Читать книгу Sins of Omission - Fern Michaels - Страница 8

Soissons, France

October 1918

Sleet pelted the tall windows of the hospital at Soissons, which sat upon a gentle rise of countryside about fifty kilometers from Paris. Reuben Tarz attempted to disguise his limp as he passed between the neat rows of cots, his watery gaze searching out number twenty-seven, his friend, Daniel. Reuben’s heart gave a sickening lurch when he saw a strange man in Daniel’s assigned bunk. Disoriented and fearful, he spun around, hardly recognizing the savagery of the sound that erupted from his throat. “Daniel.”

“Can’t get enough of this place, eh?” Daniel’s even, steady voice came from somewhere behind him.

Reuben whirled at the familiar sound, forcing his eyes to focus on the row of hospital beds beneath the gallery windows. “How did you know it was me?” he asked curiously. “Why did they move you over here?” He tried to keep the anxiousness out of his voice.

Daniel made a sound deep in his throat, almost as though he were laughing. “Because they’re supposed to take the bandages off my eyes tomorrow. The cast comes off my shoulder, too. I knew it was you because I heard you make the same sound when we were gassed. What are you doing here, Reuben? I figured once they’d patched up that leg of yours, you’d be long gone, back to the front, or to the States. I never expected to see you again.”

“You aren’t exactly seeing me,” Reuben said wryly. “And why in hell would you think you’d never see me again? Do you think I saved your blasted life so I could take a powder? We’re friends, we’ve been to hell and back. That means something, doesn’t it? Besides, you’re just a dumb kid and someone has to look out for you. I have a plan.” Reuben dropped to his knees to whisper. “Or should I say Marchioness Michelene Fonsard has a plan?” He waited to see if Daniel’s excitement would rise to the level of his own.

“Madame Mickey? The lady who brought me flowers from her own greenhouse?”

“The same. She’s come up with a way for both of us to go to her château for some R and R. What that means is that we’re out of this fucking war. We’re going to get fresh eggs, good red meat, and lots of strong red wine. What d’you think?”

Daniel didn’t answer for a long time, and when he did, Reuben had to bend over to hear him. “What if I’m blind, Reuben? We both came to Soissons at the same time, and you were as blind as me from the gas. You’ve been out for two weeks, but I’m still…here. And what is it we have to give to get all this good country living?”

“You, my friend, don’t have to give anything. I’ll be doing the giving, or the taking, however the case may be.” Reuben’s grin broadened at Daniel’s expression of awe.

“You mean…she wants…you’ll do that? Jesus! One of the nurses told me about Madame Mickey. They say she’s old, around forty. That’s twice as old as you!” Daniel flushed a brilliant scarlet, which only added to Reuben’s amusement.

Reuben changed positions to ease his injured leg. “I look at it this way. Madame Mickey has everything any other woman has, plus a heart as big as all outdoors. If she wants to be our benefactor, why not? We certainly have nothing to lose. You don’t want to go back to the front, do you? I sure as hell don’t. This war can’t go on forever, and I intend to outlast it. I want the same for you. Madame Mickey has some influential friends in the War Office. Did you know that Captain Eddie Rickenbacker stayed at her house in Paris when he had leave?” Reuben watched Daniel’s face at the mention of Rickenbacker, hoping the name would lend credibility to Madame Mickey’s reputation. “And,” he added for emphasis, “guess who’s a personal friend of hers, one so famous he autographed a picture of himself for her, taken while he was in full uniform? ‘My love for you endures,’ it says. Signed J. J. ‘Blackjack’ Pershing himself!”

“That’s all very fine, Reuben…for you. But where do I fit in?”

“You’ll be right beside me. Daniel, you have to learn how to be gracious when someone offers you something. Always accept. I’m accepting this for both of us. We’ll mend, get our health back, have a little fun, and then head back to the States. I told you I’d take care of you, and I will. I made a promise to you and to myself. You’re going to be ‘the finest lawyer in the country,’ to use your own words, and I’m going to be…I don’t know yet, but I do know I’ll be wearing silk jackets, walking on thick carpets, serving the best caviar with chilled champagne. I’m going to have a mansion with a whole battalion of servants and money to burn. And if I get in trouble along the way, you’ll be the hotshot lawyer who’ll get me out of it. We made a deal, Daniel.”

