The Sculptress by V.S. Alexander (best books to read for women TXT) 📕

Emma crossed the street in the patchy sunlight, weaving between horse-drawn carriages and sputtering automobiles, drawn closer to the soldier, fascinated by his face. Her curiosity vanquished any urge to flee—she had never seen a human with such injuries. He was abhorrent, freakish to most, but he elicited sympathy in her and, in some manner, empathy—powerful feelings that drove her toward him.

She understood the soldier’s need for comfort. His visage drew her forward, as she remembered the vision of the faceless child. If only she could heal the wounds and obliterate the anger and sadness he must feel, and, by doing so, assuage her own. Did she possess the patience and strength for such a task? The young soldier, illuminated in the sunlight, fueled a sudden bout of nerves in her, as if she were approaching a specter.

He looked up from his cup and stared, no spark of life flickering behind the one terrible, brown eye rimmed with scarred flesh. He might have been an American but he wore the unrecognizable tunic and breeches of a foreign army—Americans had not yet begun to fight in the war.

“May I help you?” Emma said as cheerfully as she could. “Do you need to cross the street?”

The man shook his head and slumped against the building’s brick wall.

Emma looked into his cup. It contained only a few pennies. She pitied him even though such an emotion seemed self-serving as her own memories of loss flooded her. The soldier needed medicine, a safe place to rest and recuperate, and the attention of doctors who could restore his face, if such a feat was possible. She reached into her purse, withdrew a shiny half dollar, and dropped it into the cup.

The soldier peered at it and then lifted his head.

Questions plagued her as she studied his face. What could she do for him? Could she fill his wounds with clay, much as she molded statues over wire frames in her studio? Could she restore his face along with his chance for a normal life? She thought of Tom, serving as a volunteer surgeon in France, struggling each day on the battlefield to save dying and wounded soldiers, facing even his own death. A Red Cross banner flying over a medical camp was no defense against errant shells.

An insane idea, she thought—filling a wound with clay. The dream from her past lingered and she shuddered at the memory, one that filled her with sadness no matter how hard she tried to bury it. Nothing could displace it while she was in the soldier’s company.

She managed to smile as he stared back with the brutal eye. He was dead inside and his cadaverous coldness settled over her like snow falling upon her shoulders on a winter’s day. Emma turned, feeling the eye bore into her back as she walked toward home. His circumstances were too painful; his physical and emotional needs too grave for her to offer any real solace. She looked at her feet, the neat black shoes treading over the bricks as if she were walking in a dream. The soldier’s disfigured face threatened to overwhelm her.

Entry: 13th May, 1917

I return to you, diary, whenever I am bored. And now that Tom is gone, I find solace in you for a long night alone. I wonder where Tom is in France and if he is happy. When he left Boston, he looked so gay, like a child about to get a new toy. I didn’t cry when he stepped into the cab, only a slight numbness overtook me, no more than I have felt upon many an occasion. The next few days I knocked about the house with only the housekeeper for company. I even avoided our friends. When I look into my heart I know Tom’s work is his real wife and I’m only an occasional mistress. This throws me into minor despair, less so now than it did in the last weeks before his departure. Perhaps a certain emptiness has become like a comfortable friend—always there, constant, and without change. And to rid one’s self of a friend causes pain. Since our marriage I have been reliable, steady Emma because that’s what Tom and I wanted from our relationship. Now I focus on my art: A sculptress in a world where men of like ability are held in high regard and women are often scorned.

I feel oddly enough, at 27 years, that my youth is long past. My carefree feelings have been compressed by remembrance. My work calls, but still my art and my emotions suffer from my unfortunate past.

By chance, I saw a badly wounded soldier on the street today. I gave him a fifty-cent piece, which is probably more than he collects in a week. I don’t know his story and I’m sure I will never know, but he wrapped the war around me like a blanket. My fear for Tom, as well as for myself, surfaced, but for different reasons. That wounded, lonely soldier has more in common with me than he suspects. We both need restoration, and we both need love.

Emma stepped back. She stared at the creature and disgust prickled over her, filling her with darkness.

Perhaps the flute was out of proportion to the faun’s hands. No, the panpipe was perfect. She brushed her hand over the clay face. The eyes, the nose, were too odd, too alien, even for a world plummeted into insanity by the war raging in Europe. Thousands died every day; yet, Tom of the gentle hands and the sharp eyes saved soldiers’ lives. Here, safe at home, she tinkered with a maquette, everything seeming so bourgeois, so irrelevant, compared to the unfolding tragedy across the Atlantic.

She wiped her fingers on her white smock. In Boston, the war was as distant and remote as a tropical beach, but, whether she was working or not, her own inadequacies rushed to the fore, their sting compounded by memories. She blotted these out until