These Good Hands

by Carol Bruneau

  One afternoon I went to his office. Through the door the usual pounding and clanging resounded. Monsieur took forever teasing me with his tongue, a luxurious torture. Just as my breathing matched his, the hammering was replaced by knocks. Sharp, rapacious ones.

  “Auguste?” A shrill, shrewish voice penetrated the closeness. The doorknob rattled; against the pane the blind shook, Monsieur’s visiting note whisking across the floor. Peering between the slats was a face, with steely hair and a scowl that in Villeneuve had made Maman’s seem beneficent. “I know you’re in there, and she’s with you — your little strumpet! The filthy slut!”

  Monsieur’s cheeks matched the yellow-grey in his beard. He hiked up his trousers and slunk out like a man facing the guillotine, quietly shutting the door behind him. Their quarrelling pierced the air, the rest of the atelier stock-still. Her voice was a siren, the alarming kind. His, a mincing sputter. I made myself small, as small as you playing hide-and-seek behind a rock.

  “Introduce us!” the housekeeper shrieked. “What, she isn’t decent enough to meet me?”

  “Of course she is, she already has … met you. Be sensible, Rose. We were discussing work.”

  “Work! You enjoy working each other to the bone.”

  Yes dear, I heard, no dear, then his simpering “Of course. Dinner at eight. As always. No later. I promise, I do.”

  The siren abated and the clonk of her buttoned-boot heels faded. Re-entering the office, he averted his gaze.

  “My fault for keeping her on all these years,” he said in that charming, shameless way of his. “Do you know, I’ve lost count of how many she’s worked for me.” Laughing, he swept aside his desktop sketches. I was to ignore her, to forgive her delusions, her self-importance — pathetic, he said, but understandable given her lowly position. “The poor thing, with her limited brains an employer’s loyalty is bound to be misinterpreted.”

  He embraced me reassuringly.

  “Ah, women. Why can’t they all be like my Mademoiselle? My loyalty’s to you, my dear — I’m in your debt for all you give me.” And he mentioned my hands, the many, many pairs of hands which I had produced, single ones too, fragments. “The more gnarled and desperate, the more gorgeous. Their reach exceeding their grasp. The essence of our aspirations, of the plight that damns us all?” It was enough to put you to sleep, C. You’d have been in dreamland before he got to the point. “You capture the emotion of my Gate in a single gesture.” He could’ve continued. We both know my creations were beautiful. But he sighed. “Such a process isn’t for the weak or faint-hearted, is it.”

  He snapped his fingers and went to check on the armature, the half-size skeleton of wire and wood for his figure’s next incarnation. If all went well, my modelling of his next maquette would be the design for another armature, only full-scale, and eventually, for the final plaster and bronze versions. “Instant fame for you, Mademoiselle.” So I was happy enough to do it, though my own work beckoned. Perhaps Danaïd’s water-hauling describes the sculptor’s lot? You tell me.

  ***

  AWAITING YOUR VERDICT, I am yours, always. X

  I3

  I WILL DO ALL IN MY POWER …

  MONTDEVERGUES ASYLUM

  MONTFAVET, VAUCLUSE

  12 SEPTEMBER 1943

  Mademoiselle’s brush with occupational therapy necessitated serious bathing. “I don’t see why she resists,” I let slip to Head while making conversation, a glib observation because of course I had a pretty good idea of the reason.

  Our supervisor quit shuffling charts long enough to look up. “Wouldn’t you?” Her voice was just a little abrasive. “I’m sure hydrotherapy helped at some point. But all these treatments take their toll, Poitier. No accounting — no denying either — how troubled minds see cure as culprit. Don’t be too rigorous. You’ll wash her properly when the reaper comes. Meantime, I don’t need to remind you, it’s her happiness that counts.” No argument there.

  At least Mademoiselle is constant in her quirks and inconsistencies; it’s those of the otherwise sane and reasonable in life that feel harder to negotiate. For all our supervisor’s resolve, Head can flip-flop overnight on some matters. One never knows which matters they’ll be. Novice frequently rolls her eyes behind her back; the trouble is, Head’s own eyes are evidently in the back of her head.

  “Before you two go on duty,” she began today, “I’m reminding you both. No correspondence and no patient information leaves the building without written approval. Do I make myself clear?”

