Paper Bullets by Jackson Jeffrey H

Author:Jackson, Jeffrey H.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2020-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

14

“I Am Prepared To Acknowledge Anything Of Ours”

The Gfp Still Worried that Suzanne might be unstable. On a routine inspection of her cell, she lay in bed while a group of soldiers poked around. One of them snatched up a piece of paper, crying in alarm, “She has written with her blood!”

Suzanne worked hard to suppress a laugh.

“No, no. It is only lipstick,” the other one said.

Suzanne dozed off shortly afterward, but when she awoke, the prison doctor was there, decked out in his “lavishly braided uniform,” as she recalled. He had come to check on her ongoing recovery following her attempt to slash her wrists. The Chef, an interpreter, and an orderly accompanied him.

Suzanne asked the men for some of her belongings. She needed her belt because she was having difficulty keeping her trousers up. She, like Lucy, was continuing to lose weight.

“Perhaps,” the interpreter interjected, trying to be helpful, “it could be arranged with a needle and thread?”

“Believe me, if I had a needle and thread, I would have fixed it long ago.”

“Of course,” the doctor said. “I will see to it.”

Despite this small kindness, Suzanne did not like the doctor, although at least she continued to deal with him, unlike Lucy, who refused even to speak to him. Suzanne’s estimation of him sank further once she had learned that he had stolen from La Rocquaise two portfolios of beautiful antique anatomical charts that had been her father’s.

Suzanne pulled back her shirtsleeve so that he could see her self-inflicted wounds, “discolored with bruising and caked with blood,” as she described them. While he examined her wrist, she mentioned a more pressing concern: “And I need some insect powder, because the pallet is alive with fleas.”

He flashed a contemptuous smile, clearly not believing her, so she pulled her sleeve all the way up, exposing “a riot of pink polka dots encroaching upon each other, each one with an angry red pinpoint at its center.” Shocked at the sight of Suzanne’s flea-bitten arm, the doctor turned a dark, accusatory look on Otto. Otto’s face turned ashen and his body trembled, frightened that the doctor would report him for allowing unsanitary conditions.

Suzanne realized that the interpreter and the orderly, obeying rank and protocol, would say nothing on Otto’s behalf, so she took his defense upon herself. “It’s not the warder’s fault!” she declared in a loud voice.

Her shout surprised the doctor, who was unaccustomed to being spoken to in that manner, especially by a female prisoner. “They haven’t got any insecticide, and they cannot obtain any,” she told him. “What do you want them to do? Sit in the cells all day, killing fleas? That’s what I’ve been doing ever since I was brought here.”

The doctor commanded the orderly to fetch a box of antiseptic powder. When he returned, he squeezed the box again and again, blowing puffs up and down Suzanne’s arm.

By The Time The Gfp Was Ready to begin questioning the women again in September, they probably knew Allied

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