The Crooked Path

by Irma Joubert

  He fell silent.

  “Yes, I understand,” Lettie said.

  “It’s by the grace of God that I managed not to hold it against the child,” he said. “To me he was just a lovely, lively little boy. But if I’d got my hands on Gerbrand . . .”

  He stopped and turned to her. In his eyes was a strange glow, a deeper pain than she had ever seen in him before. “I’ve never said this to anyone before, Lettie, but what he had done to my Christine . . . If I’d got hold of that man, I swear I would’ve killed him.”

  She put her hand on his arm.

  He closed his eyes, shook his head. “I suppose I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “That’s what friends are for,” she said.

  He set off again with long strides. A moment later he stopped at a sidewalk kiosk and turned to her, his old self again. “Can you face eating pizza for lunch?” he asked with a smile. “I’m starving.”

  “Me too,” she said. “When in Rome . . .”

  He rewarded her with a belly laugh. “You’re lovely,” he said before buying an enormous pizza.

  “Do you think we’ll manage to eat this entire thing?” Lettie asked.

  “We’ll feed the rest to the birds,” De Wet said.

  At the next park they came across, they sat down on a bench. De Wet unwrapped the pizza and put it between them. “Lunch is served, signora,” he said gallantly.

  She laughed and dived in. As she had predicted, they couldn’t finish the pizza. “You should have bought the medium instead of the large!” she said.

  “I was so hungry then, I could have eaten an ox,” De Wet said, tossing bits of pizza on the grass.

  A squirrel with a thick bouncy tail approached. De Wet threw down a trail of crumbs right up to his shoe.

  “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to feed the animals,” Lettie said, stretching her aching feet in the sun.

  “Hmm,” De Wet said and threw more pizza crumbs on the grass.

  “Thanks for coming with me today, Lettie,” he said. “It couldn’t have been very interesting for you.”

  “I enjoyed it,” Lettie said. “Christine was my best friend for many, many years. And . . . sometimes it’s good to talk.”

  “If one is lucky enough to find someone who can listen,” De Wet said earnestly.

  “Tonight we’re going to paint the town red. I refuse to let you old-timers go to bed with the chickens again!” De Wet said when the friends met in the hotel foyer that evening.

  “Who’s your old-timer?” Pérsomi laughed. She was wearing a simple deep-red frock, and her dark hair was done up in an elegant chignon.

  Boelie’s hand was around her waist. There was a smile on his face.

  After all these years they’re truly happy, Lettie thought.

  “Why don’t we walk down the street and see what we find?” Antonio suggested.

  It was a warm summer’s evening. The streets were crowded with people laughing and calling out to each other. They crossed a square where age-old statues stood bathed in the soft glow of modern streetlights. The moon drifted through the fleecy clouds, and musicians played on street corners.

  The evening is going to my head. I’m getting drunk on the lukewarm night and the music and the moon above.

  At an open-air restaurant Boelie stopped. “This looks like a nice place,” he said.

  “And they’re playing good music,” De Wet agreed.

  “You two have seen there are steaks on the menu.” Klara laughed, her eyes twinkling with mirth. “That’s why you want to go in here.”

  “I could do with a steak as well,” Antonio said at once. “We all could.”

  “And a bottle of good wine,” Boelie said.

  “Or two,” De Wet agreed.

  “Do we ladies have a choice?” Pérsomi asked, amused.

  Boelie gave her a surprised look. “No,” he said.

  Some things would never change.

  Inside, the staff moved two tables together to make room for them all. The tables had red-checkered tablecloths and candles stuck into potbellied wine bottles. The men ordered large steaks, the ladies a variety of Italian dishes. Antonio beckoned to the waiter and ordered two bottles of wine. After a while the man returned with six long-stemmed wineglasses laced between his fingers.

  They ate and drank and laughed at De Wet’s quips.

