Benedict Hall Page 11

  He hurried to her, wishing they had let him dress. The dressing gown was embarrassing, with its empty sleeve dangling. People gave him sympathetic glances as he passed them, the same ones they gave the one-legged men hobbling on crutches, slightly less grieved than the sorrowful looks bent on the men who had no legs at all, being pushed in wheeled chairs. He tried not to notice, mustering his most cheerful smile for his boyhood sweetheart.

  Four years had changed her face. He remembered it round cheeked and full lipped, soft with youth. Now, at twenty-four, there were faint lines around her mouth and under her chin. Her cheeks were thinner, her mouth harder.

  She kissed him gingerly, avoiding his left side. They sat in the lounge and talked, or tried to. He asked after her family, and the wheat crop, and the grazing. She asked him about the hospital food, and the voyage home. After a painfully short time, they ran out of things to say. He had never been much of a conversationalist, but they had been sweethearts. They needed time, he thought, to recapture the feeling between them, but he couldn’t deny that it was a relief when she said good-bye, and went back to her hotel with a promise to return in the morning.

  Rosa Gregorio came to him early the next day. She was his favorite among the nurses at the Soldiers’ Home. He liked her direct manner, her Brooklyn accent, her unflinching way with his dressings.

  She helped him sit up against his pillow. She poured out his whisky, watched as he drank it, queried him matter-of-factly about the level of his pain. She wrote in his chart, then hung it from the iron frame of the bed. When everything was done, she pulled a chair up beside him, sat in it, and gave him a level glance from beneath her starched cap.

  “Looks like you have something to say, Nurse Gregorio.”

  “You’re getting out next week, Major.”

  “Hope so.” He shifted a little in the bed, pinned by her gaze.

  “I saw your young lady in the lounge yesterday.”

  “Yes?”

  “Nice-looking girl.”

  “Yes. Elizabeth.”

  “She come to get you, then?”

  “My family sent her to keep me company.”

  “You’re engaged.”

  He shrugged. “I think they call it an understanding.”

  The nurse folded her hands together in her lap. “Major Parrish, I seen a lot of you boys come through here. I been here two years already.”

  He waited. Rosa Gregorio, of everyone here, had been the most honest with him. It was from her he learned the surgeons had given up trying to repair the neuroma that caused him such anguish. It was she who tried to fit him with a prosthetic while he writhed in agony. She had told him, with a few straightforward words spoken in her Eastern twang, that there was nothing more the hospital could do.

  She said, “You gotta show her now, Major. Don’t wait till you’re married.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “Yes. It’s gonna be a shock. It don’t bother me, but I’m a nurse. I seen it all.” She leaned back and folded her arms. “Be glad it’s just your arm, Major. Some got it worse.”

  “I know.” A heaviness settled around his heart then, and he had to look away from her kind, homely face.

  “Want me to talk to her first?”

  He set his teeth, thinking. After a moment, he shook his head. “I’ll do it.”

  Her work-chapped hand gripped his shoulder briefly before she walked out of the ward and on to her other duties. He was glad she hadn’t said any more. He had the same feeling of premonition he had experienced that day on the battlefield of Megiddo.

  Elizabeth returned just after breakfast. She looked pretty and old-fashioned, there among the other visitors in the lounge. He didn’t think she had changed her hairstyle at all during his absence. She sat on his right side, and he took her left hand in his right one. Her eyes were wary, and her tentative smile trembled on her lips.

  “Are you feeling well today, Frank?”

  He nodded. “Fine.” Her fingers were hot and restless in his, and he swallowed. No point in putting it off.

  “They’ll let you go soon,” she said.

  “Listen, Lizzie,” he began.

  Her eyes skittered away. “No one calls me that anymore.”

  “No?” He released her hand, pretending to adjust the collar of his dressing gown.

  “Everyone calls me Elizabeth now.”

  “Elizabeth, then. Listen to me.”

