Tortuga (11 page)

The words are like the wind, Tortuga, they sweep us up from this time and place and allow us to fly like butterflies to other places … When we think we are not of this time then we encounter absolute freedom, because we have created another universe, that's how powerful our imagination is. But wait, suppose it's not our thought that moves us. Suppose we are the very characters we invent in our fantasies? Then we have no freedom. Then we are only another group of stock characters in a crazy writer's notebook … then even the words cannot free us, even they are a trap. Then we must keep very still, not breathe, not think with words, not create disturbances or ripples, lie like my poor vegetables thinking without words, thinking about silence and the silent hum which is the rhythm of the earth, thinking silence until we think ourselves out of existence … then, that is freedom. Then we are characters who are not yet born! I think I like that better. Yes, I like it much better! For if we are not, then we can become, and we will become what you sing of us, Tortuga! How do you like that, Tortuga? Isn't that great! To become what you will make us in your songs!

Then he laughed and his laughter echoed down the ward. I found myself laughing with him, laughing insanely because he twisted my mind with his crazy thoughts then released me to think my own. His laughter was like the whistle of humming birds. When I heard it I turned to see if Jerry had heard it, and although Jerry said nothing I knew he did hear the laughter which shook us from our loneliness.

Sometimes I talked to Jerry when we were alone. I told him Salomón's stories and about the things I found in Salomón's books. He never spoke, but he listened. I thought he was tired of words, because he had been double-crossed by words. At the first thaw the false sounds had gone splintering to the ground, like icicles. They had taken his speech away. Now there was nothing to share except the whispers of butterflies, and so that's how we spoke, without promises.

The most important thing to look forward to in the mornings was the arrival of Ismelda and Josefa. They came to clean the rooms and make the beds. They were both working our ward regularly and so I got to see them every morning. I waited eagerly for them. They were my only contact to the outside world, a world which seemed to exist only in the accounts they gave of it. And Ismelda had become a strong link between my dreams and the mountain and what happened to me. Somehow she was always near me. She had been there to greet me the day I arrived, and she had been there when Mike found me. Most important, she was in my dreams. Every day as I recovered more movement in my legs the fire seemed fanned by that first meeting in the mountain's lake. She was a woman who haunted me, and although I could not tell her, I had fallen in love with her.

“Hey, Tortuga, how are you?” Josefa shouted when they entered the room, “look what Ismelda brought you, some real food! Not that hospital garbage which makes you skinny and pale!” Ismelda always brought me food she cooked at home. The smell of red chile with meat and beans and fried potatoes filled the room. I looked at Ismelda and she smiled. She was a handsome woman. She had dark features, with a smile that turned my night to day. Her dark eyes flashed with the fire of life.

“And you, Jerry, how you doin' this morning? Well, huh?” Josefa asked Jerry as she laid down her bucket and mop. She loved to take care of us. We were her kids. Every day she asked us how we were feeling and when she found one of us sick or in the dumps she appeared the next day with a remedy from home. And her herbs and purgatives and food worked, because we felt better when she tended to us.

“It's the food,” she muttered, “it's what they give you to eat that makes you sick. You gotta eat food from home, that makes you well!” And she fixed mutton and red chile for Jerry and me and we had it for lunch.

“How do you feel?” Ismelda asked as she changed the pillow cases.

“I feel good,” I answered, then daring I whispered, “when I see you in my dreams you have green eyes—”

She smiled. “When I see you in my dreams you're a lizard,” she answered. Then she explained. “My mother was living here in this valley when my father, a wandering gypsy, came one day. They fell in love, and I was born. He had green eyes; it's only in the dark that mine turn green,” she laughed. I fell in love with the sound of her voice and her gentle touch. I looked into her eyes and saw the woman of my dreams. I wanted to ask her more, to hear her speak, but she turned to do her work. Usually it was Josefa who did the talking. She was a round, energetic woman who loved to tell stories.

