The Healer’s Touch — “Healing Hands”
Chapter VI/XIV
Read Chapters I, II, III, IV, and V
“You can heal people by placing your hands on them?” she asked, after he had fallen into silence. Time had passed quickly as he was swallowed up in the memories of his past. He wasn’t able to say how late in the day it was or how far up the mountains they had come, but it must have been long after the day’s zenith and, in the trance of his narration, he indeed had been able to forget the cold and the pain.
He now looked at her, contemplatively, as she walked out on a ledge, trying to pierce the fog with her eyes. “It is not that easy,” he answered, “but yes. I place my hands on their wounds and suffer all the pain they would have to go through until they are fully healed. My pain is the cost the healing demands.”
She nodded and fell silent, as she had been while he was sharing his story. He tried to see what she was seeing, but failed. The mountainside still drove the pass upwards over rocks and snow.
“How do you survive this?” she said, turning back to him.
He shrugged with his right shoulder. “Maybe it is part of the gift.”
“Maybe you live because you choose to.”
Never had he thought of it this way. He had been able to sense if the tithing of pain was beyond his power to give. But all too often, he came close to seeing his old friend Death again. Not because of the battles or the war, but because of the suffering for the sake of healing. Yet, until today he had managed to cling to life.
“The people I healed have taught me a great deal about the value of life,” he said. “The will to live is very strong in those whose life blood is running out through deep wounds.”
“I assume those people all had something worth living for,” she said and tried to stare the mountainside away.
He allowed the silence to reign for a moment as he thought about the deeper meaning of her answer. “You doubt that there are reasons left for you to keep living?”
She didn’t look at him, didn’t answer, but this told him what he had already presumed.
“Do you believe that you can discover new things that might give you this meaning?”
Now she looked at him in a way that made him realize that his question had been the wrong one.
“What if I don’t want to find reasons to live anymore?” Her voice quieted a little as she continued, “What if everything I need to live is dead?”
He nodded and leaned against a large boulder for support. “Those are the wounds hardest to heal, even for me.” After a short pause he said, “If people do not want to be healed, I am powerless. I joined the war because on the battlefield my gift is immediate, wanted and most effective. But the wounds of the soul aren’t so easily mended or forgotten. People cannot survive without hope.”
She raised her eyebrows as if to say, tell me about it, but didn’t respond. Suddenly, she turned around again and he saw her eyes flicker from side to side.
“Do you see the cloud moving?” she asked. He tried to see movement in the fog-like grey. “The wind is freshening,” she continued. “The weather is shifting.”
The Healer exhaled a cloud. “For better or for worse?”
She didn’t answer, but took him by the arm. “Let’s continue on!”
For the worse, as it turned out. Soon the winds were beating upwards as the storm hit the mountain range, trying to climb over it. Cold air rose and turned the snow into projectiles.
Within half an hour the world had changed into a hostile place where death reigned.
“We need to find shelter!” cried the Healer over the thunder of the winds.
When she looked at him, she saw his exhaustion. He had been battering bravely up the pass the whole day although his body should be lying in a bed and resting. She nodded and stared up and down the pass.
If they stopped now, they ran the risk of being snowed in, unable to retreat and incapable of moving forward. She sighed. No cave or shelter in sight. The part of the path where they were now was an open back, winding upwards. All she could hope for was that the path went down into the ravine that showed up ahead.
She nodded and pointed upwards. “Over there. See the ravine? We have to make it there.”
“Won’t the snowfall bury it?”
“Yes,” she said, “but the coat of snow will keep the storm and cold at bay.”
He consented to the inevitable and gave a wry grimace as he gauged the distance to the ravine. “I choose hope. We can make it.”
As they battled upwards against the wind, her thoughts lingered on hope. It was a choice, but one she had deliberately declined. What soothing was there in hope if it was in vain? If it was only able to cast a shadow into the future of a light that once had shone so brightly?
She cast her eyes down on the ground and forced her feet forward, the weakening man behind her taking more of her energy to drag onward.
The winds in the ravine were even worse for they funneled through it, but she saw cracks and twists along the sides.
The Healer was fading. She needed to make a decision. The next turn opened some chasms in the stone. She chose a deep-lying crevasse and pushed the Healer into it. The hole was narrow but profound. The wind didn’t reach them now and it felt as if the ravaging of the storm had broken off all of a sudden.
