...And One Week in February

he words seemed to jump and glow on the computer monitor.

"You may ignore this item if you want. When you are in a stable and cold mood, please comment.... If you want, if you feel like, if you think it's not dangerous or destructive for us, please invite me to visit you. It's very practical for me. I will be more than happy."

Louise and Gadi had been exchanging e-mails for six months. She�d met him through an Internet �pen-pals� newsgroup and knew from the beginning that he was a man who could be a friend. Not just a "hello how are you" friend, but a friend you could laugh with, cry with, scream at, tell everything to....and he'd always be there. But he had a wife in Israel, and she was trying to bring up a small child by herself in South Africa. He had a thriving business and an apartment in Tel Aviv, and she had school fees and a car loan to pay in Durban. So they both went into the friendship not expecting, and certainly not wanting, the feelings that were surfacing now.

Louise took a slim file out of her bookcase. It contained every message that he'd sent her, and she smiled as she flipped back to the first one:

"I work in the computer industry, and I like very much my work. You will find that for one who doesn't write texts at all, it's a big effort to write this e-mail. I hope it will be easier next time. See you next time. (I realise that it's not fun to read such dull text, but you know computer persons..)"

She became more and more aware of his sense of humour as the messages rolled in. "On Friday I usually decide only in the morning what I'm going to do. So today I stayed at home, speaking to my computer. I also went to the barber (I have to tell you I hate this guy, but it's a secret). Actually I did NOTHING today and it was great......... I stop here, but I'll be back!"

And he was back. At first once a day, then twice, and before they knew it , there were ten or fifteen e-mail messages travelling back and forth, like verbal ping-pong every evening. The dreaded barber caused much hilarity, and Louise smiled again when she read

"Laugh, laugh, laugh....but you don't want me to wish you a hairdresser like mine. A nice guy that cough all the time in your ear. It's a mystery why I still go to suffer from him. Maybe I have a slight mental disorder, but I promise just a slight one...."

Christmas was approaching, and Louise was to make her annual visit to her parents home. Two weeks before she left, Gadi's e-mails took on a note of desperation that surprised her. He started to tell her about some of the frustrations in his life. The people that he worked with, his friends, his wife, Yael. They discussed the fact that they were so open with each other, and could talk about anything..

"I can't explain why, but it is a strange feeling that you expose yourself, or you cancel one of your shields. This is my general feeling, but with you, it's different.... and regarding your holiday: people say this pause will be a test to our relationship. OK, but tell these people that I'll miss you this big (a drawing of a mountain)" Louise knew then that she was beginning to fall in love with a man she'd never seen. Then the photo arrived, and she knew. She looked into his face on her screen, and her tears flowed, because she knew that his was the one face she would have chosen from a thousand others. She looked at his face and thought "Yes, of course.", and when the phone rang later that day, she wasn't surprised to hear his exotic foreign accent. She knew it was him, and they talked as if they'd known each other for years. Of course there were doubts. They both had their own lives, he had a wife. What was happening here? Where could it go?

"Nowhere!" Louise told herself "It's just for fun, that's all it can be. It's going nowhere! I don't want a husband of my own and I certainly don't want somebody else's!"

"What are you talking about you'll miss me?" She exploded at him two days before she left for her holiday. "You have a business, you have a wife, you have a whole life that I don't even know about! You're not going to miss me!"

That was when his plea for her to invite him to visit arrived, and she knew that their relationship was past the point of no return.

"Gadi, you know I want you to come, you know how I feel" She wrote "But why? What about Yael? Isn't our relationship hurting her?" His answer didn't make her feel any less guilty, but then, she supposed she just didn't understand his life.

"Yael is the one who suggested I come and visit you. She goes to New York once or twice a year, she sits until 4am speaking to a friend on the Internet, but we are secure in our relationship. We are not afraid of each other's friends."

Louise wrote back...

�I can�t pretend to understand your relationship with Yael, but I accept the fact that there are only two places we can be together. Here in e-mail, and for one week in February. I can live with that.�

And so it was arranged. He would arrive on Wednesday 26 February, they would stay in Durban until the Friday, then while Paulie was spending the weekend with a friend, Gadi and Louise would go to a farm in the Free State, nestled in the Maluti mountains and overlooking the rolling Lesotho hills. He'd leave on the following Tuesday, but it was too painful yet to even think about the leaving.

The time crawled until February. They were both nervous, both unsure of what was happening still. Gadi became withdrawn and uncommunicative, which was so unlike him that Louise panicked.

"What are you doing to me?" she wrote "I know you have a problem. Why can't you tell me? I thought we were friends......"

"It's nothing." He replied. "Nothing special, no problems. Maybe our language difference makes you misunderstand me. Everything is fine, the ticket is booked."

Louise continued to worry.

There were days when she came close to telling him to cancel his trip, and it was only her fear that he would readily agree that made her stop. By the time she received his e-mail to tell her that he was about to leave for the airport, she'd almost stopped eating and could barely sleep at night. But nothing was as bad as the day of his arrival. Weeks afterwards she still couldn't recall driving to the airport. She remembered getting up that morning, and she remembered the announcement that his flight had landed. Nothing in between. Watching the passengers walk through the doors into the airport building was a nightmare. Just as she'd convinced herself that he wasn't on the plane, he was there in front of her, on the other side of the glass security partition. He looked straight at her, straight through her, no recognition on his face at all. Louise's heart sank, she was immobilised. He had collected his luggage and reached the outer doors before she summoned the courage to push through the crowds after him.

