These Good Hands

by Carol Bruneau

  Her face was greyish. Her nightie was damp with sweat, her dressings too, despite her skin being cool to the touch. Her feet were cold, a mottled blue. Try as I might to keep the blanket on them, she repeatedly worked it off. A dreadful pity I hadn’t gotten to her sooner. Morphine would’ve helped, though if the patient was hallucinating on her own — seeing bugs? — it wouldn’t’ve been so good. But a moderate dose earlier on, staggered with small ones of scopolamine, would’ve helped keep things hazy, or hazier.

  She moaned for her pen. “Before lunch … please, Polange Soitier … a few things I must say.” Giving the patient that leaky implement was out of the question, but there was a pencil. I curled her fingers around it, clamping them with mine as gently as if they were a baby’s, yet as firmly as when the midwife held my knees together to prevent untimely pushing and tearing.

  It was hopeless. By now poor Mademoiselle had lost much of her grip. I offered to take dictation. “You didn’t know I could be a secretary, did you, dear?” No holds barred when it came to keeping my voice bright. As if telegraphed from Lyon, Sister’s words clicked through my head. Be alert but calm. Nowhere are poise and optimism required as urgently as with the dying.

  Mademoiselle eyed me with a sudden sharpness. “Why so glum, Solange Poitier? Afraid we’ll miss lunch? Not much time, you know, before the train comes. The train, it’s coming. No criminals aboard this time … no one suffering from dersecution pelirium.” She choked on a laugh. Her mouth open, she was struggling to get her breath. “As they said I did.” Slowly she rolled her eyes, which were already filmy. “As if they didn’t fear the worst like the rest of us.”

  “Who shall we address it to, honey?” I cushioned everything with gentleness, as much gentleness as I had in me, wishing for more. In that moment I saw only my shortcomings. The weeks of tending Mademoiselle flooded back, the things she’d told me, fibs and white lies, word salad or not. If only there were a way of avoiding or skipping beyond the rest, the rest to come. Death has a way of setting even the most seasoned of us on edge. If only someone less familiar, less partial could take over from here, I thought, relieve me at least until it was over.

  The nurse remains with the patient as long as there are signs of life, except during visits from family.

  An urgency overtook Mademoiselle. “‘To Monsieur.’ C’est ça. But hurry. They’re holding lunch.” She fussed, twisting the bedclothes feebly in her fists. “Bring my shoes! My shoes, if you please.”

  A little Veronal would have helped, but like morphine, it is now in short supply, reserved for more active cases.

  The patient’s breath came in slow, shallow puffs. “‘Monsieur,’ that will do,” she repeated, more agitated, and gave a name that rang a bell, a name the world had heard of, not that it was especially meaningful to me. A sculptor who’d died during the last war, I seemed to recall, setting down the pencil.

  “It would make you feel better — and be of more use — if you’d let me change those dressings.”

  But she’d begun to ramble again, a dreary recitation. It took a second to sink in that I was meant to jot all of this down. “‘You never saw them cut off my hair, strip me naked and toss me into a scalding tub, a roomful of lunatics watching. You were spared. I should’ve let you drown me like you did Cléome, poor Cléome. What you committed was worse than … Yet I was punished like a murderer,’” she spat, struggling to sit up as if the recipient, this lucky Monsieur, had come to face her. “‘My crime? Liking cats more than people — is that so bad? Yet all these years I’ve been locked away with lunatics. Lunatics who shape things from shit. Be glad I never wrote you in blood.’”

  Just then it struck me. Where was the cat? I hadn’t seen it in a while. Had it got lost outside, run over, or eaten by some other creature? God help me, I thought of the pageant, of guests dressed as hounds, their enthusiastic barking, Novice as the baby, me as myself, Head playing the wolf. But no cat. I didn’t dare mention it; I could barely scribble Mademoiselle’s words down fast enough. My hand started to cramp. “Are you finished?” I asked very softly.

  My patient was beyond listening. “‘May you rot in hell, Rodin,’” she continued to rant, though her voice wasn’t more than a rasp, “‘even if hell is the price I’ll pay for my hatred. Sincerely,’” she sighed, “‘Your Mademoiselle.’”

