Authors: J F Elferdink
In the next few weeks of getting acquainted, I felt better about myself than I had in a long time.
During his second visit to Detroit, I even had the courage to ask:
“With all the younger, prettier, sexier women you meet on the beaches of the world, why are you attentive to me?”
He reached out and gently traced his fingertips down my cheek.
“Dear Janie! May I call you Janie? It feels more personal, warmer, more like how I want to relate to you. But if you don’t like nicknames, I won’t say Janie again.”
I nodded. He was only the second man to ever give me a pet name and it sounded right.
“If I wanted a showpiece, I could pick one; but long ago I ruled out that category. I couldn’t relate to a woman who is shallow and totally subservient.”
I not only accepted his answer, I loved it. In fact, I loved everything I had learned so far.
After lunch we sat on my love seat, even held hands while telling each other bits and pieces of our lives. One of his stories, the one about his childhood friendship with an angel, seemed out of character for a person who called himself an agnostic.
“You know, Janine, when I was little, I thought I had my own angel. I called him Zak—I know, a funny name for an angel—anyway, Zak introduced me to the birds and squirrels in our neighborhood. He told me to think of them as friends God had created especially for little boys.
“
Well, one day Zak led me to a nest with baby birds in it, beaks all wide open and empty; reaching up expectantly. The mother lay lifeless at the foot of the tree, obviously felled by the large stone within inches of her head; a stone I had marked with a black X so I could retrieve it. I was devastated.
“
But then Zak touched the mother’s head and she began to move. I watched, stunned, as she made her way back to her babies.”
“Did you ever think of Zak beyond childhood?” I asked gently.
Mark looked away, seemingly engrossed in an abstract painting on my wall. When he looked back, he wore a quirky little smile. Instead of answering, he proposed a walk to the river.
As we walked along the riverfront holding hands, a shabbily-dressed man with a fishing pole propped up nearby, looked at us, smiled and said:
“Are you married? Life is much more bearable with someone you love.”
Mark stared at me while answering him.
“We’ve only known each other a couple of months, but we’ll remember your advice.”
As we walked on I turned to ask the fisherman if he was married. He had vanished.
Mark drove home that night and left the next morning for Geneva. I couldn’t seem to push him out of my mind. There was so much I wanted to know, so I made a list of questions. Instead of holding them for our next visit, I sent them in an email. His replies were revealing.
I wrote:
‘Which of my personality traits or attitudes that I am happy with would surprise or even shock Janie? I think she would be surprised because....’
He replied:
- ‘Certain political beliefs: some extreme right, some extreme left; but I am mostly apolitical as, at some point, I decided there was nothing I could do about it anyway.
- Having used people, then walking away from them (business & dating) and thus no real personal feelings for any woman after the divorce’.
- The immediate emotional commitment toward you but also being scared (first time I remember being insecure since plebe year) of rejection, incompatibility, logistics, geography, your liberal vs. my conservative views.’
I wrote:
‘Which of my personality traits or attitudes that I am trying to improve would surprise Janie? I think she would honor my attempt to change....’
H
i
s reply was:
‘My impatience; f
or most of my life when I wanted things to happen, I wanted them to follow my schedule, but I am trying to accept the wisdom of letting it be and admitting to myself how little I truly control.’
I stored his answers in a computer file and in my heart.
It was almost bedtime when I heard the click of my cell phone indicating that a text message had arrived. I read: “sleep softly” on the little screen and snuggled contentedly under my blankets, knowing that Mark was thinking of me as his day was beginning.
The day before, he had e-mailed photos of his Florida home, including a dock with a sailboat tied to it.
The message read: “When you have nothing else to do, go to Google Earth and see if you can feel a foreshadowing of things to come!”
When I plugged in the coordinates, I noticed puffy cumulus clouds over the area. The image wasn’t clear but it seemed as though they were growing upward into giant cumulonimbus; the thunderstorm clouds.
During our next conversation we began to plan the next visit.
“Will you meet me at the Florida house for our weekend rendezvous, or should I come to Detroit?”
