Silence for the Dead by Simone St. James Page A

vigorously as we hurried for the stairwell. “The doctors come today,” she explained to me. “They’ll do inspection promptly at eleven. Everything has to be cleaned and ready by then. And I do mean everything.”
    It was true. We had to wipe windows, wainscoting, the backs of chairs; we had to stack linens with mathematical precision and line up spare pillows in perfect piles. By the time the men had gone to breakfast and I’d polished each bedstead, I was already exhausted, as much by the keyed-up tension in the air as by the work.
    The men were almost eerily quiet. They had shaved with their safety razors, buttoned their shirts, tied their shoes, straightened their beltless trousers the best they could. They ate breakfast in silence, then sat at windows or on chairs in the common room, their jaws tight and their eyes drawn. Two men played a halfhearted game of checkers. Others looked blankly at nothing. We cleared the dishes with soft clicks in the dining room, loading the dumbwaiters.
    What is it?
I wanted to scream.
What is it?
But I kept my questions to myself, watching Nina polish her glasses again, hearing Boney snap at the orderlies, her lips pressed into a line so thin they nearly disappeared.
    â€œIt’s a good day, isn’t it?” This was Tom Hodgkins, the patient who had no recollection of the war—or of much else, for that matter. He was thirty-five-ish and pudgy, with a spreading middle and thick, doughy thighs. He sat in the common room and smiled at me as I wiped an end table yet one more time. “The doctors are so kind.”
    â€œAre they?” I asked.
    â€œOh, yes. We get the best care here at Portis House. Regular checkups. Concern about our well-being. We’re positively spoiled.”
    I looked at him sitting in a stripped-down room far from home, reading a newspaper three weeks old with a square very clearly blacked out from the front page—probably an article about the war—and wondered, as I sometimes did, where he thought he was. “That’s nice.”
    â€œSome of these men, you know—” He looked about and lowered his voice confidentially. “Some of them seem rather ill. I’ve heard that injections of a vitaminic compound can be helpful.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œI’d ask the doctors about it, if I were you. Nurses should learn these things. One should try to excel at one’s profession, even if you are only a woman and a nurse.”
    I snapped the dust rag rather harder than necessary, shaking out the dirt. “I’ll try.”
    The doctors arrived midway through the morning and were closeted directly with Matron; we had to go back upstairs and tidy up, buttoning on our long sleeves as if we hadn’t been working for some four hours already. I was surprised to find Martha, after catching a quick nap, getting dressed and buttoning her sleeves as well. “Inspection,” she explained to me. “All the nurses must attend.”
    We lined up in the corridor outside the kitchen, all of us nurses and most of the orderlies; two orderlies had been excused to oversee the patients’ exercise. The orderlies had put on fresh canvas whites, and we all stood awkwardly, trying not to cough or shuffle our feet as Matron brought the doctors by.
    There was a taller, older doctor and a shorter, younger one; the taller one was called Dr. Thornton and the shorter one was called Dr. Oliver. They wore somber wool suits. Thornton was fortyish and distinguished, with gray at his temples; Oliver was the acolyte, with a tall forehead and sweat dripping discreetly down his neck. They walked slowly down the line as Matron looked on, peering at us. I’d never seen a doctor of mental patients before, and I wondered what they were like. Dr. Thornton smelled of stale menthol and Dr. Oliver smelled of damp starch. My back hurt and I needed to go to the lav.
    â€œThe staff seems in order,” Dr.