The Sculptress

Late October 1917

“I’m happy he’s gone,” Virginie said, her voice rising with each word. “Il est odieux. Imagine, asking me to work in England. Jamais! I hate him. English bully.”

“Don’t work yourself up so,” Emma said. She closed the anatomy book she had been studying. “He’s been gone for weeks. I only meant I wish John was around sometimes—after all, he’s the one who established this technique for the Royal Army Medical Corps. And, despite what you might think, I don’t believe he hated you. In fact, I think he admired you for standing up to him. He could never crack you. Consider it a compliment that he chose you as an assistant.”

“He upset me and wore me out,” Virginie said. “But you are correct—it is no matter now.”

“I know.” The sun passing behind the clouds cast fleeting shadows across the parquet floor. “We’ve created the Studio for Facial Masks, and we should be proud of it. I couldn’t have done it without you and Madame Clement. On Monday, when we open, I suppose we’ll have a line of men waiting for us, if Sir Jonathan’s prediction is correct.”

Emma walked to the window and placed her hands on the sill where the warm fall light dissolved the chill on her arms. When she took stock of all they had created, she was satisfied with their work. The studio was as pleasant as she and her assistants could make it. The process had been long and difficult, especially with John and Virginie butting heads at nearly every turn. But Emma recognized their worth as a team: John, as a pedantic teacher; the intelligence and wit of Virginie; and the steady hand of Madame Clement, the housekeeper, who kept them comfortably fed and on schedule.

For a small salary, provided by the Red Cross and bolstered by a few francs from Tom, Virginie and Madame Clement had accepted Emma’s invitation to remain at the studio. Virginie was thrilled to be rid of John, who had recruited her and Madame Clement in anticipation of Emma’s arrival. Both had suffered tedious demands and rigorous training under him, but his “tyranny” had made the transition easier for Emma. Virginie alone had constructed more than twenty facial masks under John’s tutelage.

Emma had worked with the Red Cross to secure the two upper floors of a building in the Latin Quarter near the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. From the studio’s arched stone entrance on the rue Monge, a passageway led to a small courtyard and a rear wooden staircase. The courtyard walls were covered with ivy and its square filled with marble and bronze statues purchased by Emma at a flea market.

Madame Clement brought meals daily from her home and shopped for fresh flowers every few days. When the housekeeper warmed her dishes on the small stove, the smells of her delicious cooking filled the studio. She made coq au vin when she could procure a chicken; prepared potatoes in all forms; baked small cakes or cookies, which sometimes graced the table, despite shortages of sugar and flour. The studio became a bastion against the war with its warm light, flowers, decorative posters, French and American flags, homemade dishes, and bottles of wine.

Madame Clement lived nearby in the Quarter, while Emma and Virginie occupied one of two small rooms on the floor above the studio. The garret, with its angled window that looked out across the jumbled Paris skyline, contained a battered oak desk, a chair, two iron bedsteads, and was warmed by an open-hearth fireplace. The space seemed small, even by Boston standards, but Emma knew it would be cozy and warm during the gray winter days to come.

The last of the staff yet to join them before the opening was a tall, fez-wearing Moroccan named Hassan, an olive-skinned man with profuse black hair. He had worked with Virginie at a hospital and inquired about a job with the studio. Emma worked out a small stipend for Hassan after his interview, as well as living quarters in the garret, providing the room across the hall in exchange for his services. Hassan could speak or read little English, but through his intuition and intelligence could interpret a look or a gesture as if someone had spoken to him. He was strong enough to haul supplies despite a slight limp from a leg injury suffered in the war. During their introduction, Emma found he handled the clay-modeling brushes and scrapers, used in creating the masks, with ample dexterity.

Late in the afternoon, after a day of cleaning and organizing in the studio, a repeated loud knock on the door disturbed Emma’s brief chance to relax. Soon, Madame Clement, attired in one of the simple housedresses she favored, appeared with a young man in tow. Emma recognized his thin form, the light-brown hair, and distinctively colored amber eyes from a previous meeting. He was a courier from the hospital in Toul who had come with Tom in September to pick up medical supplies in Paris. The courier and her husband had visited briefly at rue de Paul before driving back to the hospital.

Today, Emma sensed something was wrong. The courier lowered his head and whispered to Madame Clement. The housekeeper frowned and then nodded as the courier spoke. The large studio room, one wall hung with the plaster masks of men with missing noses, twisted mouths, and sightless eyes, took on an ominous feel. The masks were used as guides to fill in the flesh lost by injury.

Virginie appeared at the door and asked, “Is everything all right?”

Emma concerned by the courier’s tone, countered, “I think the question is, ‘What is wrong?’”

“Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé?” Virginie asked Madame Clement.

