Tortuga

by Rudolfo Anaya

  Chains of love are rattling,

  And lonely hearts are humming

  Here and there, and everywhere

  There’s going to be some loving …

  And Salomón said, yes Tortuga, love can be as devastating as the straitjacket of paralysis … it can numb a person and make him useless … but as mad a force as it is, we must trust it. In the end it is the light of the sun, it is the path Ismelda walks, it is the melody of song …

  “Look, Tortuga,” Mike said sternly when he got wind of my budding romance, “I don’t care what you do or how you feel, that’s your business, but don’t ever forget that there’s only one rule you gotta keep in front of all the rest, and that’s to get out of this godforsaken place! Don’t let anything else get in the way of that! Get out! Escape! You owe it to yourself; you owe it to us!”

  “But why me?” I asked, angry at Mike for reminding me of the one, strict commandment he lived by, and suddenly angry at myself for asking “why me” again.

  “Look around you,” he whispered, “what is it that all these people have in common? The doctors, the nurses, the aides and orderlies, the janitors, everyone! Look closely, and you’ll discover their secret! They’re all cripples, Tortuga, in one way or another they’re all cripples! Samson can’t talk, Maloney’s nearly blind, the Nurse has a slight limp, you can barely see it, but it’s there. Look at all the janitors, everyone of them either limps, walks with braces or has a missing arm like Corto. Even the Director is a former polio case, oh he tries to hide it with those fancy suits he wears and by staying locked up in his office, but he’s got the polio hands all right.”

  “So?” I asked, “So what? What does it mean?” He drew closer to the bed so no one else could hear him.

  “I began to wonder about it when I first came here,” he said, “so I did some snooping. One day I sneaked into the Director’s office, there’s where all the doctors’ files are finally stored. Just for the hell of it, I flipped through a few names I knew, like Samson’s and Maloney’s and Speed-o’s, and I found that at one time they had all been patients here! I mean, I was surprised! This friggin’ hospital’s been here a long, long time, right? So I began to wonder who in the hell has ever left it. I asked Dr. Steel why some of the patients are allowed to work here after they’re released, and he said it was common practice in most places like this to allow a kind of rehabilitation time … if they’re not ready to go home, if they think they can’t handle it, then they can stay around and do odd jobs till they’re ready to go. But I don’t think any of them go … maybe some drift down to the town below … but I don’t know how many try to cross the desert on their own. My guess is very few … that’s why I made the rule. Right then I knew we had to get out, and so every new kid that comes in gets burned with the rule: Get out!”

  I was quiet for a long time, thinking about what he had said. It was true, though, that everyone was crippled. In one way or another everybody in the hospital was marked.

  “And who’s made it?” I asked.

  Mike shook his head. “I can’t think of anyone,” he said, “I can’t truthfully think of anyone. Some have gotten home leave, like Ronco, he gets to go home every summer, but he keeps winding up back here …” He cleared his throat. “You know they make it easy to stay. Hell, we have everything we need! Good medical care, good food, school, swimming pool, entertainment, everything! It’s like a holiday in hell, right? After a while you get used to being here …”

  “How about Steel?” I asked.

  “He’s different … he came from the east, I think.”

  “And Josefa? Ismelda?”

  “Josefa hobbles, arthritis, maybe rheumatism … she’s been in the valley a long time. I don’t know. Ismelda? She’s the only hope.”

  “So she can help …”

  “It’s not that simple,” Mike said, “don’t you see, they all help us. Sometimes they help us too much! That’s the point. They know we’re in pain, so they try to make us comfortable, and the more comfortable we become the less we think about getting out. We’ve even lost touch with the outside world, and that’s bad. The only times we think of going home we fantasize, make dreams and illusions out of cold, harsh reality. Why? Because that friggin’ desert is a cold place to cross … and the mountains? The same. Look at what happened to Jerry when he made his break.”

  “And me?” I asked.

  “Salomón’s betting on you,” he whispered and pushed his chair out of the room.

  I lay in the twilight of the winter evening for a long time, motionless, thinking about what Mike had said.

