This book is one wild ride. Travelling through Nepal, Dree joins Max and his team as they drive from one small village to the next, offering medical care and evaluating building sites for a charitable project. Both Dree and Max are absolutely committed to maintaining professional distance, Max because he has already taken the holy orders with the intention of becoming a priest, and Dree because she is a devout Catholic and has no intention of becoming his sin. But not surprisingly, there are a few obstacles thrown their way. It’s an emotional journey, as Dree tries to save villagers from one disease or another and there are some horrific things happening in these primitive places—scurvy, advanced cancer, muscular dystrophy, blindness. Every day, Dree pours her soul into healing as many as she can, and every day, Max tries to take care of her and keep her from overdoing it. He does so under the watchful eye of his two friends from La Rosie, who are openly interested in Dree, and a priest from the US. And Max tries so hard to fight his attraction to her, which is far more than a physical thing. At one point, the priest cautions him, “You have the soul of a priest, Deacon Father Maxence, but I do not know if you have the heart of one.” It’s an interesting observation and distinction that might never have occurred to me. It’s clear Max feels something powerful for her.
No one can say Blair Babylon is not a talented writer, and if they did, they’d be wrong. Some of her descriptions of the scenery are poetic, like "foothills crumpled the fabric of the land ahead of them,” and “the mountains chopped black voids out of the horizon around them.” “The valleys were slashes between the towering mountains, knifed into the earth by water.” This description was particularly dactylic, immediately bringing forth memories of cold New England mornings: “Overnight, snow had dusted the town and mountains, covering everything with white. Their boots crunched the crisp layer like they were walking on a giant, delicate eggshell laid over the earth.” At one point, the hands of a baby are described as “tiny starfish,” a description so perfect it’s a wonder I’ve never heard it before. And we’ve all read some great descriptions of scents, but this whimsical one took it to the next level, not quite je ne sais quo, but almost: “...the subtle scent of his cologne, which was cinnamon, vanilla, and the secrets that happened in an orange grove at night where no one could see.”
Dree’s sense of humor was a welcome bit of lightness whenever things got too intense. When she first arrives in Nepal and discovers that Augustine is actually Maxence, who is actually a deacon, he tells her, “you can call me Deacon Father Maxence or Father Maxence.” Her retort is the one anyone in her position would love to have, “Yeah, it’d be too suspicious if I called you daddy.” While arguing with him about accompanying him on the impending journey despite the fact that he thought Andrea was a man’s name and the rest of the party will be male, she provides potential scenarios and he says, “We’ll cross that rickety, swinging suspension bridge over a raging river when we come to it.”
There’s a saying about avoiding conversations about religion and politics if you don’t want to offend people. Blair Babylon unabashedly tackles both, talking about money-laundering real estate moguls in NY, one in particular named Funk, who likes to put his name on towers, rich people who think they are entitled and blame poor people for their circumstances, and the whole argument within the church about whether charity should be at the individual or church level or both. Matthew 25:31-46 is quoted extensively, a not-so-veiled jab at those who claim to be Christian while refusing to help the immigrant, the child locked in a cage, the poor and suffering, because those are the people Jesus expects you to help. When you forsake them, you forsake him. The extensive Catholicism referenced in this book almost made me long for the catechisms I learned as a child and young adult, if only because of the ease with which they came back to me. “Whatsoever you do, for the least of my brothers, that, you do unto me,” rang through my head whenever they debated the true call of Christians in the world, something that has, sadly, been forgotten by many.
After a particularly confrontational discussion between the travelers, one of them making a comment that is horribly entitled, very Marie Antoinette. “The statement splashed into the conversation, and everyone stepped back and raised their hands to avoid the moral mud splatter.” This was so vivid to me and such an apt way of portraying how most people would react instinctively (at least I hope so). The priest traveling with them describes Dree as an angel working to help people, and therefore beyond reproach, and Dree is so affected by this, her emotions are described thusly: “The mountains turned to water in the morning sunshine. The tear that dripped down her face was hot, then turned cold in the freezing winter air.”
Finally, because I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, Dree, when faced with a revelation about Max that she doesn’t want to believe and which he is finding especially hard to process, responds simply by saying, “Nuh-uh.” I cracked up when I read that because that was such a Dree statement, and it had the very real effect of shattering the tension. Subsequent to that, however, she surprised me by her insightful observations, demonstrating an emotional intelligence and logic that made me respect her even more than I already did. It’s not the end of this series. Maybe there will be one more book, maybe two. I can’t tell, but I can tell you that I will be reading however many there are because I am hooked.