The Crooked Path

by Irma Joubert

  Her excuse sounded feeble.

  But her father nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I suspect he might find it easier to speak to you after all, but we’ll see. I can take over his medical care. He comes on Friday afternoons, doesn’t he? I’ll ask Mrs. Roux to reserve that spot in my diary.”

  But on Thursday her father was feeling unwell, and by Friday morning he had come down with the flu.

  “You stay in bed,” Lettie said firmly. “I’ll reschedule our patients.”

  She drove her father’s big old Hudson, first to the hospital, then to the surgery.

  At the surgery she and Mrs. Roux went through the appointments. “Please call Marco Romanelli at the school and tell him not to come today,” said Lettie. “Just make sure he gets the message.”

  She worked all day without taking a break. Patiently she listened to every real and imagined complaint, prescribed medication, gave advice, and scheduled follow-up visits.

  Mrs. Roux brought a sandwich and coffee at lunchtime. “I spoke to Mr. Romanelli himself. He’ll call on Monday for a new appointment,” she said.

  Thank heaven for small mercies, thought Lettie and continued working. The sandwich soon curled up in the dry bushveld air, and the coffee grew cold.

  It was almost dark when the last patient left the surgery. “I’ll just complete the chart, then I’ll lock up. You go along home,” Lettie told Mrs. Roux.

  She had just begun when there was a knock on the door. “Come in!” Lettie called out.

  The door opened. She glanced up briefly.

  He was standing in the doorway.

  Her heart jumped.

  “Are you very busy?” he asked.

  “No. Yes. But come in, sit,” she stammered.

  He turned, shut the door, and sat down at the desk, his slim hands folded on the desktop between them. They looked pale. She hoped he wasn’t ill.

  “Lettie, I have a problem,” he began, “and I want you to help me right away. But first you must promise to be absolutely honest.”

  She struggled to contain her thoughts, to control her heart. “Of course I’ll help. Are you feeling unwell? Is it a medical problem?”

  “It’s partly a medical problem, yes,” he said seriously. “The part I want you to be absolutely honest about is purely medical.”

  “Okay, Marco.” She felt herself regaining control. “You have my word.”

  He ran his hand over his hair in the gesture she knew so well. Then he folded his hands on the desk again and drew a deep breath. “There’s this girl . . . woman . . . I’ve become very attracted to,” he began slowly. He looked down at his hands, then up and past her, through the window, at the dark night outside.

  Lettie felt herself grow cold.

  “The woman doesn’t know. I haven’t said anything. First I wanted to come and ask you.”

  Lettie felt her throat close up. “Ask . . . what, Marco?” She forced the words past the lump in her throat.

  “I have to be certain about the state of my health, Lettie. I can’t tell a beautiful woman that I like her, that I would like to be in a relationship with her, if I know I’m not in good health.”

  Lettie sat motionless for a moment, her entire being frozen. Then her professionalism kicked in. “So far you’ve come through the winter unharmed, Marco,” she said tersely, her voice steady. “When a person’s lungs have suffered as much damage as yours, of course there’s no guarantee that the pneumonia won’t return. But I think it depends largely on the climate. Will you . . .” She paused briefly. The woman must be from around here, how else? “Do you intend to stay on in the bushveld?”

  “It’s the plan,” he said.

  “The climate here is good for you. Your digestive system will always be sensitive, but you’ve learned how to cope with it. The body is a wonderful creation—it gradually heals itself.” She felt her mouth go dry. “So, yes, I’d say you aren’t facing any serious health issues,” she concluded.

  Her thick tongue licked her dry lips.

  He nodded, still not looking at her, still gazing through the window.

  She had to know. “Marco, does this woman share your feelings?”

  His eyes were still fixed on the window, his expression serious. “Yes, she feels the same.”

  She forced a smile to her stiff lips. “Then you should speak to her, Marco. I . . . hope it works out for you.”

  He turned his face to her, his eyes gentle, clear. “Lettie, it’s you. You’re the woman I’m speaking of,” he said simply.

  Her heart stopped. Her brain froze.

  Then breath rushed back into her lungs and her heart began to race. “Marco?”

  He got up and came around the desk.

  She looked up at him.

  He folded his beautiful hands around her face.

  “Lettie, will you . . .” He shrugged, then gave her a wide grin. “Will you come to the movies with me tonight?”

  chapter

  TEN

  Lettie lay in bed, snug under her duvet.

  Tonight she’d be unable to sleep.

  Everything felt unreal.

  She had driven home in a daze. “I’m going to take a bath. I don’t want supper tonight, thanks, Mom,” she had said on entering.

  “Are you coming down with the flu as well?” her mother asked, worried.

  “No, I’m going to the movies,” Lettie said.

  “The movies? But aren’t you exhausted?”

  “Not at all.”

  She thought long and hard about what to wear. At last she chose a soft cream woolen dress with a matching coat. She brushed her hair until it shone, applied her makeup with care, and put on her new glasses with the delicate gold frame.

  She studied herself in the long mirror in her parents’ bedroom and was pleased with the result.

