The Midwife's Child by Amanda Lees

Author:Amanda Lees [Lees, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803146829
Published: 2023-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

Jamie was watching my face as I read it through twice, my heart sinking. ‘What do your orders say?’

‘That I’m to return to London for rest and medical evaluation.’

‘Sounds sensible to me.’

‘Jamie, I’m a doctor. I know whether I need medical evaluation or not. I don’t want to rest. I want to be with my colleagues, who are also my friends.’

He looked at me and I could see the concern in his eyes. It made me want to scream.

‘Maggie, you’ve been through a huge ordeal. You’re bound to have some after-effects from that. I can see them.’

‘What do you mean you can see them?’

All at once, I was icy cold with fury and something else, something I didn’t even want to name.

‘I saw the way those displaced people in the Lutetia affected you. I also saw you back at the camp when you were a displaced person yourself. You were doing your best, Maggie. You always do, from what I can see. But it was costing you. I think some rest and recuperation would be a very good thing.’

‘Does that mean you think I should go to London?’

‘Those are your orders.’

My voice thickened with unshed tears, and I hated myself for it. ‘You want me to go?’

‘Of course I don’t want you to go, but I do want what’s best for you.’

I stared at my plate, at my brioche with the butter still melting into it. I took a bite. Sawdust. Still I forced it into my mouth, chewing and swallowing. It felt like shards of glass scraping the back of my throat. But I had to eat. Whatever it was, I had to eat it. My stomach growled at me, remembering the months of starvation. That voice in my head, shouting at me. Eat. Stay alive. Another, quieter voice murmuring, You don’t deserve to live.

I remembered that voice from Auschwitz. From the DP camp. It followed me everywhere, sly and insidious, whispering at me that I wasn’t worthy. Who was I to live while so many had died? Why did I get to eat when I’d worked alongside the Nazis, tending my patients?

But you had to do that, the voice of reason cried. You had to or they would have killed you.

Still, I hated myself for it. Hated the fact I was here, in a luxury hotel in Paris, while people like Eva were no more, their bodies slung into mass pits before the Nazis set fire to them, watching them burn, what body fat they had left acting as fuel. I caught sight of my arm, plump in comparison to theirs, although I was thinner than I’d ever been.

I pushed my chair back from the table. ‘Excuse me.’

Safe in the toilet cubicle, I retched until there was nothing left in my stomach, the few crumbs I had swallowed brought up in bile. Only then, when I was sure there was nothing left, did I sit back on my haunches, satisfied.

‘My God, Maggie, what have they done to you?’ I whispered.

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