Duchess

Chapter 19

I awoke with a splitting headache and a painful tingling sensation in my legs. The rancid smell instantly told me I was back in the barracks.
     "She's awake," I heard someone whisper, "Go tell him."
     My eyes burned when I tried to open them, but slowly my vision cleared. An older man with a soft expression on his face approached where I was laying, and I tried to figure out what had happened. I had been so sure I was dying earlier, but here I was once more.
     "I'm a doctor," he said, "My name is Albert. May I help you? I'm afraid you will get an infection on your head where your hair was pulled out, and I can help set your jaw back in place."
     I didn't even know my jaw had been out of place to begin with, but now that he mentioned it, I could feel the swelling.
     "I suppose," I said warily, "But why?"
     He looked around to be sure nobody was paying attention to us. "I know who you are-"
     I grabbed his arm and pulled him to my level violently, furious at myself for letting another enemy get so close to me.
     "If you're going to turn me in, I don't want your help. Go away."
     The man shook his head and chuckled a little as I released him. "I'm not going to turn you in, Ma'am. I'm trying to help you; I promise."
     Reluctantly, I turned onto my stomach so he could work on my head, feeling a little sorry for being so rough and accusing him. Still, I didn't completely trust him.
     "My daughter, Medina," he said quietly, "she's seventeen. She has every newspaper clipping about you that she could get her hands on. Her dream is to be a Resistance fighter or," he lowered his voice, "a spy like you."
I couldn't help but smile. "Where is she?"
"As far as I know," he said, "she is back in our home in Étretat. Oh, how she would have loved to have met you."
"Is it normal for girls in France to know about me? I'd always thought I'd kept myself hidden as much as possible."
Albert smiled, pulling lice the size of his fingernails out of my scalp with a calm expression. I clenched the dirty blanket in pain.
"No, Medina has always been in love with America, so she found out about you when you came back from Europe last time. There was a photograph in an American newspaper she found of you and your husband reuniting on a tarmac somewhere in America. She pasted it on the inside of her math textbook to remind her that you were fighting for us...for our freedom."
The thought of it made me want to cry. All I had ever wanted to do was fight for things I believed in and make a difference, but now I was stuck in an internment camp getting my scalp stitched back together. And Medina was sitting at home under the fist of the German Reich, believing I was fighting for her.
"I hope I can meet her," I said, "if I ever make it out of this place alive."
He pressed a wet rag to the wound and I gasped in agony. "I think you should cut your hair," he said sheepishly, as though he were scared to suggest such a thing, "The lice won't be as bad with short hair. And it will give the guards one less thing to hurt you with."
I knew he was right. I couldn't help the tears from falling down my face as he cut my hair as neatly as he could, setting my once-beautiful curls gently on the edge of the bunk.
     "The guard who brought you in here said they accidentally gave you a serum to kill you, instead of one to make you give information more easily. They caught it just in time to give you something to fix the problem." I could tell he was trying to take my mind off the loss of the last thing in my life that made me feel like myself.
     "Do you think they would send a letter if I gave it to one of the officers?" I asked, running my fingers around my wedding ring.
     "Probably not if you were the one asking," he said as he put both hands on my jaw to set it back into place, "but they may listen if I ask. Move your jaw up and down for me."
I did what he asked, impressed by the man's ability to fix the joint so painlessly.
He turned my head back over to continue working on my bleeding scalp, saying, "You should sleep. It'll be less painful from here; I'll just have to clean and bandage it so you don't have to be awake for that."
I tried to argue, saying that it wasn't right for me sleep while making him stay awake, but he was insistent.
"After the appellplatz tomorrow morning, you can write your letter and I'll do my best to send it."
     I was asleep before I could even answer.

     My dearest love,
It is difficult to know how to begin. I am in Royallieu-Compiègne Internment Camp north of Paris. I hope you are alive, but I beg you not to reply back to this letter. I was sorely unprepared for the cruelty I have found here, and I know it could be much worse, my darling, and I don't want you to worry about me. Although I am not sure if this letter will even reach you or if I will be permitted to share the conditions here with you, I feel as though I must describe to you the things I have witnessed, for if we ever see each other again my personality will have been changed by my experiences here. I have recovered from my first emotional shock, and am now able to act more composed than a blubbering, hysterical idiot. They have been interrogating me for information after being informed of my nationality, and I fear I will eventually succumb to the torment if I am able to refrain from going insane in the meantime. If you were here, you would be more suited to helping the people I have met. Typhus, advanced tuberculosis, and malnutrition are present in everyone here, but I am in no position to help myself, let alone those around me. The smell of corpses is worse than that of anything I've smelled before, including your feet, my darling. Do not feel as though you must "come to my rescue," as I am sure you are already packing your bags, for I know it would be a hopeless endeavor and would do more harm to me and those here with me. It has been very cold lately, and I am glad for the fact that my bunker has an extreme infestation of lice and other biting animals, so the soldiers have not yet ventured in to take our blankets and the clothes some people have hidden. I hope to write again soon, when I am feeling better, but I do not know if this letter will reach you in the first place, or if you are even still in Europe. Please look after Maureen if you ever go back home; I know she will be upset when she learns of my death, especially because we have not spoken in so long. I am suffering so much. I had hoped we would see each other again, my beloved. You remember, my dear, when we said goodbye to each other with a mere kiss, and how I was worried they would be rude in checking my documents. How I wish someone would be simply rude to me again, instead of cruel and violent! I was a fool when we said goodbye; I did not believe it would be the last time I saw your face. Apparently I was too naive. But what's the use of apologizing? I regret from the very depth of my soul that, on departing, I did not realize the importance of the moment, that I did not take a long, long look at you, so that your image would remain deeply engraved in my soul like an icon, that I did not hug you tightly, never releasing you from my arms.  Now I look back in vain, it is hopeless, since fate has struck a cruel blow at our lives; I may try ever so hard to get nearer to you, and yet we are being dragged away relentlessly, further and further. I want so much to be together with you, to rest at your feet, tired from so much hardship, to find peace there and to leave you never more. Often I have lain awake at night and imagined the moment when I would meet you again; I drugged myself with these thoughts and enjoyed endlessly that waking dream. I no longer have hope left. Goodbye forever, my darling. I cannot even write your name for fear of putting you in danger, but know that I am thinking your name at all hours of the night. May God bring you His peace. My arm is sore from a shot I received recently, so I will say adieu here.
     Goodbye forever, I love you with all my heart,
     Your wife

p.s. Do not be tormented by what I have written.

Yee lol that was depressing but, just like Louisa says, don't be tormented heheheheeh