  On a small stage at the back of the restaurant, a few older gentlemen were making cheerful music on a violin, guitar, and accordion. They were playing Italian folk songs, some with captivating tunes that soon had the friends swaying from side to side, some with a pulsating rhythm that set their feet tapping and their shoulders shaking.

  Some of the diners began to sing along, raising their glasses and clapping their hands.

  Antonio joined in the singing. “Shall we order another bottle of wine?” he asked from his position at the head of the table.

  Lettie laughed. “Gosh! My head is spinning already.”

  “Yes, go ahead,” De Wet cried. “Tonight we’re dancing on the tables!”

  Antonio jumped to his feet and held out his hand to Klara. “Do you see a dance floor anywhere?” she protested, laughing, but getting up just the same.

  “That’s what the street is for!” Antonio cried exuberantly.

  De Wet also got up and turned to Lettie. His green eyes glistened, and his silver hair fell over his forehead. “Let’s show these Italians a thing or two!” he said.

  Laughter bubbled up inside her. She felt young and carefree. She looked up at him. “Why not?” She threw out the challenge.

  The musicians moved among the tables, playing a fast, wild folk tune. More couples began to dance on the sidewalk. Passersby stopped and applauded.

  They danced round and round. De Wet went faster and faster. Lettie clung to him for dear life, her feet flying over the uneven sidewalk. “De Wet!” she protested, laughing. “We’re going to land on our backsides in the middle of the Eternal City!”

  He looked down at her laughing face. “You’re so beautiful, Lettie. Do you realize I could easily fall in love with you here in the Eternal City?” he asked, overflowing with happiness.

  Shock jolted through her body.

  No. No.

  “De Wet, don’t!”

  “Okay,” he said with a strange smile.

  He danced on as if nothing had happened.

  chapter

  NINETEEN

  She spent a long time in the shower. The water poured over her face and down her neck. The soap foamed at her feet.

  She washed her hair, and the bubbles ran down her body.

  She washed away the night’s events.

  The words remained.

  All night long sleep eluded her.

  Because a few unthinking words, a few frivolous words in the jolly spirit of the evening, had stripped away forty years in a matter of seconds, leaving her naked and exposed.

  At breakfast Antonio announced, “We’re going to visit the Vatican City. The men must wear long pants and the ladies should put on frocks, or we won’t be allowed in.”

  “We’ll die in this heat,” Boelie complained.

  “It’s no worse than the bushveld, and there we used to go to work in long pants every day,” De Wet said.

  “Not all of us,” Boelie replied.

  “I’ll put a pair of your shorts in my handbag,” Pérsomi said. “Then you can change as soon as we get out.”

  Lettie forced herself to eat the light continental breakfast. She chatted with Klara. She asked Antonio about their activities for the day. She shared a joke with Boelie and Pérsomi. “Imagine!” she said. “This morning I asked the girl who cleans our rooms if she had slept well. ‘Grazie, signora,’ she said. ‘But scusami, in Italy we do not ask the other person what they do in the night.’”

  Boelie laughed. “De Wet, just listen to the lecture Lettie got from the chambermaid this morning.”

  But at that moment the waiter brought their coffee and Lettie
was saved from having to tell De Wet the story.

  She avoided looking at him.

  She had told herself over and over the night before that he wouldn’t even remember, that it had just been a passing remark, he hadn’t meant anything by it, he’d had too much wine and was talking through his neck.

  Still, she couldn’t look at him.

  After breakfast she exchanged her pantsuit for a dress but took no special care with her appearance.

  They boarded a bus for the Vatican City, which lies on a hillside. Lettie hastily sat next to a stranger and looked through the window at the scenery. They crossed the Tiber and walked the last few hundred yards to the high walls surrounding the smallest sovereign state in the world.

  As they were crossing St. Peter’s Square, Pérsomi fell into step beside her. “Lettie, what’s wrong?” she asked, frowning. “Did you and De Wet argue?”

  She shrugged and said, “He said something last night that upset me.”

