He was a safari leader more at...

He was a safari leader more at home with wild lions than city traffic, and she a lady of refinement who sang in operas. But in reality they were destiny’s children.

They met in Kenya’s Meru National Park when both were burdened by emotional stress that was almost too much to bear, each wondering about and fearing what the future might hold.

Patrick Pape, who had spent his life in Africa, was suffering from cancer. Susan Brenneman, a sixth-generation Californian, was coming away from the end of a 20-year marriage.

Their uncertainties were palpable during the four days they spent together at the safari camp owned by Pape in the northeast section of Kenya.

The son of British expatriates, Pape’s own marriage had ended several years earlier. His life was the African bush, leading tourists among the tribes and the wildlife that abounded throughout the wilderness he loved.

Though always surrounded by visitors from around the world, Pape fought a strong feeling of loneliness that had emerged both from his divorce and from his fight with cancer.

Brenneman, a medical transcriptionist from La Jolla and a soloist with the San Diego Master Chorale for 20 years, suffered from the same feelings of isolation and loneliness.

Their meeting last summer in the heart of Africa seemed almost preordained. Fate, like a lion circling their camp, was watching them, and before their four days together had ended, the bushman and the lady had fallen in love . . . and Pape was on his way to a medical adventure equaling anything he had experienced in Africa.

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Brenneman was on the trip with her brother, Dr. Charles Steinmann, a Laguna Beach anesthesiologist; Steinmann’s wife, Pat, a surgical nurse; and their son, Harry, 17, a high school senior.

They were trying to get Brenneman “away from it all” by taking her with them on safari. It was a four-stop trip through Kenya, and one of the stops was Patrick’s Camp, where the lion called fate was waiting.

There was instant chemistry between Pape and the willowy blond, and it was obvious. “He made her laugh for the first time in weeks,” Pat Steinmann says. “It was so odd. She was happy.”

Pape joked that he wanted to purchase her as a senior wife in the ancient tribal tradition and played an Elvis Presley tape outside her tent, “It’s Now or Never.”

“It was a joke . . . I think,” Pape said the other day, seated in the Steinmanns’ oceanfront Laguna Beach home. The Pacific beat a lazy rhythm against the cliffs at the foot of the house. Sunset set a fire in the sky.

“I wanted it to be real, but how could it be? Thousands of miles separated us. She was a lady and I was a bushman.”

Pape had been treated for a cancerous tumor just below his left ear three years earlier and knew it was recurring. A trip to Nairobi confirmed it. With minimal funds and no medical insurance, he had no idea what to do. He couldn’t have been in better company.

Dr. Steinmann offered him life. “Come to California,” he told Pape, “and stay with us. We’ll take care of the treatment.”

Pape looked to Susan Brenneman. “Do you want me there?” She smiled and kissed him. “Come,” she said.

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Pape flew to California in October, only the third time he had ever been out of his native Kenya. Three days later he was in surgery.

The Steinmanns had prevailed upon friends and colleagues in the medical community to care for Pape “outside the system” without charge. They readily agreed.

Radiologists, pathologists and lab technicians donated their time and their skill. A world-renowned surgeon, Dr. Fred Grazer, performed the surgery pro bono, assisted by his son, Dr. John Grazer. Charles Steinmann was the anesthesiologist and his wife the surgical nurse.

The cancerous tumor was successfully removed and Pape was transported to his postoperative quarters: a room in the Steinmann home with that glorious view of the ocean.

Dr. Steinmann, meanwhile, convinced Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach to foot the bill for six weeks of radiation treatment, and the hospital administration agreed.

It was a generosity of medical resources one rarely witnesses.

“How can I ever thank them?” Pape would ask later. “They gave me back my life.”

In fact, he will return to Kenya early next month with a new life. Susan Brenneman will go with him. They will marry and spend their days together operating Patrick’s Camp.

Both know from experience that there are risks to any relationship, but this one is different. I’ve been to Africa and know of its magical pull, an almost primeval lure that whispers for one’s return.

Pape is a part of that mystique, in love with the life and the mysteries that Africa holds. Brenneman, under the spell of the same magic, is committing herself to those mysteries.

Two continents met when the lady journeyed to Africa and, later, when the bushman came to America. They still seem puzzled and a little overwhelmed by how it all happened. But fate, the lion that circles their lives, knows.

Al Martinez can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com