The housekeeper bent toward the nurse and, like the courier, whispered.

“What is going on? Has something happened to Tom?” Emma walked uncertainly toward them, swaying a bit on her feet.

“A moment, Madame,” Virginie said to Emma, and cut off Madame Clement from her conversation with the courier and concentrated her attention on the young man. After a brief discussion, the nurse said, “Your husband wishes to speak to you.”

“He’s here?”

“No, in Toul.”

“Is he safe?”

“Yes, but he has an important matter to discuss with you.”

“The courier has no idea what this is about?” Emma asked impatiently, clasping her hands in front of her.

The courier and Virginie carried on another conversation.

“He has no idea, but Monsieur Swan apparently is worried—more concerned than the courier has ever seen him.”

“I can’t stand this,” Emma said. “Please have Madame Clement telephone Tom at the hospital. There’s no phone at the cottage. It’s too late to travel today. Virginie, ask the courier if he wouldn’t mind staying the night. We can get an early start in the morning.”

Virginie spoke to the courier and then to the housekeeper, who nodded and left the room. The courier took off his hat and bowed slightly to Emma.

“He can stay in Hassan’s room since he hasn’t arrived yet.” She smoothed her dress and stared at the young man, who looked back with equal intent. “I’ll make it up.” Emma hurried up the stairs, opened the Moroccan’s room, and stood trembling by the side of the bed, tears blurring her vision. She blinked them away, fluffed the white pillow, and pulled down the checked blanket to make sure the sheets were fresh. She jabbed the fireplace poker into the hearth and swept some fallen ash into a pail.

Virginie appeared at the door. “Madame Clement is preparing supper for the three of us. She called the hospital. Monsieur Swan is not there. . . .” The nurse blinked, as if searching for the proper words.

“Yes?”

“Your husband is at the Front.”

Emma steadied herself against the bed and then sat, bewildered by the news.

* * *

At times, caught up in Parisian life, Emma constructed romantic fantasies about her husband despite the awkwardness between them. They could make Paris their home after the war ended, she often thought. It would be their chance to begin again, to return to the days when they appreciated each other, but those thoughts had popped like bubbles in the wind as the reality of the war sunk in.

Emma slept little during the night, imagining Tom plagued by every possible war-related disaster. After a breakfast of oatmeal and pear slices, Emma and the courier climbed into the ambulance. On the chilly street, the first spreading rays of dawn streaked the eastern sky. As they drove away from Paris, the day turned mild with the rising sun. Near noon, they followed a convoy of French army trucks spewing gray exhaust and dust for an hour, until the drivers stopped under a row of spindly birches, the young soldiers spilling out into a field to stretch their legs and eat. Emma and the courier, who spoke to each other in fractured English phrases, agreed they could do without lunch in order to hasten the journey.

They arrived in Toul about seven in the evening.

At the hospital, Emma found a French doctor who spoke English and asked him about Tom. He was a thin, pleasant man by the name of Claude, who, like Tom, suffered from overwork and too little sleep. Thick lines creased his face, but the many wrinkles at his temples led Emma to believe that, even as a doctor, he was able to laugh in this difficult time.

“He was called to the Front because two surgeons are ill with dysentery,” Claude said. “Doctors are scarce. He offered to go.”

Emma thanked him and turned to walk away.

“Where are you going, Madame?” Claude asked.

“To the Front,” she said matter-of-factly.

Claude chuckled and reached for a cigarette in his jacket pocket. “Come with me. I need to smoke.” He led Emma down the stairs to the large sitting room, where he plopped into a chair and lit his cigarette. “The Front is thirty-five kilometers away, give or take a few. It is dark. You are a woman.”

“A woman? What does my sex have to do with seeing my husband? The courier told me Tom was desperate to see me.”

The doctor smiled and pointed the fiery end of his smoke at Emma. “Please understand, Madame Swan, this is not my doing. Both the French and American armies have turned your sex away from the Front—even women who desperately want to fight. They will not allow you through at this hour or perhaps any other hour.”

“Then I will go as a man.”

Claude snickered. “C’est la chose la plus insensée que je n’ai jamais entendu.”

“Did you say I was insane?”

“Oh, pardon, Madame. Not you—the idea.”

His sarcastic smile transformed into a knowing look. “Peut-être. . . Do you have clothes?”

“Those on my back and a change in my case, but I can make do with Tom’s clothes at the cottage.”

Claude brushed a few fallen ashes from his pant leg. “No, you need a uniform. I have no American uniforms—only French—from the dead soldiers.”

Emma started, but shook off her distaste. “That will do. Do you have one in my size?”

“No matter. Most of them did not fit the man who died in them. The sentries will not know the difference.”

