The Crooked Path

by Irma Joubert

  They drove out to where the town reservoir lay between two hills. It had been built during the depression as part of a government project to create jobs for thousands of poor white people. Marco stopped near the dam wall. They spread their blanket in the sparse shade of a thorn tree and put down the picnic basket.

  The dam wasn’t very big, but neither was the town. The water lay dark and sparkling, the low hill on the far side scattered with stones. There was no wind. Dappled shade fell on the blanket, and the earth basked in the lazy winter sun.

  “The last time I had a picnic like this was in Italy,” Marco said pensively, “before the war.”

  Instinctively she knew she should seize the opportunity. It might not present itself again. One puzzle piece was still missing. In all their conversations he had never mentioned the name of Rachel Rozenfeld. It was Antonio who told Lettie that Marco had been engaged to a beautiful Jewish girl who died in the prison camp shortly before the end of the war.

  She decided to speak. “With Rachel?” she asked as casually as possible.

  He looked up sharply, his eyes very dark. Then his features softened. “Yes,” he said, “with . . . Rachel.”

  Lettie took his hand in her own. “Tell me about her, please, Marco.”

  He brought both their hands to his mouth, pressed her hand to his lips. “Aletta,” he said, shaking his head.

  She waited.

  Then he began to speak. He gripped her hand as if he were taking her along with him on the difficult path. She stroked his hand and walked beside him every step of the way. They both knew it wasn’t easy for her either.

  He spoke at length, with long silences between the words. He dug deep to find small slivers of memory. He cut to the bone.

  Words may fall short, Lettie realized again, but they’re all we have.

  “She was so hopeful the last time I heard from her. Occasionally someone managed to smuggle a letter into camp,” Marco said. His fingers gripped Lettie’s hand. “She was so brave. She never lost hope, not even when her sister died. Then, around Christmastime, she was gone as well.”

  They sat in silence. Long after he had stopped talking they kept sitting, Lettie’s fingers gently caressing his hand.

  “Antonio told me she was a beautiful girl,” Lettie said after a while.

  Marco turned to her, his gaze honest, exposed. “She was beautiful, yes,” he said, “with dark hair and rosy cheeks. And she was hardworking and courageous.” He took a deep breath. “But today I know what it means to have a soul mate, someone who is my intellectual equal, who feels music the way I do, who understands without my having to explain.”

  She watched him calmly.

  “Aletta, you’re beautiful. I love you like I’ve never loved anyone before and never will again.”

  His words flooded her brain, washed over her body, and entered the chambers of her heart where they were anchored, to be remembered and cherished in years to come.

  She put out her hand and stroked his cheek. “Thank you, Marco. You understand . . . with a deeper understanding than words can convey.”

  He drew her to him. “Look at the sun on the water, sparkling like thousands of diamonds,” he said. “It’s going to be a beautiful sunset. The dust is turning the sun red.”

  What lay in the past would remain there. In front of them, the sun was lighting up the water.

  But before the sun touched the hilltops, she said, “It’s getting chilly. I think we should go home.”

  “You’re right,” he said.

  He got up, pulled her to her feet, and took her in his arms. His arm slid down her back and he pressed her to him. “Heavens, Aletta, I miss you,” he said.

  She reached up and touched his cheek. She nodded. She understood.

  Their Sunday visits to the farm became sustenance for the rest of the week—for all of them. They barbecued or made dinner, sometimes they ate cold cuts and salads, and occasionally in winter it was hot soup and fresh bread.

  What Lettie loved more than that was the conversation, the camaraderie, the sharing of small worries and joys.

  “Where’s Boelie?” Marco asked one Sunday when Boelie hadn’t joined them.

  De Wet shook his head. “He was here this morning, then he took off up the mountain, as irritable as a bull at the sight of a red rag,” he said.

  “He wasn’t in church this morning,” Christine said.

  “I wonder what’s the matter,” Marco said, frowning.

