Dead Awake: The Last Crossing (7 page)

Grudging it, I got up. My
hair was a mess, and my mouth was a cotton ball. Looking at my
hands, I never noticed that they were so large, clumsy and gawky
big hands. They fit on a giant instead of me. I brushed my hair
back and felt the clammy feel of dead hands on me, as if someone
else were brushing back my hair. It made me want to push those
hands aside, with my real hands. Instead I had to use those hands
and balance my way to the washroom.

It was too bad that the
bathroom had a mirror, because I looked as good as I felt; but even
so, for some reason that escapes me, I decided not to take a
shower. Even stranger, up to that point, I had not thought of
Noelia at all. I went into the kitchen where Blanca was already
busy cooking. Did that woman sleep in there? I asked myself. She
was always in the kitchen.

“
You luk a mess,” she said,
which was the best-pronounced thing I’d ever heard her say. “You go
to bar and be depres after Irvin finally tells you like I told you,
ah?”

“
Yeah,” I only nodded and
grunted the words to her. It felt a little bad to lie, but it was
only a half lie, because I had gone to the bar.

“
So now what does naw?”
asked Blanca. Her English, at this point, took a dive. It was so
badly spoken that I had to have her repeat herself. She looked at
me, with the eyes of a disappointed mother, as if the booze had
made me deaf, but still repeated herself.

“
So now what does yu naw!”
came her louder, but still incomprehensible, bad English. “You will
let me help you aut of dis? I have help for yous. You don’t have to
be so depres coz I helps yous. But now you see I was raight. And I
raight about Gauchito tus. You come here. I happy now you
know.”

I don’t know what was the
matter with her that morning, but she was speaking the worst
English I had ever heard. At least I understood part of it, but the
rest was spoken to the wind, even with my ears straining. She
pointed to her cabinet, where there was probably some root or herb
that she wanted me to wear again, but I wasn’t in the mood to deal
with that now.

“
No, no I just think about
it for little while. Think to myself. You know.” was my defense.
(It’s funny how I started to imitate Blanca’s strong accent. I find
it’s a phenomenon that always occurs when one talks to people from
other countries. It is also interesting how one usually increases
volume and decreases speed as well, even though the person being
talked to is neither deaf nor slow). I got up and left, without
even taking a bite. How could I anyway with my stomach the way it
was?

By then the thought of
Noelia crossed me, along with the resolution to look my best. After
debating it a while, I decided to shower, even though I’d already
gotten dressed and really didn’t feel like doing it. What I needed
was something to help pass the revolution in my head, although I
never like to drink when hung over. It’s a rule I try to enforce on
myself because drinking in the morning makes me feel paranoid of
becoming an alcoholic as my dead uncle had become. Maybe some
Alka-Seltzer would do fine, but chances of finding some on the
island were close to nil.

My shower was long, and
fitting into my clothes was a hassle. I made myself presentable:
combed my long bangs back, shaved, took off the bits of toilet
paper from my post-shaved face, and put on my Gilligan hat. The
shoes were uncomfortable, it seemed as though my feet were swollen,
so I changed into sandals and left the room.

Blanca came in, just at that
moment, with a little cup of fizzing water for me. “Drink dis, it
make yous better,” she said. Funny how she didn’t even knock, as if
I were just her boy.

“
No, no Blanca, not now.” I
pushed the cup away, supposing it to be some witches brew for
warding off the evil spirits, but she held it to my face, and there
was no strength of will left to deny it.

The fluid went down in a
distasteful heat of gurgling. It made me want to puke. A taste so
vile that it seemed as though there was no chance in holding back
my heaving stomach, especially with those nasty witch’s bubbles
that fizzed into my nose... But wait! What a surprise, it was
Alka-Seltzer! This Blanca was a sweet one after all, a real gem,
and all through her strangeness she at least knew what I was going
through.

“
Gracias,” I said, with a
smile. I felt much better and headed out to find my gal. Walking
along the beach on the way to Noelia’s, I took off my shoes. I had
taken the long way instead, to let my head clear. It was midday
now, and the sun and heat were at their best. If I hadn’t been
going somewhere, I would have taken off my clothes and plunged in;
but my mind was set in its route. That’s why it was such a surprise
when I found myself already swimming in the cool ocean, having not
thought first but reacted on impulse. That automatic reaction of
mine was a bit of an enigma.

The water was so clear and
relaxing that I didn’t canker my indulgence, but just swam in the
medicinal waves. They swept upon me, as a spoonful of warm tonic.
Wave after wave, a renewal came to me, like a soothing form of
music, that the tide brought, cradling me out of my despair. The
whole thing made me feel a lot better. Even this “Malagra” thing
didn’t bother me that much any more. It was a shame to admit it,
but the whole thing got to me a little – all the speaking of curses
and evil things. Even still, the anguish had been worth it, for the
poems. Otherwise, I never would have gained them. They were a
treasure to me, for all I had experienced, just as the knife would
have been, had I been able to buy it.

The poems were now a symbol
of my experiences here on the island. They were just as good as if
I had been able to buy the entire shrine, from that first priest,
whom I offended so. Was not the experience and memory the real
trophy? Wasn’t that why I had collected items in the first place?
Each, in its own way, reminded me of a special event, place, or
person that had been special in my life. In the end, it was the
adventure that was the pliable part of my memory, put in focus by a
solid object that I kept throughout the years. And the bond I was
now forming with the people of this island, was what the poems
would represent each time I read them.

A short time in the ocean
awakened my hunger. Finally the spinning was gone, replaced instead
by the soft back and forth motion my body felt from the tide. It
was a welcomed feeling, much more preferable than the nagging aches
that come from the bottom of a bottle.

