Sara had to have eye surgery. It could no longer be delayed. She should have it done last year, but understandably the word “operation” had scared her off. She’d have much preferred to continue her life as blind as a bat than go through with surgery. And that despite my reassuring stories that the operation would be a painless, short-lived affair she would remember with gratitude for the rest of her life.
Before I go further, Sara is my servant who has been taking care of me my whole life. As far as I can remember, there had always been Sara. And now age has finally crept up on her and she has been stumbling through life since last year.
This time I set my foot down and I registered her with a charity foundation for aging people. The organization had put an announcement in the paper informing the public that free cataract operations for the aged were available every two months at the General Hospital.
It was a government project working in cooperation with the Health Ministry, and I could not help but marvel that this eye operation had become accessible for the less fortunate among us. I was told that, much like tuberculosis, cataracts were rampant among village people. No longer is this eye problem found among older people alone, but there were now much younger patients suffering from cataracts.
The operation day for Sara arrived and we set out way before sunrise because the trip to the hospital would take at least three hours from our village. I had to literally drag Sara to the bus stop because her fear made her move more slowly than ever.
“I can’t move,” she muttered. “I will surely faint.” I found it best not to react on those words and for the rest of our trip I ignored her. We reached our destination on time, only minutes before 8 a.m. We were supposed to be ready at the place where the operation was to be conducted at 8 a.m., and I raced through the halls of the hospital dragging Sara by the arm.
It was then that I noticed one lone tear rolling down Sara’s withered cheek. I felt the first signs of impatience welling up. “For heaven’s sake!” I thought, “here I am, going to the trouble of helping to give her better eyesight, and all I get are tears.”
When we got to the eye operation hall a sinking feeling overwhelmed me. The large hall was chock-full of chairs, and what standing place was still available had been occupied long before our arrival.
I signed in for Sara and was given a tag that read 72. I got worried about Sara. Could she endure the long wait before the surgery? What would I do if she fainted, heaven forbid. I was still holding her by the arm when I felt a light tap on my shoulder.
“Please, sit down, ma’am. I hear there are more than 100 cataract patients today on the list. We have a long wait,” an elderly man said as he offered his seat to us. I sat Sara on the chair making grateful sounds at the stranger.
Sara was called in at 4 p.m. I dried her tears first and assured her for the umpteenth time that she would not feel any pain.
“You’re not coming in with me?” But before I could say anything the nurse at the door said “Only patients are allowed in. Family members have to wait outside.”
She pushed Sara inside and closed the door in my face.
I told myself I would see her in about half an hour or so, as the newer cataract treatments were done in a jiffy. That is what I thought. I was wrong. Sara reappeared with her left eye bandaged after 6 p.m.
“What happened?” I asked her.
“All the other patients who went in with you have long gone home,” I said.
Looking at me with her good eye that had strangely not shed any tears now that the operation was over, she snapped, “They must have given me the dumbest eye doctor in the hospital. She had problems finding the cataract. Can you imagine?”
I must have looked at her with unbelieving eyes, for she added, “She was talking all the time to her self. Maybe she thought I was deaf too.”
As we shuffled to the nearest bus stop past twilight, Sara admitted it was not pain she felt but a biting cold that pierced right through to the bone, because the doctor had not been able to work fast enough.
“I asked for a second blanket because I was shivering so much I could hear my teeth clicking. A more experienced doctor came to the rescue and had to assist her.”
After locating the cataract the doctor suctioned it out and placed an artificial lens in place of the original one.
“That also took a long time because she could not put it in properly. She was being assisted in this too.
The other doctor kept telling her ‘you have to slide it a wee-bit higher.’ That done I heard her saying, ‘There, now she is focusing, you see?’ Really?. And she was called a specialist? Dear God!”
I could find no words to say to Sara. As we trundled back home, dusk had folded Jakarta and its environs into a romantic shade of evening colors. I took the hand of my old and trusted servant in my hand saying she would soon be able to use her left eye again when the hospital had undone the eye bandage.
It did not turn out that way though. Sara’s left eye did improve, but very little.
“I’m so sorry,” I said after post-cataract surgery treatment lasting two months proved to have been in vain.
“I’m not sorry,” she quipped.
“My new eye presents a vision of you without any harsh lines on your face like a picture taken with a soft lens. Besides, I got free eye surgery and a laser eye check-up, and that’s something.”
