These Good Hands

by Carol Bruneau

  “It’s all human engineering, hardly divine.” His eyes were full of suspicion, for he wanted to know who’d accompanied me. Surely I hadn’t climbed on my own?

  “Monsieur Debussy, you’ve heard of him, of course.” His whole face changed. “At long last. Someone worthy of you.”

  “Hardly.” For something else had come to me — a recollection of the pianist kicking a cat from his doorway that first, rainy afternoon.

  ***

  THAT WEEK, IN spite of myself, I welcomed Monsieur’s visit, hungry for love though love had long fled. Though he repelled me, a certain je ne sais quoi held me captive.

  But what was it? you keep asking, badgering, in fact. Quite simply, ma petite? The pull of a shared passion for the work. Plus I longed to have my waltzing couple cast in bronze and didn’t have half a centime to pay the founder. But Monsieur did.

  With that throaty, disgusting chuckle of his he applauded my sculpted lovers, his own rotund form toga’d in a sheet. “They look ready to waltz to bed! If their bodies were any closer, Mademoiselle, you’d show the man planting his … Well. You’ve outdone yourself.”

  A compliment I’d hoped for. Still it dredged up pain, less over lost love than of giving up my little one, my chance at having a little one, the one with black-pearl eyes. Unable to speak of it, I said, “Planting? A seed, Monsieur?”

  Of destruction, you understand. The ruin in everything, there all along and only waiting to grow.

  But he babbled about Michelangelo, the ruin embedded in perfection. “We keep our optimistic spirit, Mademoiselle.”

  “Without that,” — impossible not to roll my eyes — “we’d walk into the Seine, a bronze in each hand?”

  “Now, now!” He balanced my plaster in his palms — an offering to some god, himself perhaps. No doubt he saw himself in it, the male a figure of grace leaning into eternity. Never mind that his dance partner was more than his equal; a pair of nudes made to fit together. Ever my teacher, he offered his critique. “The only problem, the only flaw … their pose isn’t … set. They look so precarious. Like they’ll wash away.”

  “That, stupid, is their strength.”

  He struck his pose, the one reserved for parties, kissing cheeks as well as arses. “But they’re too beautiful to be real. If you added a blemish …”

  “So they looked like us? How sad. How boring — copying life.” The prig — the prick — persisted. “But … it looks like you’ve done water.”

  “Not frozen like ice, the way some would do it?”

  Did he know he was being mocked, or did it fly over his head, unnoticed? Such was his arrogance. I leave it to you to decide. Ever the chameleon’s, his face paled. “My dear. To make bad art takes a ham fist — and a fucking frozen heart.”

  And yet, helping himself to my paper, he wrote a note to his best friend in the government, giving me full assurance that the agent would be by — immediately — to offer a fat commission.

  Not to make excuses, my dear C, but you can see how I was caught.

  Yours truly. X

  I9

  … COMMITTED TO MY KEEPING …

  MONTDEVERGUES ASYLUM

  27 SEPTEMBER 1943

  Attacking another’s vanity has no place in a report of this nature. But, what a sight, the secretary, with her frilly blouse and freshly permed hair! Her face bloomed behind the double doors’ glass — she must’ve had a key to the downstairs entry. Novice had no choice but to let her in, and unable to contain herself, she clomped towards us, stopping Head in her tracks.

  “Imagine,” she said. Word had arrived. The brother is planning to visit! Who knew buttercup-yellow frills and candy-floss curls could be harbingers of disaster?

  Seeing the note in her hand, I took myself directly to the supply room. I was busily counting camisoles when Head stormed in. She tailed me to the desk, practically stepping on my heels. The secretary was gone, as was the note — one small mercy, not that it spared me.

  “So you took it upon yourself to summon him? Mademoiselle’s poor, unsuspecting relative! Who do you think you are, Poitier? It’s your responsibility to keep loved ones apprised? Have you no care for rules? The heart of France is being eaten away by traitors — and you think it’s fine to flout all respect! For the hospital’s integrity and the family’s! You can expect to be terminated for this.”

  She yanked a chart — Mademoiselle’s — from its peg and scanned it, pale with anger.

