Laura Restrepo - Isle of Passion

He gave them some time to think about it and discuss it with their women. They dispersed. Each one joined his own family. Once in a while, someone would go from one group to another. Whispers, laughter, crying, and arguments followed. Some returned to the plaza before the call. When they were in formation, Arnaud called the roll one by one, for each man to report his decision.

“Private Rodríguez, Silverio .

Private Juárez, Dionisio .

Private Pérez, Arnulfo .

Private Mejía, Constancio .

Private Almazán, Faustino .

Private Carvajal, Pedro .

Private Alvarez, Victoriano .

Corporal Lara, Felipe .

Sergeant Irra, Agustín .

Lieutenant Cardona, Secundino.”

One by one, each man stepped forward and gave his answer. After the last one spoke, Arnaud ordered them to break ranks.

At 1650, five minutes before the appointed time, the rowboat was delivering their message to the Cleveland .

Captain Williams:

On behalf of the Mexican Army, my garrison, and myself, I thank you for the valuable assistance granted. Being in state of war, as we are, we find your attitude to be a worthy model of gentlemanly exchange between combatants. We cordially decline your offer to take us to Acapulco. My men and I, together with our wives and children, will remain here until we receive from our superiors orders to the contrary .

Signed, Captain Ramón Arnaud Vignon ,

Governor of Clipperton Island ,

territory of the sovereign Republic of Mexico

Clipperton, 25 June 1914 .

Back on the isle, sitting on the leaning trunk of a palm tree, Arnaud still did not know whether the correct decision was to leave or to stay. But he no longer cared. Be what may, this had been the best day of his life, the day in which he had recovered his dignity and done something memorable. He was on top of the world.

He saw the Cleveland sailing away and felt sorry for Captain Williams, with his little artificial, comfortable corner, his eau de cologne, velour-covered chairs, cognac glasses; Captain Williams, backed by the easy security of his powerful ship. Ramón thought that he did not envy him — or at least, not much — because this time he, Ramón Arnaud, had been the true prince, the dandy, the tough son of a bitch. His decision to stay made him feel pleased with himself, fulfilled, big; and the loyalty of his people — Alicia, Cardona, his men — made him feel like a giant. Fortune did not offer everyone the possibility of playing for all or nothing in the ultimate showdown, of putting to the test each and every fiber in one’s body, of lying at the razor’s edge for honor and courage.

And this had happened to him. This time he, Ramón Arnaud, had measured up. He was a prince, a warrior, a show-off, a bastard. The old blemish of his desertion had been obliterated, his debt with fate had been paid, and he had finally managed to catch up with his own pride. That Havana cigar, that Flor de Lobeto, was the only thing he needed at this moment to touch heaven with his hands.

When the U.S.S. Cleveland disappeared on the horizon, Ramón Arnaud was a man at peace.

DURING HIS SIESTA, Ramón Arnaud had a nightmare: he dreamed that he was eating mice.

In those times there was nothing much to do in Clipperton besides trying to survive, and that left enough time to sleep. It was almost a year since the visit of the Cleveland , the last ship to come to the isle, and people had forgotten everything, even about waiting for the arrival of the ship. They accepted their condition as castaways with a Christian resignation that turned into something close to pagan hedonism as they discovered the advantages of being isolated, the special charm of solitude, and the thousand opportunities for leisure time that their situation provided.

One of them was the deep and pleasant self-absorption of a long peaceful siesta. After lunch, men, women, and children lay down on their straw mattresses or their hammocks. Everything was so quiet and silent during that first half of the afternoon that, rather than siesta time, it seemed like a second night. The bugler Carvajal had the idea of playing reveille at four in the afternoon to awaken the troops, just like he did at dawn. It helped everybody’s chronological adjustment. As a result, in twenty-four hours they lived two short days and two long nights, whereby they were awake for ten hours and asleep for fourteen.

Ramón dreamed that he was eating mice and woke up nauseated and with a bad taste in his mouth. He got up, stood in front of the broken mirror still hanging on the wall, and saw that his gums were black.

“Sadness has done this to me,” he said. “I’ve got scurvy.”

It was a fatal disease, a curse like those in the Bible, and for years Ramón had feared the day it would come to Clipperton. When people do not eat fresh fruits and vegetables for a very long time, they deprive their bodies of ascorbic acid. It was the scourge of all sailors, particularly of those shipwrecked. Ramón had learned of its devastating consequences during his obsessive readings on the subject. Vasco da Gama had left Portugal for India with five hundred men, and in less than two years, scurvy had taken half of them. Magellan also suffered from it when he spent almost four months in isolation, eating only flour, sawdust, and rats. The British Army, which was kept at seventeen hundred men during the U.S. War of Independence, lost a total of twelve hundred in action, forty-two thousand who deserted, and eighteen thousand due to scurvy.

Ramón had spent seven years trying to detect early symptoms in others, but never thought that he could be its first victim. He moved closer to the broken mirror to examine his mouth more carefully. His gums were swollen, bruised, and in the lower jaw he discovered a tiny infection.

“I have begun to rot away already,” he said, and crossed himself.

What a fine moment for the plague to hit him! Just now, when he was enjoying peace at last. Against all odds, in spite of his being abandoned, that year had been a good year. He realized it now. They had not suffered thirst. They often had periods of rain, and since the hurricane had not destroyed the cistern, they had been able to store water for times of drought. Contrary to what usually happens to castaways on deserted islands, the people in Clipperton had been threatened not by the lack of water, but by its excess when torrential downpours flooded the isle and could have easily swept them away. They had not suffered too much for lack of food. They learned to fish and to live off the sea. The food supplies Captain Williams brought had been distributed parsimoniously, which stretched them to last for several months. Ramón had been able to pay attention to cooking, which had always been one of his favorite pastimes. He perfected, to gourmet standards, some recipes like conch and crab stew with coconut milk, shrimp ceviche, and turtle stew in cuttlefish ink. He treasured a few cans of olive oil, and on special occasions he would beat in some egg yolks for making mayonnaise to serve with lobster.

When they ran out of kerosene, used to light the lamps and the lighthouse, the fuel came to them miraculously from heaven — rather, from the sea — in the form of a dead whale dragged in by the tide to rest in peace on the Clipperton beach. They explored and quartered the enormous sea creature, and it yielded leather, meat, and several barrels of some dark oil, thick and smelly, that burned bright with a delicate golden flame.