  She raised her eyes to his. He had fallen in love with those eyes, blue as the wide Montana sky, perfect with her fair hair and rosy cheeks. “What is it?” she asked.

  In as few words as he could manage, he told her what Nurse Gregorio had said.

  She was silent for a long minute. Then, faintly, “I don’t want to look at it.”

  For answer, he stood, taking her hand again to pull her to her feet. He led her out of the lounge, down the corridor to the ward where he had spent the last weeks. She protested once, weakly, but he gave a faint shake of his head, and pressed her into a chair beside the neatly made hospital bed. He sat down on the edge of it, and shrugged out of his dressing gown. He didn’t look at her as he peeled away the dressing.

  He felt, as the gauze and tape fell away, that this time he was seeing his disfigured arm through Elizabeth’s eyes. He had grown used to its red, ragged appearance, the seeping scars left by the field surgeon, the raw skin where the stateside doctors tried, and failed, to repair the nerves. He had not quite become accustomed to the swellings at the end of it. He only hoped they wouldn’t grow larger.

  Now, with Elizabeth staring at the ruined flesh, he saw how ghastly it really was, how ugly and offensive. She made a slight sound in her throat, and turned her head away.

  He bound his arm up again, as best he could with one hand. He pulled the sleeve of his dressing gown over it, wincing as the fabric caught on the bandages. She didn’t watch any of this. “I’ve covered it,” he said. Despair made his voice hard. “It’s over.”

  Slowly, she turned her head again to face him. Her eyes had darkened, and her cheeks were mottled pink and white, the color of grief. She smoothed her hair with trembling hands, and fidgeted with the placket of her shirtwaist. “Frank,” she began, and stopped.

  “Nurse Gregorio was right,” he grated. He made his neck stiff and his jaw hard. He didn’t want to hurt Elizabeth, but if he broke down, if he showed his weakness, shed a single tear in her presence, he would never get over the shame of it. He glared at her, taking refuge in anger. “It’s better you know, Liz—Elizabeth.”

  “It’s so—” Her eyes filled suddenly with tears that gleamed in the bright light of the ward.

  “Yes. It is.”

  “Frank, I don’t know if I can—I just—”

  “Stop. It’s perfectly clear.”

  Her tears spilled over her cheeks, and she pressed a hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice breaking on a sob. “I’m so sorry.” She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking as she wept. Frank sat in stony silence, willing himself to endure until she was gone.

  Rosa Gregorio appeared as if from nowhere. She put an arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders, urged her up from her chair, and guided her out of the ward. Frank watched them go, then kicked off his slippers and leaned back against the frame of the bed, the iron cold and hard against his neck. He gazed out the window at the sunny Virginia day, but in his mind he saw it again, Elizabeth’s mouth crumpling, her face mottled by shock and disgust. He told himself he would forget it, in time. He would get used to it, as he was getting used to working with just one hand. But it hardly seemed possible just now.

  Nurse Gregorio came back a few minutes later, carrying a tray with an extra shot of whisky on it. “Good job, Major,” she said bracingly. “Got that out of the way. Now drink up.”

  He drank the shot, and set the glass down on his bed stand. “She left?”

  “Yes.” The nurse pulled the chair closer, and sat down. She put her fingers on his wrist, but he knew that
taking his pulse was a pretext. She was steadying him. “There will be someone else, Frank.”

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t believe me, but I seen that, too. There will be someone.”

  He didn’t answer. The likelihood that another woman could tolerate his disfigurement seemed as remote as the chance of his growing a new arm.

  “It’s a shame.” Rosa gave a click of her tongue as she released his wrist. “Country girl like that. She oughtta know better.”

  He couldn’t answer. He wished it were dark, so he could stop controlling his features, stop hiding behind the mask his face had become. He put his head back and closed his eyes.

