Nightingale
Page 24
He moved the sofa, and his breath splintered out of him.
Fritz. The man lay broken amidst the rubble, russet blood sopping his shirt, his face pasty as he stared up at Peter.
“You’re late,” he said, his voice so thin Peter had to hold his breath to hear it. He crouched next to him. “I must have run into a patrol—I…” His jaw tightened, his eyes waxy as he squeezed out a groan. “They shot me.” He lifted his hand to reveal a thumb-size hole ripped through his gut. Peter pulled away his shirt, grimaced at the damage.
At best, he’d lacerated his liver.
Peter’s expression must have betrayed him because Fritz released a harsh, bitter chuckle that sounded more like a cough. “Yeah. That’s what I thought. I guess this is what I get, huh?”
“You need surgery. I need to get you to the hospital.”
“Yeah. Sure. Like you’re going to save my life.”
Be found in grace.
“I might.”
“Why would you do that for me, Doc?”
Be found in forgiveness.
He pressed his hand to Fritz’s forehead. Cool, slick. Like the man might be going into shock.
“We’re going to need a wheelbarrow or something. I’ll be right back.”
He edged back to the alleyway entrance. There—the woman with the pram. Perhaps—
Up close, she might have been twenty and, once upon a time, lovely, with her regal cheekbones, dark sable hair. Round hazel eyes. They looked at him with a fear, however, that reeled inside, unhinged him. “I won’t hurt you. I just need your pram.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I need it.”
“I’ll bring it back.”
“And what will you give me for a day’s work lost?”
What would he pay—wait. “Chocolate? Coffee? Canned beef?”
Her mouth opened. She glanced at the soldiers now lounging in the sun. “You’ll return it?”
“By this evening. Right here.”
She got up, nodded.
He strolled back to the alleyway, waited for her to follow.
They made the exchange as she dumped out the rubble from the carriage. She tucked the bag into her coat, buttoning it against what looked like a pregnancy bulge.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t lie to me, sir.” Her eyes searched his and he couldn’t help but reach out, touch her cheek.
“I’m a doctor. I promise, I’ll keep my word.”
He received a ghost of a smile, and for a pause, she leaned into his hand.
He left it there until she slipped away, cradling her bundle.
Then, moving the divan, he hoisted Fritz into the pram. “Try to keep your mouth shut,” he said, checking the wound again then positioning Fritz’s hand over it. “I’d like to stay alive.”
Be found in courage.
“God, we could really use Your deliverance right now.”
Fritz’s eyes flickered over him, stayed one long moment before closing, his jaw tight for the journey.
“How did you get in here?” Nurse Glennis, her red hair in a snood, cut away Fritz’s shirt, dropping the sodden cloth into a tray. She’d known Peter immediately, helped him wheel Fritz down the corridor and into an exam room. Now, with the blinds closed, the smells of antiseptic righting him back to himself, a stethoscope around his neck, he let his heartbeat slow, paced out his examination.
He palpated Fritz’s abdomen. A general rigidness, which probably meant internal bleeding. Fritz didn’t have long if Peter didn’t get inside him, close off the bleeders, repair his liver.
Even then, probably not, thanks to the staph infections rampant in the hospital.
“I came in the ambulance entrance, in the back.”
“Is that where you got the jacket too?” She indicated the white lab coat, the one he’d buttoned over his bloody clothes. Unfortunately, the blood seeped through, staining it. He snapped on gloves, began to probe the injury.
Fritz had passed out halfway to the hospital, which had made the journey that much easier.
“He’s lost a lot of blood. We’ll need a transfusion before we can operate. And in the meantime, we’ll need to pack his wound.”
“You’re not going to operate, are you?”
He looked up at her. She seemed younger than Rachel, with a round face, freckles. “Where’s Rachel?”
“She left this morning.”
“And the doctor on call?”
“He’s here, in the hospital. I can find him—but you need to go. Now, before they find you.” She had hazel eyes, flecked with green, and knew too much.
“I didn’t kill that Russian.”
“Of course not. But we have to report a gunshot wound.” She raised an eyebrow. “It’s going to look like you were involved. You need to leave.” She handed him hot, moist gauze, and he used it to pack Fritz’s wound as she inserted the IV line for the transfusion.
Fritz’s waxy color suggested he might be too late. Peter shoved a rolled towel under his legs, bending them to lessen the pressure on his abdomen.
“We don’t have time to track down the doctor. I need to get in there and see what the damage is, try and stop the bleeding.”
She checked the blood flow then glanced at him. “You might be right, but we have a new nurse in charge. She’s not going to let you operate. I know you’re a doctor, Nightingale—the entire nursing staff does, but we’ve had Russians patrolling our halls all night, looking for you.”
“Why me?”
