The promise of protection. The promise that has been assured them as they stand at school assembly and sing ‘A Deo Auxilium’. Green valley, dark blue mountains, pale blue sky, golden sun. This is the heraldry of the school. Those missionaries derived their inspiration from this primeval world they had set their dwellings in.

Some of the children begin to wander off from the main group of teachers and children. They wade into a sea of green grass, pushing aside the sharp blades that hide their bodies one from the other. There is no pathway here. Only silence. The further ranges seem to move away from them, leaving a greater space and emptiness to be explored. Coming towards them, carried by the sweeping mountain wind, a brutal stench of putrefaction assails their nostrils. Christina steps forward and parts a screen of tall mana grass. Eyes search, but she sees nothing. The others draw nearer. Their senses whirl with the onslaught of the stench and, feeling faint, they grasp the strong stalks of grass for support. Here, they seem to be groping for some kind of knowledge on a separate plane of reality—knowledge that has been withheld from them in that school in the valley below. Life. Sin. Guilt. Death. Salvation. Life after death. Resurrection. Not death, decay, putrefaction, stench. High above the township, where lies all vileness, hidden from the eyes, they are closer to the truth which is within reach but beyond their sight. In this rarefied atmosphere with its pure, clean air, that decay of mortality has penetrated. It follows them everywhere. Death of a stranger, an ordinary human for whom there will be no resurrection. The death of Christ—the cross, the tomb, the spices and perfumes for the lacerated body, the bright and shiny garments of the two men in the tomb where the body of the crucified Jesus had lain, the tomb soon empty but for the linen sheet in which His body had been wrapped … that death had been different.

And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. Full of fear the women bowed down to the ground as the men said to them: ‘Why are you looking among the dead for one who is still alive? He is not here; he has been raised …’

This is a different kind of death, they know.