  At a quarter to eight Marco knocked on the door. He stood in the doorway, tall and straight in his dark suit. Lettie drew a slow breath: he, Marco Romanelli, had come to fetch her, Lettie Louw, for a date, a real date.

  He came in to greet her parents. Although they were clearly intrigued, they refrained from asking questions.

  In the intimate space of the car he turned to her. “Now I can say what I’ve wanted to say so many times before: you look lovely, Lettie.”

  “Thanks, Marco.”

  Could a woman tell a man she found him lovely too? She knew nothing at all about dating and men. She was twenty-seven, and this was her first real date.

  She felt odd, awkward in her new role. But delighted, absolutely delighted.

  The movie wasn’t very good. It was an amateurish black-and-white Western dating back to prewar times. The chairs in the city hall were hard, the projector got stuck, and the drinks Marco bought during intermission were lukewarm.

  Yet it was the best night of her life. All through the show, Marco’s arm rested on the back of her chair. Occasionally he touched her neck, and after a while he drew her closer so her head rested on his shoulder. It was not a very comfortable position, but she did not move away.

  When he pulled up in front of her home, he walked her to the door, but he refused her invitation to come in for coffee. “Tomorrow is a workday, and you must get to bed. Thank you for a wonderful evening, Lettie.”

  He put his hands on her cheeks, raised her face, and gently kissed her on the lips before turning and walking to his car.

  She closed the front door, and the exhilarating wonder of being in love filled her entire being. With her fingertips she touched her lips.

  Saturday morning arrived gray and cold, but the song in Lettie’s heart did not fade. She drove to the hospital, then on to the surgery.

  At eleven Mrs. Roux brought her a cup of tea. “Mr. Romanelli called,” she said. “I promised him you’d return his call as soon as you had a moment.”

  Last night’s joy that had been slumbering all morning broke through the surface. “Will you get him on the line, please?” she asked, trying not to give anything away.

&n
bsp; A minute later his mellow voice came on the line. It went straight to her heart before it registered in her mind. “Did you sleep well?” he asked.

  “Not a wink,” she said.

  He laughed softly. “Can I keep you awake again tonight?”

  Her heart leaped. “Of course. Would you like to come for supper?”

  “I’d like that, thanks. I want to speak to your father.”

  “My father? What about?”

  “I want to ask his permission to court his daughter—it’s how we do it in Italy,” he said.

  “Oh.” She laughed self-consciously. “Oh, all right then.”

  The gray day was almost unbearably bright.

  They ate in the warm kitchen. The room was filled with the aroma of lentil soup and freshly baked bread with homemade butter. “No wonder Esau gave up his birthright for this,” Marco remarked. “It’s delicious, thanks, Issie.”

  After supper Lettie helped her mom with the dishes while Marco talked to her father in the bedroom. “Marco is a nice young man, and handsome too, but like Dad said, he’s not in good health. And . . . he’s not one of our own, no matter how hard he tries to fit in. Are you sure you’re doing the right thing, Lettie?”

  “Yes, Mom, I’m sure,” Lettie said firmly.

  “I just don’t want you to get hurt,” her mom said.

  Pain is never far away; it counteracts the joy, Lettie thought. As long as the joy outweighs the pain. “I know, Mommy,” she said. “I know.”

  As they sat alone in the living room later that evening, things seemed suddenly awkward between Lettie and Marco, as if their former easy camaraderie had belonged to two other people. The deserted street was suddenly emptier, the heavy leather furniture creakier, the paintings on the walls blander.

  “Tell me about school. What did you do this past week?” she asked.

  He gave her that slow, amused smile, as if he knew a joke the rest of the world didn’t. He seemed relaxed, oblivious of Lettie’s insecurity.

  “It was just another week of trying to instill a love of English poetry in children who hate English and who live to play rugby and hunt impala in the veld. I read Romeo and Juliet and told them stories from ancient Greek and Roman mythology and taught them to express themselves in a civilized manner.”

  She was also smiling now, slightly more at ease. “According to Mrs. Roux, all the schoolgirls are in love with the handsome teacher with the beautiful voice.”

  He made a dismissive gesture. “Yes, well . . . Lettie, I really don’t want to talk about school.”

  “Fine, what would you like to talk about?”

  “About us, about where we are and . . . yes, about us.”

  She was silent for a moment. If that was what he wanted to talk about, she decided, maybe she could ask him. “Marco, on Friday afternoon, when you . . .” Could it have been only yesterday? “Yesterday, when you came to see me, you said the woman feels the same.”

  “I was right, wasn’t I?” She saw the hint of a smile on his lips, the twinkle in his eye.

  “How could you have been sure?”

  He looked at her thoughtfully. His eyes were gentle, but serious. “I’ve felt it for a while, just as you must have known how I feel. There was a connection between us from the start—no, more than that. I felt we understood each other. I was immediately attracted to you. You’re a beautiful person, Aletta.”

  Warmth flooded her. “I didn’t know you felt the same,” she said.

  “I wanted to wait before I said anything, make sure my health was good enough. I actually wanted to wait until after the winter. But then . . .” He hesitated.

  “Then?” she asked.

