Title: The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah
Author(s): Stephen King
Release year: 2004
Publisher: Donald M. Grant
Why in Database: The next, sixth volume of the The Dark Tower series, with a lot of turtle fragments! So this time we present not all, but only the more important fragments that mention turtles! In fact, all the fragments revolve around Maturin in one way or another, and there is also a reference to Turtles all the way down.
”We’re on the Path of the Bear, Way of the Turtle,” Eddie said absently.
”I don’t know why it would ever matter, since the Tower’s as far as we’re going, but on the other side it’s the Path of the Turtle, Way of the Bear.” And he recited:
”See the TURTLE of enormous girth!
On his shell he holds the earth,
His thought is slow but always kind;
He holds us all within his mind.”
At this point, Rosalita took up the verse
”On his back the truth is carried,
And there are love and duty married.
He loves the earth and loves the sea,
And even loves a child like me. ”
”Not quite the way I learned it in my cradle and taught it to my friends,” Roland said, ”but close enough, by watch and by warrant.”
”The Great Turtle’s name is Maturin,” Jake said, and shrugged. ”If it matters.”
In it was a fountain; nearby was a metal sculpture of a turtle, its shell gleaming wetly in the fountain’s spray. She cared nothing for fountains or sculptures, but there was also a bench. WALK had come around again. Trudy tottered across Second Avenue, like a woman of eighty-three instead of thirty-eight, and sat down. She began to take long, slow breaths, and after three minutes or so felt a little better.
Beside the bench was a trash receptacle with KEEP LITTER IN ITS PLACE stenciled on the side. Below this, in pink spray-paint, was an odd little graffito: See the TURTLE of enormous girth. Trudy saw the turtle, but didn’t think much of its girth; the sculpture was quite modest. She saw something else, as well: a copy of the New York Times, rolled up as she always rolled hers, if she wanted to keep it a little longer and happened to have a bag to stow it in. Of course there were probably at least a million copies of that day’s Times floating around Manhattan, but this one was hers.
She knew it even before fishing it out of the litter basket and verifying what she knew by turning to the crossword, which she’d mostly completed over lunch, in her distinctive lilac-colored ink.
She returned it to the litter basket and looked across Second Avenue to the place where her idea of how things worked had changed. Maybe forever.
Took my shoes. Crossed the street and sat here by the turtle and put them on. Kept my bag but dumped the Times. Why’d she want my bag? She didn’t have any shoes of her own to put in it.
On the far side was a bench beside a fountain and a metal sculpture. Seeing the turtle comforted Susannah a little; it was as if Roland had left her this sign, what the gunslinger himself would have called a sigul.
She reached in and brought out not a stone but a small scrimshaw turtle. Made of ivory, from the look of it. Each detail of the shell was tiny and precisely executed, although it had been marred by one tiny scratch that looked almost like a question-mark. The turtle’s head poked halfway out. Its eyes were tiny black dots of some tarry stuff, and looked incredibly alive. She saw another small imperfection in the turtle’s beak — not a scratch but a crack.
”It’s old,” she whispered aloud. ”So old.”
Yes, Mia whispered back.
Holding it made Susannah feel incredibly good. It made her feel safe, somehow.
See the Turtle, she thought. See the Turtle of enormous girth, on his shell he holds the earth. Was that how it went? She thought it was at least close. And of course that was the Beam they had been following to the Tower. The Bear at one end — Shardik. The Turtle at the other — Maturin.
She looked from the tiny totem she’d found in the lining of the bag to the one beside the fountain. Barring the difference in materials — the one beside her bench was made of dark metal with brighter coppery glints — they were exactly the same, right down to the scratch on the shell and the tiny wedge-shaped break in the beak. For a moment her breath stopped, and her heart seemed to stop, also. She went along from moment to moment through this adventure — sometimes even from day to day — without thinking much but simply driven by events and what Roland insisted was ka. Then something like this would happen, and she would for a moment glimpse a far bigger picture, one that immobilized her with awe and wonder. She sensed forces beyond her ability to comprehend. Some, like the ball in the ghostwood box, were evil. But this . . . this . . .
