A Soldier's Love

05. By Any Other Name

And that was that.

Marguerite was in love with the man on Rue Danton.

She stayed with him until dawn, nursing him, watching over him, and comforting him, and she thought he was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. His neediness beguiled her, his missing limbs thrilled her, and the gruffness of his character charmed her. She fell asleep on the bed, her legs draped over the side, snuggled up to the weirdly available expanse of the left side of his body. She lay with the stump of his arm pressed against her heart, and her thigh against the stump of his leg.

The moment she found out there was to be a war, Marguerite had wanted to be a nurse, and this was why. This peculiar favor she felt for broken men, she felt ought to be indulged at every opportunity, for they needed love the most. It had been agony to her, not to join the army and be a nurse, but she was just fourteen when the conflict started, far too young, and when she was old enough, she was too anemic and scrawny. They would not take her.

As she held on to the man on Rue Danton, Marguerite understood now that all her tender feeling had been stored up just for him, and now it was her imperative to administer it to him, a little at a time, until she made him well again. Marguerite would see him leave his apartment and the sun shine on his face. Marguerite would see him have a prosthetic leg so he could walk again. Marguerite would see him so tenderly nursed until his tuberculosis went into remission.

He had improved but little by dawn, and in the light streaming in through the window, she could see how haggard he was. The disease had eaten away his flesh; his pyjamas hung loose on his frame, sized to fit a much larger chest and thicker arms. He slept with the scarred half of his face toward her, and she could see every twist and knot of the hardened tissue. Burns. He had been burned, horribly, the entire half of his body, and she curiously pulled at the collar of his pyjama shirt to see how far the scars went. As far as his skin went, there were scars.

"What are you doing?" he croaked, frowning at her.

"N-nothing, I-- I was only curious," Marguerite stammered, whisking her hand away.

"Why are you here?" The man shifted in bed so he could see her better, his left eye mostly blind. His gaze made Marguerite squirm -- but not in an altogether unpleasant way.

"Because I love you." Marguerite gazed out the window at a fire escape on the neighboring building. "I loved you the moment I saw you."

The man stared up at her in silence.

"Do you love me?" Marguerite's lips curled into a self-conscious smile. "Have I forced you to love me yet?"

"I closed my heart to love long ago," said the man. "For I have known for a long time now that I am dying."

"Dying!" Marguerite gasped, looking down at him. She scrabbled for his hand and took it, kissing his knuckles. "No! No! Don't say such a thing! You mustn't die. I love you. You must get well again and marry me and we'll have lots of children."

"The consumption has never been this serious," he murmured, letting his thumb caress the tops of her fingers. "I've been bedridden for two weeks, and I can feel it worsening. The infection is deep inside me now, it is in my bones, in my heart. Dear girl, I'll be dead in three days' time."

"No!" Marguerite wept openly, clutching his hand so tight. "No! I've only just met you! You mustn't leave me!"

"I must," he said, and looked as if he'd continue speaking, but when he inhaled, instead of words, there came coughs. Weak at first, they escalated, he rolled on to his side and curled up, bringing his knee to his chest, his arm draped over it. Marguerite caught the frothy, blood-stained sputum in a handkerchief, and now, in the daylight, saw stains on the pillow where no one had been there to catch it before. She caressed his shoulder and uttered a cry of alarm when the fluid produced by the coughs turned from pink and frothy to much darker red, and more liquid. The handkerchief was soaked through by then and she fetched a towel from the bathroom, startling several of the cats who slept on the rug inside. 

"So you see," said he, as Marguerite wiped the sweat and spittle from his face. "It is the end, for me."

"You cannot die," Marguerite said stupidly.

"We all must, at some point," said the man, touching her arm. "I think you are not a girl, but an angel, sent by God to see me to my death with some measure of grace."

"I cannot imagine a loving God would send me here to fall so deeply in love with you, only to lose you," Marguerite burbled, wiping tears from her cheek with a shaking hand.

"How can you love me?" The man laughed at her, and coughed a little for it. "You do not know me."

"I know you are a patriot, and a brave man, and that you have suffered too much, and I know that every man and woman and child needs love and to be deprived of such for too long is more a torture than deprivation of food or water. My love is like water, it flows where there is none. It cannot rest where there is already plenty, my love goes to where there is deficit. I knew the moment I saw you that nobody had loved you in a very long time, you poor, dear thing, so I loved you automatically. And I am determined you should get well and be my husband, and I'll see you out of this dingy old apartment and we'll move into a nice little house beside my parents' grocery. You can tend the shop with Papa, he'll find plenty of work for you to do with your... er..."

"With my one arm, and one leg, and blood-filled lungs?" The man arched his eyebrows. "You have quite a clear plan for our future together, my darling, but I wonder."

"What?"

"Do you know my name?"

"Why-- why--" Margie stammered. "Why-- a rose by any other name would--"

"Would still die of consumption before he had a chance to know your heart," the man finished.

"Tell me your name, then," said Marguerite, reaching out to brush strands of damp hair away from his sweat-covered brow. "Tell me everything there is to know about you, as you are to be my husband, I feel I have a right to know."

The man sighed, and closed his eyes. "I am very tired, but--"

"Oh, please?"

"-- but I shall do my very best." A weary smile flickered across his features. "Only because you've been so good to my cats."

"How can I resist a man who loves his cats better than himself?" Margie sighed, and she leaned over and kissed his cheek.

"Fetch me some water, child, and I'll tell you everything worth the telling."