“What if I can’t see when they take the bandages off? Then what? What if I’m blind? B-l-i-n-d! How will I go to law school then? Are you going to lead me around on a string?”

“Damn you, Daniel, shut up,” Reuben growled. “You aren’t going to be blind. I’m not. I couldn’t see very well for a few days, but my eyesight is almost restored. I still have to have the treatments, so will you. And just for the record, yes, I would lead you around on a string. I’d find a way for you to get to law school if I had to go with you. You got that?”

The eighteen-year-old soldier sighed. There wasn’t a whole lot left to believe in, but he did believe in Reuben. Reuben was the brother he never had, the uncle he’d always wished for, the father he would have died for. Reuben was his friend. Reuben had saved his life and was willing to believe in his dream of finishing his education and becoming a good lawyer. Reuben believed in him. And if it took the rest of his miserable life, he would repay the debt.

Reuben’s gray eyes sparkled mischievously. “Madame Mickey tells me her cousin’s daughter by marriage is expected shortly after Thanksgiving. Her name is Bebe and her father is a famous moviemaker in California. You’ll have a pretty girl to pal around with. We’ll never have to smell carbolic and dead sweat again. We’ll be civilized, Daniel. Do you know what that means? This…this hell we’ve lived through…we’ve earned this!”

Daniel was silent, but his head dipped ever so slightly in agreement. Reuben always managed to make sense out of chaos. “I think I’ll be out of here in another couple of days. I’m with you, pal. Tell Madame Mickey I’d be honored to accept her invitation. Did I tell you she brought me flowers from her greenhouse again yesterday?”

Reuben guffawed. “She calls it her hothouse. I can tell you—”

“Never mind,” Daniel said hastily.

Reuben didn’t know why he felt the need to stake out the boundaries of his commitment to Daniel. To take care of Daniel, to watch over him, somehow enabled him to make sense of his own life. Daniel was good, he was honest, and he was honorable, and if Reuben had anything to do with it, he would stay that way. He reached down to tousle Daniel’s pale blond hair.

“When you’re discharged, Madame Mickey will pick us up in her motorcar. She’s promised to teach me to drive.”

“How old is this Bebe?” Daniel asked. It grated on him at times that he’d never had a girlfriend, while he knew that Reuben had had scores and had been intimate with all of them. After all, Reuben was a virile man. Bebe was probably ten years old. Reuben still thought of Daniel as a boy. Christ, he’d gone through the war the same as Reuben had; that should qualify him as a man. He waited, holding his breath, for Reuben’s reply. Think of me as a man, he pleaded silently, so I can think of myself the same way.

“Fifteen going on sixteen. Same way you’re seventeen going on eighteen. I understand she’s a beauty. If you can’t think of anything else to do, you can talk her to death.”

Daniel flushed again and changed the subject. “Does this country estate have a library?”

“Don’t they all?” Reuben answered blithely. “I haven’t been to the château yet, but Madame Mickey’s told me a lot about it. When she’d make her rounds at the hospital we talked, sometimes for hours. The château has everything. We’re going there to live again.” Reuben’s heavy voice conveyed the somberness of his memories. “The trenches are something we’ll never have to see again. Shrapnel-seeded meadows, the jagged rubble heap of La Boiselle, the frostbite, the chilblains, jaundice—it’s all behind us. No more cold nights with just each other for warmth. We won’t have to carry a rifle and we won’t ever have to kill anyone again. We can bury our savagery here, outside the doors of this hospital, the day you’re discharged. We’ll be Daniel and Reuben again, starting fresh.”

Daniel felt Reuben’s embarrassment at his outburst. He couldn’t remember Reuben ever showing so much emotion, even when they were first getting to know each other those many months before in boot camp, when he talked of being a boy from Brooklyn, shunted around from one family member to another until he struck out on his own and never looked back.

“Well,” Daniel began, clearing his throat, “so she’s gonna teach you to drive, hey? I bet that’s not all she’s going to teach you.” He grinned beneath his bandages.

This time, Reuben noticed, Daniel didn’t blush at all.

