Murder in the Bastille

Later

“STOP IT OR YOU’LL throw up again.”

The dense grey fog shifted. “René?” Aimée asked.

“Who else?” he said.

She had to get up, get out from under this dark heavy thing.

“Take the blanket off me, René,” she said. “Please, it’s too dark.”

No answer. She reached out to pull it off, but all she felt was skin, arms . . . short arms.

“René!”

“Quit moving,” he said. “You’ve puked your guts out on the linoleum, which deserves it, and on me, who doesn’t.”

“Desolée, but I can’t see where you are,” she said.

A pause.

“Take it easy,” he said.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. Her fingers traveled his arm to his shoulders.

“You’re on a gurney. Stay still.”

“Where are we?”

She felt his large, warm hands grip hers.

“In the clinic at l’hôpital des Quinze-Vingts, Aimée.”

“But that’s . . . that’s,” she said, struggling to sit up, “the eye hospital. . . .” It was too dark. She couldn’t see. “Take these bandages off my eyes, René.”

Silence.

She felt her eyes. No bandages.

Footsteps stopped in front of them. “Monsieur Friant, is this Mademoiselle Leduc?”

René must have nodded. “Please help us escort her to Dr. Lambert in Examination.”

That would be hard since she towered over René, a stocky dwarf of four feet. “I don’t need anyone’s help,” she said. “I can walk!”

“Stay still.”

But she sat up, then didn’t know where to turn, not even where her feet were when she thought she’d stood up. All she knew was she’d landed on something hard and slippery and then she threw up again.

When they’d cleaned her up, she promised herself she wouldn’t cry. In the dark fog where all she knew were sounds and textures, at least, she resolved, she wouldn’t let them see her cry.