These Good Hands

by Carol Bruneau

  If I have the urge to know about him, is it illogical to think he might feel a similar urge about me?

  It strikes me, Dear Record of All My Past Failings, of What I Am, Have Been and Hope to Be, that when we’re small we are each very much one person, before our worlds-to-be collide and shatter us into several people, at least two — the one before and the one after. Before we lose our mamans, and before all the rest of the things happen that we choose or don’t choose. I think this when I remove my clothes and every time I take a bath, actually. A foolish enterprise, navel-gazing; still, the wink of mine is often enough to make me want to slide underwater and count and count until I can’t count anymore. Like nothing else in this world, the umbilicus shows how one is attached to the dead, to the lost, whether one wants to be or thinks about it or not — a circular, fleshly reminder of things continuing, of eternity, Heaven even, if such a thing exists. That they’ve been, and that we carry their mark, and that in a certain way they’re still out there somewhere or might be — the lost — and if so, somehow, perhaps, is it such a stretch to think that we’ll meet again?

  Which brings me to

  Speculation #9: He has smooth, almost baby-soft skin, healthy except for an infected flesh wound, peripheral swelling and bruising. Likely has a washboard abdomen like other boys his age, a slender ribcage, a thin, dark line of hair above and below a belly button like an eye that can see and a mouth that can talk. The parts of the son like the father’s.

  Oh, my. That the body speaks and can be spoken for! How presumptuous we are, dealing with Nature.

  ***

  21H45

  WELL, HE PICKED a fine day to come, I’ll give him that. Mademoiselle’s guest. When I hurried to work this morning the sun was just coming up, everything in a burnished mist. Birds squabbled over the berries ripening on the yews. A few sprigs with their dots of red would’ve spruced up the room, certainly, except those berries are toxic. Not really an issue for my patient, though. One knows all too well that no matter how much care is taken, for those so disposed to dispatch themselves, like our scissors victim, where there’s a will there’s a way. Mademoiselle’s had thirty years to do it, and not a single mention of such tendencies in her file.

  She was still dozing when I went in. I reached under the blanket and felt for a pulse.

  Her eyes flew open. “Mon petit?” The dullness clouding them lifted only slightly when I helped her sit, placed an Aspirin on her tongue and held the water for her to sip. No cure for bedsores, but it eases the pain. “You’re the perfect maman picking my poison!”

  Her voice was weaker than usual, and she squinted at the bars. “Mon petit is here to take me? You’ll help me pack.”

  When I patted her cheek the skin was stiffened with dried mucus. “Don’t just stand there, Poitier Solange. Help me up.”

  Try as she might, her legs wouldn’t co-operate. She slumped against the pillow.

  “It’s all right, dear. No need to worry. He’ll come to you.”

  “But how will he find me? How will he know where to come?” Then her voice brightened a little. “He’s a writer, you see, my brother.” As if this made some sort of difference, as if it mattered to me. Was it an excuse on his behalf? “He has no idea what I’ve suffered.”

  “Now, Mademoiselle, you’ll want to look your best.” The occasion was an opportunity to put comb to head and wash what parts showed, face, hands and neck. “It’s been some time since he’s seen you, yes?”

  “Time means nothing in jail, you should know.” She pointed to the drawer and whispered, “Don’t forget, in case I do. Mon petit is to deliver what’s in there. He’s able to go, Miss Polange, where you can’t.” She laughed, her trembling fingers closing around the letters I handed to her; clumsily she stuffed them under the blanket. “My legs will be more use to me in Villeneuve, of course,” she rambled, “though I don’t expect to get around too much. Poor you, having to stay here.” Beckoning me closer, she gave my cheek a feathery poke. “I’ll write you, that’s a promise.”

  “Promise accepted,” I said.

  ***

  IT WAS AGREED that I would meet the visitor in the visitors’ lounge, a yellow and brown room furnished with straight-backed chairs, in a wing just off Admin. The sharpness of disinfectant and lemon oil greeted me, as it must everyone arriving here — that, and cautious voices breaking the silence. An elderly couple were disentangling themselves from a pimply youth, possibly a grandson. A nicely turned-out woman with two tiny children on her lap held hands with a man who stared into space. Two matronly ladies tried interesting a third — a grown daughter, sister or possibly a niece — with a jigsaw puzzle.

