Believe it or not, they call this purgatory on earth “holy suffering.” I am a leper stuck in limbo. Neither the dead nor the living want me among them. Mothers point me out on the streets to scare their misbehaving toddlers, and children throw stones at me. Artisans chase me from their storefronts to ward off the bad luck that follows me everywhere, and pregnant women turn their faces away whenever they set eyes on me, fearing that their babies will be born defective. None of these people seem to realize that as keen as they are to avoid me, I am far keener to avoid them and their pitiful stares. It is the skin that changes first, becoming thicker and darker. Patches of varying sizes, the color of rotten eggs, appear on the shoulders, knees, arms, and face. There is a lot of stinging and burning in this phase, but then somehow the pain withers away, or else one becomes numb to it. Next the patches start to enlarge and swell up, turning into ugly bulbs. The hands turn to claws, and the face is so deformed as to be unrecognizable. Now that I am nearing the final stages, I cannot close my eyelids anymore. Tears and saliva flow without my control. Six of the nails on my hands have fallen off, and one is on its way. Oddly enough, I still have my hair. I guess I should consider that lucky. I heard that in Europe lepers are kept outside the city walls. Here they let us live in the city as long as we carry a bell to warn other people of our presence. We are also allowed to beg, which is a good thing, because otherwise we would probably starve.
Begging is one of only two ways to survive. The other is praying. Not because God pays special attention to lepers but because for some strange reason people think He does. Hence, as much as they despise us, the townspeople also respect us. They hire us to pray for the sick, the crippled, and the elderly. They pay and feed us well, hoping to squeeze out of our mouths a few extra prayers. On the streets, lepers might be treated worse than dogs, but in places where death and despair loom large, we are the sultans. Whenever I am hired to pray, I bow my head and make incomprehensible sounds in Arabic, pretending to be absorbed in prayer. Pretend is all I can do, for I don’t think God hears me. I have no reason to believe He does.
Though it is less profitable, I find begging much easier than praying. At least I am not deceiving anyone. Friday is the best day of the week to beg, except when it is Ramadan, in which case the whole month is quite lucrative. The last day of Ramadan is by far the best time to make money. That is when even the hopeless penny-pinchers race to give alms, keen to compensate for all their sins, past and present. Once a year, people don’t turn away from beggars. To the contrary, they specifically look for one, the more miserable the better. So profound is their need to show off how generous and charitable they are, not only do they race to give us alms, but for that single day they almost love us.
Today could be a very profitable day, too, since Rumi is giving one of his Friday sermons. The mosque is already packed. Those who can’t find a seat inside are lining up in the courtyard. The afternoon is the perfect occasion for panhandlers and pickpockets. And just like me, they are all present here, scattered within the crowd. I sat down right across from the entrance of the mosque with my back to a maple tree. There was a dank smell of rain in the air, mixed with the sweet, faint tang coming from the orchards far away. I put my mendicant bowl in front of me. Unlike many others in this business, I never have to openly ask for alms. A leper doesn’t need to whine and implore, making up stories about how wretched his life is or how poor his health. Giving people a glimpse of my face has the effect of a thousand words. So I simply uncovered
my face and sat back.
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