In this striking novel, set in Bahrain on the eve of the Iraq war, a young wife learns unnerving secrets about her missionary husband. Lucy Scholes
The Rev Euan Armstrong and his wife Ruth are a young couple whose love for each other is matched only by the love they feel for God. With their baby Anna in tow, they are “following in the footsteps of the first Christian apostles”, leaving behind life in rural Ireland for Bahrain, “the weightless aspiration of it like the billowing of silk in the air...a whole new life: a whole new world”. Safe in the knowledge that her husband is “doing God’s work”, Ruth greets the country with excitement and interest, the “joy” of the Holy Spirit “bubbling up inside her”.
Euan however is strangely less exuberant and it is not until the first night in their new home that he reveals the real reason for the location of his missionary work. As she struggles with the betrayal she feels in light of Euan’s revelation, Ruth’s growing physical isolation in the guarded compound in which they live is mirrored in her spiritual and emotional isolation. She begins to question everything she previously held dear: her husband, their faith and their marriage.
Among those observing the arrival of their new neighbours is Noor, an unhappy teenager with a troubled past, who has recently moved from England to live with her father and his extended family in his home country. The overweight Noor aimlessly spends her days “cramming” food into her mouth and sneaking stolen cigarettes. Having heard rumours of the “God Squad...come to save wicked souls”, she sees instead a “perfect” family, walking down the dusty street “haloed” and “golden” in the bright light of the sun; “angels, come to save her”.
The lonely wife and the confused teenager form an uneasy alliance, each initially blissfully unaware of the other’s inner turmoil as they selfishly use the other in a bid to escape the unhappy realities of their lives. However, as their mutual dependency grows, so does the distance between them; each becomes entangled in a fantasy of their own making. The betrayed become the betrayers, and both Ruth and Noor are forced to make decisions that will change the entire course of their future lives.
Set against the backdrop of the beginning of the war in Iraq, Caldwell’s novel deftly projects the tension of the events unfolding on the larger political stage onto the personal drama enacted between its protagonists. The narrative switches between first Ruth’s and then Noor’s perspective, with Noor’s diary entries giving additional insights into her suffering. Caldwell uses her playwright’s command of different voices to move effortlessly around her characters, and the two female’s variations in tone, whether in terms of maturity or perception, are always sharply distinguishable.
This is a story about “the hidden nicks and cuts and scar tissue of life, the wear and tear of living”. It is a beautifully written novel that manages to address the momentous subjects of love and loss, and faith and betrayal, with a calm and quiet grace.
