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

turned left toward the hotel. The street lay in shadow, but the sun, still heavy and warm in the July sky, made its presence known as it settled in the west. It was after nine in the evening and daylight would linger for another hour. There was time, before she trundled off to bed, to read a book, think about what John had said, and consider why love had deserted her.

* * *

The night, soft and languorous, drifted through the window like a secret lover. Virginie was fast asleep, her face turned away from Emma toward the wall. The silky July air stole across her body, caressed her skin like warm fingers. In the dark, Emma shifted restlessly on her bed and remembered a day long ago at her parents’ Berkshires farm near summer’s end when the air blew warm and soft through the window as well.

In the July heat, the sky flashed over Paris. The thunder’s low rumble assured her the threat was only rain, not a German attack. She rose from bed and watched as the clouds descended in dark veils over rue Monge. The rain began as soft sprinkles, but soon curtains of water lashed the street and cascaded down the gutters.

A deep sadness enshrouded her, when she remembered the melting faun in her Boston courtyard. But the memory of the faun shifted into an image much more unsettling—and her anger rose, despite the cooling rain, because she knew, as a woman, she had had no other choice. Much of her soul died that day.

* * *

Emma had tossed and turned, thinking about when American soldiers might arrive at the Studio for Facial Masks. The doughboys were increasingly involved in the war, but it was too early for Americans to appear on her doorstep, she concluded in restless musings before dawn. The Yanks fought their first battle at Cantigny during the last days of May, and Emma knew American soldiers would eventually need the studio’s services. However, months, possibly years, of hospitalization and operations lay ahead of a soldier before he could make his way to the studio.

Regardless, Emma was unsure about the nationality of the man who arrived one day after her disquieting thoughts. The soldier, attired in a Canadian uniform, had healed from his last round of surgeries. At first glance, she thought his recovery, accented by a splotchy redness of the skin, might be too soon for the mask. He was tall, blond, with a thin frame like her husband, and couldn’t speak, or chose not to, because of his injuries. The whole of his lower jaw was obliterated on both sides, as if someone had taken a knife and scooped out his face below the nose, like melon from the rind. However, something about him touched Emma: the way he regarded her with his eyes, the only part of his face, it appeared, unaffected by his injuries.

He sat in the alcove and curiously stared at her as she continued to work in the casting room. Virginie hovered over the man, asking questions in her best English, smiling and laughing in her natural role as nurse to the afflicted. Emma observed her interactions with the soldier as judiciously as she could. Her assistant asked questions and the soldier penned the answers on paper, using the alcove table as a writing desk. After one particular question, the soldier shook his head and scribbled violently across the page. Virginie nodded and walked into the studio.

“He wants to begin,” Virginie said. “His stomach is upset. He thinks he may be sick.” She thrust out the paper so Emma could read the scrawled writing.

“Show him to the washroom before we get started,” Emma said. “I have questions for him as well.”

Virginie nodded, returned to the alcove, and led the soldier down the hall.

Emma picked up the medical file the nurse had left on the desk. The soldier’s name was Ronald Darser, a native of Chicago, an American, but assigned to the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade. The notes from the field hospital read: Mouth shot away from gunshot wound to chin. Fractured mandible with large loss of bone in symphysis region. Tongue extracted. The soldier had been injured at the Third Battle of Ypres, the Battle of Passchendaele, in April 1917. The file described an extensive list of surgeries, including a pedicle tube from his chest to chin to replace the missing portion of the chin, skin grafts, more pedicles, enlarging of the mouth and extraction of teeth. A difficult case, not only because of the disfigurement, but because the soldier had no hope of ever speaking again.

After a few minutes, the soldier reappeared in the hall, Virginie following him to Emma’s desk in the casting room. The man stood stiffly in front of her until she asked him to sit down.

“From your file, I’ve studied the nature of your injuries, Private Darser,” she said in a soft voice to allay any fears the soldier might have. “I’d like to ask you a few questions before we start the first cast. Is that all right with you?”

The soldier nodded.

“If you would be so kind,” Emma continued, “please write your answers on this paper so I can include them in your file.” She pushed a clean sheet across her desk and handed him a pen. “Do you have any allergies to dust or plaster?”

The soldier shook his head and wrote, No, holding the pen tightly in his right hand.

“How about allergies to metals, copper in particular?”

He looked at Emma intensely and wrote, Surgical steel, perhaps.

Emma studied the soldier quizzically. She thought the answer odd, but instead of questioning him decided to offer sympathy instead. “I can understand your aversion to surgery after having gone through so many operations. The whole ordeal has been very painful, I’m sure.”

He stared at her with his unflinching gaze. The strange color of his eyes, like the pale turquoise of thick winter ice, unsettled her. She shifted in her chair and rubbed her fingertips against