The choice of destinations was left up to me but the date was at the discretion of Mark’s Swiss doctor because he was combating an infection.
This had happened before, he told me, but the antibiotics seemed to be taking effect quickly and we proceeded with planning our third visit.
Mark wrote:
“In two more days we will be together for at least twenty-six hours, and the anticipation is making me pant to see you.”
As I prepared for my guest, I wondered what it would be like to have an attentive man sitting across from me at mealtimes or smiling down when I opened my eyes in the morning.
A passionate kiss as we greeted each other distinguished our third meeting from the previous two. This time we didn’t leave my home.
The lovemaking was all that I had dreamed it would be: fierce and passionate yet tender and considerate, during hours of touching and tasting. Somewhere along the way, I crossed over from passion to love.
That evening, after watching
Black Book
, a World War II movie, we talked about how people could survive when torture and death were only a breath, or step, away and a friendly face could mask a dreadful foe.
“That is the précis of every war, Janie. To survive you carry out your orders and walk away before the enemy starts to take on human form.”
The tremor in Mark’s voice brought out my protective maternal instinct and I held him tight.
As I looked into the eyes of this seemingly unremarkable man—if judged by appearance alone—I sensed the raw masculinity epitomized by Rhett Butler and a hint of the tenderness of Ashley Wilkes, both portrayed so strikingly in
Gone with the Wind
. If real, that combination qualified him as the man of my dreams.
“Will you tell me about your experiences in Vietnam?”
He responded immediately and emphatically.
“You wouldn’t want to know.”
Nothing more was said about what had happened to him in Vietnam.
What I discovered in his arms that night was the antithesis of war and pain.
I heartily wished I could join him when he left for Florida the next morning, but we each had responsibilities that demanded our attention and he would be back in four days.
The words of Mark’s next voice mail message were fairly conventional:
“
Thank you for a wonderful twenty-six hours. It was nice.”
It was how his voice got tender and the way he lingered over the final word that caused a warm wave to spread through my body.
In his next e-mail, he compared falling in love to solving a puzzle and said:
“Each new bit of information you supply fills in another piece.”
I wanted to complete the puzzle, sensing that the first piece had been laid while we were standing beside the fountain in Marshall on our idyllic first date.
***
He did not return to Detroit that week; instead his flight arrangements were revised so Mark could fly directly to the Swiss clinic for another series of tests. His next phone call gave more detail.
“The doctors say I have a spot or lump on my right kidney. They’re being a bit insistent about me staying here a couple of days but they don’t seem to be overly concerned, so I don’t want you to be, either.”
“Why have they just noticed this spot? How many tests does it take for an accurate diagnosis?”
“Now, don’t get feisty, Janie. I’m guaranteed quality healthcare. The only reason I pay fifty percent of my medical costs is to have a private room in my choice of clinics. I have the best doctors in Zurich, or in the whole country for that matter.
“
If I had computerized parts like a car, I could be hooked up to diagnostic equipment that would spit out a report of just what needs to be fixed but I’m a mere human who must depend on doctors’ opinions.” Mark’s
t
one was measured, as though he were patiently explaining something to a fractious child.
“Okay, I get the message but I thought the antibiotics had eliminated the infection. Isn’t that why you were allowed to come here?”
“Yeah, that was the prognosis, but it seems there was still some infection lurking someplace. I tried to tell the docs that my temperature rises when I think of you. Even have some swelling. But my doctors remain unconvinced.”
“Okay, lover boy, you’ve convinced me. But call me as soon as you know more.
”
I believed him, but for added insurance, I asked some of my Catholic friends to pray for his healing and wished I was more knowledgeable about kidneys and lumps so I’d be clearer about what Mark was facing.
The news that came next was somewhat disconcerting. The results of a kidney MRI scan revealed that Mark’s right kidney was full of cysts. Because he was in his early 60s and had a weakened immune system, the doctors decided the right thing to do was to remove it. His next call brought better news, though.
“Do you have plans for Thanksgiving that could include me?”
“Any plan without you is subject to revision! But I thought your surgery was scheduled for that week?”