  Flexing my fingers, I steadied myself. “While we’re at it,” — I made my voice as pleasant, as disengaged as could be — “shall I take one down for Mr. Criteur, too? You’ve written him before.”

  But Mademoiselle lay back against the pillow, exhausted. Her eyes were hollow, her lips parched from breathing through her mouth. I was so caught up in her dictation I’d somehow forgotten to keep them moistened.

  At precisely this moment, Head decided to pop in. I fully expected to be called away. A fresh influx of guests were expected this afternoon, and extra beds from Men’s already clogged the downstairs corridor.

  “We could use you on first, in fact we need you. But,” — she went silent, sizing things up — “since you’re occupied, Novice will simply have to cope. Damn this war anyway, and all that comes with it.”

  Was I hearing correctly?

  Not entirely to my surprise, she complained how the new directeur was already proving to be quite lame in finding a remedy for overcrowding. No doubt his failure so far to act on my “meddling and disobedience,” and whatever Head might’ve said about the company I kept, wasn’t winning him any favour.

  The patient began moaning again. “They punished me for thinking the worst! Death is the worst, isn’t it?” She almost seemed to gloat, gazing at Head. Mocking her?

  “I’ll call the chaplain,” Head volunteered, escaping.

  There’s nothing to fear, nothing that’s too painful to bear when you’re in good hands, so the midwife-sister had assured me. Yet fear had muscled in, of course, in the greyness of my lying strapped to a gurney. Never forget the pain, though; remembering it might keep you out of trouble, might even help you. It did, too, making it easier, maybe, to imagine myself being inside the skins of some patients.

  It’s odd how, to the professional observer, the dying become nothing more than the bodies they are shedding, the leaky vessels less and less able to contain them. There’s no fooling it. The body knows best.

  The patient laughed feebly once we were alone again. “All their finery, all their accoutrements, all the things these jailers use … but my age saved me from a chastity belt.”

  All I could think to say was, “Where, dear, should I send your note?”

  The patient shifted restlessly, struggling again to work the covers from her feet. “Water. Please, Maman. I’m thirsty.”

  I held the glass to her lips and she managed a sip. Dipping a cotton ball, I dribbled water on her tongue.

  Mademoiselle’s toenails were blue, very blue, and the skin almost bruised-looking from the blood congesting in the veins. Gently I massaged the joints of each toe, the balls of each foot, the heels, as if readying an athlete’s for a competitive sprint. A marathon. It almost amused me to think this. Whose toes had hers stepped on? Whose had they prodded, nudged and stroked? What lanes and alleyways had they tramped, the feet of a flâneur? What paths had they buffed in the same tired linoleum? It hurt to think.

  Dr. Cadieu slipped in silently, touched Mademoiselle’s hand then stood at the foot of the bed. “Mademoiselle made beautiful things, once,” she said quietly. “I tried to encourage her, you see, hoped she’d continue. Therapy. She thought we were using her. Exploiting her, you know.” She smiled wanly and patted my shoulder. “Sad, I realize, when they go. A relief, though, in many ways.”

  Then Novice peeked in, bringing rubbing alcohol. “All that doodling, letters to nowhere — you think they helped her?” Maybe the most observant thing anybody thought to say during the patient’s stay and her active dying.

  “Helped him, certainly — the brother.” Cadieu’s words had a tinge of sarcasm.

  “How mu
ch longer, do you think?” Novice asked, as only a novice could.

  It scratched at my resolve, arousing stubbornness in me. As surely as a fighter plane falling from the sky, Sister Ursula’s convictions came to roost. “What are hours, do you suppose, compared to thirty years?”

  The patient’s eyelids fluttered. A flash of darkness seemed to cross her gaze. “Papa? You forgive me, don’t you? … It’s hot … so hot. Open the windows … please, please … Where is my friend the mistral?”

  Novice began to rub the patient’s wrists and shins, but the spirits she’d brought were bracing flesh already slackened and chilled. One shake of my head and off she scurried, just in time to make way for the chaplain.

  He nodded, his gaunt smile lending the dimness a certain … eminence?

  “Don’t leave,” Mademoiselle cried out. So of course I stayed, lingering by the window as if I weren’t there.

  “Bless me, Father. It’s been a … thousand years … since my last confession.”