  De Wet shook his head again. “He’s probably at loggerheads with my dad again. I knew from the start they wouldn’t get along, but I hoped they’d get past their differences. It can’t go on like this.”

  “What will you do?” asked Marco.

  “I wish I knew,” said De Wet. “What I do know is that Boelie is a brilliant farmer, much better than my dad. If given the opportunity, he could become the most successful farmer in the district.”

  “He’s managing our farm as well,” said Christine.

  “He has great ideas. He dreams big, but he’s also practical,” said De Wet. “I love listening to his schemes.”

  “So we each have our own talents,” said Lettie.

  “It’s the wonderful thing about life,” said Marco, “that every person is unique.”

  Driving back to town in the late afternoon, Marco asked, “How do you feel?”

  “Fine,” Lettie answered, surprised. “Why?”

  “You didn’t eat much at lunch, and you didn’t want cake with your coffee this afternoon.”

  She gave an embarrassed grin. “I need to lose some weight,” she said apologetically.

  He frowned. “Why?”

  She sighed. “Marco, look at Christine. She’s beautiful . . .”

  “Lettie,” he said earnestly, “you’re every bit as beautiful as Christine. And more capable and much smarter.”

  “Nonsense, Christine is perfect!”

  “You’re even more perfect,” Marco said seriously. “Promise me you’ll never change, Aletta. You’re beautiful, feminine, soft. I love holding you, feeling your softness against me—you’re all woman. Don’t get any thinner, promise?”

  She knew where that came from, but if it was how he truly felt, she would understand. “If it’s important to you, Marco, I promise.” She nodded.

  “It is important. Very important.”

  She reached out and touched his cheek. “I promise,” she said. Then she gave a soft laugh. “It’s one promise I won’t find hard to keep.”

  He nodded contentedly and put his hand on her knee. He didn’t say anything more—he didn’t have to.

  That evening they sat in his room at the boardinghouse listening to the new records he had ordered. Caruso was singing. The red label said Gramophone Concert Record.

  They sat facing each other on the only two chairs in his small sitting area, while the master of all tenors sang “Mattinata,” and “Ave Maria.”

  Sunday evenings are made for missing your loved ones, especially if they’re far away, Lettie thought.

  Then Tino Rossi sang “Oh Mon Papa.” Marco sat motionless, his eyes closed.

  When it ended he got up slowly, bent over Lettie, and gently kissed her forehead. “Lovely, isn’t it?” he asked before he chose the next record.

  “Beautiful.” She smiled.

  Beniamino Gigli began to sing “Mama.”

  Lettie watched Marco in silence. I’ve found my mate, she thought, my Adam, created for me.

  “Do you miss your parents, Marco?” she asked when the music faded.

  He gave her a sad smile. “Yes, I often think about them, especially on a Sunday like today. But I know I’ll go back to see them one day. And I want to take you along.” He gave her an earnest look. “Lettie,” he said, his eyes very dark, “I want so very badly to ask you to marry me.”

  She looked into his dark eyes and she understood. “If you asked me to marry you, Marco, and I said yes, I’d be the one person on earth who would know exactly what she w
as letting herself in for.” She paused before continuing. “Besides, consider the alternative.”

  “Not getting married?” he said.

  She smiled, nodding slowly. He always understood.

  He returned her smile and reached for her with both hands. “Aletta, who knows exactly what she’s letting herself in for, would you consider being my wife?” he asked.

  chapter

  TWELVE

  Marco Romanelli, the Italian with the golden voice, and Lettie Louw, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Louw, tied the knot on a bright Saturday in mid-December.

  But before that could happen, Marco, like Antonio before him, had to be confirmed in Lettie’s church. “I can’t marry you to a Catholic man in our church, Lettie. The Catholics are our sworn enemies,” the minister had said. “But I will recommend to the council of elders that the Italian be instructed in our religion, as we did with his brother before him.”