“The surgeon won’t do the cutting until they load me up with antibiotics; gives me just enough time for a little trip to Detroit. And I can’t think of a better distraction…um, don’t think I’m worried. My doctor assures me I’ll be like new in three or four weeks.”
Mark and Franz, his long-time neighbor, sat in their favorite village café, waiting for their coffee. The mountains on the other side of the valley shimmered in misty blue on this lovely day in late October but Mark’s countenance did not mirror the glorious landscape; rather, his face seemed to reflect the color of the weathered rooftops of the cottages below.
“I’m going to Detroit to see Janie next week,”
Mark
said.
He
was hardly touching the generously-buttered pastry that would normally have eclipsed anything wrong in his world.
“I can’t believe my good fortune, meeting Janie just when the walls were closing in; but what if my health issues cause her to have second thoughts?”
Franz answered,
“Friend, your woman won’t abandon you if she’s the woman you’ve been describing. Where are these doubts coming from?”
Mark stopped sipping and held his cup in mid-air, staring at his friend for several long seconds.
“Well, I don’t doubt that our football team will beat Argentina,” Mark
replied
. “Did you watch yesterday’s game?”
“No, I had to attend a meeting on a referendum for the canton’s budget but I heard our team had a great night!”
Mark nodded and turned slightly away from his friend.
“When you asked about my doubts, my mind went immediately to the day my marriage ended. I thought all that was finished. Peg’s even a friend now…of sorts.”
“I know, but your friendship seems odd after what she did.”
“Being enemies wasn’t good for Martin. And after a year, the silent treatment seemed rather silly. Peg’s a smart woman. Even now, when I think about doing something stupid, I can hear her not-so-gentle chiding.”
“Most men would give it a different label.” Franz paused to scoop up all the crumbs on his plate before continuing.
“It’s definitely time for you to move on. Ten years is a long time without a special woman…”
“I’ve had female friends, Franz.” Mark’s voice carried a hint of defensiveness.
“I admit they were all relationships of convenience; no one that I couldn’t say goodbye to and never look back but it’s different with Janie. I don’t think I can face losing her.”
“Hey, don’t worry so much! Think about what you have to offer. I’m sure Janie’s figured that out by now.”
“Maybe my worry comes from never having figured out what I could’ve done to keep my marriage together.”
Mark’s pained look caused Frantz to reach across the table and place a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Feeling it stiffen, Frantz withdrew his hand and cupped it around his own chin.
“Now, tell me, is Janie truly the charming and alluring woman you’ve so vividly painted, or have you conjured her up to increase your heart rate?”
“Wait ‘til you meet her and then tell me I’m not the most fortunate man you know!”
“Okay, I hope it’s soon. You might find this surgery to be your lucky break. Knowing a little bit about women myself, I’ll wager that your medical problems will draw her even closer to you. What’s the latest from your doctors?”
“It always seems to be little more than an educated guess on their part. The whole team does agree on one thing: the need for this surgery. The MRI showed multiple cysts, as many as thirty, in my kidney. They don’t want to just go for the cysts; for fear that one might break open and flood my system with infection.”
“Might this solve the mystery of the infection’s source?”
“The doctors say some infection may have been introduced into my body when I was operated on in ’68.
“
A makeshift tent near a battlefield is hardly the ideal spot for having one’s spleen removed.”
Franz left other questions on the table, hoping Mark would continue.
“If I understood the doctors, cysts form to surround and contain infection. As the infection expands, more cysts are needed to keep it in check.” Mark shrugged and continued:
“So, yes, this could indeed resolve some of the questions, and maybe even put an end to their constant probing.”
“What about the surgery…how risky is it?”
“Other than the infection, I’m told I’m in pretty good shape. In two or three weeks, I’ll be on your doorstep insisting we stroll over here so you can buy me two of these pastries.”
“Good! For now, I prescribe removing a few kilos of that worry I see etched in your forehead. Try a little faith and a glass, or two, of good Swiss wine. And next week, if your heart muscles can take the strain, go visit the lady you can’t stop talking about.”