The Fire by Night

by Teresa Messineo

  James turned away again, but not from shame, not from rage. He put a fist up to his mouth and pushed hard.

  “And I don’t just mean you’re beautiful inside, James,” Jo added, rising stiffly from the cot. “Hands down, you are the most handsome man in this tent.”

  Then his tears came.

  But by now she had come to her last patient, to David. And he was dying.

  Maybe she was catching typhus from him. Maybe her fever was coming from that, from spending nearly all her spare time by his bedside, trying to force her sickest patient to live by sheer willpower. But now it seemed too late. His pulse was wrong and his color was wrong, and when she touched his brow, it burned and she didn’t need a thermometer to know it was 105, 106. He was leaving—it was nearly over. The seizures, then he dies, she thought absently. Then he dies. She had sworn he wouldn’t die, but she wasn’t God, she wasn’t even a goddess, she wasn’t Selene coming to him in his sleep. Then her heart lurched and she thought, Go ahead, fall in love with him now, right before the end, he can be one more dead person you can love, one more living person you can lose. She tried reasoning with herself. She knew nothing about the man—maybe he was a lecher, maybe he was a politician with a plump wife and six kids back home, maybe he was a sadistic butcher from a small village who beat his lover and drank. But it was no good. She couldn’t imagine it away, imagine him away. Why this dying man, racing away from her as fast as he could, why he should be the one her heart got snagged on—now, at the end—she didn’t know. She couldn’t help it. And she couldn’t help him.

  Jo covered her face with her hands. It was getting late. He would need her later; she had been running on adrenaline for so long, but now she was almost out. She needed to lie down, to collapse for only a few minutes so she could wake up, get up, and watch this man die. She walked into her tented space and looked at herself in the mirror. There was blood on her face, dried blood, someone else’s. How long had it been there? Hours? Days? She rubbed at it, violently. It bothered her, it made her feel filthy. She started to rip off her clothes, all her soiled, dirty clothes, took them off and threw them in a corner. There, I am done with that, I can’t stand it anymore. There was some cold water in a jug, and she poured it over herself, over her hair, started to rub the old remnant of a soap bar into a weak lather. She was washing herself, washing her hair, uncoiled now and dripping; she was shivering from the water and from her fever and from knowing she was losing David. She shook until she hurt. Kissing the German had turned her soul back on, but it was raw and bleeding and nothing could turn it off and it would kill her in the end. But compared to the numbness she had felt for so long, she was glad, in a way. She was ready to die. But she would wash her corpse first.

  Jo didn’t remember falling asleep. Her clothes had gotten wet where they fell, and she had hung them on a hook; she hadn’t had anything else to wear, so she had put on Queenie’s negligee while her clothes dried. She remembered that much, and brushing her long hair and putting it up in a towel. The men had been quiet, had fallen asleep, she had put the blanket around her shoulders while she waited. She didn’t remember falling asleep.

  She awoke to screaming. She didn’t know where she was at first, because it was so dark in the enclosure. She was half-sitting against some packing cases on the floor; the blanket had slipped off her shoulders, the towel was gone, and she was colder than she could remember being in a long time. The screaming was terrible—A man’s, she thought, from the sound of it, but they must be doing something awful to him, torturing him, cutting off his leg without anesthesia. Then her head started to clear as she heard Jonesy calling out, heard the other men talking excitedly together; she knew where she was all of a sudden, back in the tent, she must have fallen asleep. Good God, that would be David, the end is coming, the end is here. She stepped out into the tent—she had left the spirit lamp burning, she noted disjointedly, she’d have to be more careful next time. For one second, she saw David’s spine arch unnaturally, his heels and head rammed down into the rough canvas of the cot. She took a step toward him, and then the tent flap shot open and Clark came in, followed by his men. The captain walked directly up to David; he drew his sidearm, hissing under his breath, “I’m going to shut him the fuck up.”

