by André Costa
“You girls are like the Witches of Eastwick,” said Jack, quickly rescuing Gretha from nostalgia, “who have decided to fight the mortal boredom of this little town by dragging our poor, good priest into the fire.”
“Well, Father Callaghan seems to be having fun…,” Brigitte said.
“But then look at how diabolic you are,” said Jack, causing Gretha to laugh.
As witty and mild as the conversation that followed was, it was short of breath, causing half the bottle to be forgotten. David was the first to put down his glass, pushing his chair away from the table and, with it, the risk of Jack exceeding his words.
“This is a good time for me to show myself to my room,” said David.
“There is never a good time for that, but if that’s what you wish…,” said Gretha.
When David reached his room, he did not have a last sip of water or even close the window. He sank into his bed; sleep came smoothly, at first, and persuasive a few minutes later. With the freezing night breeze on his face, he only woke to the harsh Namibian early morning sun.
“Father Callaghan!”
As Jack drew closer to David’s bed, the priest was still battling to climb out of the deep, dark, and muddy hole of his dream.
“Good morning, Mr. Elliot. I slept like a rock.”
“I hope you’re fresh. Marie is downstairs and wants to say goodbye.”
Once again, David marveled at how a sentence could be so sweet and bitter at the same time.
Chapter IV
“How is she?” asked David.
“Restored, I guess… beautiful and confident, as always. Now, let’s go because she’s in a hurry!” replied Jack.
When passing by the restaurant, they were spotted by Gretha, who waved. It would have been a brief and almost bureaucratic gesture, if it had not been for the detective look she shot the young priest.
They found Marie outside on the porch, facing the street, her blond hair lit by the sun. One of her hands supported her elbow and the other, wrapped in a bandage, held a cigarette. She was wearing a yellow summer dress with a daisy print and leather flats. When they approached her, a light breeze pressed the fabric against her thighs, shaping her charm.
“Father, I know it’s too early to ask for your blessing,” Marie risked in a wide smile as she turned around.
“My God, it’s so good to see you! What time is it? Six, seven…?” asked David.
“David just woke up, Marie. He hasn’t put on his cassock yet,” said Jack, deliberately keeping the mood light and allowing space for the two to embrace each other.
“Thank God for that; I wouldn’t be able to recognize you in a cassock. And I think I would also be intimidated,” said Marie, still hugging David and kissing his cheeks.
“You look great,” said David. “I’m surprised. Your bruises are barely visible…”
“Quite the contrary! Let’s just say I’m grateful for the miracle of makeup. You should try it,” Marie said, batting her eyelashes at him.
“I see you don’t have much time…,” said David, pointing at the cab waiting by the small metal gate.
“Oh, don’t worry about him. He’s being paid handsomely and will wait as long as necessary.”
Jack had noticed a change in Marie’s tone of voice, now tender and low, and came up with a lame excuse to leave her alone with Father Callaghan. He stepped into the dining room and kept busy alongside Gretha, while his eyes regularly darted towards the couple outside.
Alone on the porch, David and Marie wrestled with their thoughts. They were many and of such conflicting natures that it took a long time before either of them could articulate their inner turmoil.
“It was a very tough night for me, David. With everything that happened to me… to us… I lost two friends, two amazing human beings in just a couple of days… my work—months of work—is all gone.”
“Benjamin… he’s probably still alive, Marie. Don’t lose faith.”
“It’s possible, it’s possible… and I believe it, but I can’t stay for the investigation. I have too many things to explain to our sponsors, and that’s why I’m going back to Europe. I can’t let Andreas go alone.”
“Are you thinking of coming back to Namibia?”
“Of course. This is my home, more than anywhere else in the world.”
“And when do you think you’ll come back?”
Marie lowered her face and her voice. “David, listen, what happened between us…”
“You don’t have to say anything… really.”
Marie took a step towards him and looked deep into his eyes, gently touching his shoulder, as if wiping off invisible dust. Tears started rolling down her face like the first rains of the Kalahari, dense and invasive. Her long fingers dug into David’s neck, and they hugged once more, this time fiercely.
David responded to the outpouring of emotions with his own flood of tears. But there was something else, a feeling so rare that it felt original. Enfolded in her embrace, he did not feel the cassock between their skins.
“Marie, I need to tell you something… but I don’t know if I can,” he said, gently pushing the Nordic researcher’s shoulders away.
“Only say it if it feels right to your heart, David. I’m tired of words solely emanating from reason and logic.”
“I don’t know where they’re coming from, but I’m sure they’re true.”
“Then keep them for a moment. Let me talk first. So many things have happened over the last few days that my emotions are as strong as they’re lost. And I see in you a beautiful human being ready to bloom, with a free soul to help this needy, chaotic world… I’m not that person, David. I feel like my convictions are quickly falling apart. I’m confused, and I don’t know what I want anymore.”
David gently pulled her towards two chairs, and they sat down facing each other. They remained silent for a few seconds, holding hands and locking eyes.
