The Sculptress

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The Sculptress Page 21

by V. S. Alexander


  “What?” Emma asked. “Are we stuck?” The sound of the tires being sucked into the mud forced her to abandon the prickly questions that disturbed her. Only sodden gray clouds and bent tree branches, laden with dripping leaves, lay ahead on the narrow road. She wondered if they would ever get to Toul.

  “Damn it, woman—not you, too,” John said to her. “You’ve been somewhere else this entire trip.”

  “Sir Jonathan!” Virginie yelled from the back, leaning over the luggage tops as she admonished him with a pointed finger. “Use Christian language when speaking to ladies.”

  “I’ll not change the King’s English one damn iota to suit you,” he shot back. “And I certainly don’t consider you a lady. I’ve never known a nurse who was.” He pressed the accelerator, slapped the steering wheel, and cursed again. “I’ve had enough of her bloody weather prognostications. Her alleged clairvoyance is no reason to postpone a trip.”

  “John, I appreciate your concern in getting me to my husband so soon . . . but I . . . we could have—”

  “Please don’t aggravate me! I am agitated enough as it is. I jumped through hoops to find out where your husband was stationed—let alone commandeer an ambulance for two days.” The truck’s wheels sunk deeper into the muck. He disengaged the gearbox, opened the door, and stepped into the rain. “Nurse!” he shouted. “Up front and motor this truck. I’ll push from the rear. Petrol is too precious to waste.”

  Emma watched as they sparred over control of the truck.

  Virginie, who had been smart enough to wear a raincoat over her uniform, also held an umbrella. John held out his rain-soaked arms and guided the nurse over the tailgate.

  She climbed into the driver’s seat, her shoes, lower stockings, and the hem of her raincoat coated with mud.

  “Carry on!” John shouted. “Full speed ahead. And I do mean ahead.”

  Virginie gripped the steering wheel throttle like a mechanic, her hands wrangling with the lever, her muddy shoe pressing the left pedal. The truck rocked forward by inches as John pushed. In a flurry of movement, she accidentally knocked the ambulance into reverse. The tires squealed in the mud.

  “For God’s sake, watch out!” John screamed. “Remember me?”

  “Mon Dieu,” Virginie whispered. She clutched the throttle and crammed it forward while lifting her foot from the pedal. “Maintenant!”

  The truck lurched forward violently, nearly throwing Emma into the windscreen. It sped down the road until Virginie grabbed the floor lever. The ambulance slowed to a stop on an incline strewn with pebbles and rocks. Emma turned and peered through the rainy veil behind the truck.

  John, spattered with mud, strode toward them in an angry gait and opened the door. He poked his reddened, grit-covered head inside. “You may drive, nurse. I’ll ride the rest of the way in back. Just follow the kilometer posts to Toul.”

  “I know the road,” she replied in a calm voice.

  The truck sagged under John’s weight as he climbed under the dripping tarp.

  The rain relented somewhat as Virginie drove. The nurse dodged the large puddles and sticky mire, maneuvered past the few automobiles on the road, and slipped by slow-moving equine carts. Emma, with occasional shouted comments from John, listened to Virginie recount her hospital experiences, and how lucky John was to find her to work with his mutilés. The nurse also made it clear that he was not solely responsible for her command of English. A friend had taught her as well.

  John swiped at his muddy clothes with a rag he found tied to a petrol can. Once he had cleaned up a bit, he became more animated, discoursing about his forays into facial reconstruction and mask-making techniques, giving him self-congratulatory pats on the back when needed.

  The conversation died when the fortress city of Toul, enveloped in mist, appeared on the horizon.

  “My God,” Emma said. “A soldier on the ship thought Tom might be here.” She turned in her seat and faced John, who hunkered clammy and wet in the truck bed.

  He pointed to the east. “And thirty-five kilometers from here, men are dying at the Front—that is if they are fighting at all in this sloppy mess. The hospital isn’t far. I’ve been here a few times.”