Claude stubbed out his cigarette on the floor and then led Emma to a small room underneath the staircase. Piles of army pants, shirts, boots, leggings, and helmets lay stacked on wooden shelves. “Here is the dressing room of the dead,” Claude said with a disquieting smile. “Most widows want their husbands to be buried in a suit, not a uniform. Some we return to the army for other soldiers to wear. Most we burn because they cannot be worn.”

Emma listened halfheartedly to Claude’s comments while she poked through the jumble of clothes. Most were in decent condition, but a few were partially shredded or spotted with the blackish stains of dried blood.

“Here you can create your fashion,” Claude said.

As she sorted through the dead men’s clothes with the intention of constructing this disguise, the macabre thought of All Hallows’ Eve popped into her head. It’s like dressing for some kind of grotesque party. It is insane! She dismissed it from her mind. “After I’m dressed, will the courier take me to the Front?”

Claude waved his hand. “The courier will take you to the cottage for a good night’s sleep. He is a man, not a mule. He is tired from today’s drive—as you should be. Gather the clothes and take a little food from the hospital. Richard will escort you to the cottage.”

“I can walk from here.”

“No,” Claude said emphatically. “Richard will escort you. No woman should walk alone in the dark. It isn’t right.”

Emma sighed. “I’ve been so self-absorbed. I didn’t even ask him his name.”

“No matter,” Claude said. “He has a medical condition that keeps him from the army—but not from his jeune femme.” The doctor clicked his tongue.

After she had collected her clothes and food, Emma found Richard. He dropped her off at the cottage after a short drive. He held her clothing in his left hand and made a turning motion with his right when they arrived at the door—he hesitated to open it himself.

She turned the brass knob and the door creaked open.

“You were right,” she said, knowing he might not understand her English. “Why would the door be locked? Why would there be theft in a fortified city guarded by troops?”

The courier placed the clothes and her bag on a chair and nodded. “Bonsoir, Madame. À demain.”

“Merci, Richard. Demain.”

Through the small window, she watched as the truck sputtered down the lane until it was out of sight. She took off her coat and cleared a space on the cluttered kitchen table for her supper. The cottage felt familiar; yet, she considered herself a stranger. Little had changed since her time with Tom in August. The table held a jumble of papers and medical books, the bedsheets and blankets were wadded into a ball at its foot. Tom had left in a hurry.

What a change. My tidy Boston husband continues his slovenly ways. She shook her head in wonder, but a prickle of fear raced over her as she thought of any number of calamities that might have befallen him on the battle line.

What does he want to tell me that is so important? I can’t carry on about this, or I’ll drive myself mad.

She shivered and rubbed her arms to ward off the cold. Needing to start a fire, she opened the door and stood on the walk next to the small garden in front of the cottage. Driven by a chilly northwest wind that pushed against her, gray plumes of clouds soared between her and the stars. The nearby oaks stood black and bare in the autumn night while, in the garden, a few yellow and purple pansies bloomed on long, green stalks. Scattered leaves created a brown patchwork against the sprigs of grass yet untouched by frost. Someone, perhaps Tom, had collected wood and stacked it in an iron rick, which leaned against the stone wall.

Emma carried a few logs inside and positioned them on the fireplace grate. Returning to the garden, she collected dead leaves and dry bark and placed them underneath the logs. A tin match safe rested on the rough wooden mantel above the fireplace. The room soon was filled with a warm, crackling light.

She ate her hastily made supper at a space she’d cleared on the table. At Claude’s urging, a nurse had put together a meal—reluctantly, because she had more important duties than to wait upon a doctor’s wife—of a few hard biscuits and dried beef tucked into a cloth napkin. Beggars could not be choosers. A sharp pang struck her stomach because it had been hours since breakfast. Her supper, with a glass of wine from a newly opened bottle, tasted good in spite of its simplicity.

Her gaze shifted to the letters on the table. The wind knocked against the window and a draft flowed down the chimney, a few embers sparking from the logs to the wooden floor. She jumped out of the chair to stamp them out, and a scrap of paper, neatly tucked between the mattress and the underlying metal springs, caught her eye as she passed the bed. If not for Tom’s messy bed making, she would never have noticed the small white triangle. She reached for it, but then stopped, unsure whether she should violate her husband’s privacy in his cottage.

I’m his wife. Surely he has nothing to hide.

Linton Bower appeared in a vivid flash before her—the strength of his arms, the muscular curves of his naked back, the fresh, forbidden taste of his lips. A red-hot flush of shame rose to her face, far removed from the effects of the crackling fire.

She lifted the mattress and withdrew the paper: a letter, dated late July 1917, written on finely woven white stationery and folded in half. She opened it:

My dear Tom,

I am sorry to be the one to tell you this, but I know tongues will wag, and sooner or later the truth will come rushing toward you. Better to hear it from me than one of those silly Boston women who do nothing but gossip and slander others for their own benefit.