“They interrogated Elise. She told them about you, about the milk—and there were others.” She took Fritz’s pulse, not looking at him. “People are hungry. You can’t blame them.”
No, maybe not.
Be found in strength.
“Listen, Glennis. I’m going to roll him down the corridor and into the surgical theater. And you’re going to carry the IV. And should the Russians see us… Well, I’ll put myself in God’s hands.”
“I hope that’s enough.” She opened the door, glanced out into the hall, then nodded and returned for the IV bag. He wheeled Fritz out.
This early in the morning, patients overflowing into the corridors slept on cots, on gurneys. A woman in a grimy housecoat cradled a child, a graying bandage encasing his hand. The wheels rattled as Peter pushed Fritz over rivulets in the marble. Fritz jerked, groaning.
They passed the nurses’ station, and he didn’t look up to meet eyes with the new duty nurse. Hopefully she’d believe he was a doctor—an American doctor.
He let himself breathe when he saw the station was empty.
Glennis opened the double doors into the surgery theater. Flicked on the overhead lights. They bathed the table, the ceramic basins, the saline solutions, the scrub sinks. “We’ll need help. A scrub nurse and an anesthetist—”
“Stay here. Prep the catgut, drape him, and prepare the tray. I’ll scrub in.” Yes, he needed an anesthetist….
“Doctor—”
Shouting at the end of the hall made him grab up a mask, press it to his face. Glennis’s eyes widened as the doors slammed open.
“Shto eta znachet?”
Peter didn’t need the translation to understand; what’s going on in here? The tone of the solider—ruddy-faced, dark hair, yes, he recognized him as one of the guards standing sentry this morning, his beefy hand on the door, the other on the butt of a revolver at his belt.
Peter’s gaze flicked back to Glennis. She placed a hand on Fritz’s leg.
He spoke in English. “What you are doing here, in my theater?”
The soldier left the door ajar, pressed into the room, right up to Glennis. Peter wanted to embrace her when she stood her ground.
The Russian pressed two fingers into her sternum, and she winced as she stepped back.
He pulled the sheet away from Fritz, considered his wound.
Lifted his gun from his holster and pressed it to Fritz’s head.
“Stop! Perestan!” Oh…what… “Please. Don’t. Nyet!” Peter s
lapped the soldier’s arm, the shot detonating onto the stone floor, spearing the silence, reverberating down the hall.
Glennis screamed.
The Russian turned on Peter, yanking his mask from his grip.
A smile pressed up his face, probably at the beating betrayed on Peter’s. Or perhaps the guilt.
Peter swallowed.
The soldier raised the gun, grabbing Peter up by the collar. He pressed the gun to Peter’s temple. Peter closed his eyes.
Be found in hope.
“Don’t. Please.” The voice, small as it was, slid right over him, inside him, catching his breath. Two footsteps into the room. He held still, opened his eyes.
“We need all the doctors we can get. And I know you don’t want to kill an American.”
“Nyet Americanitz.“
“Yes, yes, he is. American doctor.” The nurse came over to Peter, stepped in front of him, faced the soldier. “Yes, he’s one of ours.”
The soldier’s gaze could have burned right through her into Peter, but she stood there while the man narrowed his eyes. Then, even as Peter’s heart bled through his ribs, the soldier pointed his gun at Fritz.
The shot shook Peter clear through, his knees buckling.
The nurse turned, held him up as the Russian left.
Glennis stood in the corner, her hands pressed to her mouth, shaking. “Oh…oh…oh…”
“Shh. It’ll be okay. I promise. It’ll be okay.” The duty nurse crossed over to her, pulled her to herself, held her. Then she looked at Peter.
Blue eyes, sweet and kind, just as he’d remembered, and that pretty, cherry-red half smile that could put the stars into his world.
Esther.
CHAPTER 21
Dear Peter,
Did I ever tell you about the night I met you? No, not at the camp, or even later, when you appeared at the hospital, but that night I returned home to find your letter.
I’d just finished patching up a soldier—you remember him, Charlie. He flung himself from the top floor of the hospital and lay in a coma the night of the fire. You dragged him to safety.
Of course you remember him.
And, you might be heartened to know that Charlie found his way back to us.
But you need to know our conversation that night, between Charlie and me. As he stood on the roof, contemplating his ability and need to fly, to end his anguish with life, he said to me, “I can’t live like this. I ain’t got nobody.”
His words stung me because I terribly understood. I had no one.
Then out of my mouth came these words.
“I do know that we all gotta believe that there’s something bigger ahead of us. Something better. That God isn’t laughing at the way our lives turned out. Maybe He’s even crying.”
You walked into my life that night.
And I believe that God smiled.
