Isle of Passion

by Laura Restrepo

  Altagracia Quiroz ran after them. The moment he saw her, Schultz was able to collect all the loose pieces of his delirium. With a violent jolt he broke free from Irra, embraced Altagracia, and even though he could not fully control his numb, sticky tongue, the words he uttered came from deep inside.

  “Come with me, Altita.”

  “I can’t, Towhead. I wish I could. I came with Mrs. Alicia, and I have to stay with her.”

  Recovering, Sergeant Irra again grabbed Schultz and threw him into the rowboat, where two soldiers were waiting to take him to the Cleveland.

  The boat left. Schultz defied his condition and the rocking of the waves, and managed to stand up.

  “I’ll come back for you, Altagracia,” he shouted. “I swear to you. I swear to you I’ll get you out of here and marry you. I swear!”

  The ocean was gray, the sky was violet, and the girl remained at the dock, alone. She heard the German’s words, and to bid him farewell she took off the shawl covering her head. Her hair cascaded almost to the ground, sparkling under the afternoon sun, and waved softly in the breeze like a black flag.

  In the meantime, Ramón Arnaud ordered the troops to interrupt their tasks and report in formation to the plaza—where their old vegetable garden, now barren, had been—in full uniform, rifles and all. Young Pedro Carvajal made the bugle call, and the men mustered.

  “Platoon, charge . . . weapons!” barked Cardona. Arnaud, next to him, just watched.

  The ten soldiers who made up the garrison were standing in the inhospitable and harsh wasteland. If a soldier had shoes, he had no shirt; if he had a rifle, he had no sword; if he had a cartridge belt, he had no ammunition. They had only whatever the hurricane had not taken away. Around them in a semicircle, the women stood watching, babes in their arms. They were all battered people in a battered place.

  “Present . . . arms!”

  They sang the Mexican national anthem and raised the new flag, the one nuns had embroidered. When it was up, Arnaud saw that it was as faded and frayed as the old one. There was no red or green, the white center now extended to the sides. And without the eagle and the serpent, it was nothing but a white sheet in the sun.

  Easy come, easy go, Ramón thought, and watched his people. We look like ghosts, and on top of that, we belong to an army which no longer exists. How could he convince them to go on, not to quit? Worse yet, with what arguments could he convince himself? He focused on the tortured nights that he had spent in prison, on his regrets while facing the black walls in Tlatelolco, and as he felt the taste of humiliation in his mouth, he managed to find the arguments he was looking for.

  He began his speech hesitantly. About the defeat of their army he didn’t say much, not to demoralize them. And about the world war, he said nothing, not to overwhelm them. He picked up energy getting into his historical account of foreign invasions and the national resistance. His enthusiasm rose together with his voice as he informed them of the events in Veracruz, and he waxed poetic talking about the defense of Clipperton. By the time he began to notice it, everybody was crying with heroic fervor.

  “In honor of those who fell in the struggle against the American invaders,” he announced at the peak of his harangue, “we are going to give them the twenty-one-gun salute President Wilson wanted. But this time, damn it, we’ll be saluting our own flag. The Mexican flag!”

  Cardona approached him and murmured in his ear.

  “Twenty-one volleys is too much, my friend. We’ll have no powder left.”

  “Well, ten then.”

  “Five?”

  “There will be only five blasts,” shouted Arnaud. “But with ball, so they reach Washington!”

  “And even Paris!” broke in Cardona, who was not forgetting their quarrel with the French.

  More or less in unison, the ten rifles fired five times. The thunder of fifty shots was heard, and the smoke from the blasts darkened the sky. Their nostrils felt the burning and their eyes smarted, partly because of the powder and partly because of emotion. All, even the women and children, ended up crying.

  They are already mine, Ramón thought. He explained the possibilities and the difficulties of trying to survive on the island, the military and political significance of staying, the personal advantages of leaving, and he informed them of the offer by the captain of the Cleveland to take them back to Acapulco, together with their families.

