The Nightingale Christmas Show

by Donna Douglas

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ Miss Tanner looked dazed.

  They finished the round quickly after that, and Charlotte was quietly satisfied when she heard Miss Fox say, ‘Would you come to my office and see me later, Sister?’

  ‘Yes, Matron. Of course.’

  Now she’s for it, Charlotte thought. Miss Tanner might be a good friend, but Matron would not tolerate mistakes with patients. She risked a glance back at the ward sister’s anxious face. It served her right.

  Charlotte could hardly look at Miss Tanner when she arrived half an hour later for her meeting with Matron. She tried to concentrate on the new student applications she was supposed to be working on, but she couldn’t stop herself straining to listen to the voices coming from the other side of the door.

  They were in there for a long time. Charlotte had almost started to feel sorry for the ward sister when the door suddenly opened and the pair of them emerged.

  ‘Now, remember what I said, won’t you?’ Miss Fox was saying. ‘I’m always here if you need to speak to me.’

  ‘Thank you, Matron.’

  Charlotte stared at them, bemused. Why was Matron patting her arm like that? And why was Miss Tanner smiling? She had almost been expecting tears.

  She watched Matron ushering the ward sister out, quietly furious. She was still frowning when Miss Fox closed the door and turned back to her.

  ‘Miss Davis, what’s all this I’ve been hearing about the Christmas show?’ she asked.

  Charlotte looked up at her sharply. ‘I don’t know, Matron. What have you been hearing?’

  ‘Someone told me you had a near rebellion on your hands at the first meeting?’

  Charlotte felt the heat rising in her face. ‘I really don’t know—’ she started to say, but Miss Fox cut her off.

  ‘This show is supposed to be an entertainment, not a punishment,’ she said. ‘I know it’s difficult for you, but please try not to antagonise people.’

  Charlotte puffed out her cheeks. ‘I’m sure I haven’t deliberately set out to—’

  But Miss Fox had already closed her office door behind her.

  Charlotte glowered at the list on the wall. No prizes for guessing who had been telling tales, she thought bitterly.

  She pulled the list from the wall, ripped it up and tossed the pieces of paper into the wastepaper basket. Very well, if Matron wanted chaos, then that was what she would get.

  Of course, everyone else was delighted when they found out they could come up with their own acts, and soon they were lining up in the office to add their names to Charlotte’s new blank list. But far from being relieved about it, all Charlotte could feel was despair. There was no order or shape to it at all, and there were far more performers than they had time to include. At this rate, the Christmas show would still be going on by Boxing Day, she decided.

  She gazed over the assembled muddle at the first rehearsal and wished Miss Tanner was there to see the chaos she had helped to create. But typically, when she really wanted the ward sister there, she was nowhere to be found.

  ‘We had a late admission on the ward, Assistant Matron,’ Philips, a student nurse, explained. ‘Sister sends her apologies and says she’ll be here as soon as she can.’

  ‘Well, this is most inconvenient,’ Charlotte said. ‘Who is going to play the piano for us?’

  ‘I can do it, if you wish.’ Miss Trott stepped forward.

  ‘You?’ Charlotte stared at her.

  ‘Why not, if it will help? I have nothing better to do while I’m waiting to perform my song. But I’m warning you, I’m rather rusty.’ The ward sister propped her music up on the stand and seated herself at the piano, smiling round at everyone.

  They all stared back at her, and for once Charlotte could tell what they were all thinking. Miriam Trott seldom put herself out to help anyone.

  Her piano playing was rusty, to put it kindly, but it was by no means the worst part of the rehearsal. After twenty minutes Charlotte began to grow tired of the endless parade of stuttering medical students and giggling nurses who fell to pieces the moment they stepped on to the stage. She sat behind her desk, making crosses on the piece of paper in front of her. She had intended to whittle down the list of performers, but at this rate she would have no one left.

  And then one of the porters took to the stage, moments after a junior doctor’s woeful magic performance, which had ended with the idiotic young man tying himself in a knot of coloured handkerchiefs. Charlotte would have felt sorry for him if she had had any patience left.

  The porter was a big, burly man, still dressed in his brown overalls. Peggy Atkins was with him, looking nervous.

