Part 29 (2/2)
At Franz's approach, the young soldier guarding the bed stood at attention and raised his rifle. Franz touched his lab coat. ”I am the colonel's doctor.”
The soldier eyed him with indifference until Kubota's voice croaked out from behind the curtains. The young man relaxed his shoulders and lowered his weapon.
Franz stepped through a gap in the curtains. The colonel was covered up to his neck by a blanket, his face pale and eyes sunken.
”How are you . . . feeling . . . today, Colonel?” Franz stammered.
”I am alive.” Kubota's voice was weak and his tone inscrutable.
Embarra.s.sed, Franz lowered his gaze. ”Are you in much pain?”
Kubota shook his head slightly. ”The injections help.”
”Colonel, the bullet damaged your colon. We had no choice but to fas.h.i.+on a colostomy. To bring a loop of bowel out to the wall of your abdomen.”
”So I will evacuate into this bag from now on.”
”Only temporarily,” Franz said. ”Once the swelling recedes and the wound heals-in a few months-I will be able to reattach the two ends of the bowel again.”
”A few months,” Kubota echoed hollowly.
”Colonel, I couldn't just let you . . .” Franz looked up and met the military man's despondent gaze. ”I am sorry, Colonel. I truly am.”
”You saved my life, Dr. Adler.” Kubota stated it as though reporting the weather outside. ”You have a duty as a doctor. I am a soldier. I understand duty. I had no right to ask you to do otherwise.”
Franz nodded. ”I was hoping that, in time, you might feel differently.”
As Kubota gazed into the distance, he seemed to be fighting pain. ”I never was so fortunate to find a wife, Dr. Adler. My parents are long dead, and my brother was a captain. He went down with his s.h.i.+p at Guadalca.n.a.l.”
”You have friends,” Franz said. ”And so many admirers among my community.”
”Shanghai,” Kubota said dreamily. ”I was always so contented here. When I arrived on my first posting, I felt as though I had found a home. The city was so full of wanderers and adventurers from around the world. I belonged, Dr. Adler. You understand?”
”I have no doubt you did.”
”I was saddened when war came to Shanghai, but I understood the need for it. But once we went to war with the Allies, everything changed. It was difficult to watch my Shanghailander friends suffer so.” Kubota paused. ”Then the Germans came to me with their barbarous plans for your people.”
”What you did for us, Colonel, was heroic.”
Kubota shook his head. ”To have not intervened would have been dishonourable.”
”Still, it took great courage.”
”My choice was never the sacrifice you make it out to be, Dr. Adler. By that point, my fate had already been sealed. My superiors had lost patience with my divided loyalties.” Visibly tiring, Kubota stopped for a few breaths. ”Truth be told, I wanted to go.”
”To leave Shanghai?”
”The Shanghai I knew-the place I still think of as home-that city is long dead.” He looked at Franz wistfully. ”And yet, somehow, I live on.”
CHAPTER 39.
Sunny pressed the towel to the surgical wound on the man's abdomen. ”Will it ever heal, Frau Adler?” Herr Hirsch asked, his tone plaintive.
”A little time and patience do wonders for healing, Herr Hirsch.” She sounded to herself like the old matron she had worked for at the Country Hospital. The woman had a gift for silencing even the most demanding of patients.
”If only G.o.d will grant me enough time to be patient.”
”You are over the worst of-”
A sudden commotion cut her off mid-sentence. Sunny heard something crash to the floor and someone shouting in j.a.panese. She dropped the towel and raced over to Kubota's bed.
The young j.a.panese soldier who always stood at the foot of the bed was motioning wildly with the barrel of his rifle toward the bed. The colonel was propped up on a pillow, eyes open but absolutely still, his lips dark blue.
Sunny thrust her hand up to Kubota's mouth but didn't feel so much as a flutter of air against her palm. She placed her fingers on his neck. A pulse still beat weakly beneath them. Sunny saw that his pupils were the size of pinholes. She doubted he could still be conscious, but she sensed awareness behind his gla.s.sy eyes. His expression verged on serene.
As she stood there, helpless, Sunny felt his pulse drain away beneath her hand.
Even the guard could see what was happening. He shrieked at her in j.a.panese, demanding action. Sunny only shook her head. A lump formed in her throat as she pulled her hand from Kubota's neck and lifted the sheet over his head. The guard let his rifle fall to his side, its muzzle dangling toward the ground, as he gaped in disbelief.
Sunny turned to see Berta standing at the door to the ward. The other nurse absorbed the scene immediately. ”How did this happen?” she asked. ”I checked on him just a few minutes ago. He was stable.”
Sunny hurried over to her. ”Did you give him painkillers?”
Berta shook her head. ”No, but Dr. Huang did. When he changed the dressings.”
”Wen-Cheng?” Sunny gasped and then covered her shock with a small cough. ”Dr. Huang changed the colonel's dressing?”
”And administered morphine, yes.” Berta lowered her voice to a whisper. ”There is something else.”
”Yes, Berta?”
She cleared her throat. ”The morphine.”
”What about it?”
”You must understand. I am not accusing Dr. Huang.”
”Tell me, Berta.”
”After Dr. Huang prepared the colonel's injection, the other morphine pills-our last ones . . . they went missing.”
Sunny managed to maintain a neutral expression. ”You think Wen-Cheng took them?”
<script>