The Madwoman of Thu Duc – Part 9

An unfamiliar sound dragged me from my oblivion. Like the bark of a dog or a piece of wood being split. When it came again, I knew that it was a cry, louder and longer than before. My head was a sluggish river of thoughts as I slid off the bed, snatched my dressing gown and pulled it around me. The floor was wet against my bare feet. The rain had stopped but it had blown through my open window and there were puddles here and there. I unlocked my door and stepped out into the dark corridor.

Again, there was a choked, gasping sound. I stumbled down the hall, using the wall as a guide to get to the door of the guest room.

“Etienne?” I called, and knocked.

The answer came as a moan of pain. I pushed open the door and entered to find him curled on his side, under the netting, shaking and whimpering in the flickering light of his lamp.

“Dear God, what is wrong?”

“Jesus. My legs! The pain is…” He gasped and I could see he was trying to straighten one of his legs with his hands.

I pushed the netting aside and climbed onto the bed. “Cramps? Is it cramps?”

“Yes! Awful!”

I pushed him onto his back and, using the weight of my own body, pushed his right leg out of its seized position. He shrieked through his clamped jaw as I did it.

“It’s the quinine,” I said, trying to soothe him while I fought to get his other leg straightened and braced to its companion. “You’ve been taking too much. I know it hurts like hell, but it will pass.”

Etienne panted desperately through the pain. I heard his teeth grind against each other with such force I feared he’d break a few teeth.

“You need to breathe more deeply,” I said, moving over his legs and using the weight of my hips to lock his knees.

It was only then I realized he was completely naked, that my hands were braced against his bare thighs – the muscles seized and jerked beneath his skin. He was beautiful in the lamplight. Strong and lean and well muscled. His cock, perhaps his only relaxed appendage, lay dormant against the cook of his hip, nestled in a dark thicket of curls. His stomach and chest gleamed with the sweat of his pain. I could see the angry pink line of a recent scar that snaked around from his left side, just below his ribs, almost to his navel. His hands were balled into fists at his sides, and the skin of his forearms was also bathed in perspiration.

“You have to sit up, Etienne, or the cramps won’t subside. You have to try and stretch the muscles as far as they’ll go. Then they’ll relax.”

“Sit up?” he gasped through a locked jaw.

“Yes. Come on, I’ll help pull you. Give me your hands.”

I shifted again and reached out my hands to his, clasping them and pulling with all my might. The sound that tore from his throat as I tugged was horrible to hear.

“There, there… you’re up.” I gripped the backs of his upper arms and pulled a little more. “Like that. Just like that.”

We sat in that strange position for what seemed like an eternity, and then I heard him exhale a long, low breath.

“Better?” I released his arms and sat back.

“Yes.” He closed his eyes and braced himself in his sitting position, the palms of his hands flattened against the mattress. “Thank you,” he added in a whisper. Then, suddenly conscious of his exposure, he reached for the twisted, damp top sheet and dragged it across his hips. “God, I can’t…I can’t apologize enough.”

I looked way, toward the window, to give him his privacy. There was, as yet, no taint of dawn in the sky, but the moon had come out and had traced the wet world in silver. “Please don’t. It’s entirely unnecessary. These things happen here. We all give up a little of our dignity.”

“But still…”

I looked back into his handsome face and smiled. “Now, listen. You need to get up and stretch your legs by walking. And the cramps are likely to come back until the excess of quinine is flushed from your body. So I have some tincture of opium and you should take a few drops in some water before you go back to sleep.

Etienne stiffened and, for an instant, I thought the cramps had come back. “Morphine?”

“Yes, morphine.”

“I can’t take it.” The words came out with such severity it surprised me.

“Can’t?”

“I won’t. I won’t take it.” He shook his head. “In the hospital, during the war, they gave me too much, and for too long. ”

“Ah, yes. I understand.” A sense of self-disgust crept up my back. How well I understood and what a hypocrite I was. “Well, in that case, perhaps a lot of brandy and some aspirin tablets?”

He nodded and smiled. For a moment, our eyes met and his smile was eclipsed by something I could not identify. He reached up and touched my cheek. The sensation paralyzed me.

“You look so much like Elise.”

“I know. I’m so sorry.”

“It is hard not to… It’s like she isn’t gone.”

Tears welled up, blurring my vision and I shook my head. “She is. I’m not her.”

The fingers traced the curve of my cheek, then they were gone. “I know.”

Slowly, carefully, I eased my weight off Etienne’s legs and helped him swing his feet over the edge and onto the floor.

“Can you stand, do you think?”

“Of course I can stand,” he said, almost laughing, wrapping the sheet more securely around his waist.

But as he lowered his weight onto his legs, it was clear he was still in pain. Pulling one of his arms around my shoulder, I helped him take a few shuffling steps and, little by little, the pain eased and we made our way around the room a few times.

“If you can manage on your own, I’ll fetch you some brandy and aspirin.”

“Yes, yes. It’s much better, actually.”

And indeed he was standing and walking very well, but as I tried to extricate myself from his embrace, his arm tightened. Instead of letting me go, he pulled me against his body, wrapping his free arm around my waist.

That was the moment – in life there are few crystal clear moments like that – when you know that there was a before and there will be an after that can never been the same.

I did not struggle to get away. I did not turn my head when he lowered his lips and pressed them against mine. When he pushed his tongue between my lips, I parted them without hesitancy, and matched the passion of his kiss with my own.