When she opened her eyes, the tent sides glowed with morning sunlight, and Max was gone.
Chapter Seven
Monagasquay, Again
Maxence
Just after dawn, Maxence was awakened by the sunlight on the fabric walls of the tent, and he’d quietly unzipped the mummy bag and struggled out of the tiny tent without waking Dree, who was still sleeping. Her lips were puffy and pink like she’d been kissed, and he tried not to think about that.
Father Booker had crawled out of his tent and bounded to his feet, his dark eyes bright and snappy, though one white eyebrow had drifted toward the clouds when he’d seen Max slowly emerging from Dree’s tent instead of the one where he was supposed to have slept.
The sun drifted above the horizon into the cold air. The sun’s warmth seemed to fade out somewhere in the pale sky, never reaching the black leather motorcycle gear Max wore. Wind whipped at his clothes. He didn’t feel the breeze because the leather was windproof, but the clothes lay cold on his skin.
Father Booker and Maxence knelt off to the side of the camp and prayed the Office of Readings and the morning prayer, Lauds, together. Priests and deacons are obliged to “fill their days with prayer,” and the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours is the prescribed form of those prayers. In this case, the wordofficeis a holdover from Latin, whereofficiummeans service, duty, or ceremony. The Holy Office is all of these. It is the work and ceremonial form of prayer for priests and other people who have devoted their lives to the Catholic Church.
While Maxence and Booker were off to the side, murmuring and reciting the prayers to each other from their phones, Batsa scrambled out of the tent and set to acting as a sous chef for Alfonso, who’d already started to cook breakfast. Maxence watched with his peripheral vision while Batsa interpreted for a lady who delivered warm naan at the crack of dawn in the hopes they would want to buy more. They did.
After they finished, Maxence and Booker approached the fire, warming their hands in the chilly morning.
Alfonso offered them breakfast sizzling in his skillet, which appeared to be scrambled eggs with onions and peppers and smelled delicious. They dished up.
Max ripped off another piece of flatbread and used it to pick up a morsel of fluffy scrambled eggs. “Seriously? These are thepowderedeggs? They’re perfect.”
Alfonso nodded from where he squatted beside the campfire, tending a gently simmering pan of coffee. “I didn’t want to put too much strain on the villagers’ supplies. It’s early winter, and nothing is going to grow here for a while.”
Dree still hadn’t left her tent.
Isaak had slithered out of the far tent, took an offered plate, and set to eating breakfast without speaking. Max remembered from boarding school that Isaak was not a morning person. Indeed, he was barely an afternoon person. A lot of fun at night, though.
“We do need to be careful how much we ask for or buy,” Batsa agreed with Alfonso, flinging his arm at the barren, stony mountains around them. “Nothing has grown here since early October at the latest. The growing season in the foothills of the Himalayas is even shorter than in Iowa.”
“Yes, we should try to tread as lightly as possible in these people’s lives,” Father Booker said in his bass operatic voice. “Is that coffee ready yet, by any chance?”
“Give me your cup, Padre,” Alfonso said. “How do you take it?”
“I don’t suppose we have milk?”
“The lady who brought the bread also brought fresh milk with her this morning. I think it’s yak milk.”
“If you please,” Father Booker said. “Maxence, do you take milk?”
When Maxence was in the field, he usually took his coffee black to conserve resources. A few times in his life, he had endeavored to mortify himself by drinking nothing but black coffee and water. He hated it. It tasted like privation. “If you have milk of whatever source, I would appreciate it. And sugar.”
Just as Alfonso was handing Maxence his cup, the third tent rustled.
Dree’s light voice fluttered in the air. “Breakfast smells good.”
Maxence and Alfonso turned.
She stood in front of her tent, blinking in the sunshine and ruffling her pixie-cut blond hair with her hand. Her puffy ski clothes camouflaged her hourglass figure, but Max could trace her shape under it with his memory.
“Good morning,” Maxence said.
Last night’s midnight confessions had not been good for Max’s soul. Indeed, he wished he’d rolled over and gone to sleep without a word. She must think he was a freak.
Alfonso crowed, “Andrea Catherine! I have saved a plate for you from these rabid dogs.”
She stretched and staggered a little as she approached the campfire. “First, you saved me from the intestinal parasites and now from starving to death in the wake of rabid dogs. I declare, Alfonso, you’re my knight in shining armor.”