For food I found myself a
little inn by the beach, where they served seafood. I asked for
some pescado (fish), and it was very agreeable. A lot like home
cooking. Not exactly like Blanca’s dishes (those were usually quite
exotic to my experience); instead they were of a softer, milder,
nature, with lots of vegetables and a nice soft European
taste.

My stomach was famished. It
lied to me and said it had not had food in it for days. I had to
order a second dish to fill up, but after doing so, felt whole
again. I was now in tip-top shape for a meeting with Noelia and her
family. It didn’t matter to me one way or another if her parents or
brothers were there. If she was alone, it would be a nice time to
spend with just her, and on the other hand Higinia and Jose Luis
were so nice that it would be equally gratifying to see them as
well.

I saw all of them, from a
distance, sitting on their porch. Noelia was just coming out,
holding a teacup they called “cuia”, used for serving the tea they
called maté.

I would not go into detail
here, but I find it irresistible to describe this maté drink that
was so great a part of their culture. Often I would tease them
because of their seemingly great obsession over the herb. It was
not an addictive substance (as is the case with coca leaves
commonly used by the Colombian Indians and other near-central
American tribes). Maté is not physically addictive, but everyone
everywhere was in a way mentally addicted to this herbal
tea.
^iv
Not to
drink maté was socially unacceptable behavior. It is the common
pastime, used at any reunion, and is almost a requirement in every
occasion. Oftentimes the people would just sit around for hours and
talk while drinking this strange tea. I found it to be no
extraordinary experience, but, as all others, I was required by
custom to participate in the maté.

When a group is drinking
maté they sit around in a circle and pass around the cuia while
drinking from the same “bombilla” (a metal straw with a filter on
the bottom, used to siphon the maté).

I would have preferred not
to use the same bombilla as everyone else, but such sanitary
practices are not permitted and are looked on as an insult. One
would rather mingle in the “germ party” than offend such
hospitality.

The Gonzales’ saw me, and
Noelia waved. I could tell she was happy to see me, and that
delighted me. The kids came out and hugged my legs, but after
seeing I had brought nothing for them, took off somewhere. Higinia
smiled at them and asked me, with her hand, to sit a little. I sat
and Noelia sat right next to me with a big smile on her face. She
was shy, but held my arm for a moment. It was too magnificent. I
was in the company of angels.

I sat a while, with the same
results as the day before, feeling the comfort of being loved and
respected by a great set of human beings. I admired them for their
capacity to embrace so easily, and could feel the love in their
household, unlike any I had ever felt, not that my house had lacked
the warmth or joy I needed while growing up; but this was
different, a much more heavenly-perfected kind of love. One doesn’t
have to complain about one’s own family to know that there are
other families more united than one’s own. Noelia’s family was that
to me. It was so good being with them that I almost found myself
desiring to be adopted and had to pull back a little.

To my unawares, they had a
foreknowledge that I didn’t have. Noelia was going to take me on a
walk again, perhaps for the entire day. I was ignorant to their
culture, and the way one could court a pretty girl like her, but at
least I had met with her parent’s approval; or so it was
suggested.

We walked so long that my
feet began to hurt. It could have been two hours from the time we
started. My watch said three o’clock, but I hadn’t seen the time at
her house, so I couldn’t be sure of an accurate count. We stopped a
little while and she went to a plant to gather some berries. It was
so very nice to be fed by this breathtaking girl of porcelain. It
was a wonderful act, and I became a god. Not as a king being fed by
maiden-servants, but as a creature being taken from the pit, drawn
by caring arms that love it when they ought not.

I was the fortunate one, but
Noelia was acting as if it were she. That’s the part that was
surprising, but even, as I might dare say, comforting; for it made
me feel secure again. The fruit from her feeding hand revived us,
as we rested, so that we could continue on our walk. I don’t think
she really needed the rest as much as I did, but stopped mainly
because she was concerned about my comfort; and that was as sweet a
gesture as all the others had been.

After that it was easy to
hold her hand. We walked a ways, until there was no more road, and
then we came to the edge of the forest, where there were no houses
to accompany us. She looked at me and was so coquette, extending
her other arm to me. It wasn’t to bring me into her arms, but to
bring me into the forest. Then we ran because she wanted to show me
something further on.

It was bizarre how the
forest grew so rapidly. At one moment we were in the outskirts of
it, where the light still filtered onto the ground, and the real
animal of it still looked pretty far ahead; but the next moment we
were actually inside, where the jungle itself had a living language
of its own. It roared as a young lion: a living jungle, where the
trees above formed the roof of a great mouth, as we walked inside
its gaping entity, where only half the light could filter in. We
were in a dimmer world, a world where creation had taken us into
its own belly and shown us where the living life began. It was a
good world, not full of fear or pain, yet full of all mystery and
foreboding, ready to open its secrets unto us.

A kind of reverence was
sprung upon me, and I was made to bow with respect for this great
elemental mother world. I was in the presence of its countenance.
Nature was now staring at me; demanding veneration through my
silence. I found only whispering to be appropriate, from that
moment on, as a result of its impact on me.

Onward and higher, into the
increasing slope, we climbed. More and more I found my eyes finding
their focus on this girl, as even the giant of nature fell away
from her radiance. It was as if she were the queen of this
splendor, set to rule over it; and I was a foreigner here, but she
was in her own house, a place where she was the head and
matriarch.

Upward and deeper, onto the
top of that forest mountain we climbed. Was it all mountains, or
was there just the one? This one stretched higher and higher, but I
dropped my attention from our climb again, as it became a
background to Noelia.

Forward and faster we ran. I
could barely keep up with Noelia in her own land. It was such an
effort that I stubbed my toe on a fallen log. She stopped to help
me and rubbed my toe until it felt better. The smile of a Cherub
fixed on her face, and then we ran again.