“Hey, boy! Rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.” With a wave of his hand, he left his friend and found himself smiling as he threaded his way through the aisles of cots and wounded men to the great heavy doors that led to the street.

Daniel lay quietly for a long time after Reuben left. If Reuben said he would be able to see again, then he would see. If Reuben said his shoulder would knit, it would knit. He was alive, and Reuben had both their lives under control. All this misery would become a memory. His thoughts came to life as the moans and groans of the other men in the makeshift ward faded. Thank God for Reuben.

They’d been in boot camp together since day one, from the first he had recognized a kindred spirit in Reuben. Then they’d arrived in France and tasted the first bitter dregs of day-to-day combat. At night, groups of men had huddled together, speaking of their homes, their families, their sweethearts. They would ramble on and show pictures, and eyes would embarrassingly tear and voices break. Daniel would see Reuben’s expression change, become vacant. Hardened. The tall, handsome man would walk from the group determinedly, and Daniel would join him. They would talk about their own childhoods, about their lack of any kind of home that could compare with what the other men had.

Daniel was an orphan, a fact he’d learned early on, scrambling in the orphanage for scraps of bread or fleeting attention. Reuben’s mother had died giving birth to him, and then his father had died when he was six. After that he was passed from one relative to another, winding up with an aunt, a destitute woman who had made it clear that with six children of her own to care for, she had no time for Reuben. Wherever they lived, Reuben and Daniel had felt extraneous. They were outsiders. Neither of them could remember a cozy Thanksgiving dinner in the bosom of their family—parents, grandparents, sisters, or brothers.

The war had brought them together. In the trenches they became brothers to each other while the bitter realities of war embraced them in a cloak of death and destruction. Although there were times when it seemed life offered little more than a thousand ways to die, they’d survived by sharing rations and fears, past emotional traumas, and then almost identical physical pain—gassed and blinded in the same overwhelming moment.

Daniel shifted on his cot, where he lay bandaged and broken. The one question he tried to push far away, to the very back of his brain, whirled in his mind. Will I be blind? Forever? A recent night in the trenches flashed through his mind. He could smell it and feel it, and his skin began to crawl. Speechless and trembling as the world crashed around them, they sat ankle deep in the muck, waiting out an unusually fearful blitz. Then he remembered the body of that boy landing on him, bleeding, open and steaming at the same time, and the smell of gunpowder and burning flesh. When Reuben had pulled him out they had stared at each other and voiced the same overpowering fear: that they would die on strange soil with no one but each other to care about them. They’d shared their youth, their dreams, and their innocence over the next few hours, looking deep into each other’s souls. When the sun came up, they shook hands in open acknowledgment of their brotherhood. Reuben had said, “We’re in this together, and, by God, we’ll get out of it together.” He would never forget those words and the unbreakable bond they’d formed that night.

Daniel pushed his head deeper into the pillow on the hard cot. He had to believe in Reuben. Believe in Reuben…He dreamed of fluffy white clouds, soft warm breezes, and the slow, joyful unfolding of Reuben’s promises.

Reuben stood beneath the portico of Soissons Hospital, an abandoned ruin of a chalet before French forces had marched into the valley and commandeered the building for medical facilities. Before coming here he and Daniel had been treated behind the battle lines. Dealing with the sick and wounded was more difficult for the Americans than for the French because there were no American hospitals, and only those men who were permanently unfit for further service could be sent home. Reuben didn’t know if Daniel realized they would surely see action again. It was this knowledge that made Madame Mickey’s invitation so attractive. On their own, Reuben and Daniel were doomed to return to the front. If someone could pull a few strings for them, for whatever purpose, why not?

The cold made Reuben’s leg ache and the biting wind burned his eyes. The past weeks he’d forced himself to ignore such pain. He was alive, that was all that mattered. Time would heal his wounds. He leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette, trying to shrug deeper into his khaki tunic. He was colder than a well digger’s ass, but he wouldn’t move toward the barracks that were his temporary home until Madam Mickey had all the paperwork in order.

