Fall of Poppies

by Heather Webb

  Yours faithfully,

  Cpt. G. D. Mancuso

  Company C

  1st U.S. Engineers

  Captain Mancuso. Daniel. The only man she had ever loved.

  She had last seen him on Armistice Day, when bells had rung across Paris and ­people had danced and wept and embraced in the streets, and she had thought, then, that perhaps he might feel the same about her. She had gone home that night dizzy with delight and feverish with excitement—­only it hadn’t been happiness that had provoked such sensations, but rather the Spanish flu.

  The following month had been an achy, shivering blur, and the only voice she could recall from that entire period was her father’s, who had insisted on caring for her personally. As soon as she was able to sit up in bed, she’d written to Mrs. Ladd, who ran the studio, saying she was on the mend and asking after Captain Mancuso. Mrs. Ladd had answered promptly with the disappointing news that he had returned to America, and that she sadly had no notion of where to find him.

  In desperation Daisy had turned to her father, saying only that she was concerned for the welfare of one of the studio’s clients, and wished to assure herself that he was well. But her father had been adamant that it would be next to impossible to find Captain Mancuso, and had refused to discuss the matter any further. Why risk her heart and reputation, he had asked, for a man who had left France without even bothering to say good-­bye?

  She had spent the intervening years convinced that Daniel was indifferent, while Daniel had been told she was dead. Why on earth would her father have perpetuated such a lie? And what had prompted him to hide the letter rather than simply destroy it?

  She read Daniel’s letter again and again, and soon she had memorized its simple words. He had cared for her; she was sure of it. And yet . . . he had thought her dead for almost seven years. He might easily have married since then, and had a family. He might have forgotten about her entirely.

  All true, but simply to know was better than anything else—­better, certainly, than always wondering and wishing and hoping against hope.

  She had to return to America in any case, for she had to deal with her father’s estate, and she had his funeral and interment to arrange. She would have to leave things as they were here, and return later on to pack up the house and make arrangements for the staff.

  “Mr. Bishop!” she called.

  He was at the door in an instant. “Yes, Miss Daisy?”

  “Would you mind coming in for a moment? Thank you. I’m not sure how to ask this, but hear me out. Back at the end of 1918, when I was ill with the flu, do you recall an American officer coming to the door and asking for me? You’d remember him because he was wearing a mask over one eye—­the sort I helped to make at the studio.”

  “I do, Miss Daisy. I didn’t notice the mask at first, but then I realized only one eye was blinking. It was rather, ah, disconcerting.”

  “I guess it can be. Well, I’ve found a letter in my father’s desk, and it’s from that officer. It seems my father may have told him I was dead. Do you remember anything about that?”

  “I do recall his visit. He came to the house one day when you were sick. Your father spoke to him,” Mr. Bishop said, swallowing reflexively. “I didn’t listen to their conversation. I cannot abide an eavesdropper.”

  “Of course,” she said soothingly.

  “Your father took me aside after the officer had left. He told me the man was a cad and a bounder, and a danger to you. He made me swear not to speak of it. I do apologize, Miss Daisy. I thought I was helping to protect you.”

  “As did he,” she whispered.

  And then, because the time for talking was over, she opened another of the desk’s drawers, found some paper and a decent pencil, and began to write out her list.

  PART TWO

  The American Red Cross Studio for Portrait Masks

  Paris, France

  October 20, 1918

  AS DAISY HURRIED along the boulevard du Montparnasse, she reflected on the anniversary she was celebrating, for it was exactly six months to the day—­very nearly to the minute—­since she’d first begun her work at the studio.

  It wasn’t the sort of thing she’d ever imagined she would end up doing, not least because she’d never imagined that such a place as the studio could even exist. The notion that a man might have his face blown apart and yet live, and then be expected to spend the rest of his life exposed to the horror and fear his appearance provoked, was something few ­people had thought of before the war and its chillingly modern apparatus of death.

  Six months ago, however, she had met Anna Coleman Ladd at a dinner party. Mrs. Ladd’s husband was a doctor, brought to France to aid in pediatric care, while Daisy’s father was doing similar work at the American hospitals in Paris. Mrs. Ladd was a sculptor of some renown in Boston, and she’d seemed pretty intimidating to Daisy, who was only just eighteen and not accustomed to being included in the conversations of grown-­ups.

  But there had been something compelling about Mrs. Ladd, too, something that had encouraged Daisy to admit she was bored and restless, and badly in need of something to occupy her days. Mrs. Ladd had told her about the studio she had set up, the sort of work she and her assistants were doing, and had asked if Daisy might be interested in coming to help out with mundane tasks such as making tea and keeping the studio’s clients company during their visits.

  The position was unpaid, of course, for Daisy’s father was wealthy and the studio operated on an exceedingly modest budget, with most of its funding coming from the American Red Cross and the French government. But she hadn’t minded, for the work had promised to be interesting as well as fulfilling.

  At first she’d only been allowed to make tea and tidy the studio and hold the hand of clients who were feeling anxious while casts of their features were being made, for it was a long and uncomfortable process. She had longed to do more, though, and at home, in the evenings, she had taught herself how to paint the iris of a human eye in an entirely realistic fashion.

