by Dianne Drake
“In the locals I probably see two cases a month,” Solange said. “Never very serious, but a persistent problem.” She reached over the bed of the truck and grabbed her backpack. “So, since you’re not going to find a pastry at the end of your quest today, how about a piece of candy? In fact, I know several children here in Ambrose who would love some candy. And playing candyman is infinitely more fun than dealing with scrofula.” Opening the pack, she continued, “Every time they filled up the complimentary mints bowl at the hotel I emptied it. I managed to get quite a bit.”
On inspection, Paul discovered that Solange’s backpack was filled to overflowing with candy and fruit. Why wasn’t he surprised she’d done that? More than that, why hadn’t he thought of that himself? “I’m not going to find a boiled lobster in here somewhere, am I?” he asked, scooping out a handful of candy and stuffing it in his pocket.
“They also change the fruit every day and what’s left over is tossed out. One of the maids let me have the discards.”
“I think you could beat me at my own begging game with very little effort,” Paul said, chuckling. He, for one, could turn down nothing for which she asked. Money, candy…his heart.
His heart? Where had that come from? Because he sure wasn’t going to go that far, even though he was beginning to see just how easy that could be.
“Your game and mine, Paul, are the same game, I think. We merely play it differently. Oh, and don’t let the children take advantage of you. Give them their piece of candy, and if you have a soft heart maybe a second piece. The adults might like a treat, too, especially some of the older people. And in one of my packs you’ll find a bunch of grapes. Grandmère Prejean sits in a rocking chair on her porch most days. She has arthritis, so she never goes anywhere. Her house is the last on the left.” She pointed down the road. “Give her a few pieces of candy, too.”
Solange turned and walked into the house nearest them, her medical bag swinging back and forth at her side. Paul watched until she disappeared into the dark interior before he set off on his candy run, still thinking about the previous night when he and Solange had eaten lobster. An amazing night. And one he shouldn’t be extending in any sense. His track record in relationships aside, he simply didn’t have the time. Quite honestly, he didn’t have the energy either. Everything he had was for the hospital, and there were no leftovers. Not even for Solange. Not that she would have him even if he did have the time and energy. He was just going to have to keep reminding himself of the vital facts and quit fantasizing himself into something more. That’s all there was to it.
By the time he came to the last house, where he expected to find Grandmère Prejean, Paul had given away an ample supply of candy. “Is she here?” he asked a scraggly old dog curled up in the rocking chair where the old lady should have been sitting.
The dog opened its left eye to take a look at Paul, then shut it again. Probably too lazy and fat to get up and approach a total stranger, Paul decided as he looked at the flock of chickens pecking around in the dirt beneath the porch. There was a goat standing near the gateway, watching him with the same marked disinterest as the dog. But no Grandmère Prejean. “So, where is she?” he called out to the black and white mongrel, hoping Grandmère Prejean might overhear, as he stepped through the gate, sidestepped his way by the goat and shuffled through the chickens to get to the porch. “Is she home?”
The dog bared its teeth, more out of habit than the need to be territorial, but it didn’t attempt to stand up, maintaining its roost on the worn old wicker rocker as Paul walked past it. “Hello,” he called into the house. “Bonjour, Grandmère Prejean!” Her house was typical of those he’d seen in most of the rural villages. Small, plain, efficient, the elemental style of well-weathered boards capped by banana fronds. “Grandmère Prejean? Are you here?”
Paul listened for a response. “I have something from Maman Solange for you,” he called when no one inside answered. Cautiously, he inched back the curtains hanging over the doorway and braved a peek inside.
The little house was alight with candles. All sizes, all shapes. Votive candles and pillars. Tapers and many, many Santaria candles. It was an amazing, flickering fantasyland, and he was drawn instantly to the shadowy images dancing round the room, simple, everyday images in the dark that the fire glow made magical. “Grandmère Prejean,” he ventured again, as he stepped in.
