The Crooked Path

by Irma Joubert

  My child has polio, she told God wordlessly in her own language. You know I am helpless. With all my years of training and experience, I can’t help my own child. We place her in Your hands. Please help me make the right decisions and give her the right support.

  And have mercy on us.

  When Marco said amen, he got up. He had found some peace as well, Lettie noticed.

  She put out her hand. He opened his arm and held her against him. “Come, Isabella,” he said softly.

  The little girl leaned against their legs. She put out her hand and stroked her little sister’s leg. “Don’t worry, Leonora, Jesus and Mommy will make you better,” she said earnestly.

  Lettie shook her head. “Heavens, Marco,” she said.

  He nodded, but his shoulders were square. “You think we should take her straight to the Johannesburg Children’s Hospital?”

  “Just as a precaution,” Lettie said. She tried to think straight. “I should go with her in the ambulance, to make sure she’s comfortable and calm. She needs a firm mattress, and I can apply hot poultices to her legs for the pain.”

  He nodded. “Shall I stay with Isabella?”

  “I think it’s best. She’s going to need you,” Lettie said. “I’m going to give Leonora a shot for the pain. It’s going to get worse as the day goes on. I’ll arrange for an ambulance.”

  “Will you manage on your own?” he asked worriedly.

  She shook her head. “I wish with all my heart you could be with me, Marco. But it could be weeks, and you have to be at school. And we have two children. It’s important that we don’t upset Isabella too much.”

  He nodded and stroked her hair.

  She fetched her doctor’s bag, gave the little girl a shot. She was so small and was crying so bitterly. Then she phoned Mrs. Roux.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing,” her receptionist replied. “I’ll take care of everything. The ambulance should be there any minute.”

  She called her parents. “We’re on our way,” her dad said.

  “We don’t want to upset the children too much,” Lettie warned him.

  “I understand,” he said.

  Marco had put Leonora on the double bed. “Lie still, my little princess. Papa will stay here with you,” he said softly. “Isabella, don’t get up on the bed, sit here on the carpet.”

  “My parents are on their way,” Lettie said. “I have to pack.”

  “No, your mother can pack. Sit here with us awhile, just until your folks arrive.”

  She sank down on the carpet beside Isabella and rested her head on her husband’s knee. He stroked her hair. She reached out and took Leonora’s small hand into her own. Isabella climbed onto her lap. With her free hand she hugged the child against her. “You’re right, Marco,” she said heavily, “it could be three, four weeks before we’re together like this again.”

  He kept stroking her hair. “We’ll soon be reunited. Even four weeks isn’t that long,” he said.

  “What’s waiting for us and our little girl?” she asked, feeling lost.

  “I don’t know,” he said softly. “But we’ll get through this, Aletta, now and in the years to come. The four of us have got each other.”

  Lettie’s parents arrived. When the ambulance drew up at the door half an hour later, Lettie’s bag was packed. “Just buy what I’ve forgotten,” her mom said, flustered.

  Lettie took leave of her family, then picked up Isabella and held her tightly. “You’re staying with Papa, and with Oupa and Ouma. Mommy is going with Leonora. But we’ll be back as soon as Leonora feels better. Mommy loves you very much.”

  “I know,” Isabella said. “Make Leonora better quickly.”

  She put the child down and stepped into her husband’s embrace. His strong arms closed around her protectively. She leaned against him for a moment. She could hear his heart beat through the coarse fabric of his shirt. “I love you, Aletta,” his beautiful voice said simply.

  “And I love you, Marco,” she said.

  Then she turned and climbed into the back of the ambulance. Leonora lay waiting, her eyes filled with apprehension.

  The driver shut the door.

  Through the window Lettie watched her family grow smaller on the sidewalk: her dad, bent and old, with his arm around her gray-haired mom’s round figure. And Marco, tall and straight, their eldest daughter on his arm. They kept waving until the ambulance turned the corner.

  Then Lettie focused her attention on her sick child.

  On their way to the hospital, Leonora’s temperature began to rise and she was in tears again. Everything hurt: her head, her neck, her body. Her legs were very, very painful. “Take the hurt away, Mommy,” she pleaded.

