Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [26]
“Because she is a woman,” said Younger complacently. “Women should be pure.”
“Men should be pure.”
“And because she’s a Jew. Scalpel.”
“What?”
“Scalpel. And a Pole.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“And her worst crime of all—she won the Nobel Prize not once, but twice.”
She frowned again. “I can’t tell when you mean what you say.”
“If you want the truth,” said Younger, “I’m only honest with men. With women I can’t be trusted.”
She looked at him.
“Women teach men to lie,” he went on. “But we’re never as good at it as they want us to be. How did you meet Madame Curie?”
After a while, the girl answered: “I walked into the Sorbonne and told them I wanted to apply in chemistry. I was seventeen. They all laughed at me, because I had no baccalaureate. By chance—or providence, who knows?—Madame came in at that moment. She had overheard. How she terrified them. She looks so old, but very kind. I don’t know why, but she took an interest in me when she heard that my father had tutored me in math and science. She asked me questions, so I was able to show her what I knew. She arranged for me to take an entrance exam.”
“Which you passed?” asked Younger.
“I received the highest marks of the year.”
“You should be in class then, not taking X-rays of wounded soldiers.”
“I did go to classes, for two years. But then I found out what Madame was doing for the soldiers. These trucks, they were her idea. She was the first to see how many lives could be saved if we had radioscopes in the field. Everyone said it was impossible, so she designed a unit that could work inside a truck. The government, because they are so stupid, refused to pay, so Madame raised all the money herself. Then the army said it could not spare any men to operate the trucks, so Madame trained girls to do it. Then the government announced that women could not be permitted to drive, so Madame operated the first one herself, daring the government to stop her. She learned to drive; she changed tires; she took the X-rays. When they saw she was saving lives, they finally relented. Now there are over a hundred fifty of us—and our only problem is with the men.”
“The men?”
“Some of them become very—aggressive—in the presence of a woman.”
“They’re at war.”
“That’s no excuse. We’re not the same as the filthy Germans.”
Younger looked at the girl from the corner of his eye. A hardness had come to her face; he had seen a glimmer of it before, when she was speaking to the soldiers, but now it was impenetrable. He went on with his laborious work.
After a long while, she spoke again: “He is very sweet, this corporal. How did he come to be in your care?”
“Not by my doing,” replied Younger. “He got lost in the night. Crossed to our line by mistake. Threw himself on me, the poor blighter.”
“Don’t listen to him, Mademoiselle,” murmured Corporal Dubeney.
“What—are you awake?” said Younger. “Nurse, the chloroform.”
“He came into no-man’s-land and pulled me out,” said Dubeney. “In the thick of it.”
“Hallucination,” said Younger.
“He sleeps at the front,” said Dubeney.
“Where’s the blasted chloroform?” asked Younger.
“No need, no need, I can’t feel a thing,” said Dubeney.
Younger made a sound of annoyance through closed lips. No one spoke.
“I could hardly let my best experiment go to waste,” said Younger. “Look at his right knee.”
The girl, curious, asked Corporal Dubeney if he minded. When he shook his head, she rolled up one of his trouser legs and saw a nasty wound. “This needs antiseptic,” she said.
“I’ve put antiseptic on it,” said Younger. “Every day. Now look at the other knee.”
When the girl got Dubeney’s other pant leg over his knee, she let out a gasp. This knee too was wounded, but there was a seething movement