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didn't make sense. It was years before I understood its source. The problem troubled me deeply until I fitted all the pieces together with the help of another of her friends, Sutu the greengrocer, and the whole story fell into place.
    Emerence's religious objections weren't the result of living through the years of siege that followed the ending of the Great War and the first peace, nor did they amount to a philosophical position taken amid the ashes of a world again reduced to rubble. They arose from a primitive desire for revenge over an aid parcel from Sweden. Her co-religionists had received a consignment from one of the churches in Scandinavia. Until then no-one had shown much interest in Emerence's beliefs, nor had they seen her at any of the services. She was always working, especially in her earlier years, when she regularly took in washing and dealt with the bulk of it on Sundays. While others went to pray, she fired up her little boiler and started soaping. The news duly reached her that fellow Christians abroad had sent gifts for the congregation. Her friend Polett had run straight to her with the news. When the distribution began in the chapel Emerence, having never shown her face in church before, suddenly appeared in her black Sunday best and stood waiting for her name to be called. People from the immediate neighbourhood knew who she was, but none of them thought for a moment that she was counting on receiving anything. The ladies in charge, who had acted as translators for the visiting Swedish mission, looked on in embarrassment at the gaunt figure standing there, blank-faced, waiting. They realised that even if she didn't attend church she was still a member of the congregation, but by then all the woollen and cotton garments had been shared out. All that remained at the bottom of the basket were some evening dresses, which some kind Swedish woman, weeding out her unwanted bits and pieces without considering the real situation here, had thought fit to include. They didn't want to send her away empty-handed. As it later emerged, they hoped she might be able to sell the garment at a theatre or community arts centre, or perhaps exchange it for something to eat. In no way did they intend the mockery Emerence felt, as she hurled the dress at the feet of their leader. From that day on, not work but a private vow kept her from church, even on those rare occasions when she did have an hour free. Henceforth, both God and the Church were identified in her mind with those charitable ladies, and she never passed over an opportunity to take a dig at the worshipping classes. She didn't spare me either, whenever she caught me leaving the house half an hour before the Sunday service with the book of psalms in my hands.
    When we first met, not knowing the story of the evening dress, I had invited her, in my well-intentioned ignorance, to go with me. She was not, she told me bluntly, one of your great ladies who trot along to church to parade themselves in green and blue paint. She wouldn't go even if she had no driveways to sweep. I stared at her in wonder, because from the very first it was apparent to me that she had a sister in the Scriptures, the biblical Martha. Her life too had been a ceaseless round of hard work and giving help to others. But what had made Emerence so like the saint? When I did finally learn the cause — the evening dress — I was profoundly shocked and demanded an explanation. She laughed in my face, which was most unlike her. Neither tears nor happy laughter had much part in her world.
    She told me that she needed neither priest, nor Church, and she never contributed. She'd seen enough of God's handiwork during the war. She had no quarrel with the carpenter and his son: they were ordinary working people. The son was taken in by politicians' lies. The moment he started to make trouble for the leaders, they had to get him involved in something, so that he would be executed. The person she felt most