From the beginning, our friendship has been based on truth, which we both hold in the highest regard. I treasure your respect for your marriage vows, for your honor and commitment. I suppose that’s why you are where you are today, serving unselfishly in a war far from home. But as you serve, others are lax in their duties. Therefore, I feel it my place—nay, my duty—to inform you of occurrences here—so unpleasant and distasteful I hope you will not loathe me for bringing these matters to your attention. But the truth will come out.

Your wife has been seen in the company of a Boston artist, Linton Bower, and unfortunately the pair appears to be more than just companions. I wouldn’t tell you this if I hadn’t seen this behavior with my own eyes. I’m sure this is distressing to you, Tom, but you must hear out these words. I hope you can understand the pain this letter causes me as well. Writing it was not an easy task.

I believe their first encounter was at the Fountain Gallery. The relationship progressed from there....

The letter ended with a jagged tear across the bottom.

Emma dropped to the bed, shock coursing through her body, the room deathly cold, the fire near yet so small and distant. She clutched her chest and a reservoir of memories rushed toward her.

No, no, no.

Tom’s aloofness upon their reunion, his reluctance to make love, his brief September visit to Paris, the urgency of his message to the courier, all of these “actions” suddenly made sense. Emma looked in disbelief at the letter in her hands. She wanted to tear it apart and fling it into the fire, knowing she was fighting a foe that had already made its presence known. And, from the handwriting, she knew her adversary was Louisa Markham.

* * *

During the night, the wind stopped its rage against the cottage. Emma pulled the blankets close to her chin and stared at the dying embers. Maybe once an hour, frequently enough to wake her, shells exploded at the Front, sending the troubling rumble into her ears like thunder from a distant storm. She tried to sleep, to brush away the demons prodding her dreams: Linton rushing toward her; Louisa laughing maniacally as Linton stumbles and falls on the steps; the smiling boy she loved in Vermont; and the faceless baby taunting her.

* * *

Richard arrived early the next morning, the truck awakening her from a fitful sleep just before dawn. Emma, feeling as if she had fallen asleep only a few minutes before, wrapped herself in a blanket and answered the door, thinking only of the journey ahead. Richard, cheeks shining, smiled and offered her fruit and cold oatmeal.

“Merci,” she repeated several times as she began eating. He bowed slightly each time she thanked him. After Emma pointed to an extra chair, Richard pulled it to the table and munched on an apple as she finished her meal.

After breakfast, while Richard smoked outside, she made the bed and discretely returned the letter to its place under the mattress. The soldier’s uniform lay on the floor.

“A moment,” Emma called out, and picked up the clothes. From his smile, she knew Richard could tell what was coming, perhaps having been informed of her plan by Claude. She walked to the tiny washroom, closed the door, and smacked her elbow against the wall as she struggled to get dressed. If not for the seriousness of the situation, she would have laughed as she viewed herself in the small shaving mirror over the sink. The loose-fitting jacket and pants minimized her breasts and hips. Her hair, piled high upon her head, fit comfortably under the somewhat oversized helmet. She tucked in a few loose strands and pronounced herself ready.

Richard, sitting at the table, laughed when she stepped out of the room, amused by her disguise and predicament.

“Chut,” Emma said, but her admonition fell on a broad smile and continued laughter.

“Non, non,” Richard repeated as Emma wrapped the leggings around her trousers and then pulled on boots. When he had composed himself, he rose from his chair. “Nous partons pour le Front.”

Emma understood and asked, “Do I need anything? Passport? Identification papers?” As soon as the words passed her lips, she realized the ridiculousness of her question. She was attempting to sneak onto a battlefield disguised as a man, her success dependent upon Richard, his guidance, and his knowledge of the Front, not upon documents that showed her to be a woman.

The slight young man shook his head and pointed to the truck, which was parked in the lane. The morning sun shone brightly on the olive green metal.

“It’s a splendid day to go to war,” Emma said. “Allons-y.”

Before closing up the cottage, Emma looked around the room. The tidy bed and the orderly table gave her a momentary sense of serenity. That peace, however, was broken by distant explosions, the first she had heard in hours. After the blasts subsided, Emma listened. The wind pushed through the trees and shook the dead leaves still clinging to the branches, but no birds sang, no animals scurried in the lane. The land was dead, blighted by a war that was close at hand—the morning serving up only the promise of death.

Richard cranked the truck and they drove down the lane, past the hospital, and through the city. The courier waved to the French soldiers as they passed by the gates. “Poilu,” Richard said, as the soldiers returned his gesture.