  Patient C, 19/09/43, 10H17. Decubitus ulcers, sacrum right & left, buttocks right & left, salve, dressings appl’d. Complains of noises, chills. Temp normal. Hands warm to touch. Dehydration. No trouble communicating. Head of unit informed.

  ***

  ITS LAST ENTRY was more than a week old. I was about to update it, until she clasped it to her bib so I could hardly pry it away.

  “Make yourself useful, Nurse, till we hear what discipline comes down. Be prepared.”

  ***

  IN ORDER TO peacefully sponge-bathe Mademoiselle, I chose to hold off giving her the news. One maintains calm, particularly when physical needs must first be met. Focusing on the patient helped displace Head’s anger somewhat. To keep up Mademoiselle’s humour I teased, “What have you got against water, anyway?”

  Her response caught me off guard.

  “My maman would ask the same thing. You fancy yourself as her? She abandoned me.”

  “Now, now. Of course she —”

  “Oh, but she did.”

  “Now, dear. It serves no purpose …”

  There are days when one’s best intentions can serve to create a small hell.

  “But my brother didn’t, you see. Abandon me. No, he never did.” From what I gathered, he pretty much had. Regardless, this made it harder to keep his plans to myself. Of course I’d tell her, at the right moment. But what if something happened and he was unable to come, was somehow prevented? He was old himself and travelling anywhere these days could be problematic. The poor thing had suffered more than enough disappointment, I’m willing to bet.

  “I would bathe in milk, no, champagne, if he had his way,” she rambled, eyeing me, “the waters of Villeneuve. Not this! I’d rather roll in cat’s piss.” She flailed her wrist and I caught it, held it. “Poitier Solange, your fingers are like bisqued clay.”

  Beyond the bars, on the other side of the windowpane, a faint brownish yellow shape flickered past, and another.

  Mademoiselle gave a rough laugh. “I’ll be a leaf, that’s what I’ll … Whose pages will I get pressed between, do you suppose?”

  “There, there.” Best to avoid gloomy talk of the eventual and the inevitable, and to train attention on the present. “That friend of yours — the one you’ve been writing to … She’s unable to vis —?”

  Her silence indicated that talk be avoided, period. But talk is part of a healthy disposition, as long as difficult topics are avoided. If a patient goes into cardiac arrest over something, better it be joyful than grievous.

  “You can expect your brother within the week,” I divulged. When the patient finally spoke, she sounded positively childlike.

  “Will he bring chocolat, do you think, when he comes for me?”

  “Bien sûr. Champagne perhaps, and roses?” I was being playful, not glib.

  Mademoiselle shuddered, suddenly covering her face. Instead of the expected tears, a pinkish red oozed between her fingers. Nosebleed.

  “Tilt your head back, there’s a dear.” Her shoulders were trembling. I put my arm around them.

  “If he were really good, as good as you, he’d bring me mud,” she laughed. I didn’t like the sound of her chest. Clamping her hand around my arm, she dug in her ragged nails; a manicure was in order, if any of us had a moment to burn. “Did I tell you how we used to play? In the mud in Maman’s garden. I tell you, Soitier, with mud in my fists, I felt God’s pulse.”

  Was my timing an error in judgment?

  She shivered, eyes squeezed shut, complaining of being “so c
old. The mistral, this time of year. When I first came here … It will be warmer in Villeneuve, won’t it?” She drew a slow, deliberate breath, appearing to collect herself. “Good clay, Miss Soitier? It feels silky and chalky on the palms, drying … Mud between my fingers and toes. I wasn’t a boy or a girl, but a cipher, you see? I was God’s seeing eye, his eardrums …”

  The nosebleed, at least, had abated. I managed to wipe off her upper lip.

  “I made mud-cakes for Maman, which my brother tried to eat! Taste and see …” She was sobbing again, but allowed me to clean up her nose. “The doctor, the one whose name is a gift but who looks like snow — she wanted me to work again. To sculpt again. The devil himself, the rodent, I know was behind it. The one I’ve told you about, who put me here. His friends still try to poison me, as you’re aware.”

  “Oh, now. Enough excitement for one afternoon, I think. Let’s get you something to help you rest.”

