The Covenant of Water

1936, Saint Bridget’s

When the nuns from the Swedish Mission arrive, Digby takes his leave of Bhava and Sankar. He seeks the others out in the distillery, in the grain shed, in the orchard, and in the vegetable patches. When he first came to Saint Bridget’s, the residents appeared almost indistinguishable, too much alike in their disfigurement. But now he knows them individually, and also recognizes each one’s unique character: the jester, the peacemaker, the stoic, the curmudgeon—every personality type is represented. Collectively, though, they share a mischievous, playful quality. Or they did when Rune was alive.

He thanks each of them for welcoming him into their midst; he conveys this message and his sorrow at parting by bringing his palms together, looking them in the eye. In this upside-down world, snarls are smiles, ugly is beautiful, and the crippled outwork the able-bodied, but tears are the same. In response, they drop their tools to appose their hands as best they can. He’s moved by the asymmetric “namastes” of clawed or absent fingers, or absent hands. Imperfection is the mark of our tribe, our secret sign. Rune said the divine was never more visible to him than at Saint Bridget’s, because of the imperfections. “God says, ‘My grace is sufficient. My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ ” It’d be a comforting thought to Digby if he believed.

Digby came to Saint Bridget’s with nothing. Alone in Rune’s bungalow, he recalls their evenings, mellowed by plum wine and the haze of rich, woodsy-scented tobacco. On just such an evening a few days before Rune’s death, Digby had asked him the question he’d first asked when they’d met at the Mylins’ estate. “Will I operate again?” Rune had deliberated, the plumes of smoke rising like cartoon bubbles as yet unlettered. Then he tapped his skull with the stem of his pipe. “Digby, what differentiates us from other animals isn’t the opposable thumb. It’s our brains. That’s what made us the dominant species. Not hands, but what we think to do with our hands. You know our motto at Saint Bridget’s? It’s from Ecclesiastes. ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.’ ”

He has one last bit of leave-taking. Chandy and his son are away on an errand; only Elsie and the maid are at the Thetanatt home. He sits opposite Elsie on the verandah, surprised how tongue-tied he is around her, as if he is the nine-year-old, and she twenty-eight. She waits calmly, a maturity in her eyes, a wisdom and equanimity far beyond her years.

“I came to say goodbye. I . . . You know Rune’s surgeries rebuilt my hands. But Elsie, it was you who brought life back to this one.” He holds out his right. Her inspired act of coupling their hands together, her palm atop the new skin of his hand, reignited his seized fingers, smashed through barriers of rust and disuse to reconnect his brain to his hand. He wants her to know that in seeing his mother’s beautiful face on the paper, he’d erased the grotesque death mask etched in his memory, an image that had been blocking every other memory of her. But now, blood rising to his face, he finds he’s too self-conscious to make this intimate confession. Perhaps when Elsie is older. If their paths ever cross. He hands over the gift he brought his young therapist.

Elsie unwraps the parcel. Her eyes widen with pleasure when she recognizes Rune’s copy of Gray’s Anatomy. Digby believes she has Henry Vandyke Carter’s particular gift: to render an object as it is; to let it then speak for itself.

Elsie’s lips silently mouth the inscription over which Digby labored. The first line is from that great Scot Robert Burns; the lines that follow are by a Scot who’ll leave no mark in history.

“Some books are lies from end to end, and some great lies were never penned.”

But you have my word this book is true, as I know it through and through.

For Elsie, who helped me understand, that past and present go hand in hand.

With eternal gratitude,

Digby Kilgour

1936. St. Bridget’s Leprosarium

She hugs the tome to her chest, dropping her head over it, the way a child might embrace a doll. When she looks up, her expression takes the place of words of thanks.

He rises to leave. She sets the book down and walks out with him. She slips her hand into his, as though that’s the most natural thing in the world. Once outside, she releases him.

He feels his soul slipping off its mooring, leaving him adrift without sail or map.