Goes Live In 3!
Excitement is rising. Only 3 more days. Though a mere ‘backlister’ from an earlier writing life, Doctor Agnès has been totally revamped and recovered! The sequel to Miss Agnès! Excerpt…Chapter 1
A Doctor In Wartime Paris
Paris, July 1917
On an early Friday morning in the summer of 1917 Agnès sat in the windowsill on the second floor of her father’s house at the Place de Châtelet, overlooking the right bank of the River Seine.
The maid had opened the windows to let in the fresh air and the hubbub from the street below filled the room. It had rained during the night, leaving a soft mist over the world below, but the sun was rapidly covering the terrain. Coats already draped over lower arms and the waiters with their long white aprons were wiping the last drops of rain from the chairs and tables of the outdoor cafés.
There was a pensive look in the blue eyes of the young woman with her elegant blonde coiffure who’d just received her Diplôme de Etat de docteur en medicine from l’Université de Sorbonne. The young doctor was clearly lost in thought, paying only fleeting attention to Paris waking up to another day of war; a war both visible and invisible, as the City of Light had been under siege for three long years now but had not yet been captured by the Germans.
Visible were the bomb craters, the incessant stream of wounded men and the lack of almost all vital goods, the nightly raids and the constant blaring sirens. Invisible but as tangible were the fear, the grief and the dogged determination with which the Parisians shouldered their burden as they went about their daily lives.
Lessening some of that fear and pain was Doctor Agnès’s job. Though not equipped with great physical ruggedness, Agnès had -despite her nymphlike, almost ethereal appearance - the inner strength of two buffalos. Her days all looked the same: wake up, put on her uniform, and set out to save lives at the American hospital at the Lycée Pasteur in Neuilly.
Only during this heavenly interlude before breakfast did she allow her thoughts to roam freely and dream of another life where peace reigned, and beauty and love returned.
In the other open window sat her best friend, Katell Brest, also a brand-new doctor with the same diploma. Katell was a bright, springy character with a mass of copper curls, slanted green eyes and a boyish figure. She originally came from Île-de-Ré and had lived at the Place de Châtelet with her Aunt Netty since her parents died seventeen years earlier. Katell was a matter of fact, what-you-see-is-what-you-get person, a counterpart to her philosophical and sensitive friend.
“Penny for your thoughts.” Katell broke the silence.
“Sorry, was I daydreaming again? I do like to indulge in that before Justine taps on the door to tell us breakfast is ready.”
“I must say I have no idea what you find to think about anymore. It’s not like anything fun is happening that’s worth my thoughts,” Katell observed rather grimly.
“Oh you’re right. I just can’t help myself, Kat. Thinking is living for me, I guess. But I agree, there’s not much hope for happier thoughts right now.”
Used to her friend’s philosophical musings - after all Agnès was a deep thinker and regularly contributed articles to La Revue de Philosophie as their youngest member ever - Katell broke her own gaze from the scenery below.
“I wish I had one ounce of your thinking capacity; I’m just sitting here, itching to get back to work. You know, I’m not very good at sitting still. Would never qualify as a Buddhist in the Himalayas.” She chuckled, stretching her limbs while balancing on the windowsill.
Inseparable friends, though opposite characters, circumstances had forced them to live together. In the months leading up to Germany’s declaration of war on France on 3 August 1914, their lives had turned topsy-turvy. For the first time, that spring, Agnès had not accompanied her father, the Baron Maximilian Dupuis de Melancourt, and his new wife to Sweden. Her studies at the Sorbonne had been more important than joining the annual family trip north to visit her mother’s grave on Öland.
The Baron had agreed to Katell moving in with his adoptive daughter, so they could be looked after by Madame Proulx, the housekeeper, and the rest of the staff. The idea of living with her best friend had soothed Agnès sadness over not being able to travel with her family. And Kat had been as enthusiastic to set up house together.
But the war had changed everything for everyone.
Papa had married Agnès’s mother’s Swedish girlhood friend in 1910, a widow called Elise Aberg with two children of her own. The family now couldn’t return to France due to the war lines across Europe, and the Baron and his new family bided their time on Öland in the Baltic Sea, while young Agnès was by herself in Paris under siege. All made the best of it, though contact was irregular and far between. Agnès knew her father, who loved her like his own flesh and blood, was fretting and constantly worried about her.
Another reason to work as hard as she could and pray the war would be over soon. With most of their male colleagues enlisting as front-line doctors and field surgeons, every hand was necessary.
“So what were you thinking about?” Katell implored.
“Nothing too interesting. Just trying to grasp how all these countries are at war with each other and how we’re sitting here seeing Paris wake up from a wet night. I cannot really fathom what a world war means and what how it will shape the future of humanity. What the rest of this century will look like.” Agnès’s chin rested on her drawn-up knees.
“Gosh, that’s deep,” Katell said with admiration in her voice, “All I hope is that this relative peace will last another day in Paris. We never know whether the Hindenburg Line will hold. The Germans may still be marching on the Champs Elysées in August.”
“That’s just what I was thinking,” Agnès replied, jumping off the windowsill and standing before her friend with her hands clasped before her, her stethoscope sticking out of her white coat. “I think we need to be where the real action is. Imagine what we could learn about our profession closer to the frontlines?”
“Are you kidding me? I think it’s dangerous where we are right now. Spending most of our nights in your father’s wine cellar by the light on one candle. It’s quite enough adventure for me, trying to zigzag through the bombs the Germans are dropping on our heads every day.”
“I know you’re surprised to hear this from me, generally Miss Cautious …” Agnès faltered, clearly doubting whether to speak her mind.
“What are you hinting at, Agnès dear?” Katell probed. “Just spit it out. We need to get going soon.”
The creases in Agnès’s forehead and the pursed lips displayed her state of contemplation. Blue eyes flickered, making clear she brooded over something. Agnès tended to fall silent when about to disclose an important decision, so it was Katell’s role to give her the free pass.
“Ever since we got our diplomas, you’ve been talking of having doubts about staying put in Paris, but when I ask you where you want to go, you say ‘nowhere in particular’. What do you want? Go to your father’s castle in Picardy and enlist as a trench war doctor? Is that it?” Katell’s eyebrows went up to her hairline.
“It is, actually.” Agnès looked down at her hands. “How well you know me, Kat. I would go today if I could. It’s my dearest wish to show that we women can also work on the frontlines, and I don’t mean just the nurses, but us, doctors, next to our male colleagues.” Her voice caught in her enthusiasm. “This is the Twentieth Century, after all; it will be our century, of women standing up for themselves, and we who have been educated at universities are the ones that need to set an example for other women.”
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