  “Whoever wishes to leave has my permission to do so,” he added last. “In these confusing circumstances, I cannot decide your fate by asking you to stay.”

  He gave them some time to think about it and discuss it with their women. They dispersed. Each one joined his own family. Once in a while, someone would go from one group to another. Whispers, laughter, crying, and arguments followed. Some returned to the plaza before the call. When they were in formation, Arnaud called the roll one by one, for each man to report his decision.

  “Private Rodríguez, Silverio.

  Private Juárez, Dionisio.

  Private Pérez, Arnulfo.

  Private Mejía, Constancio.

  Private Almazán, Faustino.

  Private Carvajal, Pedro.

  Private Alvarez, Victoriano.

  Corporal Lara, Felipe.

  Sergeant Irra, Agustín.

  Lieutenant Cardona, Secundino.”

  One by one, each man stepped forward and gave his answer. After the last one spoke, Arnaud ordered them to break ranks.

  At 1650, five minutes before the appointed time, the rowboat was delivering their message to the Cleveland.

  Captain Williams:

  On behalf of the Mexican Army, my garrison, and myself, I thank you for the valuable assistance granted. Being in state of war, as we are, we find your attitude to be a worthy model of gentlemanly exchange between combatants. We cordially decline your offer to take us to Acapulco. My men and I, together with our wives and children, will remain here until we receive from our superiors orders to the contrary.

  Signed, Captain Ramón Arnaud Vignon,

  Governor of Clipperton Island,

  territory of the sovereign Republic of Mexico

  Clipperton, 25 June 1914.

  Back on the isle, sitting on the leaning trunk of a palm tree, Arnaud still did not know whether the correct decision was to leave or to stay. But he no longer cared. Be what may, this had been the best day of his life, the day in which he had recovered his dignity and done something memorable. He was on top of the world.

  He saw the Cleveland sailing away and felt sorry for Captain Williams, with his little artificial, comfortable corner, his eau de cologne, velour-covered chairs, cognac glasses; Captain Williams, backed by the easy security of his powerful ship. Ramón thought that he did not envy him—or at least, not much—because this time he, Ramón Arnaud, had been the true prince, the dandy, the tough son of a bitch. His decision to stay made him feel pleased with himself, fulfilled, big; and the loyalty of his people—Alicia, Cardona, his men—made him feel like a giant. Fortune did not offer everyone the possibility of playing for all or nothing in the ultimate showdown, of putting to the test each and every fiber in one’s body, of lying at the razor’s edge for honor and courage.

  And this had happened to him. This time he, Ramón Arnaud, had measured up. He was a prince, a warrior, a show-off, a bastard. The old blemish of his desertion had been obliterated, his debt with fate had been paid, and he had finally managed to catch up with his own pride. That Havana cigar, that Flor de Lobeto, was the only thing he needed at this moment to touch heaven with his hands.

  When the U.S.S. Cleveland disappeared on the horizon, Ramón Arnaud was a man at peace.

  Clipperton, 1915

  DURING HIS SIESTA, Ramón Arnaud had a nightmare: he dreamed that he was eating mice.

  In those times there was nothing much to do in Clipperton besides trying to survive, and that left enough time to sleep. It was almost a year since the visit of the Cleveland, the last ship to come to the isle, and people had for
gotten everything, even about waiting for the arrival of the ship. They accepted their condition as castaways with a Christian resignation that turned into something close to pagan hedonism as they discovered the advantages of being isolated, the special charm of solitude, and the thousand opportunities for leisure time that their situation provided.

  One of them was the deep and pleasant self-absorption of a long peaceful siesta. After lunch, men, women, and children lay down on their straw mattresses or their hammocks. Everything was so quiet and silent during that first half of the afternoon that, rather than siesta time, it seemed like a second night. The bugler Carvajal had the idea of playing reveille at four in the afternoon to awaken the troops, just like he did at dawn. It helped everybody’s chronological adjustment. As a result, in twenty-four hours they lived two short days and two long nights, whereby they were awake for ten hours and asleep for fourteen.

