by Tom Crockett
“Sure. I’ll come find you after I’ve finished my work. If you follow the path by the stream it’ll take you down to a little cove.”
“What’s in the other direction?”
“Don’t know. I’ve never looked.”
Marina found this hard to believe and it aroused her curiosity. She would have to look, she thought to herself, but not now.
Rafael had turned back to his weaving, ending their conversation.
Marina got up and tried some of the tea and a little of the broth. The tea tasted of flowers, and the broth was mildly salty with a pungent flavor of fish. It didn’t take much to satisfy her, so she rinsed the bowl out in the stream and turned it over on a stone to dry.
Marina picked her way down the stream path. She could hear birds high up in the canopy of the jungle and rustling noises in the undergrowth around her, but nothing seemed threatening. The path was alternately sand and stone with occasional roots that required her to climb. She reveled in the exercise, enjoying all the textures beneath her bare feet. She could not remember when she last immersed herself so fully in the experience of being barefoot.
It was like the fruit, she realized. Her sense of touch was as heightened as her sense of taste. When did she stop feeling, tasting, smelling the world around her? she wondered. She was not even aware that anything had changed before she had died. She had been dull, depressed, without joy. Nothing beyond the extraordinary moments of violence and fear she had photographed had been powerful enough to tear through the heavy veil with which she shrouded her senses. But she had not been aware of this, could not have been aware of this except by contrast. This place was that contrast. Everything felt new, almost unbearably sensual. It was ironic, she thought, that on this island of the dead she felt more alive than she had in many years.
She came to the cove Rafael had described. She heard the rush of water splashing from a height into a pool almost at the same time she rounded a thicket of palms and other twisted trees. It was a serene open space lit by a shaft of unfiltered golden light. The azure sky to which she had grown accustomed was painted over the cove like a cathedral fresco.
Marina circled the cove, picking her way over stones and wading through the stream below where it overflowed the main pool. On the other side she found a little strip of sand that allowed her to wade into the pool gradually. The water was warm, almost the temperature of a bath. She slipped out of the jacket and laid it over one of the stone slabs.
She eased into the water. A few strokes took her to the center of the pool. It was deep enough there that she had to tread water to stay afloat, but she luxuriated in even this slow-motion exercise. She swam back and forth across the pool several times, sometimes dipping her head beneath the water, sometimes floating or doing the backstroke.
When at last she tired of the swimming she picked her way over the rocks to where the waterfall splashed into the pool. She found a smooth stone just below the surface that she could sit on and lean her head back into the stream of water. This water was cooler than the sun-warmed pond and drummed against her head, massaging her scalp. It relaxed her deeply and made her tired.
She angled herself to allow different parts of her body to feel the massaging effect of the waterfall. She let it throb against her neck and pound her back. She moved her legs under the water to feel it surge against her sore thighs and calves. She was interested, but not surprised, to notice that the turtle tattoo had migrated to the top of her left thigh, just over her knee.
After a while she pulled herself up onto one of the warm stone slabs that jutted up from the pond like the shells of turtles. She lay back, her feet dangling in the water. She felt the sun linger over her bare skin. She closed her eyes.
When she opened them again she could not say how much time had passed. The sun was still visible through the opening in the canopy of trees, but it had drifted close to one of the edges. She lay still for a while, studying the sky, but gradually began to sense that she was not alone. She did not look right away. She forced herself to be open to her perceptions. She heard no sound that was out of place for the jungle. She saw no movement on the periphery of her vision. Everything was still, and yet she felt a presence around her.
She lifted herself onto her elbows. Ahead of her, on the other side of the pond, stood one of the women in black she had seen on the beach. She still wore the cowl of the robe pulled over her head, shrouding her face. She did not move. She stood looking in Marina’s direction, but Marina could not say whether or not the woman saw her.
Off to her right another of the women stood at the edge of the pond. She too was hidden by the folds of her dark robe, but she seemed to be looking in the same direction as the first woman.
Marina sat up and turned to look behind her. She knew before seeing her that the third woman was standing behind her on the strip of sand near where Marina had left her jacket. This third woman had the cowl of her robe pulled back so that her face was exposed. She was young, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, with pale skin and short, dark hair. Her features were delicate and her expression sad. Her dark eyebrows seemed to weigh on her. She was looking down at the water, as though she could see through it.
Marina too looked down at the water. She watched as the woman knelt in the sand and dipped her hand into the water. Marina caught her breath as she saw the woman’s hand disappear beneath the water without breaking the surface. Her hand seemed to pass through the water as if it was an illusion. There were no ripples on the water from her hand, no disturbance of the surface, and still she seemed to bring ghostly water up when she withdrew her hand. Hazy droplets fell away from her cupped hand but never struck the pond. The woman touched moist fingertips to her own forehead in a gesture that seemed almost Catholic.
Marina was intrigued by these women, but also discomfited by their presence. She slipped off her stone slab and swam slowly toward the shallow edge of the pond where she could walk out of the water. She stopped long enough to pull her jacket on and belt it around her waist. She carefully and quietly waded ashore onto the sand strip where the young woman still knelt. She remembered what Rafael had said about not touching the women, but she had no desire to touch them now. Even though she was fairly certain the women could not see her, she tried to slip past the young woman quickly.
