In the Fall They Leave, page 8
The morphine, she thinks, might be fraying his nerves. On the bedside stand are a bowl of water and a sterile cloth. She dips it in the water, wrings it out, and places it over his forehead.
“Danke,” he murmurs.
“Cuxhaven?” she says in her nurse’s voice. “Isn’t that on the North Sea?”
“Ja.” Small gasps follow this exhalation.
She feels hypocritical saying that it must be a beautiful place.
“I am…was…a swimmer. International.” These words elicit tears and more gasping.
Still reluctant to touch him, she carefully turns the cloth over. “Private Schalk, you are safe here. You are in a clinic in Brussels. We are taking care of you now.”
“I was…swimming. I am…swimmer.”
Delirious, she thinks, again attributing it to the morphine. “You were swimming? In a dream? It must have been a pleasant dream.”
“In Paris. I competed…”
“Ah. Paris. How fortunate.”
“Water…please?”
She has to raise his head and bring the glass to those puffy, sore-looking lips. The back of his neck feels scorched. She puts the glass aside and deftly turns the pillow over before lowering his head.
“Danke. You are…kind.”
Now her hands seem to be burning, the fingers tremulous, as she checks the drains on each of his bandaged stumps and then checks the other bandaged wounds. Soon she’ll have to change those bandages.
“Rest now, Private Schalk. Go back to your dream.”
She’s about to turn away but some impulse causes her to dip the cloth in water again and wipe the young man’s face and brow. She changes the water in the basin, takes several clean cloths from the linen supply, and places a damp one over his hot forehead and closed eyes.
By the time she enters the curtained area around the next bed and reads the patient’s chart, her hands are steady. It’s all right to empathize, she tells herself, given that she’ll be leaving soon.
Private Berthold Kohnert, thirty-eight years old, has three bullet wounds, one in each arm and another in his torso. His jaw is broken and so is his left cheekbone, from being run over by the wheel of a gun caisson. Impossible that the shape of his face will ever be the same—if he even recovers. And in the same accident, he lost his left eye. With exception of his right eye and his mouth, the face and jaw are bandaged; his hands lie to either side, palms down. He seems asleep, and she’s about to slide shut the curtain, but at the sound, he wakes, stares dumbly at her awhile, then motions to the bedside table. Looking there, she sees a pad of paper and a pencil.
Am I home? he writes in German. The letters break here and there.
“Nein. You are in Brussels.”
He takes a long breath before laboriously writing, I dreamed I was home. He pushes aside the pad. It falls to the floor, and she quickly picks it up, wondering if she should bring him a clean one.
“Where is your home, Private Kohnert?” With reluctance she gives him the pad.
Mentz. On the Rhine. Do you know it?
“Nein, I am sorry. I do not.”
Now I will die here.
“Your chart says that you will live, Private Kohnert.”
It lies.
“You will live if you want to live.” She reminds herself not to argue.
Are you German?
I am Belgian.”
I wish German nurse.
He pushes the pad aside again, and again she picks it up.
“I will find a German nurse for you, Private Kohnert.”
His eye is closed. He brushes at the air with one hand. She drops the pad in the bin for soiled bandaging and tells herself to remember to bring him a new one.
The next bed is also enclosed by a curtain. As she reads this patient’s chart, sweat breaks out on her forehead, and she takes hold of the bedrail. Her skin has gone cold. She prays she won’t faint. Gerhardt Haske, twenty-five, was stabbed with his own bayonet in the chest, arms, abdomen, and eyes. He had morphine at two that afternoon and is due to have it again at six. Bandages wrap head and eyes, shoulders, arms, and torso. The liver has been perforated; the kidneys are failing.
Mon Dieu.
Yes, his skin—what she can see of it—is jaundiced. The ankles, edematous. So his lungs are failing as well. He should be in one of the larger hospitals. But the German military must be practicing its own form of triage, using those hospitals for soldiers who have a better chance of surviving. Twenty-five-year-old Sergeant Haske, like Private Schalk, has been brought here to die.
