Without Lifting A Finger

The Superior said, ‘We all analyse motives too much. I said that once to Father Thomas. You remember what Pascal said, that a man who starts looking for God has already found him. The same may be true of love—when we look for it, perhaps we’ve already found it.’

Nobody cared that a small dissident group who had nothing to do with the local tribe sang their own hymns apart. Only the doctor, who had once worked in the Lower Congo, recognized them for what they were, trouble-makers from the coast more than a thousand kilometres away. It was unlikely that any of the lepers could understand them, so he let them be. The only sign of their long journey by path and water and road was an unfamiliar stack of bicycles up a side-path into the bush which he had happened to take that morning. ‘E ku Kinshasa ka bazeyi ko: E ku Luozi ka bazeyi ko….’ ‘In Kinshasa they know nothing: In Luozi they know nothing.’ The proud song of superiority went on: superiority to their own people, to the white man, to the Christian god, to everyone beyond their own circle of six, all of them wearing the peaked caps that advertised Polo beer. ‘In the Upper Congo they know nothing: In heaven they know nothing: Those who revile the Spirit know nothing: The Chiefs know nothing. Th...

Parkinson leaned forward on the bed and then swayed back like a Chinese wobbling toy made in the likeness of the fat God of Prosperity. He said, ‘Do you consider that the love of God or the love of humanity is your principal driving force, Querry? What in your opinion is the future of Christianity? Has the Sermon on the Mount influenced your decision to give your life to the lepers? Who is your favourite saint? Do you believe in the efficacy of prayer?’ He began to laugh, the great belly rolling like a dolphin. ‘Do miracles still occur? Have you yet visited Fatima?’

‘There are enough problems without sex I can assure you. St Paul wrote, didn’t he, that it was better to marry than burn. Marie will stay young long enough to save me from the furnace.’ He added quickly, ‘Of course I’m only joking. We have to joke, don’t we, about serious things. At the bottom of my heart I believe very profoundly in love.’ He made the claim as some men might claim to believe in fairies.