Chapter 10: Shaken of a Mighty Wind

The sky was getting dark, and a cataract of frigid air poured off the restless sea. As she walked, Laura found herself reaching in her memory for a warmer day, back and back, to the bright summer of ’14, hot and dry and vivid, its long days freighted, somehow, with hope.

Laura had just received her nursing certificate, with a commendation. Enough success to silence even her skeptical father. She’d put herself through nursing school. Got up every day at four in the morning, scrubbing the hospital floors and emptying bedpans. She had been so proud of herself. Her mother had been proud too, quietly. She’d made one of her old Montreal dresses over for Laura for the graduation.

But 1914 was also the year her mother had fixed as the world’s last, and she would not leave the subject alone. “I read it in Zion’s Watch Tower,” she told her children. “We must be wary, we must be prepared.” She filled the house with tinned food, and read the papers with dogged intensity.

“Just don’t argue,” Freddie had advised Laura. He was always sensible, her brother. “Let the year pass. They’ll come round.” He and Laura were walking together in the public gardens, side by side in their scuffed shoes. It had been a Sunday in July, the sun hot on the back of Laura’s neck. The roses had just opened, she remembered. The air hummed with bees. Laura ran a finger along the edge of a petal. She was twenty. He was eighteen. The world seemed to be opening before them. Like the roses.

“Try to understand them,” Freddie had added. He was kinder than her too. “Look at the world now. It’s terrifying, isn’t it? We have flying machines. Phonographs. Moving pictures, even. Everything is changing so fast. Mother’s frightened. In a way, it’s easier to imagine the world’s going to end. At least there’s a certainty to it. End—bam—done. But change—where does change stop?”

Laura remembered her answer, her eyes still on the flowers. “When did you get so wise?”

Freddie snorted. “If only I could put it in meter.”

Freddie had just got a job as a harbor clerk. Laura said, “I’m making money now.” Although, admittedly, not much. “If you’re working nights, we could do it. You could go to school to study—anything really. Art.”

She could see he was tempted. Something changed in his face. But then he shook his head, gave her an affectionate look. “No, save your money. I have my art books, and I’ll keep practicing, don’t worry. You’ll be a hospital matron before long and I’ll have my pictures hanging in every fine house in North America. Just wait.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Laura. “Well, if not an education, let me at least buy you an ice cream.”

“Lead the way,” said Freddie. “Can you afford chocolate sauce?”

They left the park together, laughing. Eventually, Laura was sure, their parents would see that there was nothing to fear. “Did you hear?” said Freddie. “A poor archduke was shot last week in Sarajevo. His wife too.”

“How dreadful,” Laura answered. “Vanilla?”

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· · ·Pim answered Laura’s knock, a shawl flung over her shoulders, face colorless as the Della Robbia angels that Freddie sketched from art books. Her astonishing hair was plaited. “Mrs. Shaw—” Laura began, standing on the stoop. “Pim. Forgive the late hour—”

“Oh, it’s quite all right,” said Pim, smiling, poised, as though bedraggled acquaintances came to her door all the time. “Come in, come in, of course.” Her eyes were red-rimmed.

“God bless you,” said Laura, and meant it.

“Come into the kitchen,” said Pim. “Have you had supper? I suppose it’s something particular you came about? Are you all right, my dear? At least have some tea.”

“I came to see Mary,” said Laura. “It’s important.”

Was it her imagination, or did Pim’s face fall? “Oh, of course you did. You have so much in common, it’s only natural. I’ll take you up straightaway, as soon as you’ve finished your tea. I even remember how you take it. And the milk just came.”

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· · ·Mary was in a sitting room, her back to the door, answering correspondence. “Mary,” Pim said from the doorway. “Miss Iven’s here to see you.”

“A moment, if you please, Iven,” Mary said without turning. Her pen raced over the paper.

“I’ll just leave you alone for a bit,” said Pim. The door shut behind her.

Laura was just sinking into one of the chairs by the fire when the echoing slam of another door made her lurch for the cover of the wall, narrowly missing the fireplace. Mary whipped around, in the same startled reaction.

Laura arranged her skirt, collected her dignity. “Pardon me.”

Mary said, “If a car backfires in London, half the men on the street hurl themselves into the nearest doorway and crouch there quivering. Sit down, for heaven’s sake, Iven. What did you come to see me about?”

Laura had debated ways to approach Mary all through her walk. Now she settled on the simplest. “You asked me if I meant to go back.”

Mary stiffened. “I did.”

Laura said, “What if I wanted to?”

She could see the thoughts running fast behind Mary’s dark eyes. “Do you want to?”

“Yes.”

“You were discharged.”

“I recovered quicker and better than expected.”

Mary’s eye lingered on Laura’s skirt-covered shins. “When did it happen?”

“November.”

Mary’s lips tightened; she was probably remembering November. “A bad time.”

“Yes.”

It had rained for two months without stopping by the time the much-delayed push began. The one Laura thought would never happen. By then, the ground was a viscous substance in which men swam and slipped and frequently drowned. Her patients came to her more mud than flesh, and already gangrenous.

“And you were in a casualty clearing station?” said Mary.

Laura said, “I was at Brandhoek. The army put an ammunition depot right near us. They said Fritz wouldn’t bomb it, for fear of hitting the hospital.”

Mary snorted. Laura was glad that Mary understood, that she didn’t have to explain. She never spoke of Brandhoek.

“And you want to go back,” said Mary. “At tea, you said you didn’t. What changed?”

Laura said, “There is some confusion over how my brother died. I want to understand.”

“You can write letters.”

“I have tried. But I’ll get answers in person that no one would ever give me in a letter.”

“They might take you back into the army.”

“Your time isn’t your own in the army.”

“So you expect me to get you into the forbidden zone, and then bid you farewell while you go haring about the countryside after news of your brother? No, thank you.”

Laura said, “I can work, Mrs. Borden, and I will. I assume I’d have leave now and again? I will ask my questions then.”

“Call me Mary, for God’s sake. I couldn’t pay you.”

“All expenses covered, then,” said Laura. “And we shall be liberal in our definition of expenses. I’m sure your openhanded American donors will fund my hire.”

“I spent all their money on supplies,” said Mary. But she still hadn’t said no.

Laura waited.

“Pim said your parents burned in the explosion. Are you deranged with grief?”

“No,” said Laura.

“How bad is your leg really?”

“Healed.”

“Let me see it, then.”

“It’s not your business.”

“It is, if you’re going to be staffing my hospital. I will see for myself.”

It was a small humiliation. Petty revenge for Laura’s behavior at tea, or perhaps Mary was testing her resolve. Laura knew that, and still she almost stood up, walked out. Why stay? Because she’d dreamed of Agatha Parkey saying Your brother is alive? Was the girl her parents had formed still alive inside her, believing that the end of the world must come with miracles?

Or must she just spend her life kneeling at the altar of her ghosts?

She unfastened her garter and rolled down the stocking. With her skirt hiked up to the knee on one side, the scar showed clear in the pitiless firelight. It was nothing compared to what many men lived with. But it was ugly, the tissue stiff and red and twisted, a clean scoop on one side as though a giant had gone at her with a spoon. A few inches higher or lower and Laura would never have walked again.

Mary looked frowning from the scar to Laura’s face. Then she sat back and said, “Very well. The ship is the Gothic, departing on the first. I hope I don’t regret this, Iven.”