The Leper Spy (30 page)

He wrote to doctor friends, priests, officials at Carville, asking if anyone had seen her, if anyone knew her whereabouts. “If she is dead,” he wrote, “may I ask you please to return this letter to me at the above address with a note of the date of death?”

A month later, he received an envelope postmarked Madrid, Spain.

25 September 1970

Dear Doctor Eloesser,

Dr. Paul Fasal sent me your letter. The reason most people think I have died is because I have tried very hard to efface the past. I simply want to forget it! It was too traumatic and has given me no end of heartbreak. Joey Leaumax is my legal name now—neither Miss nor Mrs. Joey could be a boy's name. When I left the hospital in 1957 from Carville, it took me months to find a job and I was without funds.

Whenever I said I had been in a hospital for ten years, employers looked at me as if I was some ex-criminal—I had to lie about the past to land a job—I began to invent a past. Me, who was so particular about integrity and truth and all the rest. But I just had to do it. It cost me money, time and grit to convince Uncle Sam I could be a first-rate citizen. No, I was an ex-patient, not good enough to be a US citizen. But finally, I became one. I also went hungry a good many times because I got fired from jobs whenever the past cropped up. (Can you imagine being hungry after WWII was over?) I was broke all the time. Then I was hired by Levi Strauss & Co. in the Complaint and Adjustment Department—ironical and amusing—all day long buyers and customers complained and insulted me because I had an accent. At any rate I devised a nice way to pacify them but it is a long story, so I'll tell you another time. The Haases (Walter Haas, president) were informed about me and called me into the office. However, they were very kind and understanding. That was the turning point. However, some of the employees were not very nice. I decided to look for another job with a good working recommendation from Levi Strauss. I became secretary to a vice president in a big bank. Later, I took a job with the International Engineering Corp., a subsidiary of one of the world's greatest engineering constructors, Morrison Knudsen, as personnel in charge of their library. I loved that job and was paid, for the first time, a really decent salary.

It was then that I decided to resume my education. This was in 1965. I applied for a scholarship on the strength of the entrance examination which I did very well. I didn't have enough money. I returned to school and did part time jobs at San Francisco State College, typing, filing, etc. You may well imagine how it was to go back to
school after being away 18 years. All my classmates were 19 and 20 year-olds. This was good for me and they kept me on my toes, but my thinking had been dulled and it needed to be oiled and worked on. That freshman year was the hardest, but I came through. In 1967–68 during my junior year, I was selected for study abroad—I had just started taking Spanish but I passed the Princeton test—it cost 1,800 dollars—I got all my savings which was about 900 and applied for a loan to pay the rest (it was a federally insured loan, so I don't begin paying until I teach—it better be soon or I'll be needing a cane to reach school). After a year here, I decided I needed another year if I were to reach that level of understanding and some dexterity in the language. I applied for an extension and was given it. I applied for another loan.

I graduated last June, got my B.A. with excellent grades, 4-As and 2-Bs. Not bad for an old lady, eh? Early this year I made an application to the Middlebury Graduate School in Spain for my master's—I was accepted. That was a gamble because I don't have any money. Unfortunately my application for loan got delayed by the mail strike and it came too late for deadline. I applied for another federally insured student loan and the bank just wrote to say all I can have is $1,000. $850 of that goes to tuition and $150 is not even enough for 3-months room and board. I have been writing people I know asking them to help me out. I need at least 7,000 pesetas to live. Room and board—the least expensive—is 5,500 pesetas, but I'll need books, supplies, laundry, etc. One good friend promised to send me $20 each month and another $10. I am looking for an hour or so a day teaching-English job which should net me at least 3,000 pesetas. The $30 plus the possible 3,000 pesetas is only 5,100 pesetas—not even enough for my room and board. Oh
well, something will turn up. So far, the good Lord has provided for me.

I am still alive and full of the zest for life. I hope I will be able to earn my master's—it will be until June here, and from June to September in Middlebury, Vermont, where I will get my certificate. Then, Deo Volente, I may hopefully teach. It will be nice to earn some money again and not to be dependent upon the kind charity of my friends and the loan department of Uncle Sam. I now owe the Student Loan Department over $4,000—when I start teaching they will deduct about $50 each time I get a check. But it will all have been worth it! I am sending you one of my carnet photos—I look horrible in it but these carnet photos never make you look half-way decent. If you want to write me, just address it Joey Leaumax at the above address. I almost forgot, what is it I can do for you? Do tell.

Kindest personal regards,
Joey

Josefina Guerrero, 1970.
Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California.

I
f you could slow down that last morning, June 18, 1996, as she lay dying quiet and alone in the bustling capital of a country that had forgotten who she was and what she had done, if you could reverse the record of her seventy-eight years and spin it backward with your finger, you might start to see a familiar story arc develop. A woman serving others, quietly waiting in the wings for her moment to do something great, then standing to the challenge, then being honored and remembered in death.