Josepha was the real nurse for the ward. She loved to do things right and to keep the rooms clean. The Nurse took credit for our good health and tabulated our bm's with delight, but it was Josefa we turned to when we didn't feel well. Her only failure was Danny, but Danny was everybody's failure. The withering which had started in his fingers had now spread to his hand. The doctors couldn't do anything for it. Perhaps Josefa would have been able to help, but Danny never went to her. For some strange reason he stayed clear of her.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked me. “Good dreams, huh?” she winked and looked at Ismelda. She knew Ismelda filled my dreams. “And what did they feed you this morning? Oatmeal? Yuk! They want to give you empache the way they fix it—and look at you, Tortuga! Did old man Maloney make this mess? Look, there's oatmeal all over your face, and you haven't been washed in a week! Ismelda, bring a basin of hot water, and plenty of soap. We gonna wash the turtle. I won't have any of my boys running around dirty like that!” She pulled aside the sheets and sniffed. “Pee-you, Tortuga! You stink! When's the last time you had a bath? Doesn't that old man know he's supposed to give you a bath every day? Doesn't that Nurse check anything except for bm's?” She pulled off the sheet and left me naked on the bed. “Scrub him good!” she said to Ismelda. “I wanna see a pink turtle. Turtles aren't supposed to be afraid of water!” she roared with laughter. “You scrub him and I'll wash the floors,” she nudged Ismelda, and Ismelda dipped the wash cloth into the warm, sudsy water and washed my face.

She worked in silence. Her firm strokes wiped away the grime which had accumulated. She scrubbed my arms until they tingled, then she washed my legs. Her touch sent hot fire rushing through my veins. I tried to speak but my throat was tight with the strange excitement of her touch. I closed my eyes and breathed deep, and I thought of the woman who had kissed me in my dreams. Ismelda teased me with her gentle hands. Under her care I wasn't the terrible turtle-man of the kids' rumors, I was a vulnerable, crippled turtle turned on his back. As she wiped me I could hear the soft jangling of her seven silver bracelets, and I could smell the clean, wild perfume of her body, an aroma that hinted of home odors and goat fragrances.

My body throbbed and grew under her soft, warm touch.

My flesh tingled.

In the warm sunlight I turned belly-up and dreamed of the woman who had led me into the mountain and who sang on a sea conch shell …

I felt her love smother me, and I wanted to cry for joy …

Then Josefa shouted and woke me from my dreams. I opened my eyes and she winked at me. “Look what a nice staff that turtle has! Perfect for working goats, huh, or for climbing in the mountains—”

Ismelda blushed but said nothing. She pulled the clean sheet over me and finished drying me. She took the dirty water away and when Josefa had finished washing the floors they sat and had coffee with us. Our room was their halfway point and they often had their morning rest here. Josefa brought sweet cakes, raisin bread or cinnamon covered biscochitos to share with everyone. She flavored her coffee with cinnamon and it was warm and sweet. She always told stories about the people and the land; today she talked about the village at the foot of the hill.

“—This village has been here as long as anyone can remember. It was a winter camp for the Indians, long ago, before the mangas largas came, before the sickness came … The Indians came to the warm baths, it was a part of their religion, and they planted prayer sticks in the caves and springs along the foot of the mountain …” She rocked her body and motioned toward Tortuga. “According to old stories I've heard,
the people
rested here on their migrations. This was a place they settled before they were told to go farther north … but who knows. On this desert time doesn't mean anything. It could have happened yesterday, or a year ago, or centuries ago, it's all the same … But we do know it's a holy place, because the water that flows from the mountain is holy. It's the only place in the desert that there is a chance for salvation—”

“But there's also suffering,” I said.

“Ah, Tortuga, maybe that's your salvation … that you will learn to suffer …”

There was no salvation for me in suffering; nothing could be saved through the suffering of the vegetables which lay in Salomón's ward. But I said nothing. Instead I asked her who were the people that passed through here.

“The old ones,” she said, “wanderers going north, people looking for a place where they could praise their creator and find spiritual peace—you are one of them,” she said, “because you're from the north.”