“I haven’t been able to preserve my convictions either. I only know what I want at this very moment, and that’s because you are here,” said David with trembling lips. “I deeply desire you.” He leaned in to kiss her, long and gently.
“David, it’s different,” Marie said softly, pushing him away. “If you must know, I love you… I love you with all my heart; that much is clear to me. I didn’t give myself to you out of despair or lust. My love for you is one of the few things I’m certain of today. But don’t compare our crumbling buildings. Their foundations are completely different. As a man of faith, you’ve built your sense of self on intangible things, which are too ethereal for me. I allow myself only to hold on to the concrete and the limited.”
“But that’s exactly the beauty of our encounter, Marie. We’re stepping on our own debris. Don’t you see that’s what binds us?”
“Maybe… but it also drives us apart.”
“How?”
“David, it’s certain that we won’t be the same after this, but we also don’t know what we’re going to become.”
“But that’s the best thing that could possibly happen to us,” insisted David, trying to catch her gaze.
Marie turned her face and sighed, “I see something different in you. Maybe it’s intuition or something, but I think your purpose and your essence won’t change. Quite the opposite; I see you becoming what you always were. It’s like a bud that turns into a flower. Your destiny was already laid out; you were already a flower, all you needed to do was to bloom. Even if you had to lose yourself to do so, David.”
“Maybe you’re right… but what about us?”
Marie’s muscles stiffened at the direct question. She crossed her arms, and her eyes were lost. David regretted his question only for a moment. He knew he had no choice but to focus on the most critical subject of the morning.
“Do you really want to know? Then don’t look at
me but look at yourself. Look inside your heart. What purpose do you want for your life? All I know, David, is that I want to keep researching the past and looking for answers to how we got here,” she said, pointing at the mountains surrounding Windhoek. “You, on the other hand, are a messenger of the future, the one who came to bring good news… what is he called again?”
“Who?”
“The angel…,” said Marie, smiling. “Gabriel!”
“Oh, Gabriel...”
“Yes, that must be you, David! See, we didn’t meet in time. I’m in the past, and you’re in the future. And look, we’re physically in the present.”
“That’s right, maybe not in time. But we met in space, and that’s concrete, right here” insisted David.
Marie’s smile faded again. David had been following every nuanced movement of her face, trying to read her emotions, but now he was confused.
“And there’s still your faith...,” Marie whispered.
“What about it? If you’re talking about the cassock, I wasn’t born in it,” David said, surprised by the not-at-all subtle proposal he had just made.
“Okay... let me be straight here,” started Marie taking a deep breath. “I could live my whole life with the David I met in the Kalahari. I don’t know if I could live with someone whose faith and devotion to an entity is greater than his love for me. I know, it’s selfish… maybe I’m scared I won’t be loved enough. My years of therapy have taught me that’s exactly what it is. Blame it on childhood deprivation... I don’t know. Maybe that’s why my mission is to be stuck in the past.”
“You talk about two very different types of love. Love for a woman and love for God.”
“Is that what you teach your congregation? Can love be divided into categories? I don’t believe that.”
“I can find more reason in you than in my words,” said David meeting her gaze.
“And I believe in you. But then... When I look at the Sacred Scriptures in the Old Testament, I see a fantastic piece of literature. For the first time in history, epic tales were written about humble and ordinary people, like David against the giant Goliath.
“But what are you talking about? Why bringing this up?”
“Please, listen! Until the Bible appeared, heroes had only ever been noble princes, like Achilles and Ulysses. And the tales began to feature only one god—a great novelty for the time—who signs a contract of moral values with man. It’s fascinating and revolutionary in so many ways! All the gods before the Old Testament didn’t give a damn about the suffering of the weak, poor, and unfortunate—on the contrary, they made fun of them.”
“Yes, I know it’s just a beautiful story for you,” said David. “I got that back at the camp.”
“It’s more than that, David; it’s an object of analysis. I observe it in a lab, I dissect it and study its structure, while you... you live it! It’s outside of me, not in me… And I’m afraid that could create an irreparable distance between us.”
David took her hands and looked into her eyes. “Marie, don’t you realize that I can rely on my faith to help remove all the obstacles that separate us?”
David immediately thought that perhaps he should have held his tongue. A little bit of suspense might have been necessary to lend gravity to the moment, honoring it.
“No, David, I’m sorry, but I don’t see it that way,” she said, the wind growing bolder on her hair.
If Marie’s answer had been a shot to his chest, hitting his soul’s coronary, her sudden heart-wrenching sob brought him, if not relief, a moment to catch his breath. It was clear that Marie was not at all indifferent to his presence.
They held each other in a tight embrace, seeking comfort and respite from the ache in their hearts. Words did not flow smoothly after that, and little by little, they completely dried up. After crossing a desert of silence and tears, Marie was suddenly worried about the time and abruptly brought the encounter to an end as cold as her birthplace in Lapland. Under the ruse of not wanting to make the driver wait any longer, she quickly said her formal goodbyes, hugging Jack for a long time, and, although heartfelt, she held David only briefly.
