Tortuga (33 page)

In the afternoon I wandered aimlessly around the ward. The kids gathered in small groups and talked about what had happened, but I stayed away from them. I wanted to be by myself. I wanted to feel everything in the hospital exactly as it was that day, so I would never forget it. And I wanted to be alone to sort out my feelings. I didn't know yet what I would do when I saw Danny, but I knew before the day was up that I would have to see him. I didn't want to ask him why he had done it … I think I already knew. In a way, we all knew … somehow we had been with him when he threw the switch. But I had to see him, and my concern was not one of anger or justification, it was that I wanted to know if he was fully aware of what he had done. And I wanted to be by him because I felt he needed me.

I looked for him in the ward, but I couldn't find him. When I asked Mike he said, “Danny's in the emergency room. Last night, or early this morning sometime, he took a surgical saw and cut off his arm … He was in surgery all morning. He lost a lot of blood, but I think he's going to make it—Didn't you know?”

No, I said, but it all made sense. All the questioning and all the wondering and the pain had suddenly made some sense to Danny, and that's why he had done it. So I couldn't even be angry anymore. Cursing him would just be one more excuse for us. Still, I had to see him, now more than ever, because I knew I would be gone in the morning. So I made my way to the recovery rooms which were part of the surgery unit.

When I found Danny's room the nurse who sat by the bed looked up at me and put aside her magazine. “Did you want to see him?” she asked. I nodded. She stood up and walked to the door. “You can only stay a few minutes,” she said, then added, “he's under sedation … he hasn't talked.” Then she went out.

I went to the bed and looked at Danny. His eyes were closed. His face was cracked with pain and age; even his hair had grown gray in spots. The bandage at the shoulder where he had severed his withered arm was spotted with blood. I felt pity for him … any anger I may have felt drained away and I was left feeling weak and tired. I felt sorrow, for him, for all of us. We had all grown old and tired during our long stay at the hospital.

The steel and the plastic which kept us patched together could not erase the effects of the pain we had felt, that showed in our eyes and faces. Even now while Danny slept, searing pain burned through his veins and throbbed in his heart. They had hooked him up to the machines. A plastic tube dropped from the glass jar which sparkled with light and entered his arm. The yellow liquid drained slowly into his blood … the new bread of heaven, forced in by the very people who had created the hell which brought us here. Drainage tubes carried away the poison the body would use on itself if allowed, and next to the bed sat a stainless steel machine, glistening with bright, polished chrome and colored lights which flashed on and off, secret messages to the panel at the nurses' station. The machines were new, every day they brought in a new one, everyday the workmen opened the walls to run more wires, wires which could monitor the vital signs of the dying body. And the new respirators, more efficient than the old dark and awkward iron lungs, now lay next to the bed, pumping air, recording, monitoring, forcing the breath of life into Danny's tired body …

I wondered if he would rip them away when his sedation lifted … I wondered if he really wanted death, or was it only the death of his arm he had sought? Had he tried to tear the darkness he thought was evil from his body? I sighed because I knew we had failed him.…

“Danny,” I whispered and touched his forehead. He was hot with fever. He groaned and his eyelids fluttered open.

“Ah, Tortuga,” he whispered, “you've come at last … I knew you would come—I've been so afraid, Tortuga, so afraid … A terrible darkness seems to suffocate me … but now that you've come, I feel everything's going to be all right … Oh, such sad things have happened to us …”

I nodded and rubbed his forehead. “Yes,” I said, “sad things … but it's all right now …”

I rubbed his forehead and he closed his eyes and seemed to rest easier. Somewhere I heard the sound of Filomón's carriage crossing the desert, laden with the dry roots which he would lay to rest in new desert sand. Old desert plants are tough, Salomón had said, they'll take root most anywhere. You can tear their limbs, burn them, uproot them and keep them from water for years, but then you throw them in new earth, give them a little sun and before you know it they're sending down that green fuse, seeking water in the sand, sprouting green … yes, green, green buds to greet the sun … and in the path of the sun we're all constantly growing into different shapes and forms …

The nurse returned and said my time was up. I nodded and looked at Danny.

