As he slid in behind the wheel, Hanley said, “You know, I’ve never been a ‘God is my co-pilot’ kind of person. If God will let a jetliner full of people auger itself into the ground, why worry about me? I hate these seatbelts, you know?” From the corner of his eye, he saw the nun smoothly extend her seatbelt, heard the sharp click of it fastening. He struggled for a moment more, then fastened his own.
The nun said, “Let’s not waste any more time, I have much to do today.”
It was still early in the morning, the dim gray dulling the image of the distant hills. The light would soon be bright; Africa seemed to awaken quickly each day, Hanley thought. Driving away from the mission, he watched as a woman and two children, a boy and a girl, gathered wood from an area just beyond the old clinic, with its collapsed walls and exposed beams. The children were throwing small stones into the air, trying to hit them with sticks, cutting arcs in the air the way baseball players do, their faces stern with the effort. Connecting with her swing, the crack of the stick meeting the stone brought a grin to the girl’s face, a thin white line in the faint light of the early morning. Good, Hanley thought, you probably need something to smile about. The boy was not happy and swung harder at the stones.
With a small dark green zippered notebook open in her lap, the nun read from handwritten notes, tracking the words with her finger. The sentences appeared written in French. The writing was small and neat, precise, garnished with numbers and drawings, maps, he thought.
“Don’t you find it hard to read while driving?” he asked.
“I’m not driving, you are,” she said.
Hanley’s lips compressed to a straight line across his jaw. He could feel the pressure rising inside him, her remark setting off a chain of reactions inside his head, none good, he knew. He always found it curious that, when angered, he could see, feel his anger coming on, knew he should control it, but could not. It was like a tide rising within him. Nothing could stop it, he would deal with it after it had stopped. Pushing the clutch to the floor, he let the Land Rover roll to a stop in the road. Looking at the nun, seeing her eyes closed, her hands spread over her notebook, he was about to speak when she said, “What is it? We cannot afford to waste time. I have a schedule to keep. Please, let’s continue.”
A count to three and he said, “Look, I understand you’ve been here forever and that you’re in charge. Or at least in charge of a number of things at the mission. And I know it’s not easy. We all recognize that, trust me. I can guess that you have had a multitude of obstacles to overcome, that progress has been slow and hard won and that most people you deal with need to have their asses kicked, but for God’s sake, try to be at least civil to someone you hardly even know.” He felt better and worse at the same time. Knowing he may have damaged what little relationship they had, he was immediately worried. Standing his ground and establishing boundaries were necessary. While having taken a measured approach to dealing with matters, he seldom allowed himself to be pushed around by anyone. Finding first gear, he started off again, the whine of the transmission filling the void between them. Sister Marie Claire closed the notebook, rolled down the door window, resting her forearm on the sill. She looked over the Savannah, greening now, the new sprouts highlighted by the taller brown grasses, the canopies of the acacia trees budding. There were clouds in the distance; more rain coming, late for the season. The rain was a bother, a necessary bother. It always came hard, making a mess of the roads, traveling even more difficult than normal, the creases and ruts not worn away enough to make driving tolerable until it was time for the rains to come again.
“Do you see those clouds in the distance, Mr Martin, yes? The troubles of Sudan are like the clouds. You know they are coming, but you cannot stop them. The rain they bring is necessary, even though it is sometimes destructive. This war has been here eleven years and only brings destruction. We must prepare before it arrives. Some people do not believe it will ever arrive here in this part of Sudan, but it already started. Perhaps not like Darfur and I pray it never does, but it is here. So, if I am, what is it, short with you, I’m sorry, I have much on my mind. And, besides, I was in fact not driving, as you said,” she said.
Hanley, keeping his eyes on the road, said, “I suppose that’s an answer. If I’m going to be of any help to you and the mission, if I’m to be any help at all, then I think we, you and I need to come to an agreement, an understanding of how we can work together. Okay?” Something crossed the road, an animal, he could tell, dark and large, a quarter of a mile or more away. He slowed the Land Rover, squinting to see better, his neck stretched over the steering wheel. “Did you see that?” he asked.
“See what?”
“Something crossed the road ahead. Looked large, like a cow. Are buffalo here?”
“Yes, but they’re rare. It was a cow, I am sure. I want us to get along, is that right? To work together is, I agree, essential. Now that you’re here. But I will tell you, I did not want you coming. I told