Several seconds passed before his eyes to adjusted to the odd illuminations pirouetting about him, and because he was wary of stumbling around, risking breaking something he couldn’t yet discern, he stayed put at the door. “Are you here?” he whispered. “Maman Solange sent me here with some grapes for you.” He spoke in English because he didn’t speak the other languages used in Kijé, even though it was doubtful she would understand anything of what he said other than Solange’s name.
“Maldyok!” Grandmère Prejean screamed from the corner of the room in which she was hunched. “Maldyok!” she screeched again, clinging to her spot and not advancing on him.
His heart jumped to his throat. Heart in his throat…he’d read that phrase all his life, and now he knew what it felt like; a huge lump he couldn’t swallow. At least, not right away. Of course, it was a muscular contraction. He reasoned that immediately, but it still didn’t reason away the fact that his heart rate had doubled. “Maman Solange,” he said, extending the grapes in front of him for her to see. “From Maman Solange.” He could see her now. A diminutive woman, probably not even five feet tall, she was gripping an old wooden cane in her tiny hand, shaking it at him, ready to defend herself with it. Fierce little lady. And she’d scared him to death. He was glad Solange hadn’t been there to see it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, holding up his free hand as if she were pointing a gun at him rather than a stick. Paul took a step back into the door curtain, straight into the matted, black and white dog that had finally decided it was time to wander in and do a little something more than merely bare his teeth and growl. The dog made a half-hearted lunge for him, in slow motion, and Paul was glad it was an old dog, because the mutt’s apparent arthritis was the only thing that gave him enough time to move out of the way. Two steps to the side, and the dog stopped to contemplate this new dilemma.
“Partir ici!” Grandmère Prejean screamed, still shaking her cane. Get out! “Maldyok!”
“Better maldyok than pedisyon. Maldyok is only the evil eye. Meaning she believes you’re casting the evil eye on her for some horrible reason. Most likely you’re envious of her because she is one of the wealthiest women in the village. But the good news is that maldyok is easy to cure. You simply remove the source of the evil eye.” Solange laughed, grabbing the grapes from Paul’s hand. As she crossed the room, she scratched the confused dog on the head and held out the stem of grapes for Grandmère Prejean. “But if she’d been screaming pedisyon, then you’d be in big trouble, city boy, because that’s an illness in which a woman thinks she’s pregnant, and pedisyon arrests that pregnancy, meaning it’s put into some sort of hibernation, even for years, until a cure is obtained and the pregnancy can resume. Pedisyon has a long-lasting effect. And eventually it could come with the obligation of fatherhood.” She tucked a few pieces of candy into the old woman’s apron, then gave her a big hug.
After a few minutes of conversation between the women, Grandmère Prejean was apparently convinced that Paul meant her no harm, because she surrendered her cane to the corner next to the fireplace, took a seat at a small table in the kitchen area and plucked her first grape off the stem. “She’s still not convinced about you,” Solange told Paul as she took his arm and led him out the door. “But she trusts me, even though she did warn me to be very careful of you.”
“Warn you against me?” He chuckled. “And just what does she imagine I’ll do to you?”
Solange shooed her way through the clump of nettled chickens, then tossed a bruised apple to the goat. “Sometimes it’s difficult to find a literal translation between the languages,
but I think the translation of this is close to something like witched. She thinks you’ll witch me. Or bewitch me.”
“I think it’s the other way around. You’re the one witching me.” Paul headed for the truck, but Solange pulled him back and dragged him in the opposite direction from where she’d parked it. Then she pointed to three donkeys. One had his duffle bag and Solange’s backpacks tied to it. The other two looked suspiciously like their transportation for the next leg of the journey. Bare-backed transportation at that!
“No, she was pretty clear about it.” Solange spun around and looked him straight in the eyes, then smiled. “Blue is an unusual eye color around here. All of us dark-eyed people do tend to become nervous around them, and she told me that your eyes are going to witch me.” She laughed. “And she also told me you’re too jumpy.”