  Dr. Cadieu emerged from a ward and asked if anything was amiss.

  Head waved the Dead and Delete EEG folder — empty, of course. “It’s come to my attention, Doc —”

  “Discarded test results are to be destroyed, yes?” Cadieu eyed her strangely. “And?”

  I anxiously raised my hand, I’m not sure why. It wasn’t as if I were being quizzed, though it felt almost as awkward, discomfiting. “They’re in Mademoiselle’s room — for drawing on.” I was perfectly matter-of-fact.

  “Better that than letter-writing,” Head exclaimed. “But since these tests — the hospital’s property, I caution you — are highly confidential, the patients’ families would scarcely approve —”

  “Nonsense,” Cadieu interrupted. “The tests are quite anonymous, none of the patients living. They were going to be destroyed anyway — correct? Good for you, Poitier, finding some use for them.” Reaching into her pocket, she produced a grimy ball of string. “From our patient in 102 — like a little bird making a nest, isn’t she just?” Cadieu deposited the twine in Head’s palm.

  “What are you waiting for?” Head gave me a nudge. “Doesn’t your Mademoiselle need tending to?”

  It’s nearly impossible to speak around Head in her presence, but who knew when next I’d catch Cadieu? “Doctor. Do you know anything,” — I felt a little ridiculous asking, as if party to a patient’s delusions — “about a statue?”

  Cadieu looked at me, bemused.

  “One belonging to Mademoiselle, or someone. Who might have it? The patient’s brother, perhaps? Do you suppose,” I hesitated, wishing Head would give herself a tea break, or something, “suppose I might write and ask him?”

  “For goodness’ sake, Poitier! If by now you can’t tell when you’re being had, may I suggest —”

  Dr. Cadieu silenced Head with her look. “As you see fit — with the directeur’s approval, naturally. But I caution you, Nurse. Some of us have been down that path before.” She gave me a tired wink, then scurried away, the spongy squeak of her soles receding with the comfort of her presence.

  As if only just remembering it, Head tugged a postcard from her pile of charts, passed it over. Not war issue, it pictured Lyon Cathedral. According to the postmark, the card had taken almost four weeks to get here; it seemed much longer since I’d had contact with anyone beyond the village, or received more than Vichy-approved post, with its safe little statements and boxes ticked by the sender — I am well. Oui √/ Non. The weather is fine. Oui/Non√ — missives that gave away nothing. At the instantly familiar handwriting on the back, the neatly crossed t’s, my heart goose-stepped.

  ***

  TO MY ALARM, I found Mademoiselle still in bed. What showed of her hands and wrists below her sleeves were mud-stained despite all attempts to sponge them clean. I told her, maintaining a cool, collected tone, that I saw no reason why she couldn’t get up and eat with the others. “Why not take breakfast in the dining room?” I tried to make it sound like a hotel’s, if not three stars, two. The blanket drawn to her chin, she gaped back sourly.

  “It’s only that a little walk would do you good, not to mention the change of scene. You must get up, Mademoiselle. We can’t have you lying in.”

  The patient waved her hand as if conducting some small symphony. “The way they chew, Miss Poitier! Their table manners! To sit for two minutes with these lunatics is enough to send any sane person to an early grave.”

  “Well, yes,” — di
plomacy in all things, that cardinal rule — “maybe it’s not the most pleasant pastime, watching others eat.”

  “I would rather starve.”

  “Yes, dear — now tell me something I haven’t heard.” I smiled gently. Encouragingly. “First off, let’s get you to the bathing room, shall we?”

  Complying, the guest pushed both legs over the bedside with the care of a stooped old bird, allowed me to guide her feet into her shoes. A case of corns on the left one, but of lesser concern than when she tried to stand and both knees buckled. I managed to catch her just in time.

  “Spared, for now,” I tried to make light of it. “The things you’ll do, dear, to get out of having a bath!” But it was hardly a joking matter. She’d gone quite pale and needed assistance simply to lie down again. “That’s it, now. Relax and stretch out.”