There was neither wood nor room for a fire so they would have to survive the night here. “Let’s hope this storm doesn’t last another three days.”
The Healer seemed to awake again from the daze he had fallen into. He smiled. “It looks like a nice little hideout in here.”
“Don’t be sarcastic,” she said and pulled out a blanket, trying to wrap it around both of them and shelter the healer from the outside with her back. He half sat, half laid down in the tightness of the crack and allowed her to prepare him for a hard night.
“I wasn’t,” he said, “I am sure death won’t find us here.”
She fell silent for a second after she had found a more or less comfortable position on the harsh rocks. “Death won’t come, no worries. He has not come to me,” she said. “I sought him, but he evaded me on every step.”
He waited, hesitant to ask the obvious and decided to take a different approach. “It is good that you are still alive.”
She wrapped the blanket tighter and listened for the raging of the storm. “I am not done here, but I do not understand why. Nothing keeps me in this world. But death won’t let me leave. Trust me, I tried many times. Not even war can finish me off. I feel as if I am dying already, only so slowly, never arriving.”
She looked at him. Why did all these feelings burst out of her soul now? Now in the middle of a storm that would keep them trapped? She was fighting her tears. Her words pressed against the lump in her throat. She couldn’t hold them back despite the sorrow. “How — how do you hold on to life in the midst of this terror of war and loss, violence, pain, darkness …” Her voice was silenced by the flood of feelings welling up in her core.
Again, life tried to hammer its way free through the rings of steel she had laid around it. She didn’t want this pain. That’s why she had denied the life within her, as long as she wasn’t capable of killing the one on the outside. But now both lives clung to the pain of the memories that pushed upwards, forcing her to come face to face with what she had dodged for all these years.
She managed to swallow the pain down and stare at the man leaning against the rocks. How?
“I don’t know,” he said, “It’s as if I don’t have a choice.” Again, this pause as if he was searching the depth of his soul for answers. “We mortals resent death, we resent loss. And even though we live here in this world, we yearn for a better place, a richer life, a deeper love. I have no certain truths, but I can offer you what I believe.”
She nodded, and he continued, “We are not made for ends. There is something within us that can never die. Name it soul, name it spirit, name it energy. Whatever this is, it is eternal and can never die. That’s why we hate death, because it seems like an end. That’s why we hate love, because it seems we will always lose it in one way or another. But I believe the truth is, death is neither permanent nor its loss irretrievable.”
Suddenly, she wasn’t in a cavern with the Healer anymore, but a similar cave with four little children. Images of a lost past flooded her. She couldn’t resist them, couldn’t fight them back. And with them a wave of pain hit her, making her bend over, hugging her core as if it would rip asunder. Tears broke through her closed eyelids. The pain would kill her. She knew it. She couldn’t sustain it.
Fire and smoke drew over her, ice and numbing cold. Ruins and blood, corpses on muddy streets. Laughter and swords. Running, running, running.
She fell forward and collapsed on the ground. Leave! she threw against the pain of remembering, but it didn’t let go. She saw the faces. All those faces! The pain seized her muscles as a silent scream escaped her open mouth, the tendons on her neck protruding, ready to snap.
The pain subsided as if the tide was taken back in an instant. Her muscles relaxed, her breathing slowed and the hammering of her heart lessened. The images stayed, the memories weren’t taken away, but the accompanying pain had been taken from her.
She turned her head around and saw the Healer kneel right next to her, left arm pressed against his side to protect the wound, right arm stretched forth, his hand closed around her fingers. His countenance was twisted in great pain, the muscles on his jaw contracted, his eyes pressed shut.
He took in a deep breath and let go of her hand. The pain did not return, although she knew it was still lingering in the depth of her soul, waiting.
She leaned on her arm and got her legs under her body, kneeling now as well.
The Healer’s eyes were fixed on hers. “You never told me how you ended up on that road.” He paused, distressed, then whispered, “Tell me what you saw.”
She helped him back to lie down. What. I. Saw. Night was falling over the world outside. It would be a long darkness. Maybe sharing her past would keep them both distracted and alive. For a long while she sat there, staring into the creeping dark, summoning courage to open the vault of her memory once more.