  Charlotte frowned at them. ‘Name?’

  ‘Brigham, Miss. Bill Brigham.’

  Charlotte consulted the paper in front of her. ‘Your name doesn’t appear to be on my list.’

  ‘No, Miss, it won’t be.’ He sent Atkins a sideways glance. ‘It was a bit of a last-minute decision, you might say.’ He looked as shocked as anyone to be standing there in front of her.

  Charlotte sighed and put down her pen. She would have dismissed him, had it not been for the fact that she was rapidly running out of people with any talent.

  ‘And what do you do?’ she asked.

  ‘Magic tricks, Miss.’

  ‘Not again!’ Charlotte glanced sideways at the young doctor, who was standing in the wings still trying to disentangle himself from his handkerchief string. ‘Well, I do hope you’re better than the last one.’

  He was. Charlotte found herself staring, the pen forgotten in her hand, transfixed by his lightning-fast card tricks. Even Miss Trott was watching him avidly from her place at the piano. Atkins did her best to help him, ending each trick with a little flourish and a curtsey, the perfect magician’s assistant, even though it was plain she was as amazed as the rest of them.

  Finally, the act was over. Bill Brigham and his assistant stood side by side on the stage, looking down at their shoes.

  ‘Thank you,’ Charlotte said. ‘That was quite – acceptable.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss.’

  As they hurried from the stage, Charlotte put a tick beside Bill Brigham’s name. The porter didn’t realise it, but he might have saved the show.

  Things took a dive again after that. As Charlotte listened to a succession of tedious monologues, tone-deaf singers and dismal comedy routines, she began to despair. The only one who didn’t seem to mind was Miss Trott. She thumped away on the piano, smiling encouragingly at everyone, and behaving most unlike herself. Charlotte wondered if perhaps she had been on the medicinal brandy.

  At least it was over. As she tidied away her papers, Charlotte’s only satisfaction was that Miss Tanner was not there to tell her what a mess she was making of it all.

  Much to her annoyance, Charlotte didn’t even have the chance to admonish Miss Tanner for her absence the following morning. When she and Miss Fox arrived for their rounds, Miss Tanner said, ‘Oh, Miss Davis, I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to come to last night’s rehearsal. As Philips probably told you, we had a late admission to the ward last night. Acute phlebitis. He was rather difficult to settle and I didn’t want to leave him.’

  ‘Really, Miss Tanner, I can hardly imagine how a case of phlebitis, acute or not, would have needed your full attention!’ Charlotte retorted.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll understand when you meet him,’ Miss Tanner said. ‘Isaak Gruber is a German Jew. Until a few months ago, he was a captive in a concentration camp. His family in England had all but given up on him until the camp was liberated and they received word that he was alive. They managed to get him out and bring him here.’

  ‘How dreadful,’ Miss Fox said. ‘When you see the Pathé newsreels about those places, it hardly seems possible, does it? So much cruelty …’ She shook her head. ‘The poor man must be in a terrible state.’

  ‘Actually, Matron, he may surprise you,’ Miss Tanner said. ‘You’d best come and see him for yourself.’
<
br />   Isaak Gruber was lying flat on his back, holding a book above him so he could read. He was a small, elderly man, with thinning white hair and a gaunt, sallow face. He lay in the bed, his inflamed legs supported in a cradle for comfort.

  ‘Dr Gruber, this is our matron, Miss Fox, and our assistant matron, Miss Davis,’ Miss Tanner introduced them.

  ‘Good morning.’ He looked up at them over his spectacles, his eyes brown and inquisitive in a nest of wrinkles. He spoke in a heavy accent Charlotte knew well.

  ‘Good morning, Dr Gruber,’ Miss Fox smiled. ‘How are you feeling today?’

  ‘Very well, danke. Everyone is taking good care of me.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’ Miss Fox picked up his chart and studied it. ‘May I say your English is very good.’

  ‘I spent a great deal of time in London as a student.’

  ‘And you’re a doctor?’

  ‘A psychiatrist. Or I was, until the Nazis took my patients away, and me with them.’ He spoke calmly, his words carefully measured.