  Ramón dreamed that he was eating mice and woke up nauseated and with a bad taste in his mouth. He got up, stood in front of the broken mirror still hanging on the wall, and saw that his gums were black.

  “Sadness has done this to me,” he said. “I’ve got scurvy.”

  It was a fatal disease, a curse like those in the Bible, and for years Ramón had feared the day it would come to Clipperton. When people do not eat fresh fruits and vegetables for a very long time, they deprive their bodies of ascorbic acid. It was the scourge of all sailors, particularly of those shipwrecked. Ramón had learned of its devastating consequences during his obsessive readings on the subject. Vasco da Gama had left Portugal for India with five hundred men, and in less than two years, scurvy had taken half of them. Magellan also suffered from it when he spent almost four months in isolation, eating only flour, sawdust, and rats. The British Army, which was kept at seventeen hundred men during the U.S. War of Independence, lost a total of twelve hundred in action, forty-two thousand who deserted, and eighteen thousand due to scurvy.

  Ramón had spent seven years trying to detect early symptoms in others, but never thought that he could be its first victim. He moved closer to the broken mirror to examine his mouth more carefully. His gums were swollen, bruised, and in the lower jaw he discovered a tiny infection.

  “I have begun to rot away already,” he said, and crossed himself.

  What a fine moment for the plague to hit him! Just now, when he was enjoying peace at last. Against all odds, in spite of his being abandoned, that year had been a good year. He realized it now. They had not suffered thirst. They often had periods of rain, and since the hurricane had not destroyed the cistern, they had been able to store water for times of drought. Contrary to what usually happens to castaways on deserted islands, the people in Clipperton had been threatened not by the lack of water, but by its excess when torrential downpours flooded the isle and could have easily swept them away. They had not suffered too much for lack of food. They learned to fish and to live off the sea. The food supplies Captain Williams brought had been distributed parsimoniously, which stretched them to last for several months. Ramón had been able to pay attention to cooking, which had always been one of his favorite pastimes. He perfected, to gourmet standards, some recipes like conch and crab stew with coconut milk, shrimp ceviche, and turtle stew in cuttlefish ink. He treasured a few cans of olive oil, and on special occasions he would beat in some egg yolks for making mayonnaise to serve with lobster.

  When they ran out of kerosene, used to light the lamps and the lighthouse, the fuel came to them miraculously from heaven—rather, from the sea—in the form of a dead whale dragged in by the tide to rest in peace on the Clipperton beach. They explored and quartered the enormous sea creature, and it yielded leather, meat, and several barrels of some dark oil, thick and smelly, that burned bright with a delicate golden flame.

  It had been also a time of revelation in which Ramón learned to be a father. He discovered his children: for the first time in his life he became fully aware of the existence of those three creatures who were growing up freely and unencumbered in adversity as if it were one more element in nature. He spent whole days with them exploring the island, climbing the southern rock, or teaching them how to swim. With fine woods from the Nokomis and the Kinkora, he made them miniature ships that looked like the real ones. They took them to the lagoon, and by nightfall they were still sailing them. He taught them how to identify stars in the sky, and the different kinds of breezes, and when his children got quickly bored listening to him, he would silently watch them play.

  At dusk Ramón, Alicia, Tirsa, and Cardona gathered to keep one another company during that difficult hour on the island when darkness seemed to swallow everything very fast.

  “If at least I still had my mandolin,” lamented Arnaud.

  “That’s the last thing we need,” countered Alicia.

  “Please, Secundino, sing!” pleaded Tirsa.

  “I can’t anymore. The salty air has dried up my voice.”

  The four kept together so each one would not feel so alone, though they were not able to see one another’s faces and often repeated the same exchanges. Not to be overwhelmed by the enveloping darkness, they tightened the circle of friendship that had been put to all kinds of tests, from the petty annoyances of daily life to great catastrophic upheavals.