A detail snags: with his own bayonet.
She swallows back nausea, understanding that he couldn’t have inflicted those wounds upon himself. This understanding is terrible.
She inserts the chart into its holder and continues on. Vogler, Hinkle, Hausbeck, Ennst, Bauer, Reissner—men ranging from nineteen to forty-eight. Bullet wounds, head wounds, shrapnel wounds, limbs amputated. One demands German beer. Another asks that she write a letter to his wife in Frankfurt. Still another, with broken legs sustained when he fell from the ladder of a cannon as a shell burst nearby, asks if he will still be able to dance and if, one day, she might dance with him. This man has a heavy mustache, its tips groomed into small curls. Of course, she tells him. But he is far away, a small figure in a white bed on an August afternoon. The day’s warmth eddies through the ward, again bringing the scent of roses.
Leaving, she pauses at Sergeant Haske’s bed. Heavily sedated, he hasn’t changed position. She takes his wrist to check for a pulse. It’s there, a faint faltering beacon of life. She touches his neck. There too. She imagines something small, a child, trying to drag a wagon uphill. Elli pushing that wheelbarrow with Janine lying there, in wet straw.
She takes the sergeant’s hand again, this time not checking for his pulse. “I am sorry for what has happened to you,” she says in German. “But I must leave now. I will find a good German nurse for you. Her name is Fräulein Rania. She is an excellent nurse and will help you, Sergeant Haske. Do not give up. Have courage.”
Then she turns to leave, her unstarched apron and skirt making no sound.
“Fräulein?” the soldier in the bed nearest the door murmurs. She pauses. His eyes are flickering in that painful way as he tries to focus.
“Do you need anything, Private Schalk? Can I bring you something before I go?”
“You…must go? I wish you…might read…to me.”
She hesitates but then says, “I cannot, Private Schalk. You see, I must leave the clinic. But I will ask another nurse to read to you.”
“Danke. You are kind. I will always remember…your kindness.”
The ward blurs as she passes the nurses’ office. In a lavatory, she washes her hands and face. She holds a cold cloth to her own forehead and eyes. Everything is telling her to leave at once. For her parents’ sake and her own. Why she next walks out into the garden, she doesn’t know. Seeing the gardener there, digging up potatoes, she’s unable to speak.
He straightens and waits. His cap the same, his jacket, the trousers, all the same—his own uniform. He takes out his handkerchief, a bit of blue cloth crushed into a ball, and extends it toward her.
She laughs then, though it’s more of a sob, as she takes it and wipes her eyes. What does it matter now, a few germs? Words finally jumble out. She needs to leave. It’s impossible, all of it. She thought she could do it, this danse macabre, but no, she’s not strong enough, she deceived herself, and on top of everything to have to lie, that she will not do, but it’s all right, she’s accustomed to failure, she will just have to find something else to fail at. Besides, her family needs her now. As she’s speaking, Jackie and Donnie mob her, expecting a walk, and when they start barking—Jackie’s a roar, Donnie’s high and shrill—she tries to shush them. “Monsieur, the doctor will hear. Make them stop!”
“They want their walk.”
“But I cannot. Au revoir, Papa. I wish you well. I must go now. Merci! Thank you for everything.”
“In the fall they leave, the birds.” He holds his cap over his heart. He bows his head.
“Monsieur, please keep them quiet. Jackie! Donnie! Stop this!” She takes a few steps, then abruptly turns and picks up Donnie.
In Janine’s ward, the little girl is awake and staring at nothing as usual. In the garden below, Jackie is still barking.
“Janine? I have brought Donnie. Can you see him?”
Gradually, the little girl’s eyes focus.
“Would you like to pet him?”
The girl’s fingers move but not her hand.
“I have come to say goodbye, my dear. Your sister is going to take good care of you and so will the matron and all the other nurses.”