  In the middle of the room, redeemed by its bouquet of chrysanthemums, was a round table with initials — so-and-so was here, and various dates — carved in the top. Various attempts at varnishing over them had failed. Seated there, reading a newspaper, was an elderly gent wearing a good, if old-fashioned, woolen suit. A paper sack and something wrapped in tissue took up the chair beside him, the only free one. The woman with toddlers could’ve used it; perhaps if asked nicely he’d have obliged? Glancing up, he grimaced at my approach. He made me think of an owl, or maybe a hawk, his mouth tightening with obvious displeasure. Of course it was him; it couldn’t have been anyone else. His forehead was as broad and pale as Mademoiselle’s and his eyes were a similar blue, with the same haughty, hunted-so-as-to-be-indignant sort of look.

  Someone had brought in tea for everyone. Amid the symphony of slurping he cleared his throat. “So we finally meet, Miss Poitier.” His tone couldn’t have been chillier, his chin puckering in an effort to be polite. Mercifully he didn’t extend his hand, a gesture that would’ve been as welcome just then as squeezing fouled gauze. He gathered up his things and pressed them on me. “The kinds of treats our mother would faithfully send my sister,” he seemed anxious to explain, nodding curtly at the paper bag, which contained confections. I saw the parcel was from a shop in the village. “And the nightdress you requested.”

  “That’s everything?” I didn’t mean to be snide but couldn’t help feeling a little prickly, disappointed. “You didn’t bring her work? You received my note, of course. The statue?”

  He smiled primly, as if to spare me embarrassment. “Mon Dieu. What has she been telling you?”

  He followed me outside, past the chapel and up the hill to Number 10, and remarked on the day, the sunshine’s chilly warmth. Impossible to tell if he was being appreciative or sardonic. “Ah, the light of Provence!”

  “Enough to boil your snot, is he?” Novice said under her breath, meeting us at the desk.

  “Travel disagrees with him,” I whispered back, my eyes on the tiles.

  Head practically curtsied — a gnarled vein bulging in one calf — as though the visitor were her beloved Maréchal, and immediately sent Novice off in search of refreshments. A lump of sugar or shit for his tea? I could imagine her joking.

  I showed him upstairs, wishing I’d had time, at the very least, to dust and do some tidying first. He walked with a stoop, afflicted either with some geriatric ailment or a bad case of nerves, his shoulders hunched to his ears as if he were ducking something, the cacophony maybe. He hadn’t been here before, he said, not inside this building. On a previous visit he had met his sister in the directeur’s villa.

  “Oh yes, and when was that?” I was just being polite. “Why does it concern you?” he said.

  Dr. Cadieu was waiting outside Mademoiselle’s room, looking drawn but still gracious. She touched his sleeve lightly and accepted his cool greeting. His pursed, quivering lips grazed the air near her cheeks. “Your timing couldn’t be better, sir,” Cadieu smiled. She nodded pleasantly, my cue to allow brother and sister their privacy, and escorted our guest’s guest inside. “And how are we feeling today, Mademoiselle?” I heard her say, before she explained about relapses and rallies, what we like to regard as patients’ second childhoods, and whether the phenomena occur as dreams or figments of
dementia. Small respites from the ravages of aging.

  When the doctor emerged, shutting the door behind her, Mademoiselle cried out, “Nurse? I want my nurse. Miss Solange! Please, please, don’t let her leave me!”

  Quite gracelessly, Cadieu pushed me forward.

  Mademoiselle peered up with a look of relief and turned to her guest — our guest. “But is it really you, mon petit? Or am I in heaven,” she gave a choking laugh, “the heaven of our dreams?”

  The visitor stooped over the bedside, clasped her hand. A decrepit greying bird in his fine dark suit, that’s what he was, the wispy hair on his shiny pate as fine as feathers. There was something sad and pathetic and touching about him, all the same, for all his crankiness, for his airs. He had come, at least.

  Nudging the chair closer, I gestured for him to sit. “You don’t want to strain your back.”

