The Covenant of Water

The injuries Digby has suffered are as much psychological as they are physical; he has lost his lover, and he can no longer practice his profession. Staying with Lena and meeting Rune and his lepers helps to repair some of the damage, but it will take a long while for Digby to reconcile himself to his situation. Digby has little memory of what actually happened, but he knows he has been irrevocably damaged: “The savage, life-threatening injury is to his mind, strewn around like shattered china, no longer recognizable as Digby from Glasgow, Digby the faithful son, Digby the single-minded medical student, Digby the surgeon with the good hands” (247). Digby’s identity has been fractured; just like the lepers at Saint Bridget’s, he will have to reinvent himself to survive.

Indeed, his relationship with Rune begins to launch Digby’s new journey. Not only does Rune try to repair his hands, but he also introduces Digby to a world wherein Digby can reimagine himself. At first, Digby thinks that he “has landed on an alien planet” (257). He cannot cope with the high altitudes and humidity, and his experience with lepers is limited, as is most people’s, “to seeing street beggars in Madras” (257). However, after a bit of acclimation, Digby begins to identify with his fellow residents: “he’s one of them, wounded, winged, and disfigured” (260). Further, Digby discovers a new purpose by watching these exiled peoples: “[T]hey want him to witness their usefulness, even if the world has no use for them” (260). Ironically, the lepers give Digby the inspiration to seek out a new and different life—not to sink into despair. This instance of personal growth is another example of The Will to Believe. In this case, Digby chooses to believe not in God but in his own capacity to live a meaningful life despite what has happened to him.

Rune himself is also an inspiration to Digby. Though Digby renounced his faith years ago, Rune has committed himself to the care of these forgotten people because of his own: “He’s living his faith, an amalgam of Christianity and Hindu philosophy. Medicine is his true priesthood, a ministry of healing the body and the soul of his flock. He will go on as long as he’s able” (253). Alas, Rune’s heart troubles will soon fell him, while Digby must continue on his own journey. As Digby himself acknowledges, Rune has passed along a silent message to his young ward: “Before we treat the flesh, we must acknowledge the greater wound, the one to the spirit” (255). This is Rune’s message regarding his leper patients, and it is equally fitting to Digby. When Rune dies, Digby notes that he “was not just his surgeon, but his savior, his confessor, and the closest he’d ever had to a father” (270). Rune becomes a Christ-like figure, saving the souls of his lepers—Digby included.

Digby also gets assistance from the young girl, Elsie; she draws an anatomically accurate picture of Digby’s hand. Instead of being insulted, Digby is amazed at the talent Elsie shows at the age of nine. In addition, she helps him, perhaps inadvertently, with his physical therapy, manipulating his hands in hers in order to produce a portrait of his mother. Digby is struck

Elsie, little fawn who has also suffered the loss of a mother, do you know that somehow we managed to do what time could not? For all these years, the only image I carried of my mother, the facies that superseded any other, was of her obscene, monstrous death mask (269).

Elsie, in her youthful innocence—or in her precocious, unfortunate knowledge of death—has been able to show Digby a different picture of his life experience.

Philipose has also been learning something about death and destiny. He revives the young boatman’s boy and “is stunned to witness this resurrection” (277), another oblique reference to the power of faith. However, Philipose is not inspired to join the medical profession, even as Digby praises his actions. When he returns home after saving the child, he is uncomfortable: “Philipose feels every eye on him. He forces a polite smile to his face but inwardly he shudders. He has never had the least desire to be a doctor” (283). This will not be Philipose’s destiny. When Elsie sketches his portrait in the car on the way back to Parambil, Philipose thinks that “she’s captured his burning and naked need to be home” (284). Later, Digby will echo this sentiment in his need to buy land far from the scene of his accident. The two men share a desire to retreat from the world—a foreshadowing of what else they might share.