  “Does he know he upset you?”

  “No, no, he doesn’t know.”

  Pérsomi shook her head. “I think he knows. I know him, and he’s not himself either this morning. He was already having coffee when Boelie and I entered the dining room, and that says a lot.”

  “It’s not serious. It’s probably nothing. I mustn’t be so sensitive.”

  “So, here we are,” Antonio said, stopping in front of a towering obelisk. To the left was the enormous St. Peter’s Basilica with its domed roof, to the right a series of tall columns.

  “This obelisk looks more Egyptian than Roman,” De Wet said.

  Lettie’s eyes automatically went to him when he spoke, but only for a moment. In that half glance, however, she had taken in his tall figure, still slim and athletically built like when they were at school together. It was enough to make her heart shrink.

  “It’s originally from Egypt, you’re right. It was brought to Rome sometime in the first century,” Antonio said. “This is the place where the apostle Peter is said to have been crucified with his head downward, then buried. His grave is said to be directly underneath the high altar in the cathedral. The obelisk probably survived after the fall of the Roman Empire because of its proximity to St. Peter’s grave. Come, let’s take a look inside.”

  They mounted the steps and walked past the colossal eighteen-foot statues of St. Peter and St. Paul to the front of the biggest cathedral in the world. They looked up at the ornate vaulted ceiling. They crossed the shiny marble floor. They paused at the tall statues.

  “Look,” Pérsomi said, almost whispering, and motioning with her head, “there’s Michelangelo’s statue of Mary, with the crucified Jesus on her lap.”

  “The Pietà,” Lettie whispered, amazed. For a moment she forgot everything else and hurried to the statue in its large glass display case.

  She looked up at the sculpture. What she was looking at here, she suddenly realized, was the stone Michelangelo spent two years carving and shaping and sanding to become the Virgin and Son.

  Just like her children’s oupa had extracted a much smaller Virgin and Child from a piece of marble.

  The moment felt almost sacred.

  “Lettie?” she heard a soft voice say behind her.

  The moment splintered.

  She pretended not to have heard, turned to Klara, and said, “I always thought it was much bigger.”

  She had no idea what Klara replied, and it didn’t matter.

  She was being childish. She couldn’t avoid De Wet for the rest of the vacation, not even for the rest of the day. There was a lump in her stomach, a spasm in her back that shot up into her neck, and a threatening headache. She licked her dry lips.

  In the Sistine Chapel they craned their necks to look at the painted ceilings twenty meters above them. “We’re just in time to see it,” Antonio said. “The chapel is going to be restored. Work starts next year and it will be closed to the public for up to ten years.”

  “Then we’d better take a proper look,” Boelie said. “Do you think they’ll repaint the ceiling as well?”

  “Boelie! You philistine!” Lettie said, smiling.

  “Evidently Michelangelo lay on his back when he painted it.” De Wet spoke next to her. “It’s high, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, very,” Lettie said, moving on.

  If she didn’t do something about this tension, she thought as she gazed with unseeing eyes at the scenes above and around her, she was going to get the grandmother of all headaches. Moreover, the vacation she had looked forward to so much was going to turn into the great-grandmother of all nightmares.

  “Let’s buy a few loaves and some cheese and cold cuts and fruit and picnic in the Vatican gardens,” Klara suggested when they were back outside in the bright sunshine. “Antonio and I have never been there, and they say it’s lovely.”

  “Don’t forget the beers,” Boelie said at once. “I’m parched.”

  “I don’t think we’ll be allowed to take beer in,” Antonio said, “but we might find coffee somewhere.”

  “The men will do the shopping. You ladies may go,” De Wet said. “We’ll come and find you.”

  “We’ll meet you at the radio offices,” Antonio hastened to add. “The gardens are too big to go in search of you.”

  For a moment Lettie considered telling them she had a headache and was going back to the hotel, but she decided against it. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself, and so far only Pérsomi had noticed that something was wrong. Besides, there was a good chance she’d get lost in this strange city.

