Thomas Keneally - The Daughters of Mars

It was the sort of question which called up instantaneous loyalty in Naomi. I’m sure it would be interesting for you, she said, to see his figures on sepsis.

But it had to be admitted he had the cranelike gait and the fixed eye of at least a highly argumentative fellow. He and Lady Tarlton shared that same air of having to push down walls to make the world see the self-evident things they saw.

Soon after Airdrie’s diagnosis, Matron Mitchie’s breathing grew very labored and her temperature went to a hundred and four degrees. The struggle reached a level where she should have surrendered—but of course she would not. This did not mean at all—Naomi knew—that she would live. It meant only that she was willing to endure a terrible death. There would be no sliding forth beneath an easeful cloud of morphine for Mitchie.

By the end of May, her pneumonia had broken. Now she appeared elderly. Her wrists were purple and thin and her fingers trembled as she reached for a teacup by her bed. Naomi could not be spared to sit by her for long. She was now their chief ward sister and—in fact if not in title—their matron. The idea that she should be in receipt of a matron’s instead of a staff nurse’s pay fortunately amused her rather than rankled. All industrial unease of that sort had been somehow washed from her soul. The reward of being prized by Lady Tarlton and trusted by Major Darlington—that’s what she looked for.

At last, a letter from Kiernan!

You must forgive the delay—or at least I hope you might. I received your news about Robbie Shaw with a delight I won’t disguise. I feel a devotion to you that is total. We were in the mist but utterly identified each other. Is that your impression too? If it’s not, please ignore me. Here I am talking to a woman who has just liberated herself and I’m suggesting new shackles.

He then nominated dates on which he would have leave in Paris.

If my letter is not an utter mystification, would you consider the following: that we undergo a betrothal ceremony—the first step to marriage should you desire that—at the Friends’ chapel in Paris? There is one, as it turns out. You may seek some other secular gesture we could make, and if that is what you would like then that is what we shall do. But the reason I suggest the Friends is because the process is thoughtful yet not binding, sensible and not loud. It strikes me that those qualities suit you. You are not a Friend, nor need you to be, nor am I attempting to make one of you. You are dearer to me than that.

If this letter is craziness in your eyes, don’t feel you need to reply…

It was instantly apparent to Naomi that what Kiernan wanted was what she wanted. She believed in that formula—“thoughtful yet not binding, sensible and not loud.” It was easy to tell Lady Tarlton she wished to meet her fiancé (the term “boyfriend” was fatuous) in Paris and that it was important to his religion that there be a ceremony of betrothal.

You have a fiancé? asked Lady Tarlton.

I’ve just received the suggestion by mail, said Naomi.

A ceremony? Is he Jewish? asked Lady Tarlton.

He’s a member of the Society of Friends.

Quakers, she said. How fascinating. My family, of course, were Friends. I, however… I’m afraid I let it go. But, though human, they’re not given to as much hypocrisy as the others, you understand.

Naomi took the afternoon train from Boulogne to Paris and found her way to the British Nurses’ Home, which was an ornate place facing the ordered spaces of the Champs de Mars. For the purpose of betrothal, Lieutenant Kiernan had been given one day’s leave and collected her—as a telegram had promised—at nine o’clock on the Sunday morning from the front of the nurses’ home. She felt the unsullied and irreplaceable joy of seeing him. There was no sense in her of being conscripted for some alien ceremony. He wore a brown suit—it was the first time Naomi had seen him in civilian mode. So dressed he seemed a novelty and—even more—as if a dimension had been added to him.

I wouldn’t impress them if I turned up in uniform, he told her.

Should I have worn something else?

Oh, no. Nurses are obvious noncombatants.

Their cab took them across the river. It was starting to be a splendid, still morning and the river swept away silver-green as the taxi made for the region named Montparnasse. The cab driver was not certain of which alley off the Rue de Vaugirard to drop them, but at last a point was selected and Ian helped her forth onto the pavement and paid the driver.

I think it’s just along here, he reassured her when the cab was gone. This is it, I’m sure, he said, pointing down a cobbled entryway. My informant told me a double wooden door painted black.

They found such a wooden door where Ian Kiernan had expected it to be. But the rooms above it showed no sign of life. Naomi was content with the hour, and delighted simply to occupy the place beside him. They smiled at each other. She took off one of her leather gloves just because it was a warm enough day, and he lifted her bare hand and put his lips to it.

Be careful you don’t catch anything, she said.

Right you are, he said, but shook his head. It’s very Australian, he said, to debunk a man’s kiss. I hope you won’t feel obliged to do it in subsequent instances.

A spry little man of about sixty years, wearing a good-quality alpaca suit, an upright collar, a somber tie, but with kid gloves on his hands and a fashionable cane under his arm, came down the alley. He had already seen them and adopted a smile and increased his pace.

He looks like Billy Hughes, she whispered to Ian.

Sedgewick, the man said as introduction. You must be Brother Kiernan. How amazing that there are Friends in a place like Melbourne.

Naomi thought the same could be said for Paris.

I am the registering officer and the clerk for today’s session. We have perhaps twenty-eight members. But sometimes we have surprise arrivals—Red Cross people who are Friends. There are also some Quaker ambulances… You have both brought your records? Good. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind my keeping them until after the meeting.

Sedgewick unlocked one leaf of the double doors and they followed him up a steep staircase to a bare room where benches faced each other. There was no altar, no pulpit, and no enforced or pious silence. Sedgwick continued to converse. I’m afraid most of us are French, so the meeting will largely be in French. But the Committee of Clarity are all Anglophones, and obviously I include myself.

And this Committee of Clarity? asked Naomi.

Kiernan put a reproving hand to his forehead. Heavens above, he said, I didn’t explain that.

He turned to Sedgewick. It sounds like the Committee of Public Safety in the French Revolution.

Sedgewick uttered a small sequence of sounds that added up to a laugh. It is a group of three, he said, who ask you merely if you are interested in each other as partners for life.

The other Friends began to arrive—modern-looking men like Ian, some older men, a number of women soberly but not unpleasantly dressed. Women’s hands were kissed in the French manner. Men kissed each other on the cheek. They all welcomed Ian and Naomi in that manner and sat them on facing benches on either side of the room. Thus Naomi expected that when the service began the other women would be separated from the men. But men and women were mixed on the benches. In hers and Ian’s case it was therefore a symbol of apartness—their betrothal had not become formal. There was to be a ritual distance between them.

Suddenly—and by some signal Naomi did not see—there was a silence for inner prayer.

O great God, Naomi intoned within herself, who is far beyond the battlefield, too kind to be close to it, too far to be blamed for it, take my thanks that I’ve been brought here by this noble man.