The cold shock of the water slowed my movements, and my attempts to free myself were feeble at best. Growing weaker and beginning to need air in a desperate way, my overriding emotion can best be described as sadness, even grief, at how the pain of my death would affect Leena. In her life, I’d be the third person to die in this hole and one more among three thousand to die on this mountain. One more white cross driven into the earth to prick Leena’s heart like a needle.
While I was indifferent to me, I was not to Leena, and if there had been a sleeping giant in me, that thought kicked him out of bed.
In desperation, I pushed my arms outward toward the slick walls of the well shaft and braced myself against the force of Paulo and Zaul. The force pulling me upward had increased, suggesting that more hands had joined in. For reasons I still cannot understand, there was a reprieve from up top, a momentary slackening of the rope. A ripple more than anything else. And in that millisecond, I kicked below me, trying to turn the steel bar like a clock hand. Anything to jar it loose from its midnight hold. As the rope tightened a final time on the tether of my harness with a force greater than I’d yet known, I kicked at the steel rod one more time. The rod loosened, turned vertically, and the opposing force of hands at the other end of the rope shot me toward the surface of the earth. Unable to help and watching a narrowing column of light in my mind, I pulled my arms in and tried to give as little resistance as possible.
My last thought was a memory of the fastest mile I’d ever run. It had been at night on a track all alone. I’d run four minutes, seven seconds in a meet twice but was having trouble with the four-minute barrier. Angry and frustrated, I tied on my spikes, lined up on the starting line, clicked “start” on the watch in my hand, and took off. The first three laps were painful, but nothing like the fourth. I remember coming around the last turn with a hundred and fifty meters to go as the world closed in and the light before my eyes narrowed. I think I ran the last twenty yards in a nearly unconscious state. I crossed the finish line, collapsed, rolled, and only then hit “stop.” Moments later, when I caught my breath, I read the time: 3:58. I remember standing on the track, a bit wobbly, glancing one more time at the faceplate of the watch and then pressing “clear.” I’d done it. That’s all that mattered.
Stuck in the well shaft, as my lungs used the last bit of oxygen in my body, I remembered that moment and that feeling. It was a good memory. A good one to go out on. As the tunnel in my mind narrowed and the light closed in and out, I let go. I’d fought it long enough.
I don’t know how long I was like that because I’m not sure I was there. In a strange shift of perspective, I remember staring down from the mango tree onto Paulo and Zaul and Leena and a dozen other people who were frantically pulling on the rope. Paulo’s hands were bleeding and his face was frantic. Leena was screaming. Zaul was leaning into the rope with every ounce of muscle he had, and I remember thinking, Wow, he’s really strong.
A strange sensation.
I don’t know if I died or just passed out or if my spirit was leaving my body, but I felt a tightness and a compression on my body unlike anything I’d ever known, accompanied by a darkness that I could not explain. Then without warning and without explanation, the well spit me out of its mouth and threw me onto the ground surrounded by nearly four hundred feet of coiled rope and a lot of sweaty people breathing heavily. I remember somebody pressing their mouth to mine and forcing air into my lungs and then somebody standing on my chest. Finally, I remember vomiting and then sucking in the most glorious and sweet breath of air I’d ever known.
As the world came back to me and my senses sent messages to my brain, I heard screaming and laughing and crying, and I remember small hands clutching my neck. Then I remember another face, older, beautiful but similar, pressing against mine.
I remember coming back from that cold, dark, quiet, dirty world to this world of light and sound with Leena pressing her laughing and crying and tearstained and snotty face against mine.
It was a beautiful birth.
Having caught my breath and opened my eyes, Paulo stood me up and I worked feverishly to catch my balance and force my eyes to adjust. He stood in front of me, holding my arms in his powerful and bleeding hands. He brushed me off, nodded, and smeared the mud across his face. He tried to make words but few came. Finally, he waved his index finger in front of my face like a windshield wiper and just grabbed what few words he could. “You no more dig.”
I remember laughing and chuckling and thinking to myself, Agreed.
* * *
The next hour or so around the well was a lot of fun. Even the old people don’t remember the well ever having the force that it currently displayed. Water rolled out of the cap in an arc across the ground where we stood and created a shin-deep stream that filled the old, dried creek bed where it had once flowed.
Having created an instant water park, maybe a hundred kids appeared, held out both hands for me to hold and then to play and laugh. It was the most glorious fun I’d ever witnessed. Old-timers, those who remembered the well from its former days, approached me with smiles and hugs and handshakes. Leena stood by, translating. Paulo, along with several men from the plantation, worked to secure the well and build a makeshift wooden barrier to keep kids away and out until he could build something more permanent. And while I was grateful for the thanks and the attention, I liked one thing more. Throughout the afternoon, Leena stayed by my side and her hand never left mine.
* * *
Afternoon faded to evening as more and more people showed. A team of adults had been put in charge of the well by Paulo to help create an orderly ingress and egress to the water source and to help the elderly with their buckets. It worked. The mountain—both the people and the dirt—was hydrated. As was I. Matter of fact, I’d be okay if I didn’t drink any water for the rest of the day.
Leena and I stood on the mountainside beneath the trees walking among the tents and hammocks and campfires of those who had come to attend her father’s funeral. If we listened to one story about her father and how he’d helped someone or showed someone kindness, we must have listened to a hundred.
The attention I received as the gringo who “stabbed the earth and brought forth the water” was akin to that given to a rock star. People wanted to touch me, hug me, shake my hand, or offer me theirs in tribute and honor. Around midnight, Paulo drove us down the mountain to the house. Leena asked me if I wanted to bathe, and I waved her off, saying, “I think I’ve had enough water for one day.” Seconds later, I was asleep.
* * *
I woke at daylight to the smell of a campfire, coffee brewing, and the sound of a mango falling on the tin roof. Three of my favorite things. Zaul was asleep close by. He looked better. His color had returned, his hair was growing out, and his general complexion suggested he wasn’t quite so angry at the world. Isabella had softened him. Maybe Nicaragua had, too.
I walked outside, shaky but upright, and found Leena waiting for me. A smile and a cup of coffee. Hidden in the seclusion of her backyard, she had done something she rarely did. She’d let her hair down. Prior to my waking, she’d showered, washed her hair, and now sat brushing out the tangles. It was an intimate window into her life. I knew enough about the culture to know that women here let only a select group into this moment and time, and it was mostly other women, a husband, or a child. It was a reveal shared only by a few. I sat, sipped, and soaked it in.
* * *
Leena had asked that her parents be buried in one coffin but with two crosses. So Paulo, Zaul, and I drove to town later that day, bought the lumber, and built both the coffin and the crosses. I was glad we’d had some practice on Roberto’s coffin as we made a few improvements to this one. The edges were cleaner and the lid sealed better. I think that Hack would have been impressed. Both Paulo and Leena seemed happy and that was all that mattered. When we’d loaded it into the back of the truck, Zaul asked, “You teach me to do that?”