Journey to Paradise

      The leper colony was located about 20 minutes walking distance from our home, and my husband agreed to do rounds there as well. As much as the local nurses hated it, they needed him for surgical procedures. Arms or legs needed to be amputated, or plastic surgery performed to limit the indescribable horrors leprosy inflicts, especially on people’s faces. As time went by, tensions between the staff and us decreased; tempers mellowed, but never to a point of total acceptance but enough for a civil relationship.

      Once in a while I would accompany Nico on his visits and became acquainted with the German nurse who worked there. She actually was very nice. She was a large-boned girl with short blond hair and a round blushing face that was constantly at the brink of a smile which lit up her whole face. Her name was Gisela but I would have called her Mother Earth. She was not married, but she adopted one of the leper children, a little girl who obviously was delighted to have a mom. While Nico was doing the rounds with the not-so-nice local nurse, Gisela introduced me to some of the residents who had been there for a long time. As she was talking, she kept busy moving patients to the front porch for some sunshine.

      She picked up somebody dressed in a sarong from the waist down. He appeared to be an older man, but she picked him up so easily that it was as if she had a small child in her arms. He too was placed on a bench on the porch. She sat down next to him and explained that the doctor’s wife was here for a visit. I looked at what was left of his face. The nose was gone, replaced by a hole. He was blind. His arms and legs had been amputated a long time ago; the short stumps dangled without purpose along his body. Why he was in the sun without much healthy skin that could feel its warmth, was not clear to me. He spoke with warmth in his voice that came from a different place than the sun. He told me that he sat there every day the doctor made rounds, and that the doctor always stopped and had a cigarette with him while discussing topics in their respective lives. I told some nice stories about the kids and other no threatening topics.

      After listening politely, he asked me to talk to Nico about the girl who had been admitted last week. “I think that she lost something, and since it is her first time to have body parts crumbling and falling off, she was terribly upset. Please give her some special attention; it really is not that bad you know. It does not hurt, just stop looking in the mirror and you will be fine.” I could not believe my own ears how this man could calmly proclaim that this absolutely devastating condition was not so bad. His blind eyes took in the distance. At one point he faced me, maybe feeling my disbelief in the fact that this condition could be “not so bad”! The silence between us was palpable as I searched for understanding, but it could not be found in my young body in the midst of my healthy life and with my revulsion at the condition of his body. Consumed by pity, grief, and sorrow for all lepers in the world, I defied my own cautions, sat next to him on the bench, and promised him to talk to Nico about the girl. The barely recognizable lips grimaced into what I assumed to be a smile. In the ensuing moments of quietness, I debated if this actually was graceful living or dying? Was it the magnificent human spirit that could rise when summoned to do so? I was simply happy that I could feel the sun’s warmth over my entire body and I prayed that my whole family would be spared this horrific disease.

      All of a sudden, he moved his head up with a jerk and he said, “There is the doctor.” I looked around but saw no one. A few minutes later Nico indeed appeared, and as if he read my mind the old leper said, “I cannot see but there is nothing wrong with my hearing.” Later during our relationship, he explained that footsteps created a vibration in the bench and he could recognize the people around him by their vibration, especially Nico, whom he adored. Nico was a bit surprised to see me as I sat there since I always had taken every precaution to prevent contact. Nico sat down next to the man, lit a ‘rokok kretek’, an herb cigarette consisting of cloves, cinnamon and other fragrant bark. He brought the cigarette to the hole in the middle of the man’s face where his nose had been. He inhaled the fragrant smoke of that kretek cigarette. By now I was becoming used to the man’s facial expressions and started to differentiate them. There was one thing that was absolute, the man felt only joy.

      It was a strange picture that was engraved in my mind. I recall the sweltering heat that sapped all the fluids from our bodies. But there was a beauty about the leper’s mind in spite of the grotesqueness of his body. Gisela in the end contracted leprosy as well.