H.R.H.

by Danielle Steel

  “Practice saying it, Max. Cricky. Or you're fired.” They both laughed, and he followed her to breakfast. The others were already in the tent eating when they arrived.

  “Slowpokes,” Fiona teased them. “We ate everything.” She was flirting with Max, which Christianna thought was funny. He seemed to be enjoying it. Samuel smiled about it, too. They were both already comfortable in the group.

  Christianna enjoyed sharing breakfast with the others, and half an hour later she reported to work. Mary had given her a stack of books to read about AIDS, and some guidelines about what to teach. She wanted Christianna to design her own course, and improve on what they had. She was flattered to be asked. She was going to teach the class in Tigrinya, with a local interpreter beside her to translate. She read as much as she could of the material that morning, visited some of the patients with Mary, went back to her reading, and skipped lunch entirely. She reported to Ushi in the schoolroom after that. She was falling in love with the children. They were beautiful and loving, and they loved talking to her. She read the youngest ones a story after school, and then went outside to the compound for some exercise. She had been inside all day.

  She saw Laure sitting quietly by herself when she went out, as Akuba walked by, holding one of her children by the hand. Christianna waved and smiled. Christianna had only been there for two days, but she already felt at home. It was all new and exciting, but she felt so at ease there, and so enamored of the people and the country that it was almost as though she'd been there before. She was about to go for a walk outside the compound, and then decided to turn back and talk to Laure. She had already begun making friends with the others, and she wanted to at least try to reach out to the sullen French girl. She had looked miserable ever since Christianna had arrived. It was hard not to wonder why. The only time Christianna had ever seen her smile was when she was talking to a child. Laure's job was doing administrative work in the office, and filling out and filing medical records. It was tedious work, but apparently she was good at it. Geoff had said she was thorough and precise.

  “Hello,” Christianna said cautiously. “Would you like to take a walk? I need some air.” The air there was delicious, no matter how hot it was. There was always a smell of flowers around them. The tall dark-haired French girl seemed to hesitate for a moment. Christianna thought she would decline, and was startled when she nodded. She stood up to her full height and looked down at Christianna. And then they set off on their walk in silence.

  They walked past women in their beautiful costumes, and down a path that Laure seemed to know that led past a small river, which suddenly made Christianna anxious.

  “Should I be worried about snakes? I'm terrified of them,” Christianna confided.

  “I don't think so,” Laure said with a shy smile. “I've been here before and I've never seen one.” Laure looked more relaxed with her than she had before.

  They continued walking, and Christianna was startled to see a wart hog in the distance. It reminded her that they were in Africa, not just some pleasant countryside that could have been in Europe. Here everything was exciting and different. It was hard to believe she had only been there for two days. After a while the two women sat down on a log, and watched the stream drift by. It felt very peaceful and somewhat surreal. Christianna just hoped that a snake didn't appear at their feet.

  “I met your aunt Marque in Russia,” she said finally, not knowing what else to say to her. She looked as though she had a lot on her mind, or a thorn in her side somewhere. It was obvious that something was bothering her, and maybe had been for a long time.

  “It's amazing how many people know her,” Laure said quietly.

  “She's a lovely woman,” Christianna said with feeling, remembering when they had met in Russia.

  “She's more than that. She's a saint of some kind. Did you know she lost her husband and both her children? She stayed too long when war broke out in the Sudan. And in spite of that, she still loves it here. She has Africa in her blood. And now she devotes her life to other people. I wish I could be more like her, giving to others the way she does. I hate it here.” Christianna was startled by the words. For Laure, it was a long speech and a surprising admission.

  “There aren't many people who can do what she does,” Christianna said gently. She was flattered that this woman who seemed to be sealed so tight had opened up to her. “I think it's a gift.”

  “I think you have that same gift,” Laure said quietly, as Christianna stared at her in disbelief.

  “How can you say that? You don't even know me.” She was flattered by the words. It was a huge compliment, particularly from her.

