AT THE RIVER´S END: CHANCHALA

( ... )
Foreword

It is with great reluctance and a lingering uneasiness that I allow this manuscript to be published. The man who wrote it was neither a close friend nor a patient. Yet there was a certain intimacy, a trust, if you will, that resulted from a few long, quiet conversations in New York and a barrage of frenzied telephone calls after I had returned to the West Coast.
I hadn't seen or heard from him in nearly two years when he showed up at my door and handed me the book. I almost didn't recognize him -- he had changed that much, and his voice was unfamiliar. He only asked me to read it and then dispose of it as I saw fit.
It was a strange, awkward moment standing in the doorway in the middle of the night listening to the whispers of a barely recognizable acquaintance. I haven't heard from him or heard anything about him since.
This is a troubling story. Not because it strains my sense of belief, as I'm sure it will yours, but because of its singular, clear passion and its terrible implications. To focus one's life so intensely, to make the choices and the decisions he forced himself to make, to bring oneself so close to the fires of self-realized pain without the hope of ever extinguishing it -- this is a prospect that could shatter one's psyche or soul or whatever you ascribe to.

I think I must say that I don't really believe his story. But based on prior conversations (which I have no intention of ever revealing) I know that he believed it. And I know that he acted on that belief. If it was true to him, then it is true enough to be printed. I think he knew that even with some doubt I would preserve his story and be compelled to publish it. I think that is what he wanted.

Terence Taylor Gold, Ph.D.

Marathon, Florida
June, 1994

Cold! I shiver, chilled through my skin deep into the bone marrow. Deep. 
The heat is stifling, and yet I'm so cold. It's because I cannot touch her, can't reach her. It's because he's dead and drifting. I must be dying too.
I am abandoned. I have abandoned myself. Here, in this bare, stained motel along the causeway, I can see the water. Nothing moves. Dead heat. Dead air. It is sargasso-time in the Keys. Cold.
I am tall and I wander. I was a boy and I wandered. Always trying to get away. Always listening to the music just over the curve of the horizon. At the end of the street, at the end of the block, at the city's edge. Whatever it was, it was out there and I was missing it. I remember when she first told me that she felt this too. I saw her lips move as she said it. And in her eyes I saw the blue and yellow of that far away sky. I see and she sees and we are lovers. Lovers.
Others see us. They bite their lips. He sees us, her brother sees us and he bites his tongue. His mouth is full of blood that turns to ashes. The anger fires his eyes red and they bleed curses at us. He must destroy us, he must tear us apart.
So we run.
Away from New York to San Francisco. He follows us and haunts us. We rush to Santa Fe. He comes out of the wind, through the door and chokes her. Now it is not just getting away, it is escape. We race, stumbling, along the Gulf coast. It seems always to be dark and blurry. We hold on to each other just to breathe. Cannot stop, don't stop. Stop and I'll lose you. She swallows my fear. I hide in her chest and let the thump of her heart fill my mind.
Always, always he comes. Clawing at us, screaming at us, shooting at us. Finally, the land ends. There's only the sea. He comes. He will tear us apart and sink his teeth into my face. He will pound us and pound us until even our memories are shattered. He will bury us in the sand and we will dry into dust. We will never be.

Somehow, as if in a dream. we take a little boat and glide it on to the glass-like water. We push on the oars together; sweat and seawater and tears until we disappear among a thousand tiny islands and into the flat, low darkness that covers them.
If I tell you how we found our way through the broken pieces of land, bumping and scraping rocks, twisted around in water swirls, sometimes motionless for hours. If I tell you how we found it, it would be a lie. I have no idea. When we could row no more, we lay back in the small boat and drifted. Out of an inlet, down a channel, back to the edge of the open sea. There was sun and fog and a sudden sharp-edged rain squall. We drifted. It must have been for days.

She lay next to him, quiet, bruised, no longer afraid. When he washed her face with seawater, she looked at him and smiled. There was no thought of what was ahead. They pressed close, caught in each other's breathing. She had always been a part of his life and now it was if they shared the same skin, as if their blood journeyed through both of their bodies. How could you possibly love someone else's life more than your own? The open heart of your own life lying in someone else's hands, helpless, beating, unafraid. How is that possible?

When it began, the night turned dark. No moon. A wind rose as if it came from beneath the water. It slammed the boat into the edge of land and tossed it down a channel. Then the water rose, grabbed the wooden craft and pushed it forward with the force of a racing car. We lunged at the oars . The current tore them away. That's what it was, a current. We had drifted into a channel and it turned into a river, out in the thousand little islands of the Keys, out in the sea. I lay on top of her as we both held on to the struts of the seat. The current dragged us, pushed us in a wild roller coaster ride, careening to the right, then to the left, spinning us around, then off again in the rush of the channel, the river. It was a river. There were brief phosphorescent shimmers of light; I could see its banks, the torrents. Suddenly we slammed into a wall of water and pitched forward as if we plummeted over a cliff. It began to rain.