  Of course they missed Mexico and their families, but as time went on, their nostalgia became more abstract and diffused. Eventually, the most persistent of memories dropped off like ripened fruit drops from trees, and vanished. Ramón had a period in which he talked of nothing else but his mother’s virtues. The desserts she used to bake for him, the stories she told him, the wonderful massages she gave him to relax his back muscles. When he noticed that this topic was boring to other people, he went through a period in which he read and reread her letters. Then he wrote poems about his filial love, like this poem recovered by General Urquizo in his biography of the Arnauds.

  She was the old lady whose gaze

  gave me the greatest joy,

  like a virgin full of grace,

  completely adored by her boy.

  His obsession went so far that Alicia stopped calling him by his given name. “This is for Doña Carlota’s son,” she would say. “Here comes Doña Carlota’s son.” Until one night, when they were already in bed, they heard a noise, and Ramón got up to check through the empty house. After a while he returned to bed.

  “It was Mother,” he announced. “She was in the kitchen.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That it was Mother, I’m telling you.”

  “Ramón, you’re crazy.”

  “No, it’s not that, it’s that she is dead. She died yesterday, and she came to tell me.”

  And he never mentioned her again.

  That was how the preceding year had gone, without any big highs or lows. In spite of their countless needs, Ramón and Alicia were practically contented, almost happy.

  Until scurvy appeared. In the past, Ramón’s hypochondria had made him think of his own death hundreds of times. He would torture himself in anticipation and imagine its cruelest forms. He barely kept secret his phobias of fire and of water. He felt a faint premonition that he would end up burned alive or drowned. But never, not even in his worst moments of self-pity, did he think he would die for lack of a lemon. My kingdom for a lemon, he kept thinking.

  His body had resented the lack of vegetables. Lemon juice was all that he lacked in order to recover his health; a few bitter drops, a caustic cleansing that could burn the decay already existing inside his body, which in no time would show in every pore. Ramón lay back on his bed and began to murmur, like in a litany, first in a low voice and then in a crescendo:

  “Lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruit. Lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruit! Lemons, limes, oranges, Brussels sprouts, watercress, green peppers, blackberries, radishes, and parsley! A lot of radishes and a lot of parsley! Beets, mushrooms, plums, tomatoes, coconuts. . . . Coconut, coconut, coconut, coconut!”

  Coconut t
hey had plenty of. It was the only food from the vegetable kingdom that the island produced after the garden soil had been swept away. Coconut would be his salvation, the indispensable source of ascorbic acid that could prevent his death. Possibly prevent the death of all the inhabitants of the isle.

  He put on a threadbare pair of pants and a poncho the women had patched together out of pieces of sailcloth. He climbed on a raft and rowed across the lagoon in a straight line. He landed where the thirteen coconut palms were. Until then, anyone who wanted to have some coconut needed only to go there. Coconuts were always in abundance, like the fish or the crabs, and one needed only to reach out and grab them.

  Ramón took the ones on the ground to the raft. He figured that even in the sorry state of these palm trees, they could still produce about five coconuts a week, which could be painstakingly distributed equally among the twenty-one adults and nine children. He looked for Sergeant Irra and gave him quite an unexpected but peremptory order.

  “Sergeant, from now on the palm trees are your responsibility. Make sure they are guarded day and night. Make sure nobody touches the coconuts. If there is one missing, I’ll hold you responsible.”

  He walked away, sat on a rock, opened one with a machete, and drank its milk. During the following two days he tried to control the swelling of his gums with frequent dabs of iodine. However, the swelling increased to the point that he was unable to eat. He did not want to disclose his predicament to anyone, but Alicia discovered it.

  “What did you eat that gives you such foul breath?”

  He had to tell her the truth. They agreed to keep it secret, so as not to alarm the other people. They isolated themselves in concerted effort to heal the increasing ulcerations in his mouth by cleansing them with some antiseptics left in the pharmacy—methylene blue, gentian violet, iodine, hydrogen peroxide—one at a time, or all mixed into a disgusting, viscous concoction. Since Ramón was not able to chew his food, Alicia mashed the fish and pounded the coconut meat for him. In one week they were able to see some progress.