I HAVE NOTHING
Chapter Four
Waking Up
Mrs. Taylor was famous at St. Patrick‘s
for her military movement and her stance like a statue—she walked with the
rhythm of a drum, and her face never reflected an unnecessary expression.
She was, some said, like a broom.
That was the reason everybody in the hospital was shocked when they saw her
running along the corridors of the hospital, shouting Dr. Myles’ name like
somebody praying without sense, and the doctor had to make her sit down and
drink a glass of water so the old nurse could say something comprehensible.
"Tom! Tom, doctor! Tom! Tom
Collins has awakened!"
The doctor left her sitting in
the chair with her glass of water and ran across the hospital. When he arrived
at the room, a group of nurses was already around the boy’s bed.
"Let him breathe, please!
Please! Let me pass!"
The doctor pushed through where
he could and saw the miracle with his own eyes. The young Tom, or whatever his
name was, was sitting up in bed and touching his head with a smile in his face,
as though he had something marvelous to tell everybody.
"How do you feel, man?"
"Good...I think. My head
aches like a herd of buffalo trampled it."
The nurses laughed. It was like
talking to a member of the family, a brother or a cousin whom they had been
taking care of with a lot of tenderness during the past two years.
"Where am I?"
"In St. Patrick’s Hospital
in New York."
"But...why? What’s happened
to me?"
Dr. Myles made everybody leave
the room. He sat on the bed and started telling the boy everything they knew
about him. In other words, nothing. That he had been rescued from the Titanic
shipwreck. That he had suffered a very advanced case of hypothermia. That they
didn’t even know his real name. And the hardest—that he had been in a deep coma
for seven hundred twelve days.
The boy wept. Seven hundred
twelve days! Tom, which the doctor called him, felt a jab of despair in his
chest. Suddenly, he felt brutally alone. Abandoned, lost. Nothing they told him
made sense to him. His memories were a big plain with no end and no beginning.
With no horizon. His mind was nothing but a chillingly empty well.
"I can’t remember anything,
doctor...nothing!"
He hugged the doctor, trembling
like a little boy. Between sobs, his mouth could just pronounce a sentence.
"Please help me...help me..."
A cold terror had seized him. He couldn’t
remember now, but on the Titanic he had feared for Rose’s life, and he hadn’t,
even when the dream of death started turning his legs into water, lost hope.
But now, hugging the doctor, the
entire world seemed to be breaking under his feet...for the first time in his
life, Jack Dawson was afraid.
The first days were hard. He made
an effort to remember, to find the key inside his head that would open the cage
of his life. But every attempt was useless. Instead of faces, names, or places,
in his mind there was just a blank. It was frustrating.
The only thing he knew about
himself was that he had sailed on the Titanic. It was the only clue he had. It
was there that he had to start his search—the sooner, the better.
Dr. Myles got him the necessary
documents and, even when Jack didn’t want to accept it, a good amount of money.
Enough for a dangerous trip like this one.
"Europe is at war, and
nobody will believe you’re an amnesiac. They won’t give you a job, or worse,
they will think you’re a deserter."
He was right, but just the same,
Jack promised to give it back.
"Maybe I’ll discover that
I’m one of richest men in the world, doctor," he said, joking, before
embarking on another ship.
Almost all of the people from the
hospital went there to say good-bye to him, and when Jack saw all those people
waving to him, he asked himself whether, when he had been on the Titanic, he
had had a beautiful good-bye like that. A nice thought came across his mind—he
had no past, but he at least had friends and a place to come back to.
The journey was very long. His
second class stateroom seemed like a palace to him, so he shouldn’t be rich,
anyway. It didn’t matter. He just wanted to know who he was. What he was named.
Why he was on the Titanic. Where was he going. There were so many questions
running through his head! And the sea that was appearing before his eyes seemed
to have the answers.
The last morning aboard, he
walked across the deck. He stood at the railing and let the salt wind touch his
face. It was like flying. He felt like the king of the world, and he smiled at
the thought, even though he didn’t know why.
The American ship arrived at
Southampton’s port without delay. Jack was anxious to stand on the ground. He
had a secret hope that somebody would recognize him on these streets. He would
call him by his name and hug him with a huge happiness.
But after two days of walking in
the city, he realized the absurdity of that thought. He asked in pubs, hotels,
squares, buildings, offices, and in brothels, too, but nobody remembered him.
Nobody was looking for him. Nobody had missed him. One dawn, after having some
drinks with some sailors that he had met on the ship, he came back to the port.
It was getting light. He kept
walking around the tiny shops on the street. Some retailers were already
opening their little shops, and Jack decided to see them as a spectacle. A shop
called his attention, an antiquary. It was full of earrings, lamps, little
china figures, books, drawings...
His heart jumped when he saw it.
It was a portrait, a portrait of a naked woman. She was sitting in a chair, and
she had a cigarette in her hand. He didn’t recognize the woman, but he did
recognize the drawing. Something inside was telling him that that drawing was
his.
In the hospital, he had found out
that he wasn’t a bad artist. On the contrary, he was very good. According to
the doctor, the portraits he had done of some of the patients were wonderful.
And that woman, shameless and sensual in the showcase, had the same traces, the
same lines, the same form. In every line he could see the impulse of his
fingers furrowing the paper.
He entered the shop like he was
hypnotized. The blood ran through his veins furiously while the man held the
drawing between his fingers.
"I don’t know who drew it.
It was already here when I bought the shop."
Jack took the paper as if it was
gold. His eyes were desperately looking for some sign, something to find out
his identity. He turned the drawing over and saw something written in a corner.
JD, Montmartre, Paris, 1911
It was foolish, but it was the
only thing he had. Some initials, a city, a thought.
A week later, he was sitting on a
ferry on the way to Paris.