  15

  The sun was a golden eye peering over the mountain’s hump. I sat up in bed and watched the golden spears cut away the white frost on the hill. In the valley plumes of smoke rose from the nestling houses and I knew people were awake and stirring. I felt their tired bones cracking with old age and rheumatism as they moved about in the dark shadows. I thought of Ismelda getting ready to come to work.

  The flaring light of the golden eye grew intense, sparkling. It seemed to dissolve away all shadows and horizons. My shell and the hump of the mountain disappeared, and for a brief instant the sun and the mountain and I danced and revolved around each other.

  I sang to the sun, a crazy song. Not a chant, like Jerry, just crazy words. I laughed. Today was a special day.

  Today I get my chair, I thought. It was one more step on the road to freedom. I flexed my arms. I knew I was ready for the chair, and I had kept after Steel until he gave in and agreed. I bent my knees and touched my legs, and at the same time old man Maloney came in, grumbling and cursing as he gathered the bedpans and urinals. I paid no attention to him. It was only a matter of time and then I would get crutches, and I would be free of the bed. I thought about all the things I wanted to do, and one strange, forboding thought kept pressing the others out of my mind.

  Come and see me when you can, Salomón had said … there’s something you should see …

  When I told Mike about my thoughts he shook his head and turned away, but he didn’t say anything. I told Ismelda how I felt and she said that I had to trust Salomón, and then she added that there were no tears at the roots of sadness, that Salomón had said that tears are for the living, the lovers, and those who rage at life.

  “Does he want to see me cry?” I asked myself. I touched my legs, stretched as far forward as I could with the weight of the burdensome cast, then lay back on the bed.

  “I’m sick and tired of you little bastards making a mess in the bedpans!” Maloney cursed. He meant me and Buck, but he looked at me. “Do you think I enjoy picking up your crap every morning, picking up the mess! Goddamned little bastards!”

  “Ah, lay off Maloney,” Mike yawned and sat up in bed, “Tortuga and Buck have to use the urinals at night … you know they can’t get up. Do you think they like it any better than you do?”

  “I’d give anything to be able to get up,” Buck cursed from his bed, “my bandages are so wet and crappy they’re beginning to rot.”

  “I can smell it,” Sadsack moaned, “spare us the description. I can smell Tortuga, too. The inside of his cast smells like an old rotten pumpkin! Damn, the whole friggin’ room stinks!” He cleared his throat and spit on the floor.

  “Hey, Sad, you ain’t no rose garden,” Mike answered. “When’s the last time you took a bath, huh? Sadsack won’t even go swimming, he’s afraid of the water!” he laughed. “But so what if it smells a little? Did you ever know anything that grows and didn’t smell? No, cause everything needs a smelly compost pile to grow good and strong. Buck and Tortuga are just like vegetables, just stewing away, but wait till spring! Boooom! They’ll flower like magic!”

  “Spring?” Sadsack cursed. “What’s today? What month is it? Did Christmas already go by?”

  “All I know is today’s a special day,” Mike smiled.

  “Doctors’ rounds?”

  “Somebody getting out?”

  “Nah, none of that. Toda
y Tortuga gets his chair,” Mike said cheerfully.

  “You’re kidding!” Buck exclaimed. Even Sadsack smiled.

  “No, today’s the day,” Mike said. They looked at me.

  “Yahoo!” Buck shouted and threw his hat in the air. “Hot dog! I’m next!”

  “So where do you want to go?” Mike asked when the Nurse brought my chair that afternoon.

  Samson picked me up and placed me carefully in the chair. I felt the weight of the cast settle on my shoulders. For a moment I felt dizzy, then Samson placed my feet on the foot rests and I found I could brace myself. I pushed and settled into the chair. The nausea passed. I reached down and touched the shiny, cold steel of the wheels. I pushed with my right hand and felt the cumbersome weight move forward a few inches. A cheer went up from the kids who had come to see me get my chair.

  “Tortuga’s moving!” a kid whispered, and for a moment there was panic and a rush for the window.

