She took a deep breath.
“Of course, the Louse might torture, but as I’ve learned, She doesn’t kill alone. The first case of typhus appeared in December, Doctor. I still remember the boy, the warmth of his skin, the rash as it spread across his chest and limbs, the peculiar thoughts that entered his mind and made him cry out. Try as we may, we couldn’t save him, and it was not long before a second soldier, there”—and she pointed to the far corner of the room—“and a third—there—and a fourth—there—came down with the disease. Night and day we worked to save them, but no amount of lime or cresol could clean them. No quarantine could stall its advance. And no matter how tight we made our clothing”—and her eyes traced the edges of her wimple—“it did not matter. In the evenings, when I inspected the skin of Libuše, and Libuše Elizabeth, and Elizabeth Klara, and Klara myself—we would find the creatures on our very own flesh.
“Oh! Such was the state of affairs, Pan Doctor Lieutenant, when fear of Her first entered the heart of the good Hungarian doctor Szőkefalvi. Even now, I feel such love for Szőkefalvi—with his books and his patient lessons in nursing, with his innocent jokes of how he might like to join in our hours of delousing. He did not succumb at first, brave soul! I know so well the terror that seized him as he stood at the operating table and felt Her upon him. I saw him fight to direct his thoughts back to the case beneath his hands. Yet once you feel Her, you can’t escape; once the itching begins, you cannot stop it, no, Pan Doctor Lieutenant: the slightest hair, the slightest tickle of wool is enough to conjure armies crawling across your skin. Even now if I am not strong, I can imagine Her crawling upon my knee, rising, her little prickling legs, her probing tongue. No! Oh, no, no, no! No, Pan Doctor Lieutenant Krzelewski: to survive, one must learn to fight such fantasies. But not so poor Szőkefalvi. In the middle of surgery, gloves wet with gore, I would see him twitch. Not a great motion at first, I tell you, just a pause with the knife, but I knew that he had felt Her. That deep within his woolens She had begun to crawl. Up his leg, or foot or belly, and he would start to cut again, and She would crawl, and he would stop, and start, and stop, and all of a sudden put down his knife and tear off his gloves, the once steady hands trembling as he tore at his clothes for the offending itch. At first this man respected rules of modesty, moving swiftly into the vestry to disrobe. But as the weeks passed, he became so panicked, so harried, that he forgot my very presence, baring those parts that shouldn’t be seen.”
Her eyes bore into him. “Can you imagine the shock? I too feel Her crawling, Doctor, but I am of a nursing order, and if it is my fate to fall by Her bite, then it is so. I do not lose my dignity. Saint Catherine ate the scabs of the afflicted, and so I remain strong before my wards. This is my duty. Looking at a crushed skull, I feel no fear. I do not falter before gangrene. No! I see not death before me, Doctor, I see the glimmer of my heavenly crown. I do not hear screams, but the chorus that will greet me. And when I feel the Louse upon me, I do not thrust my hands into my habit like some Orang-utang of Portugal, but turn my thoughts to my Father on his throne. But Szőkefalvi, Doctor, gripped by such fear, was not so strong. Nowhere was he safe. Even in the fields, on his walks, I saw him tearing at his clothes, stripping madly in the cold. At night, I heard him weeping, begging our pest to leave him alone. So often did he wash himself with cresol that his skin began to peel away, which made matters worse still, for then it was impossible to know whether it was the Louse or his own mortified flesh that tickled in his brain. Yet no words could get him to change.”
She stopped. Now she seemed to be awaiting his response.
He said simply, “And this other doctor, Szőkefalvi, he left?”
“In December.” She lowered her voice. “If you will excuse your servant in venturing an opinion, I think he lost his mind. One morning I awoke and he was gone. But what do I know? You have studied in the great city of Vienna. Perhaps there you have heard of such a madness?”
But Lucius was looking over the vastness of the room. “And the other nurses?”
“The other nurses, Pan Doctor Lieutenant?”
“They fled, too?”
“Oh, no. Sister Maria died of typhus and Libuše died of typhus and Elizabeth of typhus, too. All save Sister Klara are with the Lord. She will be judged. Oh! It has been weeks since I have had a companion. I must apologize for talking too much—it has been a vice since I was a child, worsened by the loneliness. There are the orderlies and the cooks, and I have the patients, of course—all these men are companions, but one must be careful, being the only woman, not to let affections develop, lest one follow the sad fate of Sister Klara, and be caught simulating married life in the vestry.” Now a blush passed over her face, visible even in the very low light. “Must I say everything at once! You wish to rest. Can I show you to your quarters?”
She looked at him. It was a simple question, but at that moment Lucius could think of nothing other than going home. How exactly was beyond him—the hussar was gone, and two days of winter lay between him and the railway station. But certainly there were some means by which he might extricate himself. It was only a matter of explaining: he was not a true doctor yet, the Medical Service had made an error, perhaps with other doctors, he could return and help. But alone? No… he couldn’t. Certainly, she would understand. Certainly, she was well aware of the incompetence of the High Command, of the growing debacle of a war; certainly she had heard of the entire Third Army sent against the wrong front; certainly she had seen the shoes made of cardboard, the summer coats given to alpine patrols. And if he didn’t tell her now, his inexperience would soon become apparent, she would realize it the moment he touched a scalpel…
“Sister…” A pause. But what could he say? My heartfelt apologies? There has been a mistake? I’ve never operated, I’ve cured two patients in my life, one of impacted earwax and the other of a gonorrheal stricture? Now, standing in the dim light, he could feel not only her eyes upon him, but also the eyes of the soldiers on the floor. Primum non nocere. But what did that mean here? Certainly he would do more harm to leave?
They, too, have not asked for this, he thought. They did not ask to be sent into winter without coats. They, too, were not prepared. Closest to them, he could see a young man with his head bandaged, staring at him with a single open eye filled with such pleading that Lucius had to look away.
Hope, gratitude, but there was also something else. It was hard to recognize it at first, but then he saw it: a demand—no, an expectation, perhaps even a threat. What would so many injured soldiers do when he told them he couldn’t help?
“Pan Doctor?”
He turned back to her. Now his words seemed to come from someone else. “It is important that the patients not be disrupted in their schedules. What was Szőkefalvi’s custom at this hour?”
“Rounds, Pan Doctor. If there were no emergencies, he would make evening rounds.” Her voice soft, her relief palpable, a little constellation of candle lights flickering in what seemed to be her brimming tears.