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

shook the man’s hand; several of his fingers were bent and scarred. For those patients without a voice, she kept pen and paper handy when the situation arose. If the man could write, the two could communicate. Writing was much less embarrassing for a soldier than a torturous attempt to decipher words spoken through a mouth destroyed by war.

Even though she had gotten used to the ghastly wounds and mutilations, now and then a soldier appeared who reminded her of someone from her past: the tone of voice, a gesture, a movement often launched a memory. This soldier was no different, sparking a remembrance. Virginie led the man to the reclining chair used for the plaster fittings. Was it the curly dark hair that swirled around the back of his head? Did the texture of his curls remind her of Linton?

Hassan drew the voile sheers over the windows so only soft winter light filtered into the room. They served another purpose as well: they blocked the soldier’s reflection, an image many men couldn’t bear. Reflective objects had no place in the studio, either; the only mirror was tucked safely away in a drawer for her personal use. Virginie often covered the “deformed” plaster faces on the wall with cloth to soften the psychological blow to the new visitor.

Emma asked the man to sit. He stared nervously at the chair, exhaled, and then took his seat.

Virginie patted the soldier’s hand and explained the casting process in soothing French. Emma fastened a barber’s cape around the man’s neck and studied his face. The casting process could be uncomfortable and unsettling even for a soldier who, by the time he arrived at the studio, had undergone many hospital stays and painful reconstructive surgeries.

“His left mandible is gone,” Emma said to Virginie. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such an extreme loss of the septum and upper lip.”

“It is tragic,” Virginie said, “but what are we to expect from this war?”

Emma turned her attention to the soldier, as Virginie asked him if he was ready to begin the first cast.

His cobalt blue eyes shifted and his brows furrowed, as if he was uncertain. Emma had seen such reactions before—not for the indignities suffered in the casting process, but that the man must endure the process at all.

Hassan stood ready with fresh plaster.

“Tell him, he will have to breathe through his mouth with straws,” Emma instructed her. “All right.” She dipped an artist’s brush into the wet plaster. “Let’s begin.”

Hassan bent over the soldier and applied a thin coat of lubricant to the injured area. The soldier flinched, but then leaned back against the chair’s head brace and relaxed somewhat.

Emma inserted two paper straws between the man’s lips. Virginie told him to touch the straws only lightly with his lips so the lack of saliva would keep them from collapsing in his mouth. Emma began by drizzling the plaster onto his left cheek, the nose and upper lip, and then down the disfigured jaw line. Virginie applied cotton bandages to the areas covered with plaster. Emma let the thick, white material cure for fifteen minutes before daubing another coat onto the bandages, building up the injured areas as much as she could, covering them thickly enough to dry into the facial mold.

As Virginie applied the last layer of cotton for strength, the soldier coughed and squirmed in his chair.

“Tell him to relax and breathe normally,” Emma instructed the nurse. Virginie complied, and the man, whose face looked as if a partial death masque had been created over the injuries, slumped in his chair.

“Is he all right?” Emma asked.

The soldier’s eyes widened as if an electric shock had jolted him. He pointed to his mouth.

“Air,” Virginie said. “Perhaps not enough air.”

Emma leaned over the man’s chest. “He’s not breathing.”

The solider swiped at his mouth and clumps of wet plaster and bandages flew over Emma and onto the floor.

Virginie shouted as Hassan held down the man’s arms.

The soldier kicked at Hassan and writhed in his chair, as if he were being tortured.

“Let him go,” Emma shouted.

Hassan released the man’s arms and the soldier jumped from the chair, the last of the plaster and cotton mass slipping from his face to the floor. He coughed, sputtered, and clawed at the remaining bits on his face.

Emma reached for him, but he pushed her away.

He grabbed his coat and scarf, hurriedly put them on, and rushed for the door. He turned and cast his gaze toward Emma, a mixture of horror and unspeakable pain glittering in his eyes.

Emma understood his fear and sorrow and knew the solider would never return. He would be like the young man she saw in Boston, wandering the streets with a cup in his hand, his wounds for all to see. She leaned down to pick up bits of plaster. Virginie and Hassan stood over her as she rolled the material into a ball in her hand. Sadness swelled within her.

“A mistake, Madame,” Virginie said, attempting to reassure her. “How you say, claustrophobia?”

“Perhaps,” Emma said. “I can’t save every one of them. I don’t know why I try . . . why their faces affect me so. . . .”

The soldier disappeared down the courtyard stairs into the silence of the snow. Forcing a sad smile, Emma looked at Virginie and Hassan, but the man’s terror and pain had burrowed into her head.

That evening, in her room, she sketched the soldier’s face as it would have looked with the mask had it been completed: from the casts, to the final clay portrait over which the thin copper would be molded. On paper, she filled in the gaping hole of a mouth, the missing nose and jaw, and a young, handsome man appeared in front of her. She pictured the curve of the jawbone, the angle of the nose and how the metal mask, formed over the mold, would fit tightly and cleanly against his face. His new “skin” would have been French Mediterranean in color,