Private Reuben Aaron Tarz, Co. D, 16th Infantry Regiment, a doughboy. On June 5, 1917, he’d been one of five million men registering for the draft, but he wasn’t one of the ones who shouted “Kill the Kaiser!” He’d enlisted for two simple reasons: three square meals a day and a roof over his head. For his efforts he’d received his pay, killed the enemy, lain in his own body filth, been sprayed for cooties, been blinded and wounded. More than that, he’d stood at attention when the bugles blew at four A.M., the time when a lot of Americans stateside were just going to bed. He’d slogged through sleet and slush, seen every horror there was. Eventually he’d hardened himself to the sight of maggots feeding on dead flesh, of rats that infested the trenches in search of food, any kind of food, even human corpses and gangrenous flesh. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget walking up the line, his eyes alert for the Krauts and for Daniel. The hateful cacophony of bayonets clanking against steel helmets, the mountains of dead bodies, the madness, the absolute terror of it all. The nightly muck sweats, the fear of dying, the fear of surviving. They called it a world war, but to Reuben it was his war, very personal and very much his own. It was his fight to stay alive.

Reuben flicked his cigarette into a mound of slush. His feet were cold, his legs ached, and he had a terrible pounding in his head. Back at the barracks he would apply the drops to his eyes and gradually the headache would lessen. It was a hell of a price to pay for three meals that were more slop than food and for a cold roof of stars. But what choice had he? he reflected bitterly. All the ills of the world, all the wars, pestilence, and famine, were brought about by small men, small of stature and small of mind.

With a muttered oath, he pulled his cap over his curly dark hair and yanked it down over his ears. By the time he’d made it halfway down the road to the barracks, the hard, sluicing sleet had soaked him to the skin. His head was pounding as he limped through the half-frozen sludge. Looking up, he squinted through the rain in the direction of the barracks. Another few minutes and he’d be inside, where it was warm. Things were looking up—the way his luck was going, his dreams might even come true. He could almost touch them, and it scared him; he kept wanting to look over his shoulder. But he had guts, he had chutzpah, and that chutzpah would make all the difference. He was going to succeed in this world. In the trenches, he’d climbed over dead bodies literally—now he’d do it figuratively if need be.

Yes, he was Jewish, but only when it was convenient to be Jewish. During his year in the trenches he had passed for every nationality under the sun. Jews, he’d found out early, were not the most highly regarded of people. But when it came right down to it, he probably wasn’t anything except Reuben Aaron Tarz from Brooklyn, New York.

A young man, angry still at his mother for dying during the first minutes of his life and then making him live through his first six years with his father, who had grieved over his wife’s death in granite silence until he, too, had succumbed. Those first six years, he believed, had taught him not to cry. He didn’t remember too much after that except arriving and leaving, then his aunt’s house in Brooklyn, and the years with her and her swarming brood. Those years, he believed, had taught him how to fight for his own space. Six loved children in a cramped tenement in Brooklyn and one begrudged child made that damned near an impossible feat. He’d been thrown out of that house after his temper had erupted once too often. And he had been on his own ever since. Often, in those early times in Brooklyn, he went hungry for days and had a bath and clean clothes only when he could finagle a deal. Soon trouble became his middle name. And trouble finds trouble. The local gang of street boys was well into a life of crime, running numbers and doing shady errands for local smalltime mobsters, by the time Reuben had decided that getting out meant living longer. He’d seen enough of what happened when the low men on the totem pole got into a disagreement. The ones on the ground got squashed. Life held no guarantees, but of one thing Reuben was certain: He’d never go back to Brooklyn.

The long gray barracks were just ahead, low shadows in an already gray background. Only the yellow lights dimly penetrating the ice-glazed windows gave him direction. He couldn’t wait to get out of his wet clothes, clothes that would never dry. In the morning he’d have to put them on again and they’d stick to his body like leeches. Well, he’d worry about that tomorrow. Right now he was going to shed the wet wool, slip under his blankets, and pray for the pounding in his head to let up.

No sooner had he opened the door than a chorus of voices surrounded him. “Here he is!”

“Now we can feast!”

“Come on, Tarz, let’s get it together here.”

“Yeah! Lady Bountiful was here and left you a basket of goodies. Good, loyal soldiers that we are, we didn’t touch a thing. Divvy up.”

