Untouchable. Stephanie Doyle
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was no need to finish the thought. It was a common misassumption that leprosy somehow caused limbs to simply fall off a person’s body. The truth was that the numbness caused by nerve damage often resulted in minor cuts left untreated for too long. In the heat and humidity, infection would take hold quickly, leaving amputation as the only recourse.
Lilith had been witness to the procedure too many times since she’d arrived here from Nepal. Glancing down again at the man on the bed, she found it hard to imagine how he would handle the loss of his limb. Clearly the fear of it was enough to keep him fighting through the delirium of fever.
“Let us see what we can do. After all, it is such a nice leg.” Lilith smiled softly and Sister Peter smiled back. Tenzig and Punab made no comment.
“The cup, Tenzig.” Lilith pointed to a shelf that held a clay cup used for transferring water out of a larger bowl in the room that was continually kept filled. Cleanliness was serious business for the monks and they spent nothing short of an hour every day rinsing their bodies and their spirits of dirt.
Carefully Lilith tugged at the material bunched at her fingers until the glove slipped off. She started to reach for the cup that Tenzig filled when she saw him freeze.
She might have thought that it was fear of her that had him rooted to the floor, if she hadn’t seen the quick glance he gave toward the bed. Lilith heard the gasp of Sister Peter before she actually felt the grip of a hand around her left wrist.
The man’s grip was tight but it was clear his intention wasn’t to hurt her. Merely to get her attention.
He had it.
Her eyes were pinned to where his hand circled her delicate wrist less than an inch away from the exposed skin of her hand. “Let go,” she said softly.
“You can’t let them do it,” he said. “You can’t let them cut it off. No matter what happens…you can’t. I must be able to run. I have to run….”
Lilith looked away from where he was holding her and focused on his flushed face. “I won’t let them take it. You will run again. You will see. But you need to let me go.”
He said nothing. His chocolate eyes remained fixed on hers.
She tried to smile gently the way she thought a mother might smile to give ease and comfort to a sick child. “It is going to be all right. I won’t let them hurt you. Let go now.”
“Your face…” he whispered then swallowed hard.
Lilith’s brow furrowed. He couldn’t know her. She was sure that she had never seen his face before. She would have remembered.
“Your skin…so…beautiful.”
He used his free hand to reach for her, his finger outstretched almost as if he intended to caress her cheek. Lilith pulled her body away from his outstretched hand. Eventually his lack of strength defeated him and his hand fell back to his side. Feeling his grip loosen, she tugged slightly and that arm also fell back against his stomach.
“Quickly, before he moves again.”
Tenzig jumped forward and held the cup out to her. Lilith took it with her gloved hand. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths.
Please, she thought. Please don’t let me hurt him. Please don’t let it be too much.
She dipped a single finger into the cup of water and circled the rim once. Then, because of his size, once more. She handed the cup back to Tenzig.
“Start with a few sips first,” she warned Sister Peter. “See how he reacts to it. If while you’re working he moves or starts to revive just a brush on his lips will work. Remember not to let it touch your skin. What you do not use must be poured out into the ground not mixed with any other water source.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Lilith nodded. She took a final glance at the man and saw that his eyes were closed but she doubted he slept peacefully. After a few sips that would change.
There was nothing left for her to do, but she found herself reluctant to leave him. It was probably irrational. For a moment she felt as if her presence had meant something to him.
“I will do everything I can, but remember I’m no surgeon,” Sister Peter warned. “I can’t promise anything.”
“I know you will do your best. That is all he can ask for. He is lucky that he has you in such a place. And if something should go wrong, you carry no guilt for your effort.”
Despite her words, Lilith felt a quiet confidence that the nun would succeed. Not only was her faith in Sister Peter unquestionable, but the man’s strength and determination was also a force to be reckoned with. Together she was sure they could beat back the infection and defeat the invasive fever.
Sensing that she had lingered too long already, Lilith pulled her attention away from the bed.
“If I am not needed anymore, I will head back to the village.”
“Tenzig will walk you,” Punab said. “Once again we are grateful to our sister. Our Sangha is lucky to have such a unique person in our midst.”
Lilith bowed her head in response.
His words only served to remind her how unusual this small piece of earth was and how grateful she was to have found this place. There were very few communities that would be grateful to have someone like her in their midst. Like a leper, she was an outcast.
Unwanted.
Feared.
Tossed out like garbage, first by her mother’s family, then by her father.
Lilith tried to forgive those who didn’t understand. More, she attempted to see the decision through their eyes. There had been a reason why she had been rejected by her people and ultimately evicted from her home.
She was an agent of death.
Chapter 2
“How is he?” Lilith called out to her friend.
It had been almost a week since her midnight summons to the monastery and every day she thought about the warrior.
Sister Peter had spent the first two days and nights at the stranger’s bedside doing everything she could to save his leg as well as his life. After a pitched battle with the raging fever it was finally acknowledged that the man was too stubborn to die. At least that was what Sister Peter told Lilith when she eventually returned to the village. She declared that not only would he live, but he would also keep the leg.
Stubborn, just as Lilith had suspected.
Since then the dedicated nun had visited him daily to monitor his progress. Lilith wasn’t sure if Sister Peter was merely doing her due diligence or if secretly she was taking satisfaction in a job well done. Hard work and success weren’t praised by the other nuns.
It was expected.
Today she had gone again to check up on him and Lilith waited for her at the bottom of the hill as she had every day to hear news of his condition. She couldn’t say why she would not go to the monastery to see him herself. She told Sister Peter it was because she did not want to risk another incident like the one that night, but now that the fever was gone she imagined she could avoid his touch without any explanation. Lilith’s condition wasn’t something she shared with passing strangers.
Each day she thought about it. Each day she waited for Sister Peter to deliver the news instead.
Slowly Sister Peter descended the steep path that led away from the monastery. Lilith could see the weariness on her face from the extra burden of his care, but mingled with the fatigue was the serenity that came from doing what she believed she’d been born to do.
Lilith almost envied her.
“He’s doing better than yesterday,” Sister Peter said. “Actually walking on the