Comfort Zone

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All hands shall be feeble and all knees

shall be weak as water.

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‘Yes, I brought my notebook.’ She produced the notebook from a capacious side pocket and then looked up expectantly at her instructress. Om Haldar had never questioned Maude about the reason she was turning to Islam rather late in life. Maude’s impulse was obscure even to herself. She knew only that she had been offended by her daughter Janet’s funeral service, by the perfunctory way the parson had read the prayers and, in particular, the manner in which the coffin was almost dropped into its grave.

From that moment, inconsolable, she had sworn to have nothing more to do with the C of E. Yet, lonely woman that she was, she felt the need for a faith. And one day she had happened upon Om Haldar. She had never asked the young woman what she was doing, or why she was living in the Fitzgerald summerhouse. Although she was curious by nature, she liked the mystery; it reinforced the sense of adventure in turning to a new faith. To turn to this young woman was to turn to her faith. She thought – or liked to think – that behind the courtesy of this young woman lurked a terrible story. She revered, even loved, this strange girl with her isolating courtesy. Perhaps she could ask the withdrawn Deirdre Fitzgerald about it one day?

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