Allegro molto moderato: Robert W. Duncan slowly turns to face the river of cars and lets his arms fall by his sides. Adagio: He looks at the ground, looks to the left and right, to the east and west, then his eyes fall to the ground again. Allegro molto e marcato: His first step is unsteady; his thoughts whirl, trying to free themselves from the fetters of an irrevocable desire, a demon as strong as the north wind from the Carpathians. La Mort d’Aase: His second step onto the rough surface of Landstrasse, the cars honk hysterically, but the third step turns those sounds into a hard bang and a screech of brakes, into the flight of a flaccid body freed from torment and pain to land on the black of the highway.
The world went still. The earth was covered by the death of one man.
I had no trouble bursting through the crowd that had assembled round the corpse. They scattered, unable to simultaneously absorb the horror of the fatal accident and the appearance of my leprous face which I exhibited for the first time with something like pride, almost self-love. ‘We are lepers... You are... swine!’ I blurted out, and the diameter of the circle enlarged. I knelt down beside Robert, forgetting the dozens of staring eyes. Nor did I move when I heard the sirens of the ambulance or the crying of children on the back seats, shaken from sleep when the cars had to brake hard. Nor did any tears come, not until my eardrums were caressed by the wonderful chords of an acoustic guitar coming from one of the vehicles. A velvet voice sang: ‘I am a poor wayfaring stranger / Travelling through this world of woe / Yet there’s no sickness, toil or danger / In that bright land to which I go.’ And then... Doesn’t it go on?
***
I was right. A cup of hot coffee was soon shoved through the opening in the locked hospital door. I took the cup and smashed it, and as the coffee ran down the wall it made several shapes. I recognised three species of animals, I don’t remember which. The next month was full of Austrian doctors in Austrian protective suits, steel needles and pills in all the colours of the rainbow. I was told that none of the motorists, police and paramedics, who dragged me to the Mercedes ambulance had been infected with Hansen’s bacillus. What luck. After his autopsy Robert was buried ten feet deep in Austrian soil. In a cemetery on the outskirts, I found out. His bones could be repatriated to the United States in three years’ time if anyone was interested, I was told. It had to be that long to remove any doubt regarding the activity of the pernicious bacillus. I knew that already. But I could not have imagined that I would spend the rest of my life waking to the sound of the Adriatic Sea, to the sirens of distant ships that greet me, the devoted lighthouse-keeper.
Humane excommunication, they called it. A peaceful death in my native country. Time in abundance for thinking. Goats’ cheese and luxuriant agave that blooms just for one leper. Time to take leave of life with residual memories of my days spent in the continent’s last leprosarium.
I try not to think too much. Today I’m eating dried figs that compassionate fishermen from the neighbouring islands throw onto the small stone pier from time to time. There is a slight swell on the sea, the light intervals are adjusted, ships make their way to the world’s harbours. The weather forecast says there will be no fog tonight. Still, I look out to sea. The Vienna surgeons removed my cataract in a routine operation but my sight remains partly impaired. When I stare at the ceiling on windy nights, plagued by insomnia, the yellow stain emits a slight flicker at the edges of my peripheral vision. My pupils rush to meet the optical illusion but it persistently avoids being seen and follows the movements of my eyeball. That elusive thing constantly levitates in the corner of the room, on the line of the horizon, near the distant fishermen’s lights that skim past to the east of the rock. Sometimes it looks to me like hands or feet, I can make out the contours of a head, the features of a face, the colour of a piece of clothing. That doesn’t bother me, but it frightens me. Because I realise that my imagination is gradually making a homunculus, and it is only a question of time before he comes alive. Then he will have his own movements and power of speech, his hands will be impaired by the disease and his voice may be rough, and maybe he is that very same leprous being that Robert heard when he was locked up in Room 42. So I’ve made a black bandage to cover my mad eye. I put it on before going to bed and take it off again when the first rays of sun disturb the gulls; just to make sure I don’t go mad too.
Long walks also help. I water the wildflowers that grow beneath the window, and then go off to comb the shore. There are always traces of shipwrecks. Small things, too, can be part of big tragedies – dying crabs which the sun slowly dehydrates, an octopus with its tentacles torn off, a cat that didn’t make it to the next island. I rummage in the sand with a stick and write my name among the jetsam. I wait for the waves to do their work and then walk on down the shore.
Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen (1841–1912) was a Norwegian scientist who in 1873 isolated the bacillus Mycobacterium leprae. Leprosy is therefore often called Hansen’s disease and the bacillus that causes it – Hansen’s bacillus.
Istros Books is a small, independent publisher with an eye on exciting, contemporary fiction from South East Europe.
‘At Istros Books, we believe quality has no borders.’
Forthcoming titles
Nine Rabbits
Virginia Zaharieva
Chronicling the eventful and sometimes cruel childhood of little Manda, growing up in Communist Bulgaria, this passionate book blossoms into a tale of self-fulfilment. A rambunctious celebration of food, of life and of the individual’s capacity to survive and grow.
Our Man in Iraq
Robert Perišić
A take on the Iraqi conflict from the other side of Europe, where politics and nepotism collide and the after-effects of the recent Yugoslav wars still echo throughout contemporary life.
A Handful of Sand
Marinko Koščec
A love story and an ode to lost opportunities, Koscec’s novel is a sensitive and emotive reflection on the choices we all face in life.
The Seven Terrors
Selvedin Avdić
What starts out as a simple missing-person story soon descends into a strange underworld where reality is cracking and everyday people take on mythical roles: magical-realism Balkan style.
www.istrosbooks.com
Hansen's Children Page 15