This is not that story, but if you follow the trajectory backward, you see on her deathbed a woman who had chosen to be alone for more than three decades, who had shucked her given name, who had disappeared completely from the headlines, whose obituary made no mention of the moments that defined her, the fighting of two different but important wars. She had chosen to be forgotten. The three hundred friends and correspondents in her address books had never learned of her origins. No generals sat at her bedside. No cardinals graced her hospital doorsill. You still wonder about heroes. As George Washington University Medical Center faded from her eyes, you wonder if her ears caught the strains of
Daphnis et Chloé
or
Clair de lune.

See her behind the folds of the curtains at the Kennedy Center, a smile on her lips as the music comes upon her, then kneeling at
Mass at St. Stephen Martyr, then lost in the flows of humanity on the sidewalks of DC. You see her on a park bench in Paris, then London. She pawns her Medal of Freedom for travel money. See her giving books to the children of friends, for she had no children of her own. Before that, see her in the Peace Corps, a volunteer in 1976, teaching at the national university in El Salvador, serving as a professor in the foreign language department, volunteering every Saturday to teach children English at the local parish. In similar roles in Niger, always helping. Then in school in Middlebury and Madrid and earlier in San Francisco, trying to make herself a better citizen. See her receiving word that her daughter has gone back to Manila. See her leaving the hospital at Carville, a place that will soon no longer be of use because of the advancements in treatment that came about during her stay. See her in the newspapers, a woman of culture fighting a disease she refuses to stigmatize. See her bent over a sewing machine, a typewriter, a circular saw. Then she is in San Francisco, framed by a hospital ship and surrounded by the GIs who felt like they owed her their lives. Then she waits in the saw grass at Tala Leprosarium, a place she had come to die but that she had made new. Then she is receiving a blessing from Father Forbes Monaghan, then riding in an army jeep beside Lulu Reyes, then leaving the Ateneo de Manila for the last time, fearlessly fearful.

Then the crack of war, the waft of smoke, the bomb-torn palm fronds on the gray sky, the closing of the eyes of the dead. The ministering angel walks through the cross fire, resigned to meet her savior, the stench of death on her skin. She is greeted by the starved at Santo Tomas, greeted by the GIs with the Thirty-Seventh Infantry at Malolos, greeted by the Japanese soldiers she would betray. She walks thirty-five miles to deliver a map taped between her shoulder blades. She maps the gun emplacements. She stands outside the Ateneo, looking for Father Fred Julien with money tucked into the folds of her dress. She stands beside the dust-and-ash highway, cigarettes and candy in her hands, as the shrunken and starved battling
bastards of Bataan stumble past. She stands before her five-year-old daughter, afraid to give her one last kiss. She stands before the doctor, with a prolonged headache, some fatigue, a single blemish on her cheek.

Stuff the bombs back into the chutes and the bullets back into the barrels, rebuild the rubble and retread the tires, and she is with Rene, a promising young medical student, in Manila on their wedding day, the future before them.

She is playing basketball in the schoolyard under the golden Manila sun. She is studying the expression of the jovial nun at Good Shepherd Sisters. She is listening to the music spilling out of a phonograph. She is soft and young and unblemished, imagining that she is Joan of Arc, listening for the voice of God.

M
y sincere thanks go to the following people, who heard me out, encouraged me, offered advice, gave me a place to stay, or otherwise helped shape this book: Michael Kruse, Kelley Benham French, Tom French, Lane DeGregory, Leonora LaPeter Anton, Thomas Lake, Tony Rehagen, Wright Thompson, Paige Williams, Justin Heckert, Kim Cross, Liddy Lake, Mike Wilson, John Timpe, Neil Brown, Bill Duryea, Michael Mooney, Jacqui Banaszynski, Laura Reiley, Scott Lambert, Mark Johnson, Oliver Mackson, Lance Strother, Heather Curry, Tom Curry, Mary Curry, and Tom Bernard.

My agent, Jane Dystel, is simply the best. And I deeply appreciate the crew at Chicago Review Press, including Jerome Pohlen, Lindsey Schauer, Mary Kravenas, and Meaghan Miller.

Thanks to B. J. Alderman and Donald Mounts for their invaluable research assistance, and to Elizabeth Schexnyder, curator at the National Hansen's Disease Museum, who went out of her way many times to help me tell Joey's story. I'm in debt as well to Cynthia Ma. Guerrero-Madrigal and Manuel Ma. Guerrero III for their encouragement and support. Alex Tizon, Dona Lopez, and Rodelio Juanitas helped immensely with arrangements in the Philippine Islands.

I owe my generous family—Asher, Morissey, Bey, and, most of all, Jennifer—for their patience at home and gracious help with research and reporting. I'm lucky and proud to have such great helpers who work mostly for free.

And finally, thanks to Michael Brick, my dear friend and perpetual inspiration. Everyone leaves behind a name, and you most certainly did.

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