Between coughs she softly offers, “Make yourself at home, Sweetheaaart” from chapped lips complementing a face that could be young, yet looks aged by experience. Wrinkles fail to hide under a thin layer of cheap powder, with cheeks made falsely red by who knows what means.
She’s perfect!
Walking the darkened streets of a run-down, working-class Paris neighborhood on the Left Bank, I met Edith. She is among the many haggard looking and hardworking women striving to make a living from whichever occupying army’s young men happen to be in town.
As she closes the door to her room, she unwraps a red shawl from her shoulders, revealing winter-dry skin pressed hard under the straps of a revealing lingerie bra. Ripples of fatty tissue betray cooperation and accommodation to any and all who may offer calorie-rich foods in exchange for services.
“Please utilize the basin to clean,” she suggests while removing first her left, then her right black high-heeled shoes. Red stockings fit tight over her bulging legs. From a few tears protrudes more fatty tissue, as if trying to escape weaved imprisonment of fine fabric.
Where would she have gotten such stockings?
Making my way over to the washbasin, I can’t help but look around the small cold room nestled on the fifth floor of a dilapidated walk-up, missing some units from bombs and other war damage. The structure matches its inhabitants. On the way to this room, I saw others in the hall: broken men, working women, starving children, all of them lice ridden, and coughing. Peeling wallpaper, dirty sheets on the bed and a crack in the ceiling tell a story that could be the same story Edith tells about herself: A once beautiful object ruined by the touch of war.
This may work!
Moving toward me from where she had been undressing, she twirls her red shawl atop the one light bulb centered in the ceiling. Its white hue quickly changes to reddish, illuminating the room in a soft seductive tint. Her approach slows as graceful strides offer a glimpse of a sensual and cultured past.
What was she before the war?
She reaches out her right hand to mine, grasping the cloth and my hand to help me wash my now bare chest. Our faces brush gently. She turns her eyes toward mine, stares at me directly, and coughs in my open mouth, coating my tongue with phlegm, which I quickly swallow.
“How sick would you like to be, my dear?” she asks while moving the damp cloth down to my left thigh.
How sick would I like to be? I wanted to get something to take me out of the war, but how much?
She sees I’m thinking, debating, contemplating. Removing the cloth from me, she runs it with force between her legs.
“Would you like to be out of the line or blind?” she offers, as if I were choosing a bottle of fine wine.
I don’t want to be blind, but getting out of the line should be good enough.
“Out of the line,” I declare with a sense of urgency as she raises the cloth toward my face.
She lowers the cloth before handing it to me.
“Rub this upon your genitals. That should do the trick.”
Looking down at the damp and soiled cloth, I wonder if my fingers are already contaminated.
I’ll have to wash my hands right away.
Her stare catches my pause.
“It’s alright my dear, it doesn’t hurt a bit,” she says as her hand guides mine toward my genitals.
She stares into my eyes while hand-in-hand we rub the damp cloth on my soft skin, making sure to cover the area as thoroughly as possible.
This feels surprisingly good.
Blue radiance emanates from her sensual touch and milky eyes.
I could love such a woman.
She coughs again; this time not on purpose. Phlegm falls upon my cheek, wetting my face before it drips down to my collarbone.
“That one is on the house,” she jokingly declares.
*****
Poster meant to deter soldiers from distractions
http://worldwartwo.filminspector.com/2013_08_01_archive.html
In war, people often take steps to protect themselves they would not otherwise have even considered. During World War II, a thriving trade in venereal disease plagued all armies. Men on leave would often prefer the companionship of infected prostitutes rather than healthy ones since soldiers could use illness to evade service at the front.
In 1944, the U.S. Army struggled to shut down the trade in coughed-up phlegm used to infect soldiers with Tuberculosis. The most grotesque problem, though, was the trade in gonococcal pus, which soldiers smeared into their genitals in the hope of ending up in the hospital. Those who were desperate rubbed it in their eyes, which often led to lifelong blindness. It wasn’t just American soldiers who participated in this trade, but those of all sides. Beyond the soldiers, there was a thriving black market for these items, as well as a solid supply base of desperately hungry women left behind by the ravages of war. War touches us in ways we’d never imagine, and sometimes would prefer to forget.