  “I’ll check on you later, Major,” Nurse Gregorio said. Her voice had grown gentle, its usual sharpness smoothed and softened. He had never heard her speak like that, and it occurred to him that she was angry, too. Angry on his behalf. She touched his wrist, and murmured, “You have a bit of a rest now, Frank. This was a tough day.”

  He couldn’t speak past the fierce ache in his throat. He kept his eyes closed, and listened to the whisper of Rosa’s shoes on the linoleum floor as she carried his empty glass away.

  Frank shook the Times, hard, as if the rattle of its pages could force him back to the present. He folded the paper and set it aside, to finish reading at the breakfast table.

  It was not yet dark, the days lengthening as the season wore on. On such an evening in Montana, he would often saddle one of the quarter horses and ride out on some pretext or other—fences or cattle or irrigation—just to enjoy the smell of tamaracks greening, the twitter of birds flitting through the huckleberry bushes. He closed his eyes, picturing the blue outlines of the mountains against the darkening sky, the musical rush of the Bitterroot River tumbling over stones and deadfall.

  He opened his eyes, and put his right arm back into the sleeve of his shirt, then tugged the left sleeve up over his stump. Suddenly, he couldn’t bear to be within doors. He wanted to stretch his legs, to climb a hill, to breathe spring air, to see the peaks of mountains rise against the evening sky.

  He left the house without meeting anyone, and walked swiftly down Cherry. His long legs covered the distance to the waterfront in twenty minutes. In the big buildings to his right, offices had closed for the evening. On his left, the bawdy houses and taverns were doing a lively business, light and laughter and fragrant cigar smoke spilling from their open doorways. A pale sliver of moon ghosted over the city as the sun set beyond the crystalline peaks of the Olympics. Other walkers nodded to Frank as he passed them. A horse-drawn cart clattered across First, and Frank followed it, meaning to cut through the Public Market and stroll onto the pier beyond.

  Idly, he glanced to his right as he was crossing Post Street, and saw her just leaving her office. Margot Benedict. She was locking the door, adjusting her hat, pulling on her gloves as she turned away from the little clapboard building.

  She looked much more herself than she had in the unflattering newspaper picture. She was slim, well dressed, confident. She turned toward him, striding along the narrow street, her medical bag in one gloved hand, a modest handbag in the other. He saw her tip her head up to glance at the moon from beneath the brim of her hat, and a faint smile lifted the corners of her lips.

  Frank paused, thinking he would say hello, but just as he lifted his hand in greeting, the horrible thought crossed his mind that he might smell of whisky. Hastily, he dropped his hand, but it was too late. She had caught sight of him.

  She quickened her step, her long legs flashing beneath her skirt. Her ankles looked slender and strong above her heeled pumps, and her bobbed hair swung energetically around her chin. He wondered why the photo in the Times had looked so awful. She was not a pretty girl, he supposed. She didn’t have Elizabeth’s soft features and full bosom. But Margot Benedict was a striking woman.

  He sighed, resigning himself. If he smelled of whisky, he couldn’t help it now. And it was damned nice to meet a friend on the street, even one he had met only once.

  She reached him, and thrust out her hand to shake his. “Major Parrish,” she said. “Good to see you.”

  He had forgotten how deep her voice was. He took her hand and shook it. Her fingers, through the smooth leather of her glove, were strong, and her handshake was firm. “Dr. Benedict,” he said. “It’s late. Long day for you.”

  She nodded, and her direct gaze gleamed at him through the gathering dusk. “I had actual patients today,” she said, smiling. “Some of them have to come after work.”

  He couldn’t think of a response. He released her hand, and put his own into his pocket.

  She was, he thought, one of the most unselfconscious people he had ever met. She held his gaze directly, without embarrassment, as if they had been friends for years. “How’s the job going, Major? Father tells me Bill Boeing was awfully glad to have you.”

  “It’s good,” he said.

  “It’s a fine company, Father says.”

  “Yes.”