  In front of them, Toul’s fortress walls rose from the sodden earth. At the perimeter, a cadre of French soldiers stopped the ambulance. After questioning them and inspecting the truck with the Red Cross emblem on its doors, the soldiers let them pass through the Porte de France. Emma had imagined a more pleasant reception for her reunion with Tom. Instead of a village surrounded by lavender fields, flowering pear trees, and a sunny square filled with fountains, Toul lay dank and desolate under the low, suffocating, sky. The city was quaint enough in its own right, but the streets were empty and water trickled in dark streams down its stone buildings. Here and there an electric lamp burned inside a shop, adding a small degree of cheeriness to the day. Emma thought she smelled sulfur in the air, perhaps the faint odor of spent gunpowder, but then considered her nose might be playing tricks on her.

  The truck bounced over the cobblestone streets causing John, with each new jolt, to lambast Virginie’s driving.

  “Hush,” the nurse countered.

  John instructed her to turn left, and the street widened a bit. “There,” he said, “the building with the flags.”

  Emma squinted through the grimy windscreen at a solid white structure dripping with French and Red Cross flags.

  “Voilà,” Virginie said. “We have arrived—safe and sound—despite the Germans and your driving, Sir Jonathan.”

  John elbowed the back of the seat and Virginie flinched.

  The nurse attempted to park in a narrow alley next to the hospital, but the lane was crowded with ambulances. She continued down the street and stopped the vehicle in front of a deserted building.

  Emma opened the door and stepped into the drizzle. The drive from Paris had taken more than twelve hours.

  “Thanks for telephoning Tom last night,” Emma said to John, as he shifted his large frame in the truck bed. “I’ve been so distracted.”

  John steadied his bulk against the side of the ambulance until his feet touched the street. “I don’t know why I feel compelled to play matchmaker. One would think a husband and wife who hadn’t seen each other for so long would be in closer contact.”

  Emma blushed and turned away.

  “Tom was quite content when I talked to him—a bit bothered, but otherwise in fine spirits,” he continued. “A surgeon is always busy during a war.”

  Emma led the way to the hospital, a stone building punctuated by a few windows and not as large as she expected. Apart from the word Hôpital over the door, one could have passed by it with little hint of the work going on behind the façade.

  The nurse sitting behind the front desk greeted Emma with a flat “Bonjour.” The room smelled of antiseptic and rubbing alcohol. Several bearded men talked quietly or read a newspaper or book, crutches propped against their chairs. Another sat and rocked in a corner, muttered, and thrust his hands into the air, oblivious to the others around him. The left side of his face and top of his head were swathed in bandages.

  Virginie took over the introductions in French. Emma picked out a few words—d’accord, certainement, allons—but most of the conversation was beyond her grasp.

  “Well?” John interrupted. “Where is he?”

  The nurse behind the desk scowled at the doctor.

  “She thinks he has just come out of surgery,” Virginie said. “Patience, patience. You English are so pushy.”

  “If the French had been more aggressive, this war would be over.”

  “You are wet, tired, and in a bad humor,” Virginie said, holding back a snarl. “You must choose your words carefully, Sir Jonathan. Others may not be as forgiving as I.”

  “Please,” Emma said, “we’re all working for the same outcome—like the situation or not. The world has never seen a war like this.”

  The hospital nurse rose and climbed a stai
rcase at the back of the room. An uncomfortable silence fell over Emma, Virginie, and John until she reappeared at the landing and motioned for them to come up.

  Emma’s pulse quickened.

  Virginie was first up the stairs. At the top, Emma followed her down a narrow hall. From the adjacent rooms, injured men coughed or moaned. A row of overhead lights cast their dull shadows on a floor scuffed and muddy from the rain. The nurse led them past surgical quarters containing white beds and silver tables laden with bottles, stainless steel cutters, and clamps. In one room, a man lay covered to his neck with a white sheet, blood spreading like a crimson flower across his shoulders. At the end of the hall, the nurse turned right.

  When Emma rounded the corner, she saw her husband, his white coat streaked and spattered with blood, talking to another doctor.

  Tom spotted the group and a faint smile formed on his lips. He looked thinner, eyes sunken and dark, complexion sallow, his demeanor as fragile as a wounded butterfly, utterly lacking strength, as if a puff of wind might blow him away.

