by Peter Pogany

Created on: February 26, 2010

NEAR THE JUNGLE

The shrill ring of the telephone ripped Bernard from deep sleep late in the afternoon. He reached toward the sound in the darkened room with eyes closed, cursing the world. “Oh yeah, I took a bunch of sleeping pills,” he remembered: “Danielle is gone!”

The call was from her. She was at Dulles Airport near Washington, DC.

She just wanted to let him know that the recipes for his favorite dishes were on slips of paper in the back of the French cookbook on the second narrow shelf to the right of the stove.  

He intended to say thanks, wish her “bon voyage” or something but she hung up with a stifled sob.   

She was gone. The marriage had lasted eight months. A relief. What choice did he have? Now he could go on with his life, find someone new. Maybe not on this cold rainy day but when spring comes or the summer. He was sadly mistaken. His “bon vivant” self never recovered. He had to grow old before he could develop a perspective on what happened; get rid of what he called “the loop.”     

It all began in 1979.  

Bernard, in his mid-forties at the time, was divorced. The two children from the dissolved marriage, a boy and a girl, lived with his ex, a lawyer by profession who managed to sting him comatose with the “division of assets” and a stiff child support.

He worked for a large export-import company, traveled around the world. That year took him to Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. The deal he negotiated had to be quite significant because it involved different governments in the region and the World Bank. Bernard was well chosen for the job. He spoke good French and loved Africa.    

He stayed at the town’s most prestigious hotel, sitting under a beach umbrella on the patio during the two-hour siesta, sipping orange juice, reading newspapers, going over business papers.  

That’s where he spotted Danielle, swimming in the pool all by herself.

“She looked like a beautiful swan,” he liked to say when confronted with the recurring question in social settings: “So, tell us how the two of you had met?”

She was about ten years younger, French-born, also divorced; a 12-year old son living in Strasbourg (with her parents, I presume) - and beautiful, indeed.      

Bernard, a former marine, was no slouch himself. Tall and distinguished-looking - grey strands

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