Page 93 of A Thousand Painted Hours

“I would never do such a thing.”

“You smell like Elsie, but I can’t really see you.”

“It is me. You had a cat nameSheraonce,” I said. “We wept over a tiger that died. And your sister’s name is Gurdaya.”

He closed his eyes, and I saw a depth of despair cross his face. “Elsie,” he whispered. “I am ruined.”

“You are not. You are only exhausted and wounded. You’re going to get well. I shall be here to help.”

He did not look up, but allowed me to take the cat.

I found lodgings nearby, where an old woman with a flowered apron allowed me to bring Topaz. He wasn’t more than six months old, curious and funny, very happy to curl up on the bed with its piles of quilts. Daily, we traveled back and forth to the hospital and sat with Tanveer as he first recovered from surgery to repair his gut and belly, then to clear and cauterize the infected wound in his leg. Much of the time, he was incoherent or lost in a haze of morphine, and even so, his face was often gray with pain. Topaz eagerly sat with him and purred softly,which seemed to me a thing that would be more healing than many of the other things used to treat him.

I sent Gurdaya a telegram, promising to write a letter to follow up, and as I sat by his bedside, I fulfilled that promise, glazing over the depth of his condition to give her hope so far away.

The ward was overwhelmed, with a shortage of nurses. When Tanveer slept, I offered a hand bringing meals and running errands. The local lending library had a good selection of adventure novels, so I checked out three or four and alternated reading them to one soldier and another. Most of them were desperately ill, wild-eyed. Some had injuries of both the body and the mind, staring sightlessly into nothing. Many of them suffered nightmares and awakened each other with screams. I readGulliver’s TravelsandThe Time Machineand evenAlice Through the Looking-Glass, which seemed a happy favorite.

At Tanveer’s side, I read Lewis Carrol and Tennyson. Mostly, I could not tell if he was listening, but sometimes, it seemed it might be getting through.

Day after day, I brought Topaz back to him, sat by his side, read to him, and then spent time with whatever jobs might help the staff. The routine kept me from despairing, for it did not seem as if Tanveer was improving very quickly, if at all.

Time will tell.

I dared not think of the world without him somewhere in it. No.

In the evenings, Topaz and I sat in the garden at Mrs. Bolton’s. He chased insects and watched birds in branches above our heads, never seeming inclined to stray far from my side. I finished the edge of a long stretch of pale-green lawn provided by Mrs. Bolton from her attic. It had once been a summer dress, airy and light, and would be perfect for my purpose. My stitches were tidy and small, as one learned to do as a gentlewoman, and for once I was glad of the skill.

One warm day, when I arrived at the hospital, the windows were open to a soft breeze, scented with June roses. On my way, I’d gathered handfuls of wildflowers, daisies and campion, and a few stands of pink foxglove. In the hospital kitchen, I found a variety of small containers to hold them. To each of the tiny metal stands near each bed, I added a flower. By Tanveer’s bed, I settled a blue glass bottle of oxeye daisies, a clutch of yarrow, and a single stalk of pink foxglove. It was cheery and very English.

Topaz settled on his chest and licked his beard, mewing softly. Tanveer stirred. “Hello, little one,” he said quietly.

But he did not acknowledge me, and I did not know whether to be hurt or irritated. I chose practicality. The beds were on wheels, and I asked the floor nurse if I could push Tanveer out to the screened porch where some of the more ambulatory patients sat on warm days like this. “Might I wheel him out there?”

“Course you can. I’ll get you some help.”

“No need.” Gardening had made me strong. Returning to his bedside, I said, “We are going on a little adventure, my friend.”

He only shrugged.

It took some doing, but I maneuvered the bed to the wide-screened area. There was no one else out today—once they were well enough to sit and take the air, they were discharged or sent back to the front, a fact that layered yet another horror on top of many others. But they had to make way for more wounded.

Once Tanveer was in place nearby a view of the garden, I left him and found a deep basin, which I filled with hot water and carried back to the porch. I dragged a small table to the head of his bed, placed the basin there. “I’m going to wash your hair, Tanveer.”

He scowled. “I would wait and tend to it myself.”

“Your arm is broken.” When he made no more protest, I began the unpleasant task of unwinding his turban. It had lain undisturbed for the entirety of the hospital stay, but as I unwrapped each layer, the stench of the battlefield rose out of it.

He protested. “Elsie, please—it is too grim a task.”

I ignored him, and freed his hair, which was tied tightly in a bun. I let it down, shaking it to unravel the length, then gathered the black mass of it and dropped it in the water. Using a cup, I poured warm water over his head, over and over, working my fingers over his skull, loosening the grime, rinsing again. I squeezed it out and left to empty the basin and refill it, this time bringing shampoo with me.

He had not moved. His hair hung behind the bed, dripping, and I gathered it up and dropped it in the water, wet it all thoroughly once more, and then added shampoo. “It’s not as pleasant as the spicy one you like,” I said matter-of-factly, “but it will be nice to have clean hair.”

I worked the soap into his scalp, using my fingers to massage it deeply. It gave me no small pleasure to so intimately feel the shape of his skull, the smooth places and the small ordinary rises and indentations. Whole. Emotion rose to my throat, but I forced it back down. He needed my practicality, not my emotion.

And yet, when I chanced to look at his face, tears streamed from his eyes. Not a small number and without sound, he wept.

Which meant I could not hold back my own weeping, but I kept it to myself, and let the tears flow as his did, silently, as I rinsed the soap away. “It needs one more rinse,” I said. “I shall be right back.”