  Charlotte looked down at the string of numbers etched into the delicate blueish skin inside his left forearm. They mesmerised her, holding her attention so she couldn’t drag her eyes away.

  She didn’t realise she was staring until Dr Gruber tugged down his sleeve to cover them. Charlotte looked up sharply to meet his eye. He was regarding her curiously, his brows drawn in a frown.

  It was a relief when they left his bedside and made their way around the rest of the ward. But as she followed Matron, Charlotte was aware of Dr Gruber’s gaze tracking her down the ward.

  Just as they were about to leave, Miss Tanner asked if she could speak to Matron in private.

  ‘Certainly, Sister.’ Miss Fox turned to Charlotte. ‘Wait for me by the doors, Miss Davis. I shan’t be a moment.’

  ‘Perhaps I could go to the next ward, Matron, and make a start—’

  ‘I asked you to wait for me, Miss Davis.’ Miss Fox’s voice was sharp.

  Charlotte watched in annoyance as they retreated to Miss Tanner’s office at the far end of the ward. What a complete waste of everyone’s time for her to be left standing here like a child, she thought. They were probably only gossiping, anyway.

  ‘Pardon me, Schwester?’ She looked around. Dr Gruber was calling out to her, his hand raised. ‘I wonder – could you fetch my other book from my locker? I can’t reach it myself.’

  Charlotte looked around for one of the other nurses, but there was no one in sight. Reluctantly, she went over to his bedside and found the book. As she handed it back to him, she read the title.

  Geisteskrankheit.

  ‘Diseases of the mind,’ she translated automatically.

  ‘You speak German.’ He didn’t sound surprised.

  Charlotte looked away. ‘A few words,’ she muttered.

  ‘More than a few words, I think, if you can translate a medical textbook.’ He ran his hand over the book cover. ‘I thought perhaps you must have spent time in my country – when you recognised my number for what it was …’

  ‘I didn’t recognise anything,’ Charlotte said, a little too quickly. ‘I – I’ve read the newspapers, that’s all.’

  ‘Ah.’ He rolled up his sleeve and studied the figures etched on his skin. ‘It is the number they gave me in Buchenwald,’ he said. ‘That’s where they sent us all. My wife, my children, my sisters … But I am the only one left now.’ His voice was heavy with sadness.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘I am one of the lucky ones,’ he said. ‘My family found out I was alive, and brought me here to live with them. Now every morning I wake up in a clean bed and I know I am safe and I thank God for his mercy. But there were so many months when I didn’t think I would see another day. The things they did to us there, the way we were forced to live, worse than animals—’

  Bile rose in Charlotte’s throat, making her cough.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Dr Gruber said. ‘I did not wish to upset you. It is hard for some people to talk about, I know.’

  She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, those bright brown eyes so searching, as if they could see into her soul.

  Much to Charlotte’s relief, at that moment Miss Tanner and Matron emerged from her office. At least they could leave, and she could forget about Dr Gruber.

  But that night she had another nightmare, as she feared she would. She tried to put off going to sleep for as long as she could, sitting up in bed reading until her eyes stung. Finally she had no choice but to put her book to one side and surrender to sleep.

  That was when they came to her. The army of the dead. Picking through piles of bodies, finding the ones that were still breathing among the rotting corpses. The sickening stench of them, crammed in their huts, diseased, filthy with excrement and crawling with lice. They were pitiful, grotesque, their bodies so shockingly emaciated they barely looked human.

  Charlotte woke up trembling, her face wet with tears, still trying to fight off the hands that grasped at her, eyes staring from gaunt faces, mouths open, pleading for help.

  Schwester, schwester. Hilf mir. Help me.

  She groped for the alarm clock. It was barely four, and still pitch dark outside. She rose and pulled on her dressing gown. She knew she would not sleep again. She did not dare.

  She felt disappointed in herself. It had been so long since she’d had a nightmare, she had almost dared to hope that they had finally stopped. But last night’s had been more vivid than ever.

  During the following week, the night sister succumbed to a bad winter cold, and Miss Fox asked Charlotte to cover the night shifts for a few days.

  ‘But there is another rehearsal tomorrow evening, Matron,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure they can manage without you,’ Miss Fox replied. ‘Perhaps Miss Tanner could step into the breach, just this once?’

