Mawar's Eyes

By Maria Magdalena Bhoernomo

Mawar was sitting on the veranda with her face tilted slightly upwards into the cool of the morning. She had just turned six. Her mom and dad said it was time for her to go to elementary school.

Mawar suddenly smiled as the image of a crowded elementary school flashed into her mind. She remembered all the times she heard excited children gaily laughing and joking with one another before school began and during the breaks.

She was familiar with the noisy atmosphere of school though she was blind. From the time she was three years old, her Mom had introduced her to school life. Almost every day Mom had asked Mawar to accompany her when taking her brother, Eko, a third grader, to school.

"Are you brave enough to go to school now, Mawar?" Dad asked before leaving for the office, gazing at her with a deep sense of concern. Dad now seemed to have given up hope of finding a cure for her blindness. He had tried almost every conceivable way, both medical and supernatural, to restore her sight. He had been to countless ophthalmologists, as well as numerous psychics and shamans, who recommended various weird treatments, but Mawar remained as blind as ever. People said that blindness from birth is incurable. Mawar might simply have been destined to be blind.

Mom appeared from the dining room, smiling and carrying a glass of chocolate milk. "Mawar, you forgot your drink after breakfast, didn't you, honey?"

Mawar smiled, her hand groping for the glass. She immediately held up the glass, then guzzled down the sweet milk. Seeing Mawar thoroughly enjoying her favorite drink, Dad smiled, teasing: "My goodness, if you keep drinking so much milk, you'll surely become a little fatty and your body will blow up like a big barrel."

Mawar and Mom burst out laughing.

"And when your body's like a barrel, you'll roll round and round when you fall down, darling," her father said jokingly.

Mawar giggled. Dad kissed her forehead before getting into his car.

"You should also bring your chocolate milk along when you go to school like your brother always does," Mom said.

Mom, however, knew in her heart of hearts that her blind daughter would never be an elementary school pupil. But as a mother she needed to console the child, who was so eager to go to school.

Again, Mawar flashed a broad smile.

***

Mawar was really excited when one morning Mom asked her come along to be registered as a new student in the neighborhood school.

"I'm terribly sorry, Ma'am. We have never had a blind student. We can't make a decision on whether your daughter can be accepted as a student here. All depends on the school principal. But, I can register your daughter as a student here for the time being!" the teacher in charge of registration stated.

Mawar became gloomy, causing Mom to console her at once.

"You'll be accepted here, Mawar!"

Mawar did not utter a word. At home she sat on the veranda, saying nothing all afternoon.

"Hi, Mawar! You've registered yourself as a new student at the school, haven't you?" Dad asked as soon as he stepped into the house from the office.

Mawar remained quiet, her face gloomy.

"Eh, why are you so quiet, honey? Have you lost your tongue?" Dad teased her, kissing her on the forehead.

Suddenly Mawar burst into tears. "I may never be able to go to school, Dad!"

"Who says that you can't go to school, Mawar?" Dad asked, disappointed.

Mawar sobbed uncontrollably.

Dad took a deep breath, thinking: "It's time now to tell her that she can never become an elementary school student. She'll only be able to go to a special school, not to one for physically healthy children." He then advised her to be prepared to study at a special school for the blind.

"I don't want to go to a school that's far away," Mawar cried out between her sobs.

"The special school for children like you is very far from here, darling, I admit. But you don't have to worry. I'll take you there," Dad assured her.

Mom suddenly came out of the house: It's okay, please don't cry. If you don't want to go to a distant school, you can always stay at home. I can teach you how to read and write.

Mawar wiped away her tears.

Eyes also moist, dad went quickly into the house. He couldn't bear to see his radiant daughter suffer. Like her mother, Mawar was truly beautiful. Dad threw himself onto the bed, sobbing. He was overwhelmed with the feelings of regret that had been haunting him for so long in his life. The regrets of an unfaithful husband who had contracted VD after having sex with a whore in a hotel when his wife was away in another town conducting research. Sobbing, he recalled the night he spent in the hotel.

"Don't have sexual intercourse with your wife until you are fully recovered," warned the doctor.

Dad was not a sort of man who could contain his lust. Oblivious to the consequences, he made love to his wife before he had completely recovered, and got her pregnant again.

After learning that mom was pregnant, he had started getting worried as a few days earlier he had attended a seminar on sexually transmitted diseases in which a speaker said:" When a man suffering from a venereal disease has sexual intercourse with a woman and makes her pregnant, there is be a high probability that the child will be born blind.

Weeping and cursing himself, Dad ran his hands through his hair, lamenting the foolishness that had caused Mawar's blindness.

"What a damned fool I am! What a damned fool I am!" he cried repeatedly.

***

Mom was actually aware of what had probably caused Mawar's blindness, but knowing that he had atoned for his sins, she did not want to condemn Dad for what he had done as he had changed after realizing his mistake.

Late at night, Mom heard Dad crying.

"You don't have to regret the past. What's important now is that you have made up for what you did. Perhaps Mawar was destined to be blind, anyway. If she were not blind, maybe you would have caught an even deadlier disease by now."

"I'm terribly sorry and I deserve to be cursed!"

"It's okay. You'd better bring yourself closer to God, ask Him for forgiveness and pray to Him to grant us patience in bringing Mawar up," Mom advised him.

Dad sobbed uncontrollably, cursing himself again and again.

***

Despite Mom and Dad's repeated encouragement, Mawar refused to go to a special school for the blind.

"If I can't go to regular elementary school, I'll stay at home," Mawar asserted firmly.

Neither Mom nor Dad could do anything to make her change her mind. Then, as Mom had once promised, she tried to learn Braille so as to be able to teach Mawar. It was no easy job for Mom to teach her blind child.

"You should learn Braille first," Dad suggested after asking Mom how Mawar was getting along with her lessons.

After a futile six-month effort to learn Braille, Mom finally gave up.

"My Goodness, it's not easy to master the system," Mom complained.

"I think it would be best for us to get a special teacher for her," Dad suggested.

Mom was happy although it meant even more outlay.

Six weeks passed, and Dad had still not found a special teacher.

"Why don't you try to learn Braille yourself," Mom suggested.

Dad took her advice. In his study at midnight, however, he suddenly thought about Mawar's unhappy future. He then cursed himself again. He imagined that her future would be bleak and her world dark without a ray of light anywhere.

Unconsciously, he grabbed a pair of sharp scissors which he always used to open envelops and thrust them into his eyes. And with the scissors he gouged his right eye out, blood streaming down his right cheek, and with great pain he then gouged out the other, fresh blood spurting from under his left eyelid.

Dad screaming in pain, Mom rushing in crying hysterically. "Daddy, Daddy!"

Translated by Faldy Rasyidie