The truck swept eastward, past thickly wooded hills that lined the rutted road. The Front lay more than thirty kilometers ahead. Richard honked at a convoy of ambulances and fuel trucks headed toward Toul. She turned her head as the vehicles passed. Under the tarpaulins and the makeshift metal covers, wounded men lay on gurneys, their arms and legs bouncing limply as the ambulances rumbled over the bumps.

As they neared the Front, they motored past a column of American soldiers. Three gun carriages, hauling artillery and shells, and pulled by horses, lagged behind the lethargically marching troops. Emma thought the men, without helmets, wearing whatever hats they could on their heads, a ragtag bunch. She recalled the woman in Saint-Nazaire who had told her the Americans would not be able to win the war.

“Les Américains,” Richard said, with a slight edge to his voice. “Ridicule.”

“Why?” Emma asked.

“Parce que—”

“My French is not very good, as you found out yesterday.”

“I speak a little English,” he replied, as if quoting from a language textbook.

“Then, tell me, why do you think the Americans are ridiculous?”

“Nouveau,” he said.

Emma looked past him as he gripped the wheel, wondering if the courier could be right. The American officers on the ship were fresh and inexperienced, but more than prepared to give up their lives. Lt. Andrew Stoneman had assured her of their dedication to the war. She wondered where he was and if he still carried the portrait she had drawn of him.

“Americans are prepared to die for your country,” she said.

“Nos chasseurs. Magnifique.”

Emma looked at him blankly.

“Bleu,” he said. “Le chapeau des Alpes.”

Emma remembered a group of French soldiers near the Paris studio. They were strikingly attired in dark blue tunics and Alpine hats of the same color. Richard seemed correct in his assumption—the chasseurs appeared, at first glance, to be better and more efficient fighters than the ill-equipped Americans.

“Time will tell,” she said. “In war, all men face the same dangers. Bravery and morale count for something.”

Richard nodded as if he agreed, but Emma suspected he understood little of what she said, and even less of what she implied.

The truck rolled closer to the Front. Richard pointed to a hill on the horizon. Behind it, columns of smoke flowed into the sky.

“Shells,” he said. “Here . . . calm.”

“Calm?” Emma asked in astonishment.

“Oui.” He thought about his words for a moment before speaking. “The war is quiet here.”

“It appears active enough for me.”

Abandoned farmhouses, some boarded up, others with sagging roofs and broken timbers, stood like sad apparitions on both sides of the road. A few skinny cows, unattended by man and unrestrained by broken fences, wandered in brown fields. As the truck rolled toward the battle, Emma realized she had no idea what the Front would be like. Her slim knowledge of the war had come from Tom’s censored letters and the civilized reporting of Boston newspapers.

Richard suddenly put a finger to his lips. He turned left onto a side road that was nothing more than ruts in a field. The truck bounced through the dead grasses and sparse woods and then slowed in a shallow clearing. About fifty meters east of the clearing a barbed-wire fence stretched in both directions as far as Emma could see. Mounds of dirt, like black earthen temples, rose at various points along the line. Toward the bleak horizon, less than a kilometer past the first row of wire, another elongated length of coiled barbs and dark mounds stretched in a parallel direction. Beyond that, a vast landscape of blasted trees and cratered earth opened like a pox upon the land. Smoke drifted like an unearthly fog over the terrain while the sharp report of machine guns popped in Emma’s ears.

“My God,” Emma said, as Richard brought the truck to a stop near a group of French soldiers. Concealed by an isolated thicket, they stood chatting and smoking cigarettes.

“Oui,” Richard said. “C’est l’enfer.”

Emma stared at the all-encompassing devastation and concurred, “Yes . . . hell.”

* * *

The soldiers ignored her. Penetrating the Front was easier than she had anticipated. Part of that ease might have been due to the other activities on the minds of the Poilu—cigarettes, cheap wine, and laughter, even as artillery fire and shells shrieked nearby. From what she could judge, these men were ordinary infantry wearing mud-spattered uniforms of light blue—the equivalent of American privates—not an officer among them. The soldiers seemed unconcerned about the fighting around them, instead leaning on their rifles, savoring their cigarettes, drinking their pinard, laughing with Richard, and staring at Emma.

Richard asked the soldiers where the American doctor, Thomas Swan, was working. Emma understood at least that much. She also heard the words “woman” and “costume” in French, which solicited more laughter from the soldiers.

“What’s going on?” Emma asked him. “You told them I was a woman, didn’t you?” She glared at him, irritated by his cavalier attitude toward her situation.

The courier shook his head and pointed to one of the soldiers, a short man with a round belly and a full black beard.

The soldier stepped forward. “I speak English. I studied it in school. I will take you to your husband.”

Emma took off her helmet, allowing her hair to fall free. The men stopped their conversation and glanced at her admiringly, causing her to stare at her uniform jacket and trousers, turned a grayish-brown from the ground-in dirt.

