How to Escape From a Leper Colony Read Free Page B

be fake, since they were around before Jesus. But my mother had washed my mouth with soap when I said such things. Even she had wept that perhaps my leprosy was a curse, for the things my father had taught me.
    From my mother I learned that Christians love leprosy. Christians are not so passionate about polio or cholera. But Jesus had touched lepers. Jesus cured lepers. Leprosy gives the pious a chance to be Christ-like. Only lepers hate leprosy. Who wants to be the one in the Bible always getting cured? We want to be the heroes, too. We want to be like Jesus. Or like Shiva. Or like whomever you pray to.
    And then we were caught. We had built Kali out of wood. She was rough and less attractive than we knew her to be. But we painted her and a little color made all the difference. We took flowers from the graveyards and placed them at her feet. I did not know how to worship her. I only knew a few Tamil words. My father had taught me the names of the gods and had taken me with him for Diwali celebrations, but both he and my mother spoke only English to me. My mother, I believe, did not want me to learn Tamil. She did not think there would be any need. Perhaps my father felt that since I was Madrasi I would know my language as I knew myself. And yes, I knew some things. I knew how to say please, auntie, and thank you, uncle. I knew how to ask for water or the outhouse. I did not know how to pray.
    Though his mother had been half Indian, Lazaro also knew only English. First we prayed the Hail Mary. Then we chanted some words in Ibo that Babalao Chuck said were holy. “Sometimes we going call her Yemaya,” Lazaro said. “I want she to have many names.” Then he went on his knees and swept the dust from her feet with a son’s tenderness.
    We were caught one night because we had not returned to our huts. We were caught because we had decided, without really deciding, to spend the night with our Kali. We took our bedding and slept at her feet, under the same one blanket. I had grown taller in the almost two years I had been in the colony. Lazaro had remained small. I wanted him to hold me but it was uncomfortable and awkward. So I held him. We slept with his back to my chest. I was aware of my breasts breathing into his shoulder blades. I tried not to cough or sneeze.
    To the rest of the colony, lepers and nuns and volunteers, it would be okay for us to marry. But to release our bodies to any pleasure without God’s blessing was a sin. They came for us with torches. We awoke to what felt like a dream. We saw the light before we saw their figures. Sister Theresa, a covered volunteer, and Tantie B.
    “It is worse than we thought!” whispered the young nun loudly. “It’s the occult.” She backed away—her skin darkening with the night.
    Tantie B looked around at what we were. Two young people. An altar. The forest. She shook her head but said nothing.
    “Better if you had just been fucking,” said the volunteer quietly as he leaned his torch into Lazaro’s face. His body was covered in a white bedsheet. I held on to Lazaro, feeling the heat on my skin and thinking that this was not a dream.
    Lazaro blinked furiously. Perhaps he still thought he was dreaming.
    “Do it, for God’s sake,” said the nun.
    “Yes,” said Tantie. “Then let them come home.”
    Under the face wrappings and dark salve, the volunteer’s face twitched. He looked as though he was smiling. Tantie B and the young nun stepped back with what seemed like instinct. Perhaps the volunteer knew he was completing a history as he flung the torch to hit our Kali with the force of someone knocking down a city’s walls. To be certain, Lazaro knew.
    Lazaro wrenched away from me. He flew like smoke. The fire seemed to catch him. Then there was a high-pitched screaming and a deep adolescent howling. I saw Kali rock on her base. I saw the bushes go up in flames. Then there was heat and darkness. Someone began a furious Hail Mary. Then there was nothing. I woke