Suddenly, the young woman swung an arm toward her, as if swatting at something barely perceived but annoying. It happened too quickly for Marina to avoid. All she could do was watch as the woman’s hand and arm swept through her leg. Marina’s intuition told her that this was what would happen when the insubstantial encountered the substantial, but she was unprepared for the feeling of cold that shot up her leg.
She was also unprepared for the wailing cry of the young woman. She cradled her arm as if she had been burned and cried out in misery. The other women cried out as well, like dogs joining in a howling ritual.
Marina stumbled backward a few feet into the brush. She panicked for a moment. All she wanted was to get away, but she felt hemmed in by the thick jungle growth and the boulders. She scrambled up several stones toward the top of the waterfall. It was not an easy climb, but it allowed her to avoid the low side of the pond and the other two women.
The cold in her leg subsided but her heart pounded and she was short of breath as she climbed. When she pulled herself over the edge of the top boulder, she still had the stream between her and the trail back to Rafael. She splashed into it without caution.
The wailing of the women had grown louder and higher in pitch. Marina glanced down at them. They now seemed to be looking up in her direction, though not specifically at her.
They can sense that I’m here, Marina realized, but they can’t see me. I’m as much of a ghost to them as they’re ghosts to me. Rafael had tried to tell her something like that. Her foot slipped on a slick stone beneath the surface of the stream and she fell. Her leg hurt, but she stood back up instantly. She took another step and slipped again. This time she went down in the stream
on her hands and knees.
“Easy, Marina. Slow down.” Rafael appeared before her as if from nowhere. He caught her in his arms and held her for a moment. She struggled against him briefly, then let him hold her.
“Who are they?” she asked breathlessly.
“It’s okay, they won’t harm you. They’ve come for me, not you.”
“But why? What do they want? What are they?” Marina heard the hysteria in her voice and worked to suppress it. She usually didn’t panic in stressful situations.
“I told you before, I don’t really know what they are. I once knew who they were. I only know that they are here because of me. I brought them with me when I came here, and I won’t be able to move on until I appease them. I’m sorry you have to see them at all. Sometimes I don’t see them for weeks, but I’m getting close to finishing my weaving, and that always brings them closer.”
“I don’t understand. What did you do to deserve this? And what does your weaving have to do with this?”
“I’ll explain as best I can, but not here, not now. Let’s go back to the hut.” Marina allowed herself to be led from the stream. She even allowed Rafael to hold her hand as they walked back up the trail. She found this strong, young man enigmatic but reassuring. There seemed little that was threatening about him and she could not imagine what he had done to warrant the unholy attention of the women in black.
Back at the hut, Rafael set about preparing a meal for them. He cut up more fruit and roasted some plantains in the coals of the fire. She offered to help, but he would not let her. So she found a comfortable spot and watched him work.
He was deliberate, absorbed in the task of preparing the food. He cut each piece of fruit open with reverence and arranged the slices on a wooden platter like an artist. She realized that he did everything with this attention. When he was weaving, he was totally weaving. When he prepared food or when he had fed her the night before, he had been totally in the moment. The only time Marina had lived in the moment was when she had been behind the lens of a camera, and even then, toward the end, she had been unable to maintain that level of attention for long.
When at last he brought the tray of sliced fruits and vegetables to her, she made no move to feed herself. She meant this as something of a joke, but he matter-of-factly lifted a piece of fruit to her mouth. She bit down on its juicy sweetness. It was delicious, nearly as powerful as it had been the night before, but the sensation did not overwhelm her this time. She allowed herself to taste it, to press it against the roof of her mouth and feel the juices run down her throat.
He lifted another piece to her lips but instead of biting it, she picked up a piece and offered it to him. He took it and chewed it slowly, indulging in it. Then she took the piece he offered.
In this way they fed each other in a silence punctuated only by wet chewing noises and sighs of pleasure and surprise. After they had finished, Rafael took the wooden platter down to the stream and rinsed it off. Marina’s own fingers were covered in sticky sweet nectar, so she got up to rinse them off as well. Both her legs ached as she stood up but her right leg, the one she had fallen on in the stream, hurt sharply. Rafael noticed her limping to the stream.
“You should let me work on that,” he said as he splashed water on his face.
“So you’re a doctor as well as a weaver?”
“I just may be able to help, that’s all.”
“How?”
“Massage. I have some oils that might help.”
“Oils?”
“When I first came here . . . ,” he seemed to think a moment, as if trying to recall how long ago that had been, “a woman lived here. She taught me how to weave. She also showed me how to use these oils. She said they contain highly distilled essences of plants and other things.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know. Up the trail I think.” He gestured up the trail in the direction he had told her that he had never looked. “She was ready to move on. I couldn’t. I haven’t seen her since.”
“What do you mean about being ready to move on? You’ve said that several times and I don’t understand. Can’t you leave whenever you want?”
