A Burnt Out Case (11 page)

In the church there was a sigh and a shuffle as the congregation sat. The doctor said, ‘One day I’ll screw some money out of someone and have a few wheel-chairs made for the worst cases. He would need a special one, of course. Could a famous ecclesiastical architect design a chair for swollen balls?’

‘I’ll get you a blueprint,’ Querry said.

The voice of the Superior reached them from across the road. He was preaching in a mixture of French and Creole; even a Flemish phrase crept in here and there, and a word or two that Querry assumed to be Mongo or some other tongue of the river tribes.

‘And I tell you truth I was ashamed when this man he said to me, “You Klistians are all big thieves – you steal this, you steal that, you steal all the time. Oh, I know you don’t steal money. You don’t creep into Thomas Olo’s hut and take his new radio-set, but you are thieves all the same. Worse thieves than that. You see a man who lives with one wife and doesn’t beat her and looks after her when she gets a bad pain from medicines at the hospital, and you say that’s Klistian love. You go to the courthouse and you hear a good judge, who say to the piccin that stole sugar from the white man’s cupboard, ‘You’re a very sorry piccin. I not punish you, and you, you will not come here again. No more sugar palaver,’ and you say that’s Klistian mercy. But you are a mighty big thief when you say that – for you steal this man’s love and that man’s mercy. Why do you not say when you see man with knife in his back bleeding and dying, ‘There’s Klistian anger’?”’

‘I really believe he’s answering something I said to him,’ Querry said with a twitch of the mouth that Colin was beginning to recognize as a rudimentary smile, ‘but I didn’t put it quite like that.’

‘Why not say when Henry Okapa got a new bicycle and someone came and tore his brake, “There’s Klistian envy?” You are like a man who steals only the good fruit and leaves the bad fruit rotting on the tree.

‘All right. You tell me I’m number one thief, but I say you make big mistake. Any man may defend himself before his judge. All of you in this church, you are my judges now, and this is my defence.’

‘It’s a long time since I listened to a sermon,’ Doctor Colin said. ‘It brings back the long tedious hours of childhood, doesn’t it?’

‘You pray to Yezu,’ the Superior was saying. He twisted his mouth from habit as though he were dispatching a cheroot from one side to the other. ‘But Yezu is not just a holy man. Yezu is God and Yezu made the world. When you make a song you are in the song, when you bake bread you are in the bread, when you make a baby you are in the baby, and because Yezu made you, he is in you. When you love it is Yezu who loves, when you are merciful it is Yezu who is merciful. But when you hate or envy it is not Yezu, for everything that Yezu made is good. Bad things are not there – they are nothing. Hate means no love. Envy means no justice. They are just empty spaces, where Yezu ought to be.’

‘He begs a lot of questions,’ Doctor Colin said.

‘Now I tell you that when a man loves, he must be Klistian. When a man is merciful he must be Klistian. In this village do you think you are the only Klistians – you who come to church? There is a doctor who lives near the well beyond Marie Akimbu’s house and he prays to Nzambe and he makes bad medicine. He worships a false God, but once when a piccin was ill and his father and mother were in the hospital he took no money; he gave bad medicine but he took no money: he made a big God palaver with Nzambe for the piccin but took no money. I tell you then he was a Klistian, a better Klistian than the man who broke Henry Okapa’s bicycle. He did not believe in Yezu, but he a Klistian. I am not a thief, who steal away his charity to give to Yezu. I give back to Yezu only what Yezu made. Yezu made love, he made mercy. Everybody in the world has something that Yezu made. Everybody in the world is that much a Klistian. So how can I be a thief? There is no man so wicked he never once in his life show in his heart something that God made.’

‘That would make us both Christians,’ Querry said. ‘Do you feel a Christian, Colin?’

‘I’m not interested,’ Colin said. ‘I wish Christianity could reduce the price of cortisone, that’s all. Let’s go.’

‘I hate simplifications,’ Querry said, and sat on.

The Superior said, ‘I do not tell you to do good things for the love of God. That is very hard. Too hard for most of us. It is much easier to show mercy because a child weeps or to love because a girl or a young man pleases your eye. That’s not wrong, that’s good. Only remember that the love you feel and the mercy you show were made in you by God. You must go on using them and perhaps if you pray Klistian prayers it makes it easier for you to show mercy a second time and a third time . . .’

