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.”
Chapter Two
It was just past noon when Reuben walked stiff-legged down the hall to Daniel’s section of the hospital clinic. His hands were in his trouser pockets and his fingers were crossed. He felt both relieved and anxious. Relieved because his eyes felt less gritty and he could see much better; objects were sharper and his eyes were watering less. But he was anxious for Daniel. Ignoring the pain of his leg wound, he hurried through the wards and was brought up short when he saw the doctor and a nurse with a basin in her hand standing beside Daniel.
I’m here, Daniel. The thought was so intense that for a moment he believed he’d spoken aloud. Reuben didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until he noticed Daniel’s shoulders jerk and heard the doctor warn his patient not to open his eyes yet. Thick gauze-pad dressings beneath the swath of bandages were being unrolled, layer by layer. Reuben also hadn’t realized that his benefactress was watching from the far end of the corridor. When the heady scent of her perfume wafted toward him, he turned to face her. Even at this distance the apple red of her cape and the pure white of her hat stood out sharply against the gray-green of the clinic’s walls. He wanted to see her face, to see her eyes. Would they mirror that soft, solicitous tone of voice? Or would they be calculating and hard, waiting to see if Daniel was blind and judging what that would mean to her plans? Reuben turned again to Daniel, refusing to think about anything but this important moment. Everything depended upon what happened now; the outcome would govern the rest of their lives. He drew in his breath and waited.
Daniel’s moment of truth had arrived. The doctor moved so his back was to Reuben, blocking Daniel from his sight. There were no more offered prayers. The one he’d said the night before was of the miracle category. In the dark hours of the night God had either made things right or He hadn’t.
Reuben saw the round eyepads drop to the floor. He remembered his own agony at just this moment, and his innards twisted with fear. Daniel’s tortured cry of “I can’t see!” ripped through to Reuben’s soul. He tore across the space that separated them and was at Daniel’s side when the doctor issued his cautions not to panic and to give his eyes time to adjust to the dim light. Reuben placed a firm hand on his friend’s shoulder, calming him. “Another minute or so and then again—but slowly—open your eyes,” the doctor instructed.
The seconds ticking by were small, separate eternities. Reuben remembered his own tortured unveiling, and his thoughts then that no one was there to comfort him. Madame Mickey, he’d discovered later, had been standing exactly where she was now.
“Now, Daniel, open your eyes slowly. Your vision will be clouded and it will remain that way for some time. You’ll be able to see things, but not in detail and certainly not clearly unless you’re quite close to them. Open your eyes, Daniel,” the doctor urged.
Daniel’s head was turned now so that Reuben was directly in his line of vision. His eyes flickered behind reddened lids, then he squinted and blinked gently in his first efforts to make out what was in front of him. Daniel’s first thought was that Reuben looked beautiful, although sharp creases of concern tightened the line of his mouth and narrowed his heavy dark brows. He smiled at the blurry shapes before him and closed his eyes again. The sigh he breathed sounded like an explosion in the quiet. “I prayed, you know, for days and sometimes all through the night when I couldn’t sleep.” He opened his eyes cautiously a second time to confirm his sight. This time he smiled.
“Mazel tov!” Reuben shouted, squeezing Daniel’s shoulder. He looked down at his white knuckles and eased his grip. Wasn’t there something more he should do or say? Perhaps not. He’d prayed to Daniel’s God, and He had listened. Maybe there was a trick to all that praying after all. Pray for someone else and maybe then you had a chance of having your own prayers answered. His thoughts were interrupted by the doctor’s weary voice.
“I’ve decided you should keep the cast on for at least another week, Daniel. You can leave the hospital if you think you can manage. Madame Mickey is waiting to take you to her château. Most of the paperwork is done, so all you have to do is dress and leave. Good health, son.” He patted Daniel on the head and shook Reuben’s hand. All the rest of the day, as the doctor walked through the wards, he remembered the grateful look in Reuben’s eyes. He’d seen bonds form between men who’d soldiered side by side before. Often it was the most unlikely of pairings, like this one—Tarz, urbane, streetwise, and slick; and Daniel, innocent and trusting.
Daniel rolled back on his bunk, sweat glistening on his face. “I thought for sure…I’d hoped…prayed…but Jesus, I’m glad to see you. Did you pray before they took your bandages off?”
“Me? Pray?” Reuben asked in mock outrage. “It was the luck of the draw, kid. We were either going to be all right or we weren’t. The damage was done out in the field weeks ago. Praying would have been kind of silly.” He hoped his words of bravado were loud enough for Madame Mickey to hear, but when he turned to look at her, she was gone.
Reuben was annoyed. Why hadn’t he been able to tell Daniel that he’d prayed for him last night? The words had stuck in his throat, as if such an admission were impossible for him. Not for the world or all the Madame Mickeys in France would he admit that he’d been too afraid to pray for himself when he lay with his eyes burned by the gas and his head swathed in bandages. Something in Reuben made him feel undeserving of God’s intervention.
A smug expression washed over Reuben’s handsome face; his silver-gray eyes were made brighter by the drops. “It’s time to go, Daniel, so let’s put this place behind us and get on with our lives. Madame Mickey is waiting.”
Marchioness Michelene Fonsard could barely contain her excitement. She considered herself a lusty good woman who made amends for her sexual liaisons by doing good deeds for the parish curé. The curé prayed for her each Sunday because of her healthy donations to the church and for her generosity with her husband’s renowned Bordeaux wines. A true patriot to the very core of her French heart, she considered it an honor as well as a duty to minister in any way she could to the casualties of the terrible war that had been decimating her country. The soldiers she visited at several hospitals and clinics were the recipients of her generosity in many ways. She spent her days in her Citroën, covering distances along sometimes treacherous roads to deliver her cook’s homemade goods and preserves, to read to some of the men and talk with others, always ready to soothe with her gentle woman’s touch. Flowers picked fresh from her greenhouse were always welcomed by the convalescents. She brought cheer; she brought hope.
Some called her saintly and beatific, like the parish curé. Others insisted she had the classic features of an aristocrat from a long line of handsome royalty, which always amused her. The soldiers thought of her as a beautiful angel, larger than life, and it was said that a lover or two revealed that her hair reached almost to her ankles and always smelled delightfully of her perfume. She owned fabulous diamonds and emeralds but preferred to wear the least ostentatious. Although refined in her taste, she always kept up with the latest style and fashion; and as sedate and meticulously groomed as she was through her years with her famous and doting husband, at night, alone, Mickey Fonsard gazed into the mirror and saw the plain face of a peasant, open and honest.
She had been only fifteen when she married Jacques Fonsard, who was three times her age. True to his word, he’d given her wealth beyond her dreams, all from his famous wineries. She, in turn, had given him the best years of his life. In the end she held his naked body against her full breasts the way a mother