  Emma resisted the temptation to rush to him and envelop him in her arms. From her hospital experiences in Boston she knew better—he would worry about the risk of contamination, of infection. Apparently, embracing his long-held apprehension, he walked toward her, passing Virginie and John. Tom bent down and kissed her forehead lightly.

  Emma pursed her lips, but no kiss on the lips came.

  The hospital nurse and the other doctor departed, leaving the four of them in the hall.

  “You look tired,” Emma said after Tom had greeted John and Virginie.

  “Exhausted.”

  “Now that we’re here, we’ll leave you,” Virginie said.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Tom said.

  “Of course not,” John said enthusiastically. “We must discuss the business of Mrs. Swan’s eventual control of the studio.”

  “Arrêtez,” Virginie demanded. “Later. You can talk business—ce soir.”

  “Vous pouvez vous tuer à discuter, elle ne s’avouera pas vaincue pour autant,” Tom said.

  “Oui,” Virginie replied. “There is no arguing with me.” She grabbed her boss by the sleeve and pulled him down the hall. “We will make our own rounds. Tout de suite.”

  “But we have no rounds to make,” John protested as Virginie led him away.

  Tom smiled as the two disappeared, and then looked at Emma. The momentary happiness faded, the smile dropped away, and a melancholy look Emma had seldom seen her husband display blossomed on his face. In fact, the depth of his solemnity shocked her.

  Tom pointed to a room across the hall. “My office. I share it with another surgeon, but he’s off duty now.”

  She followed him into a sparsely furnished room where a small window offered a view of a stark building across the street.

  Tom pulled the beaded chain on the desk lamp; the bulb crackled and threw out a bleak, dim light. “Toul is not Boston,” he said as he closed the door. “Even the electric is suspect.” He sat on the edge of his desk and looked at her.

  Emma felt as if she were looking back at a stranger, but suppressed her unease and moved toward him.

  Tom pointed to his blood-spattered coat and pushed back on the desk.

  “Your French seems perfect,” Emma said.

  “When you use it every day for five months, you learn quite a bit.” He tapped his fingers on the desk. “And I have nothing to do off duty but sleep and study the language.”

  “What’s the matter?” she asked. “You don’t seem yourself.”

  “I don’t want to get blood on you. Nasty stuff is going round.”

  “Are you well? I’ve never seen you so thin.”

  He sighed. “As well as can be expected. And yourself?”

  Emma sank into a chair, stared at her hands, and considered how to reply to his question. Finally, after a time, during which her face reddened and her muscles tensed, she blurted out, “Our troop ship avoided attack by German submarines, I landed in France with only American dollars, managed a train ride to Paris, and now reside with a pedantic English physician who’s offered me the companionship of his French nurse and housekeeper, neither of whom can stand him. And all you can ask is ‘And yourself?’”

  Tom groaned and shifted on the desk.

  “No, really, Tom, I’m sorry to make you uncomfortable, but I left Boston, traveled three thousand miles for a new life—after you uprooted ours with your generous spirit. Please understand me—your decision was noble. But I’ve come to France to begin what seems absolutely insane work—and you barely seem pleased I’m here.”

  He took off his coat and hung it on the back of the door. “I’m sorry, Emma.” He pulled a chair in front of hers and grasped her hands. “I’m tired. It’s the war. I fight death every day.”

  “Not even a real kiss,” she said.

  “All right, a kiss.” He leaned toward her, brushed his hands against her neck and shoulders, and then guided her face close to his. His lips felt forced and reserved against hers; an affectation of love devoid of passion.

  Could he ever desire me again, or I him? His touch seemed as off-putting and clinical as the hospital office where they sat. Did she want to resurrect the time shortly after their marriage, when he at least attempted to make love? She remembered his fingers, with their perfunctory rush of desire, lingering on her skin. The sexual exchange was barely satisfactory then, their lovemaking as methodical and dull as their home life. As she considered the past, Linton Bower’s naked body burst into her head.

  Tom broke from her embrace.

  “We’ve both changed,” Emma said.