“Oui,” Emma said. “Je suis une femme.”

“Officers or police stop women,” the soldier said. “We are not officers. Put on your helmet. You’ll need it in the trenches.”

Emma did as he asked. “Please take me to my husband. It’s important I see him.”

“Yes, but follow me carefully and watch your head. Let me talk if we are stopped.”

“Wait for me,” Emma ordered Richard.

“Two hours,” he said. “Then I must return to the hospital.”

The soldier anticipated Emma’s question. “Your husband is at a dressing station in the first trench about a half-kilometer from here.”

“Bonne chance,” Richard said.

“Au nord,” the soldier said, and led the way along a rutted trail. Emma followed as the soldier picked up his pace, his rifle thrust forward in his hands. A short distance away, a wooden ladder protruded from the top of a mound in the sodden earth. The soldier hitched his rifle, stepped onto the ladder, and descended it like a spider spinning its web. He looked up, urging her to follow. She cringed at the sloppy trench floor, but screwed up her courage, and swung her legs onto the ladder. At the bottom, her boots sank in the muck. The air smelled like stinking, unwashed flesh.

Wires snaked along the dirt ceiling. The soldier led her north to a hole illuminated by hanging lights.

Men slept or sat on crude benches carved into the earthen walls. The soldiers, including an officer, cast stony glances at them but said nothing as they hurried past. They continued through the seemingly endless trench until the soldier turned left into a connecting tunnel.

“We’re almost there,” he said and pointed to an area obscured in the gloom, leading to another ladder that jutted out of the fetid slime. He climbed up first and Emma followed.

The sunlight, though muted by a small stand of trees, stung Emma’s eyes. As her vision adjusted, another clearing appeared. Operating and equipment tables stood under a green tarpaulin covering the dressing station. Soldiers carried or dragged in the wounded as doctors in white aprons worked on the casualties.

Emma spotted Tom hunched over one of the tables. He poked mechanically at a soldier’s wound, swabbing with gauze, and prodding the flesh with his forceps. As she approached, he pulled a bullet from the soldier’s arm. Tom studied the metal captured in the bloodied forceps for a moment and then dropped it into a tin cup.

Emma tapped his shoulder.

He cast a quick glance behind and said gruffly, “Not now. I’m busy.”

“Tom,” Emma whispered.

He spun, shock spreading across his face. “Good God, Emma. What are you doing here? How did you get . . . ?”

“You needed to see me—urgently. That’s why I’m here.” She took off her helmet and put it on the ground.

“Yes . . . yes, that’s true, but I didn’t want you to come to the Front. You’re in danger here.”

“As you are.”

His tired, dark eyes fixed upon her. “You must wait until I finish with this soldier, then we can talk. Find cover on the other side of the path.”

Tom turned back to his patient. Emma picked up her helmet and walked across the clearing, crossing over vehicle tracks partially obscured by weeds. She sat on a grassy slope away from the horse carts and watched as stretcher-bearers disappeared and emerged from the surrounding thickets, passing back and forth in front of her in a chaotic military procession.

“Put on your helmet,” a gruff voice commanded. The soldier who had guided Emma plopped down beside her, his backside sliding a little on the grass because of his weight. “Boche snipers are everywhere.”

Emma again complied with his request. “How do you do it?”

He pulled at his beard. “Fight?”

“Yes. How do you stand the mud, the cold, the heat, and every atrocity that comes with this war? And face death as well?”

“We have no choice. We must fight or surrender . . . and to surrender is to die.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to live?”

“What—turn France over to our enemies? The war has dragged on and there have been mutinies, but how could we face ourselves if we allowed the Boche to prevail?”

An unearthly stillness hung in the air after a round of distant blasts. Everyone, including the stretcher-bearers, halted. A few cocked their heads and turned their eyes upward.

The soldier swung his face toward Emma’s, his eyes sparkling with terror.

Pressure, like a wave, bore down upon them. Emma’s ears crackled as the soldier threw his body over hers.

“Cover your head,” he shouted as the shell plummeted toward them. She shielded her face with her arms as his weight knocked the breath out of her.

A concussion pounded in her ears and rippled across her body.

The world floated around her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw men, horses, carts, and chunks of earth twirl in the air in a slow ballet and then fall carelessly to earth.

After the shock, the world was strangely silent and black.

* * *

I am dead.

She stifled a scream. Blood dripped from the mouth of the soldier on top of her and ran warm down her cheek and neck. She pushed the lolling head away, the helmet rolling to the ground, her ears barely hearing the muffled screams around her.

Gradually, more screams and a chorus of moans filtered through the pressure filling her head, as if she was swimming in the depths of a cold lake.

