The Diary of Prisoner 17326 by john k. stutterheim Mark Parillo

Author:john k. stutterheim, Mark Parillo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

chapter fifteen

THE DISEASE OF DESPAIR

In the Indies there is a small and generally welcome nocturnal lizard, called a tokè, or gecko, a harmless tropical insectivore, six to ten inches long, with a beak reminiscent of a miniature crocodile. Its name describes its odd, croaking mating call, and if you hear this animal say tokè seven times, luck will drift your way. It attaches itself to the ceiling, hunting for mosquitoes. As kids we would feed these creatures tobacco attached to a stick in order to reach them on the walls or the high ten feet ceilings. The tokè’s bite was firm and he would not let go; he would end up in a free fall and then walk like a drunk.

Many people in camp had nicknames. One of the three Dutch physicians allowed to practice in camp became known as the Tokè.

There were many more physicians, about sixteen in all, but most of them were assigned to work in the fields. Two who worked in the kitchen. Dr. Neuberger was the head of the hospital and made the rounds. Because he suffered from throat cancer, the Tokè, as we called him, could hardly speak. His voice sounded explosive, and he always looked exhausted. During the morning hours, he made his way daily throughout the camp, but it was impossible to see all boys. He was too weak to enter the individual rooms and bend over patients lying on the floor, so he would sit down behind a small portable table on the patio outside each han. The sick boys dragged themselves out of their rooms to stand in front of a doctor who had great difficulty speaking to them. Their trust in such a man was naturally low; many kids complained and scoffed about him openly, not realizing how unfair their treatment was. If he determined that a boy was sick enough, the child would be sent to the hospital, which was nothing more than a few empty classrooms with some steel beds and mattresses on the floor, supervised by several of the nuns. Some of these scenes, with a sick child and a sicker doctor, were unforgettable.

In the shade of the balcony was a simple four-legged-table. Behind it this skinny man, seated on a rickety chair, leaned on the tabletop. He supported his elongated head with his left arm, the left elbow resting on the table. His eyes were sunken, and his stubbly beard was colored like salt and pepper. In front of him stood a feeble boy, held up and supported by two other skinny kids. The patients waiting their turns were sitting or lying on thin mattresses spread out on the floor. When they were finished, the entire scene moved down a door or two, where the doctor evaluated the next sickly group. An assigned group of younger boys would carry the table and chair to the various locations where the doctor would hold “office hours.” The European and Dutch doctors outclassed the Japanese ones by miles,

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