“Would you ever pray for me, David?”
“Every night and some mornings, too. But not today,” David answered, smiling with difficulty.
“I don’t believe in your god, but I believe in you. Thank you!” were her last words before rushing to the waiting cab and out of David’s life.
Her departure from Windhoek took with it all the grace from the wind.
Chapter V
The rest of the day went by too slowly. During a walk around the dried up Avis Dam just outside Windhoek, David felt like the clock had stopped entirely. Sitting under an acacia tree after a half-hour uphill walk, he contemplated the landscape that had inebriated his senses just a week before. “What’s wrong?” he wondered. The trees with their twisted trunks and dry branches, the rocky, sandy terrain, everything seemed lifeless, colorless… even claustrophobic. He looked at the sky in search of some air and was reminded of its intoxicating and never-ending blue.
As his eyes fell back to the ground, he saw a meerkat approaching. With its slender body measuring less than half a meter in length, its big black eyes and its fluffy coat, it could move even the hearts of grown children. For some reason, the small mammal suddenly stopped in its tracks. Maybe it felt unwelcome, or perhaps it just did not believe it would find good company. The meerkat’s retreat made David feel like a bird of prey or a jackal.
As the lazy hours rolled on, he decided to take a break from his thoughts, longing only for sundown, partly because he wished to celebrate the end of a forgettable day and partly because he yearned for Jack’s company in the veranda back at the guesthouse.
And so, as happens to all living things, time marched on, unfazed by the toils of those it carried. The sun was just setting behind the mountains, as David stepped onto Gretha’s porch and settled into a strategically placed, comfortable chair next to Jack. David tried to look relaxed and, in an attempt to convince himself that he was, propped his feet up on a small footstool.
Jack ordered a cup of chamomile tea, which was no surprise. David asked for black coffee, in a desperate attempt to wake himself up from a long nightmare. The drinks were placed on a delicate table between them, along with a basket of toast. The men were in no rush to start talking but had not expected their silent prologue to give the sun enough time to hide behind the mountains completely. And it did not seem to be in much of a hurry either, drawing from them uninspired stares all through its descent.
“Time to celebrate another night, David. You’ll never see a sky as starry as this one anywhere else.”
“I don’t doubt it. That’s actually one of the few things I can say I’m certain of. But I’m afraid I’ve been cursed already. I’m not touched by its beauty anymore.”
“Were you thinking about Marie?” asked Jack, not quite following David’s abstraction.
“If she’s part of everything...”
“Let your mind rest, my friend. You’ll still need it. As for my Marie, if I know her at all, she really needs some time to herself. She’ll show up later, as she always does. Unless you’ve both come to some arrangement which I don’t know about. I do know, though, that she’s in love with you. What will you do, David?”
“Nothing. It has been done already.”
Jack handed him the toast. “I know you haven’t eaten all day; Mrs. Schwartz has already voiced her concern to everyone.” David’s smile lit up at the mention of their generous hostess. The basket of toast returned to the table having at least partly fulfilled its task.
“Look, Marie will reconsider. I know her,” Jack said. “She’s a damn tough Viking, and her default answer will always be no, especially if it involves her feelings. The real question is, my friend, will you be ready?”
In the next c
hapter of the conversation, the pages turned blank. David continued in secretive silence, while Jack resented himself for talking too much. At one point, he even thought that David had fallen asleep, which, given the circumstances, would have been the best thing to have happened to his friend.
“Do you think there’s a way out for us? I mean, the human race,” David asked, suddenly resurfacing.
Jack, who had given in to sleep by then, was woken by his friend’s voice and sat up in his chair. “I don’t know, David, but I don’t think you are in the right mood to answer that.”
“I will tell you just one thing, Jack. If we humans survive, it will be because of a miracle.”
“That’s convenient for you; you’re a man of faith.”
“l will tell you a story, my friend. Back home in Newcastle West, I happened to look at a bookcase in our living room one morning. In the past, at least during my childhood, it had always been full of great literary works, mingling with some Catholic publications. When my mother fell ill, the works were gradually replaced by self-help books, both in prose and fiction. But only recently did I carefully pay them any attention...”
“Why?”
“It became clear to me, Jack, that the spiritual and philosophical messages present in those books are egocentrically driven.”
“Really? Where did you get that idea from?” Jack smiled, both amused and surprised.
“Broadly speaking, their inspirational texts flood your brains with positive words, making you feel good about yourself and perhaps helping you make better decisions in your life. You believe you can do more and you can be more. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong about that, right? But all that empowerment and energy are channeled merely to rock personal projects, Jack, not to universal awareness, as you expect, or as we all need. Some talk about a secret long hidden from humanity that can transform people’s lives like magic. You just have to wish hard enough for something (a car, a mansion, a beautiful wife…), and it will manifest itself.”
