The Heart Specialist (38 page)

I did not know what the coming year would bring, but happiness did not seem highly likely. As I headed back toward town I came upon my own footprints going in the opposite direction, already half-erased.

VIII
RETURN

The condition does not admit of cure,

but permits of amelioration and of arrest of

the downward trend of the disease.

— MAUDE ABBOTT, “CONGENITAL CARDIAC DISEASE”

30

JANUARY 20, 1919

Tomorrow would be fine, the sailors had predicted, which I had trouble believing after weeks of poor weather. It appeared that my voyage home might be quite different from the one that had initially brought me to Europe. This time the wind was at our backs and the water was flat and blue, without a single squall in sight. Waves lapped at the ship’s hull and the sky was clear except for a few cotton puffs gleaming in the setting sun.

I could still see the shoreline, although it was no longer possible to make out the buildings and houses of Brest, the port to which I had come from Calais and had been staying in for almost three weeks, waiting for a passage home. The coast of France had blurred into an indistinct line. Soon even this would disappear. I did not want to miss the moment when it vanished altogether, even though the strain of watching, of trying to hold onto it as long as humanly possible, was taking its toll. I had waited more years than I cared to count to get here, and now I was leaving it behind.

My journey had been demanding. Had I any sense at all I would be inside with a hot drink and a book, like a normal woman my age, not out on this deck in January staring over the frigid waters. I took off my glasses, flecked with the sea, and gave them a quick rub.

I had no idea what I would do once I got back to Canada. My professional accomplishments felt completely useless, like medals pinned on the chest of an invalid soldier. What did any of it matter? Most of the people I loved were either dead or gone. All my reference points had shifted. I was quite literally at sea, with days aboard ship before I reached land again, seven days in which to think. In part my delayed departure had been a blessing, for I had spent the last weeks wandering the streets of Brest, not talking to a soul. Solitude was what I had needed, time to permit myself to heal.

Several yards down the deck a girl tossed a chunk of bread out over the water for a hovering gull that swooped and caught it. The girl shrieked and pointed for the benefit of a second young woman standing beside her. I had noticed these two girls when I’d boarded. They were also Canadians, like several of the passengers on this Halifax-bound ship. Wearing the capes of Red Cross nurses they looked so similar they had to be sisters. My thoughts went immediately to Laure. Above the ship the gull hovered, jerking its neck and gulping.

AT DINNER THAT NIGHT I
sat with them. Theirs was the first company I had allowed myself since the meeting with my father and I felt more than a little awkward. They were on their way to Halifax, they told me, after two years of service overseas. We were joined by a corporal from the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Regiment, a handsome fellow with hair like wheat before the harvest who had lost the lower part of his right leg. He was on crutches, pants pinned at the knee. As soon as he returned to Canada, he said, the Army would fit him with a prosthetic.

I had been living a very simple life, on soups and bread from a bakery next to the gîte where I had been staying in Brest, and I was ready for a more elaborate meal. I was also hungrier than I knew for human contact. The laughter of the girls and their English chatter was a comfort. The blond sister informed us all that the ship’s cook had an excellent reputation. The ship was French, which made all the difference. As if to prove her point a boy of about fourteen approached our table from the kitchen holding a bottle. He went straight to the corporal and bowed, displaying the label.

The light-haired nurse, whose name was Nora, laughed. “A sommelier! How civilized!”

The boy, who I suspected was the floor mopper, grinned and threw his shoulders back. He uncorked the bottle in front of us and poured a few dark drops into the corporal’s glass. After the ritual swirling and swallowing, which everyone seemed to take very seriously, the corporal nodded. He also looked as if he hadn’t sat down to a proper meal in ages; he savoured each moment.

The boy filled our glasses. We raised them. The wine was rich and warm. I was so grateful to be here with a glass of burgundy and company with whom to share it that my throat tightened. Such simple pleasures, but at that moment they meant the world.

The food arrived, borne by the same young man who had poured the wine. The dish was coq au vin, a favourite of mine. Tiny white onions shone like pearls in the lamplight and I closed my eyes, breathing in the smells. For most of the meal I did not speak, happy just to revel in my senses.

The Canadian sisters, in contrast, chattered blithely. The light-haired one named Nora was particularly lively, entertaining us with stories about her work at a Canadian Red Cross hospital that had been built on tennis courts belonging to a rich American who lived near London. Apparently the owner, Waldorf Astor, had offered the site to the British Army. When the Brits refused it it had gone to the Canadians. The dark sister spoke less than Nora, but had a lovely laugh. The corporal concentrated on his food, but whenever he heard the laugh he looked up and smiled.

Outside the wind was picking up, pushing against the portholes and causing the silverware to tremble. It was not strong enough yet to rock us, but every now and again the wine in our glasses sloshed. “Don’t worry,” said the corporal. “The weather will be fine.”

I told them how terrible my trip over had been in mid-December. I didn’t think I could survive another experience like that. The corporal asked what had induced me to travel in midwinter, so soon after the war’s end.

“A friend who was ill,” I told him. It wasn’t a complete lie. Sir William’s health had, after all, precipitated the trip.

“A soldier?” asked the corporal.