  “I watched you coming out of the classroom yesterday with Ushi. You spoke to everyone, you had children hanging all over you. And when I picked up the records at Mary's office, all her AIDS patients were talking about you. That's a gift.”

  “You're good with children, too. I see you smile every time you talk to them.”

  “Children are always honest,” Laure said sadly. “It's the adults who never are. They lie, they cheat, they wound. I think most people are profoundly bad.” It saddened Christianna to hear her say it, and was a sad statement about the young woman's life and the experiences she must have had.

  Listening to her, and seeing the look in her eyes, Christianna decided to take a risk. “Betrayal is a terrible thing, particularly by people we love.”

  There was a long pause as Laure watched her, as though deciding whether or not to trust her, and then finally she did. “They told you why I came here. I suppose it's not a secret. Everyone in Geneva knew it … and Paris … and everywhere else … even here. I was engaged to a man who made a total fool out of me, with my supposedly best friend.” She sounded bitter as she said it, but even more than that, wounded and sad.

  “Don't give him the satisfaction of letting it destroy you. He doesn't deserve that, and neither does your socalled best friend who ran off with him. Sooner or later they'll pay a price for that. Things like that come back to haunt you in the end. You don't find happiness at someone else's expense.” There was something quietly reassuring about what Christianna said. She had been praying to find the right words to say to this injured girl.

  “They're having a baby. She was already pregnant when they ran off. He got her pregnant while he was engaged to me. I didn't find that out till later. To add insult to injury.”

  As Christianna listened to her, she suddenly thought of words she had heard almost daily in Berkeley, and there was no way to translate them into French. She asked Laure cautiously if she spoke English. She nodded seriously and said she did. Christianna looked at her and smiled.

  “In that case, all I can say about them is, ‘that sucks.’ It was a disgusting thing for them to do to you.” Laure smiled too as she heard the words, and then suddenly she grinned, and finally started to laugh.

  “That's the silliest thing I ever heard,” Laure said, laughing. She was even more beautiful when she laughed. She was a striking-looking girl, and it was hard to believe she'd been jilted. He had to have been a fool to leave her, particularly as he did.

  “It is silly, isn't it?” Christianna said, giggling. “But it kind of says it all, doesn't it? That sucks,” she repeated with vigor, and suddenly they were just two young girls sitting by a stream, and life seemed suddenly simpler. They were like two kids who had just finished school. “He must have been a fool. When we drove up in the bus two days ago, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.” It was true. Laure was a spectacular-looking girl.

  “Don't be silly.” Laure looked embarrassed. “I look like a tree. I've hated being tall all my life. I always wanted to be small like you. In fact, the woman he ran off with, my so-called best friend, looks a lot like you. It upset me the moment I saw you. And then when you just asked me to go for a walk with you, I told myself that she's not you. I'm sorry if I've been rude. At first, every time I looked at you, I saw her, and I was angry at you.”


  “You weren't rude,” Christianna lied to her, “you just looked sad.”

  “No,” Laure insisted. “I was rude. But you reminded me so much of her.”

  “Sucks for me,” Christianna said again in English. It had been her favorite expression in school. The two young women leaned against each other, laughing.

  “No, it sucked for me,” Laure added in her heavy French accent, and they had tears running down their cheeks, as Yaw rode by them on the path. He was riding his bicycle somewhere, heard them laughing, slowed down, rode past, looked up at the tree, and then shouted at them, as they waved at him. They thought he was just saying hello.

  “Go!” he shouted at them. “Go away!” He was waving frantically, and they looked at each other, still laughing, and got up. He was waving them away. They weren't sure what he wanted or what he was saying, but he kept yelling at them. They were still giggling, as they walked back onto the path and he pointed to the tree. An enormous green mamba snake had been lying right above them, sunning himself on the thick branch of the tree, and almost as though on cue, it dropped on top of the log where they'd been sitting, and slithered toward the stream. As they saw it, both girls screamed and ran away, waving at Yaw as he laughed and rode away.

