Free Bad Catholics by James Green Page B

nowadays sometimes even my hands.’
    â€˜Are you still a Catholic?’
    â€˜Oh yes. If I survive all this I shall go to Confession to a suitable priest, say my penance and then begin again to be a good Catholic.’
    â€˜Could you not have continued to be a good Catholic despite everything?’
    â€˜And go to heaven as a martyr? No, Sister, neither I nor my soul are ready to face our Maker yet. I would have liked to have stayed a good Catholic but, very quickly, I would have been a dead Catholic. So, for a time, I must be a good soldier and a bad Catholic and do what I have to do.’
    â€˜Including killing me?’
    â€˜Yes, Sister, that as well.’
    â€˜How can I be of use to the insurgents, even supposing there are any?’
    â€˜Oh, there will be insurgents, Sister. If there are none now, there soon will be after we have begun our work. And, yes, you could be of great help to them.’
    â€˜How? I couldn’t even help my school, my girls, or even, God forgive me, that poor dead Sister.’
    â€˜But you know things.’
    â€˜What things?’
    â€˜You know how many of us there are. How well armed we are. What vehicles we have. And you can identify me personally, even by name. Now, or perhaps in the future, when accounts come to be settled, what you know may be very important. You have seen so much. I’m sure you understand.’
    She understood.
    â€˜Do you still believe in God?’
    â€˜Yes, Sister.’
    â€˜And do you feel you will have to answer to Him for all of this?’
    â€˜Let me put it this way. I believe in God, in His justice and His mercy. I would have liked to have walked in the paths of righteousness all the days of my life. But now there are no paths of righteousness. The times require that in order to survive it is necessary to be, how shall I put it, company for the Devil. Mine was not a completely free choice, therefore it does not count as a mortal sin. Even if I die, God, in His infinite love, will give me mercy.’
    â€˜Even though you give no mercy yourself?’
    â€˜I am not God, mercy is too expensive for me. Only the most powerful can afford it.’
    â€˜So you will go on like this?’
    Captain Nduma picked up his holster and cap. He got up. ‘God’s good little acts, Sister,’ he gestured to the body. ‘Would you rather I had let my men have her? The Sisters were good people even though they knew how wicked the world was. They told me how educated Western people often called floods, earthquakes and the like Acts of God, and saw God as indifferent to the suffering He caused. But the Sisters said that for every flood or earthquake there will be millions of unnoticed little acts of God which will have brought comfort and help. That may very well be true, but for all God’s little acts of kindness the world is wicked. The educated people are right and the Sisters were wrong. God’s good little acts have to take place in a wicked world and, unfortunately, they are powerless to change it.’
    He moved to the door. ‘I will make sure that you will be safe if you stay here in this room tonight. Think of it as one small act of kindness from one Catholic to another.’
    And the door closed.
    Sister Philomena sat listening to her school being destroyed and her girls becoming the property of the soldiers. Suddenly the door opened and the sergeant was striding in, his automatic in his hands. He walked past her, reached up and, with the muzzle of his gun, smashed the single bulb that hung from the ceiling. She froze. In the darkness she heard the sergeant’s boots on the concrete floor. Then the door closed.
    After what seemed a very long time she realised she was again alone in the room. She began to cry quietly. A quick death, a bullet in the head and nothing else, one of God’s good little acts. Then, still crying, she got up and felt her way to the young Sister’s body, knelt