  I tried, I really did, not to listen. Not that there was much to hear.

  He pardoned her sins, whatever they might be, and after anointing her gave his blessing, his hand slicing the air into four neat blocks. “Go in peace,” he said, as if sending the guest on an errand. With a stab of regret I thought again of Renard.

  “My shoes — where are my shoes?” the patient wept.

  And there was Head again, suddenly offering to relieve me. “You’ve been here all day. Get some tea, have a nap. I don’t mind staying.”

  To call this a change of attitude would be like calling transition a painless shift, or whiplash a minor jolt. Given our new charges and dreading the extra work, had Head realized she could do worse in a subordinate? A break would’ve been welcome, but I waved her off.

  “Try to rest,” I told my patient, this patient that despite all my pledges of fairness and impartiality, despite her intransigence and unpredictability, I’d grown fond of. “You want to be in good shape for that train, when it comes.”

  She seemed to sleep then, a little.

  The light at the window went from gold to grey — the same dull pewter as the delivery room’s half of my lifetime ago. The shaming, mysterious colour of secrecy, I couldn’t keep from thinking. “What did you name him?” I’d asked Sister Ursula, the only one I could ask, because despite her penchant for quoting scripture, she was reliably frank.

  “The priest christened him. The parents chose the name.”

  “But can’t you tell me what it is? Please?”

  “You’re not privy to this, Nurse, remember: Leo. Short and sweet. That’s what they called him, I believe.”

  In the weakening sunlight of Mademoiselle’s room — the bars a solid black against thickening grey — I pictured an infant with reddish-gold hair and I pictured the boy with the gunshot wound, his features oddly melded, in my memory, with Renard’s. From what little I’d seen in the firelight, his dark hair had darts of auburn, like that other boy’s, the one who had fathered my boy.

  The patient stirred, sending my thoughts packing. “Cat?” she cried succinctly. Her face was the same sallow grey as the room, but with a strange illumination. In a queer burst of strength she tried to raise herself, clutching at my wrists with the fierceness of someone delivering — and I pictured myself gripping the midwife’s hands, growling with pain, pushing.

  I’ve seen it often enough, this desperate last-ditch clinging to life. As useful as clinging to a sapling in a flood, hoping to outlast the torrent. Beyond the dove-grey pane, birds squabbled. Nightingales? Of course not. It was barely evening, though one loses track of time. Death scrubs all meaning from it.

  I freed myself from the patient’s grip and gently eased her down onto the mattress. Sighing, she offered a fleeting smile.

  I‘d been at the bedside how many days, hours?

  Somebody was weeping. It could only have been me. No one else was in the room besides the patient, her mouth open, a gateway.

  Pressing my face to hers, I felt for a pulse. “Run,” I told the wetness on her cooling cheek. “The train is there. Hurry, and you’ll just make it.”

  Only then did the cat reappear. Reflecting the corridor’s light, its gaze had an alien glow. Perhaps it had been there all along, hiding under the bed.

  ***

  CADIEU SIGNED THE certificate. Head was quite emotional. Apparently when she’s upset, her nose reddens as if she’s breathed in something caustic. “You’ve done your duty, Nurse. Well done,” she said, an unusual blankness to her tone.

  Following protocol, I closed the eyes and mouth, straightened the arms at the sides, elevated the head, placed a rolled-up towel under the neck. Think of the body as a house. Working from the attic to the cellar, I washed it, replacing the dressings and removing adhesive marks with benzine. I jotted the name, date and Pavilion 10 on the tag and attached it to a wrist. Let the morgue worry about assigning a number. I placed the top sheet on the diagonal and used it to wrap the body, which was shockingly light. Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I go back again — the words of Sister’s long-suffering prophet Job, as I recall. Then came the itemized list, clothing and other belongings, what few there were, tallied, bundled, tagged. I was careful to include the brother’s gifts — all but the nightie untouched.

  Next were the letters to deal with, the note to “Monsieur,” and several to some equally mysterious friends or relatives. I tucked the wad of papers and Novice’s bottle of rubbing alcohol into my apron bib, and took both list and bundle down to the desk.

