"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious."

-Einstein

TWILIGHT ZONE

African conga drums pounded erotically under the full equatorial moon. Only five hundred yards from the roomy, white, New England-styled mission church, twelve drummers gyrated on a precipice that hung over the sea. Hollowed teak logs, capped with gazelle skins, rocked between taut thighs. Flecks of white, thousands of tiny moon mirrors glistened and
dripped from sweaty bodies. These men would stop beating, only when the golden sun rose.

Moonlight! ...a cause for celebration. The mysterious silver disc, swollen by heat and humidity, washed the jungle like a brilliant movie set - but only once a month.

"Let there be light!" ...and Maurice finally understood, for because of this light, neither demon spirits, nor the carnivorous beasts that haunt tropic corridors, would prowl this evening. Tonight, all night, the people were free!

* * * * * * * * * * *

Old man Blamo shuffled toward the altar. A teak crutch, his strongest leg, thumped the concrete floor authoritatively. Its hypnotic rhythm mesmerized Maurice, as it echoed off the walls and pews of the almost empty sanctuary. Blamo's head swirled in and out of the thick cloud of incense that hovered, eerily. His stained, light tan, Brooks Brothers sport coat flickered in the candlelight, then disappeared in the fog and darkness. Two small candles of pure beeswax waned while the pre-dawn liturgy continued.

The seminarian squinted through eyes, blinded by sweat and high fever. As old man Blamo approached, tawny light danced upon his beautifully carved cane. Rich village scenes of huts, drums, gazelles and sandals adorned the appendage. The darker, repoussé area of this African masterpiece matched his weathered face.

It was June, 1974; five in the morning. The place: Grand Cess, Liberia, West Africa! The novice was thousands of miles from South Burlington, Vermont, his birthplace. Far, far from home, as he wished. Far, far, from family.

For the past two years, he had studied Liberation Theology at a Catholic theological school, perched tranquilly on a hilltop, overlooking the Hudson River, in Westchester County, New York. Originally a Shaolin Monastery from Mainland China, it had been shipped -pagoda by pagoda- to America during the last Chinese revolution. Amid the transplanted bronze
Buddhist bells, silk tapestries and incense, he had studied, meditated, and practiced martial arts, preparing for missionary work in the heart of Africa.

On his last afternoon in America, he had eaten lunch at the Russian New York, watched the controversial Rock Opera, Jesus Christ, Superstar, then boarded the red eyed special for Dakar, where it refueled before arriving in Monrovia. Later, by Piper cub, he had flown three hundred miles further, southeast, deep into the jungle.

Each boarding had been a quantum leap back in time. He had traded the brilliant skyline of New York City for that of Dakar, where on this edge of Africa, only a few tall buildings stood, dim lighthouses before the foreboding, deep blue sea. In these dark, tempestuous waters, high-masted, creaking, wooden slave ships had prowled the swells, barely a century ago, filling their bowels with shackled, stinking, human treasure. Once overloaded, they sheeted canvas taught, following Saharan trade winds West, to that great continent of freedom - America.

From French-African Dakar, he had flown on to Monrovia. There, one ten-story building stood, single and alone. Then, onward again, into that primal womb of lush rain forest, where only verdant, dripping canopy scraped the sky.

In these tropics, amid liana and tangled vines that embraced ancient trees, with branches interlocking hundreds of feet above carpets of musk-scented, giant ferns, he had been reborn - this time - by choice; dropped from the heavens by a noisy, aluminum stork, into the center of five hundred huts.

Now, each night in the jungle, he watched dark, polygamous figures pound animal skin drums, while others danced around fire teeming with writhing magical spirits.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Old man Blamo's thumping cane stopped. He stood before Peter, the priest, and Maurice, the seminarian. Monkeys deep in the forest awoke and began chattering. The drumming outside ended, as dawn approached. In his feverish state, it seemed to Maurice that everything was happening in slow motion.

The sun was about to crack the darkness. He loved that mysterious moment when the black sheet of night parted, birthing the yellow orb, ending the chronic nightmares he had had since childhood. Each morning, he longed for its soothing light, but today was different. Just the thought - twelve hours of searing brilliance and intense humidity - left him queasy.