  “Merde!” Christianna said, and was still screaming, as both girls ran nearly all the way back to the compound, and then they stopped and started laughing again. “Oh my God, did you see that thing?” They had run so fast that Christianna's side ached. “You told me you'd never seen any snakes there,” Christianna said, still shaken.

  “Maybe I never looked up at the tree,” Laure said with a grin. “That was the biggest snake I've ever seen.”

  “Sucks for us,” both girls said in unison, and then laughed again.

  “Thank God I'm going home soon,” Laure said as they walked back more slowly, in deference to the stitch in Christianna's side from running so hard. She had never run so fast in her life as after they'd seen the snake. It was her worst nightmare come true. Or would have been if not for Yaw. And then as they walked along, Laure suddenly realized she'd be sad to leave. Christianna was the first friend she had made here. The others had been nice to her, and pleasant to work with, but Christianna was the first person who had genuinely reached out to her. And surely the first person who had ever made her laugh as hard. Even if she looked shockingly like the woman who had betrayed her, she was a nice girl. It was written all over her. “Do you have a boyfriend?” Laure asked her with interest, as they walked into the camp.

  “No, I have a brother, a father, and a dog. For now, that's it. I had one in Berkeley, but it wasn't a serious thing. He e-mails me sometimes, or he did before I came here.”

  “Your two friends seem nice, the ones you came with.” Christianna nodded, not sure what to say. Sometimes they were hard to explain, other than that they were just two friends who had wanted to come to Africa, too.

  “They were in Russia with me, and they met Marque, too.” Laure nodded, and as they headed toward the women's tent, she stopped and looked at Christianna for a long moment.

  “Thank you for asking me to take a walk with you. I had a good time, Cricky.” She had heard the others call her that, and felt comfortable doing so herself now.

  “I had a good time, too.” Christianna smiled at her warmly. Making friends with Laure had been a victory of sorts for her, and was an unexpected gift. It had been hard earned. “Except for the snake,” Christianna added, and they both laughed as they walked into the tent everyone called the Ritz. The others were all back from work, in varying degrees of undress, relaxing after a long day.

  “Where have you two been?” Mary asked them, surprised to see them together. Everyone had noticed the chill between the two, and how unpleasant Laure had been to Christianna till then.

  “We went out looking for snakes, and we found a big one, lying in a tree.” Christianna grinned, and Laure smiled, too.

  “You don't sit under trees in Africa,” Mary scolded her with a stern look, and then she glanced at Laure with the same disapproving look. “You know better than that. We can't let you girls go anywhere, can we? I'm going to have to send you to your room.” Both young women laughed, and Laure announced that she was going to take a shower before dinner, which they all knew was not as simple as it looked. But she was sure she could still find someone to pour the water for her. She put on her bathrobe and left the tent, as Christianna lay down on her bed, trying not to think of the enormous snake they'd seen. She'd never screamed as loud in her life or run as fast. Thank God for Yaw.

  “What on earth did you do to her?” Fiona asked with a look of amazement. She looked tired. She had delivered three babies in a row that afternoon, and one had died. It always depressed her when tragic things like that happened. She had done everything she could to save the infant, and Geoff had helped, but there was nothing they could do. It happened that way sometimes, but it always weighed heavily on her.

  “We just went for a walk,” Christianna said calmly. “I think she needed someone to talk to.”

  “Well, she never talked to any of us until you got here. You must have special powers.”

  “No, she was just ready to talk.” Christianna had sensed it, although she hadn't expected it to go as well as it did. She just didn't want an enemy living with her in the same tent.

  “You have a way with people, Cricky,” Fiona said with a look of admiration. Everyone in the camp had noticed it, and talked about it. It had been obvious to all of them, even in the short time since she arrived. Christianna had a special kind of grace—as Laure had said that afternoon, a “gift.”