“Not jumpy. Cautious.” He stared back into her dark eyes. They were the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen in his life. One step closer meant commitment and all the troubles that came with it. One step back meant safety, but for the life of him he couldn’t take it. So he held his ground and forced himself to smile, instead of pulling her into his arms as he wanted to do. Doing this, his options were still open. “Are you nervous around blue eyes, as Grandmère Prejean is?”
“My mother had blue eyes, so I’m used to them,” she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact, even though Paul’s blue eyes were definitely making her nervous, as well as witching her.
CHAPTER FIVE
“I THOUGHT you said something about a padded saddle,” Paul moaned after five minutes into their hour-long journey on the backs of two very gentle donkeys.
“Saddle? I believe it was your assumption that the saddle would be included in the travel package.” Solange laughed, glancing up at the sky. It was turning overcast now. Up in the mountains the storms weren’t as severe as they were nearer the coast, but the winds… “You get two choices—bareback or straw mat, and, believe me, the straw mat, with all those little sharp ends sticking out, is a torture device in itself. You’re better off with only your gauze separating you from Gertie. Gertie’s happier that way, too, and, trust me, you want to keep her happy.”
He winced as the donkey took a sharp turn to avoid a tree stump in the path and nearly bumped him off her back. “I don’t suppose she understands the concept of light-stepping, does she?” He righted himself and took a firmer grip on the rein.
“Gertie is as easy as they come. She, and the other two, Pete and Lulu, have been with me as long as I’ve been here. They were given to me by—”
“Let me guess. Frère Léon.”
“Actually, one of the other monks. At Frère Léon’s behest.” She smiled. “The tricky devil. He really does have influence, doesn’t he?”
“Where he wants it. So, how did you meet him? I know you said he approached you to set up the infirmary and stranded you at the mission, but how did you meet him the first time?”
“He and my mother were… “Her voice trailed off. She was getting much too involved here. Personal chat was fine, but not every single detail of her life. Too much meant involvement, and she was fast learning that Paul would be very easy to have that involvement with. Too many reasons not to, though. Too many reasons on too many levels, and she’d already learned, the hard way, not to open herself up to anything that swerved her off course. It simply wasn’t worth the risk.
Paul wasn’t worth the risk. Especially now that her life was finally back on track.
“Look, city boy, it narrows down the farther we go along. But don’t worry. If Gertie throws you, she knows the way home, so all you have to do is get yourself back up and follow her.”
“Follow the donkey. All I can say is that this is the hardest house call I’ve ever made.” Paul shifted positions to bring himself upright on Gertie’s back.
“Somehow I don’t picture you making house calls,” she teased.
“Up until an hour ago, I didn’t picture myself on the back of a donkey in pursuit of anything. But never say never, right?”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, up until an hour ago Gertie didn’t picture herself with you on her back.” He was definitely good-natured, she thought, glancing up at the sky again, wondering how good-natured he’d be in the rain, because it was getting darker and they weren’t going to beat the storm. The best they could do would be a stop-over. If they were lucky.
“I was married. Remember? Compared to that, Gertie is easy.”
“So what happened to your marriage? You both loved the work, and I’d think that would have been such a strong bond between you.” She shouldn’t be prying. She knew that. Especially now that there was a picture of Paul with another woman planted firmly in her mind. It was silly, but she almost felt a little twinge of jealousy. “You don’t have to answer that,” she added hastily. “I shouldn’t be butting into your private affairs.”
“What went wrong wasn’t exactly a secret, and Joanna and I weren’t always quiet about it. Ask anyone at the hospital. In a way they even became part of the drama, taking bets on how long the marriage would last. If Gigon had allowed me into it I would have lost, because Joanna and I hung in there a lot longer than even we thought we would. But it’s difficult moving on, isn’t it? You’ve done that yourself.”
“It is difficult,” Solange agreed. “You try to convince yourself that it’s something that it’s not. Then you find a safe place in that lie and you’re afraid to step outside it.”
“But you never married him? Did he want to?”
“It was always something we put away for future discussions, and I’m not even sure which one of us put it away.”