  When they had crossed the Pienaars River, she fell asleep.

  Lettie leaned back, exhausted, and closed her eyes for a moment.

  A sudden realization flashed like a lightning bolt through her heavy heart.

  The early symptoms of paralytic poliomyelitis, she knew, included high temperature, headache, stiff back and neck, muscle atrophy, loss of reflexes. Paralysis would progress for two or three days and be complete by the time the fever broke. So far only Leonora’s legs were paralyzed, but the disease would run its course.

  Spinal polio was the most common kind of paralytic poliomyelitis. It attacked the part of the spinal cord responsible for muscle movement, including that of the limbs and the intercostal muscles. The infection caused inflammation of the nerve cells, so the muscles stopped receiving signals from the brain, becoming passive, weak, and finally completely paralyzed.

  Leonora began to whimper again. Lettie leaned over her. She was very hot. “Mommy’s here, sweetheart,” she said, placing her cool hand on the little girl’s burning forehead.

  “Mommy, it hurts,” the child sobbed.

  “Where does it hurt?” Lettie asked.

  But the child just kept sobbing, “It hurts.”

  She couldn’t give Leonora another shot, not even to bring the fever down. Lettie felt helpless. She poured fresh water into the hot water bottle. “Come, Mommy will put this on your legs. It will make the pain a little better.”

  “No, no!” cried the child. “It hurts!”

  It was a long way to Johannesburg. They still had the last part of the Springbok Plain to cross, then they had to navigate the traffic in Pretoria before they could tackle the last thirty miles to Johannesburg.

  What she feared more than death itself was bulbar poliomyelitis, which affected the muscles of the diaphragm, making it difficult for the patient to breathe. It left small children helplessly trapped in an iron lung, sometimes for weeks or even months on end.

  Tears began to roll down Lettie’s cheeks. She no longer tried to hold them back. She succumbed to her grief for her perfect little girl who was crying with pain and who was facing an uncertain future.

  The next moment she felt a small hand on her knee. “Don’t cry, Mommy,” Leonora said.

  She dropped to her knees beside her child, one arm protectively over the hurting body, the other hand wiping the damp, dark hair from the warm forehead. “Mommy loves you so much, Leonora.”

  “You’re crying, Mommy,” the child repeated.

  “Yes, sweetheart, I’m crying because you’re in pain. Mommy doesn’t want you to have pain.”

  “Mommy must take the pain away,” the child said.

  “Maybe that’s why Mommy is crying, Leonora. I can’t take the pain away.” How could she explain?

  There was a strange anxiety in the child’s eyes, a fear of the unknown. “My legs can’t stand,” she said.

  Lettie nodded, still stroking the small forehead. “I know.”

  Marco would have known the words to say, Lettie knew. Marco would have made up a story about the king’s messenger who had had a fall.

  “Leonora, you have a sickness that has put the pain in your body, that has made your legs weak and tired—paralyzed them. Your body is putting up a big fight. That’s why you’re
so warm. It’s your body’s way of fighting the sickness. Do you understand?”

  “No.”

  Lettie licked her dry lips. “We don’t always understand everything,” she said. “I’m going with you to a hospital, where I’ll stay with you. There’s a very clever doctor at the hospital and he’s going to help Mommy make you better.”

  “Jesus will help too,” the child said.

  The lump in Lettie’s throat grew huge. “Yes, what’s most important is that we remember it’s by the grace of God that we are able to travel by ambulance to a fully equipped hospital in Johannesburg,” she said, speaking over the child’s head.

  “Papa will come to see me,” the child said.

  “No, sweetheart, Papa must stay with Isabella, or poor Isabella will be all alone. The two of us will miss Papa very much, but we’ll soon be back with him, I promise. You must always remember that Mommy and Papa love you very much.”

  The child began to cry again. “What’s the matter, my sweet?”

  “It hurts!” she said. “It hurts!”

  “There now, my love, Mommy will move the hot water bottle. Is that better?”

