Russell Hoban - Turtle Diary

A lot of the people in the room were shifting about and trying to find space on the floor to lie down. Some were smoking hash. There was one chap who looked as if he’d been thrown together by dustmen from odd bits of upholstery and discarded clothing, he asked Ruby whether when the spirit goes out of the body another spirit could come into it. He had a high choked voice, fat unshaven face.

Ruby said that nothing like that had ever happened in her experience. There were no other questions, it was quiet in the room, one or two people were asleep. The last light of the day came through the windows, smoke drifted. Then the window curtains were drawn and Ruby showed us slides.

We saw many slides of Ruby in a bikini scissors-gripping people who also wore swimsuits or shorts. ‘The skin contact makes a difference,’ she said. ‘Smells are important too.’ We saw people bursting free as they reached YES, saw their happy faces afterwards. Ruby told us that people were revitalized in a variety of ways by returning to the origins of life via her scissors-grip. Illnesses disappeared and one man who’d been losing his hair stopped losing it.

The curtains were pulled back. It was evening now, the dim light of the street lamps came a little way into the room, ended in darkness. Candles were lit. Ruby withdrew briefly, bounced back in her bikini. A powerful presence. I felt depressed and anxious, Harriet seemed nervous, hugged herself forlornly. The wailing girl said, ‘Oh Jesus.’ The dustbin chap went red in the face. Several of the thinner people got up and left.

‘What’s the lady going to do?’ a little girl asked her mother.

‘Therapy,’ said her mother.

‘Like Daddy?’ said the little girl.

‘A different kind,’ said her mother. ‘Watch.’

Ruby put on a record. For atmosphere, she said. ‘There was this wonderful Disney film, Fantasia, years ago,’ she said. ‘There was a part with the beginning of the world, the red sky and the steaming oceans, and then later came the dinosaurs and all. I’ve always loved the music’

It was Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps. In all the photographs I’ve seen of him Stravinsky looks to me like a man who was potty-trained too early and that music proves it as far as I’m concerned.

A mat was brought in and one of the bearded fellows took his shirt off and lay down on it. Ruby lay down at right angles to him and wrapped her legs round his waist. ‘Let your mind go completely blank if you can,’ she said. ‘Breathe out when I squeeze, breathe in when I ease up. Keep looking at me.’

The muscles leaped up in Ruby’s thighs, the bearded fellow gasped as the air went out of him and they were away. In about five minutes he reached YES, burst free, was happy like the people in the slides and Ruby went on to the next applicant. Nobody’d been told to bring a swimsuit, most of the men took their shirts off, some of the girls had a go in bras and knickers, other kept everything on. Ruby made a real effort with everyone, squeezing hard until they reached YES or said they had. One chap cried ‘Pax!’ but he was the only one. After a time I stopped paying close attention. We were all crowded round very close, Harriet’s bottom was partly resting on my right hand and a bare foot belonging to one of the better-looking girls was touching my left. I felt cosy and relaxed with the candlelight, the smell of hash and sweat, the breathing and the grunting as one person after another returned to the origins of life between Ruby’s muscular thighs. Even the Stravinsky became soothing with repetition.

It went on and on. I must say I rather fancied being squeezed by Ruby but I wasn’t sure I felt like doing it in front of everybody. Harriet was not tempted but we were both beginning to enjoy the evening in a quiet way.

Ruby was scissors-gripping a very good-looking young man named David when he began to groan but not in the ordinary way. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be in a sort of trance. He braced his hands on Ruby’s thighs and pushed as if trying to squeeze out from between her legs, worked a few inches of himself out of her grip. ‘Can’t breathe,’ he murmured as if talking in his sleep. ‘Round my neck, strangling me.’

‘It’s the cord,’ said a blonde woman with frizzy hair and a wrinkled face. She was American too.

‘What cord?’ said Ruby.

‘The umbilical cord,’ said the blonde woman. ‘I’m a therapist too. He’s doing a natal, he’s re-experiencing his birth. Quick, turn him, get him untangled. Loosen your grip so I can turn him.’

Ruby loosened her grip, the blonde woman rolled David round between Ruby’s legs. ‘There,’ she said. ‘That’s all right now. Let him squeeze himself out the way he was doing.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Ruby. ‘This never happens back in Los Angeles. They just go back to that big YES and Zonk! They’re out again.’

Murmurs and crowd noises. This wasn’t Los Angeles, said several other Americans. Small stirrings of solidarity between the expatriates and those of us who were English, feelings of pride that things in London might perhaps be not quite so simple as in Los Angeles. There was renewed interest all round. David was wiggling and shimmying, parting Ruby’s legs with his hands and uttering rending groans.

‘Whatever it is it feels good,’ said Ruby. ‘It feels like something big happening. You have to stay open to whatever comes up in this kind of work.’

‘He needs help,’ said the blonde woman. ‘I’ll push from behind. Somebody else take his head and shoulders and ease him along when he tries to get himself out.’

‘What are they doing now?’ said the little girl to her mother.

‘David’s being born,’ said her mother.

Willing hands were laid on at both ends of David, Ruby, and the blonde lady. More and more people joined in the delivery. By this time David, still with his eyes closed, was halfway out of his trousers with all the wiggling. He was wearing black knickers. There was more pushing and pulling, much encouragement and advice, and finally with one big hoarse cry David was all the way out. Of Ruby’s legs and his trousers both.

There was a general happy clamour and some of the girls had tears in their eyes. I looked at Harriet and saw that she did too. I squeezed her hand and she squeezed back. Ruby hugged David. ‘Give Mommy a big kiss,’ she said.

David still had his eyes closed, and as he moved into Ruby’s embrace he fumbled one big bouncy breast out of her bikini top and applied himself to it like a veteran infant.

‘Jesus!’ said Ruby and pressed his head to her bosom. There was a spontaneous ovation from everybody except Ruby’s boyfriend, who said something violent in Italian, rolled his eyes up and made a gesture. David opened his eyes and smiled a happy smile, Ruby put her breast back, somebody brought her a cup of tea. People lit cigarettes and joints, settled back cosily.

There were many earnest questions put to David by girls with glistening eyes and men in whose faces there now shone an awful lust for infancy. How had it felt, where had he been, how did he feel now? David said it had been a deep experience, it had taken him back to the darkness of the womb, his pre-natal anxieties, his ambivalence about his mother, his resentment of his father, his fears about coming out into the world. He told of his joy at the first light of emergence and Ruby’s boob. He felt good, renewed, serene. There was less tension in his neck. That was as much as he could say now, it was something he’d have to reflect on, it had been a very deep experience.

Now there was a rush to be next for Ruby’s Original Therapy but the primordial soup wasn’t in it any more, being born was what everybody wanted to have a go at. Harriet put her name down on the list, I didn’t. Not my time for rebirth just yet. Ruby promised to take on all comers, to go right through the night if necessary, and after a short break the therapy resumed.