the Turtle Mother found fresh water. She drew her legs back into the cross-legged position, adjusted her balance, and contented herself with sitting.
The sun was almost straight overhead and filtering tinted green light down through the palms when the Turtle Mother returned. Marina first saw her as a tiny speck at a great distance walking along the beach. As she got closer, Marina noticed that she was carrying the woven water bag and another woven pouch slung across her shoulders. She still wore the loose grass skirt and the necklace of coral and pearls. Her bare breasts swayed back and forth as she walked, and her hair was still a wild tangle decorated with the remnants of sea life.
She came to Marina first and refilled the now-empty shell bowls with water. She still said nothing, but she smiled at Marina and stroked her head as Marina drank greedily from the shells. She dropped the shoulder pouch she was carrying and walked to the edge of the excavation where she had buried Marina. She circled it once, inspecting it, then dropped to her hands and knees and began digging another small hole in the center of the trench. She did not dig for long, and it was not a big hole, but Marina began to think she might be buried again. She wondered if she was strong enough to stop the woman this time. But the Turtle Mother did not try to drag her to the hole. Instead, she gestured for Marina to lie down. She also gestured to indicate that she wanted Marina to lie on her stomach, but it was not a gesture Marina understood and, eventually, the Turtle Mother simply flipped her onto her stomach like a beached fish.
The Turtle Mother sat next to Marina. She placed a small woven mat under Marina’s face to keep it out of the sand and dipped more water from the woven basket. Marina felt the water running through her hair. The Turtle Mother picked things from Marina’s hair and combed it with strong fingers. Marina saw some of the things the Turtle Mother tossed aside as she groomed her hair and it made her laugh. She had thought the Turtle Mother and the younger Turtle Woman’s hair a strange tangle. Now she realized hers was probably no different. She saw a crab’s claw, strands of seaweed, bits of driftwood, and a bone form a pile in the sand next to her.
Next she felt the water run down her neck and over her shoulders. It was neither cool nor warm, but it felt soothing. After a few moments the Turtle Mother began picking at her back and tossing limp bits of seaweed into the hole she had dug. This process continued down her back. Water would soak the dried seaweed, then the Turtle Mother would remove it. Sometimes it came loose in big swatches like bandages. Other times she had to pick at it like peeling skin. The Turtle Mother continued removing the seaweed from her buttocks and legs, though she felt very little of this, then bathed her once again in water dipped from the bag.
The Turtle Mother stood up. She gestured for Marina to stay as she was and carried the now nearly empty water bag into the thick tangle of trees. Marina propped herself up on her elbows to watch where the woman went, but she disappeared within a few yards of the jungle.
Soon, however, she was back with a full pouch of water. She gestured for Marina to roll onto her back and, this time Marina understood. She flipped herself over with some success, though her legs lagged behind and needed the Turtle Mother to uncross and adjust them. Beginning with her face, the Turtle Mother bathed and removed the seaweed patches. Then she repeated the slow soaking and peeling process down Marina’s torso and arms. It was odd and a little uncomfortable to have the woman bathing her breasts because she could feel every touch with a kind of raw intensity. She expected pain from her burns, but all she experienced was a disturbing sensitivity to touch. She felt little or nothing as the Turtle Woman cleaned the seaweed from her lower body and she was grateful for the reprieve from the intimacy of the process.
When she was done, the Turtle Mother poured water over her again, carefully bathing her. Marina felt a light breeze on her skin as the water evaporated. She lifted herself onto her elbows and looked down at her body. She had felt no pain during the process of removing the seaweed, but she remembered the burned and blistered condition of her skin. She was not certain what to expect, but what she saw surprised her.
Her skin had healed.
There were no blisters, no raw red burns, no open sores. Her skin had recovered its rich olive tone. There was no variation in her coloring, no sign she had ever worn a bathing suit in the sun. This was like a baby’s skin, she thought. Indeed, it did seem less wrinkled, less traumatized than she recalled her skin being. She checked for scars. Yes there was a pale scar on her abdomen from the surgery after her bullet wound, but she could not find the scar from the shoulder wound. She had had a scar on her upper arm from a bad scrape she had gotten as a child, but now she could not find it, either. Nor could she find her childhood vaccination scar. She sat up and inspected her calf. The machete scar was only a faint pink track where it had been an angry puckered gash.
What is happening to me? she wondered. She collapsed back onto her elbows. “What is happening to me?” she asked the Turtle Mother. “How is this possible?” But she knew the woman would not or could not answer her. She lay back in the sand and her hand came up to touch her own face. Both the skin of her face and the skin on her fingertips tingled at the point of contact. She wondered what her face must look like. Was it still her face? she wondered.
Marina lightly touched the skin at her throat. Her hand trailed between the delicate skin of her breasts. She felt the bone of hidden ribs and then softness as her hand crossed her belly. She passed the point where the only sensation she registered was coming from her fingers, and it felt odd, almost as if she was touching someone else’s body. Her fingers wandered through the dark curls between her legs and then to her thighs. She felt muscle beneath the clean new skin.
