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The foaming sapphire sea, streaked with dawn’s light, caught Maurice’s eye. Large, twelve-foot swells roared less than fifty yards from the open door, threatening the shore, yet leaving instead, a gentle rainbow mist that blew toward the church. “Maurice, bring the paten!” Peter commanded, staring down at him from behind the altar’s center. The ocean’s alluring beauty, had captivated the delirious, almost faint seminarian. He stood

Once again, the sudden transition from night to day took him aback. On the equator, he realized, dusk and dawn were quick, copulatory acts of light and dark, over in a few moments when one abandoned the other. In the jungle, it was all - or nothing. Time was precious, absolute. The sun was either up, or it was down. One was alive, or one was dead. It happened so quickly,
cleanly. There was a certain integrity to life on the equator, the young seminarian reflected, that those in “civilized,” temperate areas had yet to discover.

“Maurice ... the paten!!”

“Yes ... yes ... excuse me,” he responded, turning hastily. As he did, a goat entered the doorway and headed straight for the violet and white orchids, placed around the altar. It adroitly leapt the three steps and began munching.

“Eeeeeeeh, ta na mu ah?” an old woman from the first pew screamed at the beast. She jumped out of her seat and lurched in its direction. The creature, indifferent to her query, continued eating placidly. In her rush, she stumbled on the first stair and fell against the seminarian on the
second.

Though soundly knocked to the floor, Maurice managed to hold aloft the paten that held a half-dozen sacred crumbs of the ‘body of Christ,’ and the five drops of milk. Like the good altar boy of his youth, he took his job seriously. Maurice’s mother had taught him Latin when he was five, so he could be an altar boy at seven, the earliest age allowed. She had had a burning desire to offer up her first-born son to God, to pay for the sin of becoming pregnant with her only daughter, both deaf and mute, before the sacred state of wedlock.

In those early years of religious training, he had learned that the smallest speck of bread was as important as the big host the priest ate. The Africans, however, didn’t see it that way. They had a song: “The priest eats the big piece and drinks the fine wine, but after we pray for an hour, he gives us a small piece of very dry, old bread, and no sweet wine.”

“Excuse me, fala,” offered the old woman, apologizing.

“Me no fala,” answered Maurice, realizing, after he said it, that she would fail to note the distinction between ‘seminarian’ and ‘priest.’

She rebounded quickly and managed to grab the goat from the hind end. It kicked her in the chest. 

The creature eyed the busy-body indifferently and continued eating, as she lay gasping. Peter came from behind to help, but in his haste, knocked over one of the quart bottles that the locals wanted blessed during mass.
 

Each morning, between five and twenty containers full of yellowish river water greeted them at liturgy. The villagers believed in the efficacy of prayer. Even from a distance, however, before and after prayers, one could see black creatures about half an inch long, the thickness of fat thread, whipping about in the putrid water. Fr. O’Sullivan, the blond, forty-year old priest who headed the Catholic Mission, told both when they arrived, that people drank the blessed water and used it for enemas. This idea horrified them. Neither could conceive of drinking it, much less letting amebas and tiny worms explore intestinal inner recesses. Maurice had asked Fr. O’Sullivan why the Africans continued to bring the water, since it was evident that the swimming beasts were stronger than the most sincere prayer. The Mission head explained that though they remained alive, prayer voided their pathogenic prowess.

Not wise enough to let the matter drop, the seminarianarrogantly suggested that this was not probable, as the clinic was filled each day with sick church members, most likely from drinking the turbid ‘holy’ water.

Relentlessly, the novice stupidly went on to imply that pills might be better than prayer, and that the mission ought to dig a large, clean well for the villagers. The relationship between Maurice and his very traditional, Superior, Fr. O’Sullivan, now only six weeks old, had not begun auspiciously.

Peter had Maurice accompany the woman to her pew. She smiled obsequiously. Returning, he noticed that the goat had finished the last orchid. Lifting its tail, the animal bid farewell, by dropping thirty round pellets at the altar’s base, then casually made for the open doorway.

The priest took the paten. On it were two large crumbs, one medium, and a few flecks the size of dandruff. Following the religious prescriptions, Peter scraped the bread with his right thumb toward the chalice. The largest absorbed the milk. To his dismay, it turned into a gooey paste that stuck to his dirty thumbnail.

“Get the cruets,” he ordered, aggravated.

The novice retrieved the small crystal bottles of water and wine from the side table. He poured each over Peter’s fingers, according to ritual. The paste dissolved, turning the fluid slightly opaque. After swirling the solution three times, he gulped it down, then grabbed the holy linen towel that Maurice extended, and began wiping the chalice.

“God !... did you see her ? Where’s she been hiding?” Peter began, squinting towards the back of the Church.

“How could I miss? Hey ... you just got ordained a couple months ago. You’re on the honeymoon phase of celibate life. I saw what you were staring at!! You’d better get your head together!” he half-joked.

“You know, Maurice, you’re a self-righteous, little prick. I hate fanatics!” he whispered, handing back the wrinkled linen. “Say ... do the boys bring over the crawfish for breakfast, today or tomorrow?”

“Today.”

“I love scrambled eggs with prawns,” the priest sighed. “You know, Peter, Toh’s great cooking hasn’t made eating together any more pleasant.”

