Beautiful(60)

“I ask myself that question every day about my mother and the friend I was with. Do you have kids?” she asked him, and he looked like he was going to cry.

“No. She was pregnant. We’d just found out. It’s hard to understand the meaning of life after something like that. Why it happened. Why you were there. Why they killed her and not me. They didn’t even shoot me. They killed her and I walked out without a scratch. I’ve been trying to make my peace with that for eighteen months, and I can’t.”

“You never will. I haven’t been able to make sense of it either. Why my mother and my friend died and I didn’t. Blind luck maybe. Destiny. You just have to keep going. That’s why I’m here. Now are you going to take my picture or not? I used to get a lot of money for having my picture taken, and I’m doing it for free for you. So don’t waste it.” As she said it, he grinned and picked up his camera, and took a photo of her head-on, scolding him, with both sides of her face showing, the old and the new, the smooth and the scarred with the big floppy hat. She was surprised when he took it. “That’s a terrible picture!” she complained.

“No, it’s not. It’s a great one. And it wasn’t cheating. I got both sides of your face, the old and the new, your funny hat, and you were giving me hell. Don’t worry. I won’t use it. That one’s for me. I’m going to frame it. It’s perfect. Can I say in the article that you were working here as a volunteer? I won’t if you don’t want me to.” She thought about it for a minute and then nodded.

“I guess there’s no harm in that, as long as you don’t run that picture.” She smiled at him, and they headed up the stairs, toward dinner. “You’re complicated,” she said to him.

“So are you,” he said, and she laughed.

“I guess we have a right to be,” she said more gently.

“I think we do.” He sat next to her at dinner, and they had an intelligent conversation about a variety of subjects and a nice time together. It seemed odd meeting here, but it felt as though it was meant to be, given their experiences.

“You know, I’ve never been that open with anyone before about it,” he said about what he’d told her. She was easy to talk to, and listened well. He could tell she was a compassionate person.

“Neither have I. I suppose we have that in common.” They both knew what it was like, to go to hell and back, and try to make sense of your life afterward. They were both still working on it. She had survivor guilt too, about Cyril and her mother. It was obvious that he was riddled with it, over his wife.

“How long are you going to stay here?” he asked her.

“I don’t know. Until I want to go back to Paris. Maybe until I feel good about my life again. I have nothing to go back for. And I want to do some good and put some love back in the world instead of all that hate. You’ve been there. You know.”

“Yes, I do. I suppose we survived for a reason, I just don’t know what that is yet,” he said.

“Neither do I,” she admitted. “I feel like I’m supposed to do something important now. I just don’t know what it is. That’s why I came here. I wanted to see what they were doing at Saint Matthew’s. It’s very impressive. And I’m happy here,” she said simply.

“I think they’re doing very good work. I think you’re pretty impressive too, Ms. Vincent,” he said, smiling at her.

“And I think you’re a terrible photographer. I hope you’re a better writer,” she said tartly and he laughed.

“I’ll send you the article, and you can decide for yourself.” He was smiling, and didn’t look so sad.

“Thank you.” She smiled at him. “They’re going to shoot a documentary here in a couple of weeks, for French TV.”

“That’ll be good for the people here. It’ll validate them for fundraising,” he confirmed.

“I thought so too. I’d like to help them. They all work so hard.” He nodded. He was going to write a glowing article about Saint Matthew’s for just that reason. It was a labor of love, and helped so many people, even those who worked here.

He walked her to her room after dinner, and they had breakfast together the next morning, when they arrived in the dining room at the same time. They chatted a few other times, and two days later he left. He had other places to go in Africa, and other articles to write on spec. She said goodbye to him, and wished him luck. They both had a hard road ahead of them, to recover from what they’d been through. She was feeling better but she could tell that he was still struggling. She had seen it in his eyes. He promised again to send her the article when it came out. And then he left, and drove away. He was flying out in a day or two.

She spent the next two weeks helping Dick to get everything ready for the French TV production group. She thought of Patrick Weston a few times, and assumed she’d never see him again. They were fellow survivors passing in the night. There had been a connection, but opportunity and geography were against them. She didn’t give it more thought than that. He was an interesting person, and seemed like a nice man. And she hoped he would recover one day from all he’d lost. It was the best they could do now, with the hands fate had dealt them.





Chapter 17


When Olivier Berger and the French television production company arrived, it turned Saint Matthew’s upside down for a while. They followed all of them everywhere with their cameras, into the wards, the operating room, into the convent, and to the nearby villages. They interviewed all of them about what they were doing there, why they had come, why they stayed. They wanted the viewers to know everything about the people working there and what they were doing for the children of Angola, with the limited material and resources they had on hand, and the challenges they were facing, with active mines still in the ground.