I cannot return to the woman I was before you. I’d rather hold on to the hope of something brilliant than reach for something that will never shine. And Dr. Casey knows this too. Compassion, and even pity, does not a marriage make.
No, it must be built on the amazing gift God delivers to us through each other.
I realized that I cannot be in his arms and think of you. It’s not fair to him. Or you. Or even me.
I am blessed to be a woman who has the peace to say no, to thirst no more.
You may never be in my arms. But it is enough that you were in my life.
Esther
Esther finished speaking, not looking up from the letter. Behind them dusk fell over the city, the blackening Frauenkirche, the Opera House, the steel bones of the city. As if God had taken the sky and pinched it, spilling blood, crimson spilled out across the sky, the cumulus bruised. But behind it, into the waste of the night, stars tumbled like debris, diamonds for the gleaners.
She could still take his breath clean from his chest. If anything, she’d only turned more beautiful, the gentle curve of her smile, those eyes that flicked up now at him, the curl of her hair. She had a way of sighing that could undo him, and she wielded it now as she tucked the note into her apron.
“I never sent it.”
“Why not?”
She glanced up. “Maybe the letter was more for me than you.”
“No. Believe me, it was for me.” Oh, he wanted her in his arms. But since she’d taken Glennis away from the carnage, ordered him to wash, to shave, to hide himself in the call room, she hadn’t returned.
For most of the day, he’d considered her an apparition.
Until she appeared in the doorway, gestured for him to follow.
He would have followed her anyway, she should know that. Or—
“You never wrote to me. I—I thought you might have died.”
“I got your letters yesterday.” Yesterday. Had it really only been last night that he’d littered them, one by one, into the Elbe?
“Yesterday.” She said the word as if testing it. “Yesterday.”
“Yes. Rachel found them. At the Red Cross center. I would have written, I—”
“Yesterday.”
He lifted a shoulder.
She ran her fingers under her eyes. “So—if you’d gotten them sooner—”
“I would have written. I would have told you that—that I—” He closed his eyes. “Nothing’s changed for me, Esther. I still love you, probably more, although I know that’s not reasonable. I think—well, maybe one can fall in love with the hope of love, and that might be enough.”
“It’s reasonable.” She pressed her fingers to her mouth, looked over at him with eyes that he couldn’t bear. “I came here…because I’m a foolish girl. Because although I no longer thirsted, I did hope. I…” Her voice broke, turned high, soft. “Hoped that you missed me.”
“I missed you. I promise I missed you.”
Her mouth curved then, sliding through him, over the raw places, healing. His mouth dried with the power of it.
Be found in love.
“Esther—” But she was already in his embrace. Already curling her arms under his, around his shoulders, pulling herself close.
Already lifting her face to his.
Already kissing him.
Oh, she tasted like…like she belonged to him. Sweet, and rich, and surrendering to his touch in a way that made him want to weep.
But he didn’t. He held on, kissed her back. Molded her body to his.
His.
Be found in peace.
When he pulled away, he simply held her, smelling the lavender of her hair, feeling her curves settled against him, her soft sigh as the sky winked over them.
“The stars here are the same as home.” She leaned back, and he brushed his lips on her cheekbone.
“What stars?” he murmured.
She giggled, healing him through as he kissed her again, softly, sweetly.
Be found in joy.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Did you know that, in 1945, Wisconsin and Minnesota hosted German POWs in over 140 POW camps throughout the state? In fact, America held over 200,000 German POWs from 1942-1946. What’s most interesting is that these POWs worked on farms and in canneries throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota, and other states, right next to first-generation German immigrants who, ten years earlier, might have been their neighbors. Indeed, some of the German immigrants had family fighting for Germany, and relatives in the very POW camps nearby. I read a newspaper account about a woman who was moved because she heard hymn, sung in German (her native language) coming from inside the camp, which was housed just across the street from her home. It made me realize that beneath the stamp of enemy just might be a fellow Christian, pressed into serving their country. An even bigger theme in Nightingale was, just because someone made a mistake once, did he or she deserve to be imprisoned inside that mistake forever? I applied this theme broadly to both Peter and Esther. Esther might be healer, but she’s trapped inside her sins, unable to see God’s grace setting her free. And I wanted Peter to see that hi
s service in the war might be to fight the demons that held her captive. His story is a Daniel story, of sorts-a prisoner sent into a forgiven land to do good and hold onto faith. Esther’s story is that of the woman caught in sin—and set free to sin no more. Both of them have to surrender themselves into God’s hands, to let Him set them free and mold them into who He wants them to be.
If you have made a mistake, don’t let it mold your life. Let God set you free with His grace, His forgiveness, and discover who you are when you let God take over. Be found in Him.
Thank you for reading Esther and Peter’s story.
In His Grace,
Susan May Warren
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