Henri’s ward was like a small village with each bed having its own “household”, sometimes including children and the aged. The caregivers, generally mothers, wives, or sisters, prepared food on the open hearths outside the compound. They assisted their family members to the latrines in the back. They bathed them with sponge baths if they were too weak, or in small mat-covered spaces near the latrines if the patients had the strength to stand for a dousing of cold and often defiled water. They would hound the nurses and nurses aids, cajoling or even bribing them to make sure their family member had some modicum of care.
This task was no easy matter for the families. The “nurses”, many of whom had no real formal training, wore white smocks that covered smart dresses ballooning above shiny high-heeled shoes. They looked and acted more like someone out on the town than someone set at healing the afflicted. These sisters of mercy would haughtily pass the ill with their noses in the air, paying no mind to empty IVs, soiled bandages, and even the unfortunate women in labor who could no longer wait their turn in the queue, but gave birth in crowded and filthy corridors. The same corridors down which the nurses glided.
So it was that Henri’s Mother set about her task of shepherding her son to better health. Truly he could never again aspire to good health, but he was lucky to be alive. He could regain his strength and be strong enough to leave this place of sadness on his one good leg. She cooked and bathed. She coaxed and soothed. She even learned to effectively spend the few coins she had to ensure her son received the medications actually prescribed, as the staff were prone to sell real medications on a gravely undersupplied black market, giving the patients whatever they found, regardless of the implications.
Like the proverb, little by little a bird makes its nest, little by little Henri regained his physical strength, if not his mental resilience. With his Mother’s help he began to hobble around the ward on crutches; first for a few minutes a day and ultimately for hours at a time. While his afflictions were terrible and life-changing, they were not terminal like so many others in the ward. During the weeks it took for him to be able to reach an acceptable level of hopping with crutches, scores of men and women had come and gone from the ward. Many going to the grave and not back to the village.
The day came when Henri and his Mother took a taxi back to their village, where he was warmly welcomed by all. After the initial fires of welcome for the nearly-dead son of the community waned, Henri exercised and practiced until he was very proficient at getting around and taking care of himself. But, as good as he got, he was not able to do man’s work. He could not go to the fields, build a house, or even tend the goats. He could sit in the sun with the elders, as they warmed themselves and commiserated. And sit he did, for hours and days on end. These tedious periods were only made bearable by the fact that he was able to learn a great deal from the aged as they talked of times gone by, tradition, mystery, and the way things were.
His mind absorbed the history and culture, the knowledge a salve for his mind almost as though it were rubbed on the nub where his leg should have been. He listened and learned. He questioned and understood. Quite by chance, he became the memory of his community; the repository for its culture and past. These mental stretches and calisthenics completed the healing process and, after months sitting on a bamboo stool in the sun, he was finally ready to accept himself as he was and no longer as he had been.
However, as his mind began to tune into his new reality, he realized he could not stay forever in the village. He was a burden to his family. While he now had a status of prominence because of his brush with death and, more recently, because of his great understanding of the village’s history, he was an additional mouth to feed—a mouth connected to a body that made no productive contribution.
The following dry season, after good rains and the signs that the harvest would be good, Henri decided to go back to the city and see what he could do for himself; his selfless proclamations reinforced by feelings that he really needed to get back to the real world before he came totally imbedded in the village.
On the day of his departure, his Mother accompanied him to nearby main road where he flagged down a taxi to start his travels back to the past. His Mother carried his small vinyl satchel as he hobbled along beside her. She had no idea of what would now become of her son. She only knew this was another of those thresholds from which there was no going back. Whatever would happen, good or bad, barring a catastrophe such as his past accident, Henri had left.
When the driver had thrown his bag and crutches on the luggage rack, Henri pushed and was pushed into a seat in the back of the minibus. As the taxi pulled back onto the road, he looked back through the dust-covered window at his Mother standing lonely on the red laterite shoulder, and he too wondered what was in store? And, he too knew he was not likely to come back, at least not to stay.
After a rough-and-tumble trip, made all the more rough-and-tumble due to his handicap, he arrived back in the city in early evening after most of the traffic had subsided and the roll through the suburbs and slums was reasonably quick and still lit by a nearly setting sun.
The city seemed to have changed greatly during his absence; new buildings, new roads, and whole new neighborhoods. But when he finally set his good leg on the ground, he found that really nothing had changed. It was the same old city with the same old problems and the same old people. With his bag slung across his back and his weight on his crutches, he hopped out of the taxi park, but had no idea of where to go.
He still had his winning smile and a good knowledge of the by-ways of town. So, he migrated back to his old haunts, shuffled past the lorry park where he had spent many, many hours; moving past the chop houses now bustling with evening customers and, almost by chance, found himself at the Catholic Mission where, in other times, he had never set foot—or at those occasions, feet. Given the late hour and his lost state, both mentally and socially, this now seemed like he right place to put his foot and he hopped up the stars of the priory and rang the bell.
The brothers at the mission were not overly apt to accept uninvited guests, although they were called the Brothers of Charity. They felt, and perhaps rightfully so, that, once the door was opened, they would be overrun. There would be no turning back the flood nor any way to keep all the souls that would come to them for help.
Nevertheless, whether it was seeing the beaming smile or the missing leg, the elderly brother who opened the door did not drive Henri away as he had done to so many so often, but, after astutely assessing his needs, offered him a mattress in the workers’ quarters that came with a plate of porridge to be repaid by helping in the kitchen.
Henri managed to stay for few weeks at the mission to figuratively “get his feet under himself”. However, the brothers made it clear from the onset that this was not a limitless gesture, for which they would pay an endless price. This was a very special and unique display of compassion for a young man who was willing to work hard in spite of his infirmity.
So it was that Henri had by chance arranged for himself a bit of a breathing space to try and see how a man with one leg could survive in the city; having been unable to survive mentally in the village. He had had to promise the brothers that he would work in the kitchen three times a day to pay for his humble board and room, but he still had quite some time to hobble around the city to see what his options were. He went back to the lorry and taxi parks, to the big market and the smaller trading centers, to the major shopping area, and several hotels, restaurants, and even construction sites.
His locomotion by crutches had greatly developed his torso and Henri had tremendous strength in his arms that he thought could perhaps be used in some way or other: washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning, almost anything that did not require one to move around very much. He also could read and had some basic arithmetic; skills which, he had hoped, might be a consideration to get a job as a clerk or some other type of simple desk work. However, as his stay with the brothers came to an end, he was no closer than when he started to finding a way to stay alive in the city.
In his searches about town, he would frequently pass in front of the main grocery stores and pharmacies frequented by the town’s elite; the expatriates, high-level functionaries, and businessmen. Stuck outside the entrances and exits from these establishments were coveys of the handicapped with all shape and form of deformity and