“What do you have that the rest of us don’t, Tarz? That’s what we want to know.”

Reuben grinned halfheartedly. His bunkmates had been riding him ever since Madame Mickey had made her first appearance at the barracks. At first he’d thought she was just another generous Frenchwoman who wanted to help the Americans. Then his buddy George had explained her mission. “My body!” Reuben had squawked. “She’s twice my age!” The first night in the barracks after her visit, the men began to talk.

“What a knockout!” George had exclaimed.

“Did you get a load of her legs? Sheathed in the finest silk stockings.”

“That perfume of hers is enough to make you want to crawl after her on your hands and knees.”

“She’s a fool for black hair and gray eyes. I heard her say your eyes were gray. ‘The color of the sky before a snowfall!’”

“I’ll bet she’s got beds with silk sheets and monograms and the same kinds of towels. Real soap that smells nice and a telephone in the bedroom. White carpets…”

“You’re making all this up.” Reuben had laughed with the rest of them.

“No,” George said seriously, “Madame Mickey’s a living legend around here from what I’ve gathered. And I’ve been up and around longer than you have.” He pointed and flexed his healed arm. “She comes almost every day in a big sleek Citroën, bringing a mountain of goodies just like you’ve got right here. She’s got a warm word and a dazzling smile for anyone who needs it. And always, always, looks good enough to…”

“Eat!”

“Devour whole!”

“Make love to!”

“Get lucky with!”

Each soldier had his own idea about what he would do if offered the honor of her company.

“No problem for you, Tarz, right?” they’d heckled.

He remembered how he’d laughed then, and his stomach churned. After that, her special visits to him became routine. She persisted. And persisted. Now he was still unsure of her intentions, but he was ready and willing to go along with anything she said. Why not?

“Well?” the men chorused as they watched him undress.

“Whooeee, look at those haunches! Check those sinewy thighs! And that big broad chest…whooeee!” they heckled.

“Go ahead, eat whatever she brought. Just tell me how it tastes so I won’t have to lie.” Drops for his eyes. He needed them badly, so badly that his hands shook as he fumbled with the dropper. It was George who noticed his trembling, and with a wave of his hand he cut the heckling short and reached for the cobalt-blue bottle.

“Jesus, you’re frozen. Toss me a couple of blankets. Now lie still and I’ll put these in your eyes. You should’ve said something, Tarz. Sometimes you gotta ask for help.”

“How’s Daniel?” George asked. “Do they know yet if he’ll be able to see?”

“They’re removing the bandages tomorrow. He gets the cast off at the same time. It could go either way.”

“That’s pissifying,” George grunted. “I hope the kid’s okay.”

Reuben lay quietly on his bunk, careful not to move his head. Within thirty minutes the pounding was only a dull ache. Maybe he could sleep. The others had moved to the far end of the barracks to allow him the quiet time he needed. They were good guys; he appreciated them and liked them. He knew he could have been tossed in with a bunch of hardnoses.

Before he drifted into sleep, Reuben did something he would do only three times in his life: he prayed. This time it was for Daniel. Then he crossed his fingers for luck the way he’d done so often when he was a boy. Surely Daniel’s God would listen to a Jew.

That night saw the end of the three-day sleet storm that had nearly paralyzed the activities at Soissons Hospital. Reuben thought it miraculous that Madame Mickey had ventured out in it to deliver the basket of treats.

Rolling onto his side as the last notes of reveille died away, he was uncertain whether or not to leave his bunk. His buddies had cleared the barracks at the first sounds of the bugle and had filed out into the deep shadowy dawn. Even here the army had its regulations and methods for making a man miserable. He felt sorry for George and the other men; they’d soon be receiving orders to return to their divisions. Odd as it seemed, none of them appeared to resent the fact that their two comrades would escape a return to the front. Reuben supposed that in some vicarious way, Madame Mickey and her resources represented a kind of hope for all of them.

It was warm beneath the blankets, but not as warm as Reuben would have liked. He was tempted to gather blankets from other bunks and wrap himself like an Indian, but he had a scheduled treatment for his eyes this morning, and at noon Daniel’s bandages were to come off. And at some point he had to get in touch with Madame Mickey to give her the news of Daniel. Now, that particular assignment deserved a second thought.