I didn't understand. “What about the mountain?” I asked.

“The mountain,” she laughed, “why any fool could have named it, it's plain to see it looks like a turtle!”

We laughed with her, and at my side I felt Ismelda's presence. She knew something about the mountain, but she never said anything. I wondered what the secret was, and had I already found it in my dreams?

“When I was a little girl my grandfather used to tell us stories about the mountain. He said that once upon a time the mountain was a real turtle which had left the sea of the south to rejoin his brothers of the north … it followed the river north, and here at Agua Bendita it stopped to rest, and it fell asleep in its wandering. And that's all that old mountain is, a sleeping sea turtle which is going to wake up someday, look around then start its journey again.…”

So Josefa's story was where the kids' stories came from, that the mountain would free itself and move again, as we all wished to free ourselves and move again. I looked at Jerry. He pretended to be busy with his beadwork, but he was listening. I looked at the mountain through the window and saw the fringe of the lava flow around the base, and I shivered because I saw the dark clotted blood of Salomón's turtle!

“The mountain isn't dead,” Josefa said, “it's just waiting.…”

“Waiting?”

“Waiting for the people to return to learn its secret …” We waited breathlessly. She continued. “The hot springs of the mountain cover a distance of seven miles up and down the river, and there are seven major springs … the water that comes boiling out of those springs is more than water, it's hot turtle pee. Yes, that's why it's miraculous and can cure sickness, because it's the hot pee of our brother the mountain. You've seen how a turtle struggles and pees in your hand when you hold it? That pee is so strong that some people get warts from it, same as from a frog, but it's good because it's strong!” She paused and looked at Ismelda. “Some curanderas use the pee of the turtle to cure—”

“What?” I asked.

“Paralysis,” Ismelda whispered. I looked at her and saw the image of the mountain swimming in her dark eyes. I looked at Josefa and she winked.

“Sure,” she said, “it's that strong! But the doctors don't know it. They say it's the minerals in the water—Bah! If it's just the minerals in the water why don't they pour those minerals into their bathtubs and take their baths at home, eh? Because it's more than just the minerals!” She paused and looked out the window. “It's the power of the mountain … the power in our sleeping brother … just waiting.…”

Her words created a sleepy silence in the sun-flooded room. No one spoke. Strands of golden sunlight wove us together, wove us into the time of the hill and the river and the shell of the mountain. Over us the blue sky flowed like water, a palpable magnetic stream which spilled over its edges and flooded the earth with its intensity. We dreamed, each one of us woven into the same dream, dreaming of a time when the mountain would rise and walk and we would follow it north, saved by its holy water. The room buzzed with a quiet, summer madness, then the spell broke and Josefa stood.

“Time to move on, time to work.…”

I felt Ismelda at my side. She leaned close to me and I felt her warm breath on my face. “Take care of yourself, Tortuga,” she whispered, “don't go play in the mud now that you're all clean—”

I smiled and her dark eyes filled with love. I wanted to say something to her, something about how I felt about her and what I was beginning to learn from my stay at the hospital, but I couldn't find the words and they moved on to clean the rest of the ward, lugging their mops and pails with them.

Later the doctors came on their rounds and I lay quietly while Dr. Steel probed and asked questions. Some of the pricks from his needle were beginning to feel sharper, and he grinned when I said so. He made comments on my progress, notes which the Nurse jotted down on my chart, medical gibberish which made the visiting interns nod and pucker their lips with hems and hahs.

“You're ready for some physical therapy,” Dr. Steel said. He winked at me. I knew he was happy for me.

“Good,” I answered, “I'm ready.”

They turned and gathered in a group to discuss my case, the smashed vertebrae and the consequent paralysis, the slight movement which had returned, the treatment and the prognostication … and far beneath us the river of hot turtle pee gurgled as it ran under the ice which covered the land and the river.

8

Peeeeeeeeee-Teeeeeeeeeeeeee.

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