“Tom!” Clutching the soldier’s body, she tried to push it away, but his bulk was too much. She struggled, jerking her neck back and forth, in a paroxysm of fright, kicking the man’s legs and punching his shoulders, but the weight remained unmoved, as if a heavy slab had been placed upon her.

For a moment, terror filled her—convinced that this Poilu would be her sarcophagus. Like a ghost, the face of another Poilu floated above her. Blood streaked the side of his tunic, but his legs moved with vigor. He dislodged the soldier with a powerful shove from his booted foot. He leaned over the body, shouted “mort,” in Emma’s ear, and went on his way.

She rose on her elbows and viewed the carnage. The soldier who had saved her lay dead: his bloody legs across hers, his uniform jacket shredded by the clumps of dirt, rocks, and shards of metal protruding from his back. Ten meters to the right of the dressing station where Tom had attended his patient, smoke rose from a newly formed crater surrounded by splintered trees. Not far from her, a dying horse screamed on its back and kicked its legs in the air in anguish. A soldier came to the animal, withdrew his pistol, and fired two shots into its head.

Emma kicked at the soldier’s legs, finally freeing herself. She ran to the dressing station to find overturned tables, shattered glass, and operating instruments strewn across the brown earth. Tom’s patient lay on the ground, eyes frozen open in death. The soldier’s arm, the one that held the bullet, had been ripped from his shoulder.

She stepped over the jumbled equipment and found Tom partially concealed by an operating table and stretcher.

His eyes, at first closed, blinked open. Blood streamed down the side of his face.

Emma lifted the table from him as gently as she could and gasped. An open wound cut across his left thigh and upward toward his stomach, the apron and pants he wore ripped away in pieces.

He reached for her. “Emma, what happened?” His hoarse whisper barely penetrated the ringing in her ears.

She knelt next to him, calling his name, telling him to hold on, praying that help would arrive soon. She grabbed a cloth and pressed it against his thigh to staunch the flow of blood, looking for anything that might act as a tourniquet, crying out for help, but hearing only the moans of the dying in response. She pressed harder on the wound and Tom’s eyes rolled back in their sockets.

She was holding the crimson cloth over the laceration and shivering, her hands soaked in blood, when French soldiers emerged from the forest like columns of angry insects.

“Please help my husband,” she begged, and collapsed beside him, her own eyes closed in shock.

* * *

“How are you?”

Emma shook herself from her lethargy in the Toul hospital lobby. The day, the night, the morning had run together in a blur of dark trails and trenches that led away from the Front, men speaking maddeningly fast French, an uncomfortable, bouncing, ambulance ride, and a slow, exhaustive, collapse at the hospital. As she twisted in the chair, she couldn’t remember the day or the time, or whether she’d had anything to eat or drink.

“Madame? Are you with me?” The lines around Claude’s eyes contracted with his piteous look as he stood by her. “You need to rest. Let Richard take you to the cottage.”

“No.” She massaged the back of her neck.

“Please, Madame,” Claude implored, and lit a cigarette as she sank deeper into the chair.

“I want to talk to my husband,” she said.

“He is drugged. You need to rest.”

“I’m staying here until I can see him. Will he be all right?”

“I’m his doctor,” Claude said. “There’s no better doctor in Toul, except perhaps for your husband.”

He pulled a slip of paper from his laboratory coat. “The desk nurse asked me to deliver this message.” He cleared his throat as if to make an important announcement. “You have received calls and telegrams from—it looks like—her handwriting is terrible—Virginie, Madame Clement, a Moroccan named Hassan, and an insufferable Englishman by the name of Harvey. All have inquired about you and your husband’s health.”

Emma managed a weak smile. “That’s very nice. Please tell the desk nurse to give them my regards should they call again.”

Claude pulled a chair next to hers, and puffed on his cigarette. “Really, Madame, how are you?”

“Still unsettled. My ears keep popping and I can’t believe this has happened. We both knew there were risks.... I owe my life to an unknown Frenchman.”

Claude bowed his head and gazed at the smoke writhing around his hand like a gray snake. “Yes, perhaps never to know his name. Your husband is lucky. There was a great loss of blood, but he was lucky you were there. You might have saved his life. He will walk. There will be scars to deal with—the ones on the left side of his head, his thigh and stomach . . . but . . .”

Emma stared at him. “Yes . . . go on.”

Claude exhaled and coughed. “. . . I worry about one aspect.”

Emma stiffened in her chair.

“The shrapnel sliced into his groin as well as his thigh. I can’t be certain of the effect on his . . .” Claude looked intently at her for a few moments before continuing. “This is a delicate subject, Madame.” He paused and arched an eyebrow allowing Emma to pick up on his inference.

“. . . ability to have sexual relations?”