  There was nothing for it but to tear downstairs to fetch a dose of Veronal. So much for my outside efforts, my attempt to bring light into her days. By soliciting her relative’s attention. I’d very likely fleeced myself of a job — not just a job but a bed and a roof over my head.

  ***

  NOVICE SPELLED ME for a short break during Quiet Time. I raced to the dorm, collected whatever letters I hadn’t posted, hurried down to Admin, and set them on the counter for the secretary, who wasn’t at her desk.

  An unfamiliar voice, a man’s, was barking instructions from the directeur’s office. Secretary emerged looking flustered, even a bit unnerved. “I’m sure our new directeur will know just what to do,” she told me, straightening the little pile of correspondence.

  Not wanting to appear too curious, I asked what had happened to our old one. I didn’t dare mention the note, which she seemed to have forgotten about.

  “He’s been replaced.” She gave me a wan smile and ducked to retrieve a familiar-looking folder, which she pushed towards me. “When they cleared out his files, a few things appeared. A couple of bits and pieces I stuck in here — nothing too important. I don’t suppose you’re interested.” A tiny muscle in her chin, the mandible’s mentalis, twitched. Her eyes were dulled by a certain resignation — or by her blouse, not the best shade for sallow skin.

  New to the file was a carbon copy of the papers signed by Mademoiselle’s family, her mother and brother: the original order to commit her. There was something else I hadn’t seen before, a photograph with 1929 pencilled on the back. It appeared to have been taken in early spring. Two old women sat together in the bleak sunshine outside what must be Pavilion 10. Both looked bundled up, Mademoiselle in the same old glad rags, only slightly less shabby. The white-haired lady beside her was wearing a ruffled blouse and a corduroy suit, and was reaching across Mademoiselle’s lap for her hand. But Mademoiselle was having none of it. Arms folded, hollow-eyed, she gazed straight ahead as if the other weren’t there. A caged bird and a thwarted feline, she and her visitor looked like. Because the woman had to be a visitor, looking so proper. Could it have been the mother? Not likely. Stapled to a page of Mademoiselle’s doodling was a letter dated the same year and signed by the brother, requesting Whomever It May Concern to inform his sister of the parent’s death.

  I asked to borrow the photo, giving my solemn promise to return it at shift change. Secretary simply shrugged. “Be my guest. Not like anyone’s screaming for it.”

  The subject of the brother’s reply to my note still hadn’t come up, but thinking of it — and Head’s vexation, as well as Mademoiselle’s excitability — made the picture seem sudenly burdensome, scarcely worth any further grief or grievance. Anything was liable to happen under Head’s hawkish attention.

  I nudged the pile of Mademoiselle’s handmade envelopes forward and set the photo on top of it. “You’ll give these to the directeur?” I paused, fishing for something, anything to do with the note, and steeling myself. When Secretary said nothing I asked if he wished to see me.

  She eyed me strangely, shaking her head, then swept everything into the folder, and the folder into its drawer.

  ***

  THE REST OF the shift was no less eventful. At 19H52, with a doctor unavailable, a catatonic threw a fit, perhaps from some irritation of the brain’s motor centres. Hysteric convulsions, tonic contractions — causing rigidity — as well as screaming, laughing, frothing at the mouth. Eyes rolling but pupils reacting to light. Two fingers down the throat just in time to prevent swallowing the tongue, Veronal administered successfully. Patient cribbed, the best means of holding her in a recumbent position.

  20H22. With malnutrition already a worry, three cases of dysentery today alone. A walking recipe for beriberi wet or dry, pernicious anemia, pellagra, rickets, scurvy, et cetera. Where it couldn’t be injected, Veronal was doled out like bonbons, inserted, shoved.

  At such times it helps, it truly does, while breathing deeply, to inwardly recite physiological terms — in this case, the muscles of the human mouth and lips: Orbicularis oris, buccinators, quadratus labii superioris, quadratus labii inferioris, caninus, mentalis, zygomaticus, triangularis, risorius. A Latin hymn to the god of speech who’d have us eating starch. Sometimes, though, stronger meds than recitation are required.

  ***

  I DO NOT consider nicotine a harmful drug. Back in Lyon, Sister and I would savour the occasional clope, which worked wonders in calming the nerves. A girl in the refectory here will trade cigarettes for lipstick not too obviously used. Under the circumstances, such barter seems more than fair. Une clope in hand helps one commit one’s honest thoughts to paper.