  “No, it’s our Tortuga that’s moving, our Tortuga,” Ismelda said to calm them down. She placed a blanket over my knees.

  “Ride ’im cowboy!” Buck shouted. “Spur that sombitch!” I spurred and the chair swung around in a wild circle.

  “Yahoo! He got ’im now!”

  I pushed again and the chair swung the other way. It was like riding a wild bronco in a corral of cheering faces.

  “Go, man, go!” Ronco cheered, and even Sadsack shouted, “Give ’er the gas, Tortuga!”

  They pushed me around and around the circle while Mike and Ronco sang:

  La cucaracha! La cucaracha!

  Ya no quiere caminar!

  Porque le falta … porque no tiene,

  Marijuana que fumar!

  “Hey! Take it easy! Go slow on him!” the Nurse shouted and grabbed the chair. “I won’t be responsible for one of your crazy chair christenings!”

  Mike laughed and explained. “When Ronnie got his chair crazy Danny wanted to launch it like a ship, so he broke a coke bottle over the armrest and in doing it he nearly cut Ronnie’s arm in half. Took twnety stitches to close him up.”

  “That’s why Danny’s not here today,” the Nurse said coldly. “Let Tortuga get used to his chair … and when you get tired,” she said to me, “call Samson.” She marched out of the room, the giant Samson trailing behind her.

  “She never gets off being a nurse,” Mike shook his head sadly.

  “With a capital N!” Ronco added.

  “She didn’t even act happy for Tortuga, but screw her, man,” Mike turned to me, “this is one more step of freedom! Where do you want to go?”

  “Let’s take him to the girls’ ward!” someone suggested.

  “Yahoooo!”

  “Hey! Let’s race him across the recreation room!”

  “Take him to the swimming pool!”

  “For cryin’ out loud, just take him to surgery so he can watch his buddy Steel at work!”

  “Oh myyy—”

  “Ah Sad, what would we do for laughs without you!”

  “Why don’t you let him decide,” Ismelda said. She looked at me. “What do you want to do, Tortuga?”

  “Damn right!” Buck agreed, “Giving a man a chair is like giving him his first horse! Let ’im do what he wants to do!”

  “Yeah, make your move Tortuga!” Ronco nodded.

  “Don’t hold back,” Mike said, “do what you wanna do!”

  I had thought a long time about all the things I wanted to do when I got my chair, simple things, like getting up in the morning and going to the dining room to eat with Mike and Ronco. I wanted to be able to ride around after supper and visit the kids in other rooms, to go to therapy on my own, to explore the hospital and be able to get up at night and go to the bathroom … I wanted to do many things, but before I did anything I had to see Salomón.

  I was strong, I was almost well, I had my chair, and I knew there was something he wanted me to see. I didn’t know what it would be, but I felt a dread. He was waiting for me.

  I mumbled, “I have to go see Salomón … alone.”

  Mike shook his head. “You ain’t ready, Tortuga …” He looked at Ismelda.

  “Tortuga,” she whispered and held my hand tightly, “when you go to see Salomón you have to be very strong. The Nurse wasn’t right in sending you the first time, you weren’t ready. And now … maybe you should wait. You can see him later.”

  “What’s she saying?” someone whispered.

  “He wants to go see Salomón.”

  “Oh no …”

  The group grew silent. Mike went to the window and looked out. “How can you stop the mountain from moving when it wants to,” he said.

  I withdrew my hands from Ismelda’s. “I have to go,” I said. I pushed and turned towards the door; the silent group parted to let me pass.

  “Good luck, Tortuga,” one of the kids whispered. Another added, “Nobody’s been back there in a long time—”

  I pushed myself into the silent hall. It was deserted and dark in the afternoon light. I breathed deep to screw up my courage and moved ahead. I pushed with my right hand and guided with my feet; the progress was slow but steady. Many thoughts kept tumbling through my mind, and I tried to sort them out and find some sense in what I was doing, but I couldn’t find a clue. The vegetables were there, I knew that, and I would have to see them again, and I would have to see Salomón, but somehow the force which drew me down the dark hallways of the hospital didn’t have as much to do with them as it did with other wards of the hospital. I had been asking since I arrived if there were more wards, and no one had answered me. Today I felt Salomón was going to tell me something that had to do with that nagging question and my reason for being here.

