Two Crosses (51 page)

Rosie raced to the guichet and panted, “My friend, the tall dark-haired man. He was just here? Did he buy one or two tickets for Nîmes?”

The woman, without looking up, replied, “One.”

“Ah dear! Then give me another. To Montpellier.”

“Fifty-two francs, please. Train leaves at quay number 3 at 7:15.”

The thrill of a race enchanted Rosie as she ran down the steps and halted abruptly before walking onto the quay. David Hoffmann was just disappearing into the third car. She waited five long minutes before she stepped quickly onto the quay and walked in the opposite direction, letting herself into the next-to-last car. When the train groaned and bellowed and screeched its way forward at 7:15, Rosie Lecharde was sure the American didn’t suspect a thing.

Gabriella climbed the steps to the second floor of the parsonage with a fleeting hope that David would be there to smile back at her, to hand out the exams—anything, just so she at least would know he was still alive. But when she walked into his classroom, M. Vidal sat in the chair, pudgy and morose behind the desk.

The hope fell in her breast as she took her seat, her mind racing. She couldn’t decide if she was angry or worried or disappointed. Or all of the above.

The bells in the tower chimed nine o’clock as Stephanie slipped into the desk beside her. She rolled her eyes at Gabriella and mouthed the words, “Did you study?”

Gabriella shook her head. “Not much.”

It was true. She had tried to study, but all she could hear with every page she turned in her spiral notebook was
Don’t you know, dear Gabby? Don’t you know?

John Donne preached it. Shakespeare scribbled it across the page in iambic pentameter. Monet splashed it onto a blank canvas, and suddenly it was vivid with color.
Don’t you know?

But she didn’t know.

“Excuse me, class.” M. Vidal stood up, clearing his throat. His face was pure apology. “M. Hoffmann has asked me to give out the exam and remind you that you have two hours to complete it. He urges you to use your time wisely. There are twenty identifications of quotes, then one poem to analyze. Afterwards I will be showing slides for identification. And there are two essay questions. He wants you to reserve the last forty-five minutes for these. You may begin as soon as you get the exam.”

He handed Gabriella five pages stapled neatly in the top-left corner. Five pages written in David’s bold script. Her heart raced. His hand! But he was not here.

She picked up her pen and wrote her name across the top of the first page. She read the directions for the first exercise: identify the quote, by work and author.

She glanced at the first quotation.
Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl’d: the glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

She almost spoke aloud:
Why, it’s from Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Man”!
She heard herself pronounce the words, months and lifetimes ago, the first time she had looked into David Hoffmann’s eyes. “I didn’t know you then,” she whispered to herself as she wrote in the information.

The next quote was Donne. “Meditation XVII.” Familiar. The one from which “for whom the bell tolls” comes. But David had chosen the last sentence of the meditation to quote. How odd.

But this bell that tells me of his affliction digs out and applies that gold to me, if by this consideration of another’s danger I take my own into contemplation and so secure myself by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

Strange that he would cite that, she thought. And she remembered that second day of class when he had challenged her to speak on Donne, and she had met him square on.
She
was the one who had quoted the end of the meditation! Gabriella felt her cheeks burning.

But none of the other girls seemed to notice. There were a few groans and one flat-out protest of “This is impossible” from Stephanie, of course, and a few girls laughed. But no one said what Gabriella felt:
He wrote this exam for me
.

There was a quote from Milton’s
Paradise Lost
. But such a quote!

Henceforth I learn that to obey is best

And love with fear the only God, to walk

As in his presence ever to observe

His providence and on him sole depend.

How could the others not see, she wondered, as she continued the exam? It could not be coincidence that she could take the first nine quotes and read them almost as a thesis and argument for faith.

He was clever, that David! And she found herself laughing quietly. Then she stared at the tenth quote, and her heart skipped.

The Lord shall preserve me from all evil; He shall preserve my soul. The Lord shall preserve my going out and my coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Psalm 121! But he had misquoted it, replacing
thee
and
thy
with the first-person pronoun. Why in the world? … And then it came to her, drifting up as if out of a dream.
You will wait a very long time if you hope to hear me claim it as my own prayer.…

He had been mocking her during their first visit to the place de la Comédie. And yet here in the exam, David was doing just what he said he would never do. He had changed the pronouns so she would know, without a doubt, it was his prayer.

David Hoffmann believed. Somewhere between the café of two weeks ago and the classroom of this morning, David had believed. She felt a tear sting her eye and swept it away.

The next quote came from an early poem of Shakespeare:

O mistress mine! where are you roaming?

O stay and hear! your true love’s coming,

That can sing both high and low.

Trip no further, pretty sweeting;

Journeys end in lovers meeting.

She blushed, her head hot with sweat. Now what was he saying? Journeys end in lovers meeting? No, she was reading too much into it. It was just a poem they studied in class … not a declaration of David’s love for her.

