Chapter 19 - The Leper
We got up at dawn to sail to Gergesa. It was still chilly. Pink feather clouds passed over the Mountains and reflected in the lake's pale waters. From the town sounded the tapping of the small millstones with which the women ground the flour for the day.
Right past the farmhouse, I saw a man walking toward us with a peculiar gait, with which he could hardly put one leg in front of the other. He approached, and you could see that he was a young man with leprous. His hair and fingers, which he no longer had in his arms, were reminiscent of two drawbar trees with a thickening at the end, lined with skin full of sores. His nakedness was covered by only a filthy cloth tied around his narrow hips.
The leper looked as if God had picked a different piece from his list each time, not to accept it as a sacrifice all at once. He seemed of noble birth, and all the stronger was probably his inner guidance; he had lost more than a jaded slave who thought about nothing.
'Jesus! I'm coming for you,' he lisped, with lips covered in scabs, and he sank to his knees before me, not so much out of reverence but because of the lack of strength.
Matthew wanted to drive the leper away with a stick to prevent him from infecting us, but I did not allow it.
The sun was rising over the lake, but the mountains of Gadara were still shrouded in shadows, and only the rocks of their summits burned with a copper-colored fire. In the blue sky dissolved a barely visible moon that looked like the well-groomed nails of a young farmer's finger.
I looked at the man, trying to understand where I differed from him other than in the suffering that had happened to him.
'I was not allowed into the city; that's why I came to you along the waterfront, Jesus,' he explained. 'My name is Ephraim, I am from Dan Dalmanutha, hear my story.'
'I'm listening,' I replied.
'Jesus, I was a wealthy man, but I have become leprous. My family has disowned me. My foolish wife has since found another man... But that doesn't matter now. Jesus, I'm dying, but only you, you hear, only you can save me. He looked straight at me. 'Even if you don't believe sufficiently in your strength, Jesus, I believe for two.... I believe in it!
By that time, I had seen a lot of distraught people come to me, clinging to life with their last strength, but this leper was a case in point. The amazing thing was that we both needed each other equally because his belief in me was no less real and stronger than his terrible illness. The husk of God eating him was obediently trudging along behind him as if on a leash. God could no longer do without this leper, and this leper could not do without me.
He told how he had undergone the usual cleansing ritual with a clergyman in Jerusalem, but neither the red wool thread, the hyssop, nor the curse of birds had helped. He had unsuccessfully sacrificed two small rams and one small ewe, three-tenths of an ephah of wheat flour, and a log of holy diesel. The cleric had poured the fat of a small ram with its blood over his head...
I put my hand on his filthy bald head with the scaly skin, closed my eyes, heaved a deep sigh a few times, concentrated and saw the leper's soul, it was reminiscent of a roll of papyrus burning on one side with a light blue fire. With my willpower, I unfolded that scroll and tried to read it. Many words had been erased. Reading it in my mind, the fire stayed and extinguished while I felt the leper's head shake under my hands. At that moment, the call of certain birds sounded on the waters of the lake and I noticed how this sound affected Ephraim's life text, some words changed. I kept peering at the scroll. Next to one of the lines was a red lump of Bas sculpted, mixed with vermilion, and I understand that had to be the date when fate had marked the beginning of his illness. The lines trembled, but I saw the inmates' listing of wedding appetizers broken off at the words "veal equally, and wine gin in medium jugs. Then, the entire text changed to the two large letters that began the leper's name:
EF
I knew enough.
"Who abbreviated your name, Efraim? I asked.
'mother-in-law! My mother-in-law! Exclaimed him, and his face twisted. 'Yes! She always called me Ef, no matter how nasty I thought that was.'
'This wicked woman has taken away part of your name, Ephraim,' I explained to him, 'and God has taken away part of your body with the fire of leprosy because too often he does not conform to people, carries out their wishes, copies their actions and accomplishes the things they say... I have put out that fire. Now, in conclusion, write your full name in the sand.'
With the stump of his right hand, Efraim slowly put his name in the sand.
'The leprosy is brought to a halt, but you will have to make peace with the fact that you will not get your fingers back,' I said.
'That doesn't matter. I still have my most important finger in place, the one between my legs,' Efraim replied, smiling predatorily. 'Not for nothing does my name mean ''the fruitful one''. Thank you, great Jesus...'
And from then on, Efraim was so calm and self-assured that I really did not doubt that he would find a sweet woman without fail who would shelter him and care for him.
It was both of our victory over leprosy, over God, and over the inner fire. I think back to this man with joy, in whom I had seen so much faith that you could move a mountain with me.
Efraim helped me grow stronger, he truly believed in me, even if I was not worth the slightest part of his faith. But I do understand that the power once given to me, which was filled with him, would not necessarily serve my happiness, and that if I did not learn to deal with it, it could even destroy me completely.
Then I got into the fishing boat with the steep boards with my pupils to sail to Gergesa. There was no wind, the self was of no use, so Judas and Philippus put themselves industriously at the oars, while I sat on the stern at the helm. When we were about half a stadie where we sailed away, I turned and saw Ephraim lying on the sand, protecting his name. The day burned loose, and began to bake, and he put a cloth on my head.
