The Sculptress by V.S. Alexander (ereader for comics txt) 📗

Monsieur Thibault again waved the pistol at Emma and the officer. At his order, they moved in front of a bookcase in the corner.

The soldier walked toward the window as if stalking the enemy and aimed the pistol directly at his reflection. “Mon Dieu, mon Dieu,” he said like a sad prayer and unwrapped the bandage that covered the right side of his head. When he was done, he dropped the dressing on the floor and stared, as if looking into a mirror, at the cavity that was his face.

Emma reached for the soldier.

“Arrêtez!” he yelled and jammed the gun’s barrel into his right temple.

Virginie cried out. Some of the soldiers brought their hands to their faces to wipe away tears while others stared in disbelief at their comrade.

“Monsieur Thibault,” Emma pleaded, “put down the gun. Think of your family.”

The soldier turned to Emma. Tears slid down from his left eye and a piteous smile emerged from the ravaged mouth.

Then, he pulled the trigger.

The injured soldier’s smile contorted into an agonizing twist as the room exploded in a flash, a deafening report, and a cacophony of screams.

Blood splattered across Emma’s white dress.

* * *

Drift away, drift away to sleep, perhaps nothingness, on the night of the Child’s birth.

The police arrived first; a few minutes later, an ambulance. The medical workers carted Monsieur Thibault’s body down the stairs and through the passageway, their breaths ballooning from their mouths, the dead man’s legs and arms splayed across their shoulders.

After the corpse had been removed, Virginie donned an apron and scrubbed the casting room floor with towels, swiping at the wood like a mad washerwoman.

After helping the nurse, Madame Clement, through teary eyes, packed up her records and player and wished Emma and the lieutenant a joyous Christmas. She stared at the bloodstained floor as her son and another man, carrying the phonograph, coaxed her from the room.

The other soldiers, like lost children, straggled down the stairs.

Christmas Eve is a dream. I want no part of it. The war is a dream. I should have been prepared for something like this. I was too wrapped up in the holiday—too wrapped up in my own idea of the perfect party for these soldiers. How stupid of me, not to see this coming. If only the flashes hadn’t happened and Andrew hadn’t pulled the curtain. I saw Monsieur’s rifle, but I never suspected he had a gun. So many kill themselves during the happy times.

Virginie tossed a blood-soaked bandage into a bucket and sobbed.

Lieutenant Stoneman knelt, placing his hands on the nurse’s shoulders, wiping the tears from her cheeks, saying in a steady voice, “Everything will be all right.”

“I can take no more,” Virginie said, wrenching herself away from him. “I’m going to a friend’s house for the holiday.” She stared at her red fingers and the bloodstains streaking her apron.

“Wash up and go to your friend’s,” Emma said. “Hassan and I will finish cleaning up.”

Virginie nodded and rushed from the room.

The remaining three—Emma, Hassan, and the officer—washed the floor until it was cleansed of blood and human tissue; then, they moved the furniture back into place and extinguished the candles. Except for the mistletoe and a few decorations, there was no indication a party had ever taken place.

Hassan said good night and trudged up the stairs.

Emma walked with the lieutenant to the alcove to retrieve the officer’s coat.

His hand lingered on the door. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

Emma looked into eyes filled with concern. “Yes.” She held his hands and studied the thin, elegant fingers. They were red-tipped also, stained by Monsieur Thibault’s blood.

“I can stay with you,” he said.

“I’ll do better alone.” Emma hesitated before speaking again. “It’s not a good idea for you to stay.” She walked back to the casting room and withdrew the drape covering the masks. Her body sank, crestfallen at the sight. “His mask was nearly done.”

The lieutenant followed and then embraced her in his warm arms; the steely odor of adrenaline still clinging to his skin.

She gazed at his face, an invitation to intimacy, her fingers lingering on his chest, feeling the strong beat of his heart.

His eyes shifted in anticipation, drifting toward the ceiling and her bedroom above.

“No,” she said.

He smiled slightly, released her, and returned to the alcove for his coat. He wrote down a telephone number on a piece of paper and handed it to Emma. “I’ll call tomorrow, if you wish. Please telephone if you need me—I mean it sincerely—in the best possible way. Good night, Mrs. Swan. I wish you a Merry Christmas.” He opened the door and descended the stairs.

She walked upstairs alone. Virginie had already left, her bedspread creased with the signs of a hasty departure: Hassan’s door was closed.

Emma lit a fire and the light, warm and cheery, flickered against the walls of the garret. The moon, following its path, oblivious to the turmoil of the evening, still masked the brightness of the stars.

She undressed, shivered in her distress all the way to bed, and ached with sorrow for Monsieur Thibault. Despite her pain, she imagined what it would have been like to invite Lieutenant Stoneman upstairs to her bed for comfort and, perhaps, make love to him; but her thoughts turned to Linton as well, and then her husband. The world seemed as cold and lonely on this Christmas Eve as she could remember and love never farther away from her heart.

Late in the night, the fire died, the moon waned, and a silvery veil of stars shone through the window. Emma listened to the silence, stared into the starry deep, and cried as quietly as she could.

PART FOUR

PARIS JULY 1918

CHAPTER 7

“So you haven’t stopped working, have you?” John Harvey smiled at her from across the studio desk. “Do you have an ashtray in this bloody facility?”

“Virginie?” Emma called out. “Could you get John an ashtray from the alcove?”

Virginie peered around the door. “Yes . . . anything for his lordship.”

John snickered. “Obnoxious leopards