  The Romanelli brothers conferred at length during the weekend when Antonio and Klara came for the engagement party. It was a difficult decision for Marco—even more difficult than the decision to leave his country and his people, he told Lettie earnestly. But getting married at the registry office wasn’t an option for either of them. The blessing of the church was essential.

  Three years earlier it had been a difficult decision for Antonio as well, so he knew best how to give Marco advice. They headed up the mountain and only came back when the sun had nearly gone down.

  That night Marco spoke to Lettie. “Antonio says all the church will basically ask of me is to declare that I believe in God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit, that I believe in the Holy Christian Church, the Forgiveness of Sins, and the Resurrection. I believe all those things already, I have for years. You know, Aletta,” he said, pensively caressing her hand, “I always wondered how Antonio could give up the Catholic Church so easily. But now I understand. He gave me the answer from God’s Word itself, from the book of Ruth.”

  “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God,” said Lettie.

  “God’s Word always has the answers. We must just look for them.” Marco nodded.

  “You love me very much,” Lettie said softly.

  “Yes, Aletta, I do. I’m willing to be confirmed in your church.”

  They would get married in the same church as Klara and Christine, the church where they were all baptized and confirmed. The reception would be held in the Fouries’ barn, and the entire community became involved. Miss Pronk offered to make Lettie’s wedding gown for free. Ellen suggested Lettie grow her hair so they could style it in curls and adorn it with fresh flowers.

  Neighbors promised chicken pies and roast lamb and trays with stuffed eggs and rainbow sandwiches. Patients came bearing bottles of beetroot salad and curried beans and onion salad, stewed quinces and yellow peaches. The farm ladies brought bushels of fresh fruit, crates of vegetables, even a ten-gallon canister of thick cream.

  “These people are just like the folk from my village in Italy,” Marco said late one afternoon.

  “I don’t know where to put everything in this heat!” Lettie’s mother sighed.

  “I’ll get Boelie and De Wet to take everything to the farm. The pantry is big and it’s cool,” Aunt Lulu said. She was managing the wedding like a military operation, and everything was going according to plan.

  “My mom is in her element,” De Wet said when he arrived to pick up the supplies.

  The week before the wedding, the women worked from dawn to sunset, stuffing and marinating legs of venison, baking dozens of koesisters and scores of milk tarts and brandy tarts, polishing the brass and silverware until everything sparkled.

  Klara and Antonio came from Pretoria. Antonio worked side by side with Marco and Boelie, and in the evenings De Wet came to lend a hand. They cleared out and cleaned the barn, hauled big logs down the mountainside for the fires outside, fetched tables and chairs from the church and the school for the reception. Through it all, there was constant banter and laughter.

  Klara had to take special care of herself, as her second baby was due in April. “But no one is supposed to know,” Aunt Lulu told Lettie’s mother in a conspiratorial whisper.

  The men lined the walls with hay bales and the women covered them with snow-white sheets collected from all the neighbors. They set out the tables and chairs and pushed the wagon into a corner to serve as a makeshift stage for the musicians. “It’s beginning to look like something,” Christine said late on Thursday afternoon, her face streaked with dirt.

  “Tomorrow Pérsomi will start with the table decorations. She’s very good with flowers,” said Aunt Lulu. “She wants to cover the walls with willow boughs and large sheaves of sunflowers. I think it will look stunning.”

  But Lettie didn’t get to see Pérsomi’s artistry right away. On Friday she and Marco were banned from the premises and instructed to rest. They were also strictly forbidden to see each other again before the wedding. “It’s going to be a long wait until Saturday afternoon,” Marco said. “I love you, Lettie Louw.”

  “It’s the last time you’ll be able to say that,” she told him with a smile.

  “That’s why I’m saying it, Miss Genius,” he said, laughing.

  That night Lettie lay in the bedroom that had been hers all her life. For the last time, she thought. Tomorrow is my wedding day. Tomorrow night I’ll be Aletta Romanelli, wife of Marco Romanelli.

  She still found it hard to believe it wasn’t a dream.

