In the Fall They Leave, page 12
There is no butter. No bacon. No jam. No eggs. And definitely no sausage. How can it all go on, she wonders. It can’t, can it?
Spy
But it does.
In the park along the rue de la Culture, Marie-Thérèse follows the matron at a distance. Jackie and Donnie want to chase squirrels, but she won’t let them. At one point the matron pauses to pick up a small branch, shakes rainwater from the cluster of leaves, and then places the branch on the lawn, just off the walkway where other leaves are turning into sodden clumps. An odor of decay permeates the damp air. Marie-Thérèse has to keep swallowing and is afraid she’s going to start retching again. It happens often now. Sooner or later this will be brought to the matron’s attention.
Why did she pick up the branch of oak leaves and put it to the side? So that other pedestrians won’t trample the leaves? Or was it a sign meant for someone? To Marie-Thérèse’s disgust, she finds herself hoping the matron is there to meet someone. Anyone. Then there will be something of substance to tell the doctor.
Truly disgusting.
She turns back.
November 3, 1914: She was at the park today with the dogs. She picked up a small branch with some oak leaves on it. She carefully put it to the side of the walkway, the branch end facing forward, the leaves fanning out in back.
November 5: A well-dressed lady visited the matron at about eleven o’clock in the morning. She used the matron’s private entrance, off the rue de la Culture.
November 7: The same well-dressed lady visited again but used the public entrance. She wore the same dark-blue cloak as she had on November 5th. It was the same time of day, eleven o’clock in the morning. Later she walked across the park and entered a waiting automobile. The automobile had a chauffeur. I do not know what kind of automobile it was.
November 8: The matron took Donnie to a veterinary office on the rue de l’Abbaye.
As usual, she throws up her breakfast of dry toast and unsweetened tea. Butter and sugar are rationed, and what the clinic does have goes to the patients first. The British are now blockading North Sea ports, and so the occupiers take what they need from Belgian shops and warehouses. Marie-Thérèse hardly cares. All food is tasteless now. The occupiers are also closing down newspaper offices. That doesn’t matter to her either. All she can think about, nearly, are Jacques and the matron.
Ten minutes before her scheduled review, she walks through the school’s main corridor to Doctor Depage’s former office three doors from the operating theater. At the door now stating Doktor Manfred Kuhn, she swallows saliva and takes a shaky breath before knocking.
“Eintreten!”
She opens the door and enters. Sister Knecht, a white-haired nurse, is sitting in one of the maroon armchairs. The doctor is seated at the desk.
“Guten Morgen, Herr Doktor. Guten Morgen, Sister Knecht.”
As he extends his arm to take her papers, his hand trembles. “Platz nehen, Student-nurse Hulbert.”
She sits facing the desk and folds her hands in her lap while he reads both pages and finally sets them on top of an open folder. Then he regards her.
“So. You are proud of a bandaging exercise in which you excelled.”
“Yes, sir. I had not been able to do that form before last week.”
He looks at Sister Knecht. “A third-year not able to bandage correctly? Why does that astonish me? Is it so difficult, Sister?”
“I think Student-nurse Hulbert meant to say that she had not been able to do it perfectly before last week. Whenever I observed her, she sometimes took too much time or else didn’t apply enough pressure and so ran out of bandaging material before she should have. In her practical exercises she often does not exhibit enough confidence. Student-nurse Hulbert seems to have an excessive fear of making mistakes. I tell our students that that is like having to work while wearing shackles. You must not overthink. Your actions must become second nature, ingrained, a part of you. That comes through repeated practice. Practice leads to mastery. And confidence.”
“Well said. I agree, of course. And so, Student-nurse Hulbert, your excelling in this form obviously proves the point. You must have been practicing.”
“I have been, sir.”
“Very good. But I see that your weekly mark for an examination has gone down significantly. The examination had to do with materia medica. Do you find that course too difficult?”
“No, not especially difficult. I did study but—”
“Obviously not enough. You must do better. Where lives are involved, no medical facility wants mediocrity on its staff. Nor do I. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Herr Doktor.”
“If you do not raise this mark by the next time we meet, you will be expelled. That will be regrettable for many reasons. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“I will ask your matron to retest you so that you can prove to me that you can do much better. Now…” He looks at the second sheet then raises his eyes again. “You say you were late for a lecture. You give several reasons. But still, I find it inexcusable. Your matron demands strict punctuality, and I applaud her for that. Again, lives depend on your punctuality. I’m certain you can do better in this area. It’s simply a matter of paying attention to a timepiece. Do you have one?”
“Yes, I do, sir.”
“Is it accurate?”
“It is.”
“Is she usually punctual, Sister?”
“She is.”
“You must have been lost in the clouds then. An exception proving the rule. Is there anything you wish to add?”
“Only that I will work harder to improve, sir.”
“Very good. I believe you will. Congratulations on your bandaging achievement. You may leave now.”
He closes the folder over the pages.
As she enters a lavatory beyond the operating theater, Liese is just leaving. “Oh no,” she says. “Not again!”
Marie-Thérèse laughs. “Just the usual.”
