My drone beeps!
But this is a safe beep, merely announcing that we have arrived at our destination.
Indeed, the residence is right over there, behind those few surviving palm trees.
So, where was I?
Yes, to think that Russia converted...
Orthodox churches did not come back to Rome though, since Rome was no more – but to the Successor of Peter, strategically exiled in Ivory Coast.
What had started as a sporadic resistance inspired by the Church on several continents soon muscled up with Russian backing. Based in Kiev, it became the Anastasis – or the AN – a confederation of sovereign states, which replaced the collapsed UN.
On reaching the building, something in the Anastasis flag teases at my memory. I don’t know what in particular: not the five red stars circling around the Face; not the closed eyelids; not the beard either.
Sometimes, things become so familiar that one doesn’t pay attention anymore. I have seen this emblem everywhere for years, on every official document and vehicle, and again on the badges of the sentries by the entrance door.
Dear boys – I could be their mother. My children...
I have a snack in my suite rather than downstairs with all the brass.
I feel weary and introspective.
My room is in the same wing as the chapel. But God and I aren’t on speaking terms. Nothing personal; I simply think that, over the past two decades, we both have been very busy.
After my conversion twenty-seven years ago, I would see His hand everywhere. If it rained, I gave Him thanks; if it bloomed, I gave Him thanks. It was childish of me and surely annoying for my friends.
I felt like a dry sponge suddenly immersed in water or in wine. I absorbed Bible verses, I sucked catechism definitions and imbibed all that I could find or read about Catholicism. To me prayer was never a duty, but a recreation. I meant to tell every soul about Christ, and hammered my joy and my optimism on all, regardless of their inner pace and secret wounds.
It couldn’t last, could it?
Through my window, I catch a last glimpse of sunset.
But I don’t need the light switched on. I have got used to dimness – or, is it dhimmitude?
After the Flood, my faith was tried in so many ways, my strengths seemed so bitterly wasted and my prayers were kept unanswered for so long that I assumed God had relocated. Like the Pope who flew to Yamoussoukro when Rome fell.
After all, there must be many nicer galaxies than ours to which God might shift His attention. When did I stop believing – not in His existence, but in His
REGINA | 69