NIGHT, ETTIE WALKED OUT through the dark trees to have dinner with the doctor, nothing fancy, usually a shared omelet and some potatoes or stewed tomatoes. Dr. Girard, who was considered a fine chess player, had patiently taught her the game, and, as it turned out, she had a real talent for it. There was little else to do while she waited for Victor’s return, although she had begun to act as Girard’s nurse when he was called upon by the Resistance, always unexpectedly, often in the middle of the night. His telephone would ring and they would go off together in his car, a beat-up Renault that groaned when it took the hills as the doctor found his way to a safe house where a patient was waiting. In only a few months Ettie had learned quite a bit, how to clean and bind a wound, how to stitch flesh with a needle and surgical thread, how to calm a distraught man or woman who was in the throes of pain. This will only take a minute, then you’ll be fine, lie still, count to one hundred. Sometimes they would be driven through the night to a remote field, then be blindfolded and led to the injured. Ettie never wavered; she was firm and calm with the patients, and the doctor had been impressed with her courage.
“You’re a surprise,” he said, pleased to have found a worthy opponent at chess and an even worthier assistant in the field.
“My mother used to deliver babies on our kitchen table,” Ettie told him. “I suppose I learned a thing or two from her.”
Still, Ettie felt uncomfortable whenever she was alone with Dr. Girard. She was accustomed to the world of women and had only known the boys in her community, all of whom she seemed able to outthink and talk rings around. She had no experience with men, or maybe it was more than her lack of experience. She had tender feelings toward the doctor, especially after watching his work with wounded Resistance members and refugees. He was such a good man, measured and deliberate, allaying his patients’ fears. When their work was done, and their clothes bloodied, he would guide her back to the car with his fingers against her back, and the heat of his touch had both comforted her and enflamed her.
Tonight, after their chess game, the doctor had unexpectedly suggested they go upstairs. Ettie had immediately felt nervous. She had fleeting thoughts of all the men who had approached her, the fellow who ran the laundry, the owner of the café. She avoided the doctor’s gaze, and had a moment of doubt as to what a man such as himself would want from her.
All the same, she followed him to the second floor, and as it turned out Dr. Girard wasn’t after anything inappropriate. He simply went to the closet and opened the door, then turned to Ettie and motioned her forward. There were his wife Sarah’s clothes, neatly displayed on wooden hangers. She had been gone for several years, lost to cancer. The fact that her disease had been incurable was a personal affront. He was meant to cure, and could do nothing at all. Girard often imagined that Sarah was in the kitchen, making coffee or reading a book at the table as sunlight came through the window, waiting for him at the end of the day. Darling, she would say when he walked in, I’ve missed you.
He could not save her, he could only watch her die, and so he rarely opened the closet where her clothes were still stored, for he was reminded of all he was incapable of accomplishing each time he saw anything that had belonged to her. But since Ettie’s arrival he had been thinking what a waste it was to have Sarah’s belongings locked away, when Ettie had nothing. He stood back, so that Ettie could get a good look. She had never seen more beautiful clothing. There were linen summer dresses and silk evening clothes, along with piles of sweaters in jeweled colors. At the rear of the closet there was a black coat with a fur collar.
“My wife liked beautiful things,” Girard told Ettie. “She worked for a designer in Paris long ago. Try some of it on,” he suggested. “It’s not doing anyone any good in a closet.”
Ettie reached for a simple shift. The soft fabric rustled in her hand.