Marina remembered, with a start, that she was not alone. She brought her hand back to her face and opened her eyes. The Turtle Mother was not looking at her, but was rummaging in the grass shoulder pouch she had dropped in the sand. She drew from it some simple tools, a sponge, and several clamlike shells tied shut with fibers. Marina watched as the Turtle Mother sat at her feet. She lifted first one then the other of Marina’s legs. She seemed to be weighing them. She turned them to one side then the other. Finally she seemed to select Marina’s left leg. She bent it and pulled it across her lap at an angle that caused Marina to roll onto her right side. In this new position, Marina could not see what the woman was doing to her with the tools and shells. She felt a kind of rhythmic tapping but little else.
Whatever the Turtle Mother did took a long time, and Marina drifted off to sleep. When she woke the sun was setting again. The Turtle Mother was gone and there was a bandage around her ankle of what looked like more seaweed strips tied in place by grassy fibers.
She also felt pain.
It was not serious pain, but it was startling because it came from her ankle and traveled up
her left leg. It was feeling. She was feeling something in her legs. She sat up and drew her legs to her. She massaged her calves and thighs and she could feel the pressure of her hands. It was still a numb and distant sensation, but it was more than she had felt before.
She also became aware of the sand she was sitting in. Feeling seemed to be extending below her waist now. She could feel the sand against her buttocks.
She leaned back on her elbows and tried to extend her left leg. At first there was no movement. She grunted and strained but could not get the leg to budge. Then she tried her right leg. Nothing moved.
She went back to her left leg and pushed. This time something did move. The leg straightened a bit, pushing sand ahead of it. “Yes!” she said aloud. She pushed again and again there was a little movement. She tried her right leg and it too moved a little. She alternated legs, straining first the left then the right, like riding a bicycle.
She worked her legs until the sun was completely below the horizon, and by the time the young Turtle Woman came to her she could move them with some degree of certainty and control.
“So, I think soon you will be ready to leave.” The Turtle
Woman squatted in the sand next to Marina.
“Leave?”
“Yes. You remember. You wanted to continue with your dying. Soon your legs will carry you back to the sea, or . . .” She paused.
“Or what?” Marina asked.
“Just another choice.”
Marina was aware that the Turtle Woman’s speech, her choice of words and syntax, was more confident and assured. She wondered if the Turtle Woman was learning from their conversations or if she was simply imagining her differently now.
“Look,” Marina explained, “isn’t dying kind of the end of choices? Shouldn’t you just tell me what to do next, where I should go?”
The Turtle Woman smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “There are always choices. Even choosing not to choose. Sometimes you find stillness, a moment in which you may not need to choose anything, but always choices return. They are like the waves. Sometimes they are calm and hide beneath the water, but they will always come back.”
“So what are my choices?”
“The sea.” She gestured toward the water. “The beach, this way or that. The jungle.”
“And what is it I am choosing between?”
“Paths. All to different places, different ends. Some paths continue your dying, some paths continue your living.”
“How will I know which path?” Marina asked. She didn’t really expect an answer from this enigmatic creature, but she did not know what else to say.
The Turtle Woman seemed to really consider the question for a long moment before answering. “Can you live in the water?”
“What?” Marina asked.
“Can you live in the sea?”
“No.”
“Then you know where that path leads. The other paths . . . I don’t know. But before you can make these choices you must learn to stand again. Can you stand?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried yet.”
“Then try.” The Turtle Woman stood up herself and moved around behind Marina. She put her hands underneath Marina’s arms as Marina brought her knees to her chest and positioned her feet beneath her. With surprisingly little effort considering the difference in their sizes, the Turtle Woman lifted Marina into a standing position. Her legs buckled almost immediately and she would have fallen if the woman behind her had not supported her. She had taken standing for granted and realized that she needed to concentrate in order to stand. This time she fixed her attention on her legs and braced them. When the Turtle Woman released her she wobbled slightly but managed to stay upright.
“Okay,” Marina said, “I think I can stand on my own.” But almost as soon as the Turtle Woman moved away from her she teetered and fell. It was not a hard fall and the sand cushioned her, but it was frustrating.
“You must learn to stand again,” the Turtle Woman said softly. “You are once more like a baby.” She caressed the skin on Marina’s arm as if to reinforce her point.
She picked Marina up into a standing position but this time she put one hand over Marina’s pelvis and the other against her lower back. Gently she shifted Marina’s center of gravity. “Bend your knees a little,” she instructed.
Marina found her knees were locked and she had to use muscle to keep them from buckling as she bent them. Again the Turtle Woman pushed Marina’s pelvis, shifting her center of gravity, and this time it seemed to relieve some of the muscle tension she felt in her thighs.
Next, keeping one hand against Marina’s lower back, she pushed lightly on her chest until she was standing up straight. Marina felt as though all of her vertebrae were stacked carefully and precisely on top of each other.
“Now lift your chin. Look at the sea.”