The Queen of All Poisons
Dread is a constant companion. Surely a telegram concerning her parents will arrive today. Or, surely the doctor will find the hidden ward. Or, Liese will betray all of them. Nights, she plunges into her textbooks when she can’t sleep because of festering worries. She reads until the open book falls on her chest and stays there until morning.
She writes Rani, saying that everything is fine and the clinic is running smoothly—this, for the censors. She says she misses her. She doesn’t rail against her for having betrayed her about Jacques because she probably hasn’t. She doesn’t mention how Papa is bereft without his pigeons and spends hours in the garden, fussing with wet earth, trying in vain to get a few late lettuces to grow. She does include details about the Christmas gifts they have been knitting and crocheting for the children of the neighborhood.
In all, her letter is a non-letter. She doesn’t know why she even sends it. Then she does. The truth is, she misses Rani. Her absence seems a kind of death.
One afternoon, drizzle and fog at windowpanes, the gardener hands her an envelope bearing no stamps. An envelope that has been folded in half. An envelope with only her name on it but in her father’s handwriting.
“How did you get this?” she whispers.
He shakes his head and walks back down the corridor leading to the garden door.
The letter is dated two weeks earlier. There are no greasy crayon slashes to indicate it has gone through a censor’s office. She says a swift prayer that they found Jacques. The fact that her father, at least, is alive doesn’t at first register—to her later shame. She only wants the words Jacques is with us.
After a moment she opens her eyes and reads.
We are safe, my dear, and in the Netherlands. Although we haven’t found Jacques yet, we have several leads. We did learn that his unit was fighting in an area I will not name here. A number of wounded were taken prisoner, but a number also wandered off. I have been traveling about asking questions. It has been difficult. People understandably don’t want to talk. But I did learn that a number of those wounded Allies found their way back—or were returned—to their regiments. So, we have hope. I cannot get back and forth into Belgium easily now, and this makes it all the more difficult. It is possible that Jacques may find himself at your clinic, though in that case he would probably be a prisoner of war. I will continue to make inquiries.
Your mother and Willy send their love. I do as well. God keep you safe.
She tries to be hopeful. But all she can feel is self-revulsion and fear. Yet at moments, some small flicker of energy and conviction tells her that Jacques isn’t a prisoner. That the doctor lied. He might know about Jacques joining the Allies, but that’s all. He made up the rest to snare her. Why not? Somehow the secret police may have snared him, maybe threatening to destroy his stellar reputation, and so now he has to set his own traps.
These instances of conviction might energize her for a few moments but ultimately don’t help much. She has to raise that mark on the materia medica examination. She has to find something to write for her next review. Above all, she has to eat something and keep it down.
She’s studying in her room when her textbook on poisons draws her eye. Opening it at random, she finds herself staring at a pen and ink illustration of a plant with a tall stalk of small flowers resembling the hoods monks have on their cloaks. Aconitum napellus. The flowers are described as purple. This variety of Aconitum has several common names, among them Monkshood, The Queen of All Poisons, and Devil’s Helmet. Its toxins enter through the skin and cause vomiting, diarrhea, blurred vision, tingling of the skin, and eventually, multiple organ failure. If you have cuts on your hands and brush against the plant, you could die. Warriors once poisoned the tips of their arrows with the toxin of Aconitum napellus.
How many people, she wonders, died while just preparing the arrows?
Later she goes into the garden and looks for such a plant. There are none, of course.
“I am pleased to see that you have significantly raised your mark on the materia medica examination, Student-nurse Hulbert.”
“Danke, sir.”
“So much is possible when one applies oneself. Are there any other areas where you have excelled?”
I managed not to throw up after breakfast today. “No, but my work has been generally satisfactory.”
“You must be proud of your new examination mark.”
“I am not so proud. I should have done that the first time.”
“I agree. Areas for improvement?”
“I have written down that I wish to be better in each area in my examinations and also ward duty. Specifically, I wish to raise my mark in bacteriology and also be less nervous while being observed. I have a tendency then to mix up my words and talk too fast.”
He is looking at her second page.
“I have a report here that you seemed distracted while on ward duty. Do you feel this is a fair assessment?”
He still appears ill, she observes. You see it first in the eyes, the thickening of moisture, the red tinge. “If I have been observed acting distracted, then it must be accurate and fair.”
“That is a serious failing. Why did you not mention it?”
“I didn’t realize that I had been distracted. It wasn’t in any…critique.”
“It should have been. Do you agree that distraction is a serious fault?”
“I do, yes.” His fingers are still trembling. Could it be the onset of palsy?
“Then you must work on that area as well. I expect a better report next time.”
Again, he regards the second page, which holds only two sentences. The paper wavers in his hand. November 14: A woman in a Salvation Army uniform visited the matron today. She left after fifteen minutes.
“Distraction, Student-nurse Hulbert, leads to diminished powers of observation. And that can prove fatal, as you well know. Now, return to your work and do better.”
“Danke, Herr Doktor Kuhn. I will.”
She decides to use the lavatory up in the student-nurses’ corridor and hopes not to faint before she can get there. The corridor is fading out of focus, and there’s the stairway yet.