Large beads of sweat disappeared into his thick, curly black beard, falling from the ringlets like full monsoon drops, onto the white robe, which was already pasted against his broad chest.

A swollen, severely infected thumb jabbed him with pain. One week ago, he had nicked it. The tiny cut, a quarter inch long, healed quickly, but only after an equatorial germ had found its way in. It was now devouring the swollen flesh. He winced with agony and closed his eyes, as the child within offered the fever to the heavens above, while the man in him feared the gods might be asleep.

Smoldering, stale incense made his nausea worse, but the seminarian managed to hold the paten steady for the young priest. Though they were born the same year, Father Peter had decided that twenty-four was not too young for ordination. Maurice glanced at this pony-tailed clergyman. They were neither friends, nor enemies.

Blamo coughed dryly, signaling his presence by the altar for communion. The African pulled himself up in an officious manner before Peter, who held the golden chalice that cordoned ten sacred, white wafers. Blamo's gray head reached the breast level of the two six-foot missionaries. The old man belonged to the short, stocky Kru tribe; a fishing people adept
at handling ten foot hollowed logs far out at sea.

Maurice glanced from the crutch to the mans right pant leg. It swayed loosely from the thigh down, hiding his amputated leg. He raised the paten to Blamo's neck. The old man eyed the novices swaddled thumb warily. This African feared that the demons who caused it to swell five times its normal size, might jump to his body.

The seminarian took a closer look at the sport coat. It surprised him how well it blended with Blamo's brown skin. The ragged, breast pocket had been torn off, but it was re-stitched with red thread, like the patches hippies had sewn onto their jeans, a few years back. The coat had no buttons and his frayed twine belt, made from palm leaves, dangled six inches below his waist. If only the New Yorker, who had donated this part of his stock brokers uniform to some humanitarian organization, could see it now, still in service and worn with such religious zeal!

The seminarians eyes shifted to the thin metal disc he held. Rust peeked from underneath the flaking, fake gold paten, corroding it with small, cancerous red pits. Like everything else on the equator, humidity and heat were slowly consuming it. The bodies of Christ, were they to tumble, stood a better chance of remaining untainted on the swept, concrete floor.

Blamo popped out his tongue. It darted easily from a nearly toothless mouth, looking odd against his chestnut face. Deep ripples lined each side. There was something about all his movements, Maurice mused, that was too forced, too quick. The novice wondered whether the disease that afflicted the Africans tongue was connected to the loss of his leg.

"The body of Christ," Peter announced slowly ... officially.

"Amen, Fala," Blamo responded militarily.

Father Peter dropped the wafer on the ragged thing and quickly withdrew his hand, not wanting any of the mans spit to get on his fingers. Blamo stood there like a pouting child, his tongue hanging out, eyes closed sanctimoniously. The white wafer began to dissolve like a large snowflake on the black mans tongue. After what seemed an eternity, he piously pulled
it in. Suddenly opening his eyes, he spun on the crutch and performed an about face, then limped back to the pew. Blamo's gecko jerkiness startled Maurice from his dreamy state. As a reflex, the seminarian jumped away, stumbling on the altar step.

"Are you all right?" asked Peter, with professional concern.

"Yeah, yeah," he answered weakly, getting up, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his left arm. "Its my fever."

"Well, the paten then!" he ordered with a nod, indicating that he was eager to speed up the mass.

Toh, the cook back at the mission house, always made such wonderful breakfasts, and Peters stomach rumbled its anger.

Maurice began to elevate the paten for the next recipient, but froze. Through the lifting fog of incense approached a stunning young woman, the color of milky brown chocolate. A thousand rows of long hair, plaited with ivory cowry shells draped her shoulder, tinkling like chimes. Through large, sloe eyes, she watched the white men before her carefully, conveying little. Her almost Ethiopian nose ended just above an exquisitely chiseled pair of lips, with salmon undertones. She walked proudly, with her head held high and shoulders back. At five-foot nine, she easily stood above the tribes average female. Neither missionary had seen her during their six weeks in the country.