Is the child frowning? “You are going to get well,” Marie-Thérèse continues, “and one day I will come and see you again. You will be much better, and you will talk to me and say, ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle Marie-Thérèse.’ And I will say, ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle Janine!’ And we will be like old friends meeting again. Won’t that be nice?”
“You’re leaving?” Elli says, coming up behind Marie-Thérèse. “You’re going away?”
Donnie wriggles to get to Elli, who is a figure frozen in astonishment and confusion.
“I’m sorry, Elli, but I must.”
“Why? She likes you. We both do. She wants you to stay. You can’t go too.”
Too.
“See?” Elli says. “She’s crying.”
Marie-Thérèse transfers Donnie to the girl and lifts Janine from the bed. Holding her, she pats the child’s back. Both girls are crying now and so is Marie-Thérèse. When she brings Donnie back down to the garden, Jackie whirls around, barking as he always does when greeting the matron after an absence however short or long. Monsieur frees a potato from loose soil and places it in his basket. He looks up.
“I’m staying. At least for a while longer.”
“And in the spring,” he says, “they return.”
Secret
Mademoiselle, your father wishes you to call him at home.”
They are in the matron’s sitting room, off the garden, and it is nearly 1:30 in the morning. On the table are a sketchbook, a box of drawing pencils, and the matron’s telephone.
“Does he want me to return tonight?”
“He did not say.”
Fear blanks thought as Marie-Thérèse lifts the telephone’s earpiece from its cradle.
He answers immediately. Then a muffled sound tells her he must have cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. In the next moment he’s telling her that Jacques is gone. “When he didn’t come home from school, we were afraid something happened along the way. I walked back to the school, taking his route, and learned that he hadn’t attended today. They didn’t call us because they assumed we had left Brussels. Or there may have been another reason for not calling. We feared for Jacques’s life. The police say they will help, but there’s so much disruption they hardly have the means to do much at all. I think he’s gone to join our forces. Your mother is distraught. I should have waited until morning to call you, but I had a thought and wanted to talk with you at once.”
“It’s all right, Father. I’ve been working in the wards. Jacques left no note?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you want me home now? What can I do to help?”
“Stay there. I told the police where you are, and they’ll contact you if they find him. Or, he may even come to the clinic himself. Or be brought there. And then you can contact us. I will send an address. We’re going to take Willy and leave in the morning for Antwerp, assuming we can get through. Our forces are still somewhere in the vicinity, and we’ll try to locate him. I wrote all this in a letter for Jacques and will leave it here, but our house may be vandalized in our absence or even destroyed, and when he returns—”
“Papa, our gardener has pigeons. I’ll ask if he can send a message to someone in the military. I’m not sure how but surely—”
“Merci! Be careful. Don’t go about the streets now.”
“Oui, Papa.”
“I’ll get word to you. Take good care, my dear. Je t’aime beaucoup.”
“I love you, too, Papa. Bon courage.”
Then her mother’s voice. “If Jacques should come there—”
“I will let you know at once, Maman.”
“Who can convince a sixteen-year-old of anything!”
“Or one nineteen.”
A pause. “Exactement! Au revoir.”
“Au revoir, Maman. Bonne chance.”
She holds onto the earpiece a while longer, their voices fading pulses of sound.
The matron enters with a tray holding a pot of tea and two cups. “I’m afraid it must be bad news.”
“My brother Jacques is missing. They think he’s gone to join our forces. He’s only sixteen and knows nothing about fighting. Nothing!”
“Do they wish your help, mademoiselle?”
“They want me to stay here in case the police learn anything or if he should somehow come here. They’re going to look for him among our forces.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“Merci, Matrone. I only hope he’s still alive. That he wasn’t attacked by other boys and his body…thrown somewhere. If he’s gone to join our forces, then at least he may be alive. For now.”
