In the Fall They Leave, page 11
“No, Fräulein,” the one at the head of the stretcher says in a serious tone. “It is just that we are envious.”
She raises her chin as the matron might have and looks directly at the young soldier still whole of body, still jaunty with pride and well-being. “As well you should be. Private Schalk is a courageous man and I am an excellent nurse and we do like each other. We are friends.”
It surprises her to realize that this is true.
“And nearly the same age! I would very much like to write to you, Fräulein, if you would please allow it. You can write to me in Cuxhaven. The postmaster will know how to find me.”
Carriage doors of a new train are opening, and soon Private Schalk, too, is gone.
In the fall they go, the birds. She stands there feeling the same desolation as if actually watching them all rise upward, circle, and then move as one southward. Tiny things against a tumult of fast-moving cloud.
In the room she shared with Rani for nearly two and a half years, there’s a spill of textbooks on the floor and several on the bed. Bacteriology: Dust and Its Dangers. The Story of the Bacteria. Textbook of General Therapeutics. Poisons. Nursing and the Care of the Nervous and Insane. Marie-Thérèse owns the same costly books and can only think how Rani must have hated leaving these behind, though she did take her essential anatomy and bandaging texts as well as the Materia Medica and Therapeutics.
She stacks the books and decides to send them to Rani’s parents that day, with a note for Rani. Checking under her bed, she finds one of Rani’s Form of Report cards dated the previous May. For Thoroughness in work, she received an Excellent. Interest displayed: Very Good. Powers of observation: Very Good. Punctuality: Excellent. Neatness: Acceptable. General attention and kindness to patients, disposition: Excellent. Health: Very Good. Improvement (if any): Please remember not to run in the back passageway, Fräulein Hier. And under General Remarks: Your marks on tests for the most part have been high and praiseworthy. However, please spend more time on Anatomy next term.
The dreaded Form of Report cards had come once a week during the previous term, when everything at the clinic had been running in perfect order. Since then there’ve been only one report for the whole of August and one for September. Rani must have taken the latest ones with her. She, the better student, always with more Excellents, and so having to buy more pastries for the two of them.
Marie-Thérèse slips the Form of Report card into the textbook on poisons, enjoying the sad joke. After she strips the bed of linen, though, it seems as if Rani was never there. She remakes the bed and places Nursing and the Care of the Nervous and Insane on Rani’s desk.
The room feels a little better.
In Germany, it occurs to her, Rani will at least be safe.
Excellent work, Fräulein Hier.
Scarcity
In one hand, Jackie and Donnie’s leashes, the two dogs ambling along the pavement, pausing every so often to sniff at fallen leaves, lampposts, and flower planters. Her other arm is linked through that of an elderly man dragging his right foot after sliding the left forward. His head is bowed. His hair is white under his worker’s cap. He’s trembling, and these tremors pass into her arm.
At a marketplace a woman is selling chestnuts; another has a few potatoes. “Be quick,” she calls out to Marie-Thérèse, “if you want them!” Farther along, a child holds out a brilliant yellow chrysanthemum stem. Her bucket is still nearly full. Marie-Thérèse finds a few coins and takes the stem while her companion waits, staring at the paving stones.
“Are you all right?’ Marie-Thérèse asks when they are beyond the marketplace.
“I may yet live,” he replies in French.
In the October warmth, leaves twirl down and lie in gold and cerise carpets. Puffs of cloud slide northward in no rush. A good omen, she thinks, as she holds her face briefly to the sun.
Traffic passes on the boulevard, for the most part German automobiles amid a few trucks and wagons but no bicycles. “Almost a summer day!” Marie-Thérèse says in German. “How fortunate to have such lovely weather!” Her companion doesn’t reply. He’s eyeing the carpet of leaves, which his feet rumple. Besides, he has no idea what she has just said.
A German officer at an outdoor table reaches forward to pet Jackie, who has wandered within range. Jackie immediately sits and extends his long muzzle.
“Ho! What have we here? Another Belgian beggar! Shall we feed him or not?” he asks his companion. “Are we allowed, Fräulein?”
“Selbstverständlich!” Of course!
He takes half a sausage from his plate and holds it between thumb and forefinger above Jackie’s head. Jackie gives his throaty bark and Donnie his high yelp.
“Ah! Two Belgian beggars!” Jackie opens his mouth; Donnie jumps up. “Ah-ah! No jumping. You must be polite.”
The two tease the dogs for a while before giving them bits of sausage and fried potatoes. The old man alongside her keeps his head lowered.
“What do you think, grandfather? Would you like some sausage too?” This witticism causes more laughter. The officer dangles one in his direction.
The old man salutes the soldier. “Nein, danke, mein Herr.”
“Well, good, because they’re all gone!” He tosses it to Jackie, who catches it.
“Danke, sirs,” Marie-Thérèse says. “You have made them most happy.”
“It’s unfortunate you have that old man in tow or we’d invite you to join us, Fräulein.”
“My uncle must take exercise for his legs.”
“Well, come back this way when you’re free. We’re usually here, right, Walther?”
She promises to do so and then they are walking again, the man’s arm in hers shaking harder now. She’s noted the name of the café, the street.