”Wow,” someone said. Almost sighed.
She looked up and saw a businessman — a very successful one, from the look of his suit — standing there by the bench. He’d been cutting through the park, probably on his way to someplace as important as he was, some sort of meeting or a conference, maybe even at the United Nations, which was close by (unless that had changed, too). Now, however, he had come to a dead stop. His expensive briefcase dangled from his right hand.
His eyes were large and fixed on the turtle in Susannah-Mia’s hand. On his face was a large and rather dopey grin. Put it away!’ Mia cried, alarmed. He’ll steal it! Like to see him try, Detta Walker replied. Her voice was relaxed and rather amused. The sun was out and she — all parts of she — suddenly realized that, all else aside, this day was beautiful. And precious. And gorgeous.
”Precious and beautiful and gorgeous,” said the businessman (or perhaps he was a diplomat), who had forgotten all about his business. Was it the day he was talking about, or the scrimshaw turtle? It’s both, Susannah thought. And suddenly she thought she understood this. Jake would have understood, too — no one better! She laughed. Inside her, Detta and Mia also laughed, Mia a bit against her will. And the businessman or diplomat, he laughed, too.
”Yah, it’s both,” the businessman said. In his faint Scandinavian accent, both came out boad. ”What a lovely thing you have!” Whad a loffly thing! Yes, it was lovely. A lovely little treasure. And once upon a time, not so long ago, Jake Chambers had found something queerly similar. In CalvinTower’s bookshop, Jake had bought a book called Charlie the Choo- Choo, by Beryl Evans. Why? Because it had called to him. Later — shortly before Roland’s ka-tet had come to Calla Bryn Sturgis, in fact — the author’s name had changed to Claudia y Inez Bachman, making her a member of the ever-expanding Ka-Tet of Nineteen. Jake had slipped a key into that book, and Eddie had whittled a double of it in Mid-World. Jake’s version of the key had both fascinated the folks who saw it and made them extremely suggestible. Like Jake’s key, the scrimshaw turtle had its double; she was sitting beside it. The question was if the turtle was like Jake’s key in other ways.
Judging from the fascinated way the Scandinavian businessman was looking at it, Susannah was pretty sure the answer was yes. She thought, Dad-a-chuck, dad-a-churtle, don’t worry, girl, you got the turtle! It was such a silly rhyme she almost laughed out loud. To Mia she said, Let me handle this.
Handle what? I don’t understand —
I know you don’t. So let me handle it. Agreed?
She didn’t wait for Mia’s reply. She turned back to the businessman, smiling brightly, holding the turtle up where he could see it. She floated it from right to left and noted the way his eyes followed it, although his head, with its impressive mane of white hair, never moved.
”What’s your name, sai?” Susannah asked.
”Mathiessen van Wyck,” he said. His eyes rolled slowly in their sockets, watching the turtle. ”I am second assistant to the Swedish Ambassador to the United Nations. My wife has taken a lover. This makes me sad. My bowels are regular once again, the tea the hotel masseuse recommended worked for me, and this makes me happy.” A pause. Then: ‘Your skölpadda makes me happy.”
”I have quite an important position,” Mats said. His eyes never left the turtle. ”I am meeting many important peoples. I am going to cocktail parties where good-looking women are wearing ‘the little black dress.’ ”
”That must be quite a thrill for you. Mats, I want you to shut your trap and only open it to speak when I ask you a direct question. Will you do that?”
Mats closed his mouth. He even made a comical little zipping gesture across his lips, but his eyes never left the turtle.
”You mentioned a hotel. Do you stay at a hotel?”
