He carried a magnificent Coptic cross in massive native silver, set with
carnelians and other semi-precious stones.
Both Royan and Tessay dropped on their knees in front of him to ask for
his blessing. He slapped their cheeks lightly with the cross and
genuflected over them, mumbling his benediction in Amharic. Then he
ushered them into the interior.
The walls were covered with a magnificent display of paintings in
brilliant primary colours. In the lantern light they blazed like
gemstones. There was a strong Byzantine flavour to the style: the
saints' eyes were huge and slanted, with great golden halos over their
heads. Above the altar, with its tinsel and brass furnishing, the Virgin
cradled her infant while the three wise men and a host of angels knelt
in adoration. Nicholas slipped his Polaroid camera from the pocket of
his jacket and adjusted the flash. He wandered around the church
photographing these murals, while Tessay and Royan knelt before the
altar side by side.
Once he had finished his photography Nicholas found a seat on the
hand-hewn wooden pews and sat quietly watching their intent faces which
the candlelight touched with golden highlights, and he was moved by the
beauty of the moment.
'I wish I had that kind of faith,' he thought, as he had so often
before. 'It must be a comfort in the hard times. I wish I were able to
pray like that for Rosalind and the girls.' He could not stay longer,
and he went out and sat on the church portico where he watched the night
sky.
In these high altitudes, in the thin unpolluted air, the stars were such
a dazzling blaze that it was difficult to pick out the individual
constellations. After a while his sadness abated. It was good to be back
in Africa.
When the two women emerged at last from the dark interior, Nicholas gave
the old priest a one hundred birr note and a Polaroid photograph of
himself which the old man clearly valued above the money. Then the three
of them walked back down the hill together in companionable silence.
icky!' Royan shook him awake. When he sat up and switched on his torch,
he saw that she had thrown the woollen shawl over a pair of men's
striped pyjamas before she had come into his tent.
'What is it?' he asked, but before she could answer he heard the sound
of a hoarse and angry voice shouting invective in the night, and then
the unmistakable thud of a clenched fist striking flesh and bone.
'He's beating her.' Royan's voice was tight with out-' rage. 'You have
to make him stop.'
There was a cry of pain after the blow, and then sobs.
Nicholas hesitated. Only a fool interferes between a man and his wife,
and his reward usually is to have them unite and turn savagely upon him.
'You must do something, Nicky, please., Reluctantly he swung his legs
out of the cot and stood up. He slept in'boxer shorts, and he did not
bother to find his shoes. She followed him, also on bare feet, to the
end of the grove where Boris's tent stood beyond the dining tent.
There was a lantern still burning within, and it threw magnified shadows
on the canvas walls. He saw that Boris had his wife 'by the hair and was