  It was going too fast—no, on second thought, it was going too slowly; it was like watching a movie in slow motion. Jo noticed everything, could see Jonesy struggling to get out of bed, hear Father Hook ordering them to stop in the name of God. Even some of Clark’s men seemed uncertain, hanging back; one asked, pulling at his sleeve, “Captain, are you sure? Are you sure, Captain?” But the others were panicking, looking worriedly over their shoulders at the tent flap behind them, as if the Germans were right outside, as if they were coming in at any moment, as if it were already too late.

  “It’s us or him,” Clark said grimly, picking the pillow up off the floor where it had fallen, putting it over the muzzle of his pistol, lifting both toward David’s head. And then, for a split second, he looked over his shoulder before pulling the trigger. And he saw Jo.

  Jo didn’t understand why Clark just stood there, rooted in place, staring at her like he had never seen her before, but she didn’t wait to see how long it would last. Almost without thinking, she threw herself protectively over David’s body.

  “Get her the hell off of him,” Clark ordered.

  Jo tried hushing David, holding his face in her hands, trying to get him to focus on her, to notice she was there.

  “Darling, sshhh, darling,” but David was still yelling. He had stopped convulsing, but he yelled at her, yelled at the whole world, yelled at death that was dragging him down, dragging him away. Jo felt the cold, hard fingers of one of the soldiers close around her arm, but she held on to David, willing him to be quiet. And even in his delirium, he responded to the weight of her body on his as any man starved for a woman would. Jo strained to listen with everyone else for sounds of the enemy outside.

  But they didn’t come.

  They never came.

  They waited, and David passed out, or fell asleep, but the Germans never came. The men eventually left, one by one, Clark last of all. His men had looked sheepish as they filed out, but not the captain; he glared at Jo’s bare back as she still held on to the man, waiting for the last of them to leave, for it to be safe again. Clark left, and she slipped off of David. She would sleep right there, keep her arms around him and sleep there, on her knees; if he even began to stir, she would quiet him down before anyone came back. David would be awake a dozen times before dawn, she knew that; she would be right there, though, she could save him—from Clark, anyway.

  But David slept all night and Jo woke to sunlight in her eyes, sneaking in from the air vents in the top corners of the tent. She was so used to getting up in darkness, in grayness, that the sunlight flooded her senses at first and dazed her. Her hair—loose and tumbling—had gotten in her eyes and, in the bright light, shone like burnished copper, like spun gold. Then, all of a sudden, she could see again—someone had moved her hair, things came back into view. She was still kneeling by David’s bedside, one arm flung protectively over him, but she was being supported now by something, by someone. She felt someone’s arm holding her up, keeping her from slipping onto the floor completely—someone who had just removed, with great delicacy, the single curl that had strayed toward her eyes.

  Jo closed her eyes, then opened them again; then she saw David, apparently focusing on her.

  “David?” She was in disbelief—he seemed lucid, he seemed able to hear her. Then, quickly checking his fever with her hand, feeling nothing, registering nothing—“David.” And she was incredulous—his fever had broken. He was alive. He was going to live.

  “Thank God,” she sighed, closing her eyes again, throwing her head back, exposing her delicate neck and throat; her chest heaving, bare down to the sternum; taking in deep breaths, drinking in deep draughts of air, of sheer relief. Jo stood up slowly, rubbing the small of her back
, taking in the rest of the room, taking stock of the rest of her patients, just as she always did.

  The first thing she noticed was Father Hook. He was staring painfully at his clasped hands—that was odd. And everyone else too—what was wrong with them? James seemed okay, but why was everyone else looking at her like that, like they were starving? She reached up and scratched her head, great masses of untamed curls getting in the way.

  “Why is my hair—”

  Then suddenly remembering, realizing . . . “What am I wearing?” she gasped, running for the partitioned room.