“Did you have an ugly parting? Or am I being too personal here?”
Solange spun around on Pete’s back and looked at him. “You’re being awfully personal but, yes, it was an ugly parting. Actually, the part leading up to it was ugly.” More so than she cared to remember. Or reveal. “The parting itself was a relief. You know, like an upset stomach. It keeps getting worse and worse. All the churning, the nausea, and the pressure is building up, finally to the point that you feel like you’re going to explode, then when you…Well, you know the rest of it.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “And once you rid yourself of the whole messy episode, you feel so much better. It was unpleasant, but it was a relief. And you?”
Paul gave her an over-exaggerated, counterfeit cringe. “Nothing quite as ugly as all that. Actually, with Joanna and me, there was nothing much of anything. We just walked away quite civilly…no churning, nausea and definitely nothing exploding. And that was it.”
“So you’re the avowed bachelor now?” Solange asked, trying not to sound too interested, even though she was.
“Not so much avowed as practical. I have my life, and it’s not going to change significantly in the near future, and it’s not going to work out with someone who expects that it will change. And I don’t mean to sound selfish or conceited about it, but it’s my life and that’s the choice I’ve made for it.”
Those were words she could have said herself, and that surprised her, actually, since she was still a bit of a romantic at heart. Romantic at heart, maybe, but never again as an indulger in romance. Even if her Prince Charming came riding into her life on his donkey she’d send him in the opposite direction. That was the lot of her life now. Time to accept it and run off the foolish notions. “I understand, totally. Mauricio wanted things that I was not, and couldn’t be. And I wanted things that he wasn’t. Only it took me an awfully long time to figure out that he wasn’t going to change and neither was I, even though I clung to the hope of it for so long. But in my defense, part of that clinging was because of the clinic. Walking away from Mauricio meant walking away from the clinic, and I couldn’t do that. Not at the time, anyway. So I suppose you could say Mauricio was the compromise I made to be able to do what I wanted to do.” She chuckled. “Sounds pretty stupid when you say it aloud, doesn’t it?”
“Not stupid at all. We all ma
ke compromises to get what we want. Yours was merely setting aside your personal needs for your professional passion. And I think that’s pretty admirable. Lonely at night, but admirable.”
“So, is Joanna happy now?” Mauricio was. Three weeks after she’d left him, he got himself engaged to a one of the nurses in the hospital they’d used, married her a month later, and produced Mauricio Junior nine months after that. A full circle for Mauricio, one that she could not have completed for him.
“Very. She’s found the life she couldn’t have with me.”
And Mauricio found…well, definitely a life they hadn’t had. “But staying here, you didn’t get your fresh start the way she did when she left Kijé. Didn’t you want that for yourself, too?”
“Oh, but I did get it. I get a fresh start every single day…every time I succeed in opening a new program, or raising enough money to fund an old one.” He patted the donkey on the neck. “Meeting Gertie here is another fresh start.”
“So, do you have any regrets, other than the fact that you don’t have much of a chance to practice clinical medicine?”
“No regrets whatsoever. I’m one of the lucky ones who knows exactly where they’re meant to be, and what they’re meant to be doing. And you? Any regrets?”
None, unless she wanted to consider the fact that this brief acquaintance with Paul was most likely all she would ever have with him. Maybe they’d pass each other along the way once in a while. Perhaps make arrangements for a brief meeting to discuss various patients and practices. But that’s all it could be, all that her life would allow. Which, surprisingly, was becoming a deep regret, one that truly shocked her, because with Paul she could see so much more than she might have chosen for herself. “No regrets whatsoever,” she lied, trying to ignore a heavy-hearted shroud slipping down over her. “Not at all.”
Solange glanced ahead, trying to focus on the journey and not these little longings that were starting to creep in. “Up ahead, where the road divides, we’ll go to the right and start a gradual ascent into the foothills. The Mission is actually in the foothills and not the mountains. But by donkey, or on foot, foothills and mountains all seem about the same.”