“Is he going to be all right?” I asked.

“That depends on him,” she answered, “you know that—”

Yes, I knew, I nodded and went out, but I couldn't return to my room. I wandered around the hospital for awhile, seeing it for the last time, looking clearly into every part so I could take it with me when I left in the morning. The pool and the therapy rooms were empty and silent; even the recreation room was deserted. I found my quiet spot by the window and sat to look at Tortuga. The mountain basked in the setting sun. High on its rocky sides little sprigs of green were pushing out of the dark crevices of earth and rock. The long winter sleep was over; it was time to seek the sun. The mantle of lime green fitted the old mountain well. I had to smile. So the old remnants and seeds and dry roots which had lived in the dark bowels of the hospital for so long had moved to Tortuga's shell where the sun was brighter. That's what Salomón had said, that bits of moss and algae and small animals sought out the turtle shells to live in peace and without fear. Later, the hot summer winds would come and burn everything away, but the roots would curl into the mountain and live on, and their seeds would be scattered like butterflies in the wind, and after the dreaming in cocoons there would be whispers of the love they had shared … so the cycles kept sweeping over us like the sweet syrup of time, and each passing washed our eyes open to a new form of life.…

I paused in my thoughts and turned, thinking I had heard Salomón's voice, but no, I was alone. It was just that my thoughts were making connections with everything, and without knowing I was humming a song. It was a song about the mountain and about Salomón, Ismelda, Mike, Ronco, Sadsack, Jerry, Danny, the doctor and the nurses and everyone who had come into my life at the hospital. I sang to them as I watched the sun set on Tortuga and saw the rich, green mantle turn to royal magenta. I sang and filled myself with hope, a hope against the dark fear which returned to haunt us and force us into dark shells, a hope which rejoiced in what Salomón had said …

It was in the quiet of evening, when the doves flew against the setting sun and their mates cried along the river, that we gathered to begin our procession.

Throw away your crutches! Ismelda shouted, and we threw away our crutches and braces and wheelchairs and gathered around her and Josefa. They dressed us in thin, flowing robes, robes so airy they made us float, and Josefa lit firebrands for us, torches which we held up in the gathering dusk.

For a moment Tortuga glowed a soft, salmon pink as the sun kissed the wild horizon of the west, then an Indian war cry split the air as the fiery rider on the unbridled red horse checked his steed long enough for Jerry to dismount and join us, then the jubilant cry thundered again and the flaming horse disappeared into a shroud of clouds to the west. We cheered and welcomed Jerry and embraced him, and he smiled then stood back, silent and inscrutable as always. He had brought a drum and he played for us an evening chant. Someone shouted for me to play the blue guitar and I unslung it and joined Jerry in his praise of the sun and the mountain.

Is everyone here? Mike asked. He had gone to the front of the line because Ismelda said he could lead the march. I looked around and saw that everyone was with us, even Sadsack was in line. He had groaned and complained once, but when he saw it wasn't a time for complaining he smiled and joined in the singing. And Danny was with us, quiet and withdrawn but strangely beautiful in his robe of dream-web. Ronco was there, and Billy and Franco, we were all there, climbing and winding down the trail to the river, crossing the bridge over the evening waters and finding Ismelda's path up the mountainside … behind us the doctors and nurses from the hospital and the people from the town watched in awe as we made our way up the mountain.

Night fell and the torches lit our way. We danced to the drum beat and the soft notes of the blue guitar as we climbed, and along the way we paused to dance around and sing to the plants and flowers which dotted the side of the path.

This is Salomón's army, Ismelda said, sentries of the spring night who guard our way … she called them each by name, and Salomón smiled.