  “At the concert . . . I knew something was wrong, and I couldn’t understand what. I could accept that you were feeling unwell on Friday evening. But Saturday night it was clear you were avoiding me. I couldn’t imagine what I’d done to upset you.”

  “And that’s what made you come and speak to me?”

  He shook his head. “No, it was because of what Christine said.”

  “Christine?”

  He sighed. “Sunday morning I drove out to the farm,” he said. “I was confused, lonely. I needed to get out of my room at the boardinghouse. I wanted to take a walk in the veld. De Wet and the rest had gone to church. When I returned to my car, Christine came out to invite me to lunch. She asked if something was wrong, and I told her I didn’t know what I had done to upset you over the weekend. She said, ‘You men are all the same, you’re so dumb!’

  “I didn’t understand then, but the more I thought about it, the clearer it became. It’s a man’s duty to speak up. When, after all these months, I still hadn’t said anything, you must have assumed . . . well, that there was nothing. I really didn’t want to make you unhappy, Lettie.”

  “I’m over the moon right now.”

  “Well, sit here beside me then,” he said, patting the sofa.

  She got up self-consciously and sat down beside him. Everything was awkward all over again.

  He reached for her and drew her closer. She felt the rough fabric of his jacket against her cheek, she smelled the soap he had used in the shower before he came, and she saw the fine dark hairs on the back of his long fingers. “This is where I want you,” he said, sounding content.

  “Shall I put some music on?” she asked.

  “No, talk to me.”

  She heard the sound of his voice, felt the inner peace caused by his nearness. I could grow old with this man, she thought.

  “Tell me about your week,” he said. “You must have been very busy with your father at home.”

  She laughed softly. “My week was much the same as yours, Marco, only different. I was busy, yes, especially on Friday.” Another thought struck her. “I asked my dad to take over your care, Marco. I think it’s the right thing to do.”

  “So Mrs. Roux told me. But I’d rather be your patient,” he said.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she replied.

  He was silent, then he said, “Fine. I understand.”

  “I think you should continue telling him about the wartime years. It could be therapeutic,” she said. “It’s important that you get to the heart of the matter.”

  There was another long pause. “Lettie, I do understand why it’s important, but if I must, I’d rather talk to you. At best it won’t be easy. And it’s harder talking to an outsider.” He stared into the distance, his expression grim. “We don’t have to do it in office hours, but I’d prefer talking to you. It might be easier.”

  “We can try . . . I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. “Please talk when you feel the time is right. I can’t tell you when.”

  He turned to her and stroked her cheek with the back of his free hand. “You’re not just beautiful, you listen and understand,” he said.

  She nestled against him. It still felt strange, yet so right, so natural.

  “When you’re sitting with me like this, I’ll find it easier to talk than when you’re facing me across your desk,” he said. He pulled her closer and gently kissed the top of her head. “I don’t know what else to say, Lettie. I’m not hiding anything from you.”

  She paused. On the windowpane the shadows of the bare branches moved in the light of the full moon. “See the beautiful patterns the branches create on the windowpane? Do you see, Marco?”

  “Yes, I see.” His voice was rich and calm, like deep red velvet or mellow wine.

  “What did you find beautiful when you were in the mountains, Marco?”

  “The stars, the nights, the silence,” he said.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  He described the beauty of the surroundings, the wonder of living so close to nature, day and night. He spoke of the snow, the streamlets when the snow began to melt, the first Alpine flowers in spring.

  No people.

  “And worst of all?” she asked. “I don’t mean the cold, or the moment the soldiers found you. Something that happened in
your little group.”

  He thought long and hard. “It was . . . yes . . .”

  He fell silent, but kept stroking her hand while his thoughts went back on the long, hard road into the past.

  She waited.

  “When the old lady died,” he said at last.

  “What was her name, Marco?” she asked gently.

  “Mrs. Rozenfeld.” At last the nameless characters were brought into the light. “They were the Rozenfeld family. They’re all dead now.”

  The silence was complete, as if the universe were waiting.

  “Tell me about them.”

  Bit by bit the story came out, more easily after a while, but still slowly.

  When he fell silent, she sat without moving. This person she was falling in love with had gone through waters she had only skimmed the surface of in her lifetime.

  She was about to get up to make coffee when he said, “But that isn’t what I remember most clearly. My most haunting recollection is of Ester asking for an apple one night when I was going home to pick up provisions. But there was not a single apple to be had in the village. ‘I have such a craving for an apple,’ she said when I returned empty-handed.

  “I wish I could have brought her the apple,” he said very softly. “I still think of it . . . many nights.”

  It was much later when Lettie got up to make coffee. Her parents were asleep. She and Marco had their coffee in the kitchen. “It’s time for old men to leave and pretty girls to go to bed,” Marco said, getting to his feet.

  She still found it incredible that she could be the pretty girl he was referring to. She walked him to his car in the backyard.

  At the screen door he turned to her. “Thanks for tonight. It was good. And, Aletta, thank you for”—he shrugged—“listening.”

  He took a step toward her, opened his arms, and wrapping them around her, held her against him.

  An intense joy spread through her body. She put her arms around his neck and raised her face to his. She felt his arms tightening around her, felt his urgency as his warm mouth closed over her own.