The bustle quiets once the wounded have been dispatched, and I suddenly feel exposed and out of place. Before I can ask who I should talk to about volunteering, a woman I recognize as the mother of one of Maman’s brides spots me and makes her way over. She wears no makeup, and her usually impeccable coif has been reduced to a few hastily applied pins.
“You’re Madame Roussel’s girl, Soline.” Her face softens when I nod. “I heard about your maman. Je suis désolée.”
“Merci, Madame Laval.”
“Please. It’s just Adeline these days. Have you come to help the boys, then?”
“I have. But I don’t know where to go.”
She pats my arm and gives me a little wink. “Come with me.”
I assume she’s taking me to an office somewhere, where I will speak to whomever is in charge and fill out some papers. Instead, she leads me to a corner piled with cardboard boxes. She lifts three from one of the stacks and drops them into my arms.
“Take those to the storeroom, through there and to the right, and come back for more.”
“Are you . . . in charge?”
“In charge?” She throws her graying head back and laughs. “Bonté divine! Dr. Jack is in charge here, and make no mistake. I’m just doing my bit, same as everyone else. Now, off with you. And mind where you go. It wouldn’t do to blunder into the surgery on your first day.”
I do as I’m told and find myself in a narrow corridor lit with light bulbs that have been painted blue to comply with blackout restrictions. The combined smells of alcohol and iodine grow sharper as I move down the hallway, in search of a sign that reads STORAGE ROOM.
There are so many doors, most of them unmarked, and I imagine myself walking through the wrong one or, worse, being called out for trespassing where I don’t belong. But no one seems to pay me the least bit of attention, too busy with their own tasks to notice a confused new face in the crowd.
“Are you lost?”
I start guiltily, nearly dropping my boxes as I whirl around. It’s the ambulance driver who barked at me in the courtyard. He seems taller than he did outdoors, broad-shouldered and lean in his uniform khakis, blond and tan the way only an American can be.
“I’m afraid I am,” I admit, embarrassed to be caught flustered for the second time by this man who seems to have command of himself and everything around him. “It’s my first day, and I’m . . .”
My words trickle to a halt. There’s a smear of blood on his shoulder, dark but not quite dry, and another one on the side of his neck, just below his ear, and all I can think is: Is it the blood of the boy with half an arm or the man with the metal sticking out of his chest?
Suddenly, my mouth is full of saliva, and the room begins to sway. Overhead, the blue-painted light bulbs seem to dim. Still, I can’t look away from the blood, as if it represents all the dead boys in France. All the ache, and loss, and horror.
The American seems to sense my distress and quickly relieves me of the boxes. “Are you going to be sick?”
The words seem to come from a long way off, as if spoken underwater, but eventually they register. Sick. Am I going to be sick? I turn my head and pull in a lungful of air, ashamed of my weakness in front of this stoic man.
“I don’t . . . know,” I manage thickly. “I think . . .”
Before I can finish, he has hold of my elbow and is steering me back up the corridor. We stop in front of a narrow door marked LAVATORY. He opens it and pushes me inside. “Go ahead. Don’t fight it. It’ll only drag things out.”
I blink at him a moment, then fold myself over the toilet and bring up the remains of my breakfast. It’s over soon enough, but my legs are shaking miserably, and my face is clammy with sweat. To my horror, I begin to cry.
I hear him turn on the tap, then feel something cool and wet being pressed into my hand. A handkerchief. I wipe my mouth, then blot my eyes. He takes the handkerchief and rinses it out, then carefully folds it and hands it back. “Hold this on the back of your neck. It’ll help.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“What for?”
I shake my head, blinking away a fresh rush of tears. “I’m not usually squeamish, but I saw the blood on your uniform, and it reminded me of the boy you brought in, the one with half his arm gone, and all I could think was, How many there are just like him now. And how many more who would feel lucky to have only lost an arm.”
“You’re new,” he says quietly.