The Mapping of Love and Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

course of some months or years, Maisie could follow the passage of a relationship between writer and recipient, could read between the lines and could intuit what the recipient might have penned in return. A collection of letters offered a glimpse across the landscape of human connection at a given time. But the letters written to Michael Clifton offered a seed of fascination for her even before she pulled the string and began to unwrap the paper, for they were written from the heart by a girl to her love—and Maisie had once been a girl in love, in wartime.
    Sitting at the table, Maisie drew back the brown paper to reveal the collection of letters, still in their original envelopes, unopened since Michael Clifton himself had received each letter. In the third package, several photographs of Michael showed him to be a young man of some height, strong across the shoulders, a confidence to his stance. His hair was fair, short and combed back, though in one photograph it appeared as if the wind had caught him unawares, and a lock of hair had fallen into his eyes—in that image he reminded her of Andrew Dene, with whom she had walked out some eighteen months earlier. She had ended the relationship, but heard that he had since married the daughter of a local landowner.
    Maisie brought her attention back to Michael Clifton. The photographs appeared to have been taken in the heat of summer, close to the sea. His eyes were narrow against the glare of the sun, and she could not help but return her attention to his smile. His was an open face, a face that bore no evidence of sorrow or past calamity; it seemed to reflect only a zest for life and spirit of adventure. It was the face of one who might be said to have lived a charmed life.
    Though she had planned only to pack and leave for Chelstone, Maisie lingered over the letters, and slipped the pages from the first envelope.
    Dear Lt. Clifton,
    Thank you for your letter, which I received this morning. It is always exciting to receive a letter, but I had to wait until noon before I could rush to my tent to read it….
    Maisie pressed her lips together and looked away, remembering the casualty clearing station in France, and those times when a letter arrived from Simon, its pages seeming to burn through her pocket into her thigh until the moment she could run to the tent she shared with Iris, whereupon she would tear open the envelope to read: “My Darling Maisie…”
    She turned back to the letter, lifted the page to the light, and continued.
    I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed your leave in Paris as much as I. Who would believe that a war is on, when you can go from one place to another and have such a joyous time? You were very generous, and I will never forget that delicious hot cocoa the cafe owner made for us; I have never tasted anything quite like it. I’m so glad I bought a postcard with a picture of the Champs-Élysées. I felt as light as air walking along without mud and grime on my hem.
    I’ve been thinking about your stories of America. I can’t imagine living in a country that big. Until I came to France, I had never traveled more than ten miles from my father’s house.
    Well, I must go now—we are expecting more wounded this afternoon and there’s much to prepare.
    Yours sincerely,
The English Nurse
    “The English Nurse?” Maisie said aloud. “The English Nurse? Don’t you have a name? Why are you calling yourself ‘The English Nurse’—and why no address?” Then she reminded herself that during the war she had never given an address at the top of the page; the official “Somewhere in France” had seemed both insipid and melodramatic at the same time. And in her chest she felt a tightening, imagining the tallAmerican with the broad smile on a sunny day laughing with this girl, perhaps teasing her…“ my English nurse .”
    Maisie folded the letter and placed it in the envelope once again. She brought an old newspaper from the box room and laid it out