The awkward first moments were camouflaged by the walk to the car, finding the parking ticket, arranging the seats. After that............ Louise, who had spent weeks having imaginary conversations with him, couldn't think of a single thing to say, so she drove home, as fast as she could, in silence. Fetching Paulie from school, exchanging gifts, strolling through the city, all smoothed the way and made her feel a little less nervous, and pretty soon, they were chatting easily. Still, Louise felt that he was somehow disappointed with her, there was no real warmth between them. That night when Paulie was fast asleep, exhausted from all the sight seeing, Gadi and Louise sat watching an old movie. She surreptitiously studied him. His pale green eyes were framed by lashes so dark and thick, that it looked as if he was wearing mascara, his bare feet, casually crossed on the coffee table, were long, slender and well shaped. She couldn't remember ever admiring a man's feet before, but his were perfect! His hands were also long and slender, and he reached out with one of them, grabbed her wrist and pulled her onto his lap.

"Come here Louise......" When he kissed her, their awkwardness and nervousness disappeared. It was like coming home. Later that night, encircled in his arms, she whispered drowsily

"How am I going to say goodbye to you?"

"For now just say goodnight." He murmured as he pulled her closer and kissed her hair.

They arrived at the farm late that Friday afternoon. The air was warm, soft and still. There was no sound except for faint thunder rolling around the mountains, and a child laughing on the other side of the river. The sinking summer sun touched the mountains, lighting the farmhouse with a golden glow, and when Gadi leaned down and kissed her bare shoulder, Louise thought that it was the most special moment in her life. The weekend flew past, the days filled with souvenir shopping and sightseeing, the nights with laughter, whispers and sweet love. They could hardly believe it when they woke on Sunday morning and realised that in a few hours they would have to leave the isolated bliss of the farm and head back to the city. As they made slow sleepy love, rain started to patter against the windows, and it seemed as if the sky was crying.

The sky cried again on the day Louise took Gadi back to the airport. They stood next to the car, close together, but not touching. Louise looked up at the face she'd probably never see again and a sob caught in her throat.

"I can't come into the airport with you, I'm not strong enough...." He reached out and drew her close to him, holding her so tight that it hurt.

"It's ok. I'll call you." He kissed her one last time and walked away without looking back and Louise thought that she was going to die.

Things just weren't the same after that. Yael seemed to become very demanding, or maybe she always had been, but it hadn't made a difference before. Gadi's business seemed to become very busy, but then - he always had been busy, and it hadn't seemed to matter in the past. His messages became less frequent and more formal. Louise spent hours agonising over what had gone wrong, and one night when she couldn't take it anymore she phoned him at midnight. Yael answered the phone and Louise could hear the mockery in her voice as she called

"Gadi! It's Louise."

"Why are you doing this to me?" Louise hissed into the phone.

"What? What's wrong?" He sounded genuinely confused

"When you couldn't have me, you wanted to be with me so badly. As soon as you could be with me, you didn't want me anymore. What kind of game are you playing?"

"No! It's nothing, really!" He insisted. "No problem, just a situation."

"What situation? Tell me!" Her eyes filled with tears and she could hardly speak

"I'm the most understanding person in the world, if only you'd tell me what was going on!"

"There's nothing to tell...." He started, and Louise slammed the receiver down onto its cradle.

The weeks passed, and their relationship continued to deteriorate. Louise tried to carry on writing to other e-mail friends, but she never felt the same connection with any of them. She'd always felt that she and Gadi had a telepathic connection, and she didn�t feel that with anyone else. So the e-mail friends fell away, one by one. Once a week a message would arrive from Gadi.

"Yael and I are going to Europe on holiday"

"Yael and I are spending the weekend in the desert."

And then the final thrust.....

"Yael and I are thinking of having a child."

A week of tears followed, and Louise decided that it was time to stop. She downloaded her usual batch of morning messages. One asking her if there were wild animals roaming the streets in Durban, one wanting to know what the weather was like, another wanting to know if she'd ever tried cyber sex. Nothing from Gadi. Nothing that would make her change her mind.

Yes, it was time to stop. She picked up the phone and dialled her Internet Service Provider. They would accept one month's notice, they told her. But her mail box would be accessible until the end of the month.

"Don't worry." She said. "I won't be needing it."

She put down the phone and disconnected her modem. Once that was done she deleted her e- mail package, her news package, her web browser. She never received the message that arrived in her mail box as she pressed the delete button.

"Yael has gone to New York. She's not coming back. Help me Louise."

She picked up the phone again to make a date with an old boyfriend who asked her out at least once a week, and who she always turned down.

Life went on. Winter came to an end and the days grew longer and warmer. Louise's new relationship was not exciting, but it was comfortable. There were no surprises, and she felt safe. John had asked her to marry him, and she was thinking seriously about it. Paulie was happy, doing well at school, and always out and about playing with friends. Christmas came and went, and Louise hardly ever felt the pang of pain that had haunted her in the early days when her relationship with Gadi had fallen apart. One quiet Saturday late afternoon she dropped Paulie off at a friend's house for a sleep over and drove home, looking forward to a quiet evening alone. As she got out of the car she felt a crippling wave of deja-vu. The air was warm, soft and still. The traffic sounds faded away, and the sound of thunder rumbled around the city. A ray of sun broke through the thin clouds and lit everything with a golden glow. Louise braced herself against the unexpected pain of Gadi's loss again. Tears came to her eyes and she leaned against the car to steady herself, almost expecting to feel his kiss on her bare shoulder again. After a few deep breaths she was able to move again.

"Get over it!" She admonished herself. "You have a wonderful son, a good job, a loving man who wants to marry you. Forget Gadi!" She turned to climb the ten steps to her front door, and he was there, sitting on the third step, fast asleep, his suitcase next to him.

"Gadi? Gadi!" She ran up the steps as he woke up and held out his arms.

"Come here Louise....."