  Laure came back from the shower shortly after. She looked happy and relaxed, and when they all left for dinner that night, she and Cricky were laughing about the snake. And for the first time since she'd been there, Laure joined in the general conversation at dinner that night. Everyone was surprised to discover that she had a sense of humor. She teased Cricky liberally about how loud she'd screamed and how fast she ran away.

  “I didn't see you sticking around to take pictures of him,” Christianna answered, and then they laughed about it again, still shuddering over what it would have been like if he'd fallen out of the tree while they were still sitting there. It didn't bear thinking.

  They walked back to the tent together that night, and Christianna asked her quietly why she hated Africa. It had struck her when Laure said it that afternoon.

  “Maybe I don't hate Africa as much as I think I do,” Laure said pensively. “I've been so unhappy here. I suppose I brought it all with me, all the misery that happened before I came. I don't know … maybe I just hated me.”

  “Why would you do that?” Christianna asked her gently.

  “I don't know … maybe because he didn't love me enough to stay with me and be faithful to me. Maybe I thought that if he didn't love me, why should I …I kept looking for what was wrong with me to make them do a thing like that. It's complicated, I guess.”

  “They were bad people to do that to you,” Christianna said simply. “Good people don't do things like that. You don't believe it now, but you'll be glad one day, when you find someone else. Next time you'll find a good man. I truly believe you will. Lightning like that doesn't strike twice. Once in a lifetime is enough.”

  “I can't even imagine trusting someone again,” Laure said as they walked into the tent. The others weren't back yet, so they were alone.

  “You will. You'll see.”

  “When?” Laure asked, looking sad again. The pain of the betrayal she'd lived through was still in her eyes, but now she had a friend.

  “When you're ready. It was probably good for you to come here, and get away from all of it.”

  “That's what I thought. But I brought it all here with me. I haven't been able to think of anything else.”

  “When that happens again,” Christianna said quietly, “do you know what you have to do from now on?”

  “What?” Laure was expecting pearls of wi
sdom from her new friend's mouth. She had been wise and accurate so far, and Laure was impressed.

  “Just think of the snake that nearly fell on us today, and be glad we're alive. That's two snakes you've narrowly missed. Him, and the one today.” Laure laughed out loud. She was still laughing when the others came in, and looked at them in amazement again. None of them could even remotely imagine what Christianna had done to the girl who never talked. But whatever it had been, it worked. They all agreed. There was no question about it. Christianna had a gift. They felt lucky to have her in their midst. And she even more so to be there with them.

  Chapter 9

  The day before Doctors Without Borders came, everyone was always busy. Geoff lined up cases he wanted them to see. There were a few small surgeries he suspected they would perform there. They had two serious cases of tuberculosis he was worried about, and there had been a small outbreak of kala azar that he wasn't panicked about yet, but he was always grateful for their presence and consultation, particularly in malaria season in September, which fortunately was still a long way off. There would be four physicians and two nurses joining them for the week, which always took some of the burden off Geoff 's and Mary's shoulders. And there were always their AIDS patients to consult about. The Doctors Without Borders brought new medications for them. And it was always nice to see familiar faces and new ones. They had already radioed the camp several weeks before to say that they had a new doctor with them, who was interested in spending a month or so with them. He was a young American, doing AIDS research at Harvard. Geoff had responded that he'd be grateful to have him around for a month, if he'd enjoy it. It would raise their number of camp residents to eighteen, and Geoff had promised to set up an additional cot for him in the George V, since they were already full up.

  Christianna had spoken to her father twice by then, and he said he missed her terribly. It was only February, and he couldn't imagine another five months without her, let alone longer. He said he wanted her to come home at the end of six months, and not stay the full year, and she didn't comment. She didn't want to argue about it with him yet. She was planning to do that later in the year. She had no desire whatsoever to leave East Africa a moment earlier than she had to. He was relieved at least that she was well and happy, although even he knew it didn't bode well for her coming home early. Christianna felt guilty leaving him alone in Liechtenstein, but this time was sacred to her. She knew only too well that she would never get a chance like this again.