  Carefully tugging into place any clothing that had ridden up, I eased the patient’s knees sideways to turn her, arranged the pillow to properly support the neck, and tucked her in nicely. This was the practice I was trained for. Of course we could’ve used more pillows, thin as they are; one for under the knees, one between them, an extra for the shoulders. It wasn’t the first time I’d experienced the pang of missing Lyon’s Hôtel-Dieu, and I felt for Sister’s postcard in my apron.

  Curled up, childlike, Mademoiselle had a look of gratitude that threw me off. She gestured to the graph paper on the table, with its red tracings. The sheet on top was crammed with sketches of skeletal hands and feet.

  “You did these yourself, love?” There’s nothing like a little wit offered kindly.

  I slipped out just then to ring for a basin. While waiting for it I peeled back the covers, quickly lifted the patient’s skirt and pulled down her drawers. Remarkably, she made no protest. Her condition was less of a surprise. The skin of her haunches was flaccid and sallow. There was the definite start of a pressure sore to the left of her tailbone, a nasty location when it comes to healing. When Novice finally appeared I sent her straight to the refectory for Mademoiselle’s egg.

  “You need to keep up your strength,” I said, dabbing carefully at the sore. A weakened solution of potassium permanganate might do the trick. “As soon as you’ve eaten we’ll get you up. No rest for the wicked,” I said.

  “You should know to let an old woman die in peace.” For once there was hardly any bitterness in her voice; it was more a misplaced urgency. “Tell me, Miss Poitier — is there news?”

  Feeling once more for Sister’s card, I shook my head.

  “You did do me that favour, Nurse? You’ve seen to it that my brother receives all I send?” Her voice lifted. “He will know where to find Maman,” she said brightly. “You haven’t forgotten your promise?” Reaching between the wall and the mattress, her trembling hand produced an envelope of sorts. Decorated with red zigzags and loosely folded, it was addressed in pencil to some woman in England, I saw, before it fell open and its contents glided under the bed. When I reached to retrieve whatever was there, a set of claws hooked my thumb.

  “She might know where my statue is,” the patient fussed, “my ‘friend,’ being one of his accomplices. Though perhaps she never meant to be.” Then she snapped her fingers. “A pencil, please, and something to write on.”

  Feigning deafness — a selective deafness, important at times — I held up the nailbrush. So much for Mademoiselle’s request. Forgetting it, or at least neglecting it, she gave her hands over to some much-needed attention, suffered it. Such compliance left her flagging against the pillow, though not enough to prevent her querying, “What occupies your head all day, Solange Poitier? Submitting the lunatics to your tortures?” She snatched the letter from where I’d laid it, quivering fingers replacing it inside then painstakingly refolding the envelope. “You will do me the favour of mailing it, of course.” She pushed it into my lap.

  Don’t argue; arguing is pointless. “When you’re feeling stronger we’ll do a proper bath.” What choice, but to slide the item into my pocket?

  “And, if it pleases you, will you do me one small favour? Will you be so kind, and bring a poor, miserable friend the littlest bottle of India ink?”

  ***

  FINALLY, WHILE EMPTYING the basin in the quiet of the utility room, I got out Sister’s post. It was dated August 23rd, more than a week before I’d mailed my first to her.

  My dear Nurse Poitier, she wrote, One trusts that you are safe in your position. Our work proceeds. Who knows how many have been taken, or worse. We’ve lost a surgeon mysteriously — Dr. Feinburg, you remember? — and fear for him. The Archbishop begs the Lord’s mercy. Yet we are told things remain worse farther north. One prays without ceasing. Surrender not one’s hope — despair is of the devil. The peace of Christ be with you. Sister Ursula Agathe, she signed off, Sisters of St. Charles.

  “So you’re missed,” Head cut in, jangling keys. She seemed caught off guard, even more than I was at her intrusion, her look the same as when Cadieu ordered ECT for guests who in her opinion were better placed in cribs. Her chapped lips gave her plainness an almost prissy look. In someone junior it might’ve hinted at sweetness, the self-denying kind, or a certain innocence at least. Maybe I’m just projecting here. “Your friends, the sisters — they should be more careful, if they think Lyon’s being run by the Butcher.”