  After some time I found Salomón’s ward, the vegetable patch. The old nurse who sat at the desk by the door was asleep. Without disturbing her I made my way into the enormous room which housed Salomón’s children. The whooshing sound of the groaning iron lungs greeted me. The air was musty; everything seemed covered with a fine, chalky dust. I wondered why whoever had built the hospital had built such an enormous room … and I wondered how many had been built.

  I made my way slowly between the rows of beds and iron lungs. I held my breath. I didn’t want to rouse them from their sleep, their sleep of death-in-life. I thought of the many times I had turned over large stones while playing along the river, turned them over to watch in fascination and with some repulsion the teeming life which lived beneath the stones. Pale bugs, colorless tendrils, white ants that scurried for the dark, insects that had never seen the sun … I remember squashing the bugs between my fingers, stepping down on the ants and insects that I had found beneath the stone. It was the destruction of a colony of foreign life …

  So were the vegetables in the enormous room. They lived in the dark beneath the weight of the hospital. Their pale eyes turned to follow me. I couldn’t speak, but I cursed them through clenched teeth. I cursed them because I could move and they couldn’t. I feared them like I feared the bugs that lived beneath the stone.

  Who would touch them? I wondered, who would feed them? Suddenly I felt like turning back, but it was too late, I was already at his door. I felt forced to call his name.

  “Salomón …” It rang like the sonorous echoes of a bell.

  “It’s me, Tortuga,” I said and entered. His small room was dark. The window was covered with dust, and the green vines I remembered were now dry. They curled around the bookshelves and clung lifelessly to the walls. Books were scattered on the floor; cobweb dust covered everything. I wondered how long it had been since I had seen him.

  I called again and choked on the dry air which was as stale as a desert death. Over the bed one dim bulb cast a light on the book Salomón had been reading. Then he spoke.

  Ah, Tortuga, so you found your way … good. You have a good instinct for finding your way in these dark and empty spaces … You look like a strange turtle riding that chair, he smiled. He laughed a soft laugh, then he coughed.


  I was relieved to find him. For the first time since I began pushing the chair I rested. My arms fell to my sides and quivered from the exertion. My broken hand throbbed with pain.

  I made it across your ward, I wanted to tell him, nothing can stop the progress of my destiny. I have found it flowing like a raging river. It has guided me across the wasteland to this god-forsaken place, but I swear I will leave here.

  I felt elated with the sense of freedom the chair had given me, and so I wanted to shout that I was no longer afraid of the strange cries I heard at night. I wanted to tell him that my life was more than a mad dash for the sea. The emotions gripped my throat and I was about to spill everything when he spoke again …

  Of course you want to shout, he whispered, that is why you have come here. You have found your destiny, but you have not yet found your song … That is why you must go farther, deeper, to the very last ward of the hospital … That is why you must see all there is to see. My friend, my friend, this is only the beginning of the nightmare we have made of life. Now you must see everything … You have only begun your journey. Today I will send you into the other wards … you must go to the very roots of sadness before you let out this shout of life that bursts in your lungs … yes, you too will have your butterflies, because you will be a singer, but your songs will be full of the sadness of life … Your destiny has become ours, Tortuga …

  What am I to do, I asked.

  Go farther into the ward … you must see the orphans of life.

  But that isn’t why I came to the hospital. I came to get well. I am not an orphan … I protested but I turned my chair and pushed it out of his room, down a dark hall to a door. Behind the door I heard the whimpering sound babies make when they’re in pain. I shivered. I didn’t want to enter this ward now that I had found it.

  But I have already seen the vegetable patch, I said, I have already seen your cripples …

  Ah, Tortuga, but you have not really seen what we have made of life. If you are to walk in the path of light you must first walk in darkness, if you are to sing you must gather the words for your lyrics …