Eva
She looks at the sketches she has disregarded.
There are two men, hardly outlined, bearing a stretcher; two different men lean against the outside of the ward – one wears a smudge of dark blue, the other’s skin is shaded dark – they look like they’re sharing a smoke; there is a matron who looks like nothing could fell her; there is a doctor, rotund and moustachioed.
There is a man holding another man’s hand to his lips.
Though maybe she should.
Eventually, she puts the men aside.
She returns to the sketches that fit the story she wants to tell. She imagines Iso holding a pencil, a stick of charcoal, the yellow pastel. The artist, hidden and observant.
It was the German ward but Iso rarely drew the Germans, instead she has captured heads bent close; feet that could be dancing; two hands, almost touching; the VAD sitting at a desk with the doctor behind.
He is framed by a doorway and he has stood there for over a century, Eva thinks, just watching her.
And suddenly the meaning is clear. In the gaps and spaces and all the moments that have not been drawn, there is a sense of longing.
It is the VAD’s, the doctor’s, the artist’s.
But also, Eva realises, her own. It is a longing for something that cannot be had, and the spaces hum with it.
Desire, unfulfilled, over and over. Forbidden, Eva thinks.