George had warned him not to chase after the famous lady. He’d coached him for hours. Do this, don’t do that. Don’t fetch and carry, and for God’s sake, don’t appear grateful. Be stubborn. Parcel out your favors. Flatter the lady, but always make her think you might be lying. Then look into her eyes and say something genuine, something soft and sweet. It had been all he could do to stifle his laughter when old George issued instructions on the exact way sweet talk was to be delivered. But because George was older and wiser in the ways of women, Reuben had listened. He stored away all the little nuggets of information and knew he’d probably have a use for them before long. He stretched his leg, feeling the tendons and ligaments pulling in the muscles of his thigh. He’d carry that scar for the rest of his life, one of the doctors had told him. To Reuben it was more than a scar; it was a sign that he’d survived. The long indentation where flesh and muscle should have been would remind him of the trenches, of where he had slept and ate and learned about a boy named Daniel.

Throwing back the wooden shutter, he peered through the dirty glass out to the bleak light where the men were gathered for roll call. Today was a new day, a beginning of sorts. If he’d calculated, manipulated, and organized the coming events, he couldn’t have done a better job than fate had done. Madame Mickey was his first step toward where he wanted to end up. The only problem was he didn’t know exactly where that certain place was…yet. Time. Time was always the answer.

The young sun struggled over the horizon, only to be blotted out by a cloud. That didn’t have to mean anything, he would never believe in omens. He’d had enough of that crap when he’d lived with his aunt. It was a new day, pure and simple, a good day for Daniel and himself.

He washed his face and shaved with the new safety razor that King Gillette had issued to every doughboy heading overseas in one of the greatest promotional advertising schemes ever. As Reuben allowed his thoughts to travel back to Daniel, he grew jumpy and inadvertently nicked his chin. What if Daniel were permanently blind? He dunked the razor in the tin of water and at that moment reaffirmed a commitment he had made: he and Daniel were to be brothers.

If he felt fear beyond the possibility of Daniel’s blindness, it was of his obligation to Madame Mickey. Reuben had never slept with a woman. He’d done all the touching and feeling that was allowed, but that was as far as he’d ever gotten. Back in New York he had few opportunities to meet girls, girls who would bother with him, at any rate. Empty pockets and hard times weren’t attractive assets as far as women were concerned. And he would never pay for the pleasure, not like some guys who saved their pennies for a roll between dirty sheets. Not Reuben Tarz. Not when having shoes with decent soles and a new shirt every so often were more lasting pleasures. It was only since joining the army that the opportunity for women had presented itself. Now, as a respectable doughboy, clean shaven and adequately clothed, he’d blended into the ranks with hundreds of thousands of other faceless men. The army, the great equalizer. But so far, every time he’d been presented with an opportunity to be with a woman, he’d either been shipped out prematurely or the old familiar empty-pocket problem had dead-ended him.

This was the reason he’d listened to George, even while pretending his advice was old news to him. And if it was true that Madame Mickey thought of herself as a teacher, then she would just have to show him what she wanted. He was very good at following orders and keeping his mouth shut. The sharp rap of nurses’ heels clicking down the corridors echoed off the well-scrubbed bare wooden floors of the hospital. The familiar odor of pine tar cleaner, bloody bandages, and human sweat assaulted Reuben’s nostrils. It was a stink he never wanted to experience again once he left this place. Hushed sounds, the low whispers, the rattling of trays and rolling of wheels almost distracted one from the smell. Starched white aprons, sunlight streaming through the tall windows lining the gallery, the officious steps of the doctors, all were underlined by the insidious presence of suffering. Suffering and pain were the masters here, vying for the weak human flesh that was dragged in from the battlefields. Suffering and pain.

Reuben shook his head to clear his thoughts when the nurse instructed him to lie flat on the gurney while drops were put into his eyes. Today his eyes felt rough and scratchy, and he found himself worrying. But instead of voicing his concerns to the doctor, he kept quiet. He was never one to look for trouble. If it found him, that was a different matter.

“You know the routine, Private. Lie still so you don’t disturb the compresses,” the American staff doctor reminded him. “One of the nurses will be checking on you every so often.”