  Ready to light up in my room, I stashed the rest of my bounty in the silver case, the better to be rationed and thus less likely to become habit-forming. Out of sight, out of mind. I did worry, though, about the smell drifting upstairs and under Head’s door, a scented trail to draw her here, and putting on a sweater I hurried outside. Best not to smoke in the entryway — a nurse upholds at all times the habits of good health, hygiene and behaviour — so I stood well out of the light.

  I was about to strike the match when Novice and two girls from Men’s ambled up. Their presence — “Look who it is!” — cheered me at first, better company than that of some prowling guest’s without an orderly as backup. But I didn’t feel like sharing just then. My desire for a fag only increased by their idle chit-chat, until one of them said, “Oh, did you hear Head’s got it in for someone?”

  Who? I almost said. Excusing myself, I let the urge pull me toward and beyond the gates to the road, and in the wall’s shadow I lit up. Cool for this early in autumn, the night was chilly and clear. The stars beamed down, so many icy grits up there only egging on my agitation, as though bracing me for something — the humiliation of being let go, or the deepening of fall?

  Pulling smoke into my lungs, I coughed even as it buoyed me, and found myself sputtering when a shape emerged from the thoroughfare’s darkness. I felt his grip on my shoulder almost before I recognized him.

  Renard peered at me from under his shrunken beret. His eyes were oily-dark in the gates’ distant light, his reedy face glistening with sweat. His overbearing grin seemed almost febrile, it was that nervous, and filled with a smarmy charm, as if just by being there I had asked for, arranged for this!

  “I’d hoped to see you again — doubted I would, actually.”

  His breath came in spurts, its sourness piquing concern for his gums. He’d clearly been running, from someone or something. Or had he been lying in wait, waiting a very long time, watching from the woods, stalking me? No. I was letting Head’s hawkish supervision take over and colour everything.

  More unkempt and even less appealing than he’d been in the café, Renard brushed bits of dead leaves from his clothes. He must’ve seen my confusion and gave me little chance to pull away, though I might’ve shouted to the gateman when his hand closed, a bit too smugly, around my wrist. He had a calculating look of desperation and relief. No attempts at pleasantri
es.

  “The boy I told you about — the kid I mentioned, that night at the bar? He’s not in any grave danger, I hope. But he needs to be seen,” he said, his breath rasping unpleasantly close to my ear. His voice made me think of patients, strictly medical ones, making the most banal requests while suffering grievous pain. I felt my diaphragm press my lungs, was about to drop and stamp out my cigarette when he snatched it for himself and dragged away as though his life depended on it. He gestured at the gatehouse. “I’d have looked for you inside, if not for that bastard — Peter guarding the pearly ones, is he? The nearest doctor’s in Avignon —”

  I voiced my doubts of that — enough, I hoped, to be discouraging.

  “Look,” he said, “the one in the village can’t be trusted.”

  I am noting this for the record, since Head’s vigilance, her dislike, makes an accurate reflection of my activities all the more prudent, pressing even.

  Renard was only too persistent. “Have a look, is what I’m asking. He just needs reassurance, to be told that his wound will probably heal. Bien sûr, if you’d seen him earlier —” His look was gloomier, more put-upon and guilt-inducing than Head’s and Night’s combined. He held the cigarette the way one would an insect, loath perhaps to crush it out. In the dark his surliness seemed lightened by how pathetic he appeared, whether he was lying or not. It was enough to arouse my natural curiosity. “Look. It’s a small thing I’m asking. He’s a kid. If you have any kindness, Mademoiselle Poitier …”

  If you have a gift and don’t use it, watch it turn against you, Mademoiselle liked to say. Sister’s words came to me also: Oh Lord this, oh Lord that. Spare me no opportunity to serve.

  “You have no business coming here,” I said succinctly. The last thing I wanted was a scene. I wished the gateman would doze off.

  Renard’s grip tightened, his sweaty paw melded to my wrist, and he stepped into the roadway. I resisted, for a second almost wishing that Head’s policeman friend might come barrelling along. Let someone else deal with this however they would.