That evening while crocheting in the sitting room, she’s again thinking of The Queen of All Poisons. And then knows why.
St. Gudule, no.
In her hands the aqua wool blurs. She has no consciousness of her head tilting backward and her eyes rolling upward.
When she wakes, the matron is sitting alongside the bed. Marie-Thérèse knows that she isn’t in her own room just from the different coverlet. It’s a private room on the third floor, one of three kept prepared for ill students and sisters.
“Are you feeling somewhat better now, mademoiselle?”
There’s a drip in her arm. Fluid and nutrients.
“I am, Matron, merci.”
“You were dehydrated.”
“I’m much better now, I think. Pardonnez-moi, Matrone.”
“For becoming ill? There is nothing to forgive.”
Her heart begins shuddering away. And just as Marie-Thérèse might have predicted, the matron takes her wrist, presses three fingers gently against it and, lowering her eyes, concentrates.
“Your heart rate is somewhat elevated.” Somewhat. “What has made you unable to eat, my dear? You have no fever. Do you have pain in your stomach?”
Marie-Thérèse turns her head toward the wall and tears slip out. The matron releases her wrist and places her arm back on the coverlet as if it were some delicate thing in danger of shattering.
“No, Matron.” Embarrassed by exhibiting so much weakness, she sniffs, inadvertently making a rude sound.
The matron takes a cloth and blots Marie-Thérèse’s face. “There is no physical pain?”
“No.”
She palpates the abdomen and lower torso. “None?”
“No, Matron. I just haven’t been hungry.”
She listens to Marie-Thérèse’s heart and then has her lean forward so she can assess the lungs.
“Perhaps I should have the doctor here.”
“No, please. Don’t call him. I just haven’t been eating enough.”
“Apart from the elevated pulse, your heart seems strong. Your lungs clear. It seems we are in another area altogether. Can you tell me anything that might help you alleviate this lack of appetite?”
Once again Marie-Thérèse turns away. “I’m sorry to be taking so much of your time. There is nothing, really, to say.”
“Have you heard from your parents?”
“My father. They’re still looking for Jacques, but they themselves are safe in the Netherlands.”
“Your father must have to slip over the border from time to time.”
“Yes.”
“Is this what you worry about?”
“Yes.”
“You could have a leave of absence to go to them when you are well.”
“I have no idea where they are. But in any case, I need to stay here.”
After a moment the matron asks why.
“There is so much work and I must be here in case Jacques…” Words upsetting the equilibrium.
Blotting Marie-Thérèse’s face again, the matron says, “It would seem, then, that you might be all the more interested in your meals and in remaining strong.”
Never argue with a patient. She’s breaking that rule.
“Your family has been away for several weeks, yet only now have you become ill from not eating. When something like this happens, we look for correlations. Is it something about the food, for example?”
“No, Matron.”
“Then overwork?”
“No.”
“What about anxiety? Are you over-anxious about something? The doctor’s reviews, for example?”
“I do dread them.”
“He can be intimidating. And, of course, you are anxious about your brother.”
Marie-Thérèse senses heat flooding her face. “I worry about him, yes.”
“Has the doctor frightened you in any way regarding your brother?”
“No,” she finally says.
“Well. Your tiny portions in the dining room, your giving away your food to others, your being sick in the lavatories have not gone unnoticed. And it all seems to have begun around the time the doctor implemented his reviews. Possibly, I am seeing a correlation where none may exist. Perhaps, my dear, you are simply worn out by a general anxiety, given our situation.”
Half of the white coverlet is golden from the sun, the other half a dusky blue. Artists, Marie-Thérèse thinks, usually show white by tinting in other colors such as blue or lavender. Such a safe pursuit, painting. She places her left hand on the golden part and says, “I am trying my best.” Each word feels like a sharp stone in her throat. “I should perhaps…maybe I should leave.”
The matron settles back in the chair.
Let them talk. But Marie-Thérèse doesn’t dare.
The matron continues to sit there, immobile, and in the quiet Marie-Thérèse hears a bird chirping, a passing motorcar somewhere, then the pulse in her ears as if she were underwater. The room begins to thrum like her Bösendorpher at home, that resonance, the deep harmonics, a sound of fading thunder, a sound she has always loved…until that moment. The thought of Jacques standing blindfolded before a firing squad of grown men nearly crushes her heart.
She sobs and then the matron is holding her.
“Tell me.”
Marie-Thérèse does.
While she talks, the matron pales. Sadness comes to her eyes, the light there dimming at the mention of the well-dressed woman and the one in the Salvation Army uniform. Marie-Thérèse knows then. She has imparted significant information. And put people in danger. Possibly many people. Above all, her. Marie-Thérèse goes on, saying she needs to confess to a priest because she has had awful thoughts about suicide. And betrayal is a sin too, and just as awful. “I should have lied. Only, I couldn’t think of any lies that would sound plausible, and what I did tell him, I didn’t think very important. I am so sorry, Matron. I don’t know how I can go on with those reviews, but then I think of Jacques…”