She focused on the next quote, trying to forget the last one. It was Coleridge’s love poem to Sara, who would later become his wife. Gabriella gave a little gasp as she read the lines that David had chosen:

But thy more serious eye a mild reproof

Darts, O beloved Woman! nor such thoughts

Dim and unhallow’d dost thou not reject

And biddest me walk humbly with my God.

Meek Daughter in the family of Christ!

Shaking her head in amazement, she recalled how David had teased her with this poem, claiming that she would wish him to write such a thing to her. And now, in a sense, he had.

And then a quote by D. H. Lawrence.

The pain of loving you

Is almost more than I can bear.

So simple, so direct. She felt dizzy and confused. Surely he was not saying this to
her
. What were the other girls thinking? But none of them looked embarrassed or anything other than frustrated with a difficult exam.

He told her with Wordsworth and Keats and T. S. Eliot, and then he switched to prose and French and said it again with Hugo and Flaubert.
I love you.

She tried not to cry as she scribbled out a response to the poem she was analyzing. But it was Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach,” which always made her cry. And David knew it.

Finally M. Vidal’s slow, placid voice broke into her thoughts as he announced the time for identification of slides. He turned off the lights, and Gabriella felt safe despite her wet face. She was still writing about “Dover Beach” when the first slide came onto the screen. As she glanced up at the slide, she felt a piercing pang of deep, pure joy. The poets would understand it. For there on the screen was Monet’s
Wild
Poppies, Near Argenteuil
. There was not a shadow of doubt now.

Gabriella wrote furiously, freely, happily. She barely noticed the other girls standing, turning in their exams, and leaving the classroom. How could they be done already? There was so much more to say. By the time the two hours were up, she was the only student left in the room. M. Vidal cleared his throat apologetically.

“Mlle Madison … I’m afraid time is up.”

She flashed him a smile. “Yes, sorry. I’m almost done.” She buried her head in her paper again. Five minutes later she came out of her dreams as she heard, “Mlle Madison.”

It took her a moment to react. Only a moment to realize that it had not been M. Vidal’s voice she heard. She gasped and looked up. David stood in the doorway of the classroom with the strangest expression on his face.

He moved toward her quickly, whispering, “Mlle Madison. It’s time.”

Head swirling, Gabriella only saw that the room was empty except for her and the very real presence of David. She dropped her pen and gaped at him, rising awkwardly. “David,” she murmured.

He was beside her then, picking her up in his strong arms, swinging her around, squeezing her tightly, tightly as he laughed. “Gabby, my dear Gabby!”

And then he put her down, holding her against his chest. She heard his heart thumping, thumping. He gently reached down, cradling her chin in his hand and lifting her face up to meet his eyes. “Gabby. Gabby, do you understand? Do you know?”

She nodded, feeling her eyes fill with tears. Her voice caught, and she could not speak.

He leaned toward her, and the simple gesture seemed to take moments or hours, before at last his lips reached hers. They touched hers softly, and she shivered with pleasure.

He lifted his head and smiled. Then he reached down once more, pulling her against him and kissing her again. Softly, convincingly. She folded her arms around his neck. Kissing, laughing. It was something, a blossoming, a deep, luxurious feeling that she had waited, it seemed, all of her life to know.

Later Gabriella could not remember how long they had stood and held each other and kissed in the middle of the classroom on the second floor of the parsonage at St. Joseph. She could only remember the desperate desire to keep David there forever and not step out into the hallway, where life must resume.

But presently he took her hand and entwined his long fingers with hers. He placed his other hand on top of hers and patted it. “This is how we should be, Gabby. We are right for each other after all.”

It was a statement, and she knew he meant it. Yet she read something else in his eyes. Before he pronounced the next word, she heard it.
But
… That terrible little word with the strength to change a destiny.

And then he spoke, confirming her fears. “But, Gabby, I can’t stay. Not yet. I came on a whim. Because I had to … I had to see you.”

Gabriella felt her legs wobble.

“I have to go back. I have found Jea—”

Immediately Gabriella put a finger to his lips. “No. Don’t say that name. Don’t bring it here, to destroy … this. You and me.”

“Of course,” whispered David, kissing her again. He held her face in his hands and peered at her. “Dear, dear, beautiful Gabby. Can it be?”

Gabriella smiled. “I think it can.” She rested her head on his chest for only a moment. But then her mind started racing, full of questions. “David?”

“Mmm?”

“How did it happen? How did you come to believe?”

He sighed deeply. “You, my angel, could explain it much better than I. It’s a mystery, and yet it’s suddenly so clear. I read a lot, as you said. The Gospels. The Epistles. The Psalms. And I argued a lot with your God.” He was playing with Gabriella’s hair, watching the red strands, thick and curly between his fingers.