The Least of These. Andrew E Matthews

When next would I have such an opportunity?

      Impulse urged me to action.

      I intercepted their retreat to the road, determined to question the woman and challenge the proceedings, nullify them if I could. My anticipation of an easy success had heightened my disappointment, which in turn fueled my anger and determination to get something worthwhile out of this event.

      The Christians quickly closed ranks around their prize who was now wrapped in a blanket against the cold, shrouded in her new cloak of protection and supposed righteousness, they hustled her away from my approach and the reality I represented. The pastor intercepted my inquiry, turning to block my advance and prevent me from getting anywhere close to the girl. He was smiling, pretending friendliness. He didn't just smile; he couldn't stop smiling - at his victory, I was sure.

      I moved to get past him, calling, "What have you been promised?"

      He bluntly blocked my path again, making it quite clear that he would physically prevent me from speaking to the girl, as if that insolent smile of his was compensation.

      "Only what God promises, Sir."

      He had the impudence to call me "Sir" while still standing in my way, no intention of treating me anything like a "Sir". I tried to push past him.

      "I want to talk to her."

      "You can talk to me, Sir."

      "Where's your legal documents? Your affidavit?"

      "Those are for the proper authorities, Sir, not for you."

      It was the "Sir" again that really did it, and the superior attitude. I grabbed the wooden cross he had hanging around his neck.

      "You think this gives you the right? Huh?"

      With my other arm I shoved, really only trying to get past him...

      I'm still not entirely sure how it happened. I suppose I pulled harder on the cross as a counterbalance to the push of my other arm. And he tripped as he stepped backwards, adding to the weight. Maybe I even tried to stop him falling - I don't know - but I do know that the thin leather around his neck snapped, and I know I was pulling hard at that moment, and I know that the bottom point of the cross with its metal cap smashed into my camera lens, badly cracking that expensive lens.

      It sounds like a cliché to me now, but I honestly could not believe my bad luck. My first report, and I had not even taken a photo yet. I could not imagine what I was going to say to Mishra. I could see the certainty of a permanent position fading fast.

      It took me a while to realise the pastor had hit his head on a rock when he fell. He was being assisted by a young man from the group, now shirtless as he wrapped it around the pastor’s head to staunch the flow of blood. I vaguely heard “you may need stitches” as I tried to come to terms with my own tragedy; hardly a tragedy, but I was young and selfish, and that was how it seemed to me at the time. The first carefully cultivated opportunity for my garden of provision had been ravaged by a flash flood, the top soil carried away, leaving me with a few sick and straggly seedlings. In that moment I could not imagine how I was going to salvage the story, let alone rescue my reputation.

      Ah, how experience of real tragedy changes perspective!