Stretched out fully on his back, his head slightly lower than his shoulders, Reuben was inundated with sounds and impressions. Quick steps, the movements of a cart in the hallway, voices that were too far away to recognize, and words that were too hushed to decipher.

Even before she entered the doorway to the confined treatment room, he was aware of her perfume. It was a heady, intoxicating scent, completely feminine, and it did strange things to him.

Her voice was low, close to a whisper, filled with a thrilling warmth. “Ah, chéri. The doctors told me you were here.” She bent to kiss him lightly on the cheek. Reuben smiled, pleased with her throaty laugh. Remembering George’s advice, he attempted a casual tone. Instead, his voice came out as uninterested and bored. “You’re early, aren’t you?”

“But of course, chéri, but only because I am so eager to move you and your friend to my château. I have a wonderful dinner planned for the three of us. Special wine from my vineyard, roast duckling, new potatoes, and fresh vegetables. Dessert will be apple tart with heavy rich cream from my dairy…for you. Tell me, what do you prefer?” There was a girlish eagerness to her voice when she sought his approval.

The best Reuben could manage was a weak “That sounds fine.” How was it that this woman managed to make him feel as if he were twelve years old and had just caught sight of a girl’s bloomers for the first time? He was grateful for the heavy blanket the nurse had thrown over him, even though it barely hid his growing erection. Madame Mickey seemed to fill the small cubicle—not her size, but her presence. Although she was standing beside his gurney, not touching him except for that brief kiss, his every pore was aware of her, all of his senses seemed to be filled with her. It was a sensation he had had before when she had come to visit him, asking after his health in that strangely husky, sensuous voice of hers. Early on he’d discovered how it had the amazing ability to sound maternal and whorish at the same time.

“Poor darling,” Madame Mickey said softly, “does it hurt?” Her tone was solicitous and personal, but he wasn’t certain she was asking about the compresses on his eyes or the erection, full-fledged beneath the blanket.

“I dressed especially for you and for Daniel,” she said lightly. “When your compresses are removed you will see the lovely colors I am wearing.” She hesitated a moment, as if she were changing her mind, then whispered close to his head, “For you. chéri.” He felt her fingers stroking his cheek. Reuben thought he would explode.

“What are the colors?” he croaked.

“My cape is a delicious apple red and my dress is one shade lighter. My hat is ermine and so is my muff. Here, darling, feel how nice.” She moved her muff over his cheek, his hand. He could imagine her breasts only inches away from his face. If he were to turn, just a bit…

The fur was soft and cool against his hand. Reuben’s erection began to die. The fur felt as if it might have cost a lot of money. And the food she was promising made him suddenly want to gag. He had friends at the front who would kill for a slice of roast meat and a fresh potato; he himself had been one of those men just weeks before. He tried for a smile and wondered if it looked as sickly as he felt.

“You are going to love my château,” Madame Mickey continued to babble, obviously unaware that anything was amiss. “There you will find everything to make you comfortable. All will be at your disposal, of course. You have only to ask for what you want. Le monde is yours, Reuben. Do you know what that means in English?” Reuben shook his head. “It means the world, darling. I can give you the world, and I will. My late husband, dear Jacques, left me a fortune, as you already know. When he knew he was dying it was his last wish that I not want for anything in this life, despite the war, despite everything. I’ve done my best to live up to his wish.”

Reuben was silent, reflective. Madame Mickey seemed to sense his uneasiness. “I must be on my way, chéri. I have many more flowers to deliver and baskets of sweet rolls and jam. My cook was busy for two days. I must do my part for the wonderful men who are helping to make France safe once again. Vive La France!”

“Long live America!” Reuben blurted out.

Madame Mickey chuckled. “I like your spirit, Reuben. Yes, we all do our part, each in his own way. I must be off.” Lightly touching his compresses, she added, “Soon you will be under my own special care.” Her last words seemed to carry heavy meaning as she leaned over and kissed Reuben square on the cleft of his chin. Her fingers traced the deep dimple. Reuben shivered and felt the beginnings of another erection. “I will see you and your friend at one o’clock. Au revoir, chéri.”