”Yah, I am staying at the New York Plaza-Park Hyatt, at the corner of First and Forty-sixth. Soon I am getting the condominium apartment — ”
Mats seemed to realize he was saying too much again and shut his mouth.
Susannah thought furiously, holding the turtle in front of her breasts where her new friend could see it very well.
He started away, then paused and looked back at her. Although his cheeks were wet, his expression was pixie-ish, a trifle sly. ”Perhaps I should take it,” he said. ”Perhaps it is mine by right.”
Like to see you try, honky was Detta’s thought, but Susannah — who felt more and more in charge of this wacky triad, at least for the time being — shushed her. ”Why would you say that, my friend? Tell, I beg.”
The sly look remained. Don’t kid a kidder, it said. That was what it looked like to Susannah, anyway. ”Mats, Maturin,” he said. ”Maturin, Mats. You see?”
Susannah did. She started to tell him it was just a coincidence and then thought: Calla, Callahan.
”I see,” she said, ”but the skölpadda isn’t yours. Nor mine, either.”
”Then whose?” Plaintive. Den hoose? it sounded like. And before her conscious mind could stop her (or at least censor her), Susannah spoke the truth her heart and soul knew: ”It belongs to the Tower, sai. The DarkTower. And it’s to there I’ll return it, ka willing.”
”Gods be with you, lady-sai.”
”And you, Mats. Long days and pleasant nights.”
She watched the Swedish diplomat walk away, then looked down at the scrimshaw turtle and said, ”That was pretty amazing, Mats old buddy.”
Mia had no interest in the turtle; she had but a single object. This hotel, she said. Will there be a telephone?
”Why — yes, sai. You use it in the elevator as well as to open your room. Just push it into the slot in the direction the arrows point. Remove it briskly. When the light on the door turns green, you may enter. I have slightly over eight thousand dollars in my cash drawer. I’ll give it all to you for your pretty thing, your turtle, your skölpadda, your tortuga, your kavvit, your — ”
”No,” Susannah said, and staggered again. She clutched the edge of the desk. Her equilibrium was shot. ”I’m going upstairs now.” She’d meant to visit the gift shop first and spend some of Mats’s dough on a clean shirt, if they carried such things, but that would have to wait. Everything would have to wait.
”Yes, sai.” No more ma’am, not now. The turtle was working on her. Sanding away the gap between the worlds.
”You just forget you saw me, all right?”
”Yes, sai. Shall I put a do-not-disturb on the phone?”
Mia clamored. Susannah didn’t even bother paying attention. ”No, don’t do that. I’m expecting a call.”
”As you like, sai.” Eyes on the turtle. Ever on the turtle. ”Enjoy the Plaza-Park. Would you like a bellman to assist you with your bags?”
Look like I need help with these three pukey li’l things? Detta thought, but Susannah only shook her head.
”Very well.”
Susannah started to turn away, but the desk clerk’s next words swung her back in a hurry.
”Soon comes the King, he of the Eye.”
Susannah gaped at the woman, her surprise close to shock. She felt gooseflesh crawling up her arms. The desk clerk’s beautiful face, meanwhile, remained placid. Dark eyes on the scrimshaw turtle. Lips parted, now damp with spittle as well as gloss. If I stay here much longer, Susannah thought, she’ll start to drool.
”There are six Beams, as you did say, but there are twelve Guardians, one for each end of each Beam. This — for we’re still on it — is the Beam of Shardik. Were you to go beyond the Tower, it would become the Beam of Maturin, the great turtle upon whose shell the world rests.
”Similarly, there are but six demon elementals, one for each Beam. Below them is the whole invisible world, those creatures left behind on the beach of existence when the Prim receded. There are speaking demons, demons of house which some call ghosts, ill-sick demons which some — makers of machines and worshippers of the great false god rationality, if it does ya — call disease. Many small demons but only six demon elementals. Yet as there are twelve Guardians for the six Beams, there are twelve demon aspects, for each demon elemental is both male and female.”