Marina realized she had been looking at her feet, focusing her conscious mind on the act of standing, as if not being able to see what her still-unfamiliar legs were doing beneath her would cause her to fall. She looked up. She looked at the sea. Then she looked higher into the night sky. She looked for the stars she had seen the first night. Then she began to tip backward. The Turtle Woman steadied her.
“Look only straight out to the horizon,” the Turtle Woman reminded her.
After a while she could stand on her own and the Turtle Woman came around to face her. Almost instinctively she tried to step forward, lost her balance, and fell. The Turtle Woman laughed, but it was without malice, and Marina laughed, too.
“First stand, then walk,” the Turtle Woman said as she lifted Marina back into a standing position.
“Just stand?”
“Stand and breathe,” the Turtle Woman answered. “Here, like this.” She held her arms out in front of her as though she were holding a large inflatable beach ball. She bent her knees, shifted her hips, and straightened her spine as she had shown Marina to do, though it seemed much more natural for her, as though this was the way she always stood. “Breathe in and fill your arms with air.” When she inhaled her arms expanded ever so slightly. When she exhaled they sank back. Marina copied what she saw. Soon she was not thinking about standing but about breathing.
Together the two women breathed. They only spoke when Marina would lose her concentration or her will and fall. Then she would make fun of herself, or curse under her breath. Once she cried. It was hard work, this standing. Her thighs ached, her arms and shoulders ached. Sometimes she wanted to give up. Then she would slip in between some space of breath and time would seem to move on and leave her. She felt, at those moments, as though she could stand forever. She was rooted in the earth like a tree, not like one of the shallow-rooted palms behind her but oaklike and old.
Her eyes were closed and the Turtle Woman could have slipped away as she usually did when dawn approached, but this time she touched Marina lightly on the shoulder.
“I must leave now,” she whispered. “You should rest. Soon you will learn to walk.”
“Where is it you go?”
“Go?” She seemed confused by the question. “I am always here.”
“But only at night. Where do you go during the day?”
“Ahh,” she seemed to understand this better. “The day is for sleeping. I sleep. Sometimes I dream I am a little girl, sometimes an old mother. But always when I open my eyes, I am here. You must sleep now, too.”
Marina was sleepy. She let the Turtle Woman lower her back to the sand and she lay on her side. Almost as soon as her head found the little grass mat the Turtle Mother had left behind, she fell deeply asleep.
* * *
Marina awoke in sunlight with pressure from her bladder. It was a familiar sensation, but she could not remember experiencing it since she had been here, wherever here was.
She rolled over onto her stomach and brought herself up onto her hands and knees. She carefully stood up. Her muscles seemed strong enough. They were sore from the exertion of the previous
night’s standing, but they supported her as she stood again. She tried a step forward. Her right leg did all that she asked of it, but her torso betrayed her. She teetered like a baby, waving her arms for balance, on the edge of falling. She drew her right leg back and this shifted her balance forward—too far forward. She pitched over onto the sand, landing on hands and knees. She would have tried standing again but the pressure that had woken her was growing unbearable.
She tried crawling.
She could crawl reasonably well. She made her way to the edge of the jungle where sand sprouted palms. She relieved herself, squatting with her back to one of the palm trees and found the experience oddly pleasurable. When she was finished she scooped sand over the little wet spot she had left and crawled toward the water. She wanted to wash. It was partially an instinct, a remembered habit, but part of it was also an exercise in control. She wanted to do for herself.
It was late afternoon and about a hundred yards to the sea. The crawling was slow but steady. It seemed to take longer than it should have, and it tired her more. She marked the change in the texture of sand, from loose and hot to cool and flat. The first lapping of waves that reached her was warmer than she had imagined it would be. She crawled out into the water a bit and then lay on her back, letting the gentle surging of the waves lift her for a moment before settling her back into the sand. She let the water wash her, wash over her, wash through her.
Later, as the water retreated, leaving her lying on the moist packed sand, she watched the sun track across the sky and descend toward the horizon. Changing light always inspired a kind of frenzy in her. She used to see it as a commodity in short supply. As a photographer she knew the best light, the most magical light, was at dawn and at dusk. It was also the least predictable light. It was fickle and fleeting and no amount of coaxing or pleading would alter its behavior. It was hard for her to simply enjoy a sunset.
She was not surprised to find the Turtle Mother sitting beside her. She was by now used to the silent coming of her guardian angel. The Turtle Mother sat cross-legged in the sand, her eyes closed, swaying gently to some internal music or prayer. Marina studied her again. It was the same face she saw when she looked at the woman who came after dark, only marked by time. They could have been mother and daughter. What had the young woman said to her? That sometimes she dreamed of being an old woman. Was this silent old woman the dream of a young woman? She had spoken to the young Turtle Woman, and though she was enigmatic and often frustrating, Marina thought of her as being more real. And yet hadn’t the old woman, the Turtle Mother, cared for her physical body? Hadn’t she healed her burns, quenched her thirst, helped bring feeling back into her limbs? Why did she assume the Turtle Mother was the dream? Perhaps the younger incarnation was the dream of this woman.