MY ENEMY

CHAPTER 5: TRAITOR

"This woman will live in spite of all," she said to Rosé and sighed.

Jennie turned her back from the patient and Rosé. She silently started collecting all her instruments and the blood-soaked cotton in a bag. A sudden choked sound surrounded the room breaking the silence. Jennie turned again and all amount of oxygen left her lungs.

The young women woke, so weak, her brown eyes so terrified when she perceived where she was, that Rosé felt compelled to apologize.

As for Jennie, she was in awe. The women had eyes...those pleading beautiful eyes that hold immense amount of love, hurt and betrayal? The doctor could not say. She was in shock honestly; the women's face was so beautiful and her eyes held emotions deeper than the ocean.

Their eyes made a single second contact just before the women fainted again.

****

Rosé herself served the women, for none of the servants would enter the room.

When she came in the first time, she saw her summon her small strength to be prepared for some fearful thing.

"Don't be afraid," she begged her softly.

"How come... I...where am I" She gasped.

"Don't speak anything," she replied.

She saw that the women wanted to reply to that but she could not, and so she knelt and fed her gently from the porcelain spoon.

She ate unwillingly, but still she ate.

"Now you will soon be strong," she said, not liking her and yet moved to comfort her.

She did not answer.

****

When Jennie came in the third day after the operation, she found the young women sitting up, her face bloodless with the effort.

"Lie down," Jennie cried immediately.

"Do you want to die?" She forced the women down gently and strongly and examined the wound.

"You may kill yourself if you do this sort of thing," she scolded.

"What are you going to do with me?" the women muttered. She looked just now barely twenty.

"Are you going to hand me over?"

For a moment Jennie did not answer.

She finished her examination and then pulled the silk quilt over the women.

"I do not know myself what I shall do with you," she said.

"I ought of course to give you to the police. You are a prisoner of war — no, do not tell me anything."

She put up her hand on her mouth when she saw the young women was about to speak.

"Do not even tell me your name unless I ask it." They looked at each other for a moment, and then the young women closed her eyes and turned her face to the wall.

"Okay," she whispered, her mouth a bitter line.

The look the women gave her almost made Jennie wanted to apologize as if she had taken all the young puppies that belonged to the women and brutally killed them.

Outside the door Rosé was waiting for Jennie. She saw at once that she was in trouble.

"Jennie, Yumi tells me the servants feel they cannot stay if we hide this woman here anymore," she said.