The Island of the Colorblind

We met Jacob Robert, an achromatope who works at the school, in charge of ordering books and supplies. He was born in Pingelap, but emigrated to Mand in 1958 to finish high school. In 1969, he told us, he had been flown, with Entis Edward and a few others, to the National Institutes of Health in Washington for special genetic studies associated with achromatopsia – this was his first glimpse of life outside Micronesia. He was particularly intrigued, when he was there, to hear about the island of Fuur, in Denmark. He had not known there were any other islands of the colorblind in the world, and when he returned to Pohnpei, his fellow achromatopes were fascinated too. ‘It made us feel less alone,’ he said. ‘It made us feel we had brothers somewhere in the big world.’ It also started a new myth, that there was ‘a place in Finland, which gave us the achromatopsia.’ When we had heard this myth in Pingelap, we had assumed it was a new one, generated by Knut’s presence; now, as we listened to Jacob, and how he had brought back news of a place in the far north with the maskun, it became evident that the myth had arisen twenty-five years earlier and, perhaps now half forgotten, had been reanimated, given a new form and force, with Knut’s arrival.

He was intrigued to hear the story of Knut’s own childhood in Norway, so similar in many ways to his – and yet different, too. Jacob had grown up surrounded by others with the maskun and by a culture which recognized this; most achromatopes around the world grow up in complete isolation, never knowing (or even knowing of) another of their kind. Yet Knut and his brother and sister, by a rare genetic chance, had each other – they lived on an island, a colorblind island, of three.

The three of them, as adults, all achromatopic, all highly gifted, have reacted and adapted to their achromatopsia in very different ways. Knut was the firstborn, and his achromatopsia was diagnosed before he started school – but it was felt that he would never be able to see well enough to learn to read, and recommended that he (and his siblings, later) be sent to the local school for the blind. Knut rebelled at being regarded as disabled, and refused to learn Braille by touch, instead using his sight to read the raised dots, which cast tiny shadows on the page. He was severely punished for this and forced to wear a blindfold in classes. Soon after, Knut ran away from the school, but, determined to read normal print, taught himself to read at home. Finally, having convinced the school administrators that he would never make a willing student, Knut was allowed to return to regular school.

Knut’s sister, Britt, dealt with her loneliness and isolation as a child by identifying with, becoming a member of, the blind community. She flourished at the school for the blind as much as Knut hated it, becoming fluent in Braille; and she has spent her professional life as an intermediary between the blind and sighted worlds, supervising the transcription and production of books into Braille at the Norwegian Library for the Blind. Like Knut, Britt is intensely musical and auditory and loves to close her eyes and surrender herself to the nonvisual domain of music; but equally, she relaxes by doing needlework, using a jeweller’s loupe attached to her glasses, to keep her hands free.

It was now three in the afternoon – time to set back for Kolo-nia – and despite our altitude, burningly hot. While Knut sat under a shade tree to cool off, Bob and I decided to dive into the beautifully clear stream which ran nearby. Finding a flat rock under the surface, shaded by ferns, I clung onto this and let the cool waters stream over me. Downstream, a quarter of a mile or so, some of the women were washing dark, heavy clothes – the formal Sunday wear of Mand.

Refreshed by our swim, Bob and I decided to walk down the trail from the village; the others would meet us at the road below in the jeep. In the afternoon light, we were dazzled by the brilliance of oranges hanging in the trees – they seemed almost alight in the dark green foliage, like Marvell’s oranges in his poem ‘Bermudas’:

He hangs in shades the Orange bright,

Like golden Lamps in a green Night.

I felt a sudden sadness that Knut, that the achromatopes around us, could not share this startling Marvellian vision.

We had gone a couple of hundred yards when we were overtaken by a twelve-year-old boy running at top speed, fearlessly, looking like a young knight with his new sun visor. He had been squinting, looking down, avoiding the light when we saw him earlier, but now he was running in broad daylight, confidently making his way down the steep trail. He pointed to the dark visor and gave a big smile. ‘I can see, I can see!’ and then he added, ‘Come back soon!’