‘And to love a second and a third girl,’ Querry said.

‘Why not?’ the doctor asked.

‘Mercy . . . love . . .’ Querry said. ‘Hasn’t he ever known people to kill with love and kill with mercy? When a priest speaks those words they sound as though they had no meaning outside the vestry and the guild-meetings.’

‘I think that is the opposite of what he’s trying to say.’

‘Does he want us to blame God for love? I’d rather blame man. If there is a god, let him be innocent at least. Come away, Colin, before you are converted and believe yourself an unconscious Christian.’

They rose and walked past the mutter of the
Credo
towards the dispensary.

‘Poor man,’ Colin said. ‘It’s a hard life, and he doesn’t get many thanks. He does his best for everybody. If he believes I’m a crypto-Christian it’s convenient for me, isn’t it? There are many priests who wouldn’t be happy to work with an atheist for a colleague.’

‘He should have learnt from you that it’s possible for an intelligent man to make his life without a god.’

‘My life is easier than his – I have a routine that fills my day. I know when a man is cured by the negative skin-tests. There are no skin-tests for a good action. What were your motives, Querry, when you followed your boy into the forest?’

‘Curiosity. Pride. Not Klistian love, I assure you.’

Colin said, ‘All the same you talk as if you’d lost something you’d loved. I haven’t. I think I have always liked my fellow men. Liking is a great deal safer than love. It doesn’t demand victims. Who is your victim, Querry?’

‘I have none now. I’m safe. I’m cured, Colin,’ he added without conviction.

II

Father Paul took a helping of what was meant to be a cheese soufflé, then poured himself out a glass of water to ease it down. He said, ‘Querry is wise today to lunch with the doctor. Can’t you persuade the sisters to vary the
plat du jour
? Sunday after all is a feast-day.’

‘This is meant to be a treat for us,’ the Superior said. ‘They believe we look forward to it all through the week. I wouldn’t like to disillusion the poor things. They use a lot of eggs.’

All the cooking for the priests’ house was done by the nuns and the food had to be carried a quarter of a mile in the sun. It had never occurred to the nuns that this might be disastrous for soufflés and omelettes and even for after-dinner coffee.

Father Thomas said, ‘I do not think Querry minds much about his food.’ He was the only priest in the leproserie with whom the Superior felt ill at ease; he still seemed to carry with him the strains and anxieties of the seminary. He had left it longer ago than any of the others, but he seemed doomed to a perpetual and unhappy youth; he was ill at ease with men who had grown up and were more concerned over the problems of the electric-light plant or the quality of the brickmaking than over the pursuit of souls. Souls could wait. Souls had eternity.

‘Yes, he’s a good enough guest,’ the Superior said, steering a little away from the course that he suspected Father Thomas wished to pursue.

‘He’s a remarkable man,’ Father Thomas said, struggling to regain direction.

‘We have enough funds now,’ the Superior said at large, ‘for an electric fan in the delivery-ward.’

‘We’ll have air-conditioning in our rooms yet,’ Father Jean said, ‘and a drug-store and all the latest movie magazines including pictures of Brigitte Bardot.’ Father Jean was tall, pale, and concave with a beard which struggled like an unpruned hedge. He had once been a brilliant moral theologian before he joined the Order and now he carefully nurtured the character of a film-fan, as though it would help him to wipe out an ugly past.

‘I’d rather have a boiled egg for Sunday lunch,’ Father Paul said.

‘You wouldn’t like stale eggs boiled,’ Father Jean said, helping himself to more soufflé; in spite of his cadaverous appearance he had a Flemish appetite.

‘They wouldn’t be stale,’ Father Joseph said, ‘if they only learnt to manage the chickens properly. I’d be quite ready to put some of my men on to building them proper houses for intensive production. It would be easy enough to carry the electric power down from their houses . . .’

Brother Philippe spoke for the first time. He was always reluctant to intrude on the conversation of men who he considered belonged to another less mundane world. ‘Electric fans, chicken houses: be careful, father, or you will be overloading the dynamos before you’ve done.’

The Superior was aware that Father Thomas was smouldering at his elbow. He said tactfully, ‘And the new classroom, father? Have you everything that’s needed?’

‘Everything but a catechist who knows the first thing about his faith.’