  ‘I don’t see how, when she wasn’t at the last rehearsal—’ Charlotte tried to protest, but Miss Fox wasn’t listening to her as usual.

  Very well, she thought. Let her try to organise the rehearsal. She would like to see even the perfect Miss Tanner coax a decent performance out of that raggle-taggle bunch of performers.

  In a way, it was a relief to be on night duty. She had not been sleeping well, and it was good to have a reason to be awake. Charlotte enjoyed the peace and quiet as she toured the wards by torchlight, her soft shoes barely making a sound on the polished floors. In each ward, she would pause to speak to the night nurse and make sure all was well, their voices whispering in the dim light.

  Nurse Wesley was on duty on Jarvis. She was a young girl, still a year away from her Finals. But she was competent enough.

  She had little to report about her patients, apart from Isaak Gruber, who was awake and restless.

  ‘Why hasn’t the doctor prescribed a sleeping draught for him?’ Charlotte wanted to know.

  ‘He has, but Dr Gruber refuses to take it,’ Nurse Wesley said. ‘Sister says not to force him, she reckons he’s been through enough. And to be honest, he’s quieter when he’s awake than when he’s asleep and screaming the place down.’ She looked rueful. ‘Sister’s had him moved to one of the private rooms, so at least he won’t disturb the other patients any more.’ She looked at Charlotte. ‘I don’t know whether you’d have more luck persuading him, Assistant Matron?’

  Charlotte had no desire to see Isaak Gruber. But the idea of being able to succeed where Miss Tanner hadn’t was too tempting for her.

  Dr Gruber was flat on his back, reading as usual. He looked up with a smile at Charlotte.

  ‘Schwester.’

  Charlotte lingered in the doorway, reluctant to step into the room. ‘Nurse Wesley tells me you’re not sleeping well?’ she said.

  He shook his head sadly. ‘Nein. Not for many months.’

  ‘And yet you’ve refused to take the medicine the doctor prescribed for you?’

  ‘I don’t care to sleep, Schwester. It’s too difficult for me
. That’s when they come, you see. When I see their faces.’

  ‘Your family?’

  ‘Sometimes. But to see them again is a comfort.’ He smiled sadly. ‘It is the others I fear. The dead, and the dying. So many of them, burying me so I can hardly claw my way out …’ He shuddered. ‘Night time is a dangerous time, Schwester.’

  You don’t have to tell me that, Charlotte thought. She was haunted by their faces too.

  ‘Schwester?’

  Charlotte looked up sharply. Isaak Gruber was staring straight at her. ‘You have nightmares too, perhaps?’ he ventured.

  Charlotte pulled herself together, forcing a brisk smile. ‘Goodness, what would I have nightmares about?’

  ‘I don’t know, Schwester.’ He went on looking at her, his expression thoughtful, unnerving. ‘But you seem like a sensitive soul. Someone who understands.’

  Charlotte managed a smile. ‘I’ve never been called sensitive before.’

  ‘That is because you take great pains to hide it from others.’

  Charlotte looked away, brushing down her apron. ‘You should sleep,’ she said. ‘I can fetch you something else, if you won’t take the sleeping draught. A warm drink, perhaps?’

  ‘I would be happier with my book, if you don’t mind?’

  Charlotte glanced down at the weighty volume in his hands. ‘More psychiatry?’

  He nodded. ‘I find it comforting.’

  ‘Does it help you – to cope?’

  ‘Sometimes. It is a comfort indeed to know that the mind can be healed.’

  ‘Can it?’ Charlotte spoke without thinking.

  ‘If the body can be healed, why not the mind?’

  ‘But how?’ she asked. ‘You can hardly put a splint or a dressing on it, can you?’

  ‘Nein, Schwester. But like any injury, the mind needs time to heal. And you need to be able to clean out the infection, by opening up the wound.’

  ‘Talking about it, you mean?’ Dr Gruber nodded. ‘And what good would that do, except to bring back all the pain?’ She heard the bitterness in her voice.

  ‘Sometimes the pain needs to be exposed, in order to get rid of it.’

  ‘And sometimes it’s better left where it is. In the past.’