  Daisy had always enjoyed painting, and had benefited from the tutelage of some enlightened governesses over the years; what she lacked in technique she made up for in attention to detail. She couldn’t block out a landscape or portrait to save her soul, but she could copy almost anything she was shown, down to the last brushstroke. If only forgery were considered a noble career.

  She turned onto the rue de la Grande Chaumière, and then, almost straightaway, onto the rue Notre-­Dame des Champs. Crossing through the high gates and across a courtyard strewn with statuary, none of it the work of Mrs. Ladd, she ran up the five flights to the studio itself.

  “Hello, everyone! Bonjour!” she called out.

  Mrs. Ladd had four proper assistants, all of them trained sculptors, and though sometimes they tended to be serious and even a bit stuffy about Art and Beauty, Daisy liked all of them well enough. Miss Blair was American, with some sort of connection to Harvard University that Daisy hadn’t been brave enough to ask about, while Mr. Vlerick and Miss Brent were English. There was one Frenchwoman, too, Mademoiselle Poupelet, and she was awfully chic, with a severe, geometric haircut that put Daisy in mind of Cleopatra.

  She exchanged hellos with everyone except Mrs. Ladd, who was at her desk attending to some correspondence, and went straight to work on preparing everyone’s tea and coffee. Once that was done and everyone had been furnished with the morning’s first round of refreshments, she set to work on arranging the bunches of marguerites and chrysanthemums she’d bought at the market on rue Cler, clipping the flowers’ stems short and clustering them in old jam jars.

  The day before they’d had a final fitting for a shy and very young Frenchman, perhaps only a few months older than Daisy herself. His injuries had healed months before, but he hadn’t dared to return home, afraid of his mother’s reaction if she were to see his missing jaw and
contorted palate.

  The mask had fitted him perfectly, with only the narrowest line showing where it ended and his face began, and she had been at his side for the final test: a walk along the boulevard du Montparnasse. They had walked arm in arm to the boulevard St.-­Michel and back, and all that way no one had given him a second look. He had been shaking, the poor dear, and when they’d returned to the studio he had gone over to Mrs. Ladd and wept in her arms.

  Today they had a new client coming in at half-­past nine. Mrs. Ladd hadn’t said much about him at all, only that his mask would be a straightforward commission, and that she might consider allowing Daisy to paint the eye.

  Over the past six months, she had become a master at controlling her facial expressions. Before she had begun work at the studio, Mrs. Ladd had given her an envelope of photographs, and had instructed her to sit in front of a mirror and watch her reflection as she looked at the men they depicted. Only once she was able to entirely master her response could she begin.

  It had taken her a week, and many tears shed for the men whose suffering she beheld, but she had done it. She wasn’t indifferent, for no matter how many times she met a man with a ruined face she was horrified, and she likely always would be. It wasn’t his appearance that upset her, though, but his pain.

  By the time men came to the studio they were often beyond despair. They had seen their faces, and they were usually convinced their lives were over, although they still lived. She had grown to dread the look of weary acceptance in their eyes, but she had also discovered the joy of walking along the boulevards with a man who had learned how to hope again.

  That initial flicker of hope—­that was the first step for the men who came to the studio. It was a place where they might sit and talk and feel safe, and when they left for good they did so with a mask that protected them from the worst of strangers’ reactions.

  As for the response of those who loved them best? There was nothing any of them could do about that. She and Mrs. Ladd and the others could only hope that their clients’ families would welcome them with open arms, and one day look upon their injured faces with placidity, understanding, and some degree of acceptance.

  A few minutes after nine o’clock she heard it: the sound of careful, measured steps on the stairs. Sometimes those steps betrayed evidence of other injuries. Sometimes they simply marked a man’s dread of exposing the stark truth of his injuries to complete strangers.

  Daisy and the others always kept at their work when the client arrived. It was for Mrs. Ladd alone to go forward and greet him, and her warmth and unflinching gaze set the bar high for everyone else. Once their director had shown the man around the studio, Daisy was expected to greet him, make him tea if his injuries allowed him to drink comfortably from a cup, and then remain at his side throughout the entire process, especially at uncomfortable or emotionally difficult moments.

  The footsteps were louder now; the new client would be at the door in a moment. Daisy continued with her task for the morning: trimming paper-­thin sheets of tin into narrow, ruffled strips. These would then be painted to match a client’s hair and used as eyelashes for his mask, for Mrs. Ladd thought the metal was more durable than actual hair.

  The door to the studio was ajar, like always, but the man stopped and knocked at it tentatively. He took a step inside, and then another.

  “Hello?”

  Nearly all their clients were French, so his greeting was unusual enough for Daisy to pop her head up quickly, only long enough to see that he was wearing the uniform of an American infantry officer.

  “Captain Mancuso. How very good to meet you. I’m Mrs. Ladd.”

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

  “Do come in, Captain, and allow me to show you around the studio. I’ll introduce you to my colleagues, and then we’ll get started.

  A pause. “Sure thing, ma’am.”