‘Oh well, so long as he can teach the alphabet. First things first.’

‘I should have thought the Catechism was rather more important than the alphabet.’

‘Rycker was on the telephone this morning,’ Father Jean said, coming to the Superior’s rescue.

‘What did he want?’

‘Querry of course. He said he had a message – something about an Englishman, but he refused to give it. He threatened to be over one day soon, when the ferries are working again. I asked him if he could bring me some film magazines, but he said he didn’t read them. He also wants to borrow Father Garrigou-Lagrange on Predestination.’

‘There are moments,’ the Superior said with moderation, ‘when I almost regret M. Querry’s arrival.’

‘Surely we should be very glad,’ Father Thomas said, ‘of any small inconvenience he may bring us. We don’t live a very troubled life.’ The helping of soufflé he had taken remained untasted on his plate. He kneaded a piece of bread into a hard pellet and washed it down like a pill. ‘You can’t expect people to leave us alone while he is here. It’s not only that he’s a famous man. He’s a man of profound faith.’

‘I hadn’t noticed it,’ Father Paul said. ‘He wasn’t at Mass this morning.’ The Superior lit another cheroot.

‘Oh yes he was. I can tell you his eyes never left the altar. He was sitting across the way with the sick. That’s as good a way of attending Mass as sitting up in front with his back to the lepers, isn’t it?’

Father Paul opened his mouth to reply, but the Superior stopped him with a covert wink. ‘At any rate it is a charitable way of putting it,’ the Superior said. He balanced his cheroot on the edge of his plate and rose to give thanks. Then he crossed himself and picked up his cheroot again. ‘Father Thomas,’ he said, ‘can you spare me a minute?’

He led the way to his room and installed Father Thomas in the one easy chair that he kept for visitors by the filing-cabinet. Father Thomas watched him tensely, sitting bolt upright, like a cobra watching a mongoose. ‘Have a cheroot, father?’

‘You know I don’t smoke.’

‘Of course. I’m sorry. I was thinking of someone else. Is that chair uncomfortable? I’m afraid the springs may have gone. It’s foolish having springs in the tropics, but it was given us with a lot of junk . . .’

‘It’s quite comfortable, thank you.’

‘I’m sorry you don’t find your catechist satisfactory. It’s not so easy to find a good one now that we have three classes for boys. The nuns seem to manage better than we do.’

‘Only if you consider Marie Akimbu a suitable teacher.’

‘She works very hard I’m told by Mother Agnes.’

‘Certainly, if you call having a baby every year by a different man hard work. I can’t see that it’s right allowing her to teach with her cradle in the class. She’s pregnant again. What kind of an example is that?’

‘Oh well, you know,
autres pays autres mœurs
. We are here to help, father, not condemn, and I don’t think we can teach the sisters their business. They know the young woman better than we do. Here, you must remember, there are few people who know their own fathers. The children belong to the mother. Perhaps that’s why they prefer us, and the Mother of God, to the Protestants.’ The Superior searched for words. ‘Let me see, father, you’ve been with us now – it must be over two years?’

‘Two years next month.’

‘You know you don’t eat enough. That soufflé wasn’t exactly inviting . . .’

‘I have no objection to the soufflé. I happen to be fasting for a private intention.’

‘Of course you have your confessor’s consent?’

‘It wasn’t necessary for just one day, father.’

‘The soufflé day was a good day to choose then, but you know this climate is very difficult for Europeans, especially at the beginning. By the time our leave comes at the end of six years we have become accustomed to it. Sometimes I almost dread going home. The first years . . . one mustn’t drive oneself.’

‘I am not aware of driving myself unduly, father.’

‘Our first duty, you know, is to survive, even if that means taking things a little more easily. You have a great spirit of self-sacrifice, father. It’s a wonderful quality, but it’s not always what’s required on the battlefield. The good soldier doesn’t court death.’

‘I am quite unaware . . .’

‘We all of us have a feeling of frustration sometimes. Poor Marie Akimbu, we have to take the material we have to hand. I’m not sure that you’d find better material in some of the parishes of Liège, though sometimes I’ve wondered whether perhaps you might be happier there. The African mission is not for everyone. If a man feels himself ill-adapted here, there’s no defeat in asking for a transfer. Do you sleep properly, father?’