A block farther they turn onto a smaller street littered with linden leaves. Ahead, a girl with a large doll stoops over the pavement, arranging stones in a circle. The dogs pull at their leashes. Soon they’re nudging and whining at the girl. She gives each a pat before scooping up her doll, brushing away the stones, and then skipping away with the two dogs.
Marie-Thérèse and the old man enter a dark brasserie and take a table in back. With a trembling hand, the old man removes half a playing card from a pocket and sets it before him. The ten of hearts. A waiter approaches, full glass of beer in one hand, towel in another. “Bonjour,” he says sotto voce. Setting down the beer and masking his next action with the towel, he slips the matching half of the card from his vest pocket and places it on the table alongside the other. Then he deftly makes both disappear.
“Well, I must go,” she says in German. “I will leave you to your conversation.”
“Merci,” the old man says under his breath, flour dusting his shoulders like dandruff.
Her legs are weak as she takes a different route back. Which way had Elli gone with the dogs? She forgot to warn her about the café and the officers. A mistake! And not a small one. But at the clinic there’s no time to find Elli and ask. The doctor stops her just as she’s entering the main door.
“Well met, Student-nurse Hulbert. I’ve been hoping to have a little talk with you and here you are. A somewhat pleasant day, no? I hope you’ve been able to enjoy it. Ah! A flower. Not for me, I suppose.”
“If you wish, sir.”
“No, no. I was joking. Keep it!”
“If you will excuse me, Herr Doktor, I have ward duty and must change.”
“Please step into my office a moment. I’ll explain your absence and there will be no penalty.”
She takes a chair facing the desk in what had been Doctor Depage’s office. The desk is still where it had been, against the far wall and facing outward. On it, a green-glass lamp. The maroon leather chairs are still in place before the desk. A marble-topped, round table and four chairs haven’t been moved from their position near the wall to the right. Shelves of books fill the opposite wall. A Persian carpet, its ruby tones leaping up, covers most of the floor. She’s surprised that the doctor doesn’t look much better than when he first arrived. Surely, he might have recovered from fatigue by now, but no, there are the same signs of exhaustion—the puffy sag of skin under the eyes, the bleariness, even the perspiration he mops away with a handkerchief.
She’s distracted from her observations by her own situation. Was the Belgian caught? Had Elli been questioned? The café, the dogs… She sits as still as possible, hoping that her heartbeat isn’t audible. The doctor makes it all the worse by taking his time, seating himself behind the desk and arranging his hands over the blotter in a relaxed clasp.
“Student-nurse Hulbert,” he says finally, “you’ve been looking rather tired. Have you been getting enough sleep?”
“I believe so, sir, although I often do stay up late studying.”
“Yes, I’m sure. But with all the work in the wards and the clinic being understaffed, I’m surprised you have time to walk about. You have been gone for nearly an hour.”
“The matron…”—don’t hesitate!—“wishes us to have some fresh air and sunlight. Today it was my turn.”
“She is most concerned about your welfare.”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“I believe so. She always has been.”
He raises one hand to his beard and smooths its already smooth point. “Again, I find a lapse in your logic. What has been is not always proof of how something is now. Do you see that?”
“I do, yes.”
“So then does this ‘seeing’ cause you to amend your answer?”
“I believe she thinks about our welfare as much as she does her patients’.”
“Truly? Would it surprise you to know that I have been hearing some disturbing things?”
Would it surprise? Think!
“Yes, I would be surprised, Herr Doktor.”
“You are intelligent…and observant. Yet in all these days you have not come to me with anything the least suspicious. Why is that?”
“Because I have observed nothing suspicious, sir.”
“Nothing?”
“No, sir.”
“If you are trying to protect her, it is noble but foolish.”
It seems that her chest holds a snowstorm. “What have you heard, Herr Doktor?”
“It is not for you to question me. I will ask you again. Have you seen or heard anything suspicious?”
“I have seen nothing out of order. All is as it should be.” She holds her chin level and keeps her eyes on his while curbing a temptation to say more.
“I have been told that your brother, Jacques Hulbert, has been missing and that your parents have been looking for him. Is this true?”
Who told you? Her throat closes to sound.
“Is this in fact the case?”
“He has been missing, sir, yes.”
“And he went to join the Allied forces, a young man with German blood.”
“We do not know where he went for certain.”
“I have received word that he has been wounded and is being treated in a German field hospital. It states here that he has a birthmark to the right of his spine, on the upper quadrant of his back. Perhaps you recall such a mark?”
“A birthmark? Yes, I do seem to remember that he has one, but the wounds…are the wounds…”
“Serious? They are. Five bullet wounds. If he lives, he will be transported to Germany as a prisoner of war.”
His face blurs.
“If you cooperate with my inquiry, I will do all I can in regard to your brother. It will be difficult, but I have some influence in higher military circles. Otherwise, I am afraid that you and your family may never see him again. Given his background, he will be tried as a traitor and executed. He is how old?”
“Sixteen.”
“A pity. But all may yet be well. If you help me.”
“I have already agreed, Herr Doktor.”