Rain. Hot and cold, driving rain. We couldn't see, we couldn't talk.. She moaned under my weight; I tried to move away. The wind and rain kept us pinned together. The rage of the river pressed the front of the boat down. It was filling with water. We were headed to the bottom. What no one could do, what 'he' couldn't do, the sea and its river would. We were ending, we were drowning and I faded out.

The tips of her fingers throb. She opens her eyes and sees the front of the boat glistening above her head. The rain has stopped, the clouds are moving, there is a moon after all. Her fingers are dug into the wood and she sees her broken nails. Water to her chest, no higher. On his back, he's draped over the side of the boat, one arm locked in hers, his head barely above water. The air is still, thick. She thinks: Floating? What keeps us floating? A long moment, a deep breath -- she releases her grip. The boat does not move. She finds her leg under the water and reaches out. Sand. She thinks, she says: We're on a beach. She pushes herself over the top, braces her feet and drags him out of the boat. He's breathing. With his face in her hands, she sleeps. They sleep -- for all the days and nights they ran with fear.

I know that you can share a dream at the moment you are dreaming. I know it! It happens from time to time. But with her, from the beginning, from the first blended touch, we traveled together. Day into night, night into day. When we walked through the angry faces of our family, it was the replay of a dream we had shared before. When we pledged our life into each other, we did it in dream after dream before we pledged ourselves when we were awake. It becomes difficult to tell the difference. Day into night, night into day.

They awakened to see that it was an island, set at the mouth of a small inlet. In the bland moonlight they could see other pieces of land and a dim outline of where the channel, the river ended. Where was the ocean? Were they still in the Keys? There were no sounds, anywhere. No movement in the water. Above them, the island rose slightly into what seemed to be dense pockets of mangrove.
They steadied themselves on their feet and began to walk, first along the shore until they reached an impasse of water and roots. Then they headed inland, up the rise and into the shadows of the trees. After some hours, they began to struggle through the thick growth. The weave of tangled roots and calf-high water made it difficult to walk. The moonlight became scattered in the overhead canopy of branches. Moments of darkness from drifting clouds. It began to rain again. They stopped, facing no clear path ahead. Turn back! But behind them, the same mask of trees and roots as if the forest had covered their way through it.

She is a believer. She believes that time moves in only one direction, and you move forward with it or you fade and cease to exist. I am a doubter. I hesitate, looking for ways to pause time or to reverse it. I am in danger of fading. She will not allow it. She locks her arm in mine and drags me along. We put our heads down and push on. All around us, on top of us, the sound of the rain is so loud we cannot hear our own voices. But we can see; streams of moonlight. It's as if the clouds have settled in patches in the treetops leaving breaks of open sky.
Suddenly she stops, points to the ground and stomps her foot. I look down; there's nothing. She stomps again. I feel it: a smooth, hard surface beneath the water in what has been sucking mush all along the way. She puts her foot out and stomps in front of her. We test it step by step. It's a plank, a series of planks, a walkway.
Do you know what that's like? Can you close your eyes and imagine sinking, for hours, sinking in muck, then feeling a firmness under your feet? Feeling as if your flesh were solid again? Can you find the strength to run? We ran as the planked walk slowly rose out of the water. Even in the deafening rain I could feel her laughing, feel her hand crushing mine. Then we saw it: blurred focus at first, darker, more distinct as we stumbled closer. It loomed, pushing the trees away on all sides. Large beams and large, shuttered windows; dark, wet wood framing what looked like a cluster of buildings, covered with what seemed like a tall, peaked roof. The walkway, the ramp that carried us out of the water ended at a wide deck, a dock in the middle of the mangrove water forest.

We stand panting, nearly breathless at the door. The rainwater pours down on us, and now, there is a wind. This time, I pull her along and push on the door or what is actually a gate. Open it. It opens on to another planked way. Follow it. It leads to another gate. Open it. It opens to light... windows of light, high up, steamed bright. It opens to sounds... voices, laughing, singing... music. We lunge at a door, but the rain and wind shoulder it shut. Together we pull, pull until it finally heaves open and we blow inside, the door slamming behind us.

It was a huge room, full of people, drinking, dancing; I couldn't see the far side. The air was warm and heavy. The smells, the delicious smells of perfume and tobacco, burnt food, wine. The long, crowded bar ended at a small stage. A few men play soft, tinny jazz; a few women dance next to them. One was tall with long hair and a long thin body, sensual, sweating from the movement, her breasts pushing her unbuttoned shirt open. She stared at me and her eyes made me turn to the woman next to me. My lover, my half of life; so much time had raged by since I looked at her.

Look at her, standing next to me, her long body covered in the wet film of her dress. Her long wet hair draped around her neck. Long. How often I had touched that hair when it was soft and smelled of delicate soap. How often I had touched her when we were alone and safe.

In the rush for shelter, in the capture of the moment, I hadn't realized that we had invaded the room. Our entrance was a shock: everyone stops talking, drinking, moving. They all stare at us, some become tense, almost fearful. The music stops except for the drummer who continues to tap a quiet rhythm on a cymbal. We were strangers. Somehow we threatened them and felt threatened in return. The moment stretches to a tight breaking point. I close my eyes, my head spins, I see nothing. She takes my hand and pulls me to the bar.

