I noticed that the road in front of me was
curving. I realized Kim Song knew the area and was taking a short cut to catch
up with us. By the time we came around the bend, he was behind us. Then we lost
sight of him again. He took another country lane and did the same thing several
times, rising up and down like the pitching of a ship. All I could feel was the
blood pumping across my temples, everything that happened was taking place at a
snail’s pace and yet so quickly, even the daylight that went from blistering
sun to heavy rain weighed our steaming clothes like stones. The teeming solace
came and went and there was freshness in the air after its departure but a part
of me shivered even in the heat.
It was difficult to remember anything
about the ceremony itself except one comment stood out. As we were entering the
village, the nurse spoke to me. She had an unusual voice that seemed
inconsistent with her strong face, a trembling, persecuted, Kalimantan voice.
“If you walk too slowly; she said,
you risk getting sun stroke. But if you go too quickly even with this rain,
you’re sweating by the time you reach the church and then you catch a chill.”
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