“Maurice, a word of caution,” Peter began, gazing thoughtfully at the seminarian. “O’Sullivan and I are ordained. You’re on the outside, looking in. For your sake, don’t forget it. Life’ll be much easier for all, if you heed the warning.”

He returned to center altar and continued his liturgical machinations. Peter’s rote manner
reminded Maurice of an auctioneer. “The mass is ended,” he bellowed to the seven congregants.
“Bow your heads and pray for God’s blessing!”

When it was over, they walked down the altar steps toward the end of Church to shake hands
with the congregation. The bishop of Monrovia had recently made this more blatant gesture of
hospitality, a fiat. The problem was that Protestants were gaining numbers tremendously, and he
was worried about the competition. Protestant clergy didn’t remain aloof like Catholic priests and
nuns. Many were African and married. In an environment where marriage and children were as
important as in Old Testament times, it would be easy to conclude why their numbers were
increasing dramatically. The Irish Bishop, however, had lived in Liberia for over twenty years, and dismissed these factors, insisting that shaking hands would be enough to improve public
relations and increase the Catholic count.

Peter walked unusually quickly toward the back, but Blamo stopped him, before he reached the exotic woman.

“Good morning, fala,” he gushed, after racing toward the priest with an extended hand. Peter shook it limply. The old man nodded to Maurice with insincere deference. He understood rank. Peter put his hand on Blamo’s shoulder and directed him toward the rear, but the woman with elephantiasis breathlessly grabbed his white robe.

“Fathal, fathal . . . “ she whined, hunched over humbly. Like many older people in the tribe, she was unable to distinguish between the ‘L,’ and the ‘R,’ sound. Despite the difficulty, she clearly conveyed that in the morning’s confusion Peter had forgotten to bless the cholera water.

Peter glanced longingly at the brown Madonna. She stood with her child in the doorway, gazing at the ocean. He turned, stared at the old lady, sighed with fatigue, and returned to the dirty water on the altar.

“Father Peter,” Maurice called with a grin, amused that the old woman had thwarted the priest’s questionable plan. “I’ll be at the mission in a few minutes!”

In a moment, he reached her. She was outside, watching the sea from the shade of a large banana tree.

“Nu ah ni, na fuay day?” he initiated, beginning the tribe’s formal greeting pattern.  It literally meant, “Hello, how’s your body?” As he looked at her, he couldn’t help smiling at the irony of the question.

“Na fuay nu si on, na day day?” she answered with a warm smile, telling him she felt fine, returning the question.

He decided to skip the conversational formalities that normally preceded asking a name. Suddenly, he stopped to reflect, as he did so often in meditation. Why was he as eager as Peter was, to talk with the woman? Was he feeling so lonely, after only six weeks in Africa, that he was desperately grabbing the first warm person who came his way, without regard for his position, as a seminary intern, soon-to-be priest? Was he just admiring an exquisite face, or were his unconscious drives, as a male, getting the better of him? Maybe he was just trying to make a friend - after all, wasn’t he here as a Catholic seminarian in Africa, to get to know people? He smiled knowingly at his confusion, but decided hastily to go with the flow and analyze his motives in greater detail later.

“Ka nang gah nay nu ah?” 

“Wheea Dee Nyuokprenh Nah,” she responded, “but my Christian name is Mary.”

“What does your African name mean?”

“Mother’s cry.”

“For one with such a beautiful smile the name seems sad. It doesn’t match,” he fumbled, grabbing for any words that would prolong the conversation.

“When I was born, my mother died, but before dying, she let out a loud cry. The old women helping her give birth, pulled me free and gave me this name.”

Her bronze loops danced in the soft, morning light, as her slightly angled, oval head measured the man before her. “And what is your name?”

“Maurice.”

“What does that mean?” she prodded with an enigmatic, Mona Lisa smile.

“Why ... It’s French and means ‘dark skin,’ or ‘Moor,’” he answered eagerly.

“Like one of the Northern tribes! For true, you are not white like the others. I must go. Excuse me,” she remarked gently.

The naked baby on her hip squirmed restlessly. With amazing agility, she bent forward, placed the child upon her back, and, in a moment, had him wrapped and hanging in her dalo.

“I must leave. It is time to go to the farm,” she offered with a slight bow, before turning and heading East.

The coconut palms rustled softly in the early morning breeze. “You said you were going to the farm, but they are West, not East!”

She stopped, looked back and gazed at him intently. “For true, but I must change my dalo and get my machete and basket.”

“Of course, of course,” he replied, shuffling nervously, realizing he looked like a complete idiot.

Still, he pressed on. . . “do you live near the field, where the cows go, where the mission plane lands?”

“No, near the Lebanese store, but not on the right in a rich house of bricks. Mine is to the left and it is thatch.”
 

“Oh, so you’re not far away, about a half-mile ... and how far to the left of the store?” “You ask many questions!” she responded gaily, turning toward the rising sun. After taking eight steps without breaking stride, she called back, “Four huts to the left of the store, on the left side of the path.” As she receded, he returned to his thoughts. No, it wasn’t loneliness, male hormones, or friendship that had driven him to seek out this Mona Lisa. He thought about living with Peter and O’Sullivan at the mission compound. What had impelled him was the profound sense of isolation he felt, after only six weeks with his religious community — the community he had aspired to be with in Africa for the next two years, and possibly. . . for life.