The Sculptress V.S. Alexander (ebooks that read to you .txt) 📖

“Please, Madame,” Claude implored, and lit a cigarette as she sank deeper into the chair.

“I want to talk to my husband,” she said.

“He is drugged. You need to rest.”

“I’m staying here until I can see him. Will he be all right?”

“I’m his doctor,” Claude said. “There’s no better doctor in Toul, except perhaps for your husband.”

He pulled a slip of paper from his laboratory coat. “The desk nurse asked me to deliver this message.” He cleared his throat as if to make an important announcement. “You have received calls and telegrams from—it looks like—her handwriting is terrible—Virginie, Madame Clement, a Moroccan named Hassan, and an insufferable Englishman by the name of Harvey. All have inquired about you and your husband’s health.”

Emma managed a weak smile. “That’s very nice. Please tell the desk nurse to give them my regards should they call again.”

Claude pulled a chair next to hers, and puffed on his cigarette. “Really, Madame, how are you?”

“Still unsettled. My ears keep popping and I can’t believe this has happened. We both knew there were risks.... I owe my life to an unknown Frenchman.”

Claude bowed his head and gazed at the smoke writhing around his hand like a gray snake. “Yes, perhaps never to know his name. Your husband is lucky. There was a great loss of blood, but he was lucky you were there. You might have saved his life. He will walk. There will be scars to deal with—the ones on the left side of his head, his thigh and stomach . . . but . . .”

Emma stared at him. “Yes . . . go on.”

Claude exhaled and coughed. “. . . I worry about one aspect.”

Emma stiffened in her chair.

“The shrapnel sliced into his groin as well as his thigh. I can’t be certain of the effect on his . . .” Claude looked intently at her for a few moments before continuing. “This is a delicate subject, Madame.” He paused and arched an eyebrow allowing Emma to pick up on his inference.

“. . . ability to have sexual relations?”

Claude nodded. “I . . . we’ve tried our best to repair and reconstruct, but the damage may be too much. Salopards de Boches.”

“I understand,” Emma said, ignoring Claude’s pejorative about the Germans. “When can I see him?”

“You can see him now, but he won’t talk.”

“Fine. I’ll sit with him.”

Claude extended his hand and led her to an airy room on the second floor filled with wounded men. Tom, covered to his neck by a white sheet, lay in a bed in the far corner. The doctor pulled up a chair for her. “Maybe you will sleep while he sleeps. When he wakes, he may be able to talk.” Claude looked at his patient. “Your husband is fortunate. Richard told me the shell was a small one—only a 175 millimeter.” An uneasy smile crept across his face.

October 1917

I’m uncertain of the day or time. I know it’s after lunch, but the exact date escapes me. So this is what shock does to the body? I’ve drifted in and out of sleep for endless hours, my head resting on Tom’s bed. I begged for a sheet of paper and a pencil from a nurse so I could record my thoughts and translate them later to my diary. Seeing Tom in the hospital, swathed in bandages, has had quite the opposite effect I would have imagined. My compassion is often overpowered by my boiling anger at him for his blind dedication and my selfish unwillingness and ignorance about how to be a nurse.

Through my hazy thoughts, I ask myself why this happened! Not only why this has happened to Tom, or even us, but to me. It’s not fair, I keep thinking. Sometimes the hideous thought that Tom deserves his injuries because of his bullheaded devotion to medicine slips into my head, but then I look at my rage and see how displaced it is. I’m angry because I see the tenuous bond between us disintegrating even further. What if he dies? The thought of losing him makes me wither in pain. So much unsaid, so much guilt, and doubt about our lives now and going forward. This war conspired against us and nothing I can do will change our situation. And to know that Louisa has written Tom about Linton—I could throw the letter in her face and curse her for the damage she’s done.

I must end because the nurse is eyeing me queerly. She wants to change Tom’s bandages, and for me to move away from his bed.

The shell roared toward her, the acidic smell of fear rising from her skin. Emma struggled with the dead soldier until she awoke screaming and kicking, gripping the arms of the chair.

Tom, his eyes heavy lidded and nearly closed, looked at her. The room was dark except for a rectangular slab of white light that glimmered like a ghost in the doorway.

“You kicked the bed,” he whispered.

Emma pried her hands from the chair and leaned toward him. “I was having a nightmare. The shell was headed . . .” She picked up a clean cloth from the nightstand and swabbed Tom’s forehead. Patches of blood oozed through the gauze on the left side of his face. “You’re talking. How do you feel?”

“Like a mule kicked me in the gut.”

“Tom—”

“Shsssshh, we’ll wake the other men.”

“You’ve been dead to the world for nearly two days. I’m happy to hear your voice.”

Emma desperately wanted to ask him the question—Why did you want to see me?—to inquire about the letter she found at the cottage; but if ever the circumstances were wrong, at this early hour, long past midnight, so soon after his injury, this was the time.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk,” he said, “but I think it had better wait.”

Emma stroked his hand. “It’s all right. We can have long conversations when you’re well. I’ll be here as long as it takes for you to