Chewing for a moment, she said, “Not exactly. I know you have issues with your good fortune, that you wonder why you were so lucky while many around you were not, why you can’t understand the sequence, is that the right word?”
“Yes.”
“Remembering the sequence or chain of events, or at least remembering exactly the decision you made that made you successful. Looking back, trying to remember only makes it all seem even more out of control, does it not, Monsieur?” she asked, staring intently at Hanley, who was again twirling the wounded and bitter pear by the stem. “We don’t understand, because, I believe, we are not meant to understand, at least not fully understand. In each of our lives, there are too many factors that affect what happens to us each day, things we are not even aware of. A man in a car bumps another man in a car and one of them is delayed in placing an order for airplane parts and so another man places the order for him, but calls your company instead. You are not aware of the two cars hitting each other, but you benefit from it. How can you know? These mysteries happen a million times each day, endless mysteries. They are God’s hand in our lives and we are not meant to know. We are expected to accept this fact. Mysteries flow from God’s hand as sand from the hand of a child playing on a beach.” Tearing off another piece of bread, Sister Marie Claire looked down at her bowl, dipped the bread in the broth and ate it. A nurse, listening to the nun, watched the American’s face, saw his clenched jaw and the rapid scratching of his finger across the table top. Hanley picked up the pear by the stem and twirled it furiously in his fingers.
“I had an uncle, he’s dead now, who told me I needed to give to others as a form of payment for any good fortune I have. He said that working hard, being a good person was not enough, but was a start. He called it ‘the debt’ and that I needed to remember that as I got older. I loved him, but I wish he had not said that to me. I listened, hell, I was just a kid, I’m surprised I listened. What he said stuck in my head like a splinter, festered, never working itself out. The combination of wondering why I was so lucky and what I needed to do to pay back that debt has eaten away at me for years,” he said, the pear spinning between his fingers.
A sound came from outside the dining hall, causing everyone to stop talking, the small hums and creaks of the building vying for the attention of the diners, then the sound came again, the low roar of a lion, distant, causing the skin on Hanley’s neck to crawl.
“I wish I had my 8 mm with me,” one of the doctors said. The listening continued for a moment, then the nun said to Hanley. “What your uncle said is true, we all must give. We all must give, no matter that our luck is good. Even when our luck is bad, we should give. Giving is all that matters. It is the taking that matters little.”
Gathering her bowl and spoon, the nun stood, moving to a sink in a corner of the room where she rinsed her bowl in a tub of water and placed on a small table nearby. Squeezing the shoulder of a doctor as she passed, Sister Marie Claire left the dining hall, the screen door’s sharp bang signaling her departure. Hanley watched, thinking about what she said, concerned that he was making little progress in finding his answer. Maybe there was no answer.
***
Insomnia was nothing new to the American. The rickety porch moved as he moved, sitting with his legs out stretched, propped against the door into the barracks near his room. Small red lights pierced the darkness beyond the compound, campfires of irregular shapes provided irregular warmth, he supposed, to the poor people sleeping nearby. It was the middle of the night, a small amount of chill to the air, comfortable enough to sleep if he could sleep.
After the nun left the dining hall, Hanley sat by himself for a time, listening to the talk of the doctors, nurses and nuns, who smoked and told stories of their lives back home in Košice or Charleroi. When he got up to leave, the talk had turned to the church’s role in Sudan and in the plight of its children. As he was rinsing his bowl in the tub, he heard a doctor say, “The Diocese is still dealing with its troublemaker,” which caused a momentary silence around the table. A nurse asked if she had been a rebel in the convent or had Africa brought this trait out in her. The conversation stopped for a moment, a break Hanley saw as an opportunity to leave. He said goodnight over his shoulder as he left, the silence changing to murmurs and then laughter.
“God, what am I doing here?” he asked softly, keeping the question on the porch and to himself. No one cares and why should they. “Perhaps you’re making too much of this,” he said aloud. His approach to the nun had not worked. She saw his need for an answer as purely self-interest. I must try something different, he thought. But what?
Still, the question remained. Was he here for the wrong reason, here to help himself more than to help others? He would talk to the nun again. He would work on his approach.
10
The next afternoon, Hanley sat listening to Father Robineau