  Not a word in return. But his face was waxen, and Mademoiselle’s shiny with tears. She was going on about a garden — their mother’s, I’m guessing — and about tulips and lilacs and chestnuts blooming. It was extremely awkward standing there, not knowing if I should stay or go, so I tried to make myself invisible, especially when her smile clouded.

  “Come closer,” she said suspiciously. For a second I thought she meant me. “Mon petit. Let me feel your face to make sure it is you.”

  “Could you give us a moment?” he said gruffly, avoiding my eyes.

  But the instant I turned my back Mademoiselle began whimpering, “Where are you going, Polange Soitier? Please, please, sit, stay.”

  Well, I wasn’t about to sit, but I positioned myself just close enough for her to keep an eye on me. Not that I would have or could have left her; but I’d have deeply preferred to be a fly on the wall.

  Fortunately, such situations aren’t without humour. Beaming, the patient called out, “My shoes, mon petit! Fetch my shoes … I don’t want to shame you. You can’t expect me to go home barefoot!”

  The visitor was forced to behave as if I weren’t there. He ignored her demand and bent low — to kiss her, I thought, but no, to say something. “Maman and I, we did what we had to, you do know that,” he murmured, hesitating.

  I busied myself with arranging his presents on her table. There were packets of sugar, some excellent chocolate, butter, an orange, two pink macarons, and a small, very ripe wedge of cheese whose smell would no doubt attract the cat. Loudly folding their paper sack, I pretended not to hear.

  “It wasn’t all Maman’s doing, keeping you here. I should have —” He broke off and covered his face with his pale, agespotted hands. Some writer, no better than the rest of us at finding words Mademoiselle might want to hear! “I should never have left you in this place the way I did. Perhaps you blamed Maman.” His voice trailed off again.

  The patient’s gaze flickered. Its blueness fixed briefly on me and darkened. Her lips drew tight and her jaw sagged a little. Her paleness had grown quite sallow. Was the room’s ventilation adequate? Should I have forced her to eat, earlier? For a moment the involuntary effort of her breathing was the only immediately audible sound, her inhalations and exhalations rather shallow and slow. Should I summon Head, or Cadieu? Where had Novice got to, anyway, with her tea tray, and, I hoped, at least a few goodies?

  “My dear sister, may God forgive me.” The visitor reached over her, seeming to bless his loved one with the limpid movement of his hand. The sign of the cross! The patient was in no near or grave danger of passing, and he was not even a priest — not as far as one could tell, anyway, though men of the cloth, like the rest of the world, can be full of surprises. When he leaned down to kiss Mademoiselle’s cheek, she batted him away. He stood up, a bit rough on his pins I have to say, enough to merit concern, and turned his back to us both. Only then did I remember the letters she’d squirrelled away under the blanket. Pointing to the little mound there, I gave a tiny cough.

  Eyeing me, Mademoiselle rubbed her head to and fro against the pillow before finally gazing at the wall. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart, mon petit, for all you’ve brought — for all the things you’ve ever given me.” She spoke in a monotone, a tired kind of recitation. Out of stubborn necessity, perhaps, she made no move to watch him go.

  He stalked stiffly out into the corridor, ending the visit abruptly. It was now or never. Someone had to speak up.

  “Monsieur? Your sister’s statue,” I almost had to shout. “If it’s in your possession, please, before she … She would very much appreciate having it back.”

  Something glinted in his eyes’ fiery blue. Perhaps it was the hallway’s reflected sheen, or perhaps it was the hint of tears, I told myself — tears and not just the glaze or glare of an icy demeanour. I could be mistaken.

  “My dear Miss Poitier. I thank you for your interest.” The visitor’s voice was weary, brutally humble or humbly brutal, and accusing. Hardly a surprise. “For your involvement, I mean. How gullible you are, believing everything she says. If you must know, my poor sister took a sledgehammer to anything she didn’t sell or blame someone for stealing. Oh, she had her enemies.” Sighing, he volunteered a pained smile. “You see how she talks through her hat.”

  Mademoiselle’s guest left before Novice’s little mission could be intercepted. When I met her on the refectory steps, she was bearing a plate of stale-looking tartines.