  Then I remembered there was one item I’d neglected. I hurried back upstairs. The orderlies hadn’t yet removed the body. Careful not to look at the shrouded form, I peered beneath the bed. Mademoiselle’s pet, its hostile eyes quite fearful. A bucking livewire, it gave me a nasty scratch when I hauled it out, its heart pounding against mine as I clutched it, all four of its paws gripped in my fist.

  Downstairs, Cadieu happened to be there, issuing instructions for someone’s meds. She ignored my burden and held something out to me. Wrapped in newspaper was a leaden object, irregularly shaped. A large stone? “For you,” the doctor said. “A friend let me have it years ago; actually, Mademoiselle’s friend in Paris. I bought it from him. A pleasant old man — a Monsieur Blot. He tried keeping in touch with her till he died. He wanted us all to know what she was capable of.” Her arms folded tightly, she looked brittle and old, almost as hawkish as Mademoiselle’s brother, yet her smile was shy. “You should have it, Nurse.”

  Still clasping the cat, I loosened the paper and saw that it was a head — a head made of dull metal, bronze maybe, with what resembled a delicate tree trunk for a neck. Its face was a child’s, the expression on it half-sorrowful, half-hopeful. Soulful, Sister might call it, facetious or not. Its eyes were opened wide and its lips parted as if to pose a question — a childish, hopeful one, the kind of question my father had usually answered with We’ll see. Its hair was made to look shorn, a modest adornment, not flattering, a little like a nun’s. A girl’s hair, I decided, but no, it could as easily have been a boy’s. At the bottom was engraved that signature so often and doggedly scrawled, Mademoiselle’s initial and last name.

  “If only it could speak.” Cadieu’s eyes were wistful, her shoulders stooped under her ragged white coat. “Take it, Miss Poitier,” she said. There was no pushing it back at her; before I could try to she shuffled away.

  My supervisor emerged out of nowhere and laughed too loudly when she saw me juggling the letters, the cat, and now the head. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Put your feet up, I’ll have someone from Men’s cover the rest of your shift.” She reached to take the cat off my hands, but the thing hissed and swiped at her. “Well, maybe between here and the dorm you’ll find a hole for it to disappear into. Believe me, it won’t be missed.”

  ***

  IN MY ROOM, I dragged my suitcase from under the bed and abandoned the creature to the dust bunnies there. I removed my cache of note
s, rewrapped the head, and laid it inside the suitcase. Fortunately I’m no clothes horse, otherwise it wouldn’t have fit.

  While I was at it I took out my silver cigarette case, hopeful, though of course the last cigarette had been made short work of. Its real treasure was still inside, though — the thing I’d stored and avoided, that I’d hardly been able to touch, loath to really, all these years. A wisp of pale reddish cornsilk, a curl of baby hair. You mustn’t let on, Sister had said. But I saved this for you.

  The cat yowled from its hideout. I’d have to find it some food, let it outside to do its business. But just now I had more pressing concerns. Uncorking the wine left after the suicide, I sipped some from the bottle in a sort of toast.

  I laid out Mademoiselle’s letters and unfolded them one by one. First, the note to “Monsieur.” Somebody might want a note to a real, if dead, artist. I didn’t feel I could just rip it up. I rolled it into a tiny tube and tucked it beside the baby hair, then slipped the case inside the secret lining of my purse. began reading the next letter, which crackled in my hands. It felt like an odd thing to do. Disloyal. It felt like prying. But then I thought of what Sister had said, back in training, about listening, and listening, and listening some more, and how we serve by assuming others’ burdens. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

  The letter began, Dear Friend, and pride spurred me to think it was for me. Mademoiselle’s voice lifted from the page, hovering.

  I always thought you were jealous: I was the one who turned Monsieur’s head, the more gifted, prettier. You made me look bad to Maman, encouraged Monsieur to take advantage of me. You were not so good or deserving as I. Having a husband, a family, was so bourgeois — beneath me. I would never envy you. Pffft!

  But I did. I do.

  By the time you came to see me here it was too late to make up for my own jealousy, meanness. You were good to come after so long, you and your husband. He did like taking pictures, didn’t he.

  You were kind not to forget your poor friend in an insane asylum, you were kind to visit her. I wish I had been kinder to you, Jessie. If I take any regret to my grave, I wish I’d been a better friend.