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

wish. You are the sculptress, the artist, and I’m at your mercy. You may do with me whatever you like.

A shock raced up her spine, prickling her back. After a moment, when she had recovered, she said, “I’m not sure I understand.”

Of course, you understand. You have always understood your power. You are the sculptress and you may mold me as you wish.

“I see,” Emma said, cupping her hands together, wishing to move past his words. “Hassan, bring fresh plaster for another cast. We must work on Private Darser.”

Hassan lifted a pail and brought it to the chair. Emma covered the soldier’s clothes with an apron, drizzled the plaster over his face, and worked on the injured area gently, and as she did, the soldier responded to her fingers, shuddering as she applied the wet substance to his face, as if she had touched a raw and open wound.

* * *

The brown daisies, petunias, and marigolds continued to bloom in the Paris gardens, but Emma sensed a shift in the season. The sun had lost its warmth, the sky, more often than not, displayed a rich, autumnal, blue rather than the haze of summer. Gooseflesh broke out on her arms in the chilly dawn or at sunset.

At her studio desk, she gazed at the rows of casts hung upon the wall, focusing on one row in particular, those taken of Private Darser. She opened the medical history of the soldier who was now solely under her charge and reread the recent note clipped inside the folder.

What is it about this man? He is unlike the others. Perhaps it’s because I am used to working with French soldiers—and this man is so different he’s gotten under my skin. I find myself consumed with his case to the detriment of others. I snapped at Virginie the other day, when I found her fussing with Darser’s final cast. She was taken aback when I told her that Private Darser was my case and that I was quite capable of handling him. I had never spoken to her like an underling—I apologized later in the day, but the damage was done. She was quite cool to me the rest of the week. When I attempted to convey the importance of the case to the studio, I found myself struggling for words—there was no real reason, other than my own infatuation with his face.

Emma studied the thin sheet of hammered copper. The mask—the lower half of Private Darser’s face—began below the eyes, and descended past the cheeks to the chin. When completed, the mask would attach to his ears with glasses and conceal the wound. A smile had formed on the lips—not an intentional effect, but one Emma decided was an optical illusion. The chin, full, but without a cleft, looked lumpish in form—another unintended flaw that needed correction.

At the end of the counter, Emma searched through the human hair samples. She picked a slightly darker shade than Private Darser’s blond, twisted it into a mustache and positioned it above the upper lip. The effect was handsome, but wrong. Private Darser wouldn’t wear a mustache, she knew intuitively, and wondered how she could be so certain in her assessment.

Darkness fell upon the city.

She picked up her pad and pencil, turned on the desk lamp, and then sketched Private Darser’s head, starting first with the hair and forehead, taken from a photograph Hassan had snapped of the soldier. She worked on the top half of the portrait, getting the details in place—the ears, the blue eyes, still vibrant in black and white, the thin wisps of hair—until she no longer had to refer to the photo.

She placed the completed sketch, the top half of Darser’s face, in front of her.

She lifted the mask and imagined what paint was needed to match Private Darser’s skin. Keeping that image in mind, she placed the mask so it aligned perfectly with the bottom of the sketch.

She stared at the face in front of her.

It can’t be ... it simply can’t be.

The face on her worktable never had a cleft in the chin or a mustache; her memory lucid, crystalline in its recognition. Yes, the face was older, but it was as recognizable as a longtime friend who had returned after an absence of many years.

The face of the boy, now a man, she loved so long ago in Vermont stared up at her.

CHAPTER 8

PARIS AND TOUL

October 1918

“How was your visit to the Front?” Emma asked John Harvey.

“I’ll tell you as much as I can,” he said and puffed on a cigarette.

“I thought you had given up cigarettes for cigars.” Emma settled into her chair, restraining herself from gloating about his change of smoking habits. John, like many intelligent men, hardly seemed the type to stick to routine; he thrived on variation.

“You can’t imagine how difficult and expensive it can be to finagle a cigar at the Front. But you didn’t telephone me to talk about smoking. Why the urgency?”

“Two reasons,” Emma said, as the waiter arrived to take their order. John had been kind enough to invite her to the Hotel Charles for dinner. She kept her voice hushed in the dining room; it was morgue-like except for the occasional clink of glasses. Emma sipped her wine and put the glass down. “I’d like to know how Tom is faring, and I have a personal favor to ask.”

“Any favor, within reason, will be honored for you, my dear.” He stubbed out his cigarette into an ashtray.

Emma placed her hands in her lap, smoothed her dress, and waited for an answer to her question about Tom.

John looked around the room as if it were infiltrated by spies. The few other couples in the dining room were elderly and French. After a sigh, he said, “Tom seems to be doing jolly well, despite the war, his injuries, and the influenza outbreaks. I do believe he’s put on weight since last you saw him. He inquired about you.”

Emma straightened a