“Not really, though I don’t understand why not. I just know I’m not ready.”
“And where will you go when you are ready?” What Marina didn’t say, what she really wanted to know, was whether Rafael would choose living or dying. She wanted to know if he had to make the same choice the Turtle Woman had offered her.
Rafael didn’t answer her right away. Instead he opened the trunk near his loom and took out a little wooden box. He set this on the floor near where Marina sat on the little carpet and knelt down beside her. He pushed her gently and she lay back. He put a pillow beneath her head then moved around to sit at her feet.
“How is it that you don’t know that living is better than dying?”
“You’re very young,” she snapped. “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.” He was silent for a moment and she regretted her tone. “I’m sorry. I chose death because I lost faith in the living . . . lost faith in myself actually.” Rafael smiled at her. He was not judging or evaluating her. His question had not been intended as a reproach.
He opened the little box, drew a cobalt blue bottle out and uncorked it. Instantly there was a new scent in the air. It was vaguely sweet, like vanilla, but also spicy. He lifted her right foot and shifted himself so that her ankle rested on his thigh. “May I?” he asked, touching the dangling string of coral and pearls.
“Yes,” Marina whispered. She knew that he was asking if he could remove the ankle bracelet, but she felt as if she was saying yes to much more.
Rafael drizzled a little of the scented oil from the blue bottle into his hand. He set the bottle down and rubbed his hands together spreading the oil from palm to palm in a circular motion. Gently, with light but firm strokes, he began to massage her foot.
“I know that if I am given the choice again, I will choose living.”
He said this quietly, looking at the weaving. Marina too looked at the weaving. It was beautiful and marvelously asymmetrical. At the top it was a tangle of colored threads almost without visible pattern. The chaos of the weaving seemed to increase during the first third of its length. Then an abrupt band of blue slashed across the woven space. This blue reminded Marina of the sea and the sky together. It seemed to absorb the chaotic pattern and color that had come before.
“It’s the story of who I am.” Rafael had noticed how Marina was studying the weaving. “When I can fully tell the story, perhaps I can move on.”
“But it looks like it’s almost finished.” The weaving had nearly filled the capacity of the loom. All of the strands and colors that had seemed so tangled above grew out of the blue band in delicate and ordered patterns. The only tension in the pattern that remained was created by three irregular islands of black that descended from the band of solid blue. They seemed to be descending toward the open space of the yet-to-be-woven.
“Are those the women in black?” This was just an intuition on Marina’s part, but Rafael nodded.
“I’m not sure if they are to be part of the weaving, but they are part of my story and I can’t seem to keep them away.”
“But who are they? Why do they haunt you?”
“I have much to atone for.”
“You’re so young. You’re a wonderful artist. Look at what you’ve made. What could you have to atone for?”
“I was not always so good at weaving things together. When I was a boy, all I could do was tear things down. This is the way of boys without fathers. My mother was a good woman, but I never knew my father.” Rafael paused, shifting his position to massage further up Marina’s calf. “I don’t mean that as an excuse. I am what I chose to be, but it is true that without a father or a strong man in a boy’s life, he cannot learn how to build things, how to care for others, how to be responsible.
“Anyway, I was a wild boy, little king of the Barrio. All I was
good at was destroying things. I tagged and spray-painted, set fire to things, broke windows, tore down everything good someone tried to build in our neighborhood. When I got bored with destroying things, I moved onto people. I was out of control. I found reasons to fight, first with my hands, then with chains and clubs, then knives. Eventually, I got a gun and I was like a little god. Everyone was afraid of me.”
Marina found Rafael’s story hard to believe. His hands and fingers were smoothly kneading the muscles of her calf, working around her sore knee and gliding up onto her thigh. He was beautiful and serene in the flickering light of the candles. His long black hair hung about his shoulders framing his face, and though his eyes seemed sad and distant as he spoke, they were also gentle.
“It’s true,” he said. “You can see it in the weaving. Look.” He gestured up at where the tangle of colored threads seemed chaotic and patternless. She could see no pictures or words in the weaving, but it was a story nonetheless, and she knew it was a true story.
“I hurt people any way I could. Boys who disrespected me, I hurt with my own hands. Sometimes I cut them, or beat them. Girls I hurt in other ways, in the heart maybe, or by giving them babies. The only ones I would not hurt were my mama and my little sister, though I know now how much my behavior must have hurt them both. Then I just thought that I was being strong for them. I didn’t know what being strong meant.”
Marina found it hard to connect this gentle, young man with the person he described. He was strong. She did not doubt that he could hurt people if he chose to. And he was handsome. It was easy to imagine girls being attracted to his dark, sad eyes. But his touch was so tender as he massaged her thigh. His fingers drifted underneath the edge of her jacket making her keenly aware of her nakedness, her vulnerability, but there was nothing overtly sexual in the movement of his hands. Sensual, she thought. It felt so good to be touched like this. But even that was imprecise. What she really meant was that it felt so much to be touched like this. She could not remember when being touched had been so intense for her. She was almost disappointed when Rafael stopped and shifted himself again to begin massaging her left foot.