  She took a painkiller from her handbag and swallowed it dry.

  In the beautiful gardens she managed to relax. It was quiet. They strolled along the paths, admiring the lush vegetation. Klara lingered at a statue, while Pérsomi and Lettie walked on. After a while they sat down on the edge of a fountain to wait for her. “It’s so lovely here,” Pérsomi said, dipping her hand in the water. “My eyes are so tired of looking at man-made things.”

  “I want to take a look at that peculiar flower over there,” Lettie said.

  “Just stay on the paths, or Romulus and Remus’s she-wolf might eat you,” Pérsomi said, smiling.

  Lettie wandered off. She had to be alone for a while. She pressed her fingertips to her temples. Around a corner, screened by plants, she paused for a moment. What was happening to her? How could it be that a few words had turned her into a lovesick teen?

  But she knew.

  “Lettie?”

  She swung around.

  De Wet was standing a few steps away, his eyes guarded. In his hand he held a single flower. He held it out to her. She stood motionless, looking at him.

  “I’m sorry, I was out of order last night,” he said. “I crossed a line, I know.”

  Still she stood motionless.

  “I didn’t think before I spoke. I must have had one too many.”

  She waited. He gave her a lopsided grin. “Take the flower, please, and tell me I’m forgiven.”

  She smiled in spite of herself. “De Wet, where did you find this flower?” she asked.

  “Picked it, over there,” he admitted.

  “And if they arrest us because you stole a flower from His Holiness the Pope’s garden?”

  “Then we’ll have a wonderful story to tell the folks at home.” He smiled, more at ease now.

  She put out her hand and took the flower.

  “Forgiven?” he asked.

  “As long as you behave,” she said.

  But Lettie knew: the chemical reaction of so many years ago was unquestionably back.

  Their train to Venice was leaving early in the morning. Lettie slept reasonably well and felt much better when she woke up at daybreak.

  She took a shower, washed her hair, and put on a deep-blue pantsuit and a crisp white blouse. She was ready for anything. The matters of her heart were under control. Lettie was still feeling positive and strong when she opened her bedroom door and dragged her heavy bag out into the
corridor.

  “Here, let me help,” De Wet said behind her. “Did you sleep well?”

  Despite her best intentions, her heart jumped at the sound of his voice. She pulled herself together, took a deep breath, turned calmly, and said, “Like a baby, thanks, De Wet. And you?”

  They walked down the corridor to the elevator. On their way down, she looked him in the eye and chatted easily—like in the old days.

  But a treacherous realization had lodged in her mind: De Wet, who had been late even for his own wedding, had been standing in the corridor, waiting for her to come out.

  The station was a hive of activity.

  People were calling out to each other at the top of their voices, arguing loudly about the price of tickets and fighting with the conductor for better seats.

  “When I look at this chaos, I’m truly grateful Antonio can speak Italian,” Boelie remarked.

  Antonio managed to find them six seats in the same compartment. He and De Wet stood inside the compartment while Boelie handed them the luggage through the window. “Thank goodness the men are here to haul those heavy bags,” Lettie said.

  “Yes, they can be useful at times,” Klara said with a smile.

  Lettie was about to say Klara sounded just like Annabel but stopped herself in time. Mentioning Annabel’s name in Pérsomi’s presence was still a sore point.

  When at last they got tucked in, the bags were stacked on the overhead luggage racks and under the seats. De Wet raised himself from the seat where he was reclining and motioned to Lettie to sit next to him.

  She gave him a friendly smile but sat down next to Boelie and Klara instead, facing him.

  You’re not catching me off guard again, she thought. I follow my own path. Alone. The way I like it.

  By afternoon, after hours of taking in the beautiful scenery through the train window, a delicious lunch in the dining car, and even a short nap in the straight-backed seats, Lettie’s defenses began to crumble.