  “It’s strange, the way our paths crossed in the end,” Marco had said Thursday, stirring his coffee when they had a moment alone in the kitchen.

  “Years ago my mom told me life sometimes leads you along a strange crooked path, but in the end it will always take you where you’re supposed to be,” she replied.

  He looked at her strangely for a moment. “Your mother said that?” he asked, shaking his head.

  “Yes,” she said, smiling. She wondered why he found her mother’s words so remarkable. “And I believe it’s true.”

  The church was a fairyland with masses of white arum lilies from the damp, low-lying areas on the farms and old-fashioned white rambling roses from all the gardens in town. The church was packed. Everyone was there. The majestic tones of the organ launched into the “Wedding March,” and Lettie and her father walked slowly down the aisle. At the altar Marco was waiting for her, dressed in a dark suit with a white rose pinned to the lapel.

  The minister read from the Bible, prayed, and delivered his message. The congregation sang a hymn to the accompaniment of the organ.

  Then the bridal couple turned and looked up at the gallery. Klara and Antonio had asked to sing to them, but no one knew what the song would be.

  The organ began to play. In her clear, strong voice Klara sang “The Lord’s Prayer” in Afrikaans. It was so beautiful, so moving, that all the ladies fumbled for their handkerchiefs.

  Then the organist turned up the volume, and in his rich tenor voice Antonio sang the same song in Italian. Lettie felt Marco stiffen beside her and draw a deep breath. Klara’s rendition had been lovely, but Antonio’s was in a different class—a class to which only his elder brother might possibly aspire.

  But then Antonio’s voice grew thick, then thinner. In the middle of the lyric it faded and died.

  The next moment Klara took over, and a few notes later Antonio joined in again. Together they completed the hymn, Klara singing in Afrikaans, Antonio in Italian.

  When the bridal couple turned back to the pulpit to take their vows, Lettie saw that Marco’s eyes were brimming with tears.

  Outside the church, the guests were crowding around to congratulate the bride and groom. “No, no,” De Wet protested, trying to create order, “you can do it on the farm, all night long. There’ll be more space—and plenty of food and drink.”

  The cars filed through the church gate, heading for the farm.

  When
at last they were alone in their wedding car—Annabel’s father’s shiny, brand-new black Buick Super, driven by her brother, Reinier—Marco turned to Lettie. “You look more beautiful today than I have ever seen you look, Mrs. Romanelli,” he said earnestly.

  “Thank you, Marco. It’s the happiest day of my life.” She took his hand and pressed it to her cheek.

  All the way to the farm they sat close together in the back of the big Buick, their fingers with the shiny new rings entwined.

  The wedding car stopped at the entrance to the barn. The guests formed a guard of honor and applauded. The newlyweds got out and walked through the arch they formed with their arms: Marco, tall and handsome in his dark suit, and Lettie, radiant in her pure-white satin gown with not a frill in sight.

  The fruit punch and orange cordial were ice-cold, and the year-old sheep and suckling pigs were on the spit. The interior of the barn had been transformed into a reception hall of note.

  De Wet was master of ceremonies and soon had the guests roaring with laughter at his quips. Antonio proposed a toast to Marco and Lettie. The guests enjoyed his witty anecdotes, delivered in English. He turned to Marco and addressed him in Italian, speaking earnestly. Marco nodded, that familiar smile on his lips. Subsequently Antonio turned to Lettie and, in faultless Afrikaans, welcomed her to the Romanelli family. The guests cheered and clapped and got to their feet to drink to the health of the bride and groom.

  Then it was Marco’s turn. He delivered a brilliant speech, emotional at times. He even said a few words in Afrikaans. The men nodded approvingly, the women sighed contentedly, and the young girls gazed at him, entranced.

  Marco and Lettie opened the dance floor to the tune of Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker. They were soon joined by De Wet and Christine, with other relatives and friends following suit. Antonio and Klara remained seated. A pregnant woman was required to behave with decorum. But the second dance found Antonio on the dance floor with the new Mrs. Romanelli.