  When the ambulance finally drew up at the children’s hospital and Lettie got out stiffly, she knew that this journey alone with her child had been necessary. For her, and maybe for her child as well. Just before they arrived, she had given Leonora something for the pain. She would need it during the next hour or two. Lettie felt stronger. She knew what was waiting, but she had found the strength to handle it.

  Klara and Antonio were waiting in the foyer. Lettie walked into their embrace.

  They all turned to the little girl on the stretcher. “Look who’s here, Leonora,” Lettie said cheerfully.

  “Oom Tonio and Tannie Klara,” the child said. “My legs hurt and they don’t work.”

  Lettie saw Antonio turn away to hide the tears that were rolling down his cheeks. How the brothers took after each other!

  Klara took the child’s hand, smiled, and said, “Your papa told us you’re not well, so we came at once to give you a kiss.” She leaned over and kissed the little girl’s forehead.

  “Is Papa here?” the child asked, perking up.

  “No, my love,” Klara said, “he called us on the phone.”

  “Oh, I thought he was here.” Her eyes searched for her mother. “Mommy,” she cried, “the hurt is coming back!”

  “Lettie, let me introduce you to Dr. Erasmus,” Antonio said. “He’s the pediatrician who has come to examine Leonora. My sister-in-law, Lettie Romanelli—or Dr. Lettie Louw.”

  So the next part of the journey began, through administration and forms, through corridors to examination rooms and children’s wards, through a battery of tests. Leonora clung to her mommy, sobbing with exhaustion and pain and fear.

  Somewhere amid the chaos Klara brought tea and an egg sandwich and remained strong when everything became too much for Lettie.

  “They can’t do anything for her,” Lettie said softly. “She’s so tired, so scared. Can’t they just leave her alone?”

  Klara rubbed her back. “I’m sure they’re just doing what they have to. I . . . don’t know what to say, what to do.”

  “Just stay here,” Lettie said wearily. “It means so much to me that you’re here, Klara.”

  Late that afternoon Leonora finally lay in a white hospital bed—a lively little girl imprisoned between high white rails, her dark, damp hair spread on the white pillowcase, her body a small mound under the white covers. “Lettie, Antonio is coming to fetch me in a while. I have to go home,” said Klara.

  “Of course,” Lettie said.

  “I’ll come again tomorrow, in my own car.”

  “No, you don’t have to—”

  “I’ll be here,” Klara said firmly. “Where will you sleep tonight? Shouldn’t we take your luggage—”

  “I’m staying with Leonora,” Lettie said.

  “You can’t sleep here, and you need to rest. You must keep up your strength,” said Klara. “There’s a hotel down the street. We’ll reserve a room for you and drop off your luggage. At least you’ll have somewhere to take a shower and a nap.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Klara,” Lettie said. She was suddenly bone-tired, too worn out to argue.

  In the early evening the specialist sat down with Lettie at Leonora’s bedside. “It’s easier to explain when you’re talking to a colleague,” Dr. Erasmus began with an apologetic smile. “But it’s also harder, because you know we’re so totally helpless.”

  “Yes,” Lettie said.

  “Dr. Louw, so far Leonora’s torso has not been affected. The right leg is slightly less affected than the left one. Of course, the paralysis could still spread during the next day or so before the fever breaks, but based on what I’ve learned about the disease during the past few years, I believe Leonora has it in a less severe degree.”

  “I’m so grateful,” Lettie said softly.

  “I also believe the chance of her developing bulbar polio is reasonably slim.”

  “It’s my worst fear,” Lettie said, nodding.

  “The possibility is not excluded, of course,” Dr. Erasmus hastened to add, “but it’s unlikely. We’ve done every possible test, and for the next few days we’re just going to keep her calm and under observation. We’ll give her pain medication and a light sedative at night to make sure she sleeps.”

  Lettie nodded again.

  Dr. Erasmus gave her an earnest look. “I want you to get a good night’s sleep tonight.”

  “She’s my child,” Lettie said.

  “That’s the mother in you talking, Dr. Louw,” said Dr. Erasmus. “The doctor in you knows very well that your little girl is going to sleep peacefully tonight, that she’ll be in the hands of people who work with infantile paralysis every day, and that she will need a rested mommy tomorrow morning. Am I right?”