Claude nodded. “I . . . we’ve tried our best to repair and reconstruct, but the damage may be too much. Salopards de Boches.”

“I understand,” Emma said, ignoring Claude’s pejorative about the Germans. “When can I see him?”

“You can see him now, but he won’t talk.”

“Fine. I’ll sit with him.”

Claude extended his hand and led her to an airy room on the second floor filled with wounded men. Tom, covered to his neck by a white sheet, lay in a bed in the far corner. The doctor pulled up a chair for her. “Maybe you will sleep while he sleeps. When he wakes, he may be able to talk.” Claude looked at his patient. “Your husband is fortunate. Richard told me the shell was a small one—only a 175 millimeter.” An uneasy smile crept across his face.

October 1917

I’m uncertain of the day or time. I know it’s after lunch, but the exact date escapes me. So this is what shock does to the body? I’ve drifted in and out of sleep for endless hours, my head resting on Tom’s bed. I begged for a sheet of paper and a pencil from a nurse so I could record my thoughts and translate them later to my diary. Seeing Tom in the hospital, swathed in bandages, has had quite the opposite effect I would have imagined. My compassion is often overpowered by my boiling anger at him for his blind dedication and my selfish unwillingness and ignorance about how to be a nurse.

Through my hazy thoughts, I ask myself why this happened! Not only why this has happened to Tom, or even us, but to me. It’s not fair, I keep thinking. Sometimes the hideous thought that Tom deserves his injuries because of his bullheaded devotion to medicine slips into my head, but then I look at my rage and see how displaced it is. I’m angry because I see the tenuous bond between us disintegrating even further. What if he dies? The thought of losing him makes me wither in pain. So much unsaid, so much guilt, and doubt about our lives now and going forward. This war conspired against us and nothing I can do will change our situation. And to know that Louisa has written Tom about Linton—I could throw the letter in her face and curse her for the damage she’s done.

I must end because the nurse is eyeing me queerly. She wants to change Tom’s bandages, and for me to move away from his bed.

The shell roared toward her, the acidic smell of fear rising from her skin. Emma struggled with the dead soldier until she awoke screaming and kicking, gripping the arms of the chair.

Tom, his eyes heavy lidded and nearly closed, looked at her. The room was dark except for a rectangular slab of white light that glimmered like a ghost in the doorway.

“You kicked the bed,” he whispered.

Emma pried her hands from the chair and leaned toward him. “I was having a nightmare. The shell was headed . . .” She picked up a clean cloth from the nightstand and swabbed Tom’s forehead. Patches of blood oozed through the gauze on the left side of his face. “You’re talking. How do you feel?”

“Like a mule kicked me in the gut.”

“Tom—”

“Shsssshh, we’ll wake the other men.”

“You’ve been dead to the world for nearly two days. I’m happy to hear your voice.”

Emma desperately wanted to ask him the question—Why did you want to see me?—to inquire about the letter she found at the cottage; but if ever the circumstances were wrong, at this early hour, long past midnight, so soon after his injury, this was the time.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk,” he said, “but I think it had better wait.”

Emma stroked his hand. “It’s all right. We can have long conversations when you’re well. I’ll be here as long as it takes for you to recover.”

Tom attempted to lift his head from his pillow, but he groaned in pain and collapsed back upon the bed.

“Don’t be silly,” Emma said, attempting to quiet him. “You must lie still.”

“I can see that,” he whispered and then turned his head a bit toward her.

Emma thought she could see, in the semidarkness, a watery film of tears forming in his eyes.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “You must return to Paris and go on with your work.”

“I’ll stay here. Virginie can carry on—she’s quite capable of running the studio.”

Tom flinched. “No. You must do your work. I insist.”

Emma gripped his hand. “Tom, be fair. You have no right to insist. How can you ask me to return to Paris when you’re suffering?”

Without hesitating he said, “Because others need you more.”

Stunned by his words, Emma released his hand and sagged back in her chair.

“I see,” she replied, clasping her hands and fighting against the tears welling in her eyes. “All right, then. I’ll leave in the morning. It will be better for both of us.”

Tom lifted his hand, but then, as if his arm was weighted by lead, it fell to the bed. “It’s the right thing—the injured soldiers need you. Do try to get some rest.”

She turned her head to wipe away a tear. When she looked back, he was asleep.

Emma closed her eyes and tried to do the same. A man drifted by her chair in the night; she was uncertain whether he was a soldier or a hospital aide. For all she knew, he could have been a hallucination. The hours slid by in jumpy fits and starts, punctuated by terrifying memories from the Front and the room’s lurking shadows. There were ethereal moments when she looked across the sick beds and tried to convince herself she was a participant in a terrible dream. Of course, she knew that wasn’t the truth. This was no dream—the world had, in an instant, become much more complicated for her and Tom.