I had not wanted to talk about myself. I craved anonymity and did not feel I should let strangers get too close, but the wine had warmed and opened me. Surely it wouldn’t make a difference if I mentioned Howlett.

The corporal looked at me with sudden interest. “Howlett?” he repeated. “You mean
the
Howlett? The physician from Oxford?”

The sisters were also staring. “We knew him too,” said the fair-haired one. “He came to the hospital on Mondays.”

“We attended the funeral,” added the dark one.

It was my turn to stare. The news left me speechless.

“I went too,” said the corporal. He was so involved in the topic that he didn’t notice my silence. “He assisted at my amputation. He looked out for the Canadians.”

“How strange we should all know him,” said Nora. She turned to me. “What did you say your association with him was?”

I looked at my lap. I hadn’t said and I wasn’t about to. I could not have formulated a straightforward answer had I wanted to. “We’re both doctors,” I said after a pause.

“You are a doctor!” said Nora, admiration shining in her eyes. Fortunately she probed no further about my link to Sir William. She did describe the funeral, though, which had apparently been immense. Half of London had shown up as well as most of Oxford. Over the years Sir William had treated the prime minister and much of the cabinet, so a good number of England’s politicians had been there too.

I listened, but only distractedly. Howlett was dead. The thought was difficult to grasp.

The corporal was now talking of his amputation. One third of his battalion had lost their lives, he told us without expression. Another third had lost limbs. He spoke slowly, as if the effort of stringing thoughts together was beyond him. “Sometimes I ask myself whether I ended in the right group.”

“Come, Corporal,” said Nora kindly. “Talk like that does no good to anyone. There’s no going back so you might as well step forward.” She paused and reddened, realizing the inappropriateness of the metaphor.

Her dark-haired sister came to her rescue. “Nora’s right, Corporal. It’s a lovely evening, the first of our voyage. We’ve been exquisitely fed,” she paused and smiled. “Exquisitely watered too. It’s worth giving thanks for.”

I watched this little scene as if I were watching a play. The sisters were right; their advice wise. Yet how did people go on in the wake of such imponderable loss?

Nora raised her glass. “I want to give thanks for this night.” She reflected for a moment. “Beth,” she said to her sister, “I’ve just realized the date.”

The dark one thought for a moment and then brightened “January twentieth.”

“The Eve of Saint Agnes,” I said.

Nora turned to me, surprised. “You know it?” Then she remembered my name.

“Do you know the poem?” asked Beth.

The corporal looked at us blankly. I thought back to Januaries in St. Andrews East with Laure and Grandmother, reading
Poems of Our Land
before the fire.

Nora stood and then dropped back down as the ship lurched sideways. The Corporal reached out to steady her but she declined the help, gripping the back of her chair on her second attempt. The boat swayed, but not enough to shake her, and she began to recite:

Saint Agnes’s Eve — Ah, bitter chill it was!

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass …

She stopped. “That’s all I can remember.” She turned to her sister. “Help me out, Beth.”

But Beth was also stumped. “There’s something about sheep,” she said vaguely. “And a rosary.”

I laid my hands flat on the table and shut my eyes. The illustration from
Poems of Our Land
rose instantly in my mind: the skinny beadsman sitting on the steps, his white hair flowing, breath rising like incense. I took up where Nora had left off, reciting all the way to the sixth stanza, the one about the rituals girls must practise in order to dream about romance.

As we got up from the table after dinner the corporal made an attempt at a formal bow. “May your dreams be sweet tonight, ladies.”

Beth laughed. It was clear the corporal liked her, but the way he was looking at her made me melancholy. My own loneliness and the news of Howlett’s death had cooled the warmth of the wine. It was time for bed.

Before I left the dining room, however, Nora touched my arm. “You of all people must dream tonight, dear Agnes. It’s your name day after all.” She smiled, but her sister, who was standing beside her, looked embarrassed. The poem was about
young
virgins, after all.

That night, however, I did dream. The face that came to me was unexpected. It did not belong to my father or to poor dead William Howlett. I was no longer aboard ship but back in Montreal at the museum, surrounded by shelves of specimen bottles. This was the old museum I realized even as I was dreaming, before the fire had demolished it. Miraculously everything was intact. The bones were whole and white. The bottles were in one piece, standing upright in rows. Even my favourite specimen, the Howlett Heart, was there, sitting on the corner of my desk where I used to keep it. And there too was Jakob Hertzlich.

I must have tried to speak because I was awakened by my own moan. I lay still for several seconds, remembering the dream and thinking of blond Nora at dinner insisting that I have a vision. It must have been the wine affecting my fragile nerves, I thought, swinging myself upright and reaching for a sweater. My eyes moved around the cabin, taking in details as consciousness returned — the pale green walls, the fat pipe curving along the ceiling, the fogged porthole. I sighed and lay back on the bunk. Here I was at sea, three thousand miles from home, and whom should I find but Jakob Hertzlich?

31

JANUARY 30, 1919

The morning after I arrived in Montreal I took a train to St. Andrews East. Between ship and rail I had been in perpetual motion for a week and a half. I was looking forward to stopping. From outside the Priory looked as it had when I had left, if perhaps a little shabbier. When I walked in, however, it was warm and welcoming.