“In word, yes. I will be starting a review procedure and will be asking each student to write a statement describing something she is proud of accomplishing during the preceding week as well as any areas for improvement. This statement will provide the basis for our weekly discussions. On a separate page, you must describe anything out of the ordinary you observed about the clinic and the matron’s behavior as well as dates and times. You are not to judge their significance. Simply state facts. Your assigned time is a week from today at one o’clock in the afternoon.”
“How will you help him?”
“I can have him transferred anywhere I wish.”
“Even here?”
“Anywhere. Now, you have work to do. You may leave.”
Before taking the flower up to the children’s ward, she spends several minutes in a lavatory, retching.
Their deeds know not their words.
Nor do mine.
The matron, she believes, is wrong. We can’t always control our responses to events.
Late that night, she turns from the back passageway into the stairwell and stops. Charlotte is sitting on the third step, her face sweaty, her eyes manic. “Me smelt a rat!” she says in English. “And here she is!”
Marie-Thérèse knows enough English to understand. The muscles of her legs lose their tension. Her stomach flutters.
“Bonsoir, Madame Charlotte. Are you not chilled? It’s drafty here. I’ve just closed a window.”
“The rat lies! Get it for me or I’ll tell ’im.”
“I don’t understand, madame. Tell who?”
Charlotte switches to French. “The snooping doctor, who else? He asked me to be on the lookout and so I am. And what do I see but you, coming from somewhere late at night.”
“Of course I’m coming from somewhere. I haven’t been feeling well and went to see the matron. She made me a ginger drink to settle my stomach. Then I noticed the wide-open window and closed it.”
“The caught rat knows how to lie!”
“Shall we go ask her, then?”
Charlotte covers her eyes. “No. I don’t want to.” Down come her hands, and there’s the manic glare again. “Just get it for me or I’m going to tell him all about you.”
“Get what, Madame Charlotte?”
“You know!”
“A warm drink you must mean.”
“Don’t you be playing dense, now.”
“Oh! Of course. Your drug.”
“Yes, miss, my med’cine.”
“Madame Charlotte, I don’t have the key. I’m not on ward duty and have no access to the cupboard. If you’re feeling bad tonight, the matron will help you.”
“She won’t! No more tonight. She’s a stubborn one.”
“Then I don’t know, madame.”
“I need it!”
“Maybe they can help you in the ward.”
“They won’t.”
Charlotte lowers her head and pushes the heels of her palms against her eyes. She gasps for breath.
“Madame Charlotte—”
The woman writhes away from Marie-Thérèse’s hand. “Get it or he’s going to know there’re soldiers here, British soldiers!”
Marie-Thérèse freezes in place. “But there are no British soldiers here. They were taken away weeks ago.”
“Even if there aren’t, I can say there are and she’ll be in trouble. You too. They’ll lock you both up.”
“Madame, the matron is your best friend. You don’t want her to go to prison, do you? You’ll be all alone then. And they’ll probably lock you up too. All by yourself in a room. Or even in chains. They can do that, you know.”
“Just…get it for me. I won’t ever ask you again.”
But you will.
She takes the woman’s cold hand. “Come with me.” To her surprise, Charlotte stands, and Marie-Thérèse leads her to her own room. “It’s warmer in here. Come now.”
She covers Charlotte with Rani’s thick blanket and adds her own coat. Charlotte lies there, crying and shivering, her knees drawn up, the bunch of hair wild over the pillow. Marie-Thérèse finds the roll from breakfast she had stowed away and feeds pieces of it to her. Then, wrapped in her own blanket, she sits alongside her, stroking the woman’s rough hair. It reminds her of Jackie’s wiry coat. “Soon,” she whispers, “it will be better. Matron will give you your medicine in the morning and it’s almost morning now. I’ll wait with you. You aren’t alone. You’ll have your medicine shortly. In an hour or two it will be morning and you’ll feel much better. Soon it will be morning, madame, very soon now.”
Marie-Thérèse closes her eyes for short intervals that become longer. When her alarm clock rings, she’s lying on the edge of Rani’s bed. The first thought of the day stabs through the fading fabric of a dream: Gone—to tell the doctor.
Looking through the glass of the door to the director’s office, she sees Charlotte, disheveled, slumped in a chair facing the desk. But—miracle of miracles—the chair behind the desk is vacant. Marie-Thérèse, pretending she is on routine business, searches wards, offices, and finally, with no one to see her, runs the length of the back corridor, praying that she hasn’t taken the dogs for an early walk.
The matron doesn’t answer Marie-Thérèse’s knock, but the dogs are in the garden.
Running where she can, she returns to the wards. And there she is, in the nurses’ office, asking about Charlotte. Marie-Thérèse dares not grab her arm.
After their whispered words in the hall, Marie-Thérèse goes into the dining hall for breakfast.
“You look wretched, Marie-Thérèse,” Liese comments. “Were you on all night?”
This can be checked. “No.”
“Well, you probably need a lot more sleep then.”
“And who doesn’t?”
“True!”
If her nerves weren’t so wild, still, she might have been able to put a number to all the insinuations in Liese’s words.
