Father Msimungu, when he arrives in a still quite smart Golf, is young, gangly, bespectacled. He goes off to the dispensary to be robed; she joins Blanche and the other half-dozen sisters of the Order at the front of the congregation. The camera lights are already in place and trained on them. In their cruel glare she cannot fail to see how old they all are. The Sisters of Mary: a dying breed, an exhausted vocation.
Under its metal roof the chapel is already stiflingly hot. She does not know how Blanche, in her heavy outfit, bears it.
The Mass Msimungu leads is in Zulu, though here and there she is able to pick out a word of English. It starts sedately enough; but by the time of the first collect there is already a humming among the flock. Launching into his homily, Msimungu has to raise his voice to make himself heard. A baritone voice, surprising in so young a man. It seems to come from effortlessly deep in the chest.
Msimungu turns, kneels before the altar. A silence falls. Above him looms the crowned head of the tortured Christ. Then he turns and holds up the Host. There is a joyous shout from the body of worshippers. A rhythmic stamping commences that makes the wooden floor vibrate.
She feels herself swaying. The air is thick with the smell of sweat. She clasps Blanche's arm. 'I must get out!' she whispers. Blanche casts an appraising glance. 'Just a little while longer,' she whispers back, and turns away.
She takes a deep breath, trying to clear her head, but it does not help. A wave of cold seems to ascend from her toes. It rises to her face, her scalp prickles with the chill, and she is gone.
She wakes flat on her back up in a bare room she does not recognize. Blanche is there, gazing down on her, and a young woman in a white uniform. 'I am so sorry' she mumbles, struggling to sit up. 'Did I faint?'
The young woman puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder. 'It is all right,' she says. 'But you must rest.'
She casts her eyes up at Blanche. 'I am so sorry,' she repeats. 'Too many continents.'
Blanche regards her quizzically
'Too many continents,' she repeats. 'Too many burdens.' Her voice sounds thin to her ears, far away. 'I haven't been eating properly,' she says. 'That must be the explanation.'
But is that the explanation? Is a two-day stomach upset enough to cause a faint? Blanche would know. Blanche must have experience of fasting, of fainting. For her own part, she suspects her indisposition is not just of a bodily order. If she were so disposed, she might be welcoming these experiences on a new continent, making something of them. But she is not so disposed. That is what her body is saying, in its own way All too strange and too much, her body is complaining: I want to be back in my old surroundings, in a life I am familiar with.
Withdrawal: that is what she is suffering from. Fainting: a withdrawal symptom. It reminds her of someone. Of whom? Of that pale English girl in
The driver is waiting. She is packed and ready, still feeling a little pale, a little wobbly.'Goodbye,' she says to Blanche.'Goodbye, Sister Blanche. I see what you meant. Nothing like St Patrick's on a Sunday morning. I hope they didn't capture me on film, keeling over like that.'
Blanche smiles. 'If they did, I'll ask them to chop it out.' There is a pause between the two of them. She thinks:
' Elizabeth,' says Blanche (is there something new in her tone, something softer, or is she just imagining it?), 'remember it is their gospel, their Christ. It is what they have made of him, they, the ordinary people. What they have made of him and what he has let them make of him. Out of love. And not just in Africa. You will see scenes just like that repeated in Brazil, in the Philippines, even in Russia. Ordinary people do not want the Greeks. They do not want the realm of pure forms. They do not want marble statues. They want someone who suffers like them. Like them and for them.'
Jesus. The Greeks. It is not what she expected, not what she wanted, not at this last minute when they are saying goodbye for perhaps the last time. Something unrelenting about Blanche. Unto death. She should have learned her lesson. Sisters never let go of each other. Unlike men, who let go all too easily. Locked to the end in Blanche's embrace.
'So: Thou hast triumphed, O pale Galilean,' she says, not trying to hide the bitterness in her voice. 'Is that what you want to hear me say, Blanche?'