  Barbie, I knew she meant: Klaus Barbie, a name spat more than spoken the day it came up in the refectory. In the days after Simone’s release, after Cook had remarked vaguely that I had a kind face — why wouldn’t I, since I was always smiling or making every effort to? — I had overheard her whispering with some of the other staff. Klaus Barbie was the Gestapo agent supposedly behind the assassination of Jean Moulin, the hero of the resistance. Moulin’s murder was a blow to the maquisards, those fighting for us where the Vichy cowards refused to — not that I was instantly sympathetic, given what I’d heard of their lawlessness — though one orderly said he was even more of a thorn in the Maréchal’s side now that he was dead.

  Now Head reminded me, “You’re with us, Poitier.” She made no bones about my “former loyalties” to other institutions being “just that — former. You see the need, surely, for a certain — how should I put it? — allegiance. To ours. If we’re to do our best. The guests’ well-being relies on this.”

  Her small eyes fixed on the spot on my chin where a patient had left a small scratch. “Feinburg — that’s Jewish, isn’t it?” She launched into a story, gossip as far as I could tell, about a fellow who might or mightn’t have been “of that persuasion,” but who either way preferred men to women and was rounded up. She said, with that waxy smile of hers, “So perhaps the enemy’s not entirely evil.”

  One of her keys grazed my knuckle when she patted my wrist. “And what I’ve said about Mademoiselle’s delusions? It’s just to save you a wild goose chase. Save you wasting time.” She tapped her temple, smile replaced by a grin. “Don’t let her get the best of you, is all. Don’t worry, even I fell into that trap. The best you can do is pretend to listen. Let her talk, let her see some concern.”

  I busied myself counting camisoles — a freshly laundered stack ready to be hung up — but felt her still looking my way.

  “I tell you for your own good, Poitier. Don’t get drawn in to their dramas. Contravening hospital policy will get you dismissed” — she sucked her teeth, the sound like a syringe being stepped on — “like that.”

  ***

  WHEN I POPPED in to check on her, Mademoiselle’s eyes were closed, mouth open in a snore. The heat in the wards was enough to cause hyperventilation and subdue hysterics. The guest’s latest jottings had slid to the floor, where the cat stretched out on them. I stooped to pick them up, shooing away the pest, and couldn’t help but read, Oh, mon petit, why can’t we be in Paris? Not an hour passes that I don’t long to be in Quai de Bourbon, with Cléome and Algernon, Balzac, Napoleon and Josephine …

  Pinned beneath her elbow was another improvised envelope, its flaps pasted down with
a residue of flour and saliva. It was addressed to the brother. Why don’t you answer me? the note went on. It’s not as though I’m begging you for money.

  Her eyes fluttered open and she smirked, having just pretended to doze. “My progeny, you see? My brood — my cats,” she said, eyes fixing on mine. “Tell me about your little ones.”

  The way she looked at me — it was as if she knew.

  What harm telling her? No one heeds what mental cases pass on; what difference, her knowing?

  It rolled out like a rehearsed recitation: “I gave him up at birth, barely saw his face. I hope he’s prospered, I hope he’s loved.”

  There. I’d said it. The sky hadn’t fallen. What could anyone do? What’s past is past.

  The guest blinked and a weak smile crept over her face. “That’s all? And where is he now?” By some small feat of determination a fly had got in. I swatted at it through the bars and tried with no luck to force it through the opened sash. Giving up, I began gathering up any unused stationery to restore it to the D&D folder, until Mademoiselle’s croak stopped me.

  “Where, might I ask, are you going with that? My friend would renege on a gift?”

  I set the papers down again, all but a couple of blank ones, which I folded and slipped inside my apron. “Just the once, my dear, I’ll ask that you share.”

  “You’re writing to him, your son?” the patient persisted. Her slyness felt almost spiteful. “You must miss him. You must send him a kiss.”

  “No reason to be harsh. I’ve done nothing to hurt you,” my words raced out before I could stop them, like very runny calamine lotion — overshooting the wound, and no returning it to the bottle.

  “To hurt me!” Her laugh was indignant, her breathing a laboured wheeze. Was it new or was I too preoccupied to notice earlier, seeing how prone she was to babbling? “You think this talk of your child causes me no pain, Miss Poitier? If I had a son would I be here? Sons love their mothers best,” she added cruelly — out of envy, perhaps, but still a test to my patience.