It was harder than that. Even though the rain had stopped, we could barely walk as far as the Kwenge. From there we planned to travel by ferry all the way to Stanleyville, where Lumumba still has enormous popular support. There was work to be done, and Anatole felt we could be safe there. The money Tata Boanda brought us was our salvation. It was a small amount, but in hard Belgian francs. Congolese currency had become useless overnight. With a million pink Congolese bills we couldn’t have bought our way onto the ferry.

Everything was like that: the ground shifted while we slept, and we woke up each day to terrible new surprises. In Stanleyville we quickly saw I was a liability, even more than in Bulungu. People were outraged by the sight of white skin, for reasons I had the sense to understand. They’d lost their hero to a bargain between the foreigners and Mobutu. Anatole wrapped me up in wax-print pagnes, hoping to disguise me as a Congolese matron while trying to keep me from staggering dazed in front of automobiles. I nearly swooned in the mill and flow of Stanleyville—people, cars, animals in the street, the austere gaze of windows in the tall concrete buildings. I hadn’t stepped out of the jungle since my trip with Father to Leopoldville, a year ago or a hundred, I couldn’t say.

Anatole lost no time arranging to get us out of the city. In the back of a friend’s truck, covered with manioc leaves, we left Stanleyville late at night and crossed over into the Central African Republic near Bangassou. I was delivered to this mission deep in the jungle, where, amidst the careful neutrality of the sisters, a rumpled novice named Soeur Liselin might pass a few months unnoticed. Without asking a single question, the Mother Superior invited Anatole and me to spend our last night together in my little blank room. My gratitude for her kindness has carried me a long way on a difficult road.

Therese leans close and looks up at me, her eyebrows tilting like the accents above her name. “Liselin, of what do you accuse yourself? Has he touched you everywhere?”

We expected to be parted for no more than six or eight weeks, while Anatole worked with the Lumumbists to reassemble their fallen leader’s plan for peace and prosperity. We were that naive. Anatole was detained by Mobutu’s police before he even made it back to Stanleyville. My beloved was interrogated to the tune of a broken rib, taken to Leopoldville, and imprisoned in the rat-infested courtyard of what was once a luxurious embassy. Our extended separation has so far improved my devotion to Anatole, my French grammar, and my ability to live with uncertainty. Finally, I’ve confided to Therese, I understand the subjunctive tense.

I shudder to think what Father would say to me here, skulking among a tribe of papist females. I pass the days as productively as I can: trying to stay clean, sharpen my aim, and keep my lip buttoned from Vespers till breakfast. Trying to learn the trick of what passes for patience. Every few weeks I get a letter from Leopoldville, which holds me on track. My heart races when I see the long blue envelope in a sister’s hand, delivered to me under her sleeve as if a man himself were inside. And, oh, he is! Still sweet and bitter and wise and, best of all, still alive. I squeal, I can’t help it, and run outside to the courtyard to taste him in private like a cat with a stolen pullet. I lean my face against the cool wall and kiss its old stones in praise of captivity, because it’s only my being here and his being in prison that saves us both for another chance at each other. I know he despises being useless, sitting still while war overtakes us. But if Anatole were free to do as he pleased right now, I know he’d be killed in the process. If captivity is damaging his spirit, I just hope for an intact body and will do what I can for the rest, later on.

The nuns spied me out there and told me I’m going to wear away their foundation. They are used to gunfire and leprosy but not true love.

Clearly I’m here to stay awhile, so Mother Marie-Pierre has put me to work in the clinic. If I can’t quite get the hang of poverty-chastity-and-obedience, I can learn instead about vermifuges, breech deliveries, arrow wounds, gangrene, and elephantiasis. Nearly all the patients are younger than me. Preventatives for old age are rampant here. Our supplies come from the French Catholic Relief, and sometimes just thin air. Once a messenger on a bicycle came teetering up the jungle path bringing us twelve vials of antivenin, individually wrapped in tissue inside a woman’s jewelry box—an astounding treasure whose history we couldn’t guess. The boy said it came from a doctor in Stanleyville who was being evacuated. I thought of the Belgian doctor who’d set Ruth May’s arm, and I decided to believe Ruth May herself was somehow involved in this gift. The sisters merely praised the Lord and proceeded to save a dozen people from snakebite; more than we’ve lost.