"Two drinks, please. Anything." I flinched when I realized that my pockets were empty. "Don't think I have any money. Pay you later." The bartender was a short, Latin-looking statue. He leaned over and said: "That's okay. Your money's no good here." He poured two glasses of wine and stood behind them. I hesitate. She takes her glass and begins to drink. Just the tap of the brush against the cymbal and the scraping of the wind outside. I looked across the room. Just eyes, no other sounds. I knew, I thought I knew if I reached for the glass, if I moved, something terrible would happen.
The moment stretched on. Then a man got up and walked toward us. A big man. He stopped in front of me. I saw his heavy face and thick arms. He looked down and saw my torn shoes and tattered pants. He said nothing as he brushed past me, wrenched the door open and shoved himself into the wind. 

We, everyone, take a breath. The little, sullen bartender smirks and nods. I don't understand. He waves his hand at the glass, motioning me to drink up. Drink? No. Wait for something to happen. Wait. He nods again. Carefully, she reaches for the glass and puts into my hand. We drink together, looking at no one, looking at nothing, savoring the warm alcohol as it dulls the chill of our skin. We wait.
Suddenly, the outside door bursts open and the big man pushes himself through. He stands shaking the rain off his body. Then he nods and points his thumb up high for everyone to see. The moment ends, the tension ends, the bartender smiles, everyone else turns away, the talking, the laughing, the music, the dancing. The hall is a warm, dry shelter again and we stand as travelers, strangers, begging to be ignored, allowed to be welcomed, soon to be examined, soon to be absorbed.

That was our first encounter, our first moments when we were inhaled... swallowed, engulfed by Chanchala.

Listen to me, don't pull away, don't grimace with doubt, not yet. Listen. Panic drove us into the sea. Do you understand? Panic for our lives and more dangerously, panic for our lives together, our life together. At the edge of that fear it was better to drown than to be apart, alone. Do you understand? We were driven into that terrifying river, God only knows how, and washed up on the shore of that hidden, shadowed island, God only knows where. In the weeks, months, maybe years that followed we were woven into a net that stretched across a hole through the center of the Earth. Beyond it, darkness. Above it, you, that's right, you and all that you would take away from us. Listen to me.

We met almost all of them that night. What I thought was a crowd turned out to be less than forty people. The inhabitants of that immense compound, of that island which I never fully explored, less than forty. They took us in, no, they allowed us in, without questions. It was the big man who vouched for us. He had gone out into the storm to check our trail, to see if there were others, to confirm that we had come the way of everyone: through the river. As we discovered later, it was the only way in or out of the island.

His name was Kurov, the big man. He spoke very little, at least to us; spoke with a Balkan accent. There was a menace in his eyes, a distrust. Yet in the end, he became our closest friend, a man who saved my life. And some time during the last hours of that night, he muttered the first clue that shook my awareness of the line we had crossed, of where we had fallen. He told me he had escaped to Chanchala in 1910. Escaped. 1910. It was only the next morning, after a long sleep, lying awake in her arms, the quiet rain softly draped on the walls outside of our room, that I remembered.

There was John Dancy, an Englishman, a writer, a young man who came before Kurov. And Bowers, a soldier from Boston who fought in the Spanish-American war and found his way here in 1904. His voice said 1904, his clothes said 1904. In fact, many of the people I first met looked and dressed from that period, the turn of the century, the time of Edward before the Great War. The hall which we first entered was a period-piece from the early 1900's. It was the social center of the compound, a huge tavern, cabaret, that everyone came to at night. They said it was nearly 100 years old, yet its polished wood floor, the tapestries hanging over the balcony railings, the shiny brass gaslight fixtures, gaslight, all looked as if they had been put in place in the last few years.
What was happening here? Loonies, crazy, marooned madness in a lost sea. Listen to me. They welcomed us, gave us safe haven, even friendship. Inside the lingering fog that shrouded this laved, little island, they offered us our lives, together, forever. Because they believed, each one believed that if he remained at Chanchala, never left, he would remain as he was, forever.

You're sneering, shaking your head. Or maybe in good humor, you indulge me, smile. A thousand questions, a thousand answers. I have them all. I'm going to show you, tell you how I, how we came to believe and accept and understand. Stay with me, read with me. I will give you details, facts, facts, that will open your eyes, quiet your doubts.

These are the facts. In all the time I spent there, I knew of only two people who tried to leave. One was a young Irishman, named Joe Walsh, a wanted rebel, an escaped convict who came to the island in the 1920's. He was a wonderful song of a man, warm and bright, whose friendship everyone cherished. They brought his waterlogged, river rejected body back to the hall the next day. And later, a few took him deep into the mangrove for a private burial.

The other was me.

In all the time I spent there, I knew of only two people who came to the island. The first was Tinnaman, the one who was aware of the outside, the only one who knew how to come and go; always mysterious when he disappeared, always exhausted when he returned. The other was our pursuer, our attacker, our haunter, her brother... my brother.

Let me begin. ( ... )

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