Her dalo looked new. Even in dim candlelight, cobalt blue, splashed with silver and gold bordering, jumped out electrically. Open at the left breast, the vibrant cloth revealed a naked five-month old, sucking noisily. Distracted, the baby gazed at the white men, but instantly shifted his attention to the golden chalice. He reached for it. The child's movement away from her breast left it visible. Both men riveted their eyes on the large, firm, soft brown cone of motherhood. At its center was an areola, the size of an American silver dollar, from which poked an erect, half-inch nipple. There, yellow-white drops beaded and fell with the frequency of sap from a Vermont Maple after a cold, early April night.

"Maurice!" Peter whispered hoarsely, as his eyes knowingly caught the seminarians.

"Yes," he answered, studying the priest who had quickly refocused nervously on the woman, his eyes lower than usual.

"The paten!" the priest called, remembering his purpose.

"Of course, of course," the novice consented, raising it, shifting his attention from the priest to the woman.

Maurice peered into her eyes and instantly spotted the bright sparkle of intelligence. As he placed the paten beneath her chin, she closed them and parted her mouth slightly, extending an inch of flamingo-tinted tongue. Peter stopped for a second. His lips opened unconsciously, while his eyebrows arched, as he let her beauty envelope him. She had caught them off guard.

Taking a wafer from the rust-pitted, sacred chalice, he slowly brought the dry white bread toward her succulent mouth. His hand trembled noticeably. Just as he attempted to insert the host, it bumped against her top lip and flipped like a dry brittle leaf to the paten.

She opened her eyes and glanced at both. Maurice lowered the plate to Peters stomach level, so it would be out of the way of the child, who was now busy grabbing for anything but her breast. Father Peter boldly reached for the host that lay on a particularly rusted corner. As he was about to pick it up, his hand stopped in mid-air. Near the patens center, where some shiny fake gold remained, five drops of her milk flashed, having caught the sky's delicate, saffron sunrise. She glanced at the paten, at the men, then serenely closed her eyes and parted her mouth. They stared from the paten to her
dripping breast, then from the pulsating ripe breast, to her face, in awe.

This time, Peter, despite more pronounced quivering, managed to successfully insert his fingers and deposit the host safely inside. She reopened her eyes, looking first at the priest, then at Maurice, who thought he caught the faintest wisp of a smile in the subtle movement of her lips. Shifting the baby to her right hip, she slowly closed the fold of dalo, turned,
and walked to the back of the church where she sat.

A short, old-looking woman scuttled toward the altar, a crippled crab trapped in a human body. Her old dalo, with a faded picture of President Tolbert printed on the front, wrapped a skeletal frame. Many poor women wore this design because they were the cheapest. The Liberian women joked that one could cover the country with the material during election time. The President used the clothing gimmick as an incentive to get people out and voting, for the only person allowed to run for his office.

The ancient woman, probably not yet forty, dragged herself forward, scraping the cold, concrete floor. Her knee-length lappa exposed a normal left leg and a monstrous right one. Elephantiasis! Despite the grotesque appearance, and ungainly, blackboard-grating shuffle, she approached with dignity. The woman extended her tongue in a plaintive, spiritual manner, beseeching the heavens with a supplication that betrayed her desperate faith.

Peters hand no longer shook. He quickly dropped the host on her withered tongue. She was the third and last recipient, from a total congregation of seven. Turning, he ascended the altars three steps. A rooster, outside the doorless, ocean entrance, lined with large yellow and red hibiscus, greeted the rising sun with a startling screech.

The foaming sapphire sea, streaked with dawns light, caught Maurice's fevered 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 altars center.

The oceans alluring beauty, had captivated the delirious, almost faint seminarian. He stood deaf, immobilized, stunned by the sight of nine hollowed logs. In each ten-foot craft, two men paddled furiously through the breakers. One overturned. Its lashed sail broke free, tumbling shoreward, just as a huge sea spit canoe and men aground.

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 that 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 seminarian arrogantly 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 altars 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 Peters 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-joke.

"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. Peters rote manner reminded Maurice of an auctioneer.

"The mass is ended," he bellowed to the seven congregants.

"Bow your heads and pray for Gods 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 mornings 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 priests 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 tribes 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 nay, 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?"

"Mothers 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 ... Its 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.