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Authors: Rosie Thomas
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harsh colours and stink of it all, the flies, the crippled bodies and the raw poverty she saw every day had almost unpinned her. When she tried to confess her dismay to Evan, he had looked annoyed.
‘The work is what we are here to do, my dear, with God’s help. There is no time for considering ourselves or our misgivings.’
She had begun to retort that she wasn’t afraid of work, and she wasn’t being self-absorbed, she had only wanted to talk about what they both saw all the time. But she had stopped herself. Evan didn’t want to talk about anything except the routine of their days. He had a focus on his work that was so tight, so unwavering, that she began to suspect he was afraid of where speculation might lead him.
In any case, her confusion didn’t last. In time she began to see a vitality in this seething country, a kind of dogged appetite that brought babies bawling into the world amid all the desperation, reflected in the eyes of a beggar as he reached up with cupped hands to receive a half- pice coin, in the backs of women bent double in the fields, and in the man who sat all day beside the churning traffic with his spirit stove, brewing delicious chai to sell to passers-by. Nerys used to stop on her daily walk and drink a cup with this man, sitting on his little three-legged stool while he squatted in the dust. Unfortunately she couldn’t see how any of these people might be affected, for either better or worse, by the Christian message that she was supposed to be bringing them. Their situations were nearly all desperate and they had their various religions already. What difference could a merely different one make?
It was a dry, unwelcome seed that took root in her, but its growth was rapid.
Evan worked all the time, preaching, writing, reading and travelling to outlying villages. Even with teaching at the school and trying nervously to deal with the house servants, whosegrinning expectation of her orders she found embarrassing, Nerys had plenty of hours to spare. She began helping out at the hospital where the nurses offered much livelier company than the other mission wives.
Her favourite duty was in the labour and delivery room. Her memory of the first baby she saw being born was as vivid as if it had happened that morning. The mother was younger than she was, had borne two children already and had been screaming for two long hours while Nerys sponged her face and struggled to soothe her. But as soon as he was born she reached her arms out for this new infant with a smile that filled the room. Nerys had had to turn aside and wipe her own eyes with a towel.
Her hands slid lower now, an involuntary movement that she tried and failed to suppress, over the corrugated twin arches of her lower ribs, to rest in the slack bowl beneath them. Since her own first pregnancy had miscarried, less than a month ago, she had tried to tell herself that there would soon be another baby on the way. She felt sick and exhausted, and it had taken more than long enough to conceive this one, but still, they would manage, wouldn’t they?
Unless this was God’s way of punishing her for not believing in Him.
Nerys smiled grimly into the darkness. If she didn’t believe, how could miscarriage now or failure to conceive again at some time in the future be a divine punishment for anything?
Think about something else, she advised herself. Her husband sighed in his sleep and curled on his side, facing away from her.
When Evan had been offered the chance to go all the way up to Leh, where the resident Welsh missionary had died of dysentery, he had explained to Nerys that they did not have to go. They should see it as an offer, an opportunity for greater good, not an order. The posting would be a hard one, he warned. Leh was at a considerable altitude; it could be reached by only two possible roads, and those were closed by snow forat least half of each year. They would probably be among only a tiny handful of other Western
‘The work is what we are here to do, my dear, with God’s help. There is no time for considering ourselves or our misgivings.’
She had begun to retort that she wasn’t afraid of work, and she wasn’t being self-absorbed, she had only wanted to talk about what they both saw all the time. But she had stopped herself. Evan didn’t want to talk about anything except the routine of their days. He had a focus on his work that was so tight, so unwavering, that she began to suspect he was afraid of where speculation might lead him.
In any case, her confusion didn’t last. In time she began to see a vitality in this seething country, a kind of dogged appetite that brought babies bawling into the world amid all the desperation, reflected in the eyes of a beggar as he reached up with cupped hands to receive a half- pice coin, in the backs of women bent double in the fields, and in the man who sat all day beside the churning traffic with his spirit stove, brewing delicious chai to sell to passers-by. Nerys used to stop on her daily walk and drink a cup with this man, sitting on his little three-legged stool while he squatted in the dust. Unfortunately she couldn’t see how any of these people might be affected, for either better or worse, by the Christian message that she was supposed to be bringing them. Their situations were nearly all desperate and they had their various religions already. What difference could a merely different one make?
It was a dry, unwelcome seed that took root in her, but its growth was rapid.
Evan worked all the time, preaching, writing, reading and travelling to outlying villages. Even with teaching at the school and trying nervously to deal with the house servants, whosegrinning expectation of her orders she found embarrassing, Nerys had plenty of hours to spare. She began helping out at the hospital where the nurses offered much livelier company than the other mission wives.
Her favourite duty was in the labour and delivery room. Her memory of the first baby she saw being born was as vivid as if it had happened that morning. The mother was younger than she was, had borne two children already and had been screaming for two long hours while Nerys sponged her face and struggled to soothe her. But as soon as he was born she reached her arms out for this new infant with a smile that filled the room. Nerys had had to turn aside and wipe her own eyes with a towel.
Her hands slid lower now, an involuntary movement that she tried and failed to suppress, over the corrugated twin arches of her lower ribs, to rest in the slack bowl beneath them. Since her own first pregnancy had miscarried, less than a month ago, she had tried to tell herself that there would soon be another baby on the way. She felt sick and exhausted, and it had taken more than long enough to conceive this one, but still, they would manage, wouldn’t they?
Unless this was God’s way of punishing her for not believing in Him.
Nerys smiled grimly into the darkness. If she didn’t believe, how could miscarriage now or failure to conceive again at some time in the future be a divine punishment for anything?
Think about something else, she advised herself. Her husband sighed in his sleep and curled on his side, facing away from her.
When Evan had been offered the chance to go all the way up to Leh, where the resident Welsh missionary had died of dysentery, he had explained to Nerys that they did not have to go. They should see it as an offer, an opportunity for greater good, not an order. The posting would be a hard one, he warned. Leh was at a considerable altitude; it could be reached by only two possible roads, and those were closed by snow forat least half of each year. They would probably be among only a tiny handful of other Western
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