  He pushed his chair back and bounced his clenched fist on the desk. “I told you—I’m tired. I live, eat, sleep, and dream death.” He stared at her with red-rimmed eyes and then covered his face with his hands, before slowly taking them away. “If only I could stop my mind from working, stop thinking about this damn war. Believe me, there are times I regret this decision and wish I’d never come here. Perhaps I shouldn’t have encouraged you to leave Boston—maybe it would have been better if you’d stayed.”

  “Well, it’s too late now,” she said, subduing her despair at his suggestion. “I’m staying in Paris. John Harvey needs me . . . I thought you needed me, too.” She studied his slumped form and a sudden stab of pity pierced her. “We need to sort this out, but first you need to rest.”

  “Yes, you’re right on both counts,” he said, his voice tinged with sadness.

  Emma looked down at the lint and muddy droplets covering her coat, trying in vain to brush them off. “I’m afraid, Tom.”

  “Of what?”

  “A number of things,” she said, looking back at him. She considered the emotional distance between them and thought better of cutting too deep, too fast. “What if I fail on my first day in the studio? What if my masks are a disaster?”

  “Men die every day in my hands.”

  “It’s not the same,” she said, irritated by the comparison. “Those men would die anyway. You couldn’t save them because no doctor could. They were in God’s hands. My soldiers are alive and come to me for help. What if I can’t give it to them? I can’t even sculpt a face properly.”

  Tom clutched the edge of the desk. “That may be true, but don’t wave the white flag until you give it a try. No one will die in your studio.”

  “That’s not the point. Are you so certain our choices have been right? What if they’ve been wrong?”

  “I’m not certain of anything. There are days when the world seems like hell and nothing I’ve ever done is right.” He leaned toward her. “Our individual choices brought us to this place, and perhaps that’s the problem. We’ve always been on our own, even though we’re together.”

  Emma flinched under her coat, knowing the truth of his words.

  “You’re staying with me tonight?” he asked after a few moments. “We can talk if you’re not too tired.”

  “I assume so, but I’m also at
John’s beck and call. He mentioned staying with military friends near Toul.”

  “Stay with me. I can arrange other accommodations for John and Virginie. Are you returning to Paris tomorrow?”

  “Yes.” Emma studied the gaunt face. Tom’s lower lip quivered as she rose from her seat. Trembling, she leaned against him, shutting out the hospital’s distractions, breathing in his warmth and the familiar scent of his skin that rose faintly above the odor of antiseptic. She lowered her head, wanting to kiss his hands, but he stopped her with a gentle touch to her shoulder.

  “Infections,” he reminded her.

  * * *

  Tom walked Emma to the cottage after a late supper with John and Virginie, and then returned to the hospital. Tom had arranged the evening—she would spend the night at his cottage, John and his nurse would stay at the director’s home in Toul. In the morning, the three would return to Paris to put together the final plans for the new studio and the completion of Emma’s last days of training with her mentor. During supper, John complained about the inconveniences suffered at the hands of a “love-starved husband and wife.” He listed his grievances: a forgotten toothbrush, pajamas that needed mending, troubled sleep in an unfamiliar bed. Virginie assured him that he could find a toothbrush at the hospital and that he could sleep in his underwear, or nude in a barn, as far as she was concerned. She was happy to accept the director’s hospitality for the night, with or without his company.

  As the long hours passed, the cottage the Red Cross had requisitioned for Tom seemed as deserted and lonely as the moon. Memories flashed through her head—from childhood days to the evening’s dinner—as her tired brain searched for answers to the questions she and her husband had posed to each other in the afternoon.

  She spent much of the night at a small table, drinking from an already opened bottle of wine, musing about Linton, her husband, and the circumstances of war that had brought her to France. Now and then, she rose from her chair and paced the room in the flickering circle of lamplight, taking in, on the surface, the furnishings of Tom’s life—so different from their comfortable Boston home at the base of Beacon Hill. An iron bedstead took up most of the space. A bookcase filled one corner near a stone fireplace. The table and two chairs skirted a tin sink to the right of the front door. The only other room in the cottage was a washroom with a hole in the earth for the toilet, and a rust-stained water basin.

 

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