When we reached the top we found a wide meadow and in the middle of the meadow a giant juniper tree. We joined hands and Ismelda led us like a winding vine around the tree, dancing a May dance in the spring night. Our souls were as free as the stars which sparkled above us; we ran and played like Josefa's goats … Tortuga smiled on our happiness; we wove our strands of light and love into his heart, and he stirred with old longings. He moved to dance with us, awkward at first, his leathery legs so long anchored to the earth were stiff with cold. But like us, he cast away his bonds in the magic of the spring night. He ripped them free and the earth shook with tremors as he moved. Far beneath us the townspeople screamed in terror that the earth was ending. The thin core of lava which led to the earth's heart snapped free, like the thin wire which had kept the vegetables alive had snapped, and the fiery blood spurted and went cascading into the valley below. Tortuga's underground rivers tore loose from their secret channels and swept into the hissing streams of lava, and the blood-water went tumbling and churning into the town below, sweeping away everything in its path and covering everything. The earth trembled as the huge mountain tore loose from its mooring … all around us the screams of drowning people and the atomic horror of the holocaust split the heavens with a thunder of destruction, and for a moment we too cringed and held each other because we saw the end had come. A loud lamentation filled the darkness. Ghosts arose and walked, and many tried to climb the mountain to be saved but they were dashed against its sides. They cried for forgiveness! They cried for love! But it was too late … their words were false. Look! Ismelda pointed, and we turned and saw that the mountain was rising safely into the starry sky, while behind us the earth thundered and exploded as the forces of the fire and water dashed over the land to make it new again. Mike cheered, and we all cheered, because we were rising like a glowing sun into the indigo of night, rising to take our place in the spermy string of lights which crowned the sky. We sang and danced on the back of the turtle that once free of the earth could swim so gracefully in the ocean of the night. So the earth was the beach that we had crossed … and what we should have known is that we had to join hands and cross it together, because it was only for an instant that the sun bathed and fed us with its love … then the night came and around us the roaring suns of prior ages welcomed us into our new destiny.…

25

The following morning I awoke early. For a long time I sat thinking about the dream, then I got up quickly, because I knew that as beautiful as it was I couldn't remain in it … I had to move out into the world. I walked to the showers. The hall and the bathroom were strangely quiet and empty at the early hour. The sun was just coming over Tortuga; it bathed the bathroom in streaks of golden light. I got in the shower and spent a long time under the refreshing water, washing away the lethargy of sleep and the exhaustion of the tragedy, trying to remember the time I had spent in the hospital so that as it flashed through my mind I could wash away the pain and agony in Tortuga's waters … so that he would flush them down to the river, back into the earth, to the mouths of the waiting, parched roots who struggled to flood the desert with life … but I couldn't give my thoughts wholly to the water … I had to walk on earth … in the path of the sun … there would never come a time when I did not turn to hear a sound, to look at a fleeting shadow, to catch a moment of love before it disappeared into the vast expanse of the wasteland … there would never come a time when I would turn and not see the shrunken bodies and the sad faces of the vegetables, and hear Salomón saying something to me, sad though it might be …

No, I could not wash away the time of sadness. It was etched into my face. I dried myself in front of the mirror and I did not recognize the person I saw. My eyes seemed empty and vacant, as if they were looking ahead to a point in the future, as if they did not want to see the emptiness of the rooms where we had lived so close to life, and had lost it after so long a struggle …

I combed back my long, black hair and shrugged. I knew what I had to do and that was the only thing that mattered. So I dressed in the blue denim shirt and levis the hospital issued, then I put on the brown corduroy jacket Ismelda had given me. It smelled clean and new. I ran my fingers along the sleeve and felt the texture of the material. For now, that was all I could do, understand that I could feel again and that in a little while I was going to walk out of the hospital. I looked one last time in the mirror and I couldn't keep from smiling. So, Ismelda would say, the lizard has put on the clothes of a man, strange lizard. Then I turned and walked back to the room.

Mike was awake and sitting in his chair. “You ready?” he asked and rubbed his sleepy eyes.

“I'm ready,” I answered. “I wanted to start early, so I would have time to go by Ismelda's—”

He nodded. “Hey, you look good,” he smiled and reached up and straightened the collar of my jacket. For a moment he looked into my eyes and I knew he was happy for me. Then he turned and went to the window and looked out. “It's a beautiful day to be moving north … following the river, just like the geese. They've been flying over all week … sometimes I think I can hear their lonely cries in the dark, and I imagine they're flying over at night … going home. You know, last night I had a dream … I can still remember it clearly. I dreamed we all got together and climbed the mountain—”