  Lettie sighed and stroked the sleeping child’s hair. “You’re probably right,” she reluctantly agreed.

  “Do you have somewhere to stay?”

  “My brother-in-law has booked me into a hotel down the street.”

  “Would you like to make a phone call?”

  “I’d like to call my husband,” Lettie said. “I see there’s a public phone booth in the corridor.”

  “It’ll take hours to try and get through from a phone booth to an operator in the bushveld,” Dr. Erasmus said. “I’ll ask reception to place the call for you. They’ll send for you.” He gave a slight smile. “They’ll do it for Dr. Louw, if not for Mrs. Romanelli.”

  Lettie managed a smile too. “Yes, it usually works, doesn’t it?”

  When the receptionist summoned Dr. Louw fifteen minutes later, Leonora was still asleep.

  “Marco?” Lettie said into the receiver.

  “Lettie?” She heard the effect of the long wait, and the doubt and fear in his voice.

  “She’s okay,” she said immediately.

  “And how are you?”

  An overwhelming weariness took hold of her and she closed her eyes. What she wouldn’t give to be with him now, calling the two little girls for their bath. “I’m fine, just exhausted. But we’re okay. Please don’t worry.”

  “I’ll stop worrying when the two of you are back home again,” he said seriously. “Have you seen the specialist?”

  She told him everything: about the findings, the tentative good news, the difficult two or three days ahead. It felt like sharing a heavy load, like halving the weight she had to bear. Dear Lord, thank You, thank You for this man, she prayed wordlessly.

  She spoke to Isabella as well. “Papa stayed with me all day. We played,” the child gushed. “Tomorrow he’s going back to school and I’m going to stay with Oupa and Ouma. Is Leonora better? When are you coming home?”

  And thank You, dear Lord, for my bouncy little girl, who puts the warmth back into my cold heart, she prayed as she walked down the long corridor, back to the room where her sick child lay.

  She pushed
the door open. Leonora had woken up and was crying bitterly.

  Lettie hurried to her bedside. “No, no, my sweetheart. What’s the matter?” she asked, leaning over the small figure.

  The child clung to her. “You were gone,” she sobbed. “I want to go potty, Mommy!”

  “Mommy’s here, Mommy’s here,” Lettie soothed her. “It just feels as if you want to go potty, Leonora. There’s a little tube that takes your wee-wee away so you don’t have to go to the bathroom.”

  “You were gone, Mommy,” the child cried again.

  “I spoke to Papa on the phone,” Lettie said, calmer now. “Papa says he loves you, and Isabella says—”

  But the child began to cry even harder. “I want my papa,” she cried.

  “No,” Lettie said softly but firmly, “crying like this won’t do any good. It will just make you feel worse. Papa can’t come right now. Papa is at home with Isabella. Would you like me to tell you a story?”

  Only when Leonora had been asleep for several hours and the night sister told her at eleven that she really should get some rest herself was Lettie able to tear herself away from her child’s bedside and get into one of the waiting taxis in the parking lot. Antonio had already made all the arrangements at the hotel, and Klara had unpacked her suitcase and put her clothes away.

  Her body ached with exhaustion. The moment her head touched the pillow, she was fast asleep.

  Four days later she was able to report to Marco that the possibility of their daughter’s recovery was increasing. “Her right leg might be temporarily paralyzed, but it’s not certain. Cells that have lost function can begin to repair themselves after about six weeks,” she explained, “and Dr. Erasmus thinks it might be what’s happening with Leonora’s right leg.”

  “And the left one?” Marco asked, still anxious.

  “The left leg may have suffered permanent damage, Marco, but it’s too early for a prognosis.”

  After a while he asked, “Lettie, is Leonora suffering?”

  Pain shot through her. How do you tell a father who is far away that his little girl cries helplessly at times, that her mommy prays endlessly for the pain to disappear? How do you tell him about the fear in her eyes when the sister enters the room with a syringe or the doctor lifts the blankets away from the soft little body? How do you tell your life partner that you wish you could take the child’s pain on yourself, that you wish everything was just a nasty black dream and that the sun would rise on a normal day tomorrow morning?