  Daisy couldn’t quite make out his accent, but his voice was strong and clear; without looking up she could tell his palate and jaw were uninjured. She longed to get a decent look at him, just to get a better sense of where he was from, but Mrs. Ladd would not approve. So she kept on snip, snip, snipping, and as she worked she listened carefully as Captain Mancuso was introduced to the other assistants, one after the other. And then their footsteps turned in her direction.

  She wiped her hands on a cloth, for she didn’t want any of the grease from her tin snips to get on his hands, and waited until she was certain Mrs. Ladd and Captain Mancuso were standing in front of her worktable. She looked up and met his gaze, and kept her face perfectly neutral for a count of three. Only then did she smile and extend her hand for him to shake.

  “Captain Mancuso, this is Miss Fields,” Mrs. Ladd explained. “She helps us out here at the studio. If you need anything during your visits—­refreshments, for instance—­she is at your disposal.”

  The man’s injuries were far less severe than some she’d seen, and before the war he must have been accounted a handsome man. He would still be considered as such if he stood in profile with only the left side of his face showing, for he had a straight, high-­bridged nose; dark, wavy hair that was cut very short; and his left eye was a clear, bright green, the exact color of new grass in the spring.

  But his right eye was missing, the occipital bones around it shattered, as was his cheekbone. There were scars around the perimeter of his injuries, too, the skin there a livid red. Perhaps he had been burned as well.

  He tried to return her smile, but it wasn’t reflected in his gaze. That was to be expected, of course, for she hadn’t yet earned his trust. She had to show him that she regarded him as a man, first and foremost, and not as an object of pity or derision. It wouldn’t happen right away, but she was nearly always able to win over their clients, and she felt certain that she could persuade him to be her friend.

  “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain Mancuso. What part of the States do you call home?”

  “New York City. I grew up in Manhattan, just north of Delancey.”

  She widened her smile. “I know exactly where that is. I grew up in the city, too.”

  “Now that you’ve met everyone,” Mrs. Ladd began, “we’ll get down to the work of creating your mask. If I could trouble you to come over and sit in the chair by the window? I need to examine your face in the best possible light. We’ll take some measurements and make some observations, and then make a plaster impression of your face.”

  “Just the bad parts?” he asked, and it was hard to tell if he was fearful or simply curious.

  “Although your injuries are confined to a small area, we like to take the mask of your entire face. That helps to ensure your mask is symmetrical. It is a rather uncomfortable process, I’m afraid, but Miss Fields will remain at your side. Some clients find it helpful to have a hand to hold, you see.”

  By way of answer he nodded, and when Mrs. Ladd and Miss Blair measured points on his face with a pair of calipers and a cloth tape he sat perfectly still, his back ramrod straight, his only movement the steady blink of his remaining eye. If he noticed or was distressed by their discussion of his wounds, he gave no sign of it.

  “I think we are ready to begin the next step,” Mrs. Ladd announced at last. “Mr. Vlerick will mix up the plaster and take an impression. If you’ll excuse me for the moment.”

  Daisy had been standing just off to the side, but now she took up a stool and pulled it close to Captain Mancuso. “May I fetch you a cup of tea? Or a coffee?”

  “A coffee would be nice. Black, no sugar. Thanks.”

  When she returned with the coffee, he gave her another smile, this one much less tentative, and she decided to see if he felt like talking.

  He winced, just a little, at his first swallow of coffee.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, smiling a little. “It’s hot, tha
t’s all.”

  “It’s a good thing you weren’t here for my first efforts at making it. I didn’t use nearly enough coffee grounds, and the results looked a lot like, well, dishwater. Mademoiselle Poupelet was the only person brave enough to tell me, you know. ‘Miss Fields, this café is—­’ow do you say?—­exécrable.’ And I said I was sorry, and next time I would make it stronger, only I was worried that I might accidentally make it too strong, and d’you know what she said? ‘My dear Miss Fields, it is impossible to make the coffee that is too strong.’ So next time I just filled the basket right up with coffee grounds—­you know, the little thing inside the percolator?—­and everyone loved it.”

  This provoked an even wider smile. “How did an American girl like yourself end up here in Paris during a war?”

  “My father oversees the American hospitals here. He’s good at that kind of thing—­he’s a doctor by training, you see—­and so he agreed to come over and help when the army came calling. That was about a year ago. We have a house near the Champs de Mars, which is close enough for me to walk to the studio.”

  “He’s fine with you coming here to work?”

  “I’m not working, not really. I don’t get paid—­that wouldn’t be right. I just come and help out, and it helps me pass the time. Daddy approves . . . I suppose. He knows Mrs. Ladd, you see, and he knows she has a studio here. I didn’t . . . well, he may not be entirely aware of what Mrs. Ladd does here. And I’m not about to tell him, just in case he decides to get all old-­fashioned about it.”

  He’d finished his coffee, so she took his cup to the sink and rinsed it out, and when she returned she decided to ask him a few questions. Nothing pressing or invasive, and she certainly wouldn’t ask about the cause of his injuries.

  “How long have you been in France?” she began.

  “Just about as long as you, I guess. I signed up with the First U.S. Engineers, and we shipped out last summer. We spend most of our time clearing barbed wire, repairing trenches and dugouts, that kind of thing.”