The Book of Strange New Things(40)
The Mirah situation is under control now. I got together with a Muslim social worker, Khadija, who liaises with the imam at Mirah’s local mosque. Basically we’re trying to sell it to the imam as a human decency issue (the husband’s violence/lack of respect) rather than a religion vs religion issue. It’s hardcore diplomacy, as you can imagine, like brokering a peace deal between Syria and the USA. But Khadija is brilliant.
I got a message from USIC saying you’re fine. How would they know? I suppose they mean they can verify you didn’t get vaporised. The message was sent by Alex Grainger. Have you met him? Tell him he can’t spell ‘liaise’. Or maybe there’s a simplified American way of spelling it now? Bitch, bitch, bitch. But I’ve been tolerant all day, honest! (Very difficult new patient on the ward. Supposedly transferred down from Psych for medical reasons but I think they were just desperate to get rid of her.) Anyway, I feel like being outrageously unfair to someone for just three minutes, to let it rip. I won’t, of course. I’ll be very nice, even to Joshua when he wakes me up AGAIN in the small hours.
Seriously, I’m missing you terribly. Wish I could spend just a few minutes in your arms. (OK, maybe an hour.) Weather is better, lovely sunshine today, but it’s not cheering me up. Went to the supermarket for some comfort food (chocolate mousse, tiramisu, you know the sort of thing). Turns out lots of other people had the same idea. Everything I wanted was out of stock, a blank space on the shelf. Settled for one of those rollette things with the fake cream inside.
Head full of Maldives tragedy, stomach full of dessert. What fortunate people we are in our Western playground . . . We watch the footage of foreign dead on video clips and then mosey out to the supermarket in search of our favourite treats. Of course when I say ‘we’, I can’t speak for you right now. You are far from all of this. Far from me.
Ignore this self-pitying prattle, I’ll be fine by tomorrow. Let me know how you’re going. I’m so proud of you.
Kisses, hugs (I wish!)
Beatrice
PS: Want a cat?
My dear Bea, he wrote back.
I hardly know what to say. How dreadful about the Maldives. The scale of such a tragedy is, as you say, almost impossible to imagine. I’ll pray for them.
Those sentences, short as they were, took him a long while to write. A full three to five minutes for each. He racked his brains for an additional sentence that would make a dignified transition from the disaster to his own glad tidings. Nothing came.
I have had my first meeting with an Oasan native, he went on, trusting that Bea would understand. Contrary to my wildest hopes they are hungry for Christ. They know of the Bible. I didn’t have mine with me at the time – that’ll teach me never to go anywhere without it! I don’t know why I left it behind. I suppose I assumed that the first visit would be basically reconnaissance, and that the response would be negative. But as Jesus says in John 4,’ Say not ye, There are yet four months before the harvest; behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes and look upon the fields, for they are ripe already!’
The settlement is not at all what I expected. There is no evidence of industrialisation, it could be the Middle East in the middle ages (with different architecture, of course). No electricity, apparently! It’s also in the middle of nowhere, a long, long way from the USIC base. I don’t think it will be feasible for me to live here and travel there on a regular basis. I will have to go and live with the Oasans. And as soon as possible. I haven’t discussed any of the practicalities. (Yes, yes, I know . . . I really need you with me. But God is well aware that I’m clueless in that area.) I’ll have to trust that everything will fall into place. There seems plenty of reason to hope that it will!
The Oasans – assuming the one I met was typical – are average height and look remarkably like us, except for their faces which are a gruesome sort of jumble, impossible to describe really, like foetuses. You don’t know what to look at when you’re talking to them. They speak English with a strong accent. Well, the one I met did. Maybe he’s the only one who speaks any English, and my original assumption – that I would spend several months learning the language before I made any headway – will still be borne out. But I have a feeling that God has been at work here already, more than I dared imagine.
Anyway, I’m going straight back there as soon as I can. I was going to say ‘tomorrow’, but with the periods of daylight being several ‘days’ long here, the word ‘tomorrow’ is a problem. I must find out what the USIC personnel do to get round that one. I’m sure they have a solution. I’ll ask Grainger during the drive, if I remember. My mind’s a bit over-excited, as you can imagine! I’m just raring to go back to that settlement, take my place amongst these extraordinary people and satisfy their thirst for the Gospel.
What a privilege to
He stopped typing, midway through ‘What a privilege to serve the Lord’. He had remembered the Maldives, or, more to the point, he’d become aware that he’d forgotten all about them in his enthusiasm. Bea’s uneasy, almost anxious mood – so unlike her! – was at odds with his exuberance, like a funeral dirge interrupted by the cheery hootings of a passing carnival. Re-reading the opening line of his letter, he could see that his acknowledgement of her distress was pretty cursory. In normal circumstances, he would have embraced her; the pressure of his arms against her back and the nudge of his cheek against her hair would have said it all. But now, the written word was all he had.