Peakes had drawn his paybook from his pocket.
“Do you know what those men are likely to do to her when they find out she cannot make good? I’ve put sixty dollars aside. Along with what I have in my pocket, I can easily help her out of her predicament.”
It was a magnanimous gesture in defence of a damsel in distress, one that would never have occurred to me. To my credit, I knew that my bluebird had other ways of settling her gambling debts. I could have so informed the lieutenant, but I was not about to destroy his illusions. So I simply shook my head.
“You disapprove, Dulac? You must think I’m hoping to purchase her favours. Don’t worry. Nell will never suspect. Keep an eye on her. Meanwhile, I shall settle matters discreetly with these gentlemen.”
He strode up to the table and motioned to one of the men to follow him. I waited until they’d gone outside, then sat down beside the nurse.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Duluck.”
“You remember my name?”
“All the gamblers of Cæstre curse it. I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
She stood up to leave.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“To ask Lieutenant Peakes to loan me a bit of money. I don’t even have enough to buy a drink.”
“I’m afraid he’s gone on an errand.”
Her look of surprise betrayed no disappointment, which in turn emboldened me to lead her out into the pothouse yard. She followed with dainty steps, which revealed the bobbins of her heels.
We sat in the shade of an elm-tree and the alewife, a garrulous sort wearing heavy clogs, came over carrying two glasses half-full of a gall-coloured liquid, a bowl of sugar and a pitcher of water.
“Enjoy it while you can, lads and lasses. Tomorrow, the green goddess will be off limits. Blunts the ardour of the troops, so it seems.”
Never in my life had I tasted absinthe, but Nell apparently knew it well. I watched her execute a careful succession of rapid, precise, small movements, and did my best to imitate them. But for all my efforts, I could not contrive to balance the spoon on the edge of my glass. Frankly, I have no patience with games of skill. In an outburst of exasperation, I let the sugar cube drop into the alcohol without setting it alight, then doused the whole mixture with water.
The beverage slowly turned cloudy. From time to time, it threw off a toxic glint that certainly augured no good.
“I’ve never seen such an unappetizing colour.”
“Absinthe contains copper sulfate—the celebrated ‘sympathetic powder’ that has the ability to heal wounds from a distance—or so it was thought.”
“And that licorice smell … It reminds me of the cakes my Irish grandmother used to bake.”
“Go on, drink. It won’t kill you.”
I had no intention of doing as the heron in the fable had done. I raised my glass and bowed slightly.
“Come what may!”
How could I describe my first swallow of absinthe? It was like a strip of gauze impregnated with chloroform that quickly evaporated, leaving a ghostly bitterness on the palate. Hardly extraordinary, but not unpleasant enough to cause me to stop.
“Dice, absinthe … Hardly the diversions of a nursing sister.”
“I strive to maintain a proper balance of flaws to strengthen my character.”
“Some might claim you are cultivating vices.”
“Vices are the flaws of others.”
A rejoinder that would have been inappropriate came to mind, but I managed to restrain myself in time. I had drunk a bit too rapidly, and to avoid letting it show, I drained my glass. Nell, who had already finished hers, observed me with a mischievous look. I’d begun to find her a bit shady—perhaps because my eyes were looking in two directions at once.
“Besides, I also have some quite acceptable pastimes.”
“I am not sure that your skin embroidery could be considered a parlour trick.”
“They are sutures, not embroidery. I’ve already told you that.”
“So you say. But have the surgeons come around to your point of view?”
Her eyebrows arched, and in the blink of an eye her smile vanished.
“Surgeons, surgeons. Were you at Armentières, Dulac? The sector was supposedly quiet, the men were meant only to be on a reconnaissance mission, yet they returned with wounds larger than your hand. The surgeons had never seen anything like it. They had no idea where to start stitching.”
“You believe your method would have produced better results?”
“To close a gaping wound? Hardly. But I believe I have discovered another method for mending human flesh.”
On her way through Angers, Nell had stopped off to visit the cathedral. It was Ash Wednesday, and for the occasion the great tapestry of the Angels of the Apocalypse was on display—an immense wall-hanging made of seventy woven panels, three hundred and thirty feet long. Nell had been transfixed by the tableau representing the Lord enthroned before seven gold candelabra; a sword protruded from his mouth, and his left hand bore the mark of seven red stars. What had most astonished her was the way the master weavers had so faithfully reproduced the skin of the characters therein depicted, with its delicate shades, its shadows and highlights. Could this effect not be related to the extraordinary resemblance between human flesh and the texture of this particular tapestry? Were one to apply the same technique to sutures, would it not be possible not only to close wounds, but to reconstitute torn tissue? For endless hours, Nell had attempted to grasp how threads of different colours had been overlayed—for naught, for as she finally understood, the key to the mystery was to be found on the back of the tapestry.
“Did you turn it over, then?”
“I waited until the cathedral was empty. When I was certain no one was watching, I stepped up to the tapestry. Just as I was about to lift one corner, a feeling of dread welled up in me. I felt as if I was committing a sacrilege, and that my fingers were burning. I fled from the cathedral as fast as I could.”
I’d begun my second glass. As vacuum thrives on vacuum, absinthe thrives on absinthe. I observed Nell through the mourning band of my swollen eyelids. She was absent-mindedly fingering a cube of sugar. On her left hand, the embroidered feather had given way to a satiny scar that traced a paraph on her skin. I found myself wondering if it would be pleasing to the touch.
“Well, if I were standing before a treasure, I wouldn’t hesitate to touch it. Sacrilege or no.”
“Oh, you … You have nothing to lose, since your soul is already damned. And in any event, you will find nothing precious here.”
“Put no store in appearances. Behind these walls, beneath these trees, a fortune may be slumbering.”
That