  “The more for us then,” she shrugged. “Oh, Cook’s got something to tell you — catch her, quick, before she puts on the soup. You know how she gets.”

  ***

  COOK WAS DUMPING carrot coins into a pot. “Renard is dead,” she wasted no time informing me, speaking in a hushed, cautious way. “He was taken by the Milice as far as anyone knows, and shot. Our farmer’s the one that found him — he said you’d want to know.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask about his friend, when Novice came back and asked what I was doing. “Head’ll be after both of ours if we don’t get back.”

  BACK UPSTAIRS, I held the new blue nightie to my patient’s cheek. “My, the colour suits you,” I found it in me to say. I placed a sliver of chocolate in Mademoiselle’s palm.

  Sucking on it, the guest, my guest, rooted under the covers for her papers, pushed them into my hands. “You’ll have to tend to them now. It’s the last I’ll ask of you.” Brusquely, all in, the old woman pushed away a tear.

  But I was thinking about Renard, remembering the dryness of his lips touching my hand, as off-putting as it had been. Even more off-putting was Cook’s assuming that what had happened to him affected me. It did, no denying — any loss of life is troubling — and yet it didn’t, not deeply or personally, not enough for me to need or want or expect details.

  The grisly facts of war made one thing clear: maybe all we can trust in is the body, vulnerable as it is. Few other things make sense, it struck me then, and strikes me now. People — and the Lord, if one’s able and willing to go that far — rarely behave as you expect. Expecting them to is, if not crazy, then a little unwise.

  Mademoiselle gave me a nudge. “Why so glum, Solange Poitier?” It was all I could do not to will her to drape a lank arm around me.

  “You have no right to be sad, Polange. But me? I won’t be leaving, after all.” She touched my key on its little ring, and then the one from her coat that she’d finally, finally given over, given up. She touched them both as if they were live wires and the relics of some saint. “My girl,” she said, and its softness made her familiarity even more numbing, “why do you stay, when they’ve no claim on you?”

  “Oh, Mademoiselle.” I steeled myself, which only made me picture Renard — not just him but the boy, the boy sitting by the fire, and his ugly wound. “I suppose, I suppose it’s because a girl’s duty is never done. Yes, that must be it, I’m afraid. One always has more work to do.”

  26

  NO DAY NO YEAR

  DEAR C,

  Remember what I said about seeing? Is it possible we see only as we ought? This explains our blindness, that of
creatures burrowing under dirt. I think you saw with your eyes wide open, so why you stopped speaking is a mystery. You would betray me? Make a fool of me? Allow me to make a fool of myself? You were much too sweet for that, I longed to think.

  But we think without thinking and see without seeing, stumbling over things we shouldn’t. Knowing this, how do I show your face, reveal the smooth, unburdened version of mine — my younger, freer self, the child that felt all things were possible?

  I’m afraid I never got around to sculpting it. There wasn’t the time, or the money.Years now since I’ve looked into a mirror. No mirrors in this place. No reflections allowed. One jagged piece of glass + one wrist = a shout to the angel of mercy. But why not? you ask, you’ve always asked, if you hate it so much, if you want your freedom. A reasonable choice, when the only logic is caprice. But why rush this angel when she’s coming anyway? Let her come when she wants, in her own sweet time. One thing we know: she will.

  The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh. The creator creates. The destroyer destroys. The light behind the one reveals the light behind the other. So it is with urges and impulses more alike than you think. Which isn’t to say you’re entirely off the hook, that I don’t blame you for what happened, at least a little. I can’t put all the blame on Criteur. If you hadn’t deserted me you’d have stopped him.

  “Are you quite sure about this?” I asked him, my solitary honoured guest at our soirée, our opening of openings shuttered from the world.

  Criteur raised his imaginary glass, toasting the show. If successful, we’d have more of these each time I had fresh work to offer. And if I was surly and wept for missing you, for missing all things lost, he’d understand. Monsieur’s treachery had pushed us to this.

  “You have to start somewhere,” my praticien spoke, stripped down to nothing to execute his end of the bargain, finally agreeing to pose — to show what he was made of.

  “For God’s sake, put on some clothes.” To think I’d once preferred a man with a full set of luggage. Poor Criteur, a pale, reckless eunuch.