  DAVID GOT STEADILY better each day. Clark’s men found a supply of German rations while out on reconnaissance; they tasted just as bad as American rations, but they were food, they could eat again, all of them, even David, as much as they wanted. Jo still hid her fever; it was only 102, and that didn’t give you seizures or the shakes or anything. She masked the fact that she wasn’t eating by always being around food, opening cans, dishing it out—the men were so happy to eat again they didn’t even notice.

  One of the men on the patrol came in one day—Jo remembered him as the one who had pulled at Clark’s sleeve, asking him if he was sure.

  “Excuse me, miss, but we found some other stuff when we found those rations. I thought you might want it.”

  And he had carried in case after case—dark black, carefully labeled—of enemy medical supplies.

  “They were just out there, miss, and nobody was using them. The Germans must have—no, sorry, miss, I forgot, I’m not supposed to say what all we saw out there. But Cap—some of us were for leaving them, miss, but some of us thought they might come in handy. Seeing as how you’ve had to make do.”

  Jo fingered the cases almost reverently, undoing their clasps, looking inside.

  “Good God, yes,” she said. She had been having to make do for so long now, the idea of having enough was almost beyond her.

  “I’d best be getting back, miss,” and he was out the flap before she could thank him.

  Jo had memorized basic German medical terms during their boat ride over, but that seemed a very long time ago now. Let’s see what I can remember.

  Hauptbesteck. Torso trauma? Yes, she was right, there were the dressings, the gauze, the clamps, the surgery kits. Sammelbesteck—right again; ear, nose, and throat. She lifted the small truppenbesteck, a catchall for runners, small enough to fit in the nose of a motorcycle sidecar. And there were plenty of verbandkasten, smaller first aid kits, and Yankauer masks for anesthesia. She handled the thick stacks of tags—kranke for the sick, verwundete for the wounded—edged with yellow (group those with the same illness together) or green (any transport will do). Jo was amazed by it all, amazed she could remember any of it—they had had to pass a test on it. (“What are they going to do if we fail?” Queenie had asked. “Have us swim home?”) They had even had contests among themselves to see who could spell the names of the German hospitals—verundetennetz, hauptverbandsplatz, and the one Jo had won five dollars for spelling correctly, truppenverbandplatz. Jo’s hands were greasy from just opening the lids—everything was covered in Cosmolene to prevent rust. Luckily, the American had carried in a case of isopropyl as well. Jo could use that to rub off the greasy jelly when she needed to.

  David got better. Jo felt worse and worse, but David was better—all the men were better. David ate like he had never tasted food before, he grew strong, he sat up in bed and smiled, and his brogue was just as she had imagined it from his ramblings, with a trilling burr in the back of his throat she hadn’t expected at all. He didn’t remember much after he had gotten sick. Typhus had swept through their camp, their cheery, orange tents becoming thick with the dead, with the dying. He had letters to write, he said, to his people back home; he hadn’t written in so long, they would be frantic for news. Jo offered to write them for him but told him they were out of paper; then she remembered all those medical tags. So right over impossible-looking questions like “Knochenverletzung?” and “Wundstarrkrampfserum?” Jo wrote instead, “Dear Mum, I am all right, I love you.” His dictated letters were simple, direct—they were to his mother, his baby sister Kit, his older brother Bumpy.

  “Bumpy?” Jo asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “His real name is Duncan, lass. Should I not call you ‘lass’? Is that not right at all?”

  She wanted him to call her “lass,” she loved the way it sounded. So why, instead, was she answering, coolly, “Most everyone around here calls me ‘miss.’ You were saying about Duncan?”

  “Aye—miss—when he got mumps his whole neck swelled, big bumps.” David demonstrated obligingly with his hands. “And the name stayed ever after.”

  The man was all over smiles; she never thought he’d be so happy, having watched him die for so long, never imagined that his cheeks could be rosy, that Endymion would laugh. It seemed strange to be writing right over those German words describing death and dying with words so full of peace and love. “I have had the typhus, Mum, but thanks be to God I am recovering. Thanks be to God, and thanks be to—what is your first name, miss? Aye, that is lovely, that—and thanks be to Josephine McMahon, Mum, you pray for her too, when you pray for me, it is a hard place we find ourselves in with all of our comrades lost. Only God’s grace, and your love, sustains us.”

