Untouchable. Stephanie Doyle

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 leg a little. Remarkable given his condition a week ago.”

      “No danger at all, then, that he will lose the leg?”

      The sister stopped and shook her head, a faint smile on her face. “Not now, no. He’s lucky I found that fragment of bullet left in the wound. Time should tell whether or not there’s any lingering damage to the muscle, but he’s young and strong. No reason to think he shouldn’t be perfectly fine in a few weeks. I’m sure I’m imagining it, but I think the brothers were particularly grateful I didn’t cut up their warrior. I can’t tell if they fear him or revere him.”

      A warrior. That was what Punab had called him. However, they had also let him into their sanctuary. They let him stay to search for whatever it was he’d come looking for. There must be some trust there.

      “That is good news,” Lilith said. “Once again I do not know what we would do without your skills.”

      “I was thinking the same thing about you.”

      “Mine is not so much a skill, I think. However, I am grateful I did not kill him.”

      Sister Peter raised a single eyebrow, a trick that fascinated Lilith. “You seem awfully concerned with our new patient. You did hear me when I said I pulled a bullet fragment from his leg.”

      “I heard you. And I know how the wound was caused. I am not concerned for him. I am just…”

      Lilith had no answer for how she felt. He was a strong man. A handsome man, too. She supposed if she had to be honest with her friend she would say that he attracted her on some level. Which was strange. She wouldn’t have imagined that she could ever feel such an elemental connection with another person.

      Attraction was useless to her. It had no hope.

      It was one of the reasons she knew that although she studied with the monks on the path to enlightenment she could never consider herself a Buddhist nun. To do so would mean practicing celibacy, one of the five precepts. For those on the path this meant sacrifice. For Lilith it meant survival.

      Not that such a thing mattered. The title of nun had been lost to her long ago when she had broken the first precept: do no harm. She’d broken that precept many times.

      Sister Peter often tried to convince Lilith that what she did to end suffering or what she did by accident could not be considered a sin. But dead was still dead to those she touched. Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but it was a result of her actions. For that she knew she could never fully walk the path to true enlightenment. At least not in this lifetime.

      There was, however, always the next.

      “I am merely glad he lived,” Lilith insisted. “That neither one of us was responsible for killing him.”

      Sister Peter smiled. “Amen.”

      A noise penetrated their conversation, forcing Lilith’s head upward. She instantly identified the sound of machine rather than animal.

      “Sounds like we are going to have more visitors.”

      “Hmm. It’s been a while since she’s been here,” Sister Peter noted as she also studied the sky, waiting for the helicopter to catch up with the sound. “Several months. I thought maybe she was gone for good.”

      Lilith took in the sister’s worrisome expression. “That sounds more like wishful thinking on your part. Do you not like our benefactress?”

      Sister Peter folded her arms over her chest and frowned. “It seems petty, doesn’t it? After all, without her money we wouldn’t be able to afford the multiple-drug therapy that’s worked so well for those infected. Especially the children. But…”

      “But?”

      “There’s something about her, Lilith. Don’t you think it’s odd the way she seems to be so fascinated by you?”

      Lilith shrugged. She hadn’t really considered it. It was clear to any newcomer that she was set apart from all the other groups. Not a nun or a monk or a villager. She imagined it was natural to be curious as to who she was, what role she served.

      “I believe she thinks I am some kind of tribal healer. Of course, she does not understand how I make the medicine that I dispense.”

      “Doesn’t she? The way she follows your every step when she’s here. The questions she’s always asking the sisters and the villagers about you. For a woman who is simply supposed to be doing good works with her money as she claims to be, her actions feel very…deliberate.”

      “She never stays for long,” Lilith pointed out. “She will come and go and we will have that much more money as a result of her visit.”

      Together Lilith and Sister Peter headed back to the village. The incoming helicopter caused the uproar it normally did. The children, desperate for distraction from their monotonous days, ran to the clearing that had been carved out for supply drops.

      Supplies and Jacquelyn Webb’s helicopter.

      A woman with apparently unlimited resources, Jackie owned the helicopter that flew her from Bomdila, the nearest city, into the heart of the jungle. A self-proclaimed philanthropist, she heard about the leper colony during a plea from the Franciscan nuns at her local church. Urged to act, she set up funds that allowed for a continual flow of the necessary medicines to treat leprosy in the tiny village. One day she decided that sending money wasn’t enough. She needed to come and meet the people infected with the horrible disease in order to determine how else she could help.

      That СКАЧАТЬ