  “Very good.” She smiled at him. “Well. I’m afraid I have to be off. I have to go to the hospital and see a couple of patients. Awfully nice to run into you, though.”

  “Yes,” he said. He wished he could think of something interesting to say. “Good night.”

  She gave him another nod, and turned to her left. He watched her moving purposefully up the hill toward Fifth. Too late, it occurred to him he should have offered to walk with her to the hospital. Escort her. It would have been the gentlemanly thing to do.

  “Hell,” he muttered, as he continued his lonely stroll toward the pier. “Parrish, you’re a lost cause.”

  He was at his drafting table the next morning, analyzing stress points on airplane wings, when one of the stenographers came up from the workroom to lay a message on his desk. He murmured his thanks without looking up, and for long minutes, absorbed as he was in his problem, he didn’t glance at it. When he finally picked it up, he caught his lower lip between his teeth and leaned back in his chair, holding the slip of paper between two fingers.

  One of the other engineers looked across at him and laughed. “What’s up there, Parrish? You’re holding that thing as if it’s about to catch fire!”

  Frank hastily laid the paper on his desk, facedown. It was a silly gesture. Harry wouldn’t know who she was, anyway.

  Harry was watching him. “Must be a lady!” Frank felt his ears redden. Harry chortled again. “I was wondering when you were going to start meeting some of these Seattle girls, Parrish. Handsome devil like you!”

  The rest of the room erupted in laughter. Frank felt like a schoolboy caught passing notes in class. He wished the stenographer had let him pick up the damned message on his way to lunch, but he forced himself to meet the curious gazes of his colleagues. “Just a friend,” he said.

  It wasn’t enough for the ebullient Harry. He leaped from his chair and crossed the room to Frank’s desk. “Come on, Parrish. Girl friend or man friend? You hiding something?”

  Frank pushed the message beneath the blueprint he had been working on. He liked Harry. He liked them all, really. But he didn’t know how to respond to her message, nor how to explain such a thing to these men. They all seemed so easy in their friendships. They often spoke of their wives or their young ladies in comfortable terms. Harry’s wife had given up her teaching post when they were married, and now sent him off to work each day with elaborate lunches. Paul was walking out with a switchboard operator from the telephone company. One or two declared they would never settle down, but it was clear to Frank no one believed them. Frank’s bachelor state had been remarked upon more than once.

  The thing no one ever mentioned, of course, was his missing arm. No one asked about his war experience, a circumstance for which he was grateful. They knew he had grown up in Montana, but no one called him Cowboy, and he was grateful for that, too.

  Harry grinned down at him. “The wife’s still after me to have you to dinner, Frank. She wants to introduce you to one of h
er friends.”

  “I’m not much good at parties. Nice of her, though.”

  Someone called, “You should go, Parrish. Harry’s wife is a wizard in the kitchen.”

  Someone else said, “He’s had to let his belt out three times since he got married.” Everyone laughed, and Harry made some jocular response.

  Frank breathed a little easier with their attention diverted. He picked up his pencil and slide rule, and with a nod to Harry, bent over the blueprint again. He had lost his train of thought, though, and the corner of the pink message slip distracted him, glaring up from beneath the blueprint. He kept his head down, his chin on his fist, and thought about it.

  He wondered if other young women did this now, if this was the new social order. If he accepted Margot Benedict’s invitation, what would that mean? In Missoula, a girl’s family expected certain things of a young man. He and Elizabeth were hardly allowed to be alone until she was eighteen. When he came home from college at Christmas and Easter, her family and his assumed their inevitable engagement. He didn’t have to say anything, or ask anyone. It had all been easy. Everyone knew the rules.

  This bold query unsettled him.

  He slid the slip out, folded it into a square, and dropped it into his pocket. It was much easier to concentrate on the orderly succession of numbers on his slipstick, to lose himself in comparisons and projections. The implications of a dinner invitation from Margot Benedict were too complex to contemplate.