King smiled a little and made a gentle wissshhhing sound. ”The wind blows,” said he.
”Gan bore the world and moved on,” Roland replied. ”Is that what you mean to say?”
”Aye, and the world would have fallen into the abyss if not for the great turtle. Instead of falling, it landed on his back.”
”So we’re told, and we all say thank ya. Start with the lobstrosities biting off my fingers.”
”Dad-a-jum, dad-ajingers, goddam lobsters bit off your fingers,” King said, and actually laughed.
”Yes.”
Roland said, ”Listen for the song of the Turtle, the cry of the Bear.”
”Song of Turtle, cry of Bear. Maturin from the Patrick O’Brian novels. Shardik from the Richard Adams novel.”
”Yes. If you say so.”
”Guardians of the Beam.”
”Yes.”
”Of my Beam.”
Roland looked at him fixedly. ”Do you say so?”
”Yes.”
”Then let it be so. When you hear the song of the Turtle or the cry of the Bear, then you must start again.”
”When I open my eye to your world, he sees me.” A pause. ”It.”
”I know. We’ll try to protect you at those times, just as we intend to protect the rose.”
King smiled. ”I love the rose.”
”Have you seen it?” Eddie asked.
”Indeed I have, in New York. Up the street from the U.N. Plaza Hotel.
It used to be in the deli. Tom and Jerry’s. In the back. Now it’s in the vacant lot where the deli was.”
”You’ll tell our story until you’re tired,” Roland said. ”When you can’t tell any more, when the Turtle’s song and the Bear’s cry grow faint in your ears, then will you rest. And when you can begin again, you will begin again. You — ”
”Roland?”
”Sai King?”
”I’ll do as you say. I’ll listen for the song of the Turtle and each time I hear it, I’ll go on with the tale. If 1 live. But you must listen, too. For her song.”
He held the scrimshaw turtle up to his face and ran the pad of his index finger over the question-mark-shaped scratch on its shell. Looked into its wise and peaceful eyes. ”How lovely it is,” he breathed. ”Is it the Turtle Maturin? It is, isn’t it?”
”I don’t know,” Jake said. ”Probably. She calls it the skölpadda, and it may help us, but it can’t kill the harriers that are waiting for us in there.” He nodded toward the Dixie Pig. ”Only we can do that, Pere. Will you?”
”Oh yes,” Callahan said calmly. He put the turtle, the skölpadda, into his breast pocket. ”I’ll shoot until the bullets are gone or I’m dead. If I run out of bullets before they kill me, I’ll club them with the gun-butt.”
November 18th, 1984
I had a dream last night that I think breaks the creative logjam on It. Suppose there’s a kind of Beam holding the Earth (or even multiple Earths) in place? And that the Beam’s generator rests on the shell of a turtle? I could make that part of the book’s climax. I know it sounds crazy, but I’m sure I read somewhere that in Hindu mythology there’s a great turtle that bears us all on his shell, and that he serves Gan, the creative overforce. Also, I remember an anecdote where some lady sez to some famous scientist, ”This evolution stuff is ridiculous. Everyone knows that a turtle holds up the universe.” To which the scientist (wish I could remember his name, but I can’t) replies, ”That may be, madam, but what holds up the turtle?” Scornful laugh from the lady, who says, ”Oh, you can’t fool me! It’s turtles all the way down.”
Ha! Take that, ye rational men of science!
Anyway, I keep a blank book by my bed, and have gotten so I write down a lot of dreams and dream elements w/o even fully waking up. This morning I’d written Remember the Turtle! And this: See the TURTLE of enormous girth! On his shell he holds the earth. His thought is slow but always kind; he holds us all within his mind. Not great poetry, I grant you, but not bad for a guy who was three-quarters asleep when he wrote it! Tabby has been on my case about drinking too much again. I suppose she’s right, but . . .”
Author: XYuriTT