  The letters to his siblings were jovial, asking about fishing and golf and whether the fair had gone off all right in September and what the price of grain was and how much Highland wool was selling for and how school was going for Kit and whether Bumpy had fallen in love again since his last letter. Jo wrote them down, each letter composed of half a dozen tags; she dated them, and kept them in order, and promised to mail them when they all got back to the hospital, back to the world.

  One day David paused during dictation as Jo stared through the hard, packed ground in front of her, reliving, reviving dead memories, and the weight of it must have showed on her face because when she looked up, pen still poised, David was staring at her and his eyes were moist.

  “It’s been hard for you, miss.”

  Jo tried to smile, but she just pulled one lip out to the side, unconvincingly.

  “Have you no family of your own to write to? No lad serving out here, might be?”

  And Jo covered her mouth, covered half her face. She had lost so much. How do you put that into words, convey the magnitude of that?

  “I don’t have anyone. No one is left—among the living anyway.”

  And she turned quickly, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, but Gianni wasn’t there. He hadn’t been there for weeks; he had abandoned her the day she had chosen to stay with her men instead of going to him. Her dreams were empty; his ghost was gone. She had lost even that.

  She felt a strong hand take hold of hers, muscular and weather-beaten; she could feel the tiny ridges of his fingertips, almost smooth with wear. She looked into his blue eyes; they were a dark blue, a living blue, so unlike Clark’s flat turquoise. She looked into them, and they were like a summer sky at twilight, a pool reflecting the Evening Star.

  “Not everyone, miss. You haven’t lost everyone.”

  THE DAYS PASSED. Jo felt she should be rejoicing more. Her men were well, David was well, but she couldn’t shake her fever. Jo thought again of her parents, both gone with the influenza. She had had that one short note from her mother, scribbled in a schoolgirl Italian, saying she was nursing Jo’s father through a bad case of it. Then a second letter, from one of their neighbors. The flu had taken her father, and her mother had worn herself out caring for him. Jo’s mother was too weak when she caught it herself. She hadn’t lasted a week.

  One night Jo’s fever spiked and she couldn’t hide it. Jonesy volunteered to lie awake in case anyone needed help—she was to go to bed.

  “After a breath of air, Jonesy. I’ll just step outside for one second. We’ve been cooped up for so long and the weather’s turned warm. I just need some air.” And she was out of the tent before he could argue.

  For s
o long Jo’s world had been defined by the canvas boundaries of her tent. She stood outside now, in the unknown darkness, a swollen moon just rising out of the trees. It was perfectly quiet, the small breeze swirling about her ankles making no sound at all. It was too early for insects or the chirp of mating frogs; not even a twig snapped. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears; then that subsided too, and she stood in the dark and the quiet and didn’t even breathe.

  Then she heard the radio. She hadn’t known that Jonesy had fixed it; he must have been waiting to surprise her. He was crazy to be playing it so loud, though, and big band music too—he was nuts. She turned to scold him, but her ear popped and she realized the music wasn’t coming from the tent but from farther down the worn path that used to separate post-op from surgery, from the tents Clark and his men slept in.

  Jo was confused.

  Since their arrival, the patrol had slept in their individual tents—small things, useless against the wind and rain, green blankets propped up with sticks, no more. But now, in front of her, the tents were gone, and in their place stood a full-sized tent, as large as a mess hall, as large as the surgery tent had been. Where had they found it? How had she missed the familiar sound of stakes being driven in? She knew from experience that tents were no easy thing to set up or tear down. She was walking toward it now, the night air split in two by clarinet and horn. They must be drunk, they must have found the tent and found some liquor somewhere—there was no other explanation. That or they just wanted to die.