“Be calm, mademoiselle. Be hopeful. For selfish reasons I’m relieved you’ll be here for a while yet. We have so much work now.” She pours tea and adds milk.
The hot tea is comforting, but the words tweak her conscience. “I need to tell you that I almost left today. I was in the military wards, and it all seemed impossible to care for such terribly wounded men. And I was also thinking of the girls and what they’ve been through. I was thinking…perhaps too much.” Even now, guilt and fear, the one a cold and sorrowful sensation; the other, anxious and fraught. “I thought how staying will demand courage and self-discipline. Staying, I will have to learn to see every person, regardless of nationality, as someone to be healed. Leaving, even though it’s what my parents will eventually ask of me, will amount to cowardice, won’t it, given my doubts?”
“But you did not leave.”
“No, ironically, because of the girls.”
Jackie groans. His long legs twitch. Both dogs are on their sides, asleep in the warmth from the small fireplace with its grate of coal. In her tiredness Marie-Thérèse stares at the low fire. The matron, noticing, goes to the bucket holding pieces of coal the gardener wraps in paper so her hands won’t get dirty. She drops two pieces on the fire. The paper blazes a moment.
“Mademoiselle, I hesitate to ask, but now I find…”
Marie-Thérèse waits.
“I need someone absolutely trustworthy. I know you have a tendency to talk a bit excitedly at times, but I also know that I can trust you to be discreet. And I know that I can rely on your skills.”
The matron has assumed an uncharacteristic pensive pose, one arm folded, elbow braced on wrist, and fingers against her mouth. Marie-Thérèse also observes what she failed to notice before—the slight glassiness and redness of eye, the imprint of fatigue under each lower eyelid.
And then she knows.
“Tonight?”
“Tonight…and other nights.”
“How many?”
“Three. But there may be others soon.”
Fear jolts through her. “He said the consequences will be…severe, Matron.”
“There are higher laws, no? Do you need some time to think about it?”
“You are taking an awful risk even telling me.” Her face, warmed by the coal fire, is now too warm.
“Yes. But, you see, if I’m called away from the clinic or…replaced, you will be able to care for them and have them secretly removed. I’ll tell you how. And there’ll be someone to help. I’m asking far too much of you. If you decline, I’ll understand and trust you will say nothing to anyone about our conversation tonight.”
Marie-Thérèse looks at the two dogs, their sides evenly rising and falling in sleep. Street dogs once.
“Please tell me what is involved,” she hears herself saying.
“We will secretly nurse wounded Allies and help them get to the Netherlands once they are able to travel. They have been left behind in the rapid Allied retreat or have gotten lost in what is now, for all practical purposes, German territory. You will have to lie…to the German doctor, to any German authorities, and at least for now, to your fellow nurses. You will have to become wily and deceptive and guarded. Do you think you have it in you to do that? Practice deception every day? It’s far too much to ask of you, mademoiselle, for you are a person of integrity. I see it in your work. It’s an awful thing to ask, but the wounded Allies, if found, will become prisoners of war and may be transported to Germany. Most likely they will die en route, if they are actually transported there and not shot outright.” She lowers her gaze to the teapot.
Marie-Thérèse, hearing her father’s voice urging caution, closes her eyes a moment.
“Pardonnez-moi,” she says finally, “I want to help. But I…have failed my family once already. Especially my mother. My being here at the school causes her daily heartbreak. And now, Jacques…I’m so sorry, Matron. But you have my word that I will never reveal our conversation.”
“Merci. I will see you tomorrow then, though tomorrow is already here and you need your rest. Bonne nuit.”
“Bonne nuit, Matrone.”
At the door, Marie-Thérèse pauses. “Please don’t ask that of Liese.”
“No?”
“No. You must not.”
“Can you tell me why?”
“I…confided in her once and she…betrayed that confidence.” Words causing shame to flood through her. What is she herself doing right now, if not being disloyal? Not just to Liese but the matron. Above all, the matron. And betraying, even, her chosen profession.
