It was the year 1959. People didn't have their breasts reduced in those days--at least the people my mother knew. 

"What will my friends think?" she said. "What am I going to tell them?"

"Mother," I said. "I don't give a damn," and she was shocked.

My doctor had been more reassuring. "This is not cosmetic surgery," he told me. "Why suffer unnecessarily?"

Although plastic surgery for burn victims had matured since the end of World War II, its other applications were still in their infancy. I looked down at my top-heavy body, conscious of the deep shoulder strap ridges from my bra and remembered all the backaches caused by the dragging weight, and I made my decision.

The hospital was hidden in the solitude of the English countryside and also served as a holding facility for badly burned patients in various stages of re-constructive recovery.

There were no mirrors anywhere.

I was scheduled for a two-week stay and was admitted on the day before my operation. I took my evening meal in the small communal dining room that served the ambulatory patients on the twelve-bed ward. There were a half-a-dozen people sitting around a large table. They were all women but fire had taken its toll and sometimes it was difficult to tell. The nurse, who had led me into the room without warning me what to expect, proceeded to introduce them. 

"This is Sheila," she said. "Perhaps, you would like to sit next to her." 

Sheila who had lost her hair and her eyelids stared unblinkingly ahead, the skin on her head shining an angry red. 

"And then we have Freda and Tess," the nurse continued as I sat obediently beside Sheila.

As I turned from one to another, all eyes were on me, and the air was tense as they waited for my reaction. Freda was the most visibly damaged. I found out later that she had fainted over the fireplace and fallen headfirst into the flames. Her nose had gone, in its place were two small holes, her mouth was a small opening barely wide enough for a drinking straw. The rest of her face was a mess of raw twisted flesh. She was barely recognizable as a human being. I gathered enough strength to force down some food.  

After the initial shock, people who have experienced trauma tend to seek an audience and burn victims are no exception. Although Tess was the first to trust me with her story, the others quickly followed her lead. I listened, often in silence, as they unburdened themselves. I curbed my natural instinct to sympathize because I sensed that sympathy, with its mixture of curiosity and condescension, was not what they wanted from me.

Tess was 25 years old and her husband came to visit every day. One side of Tess's face was that of a lovely young woman, the out of control flames of a gas burner grossly misshaped the other side. Tess had a photograph of herself taken just before the accident. She showed it to everyone.

Tess did not like Marjorie. "She's a stuck up bitch," she would say. "Just because she was only burned on her legs, she thinks she's better than us freaks."

I liked Marjorie who had a puckish sense of humor, except for several times a day when the nurses had to scrape scar tissue from her legs before spreading antiseptic cream on her open wounds. About those times she told me that "it feels as though I'm being attacked by circles of flame all over again."  

Marjorie's main concern was to save her ten-year old son from any sense of guilt. She had been in the middle of a quarrel with him when her accident happened. Turning angrily towards him when he made some smart remark her skirt caught in the open fireplace. Then she had run outside where oxygen in the air ignited her smoldering limbs into a full-blown blaze.

I was surprised that Tess did not like Marjorie. I had not realized that there was a hierarchy in this tragic world. I had thought that these patients would support one another. In my ignorance, I had forgotten that they were real people. I had assumed that fire had turned them into saints.

One morning we heard agonized screams from the bathroom. It was Martha. (We all knew Martha's story. A piece of smoldering wood from the fireplace had fallen down the front of her dress. There was not much pain at first, she said, so she ran towards the kitchen sink; the living room curtains caught fire as she passed and her neck was severely burned.) The no-mirror rule was strictly enforced but Martha had found a small compact, left by a careless visitor, no doubt, and she became hysterical when she saw the extent of damage to her neck.

Such traumatic discoveries upset everyone. I was anguished with the rest. I was beginning to feel guilty because, although my operation was not as disfiguring or as painful as that of most of the other patients, I resented their preoccupation with themselves. Sometimes I felt that I was forced to bear everyone's burdens.

We had our moments of laughter, of course, especially when young Angela was admitted. Angela was eight years old and as feisty as all get out. She had been the one to find her baby brother playing with matches, but she hated being a heroine.

"Where's our Terry?" she would ask glaring at her bandaged hands.

"Kids ain't allowed to visit on the ward, Angela," her parents said. "Terry's back home with Gran."

"That's not bleedin' fair."

"Be a brave girl," said her father.

"Don't swear!" said her mother.

Angela didn't like the hospital. She didn't like the nurses. She didn't like us. She was determined not to take any medication. 

"I don't want no bleedin' pills," she would yell. When the nurses popped them in her mouth, she spat them out with remarkable force. We all smiled in silent admiration as the nurses scuttered here, there and under the bed trying to retrieve them.

There were good days and bad days on the ward. The burn patients continued to confide in me and I became resigned to my role as a sponge, my main function being to listen and absorb their pain.

And then a new patient arrived. She appeared to be a sophisticated woman in her early thirties. I heard later that she was to have surgery on a small mole under her chin. We never did learn her name.

We were having our evening meal together when the nurse brought her in. There was the usual tension as they awaited her reaction. 

"This is Sheila," said the nurse. "Perhaps, you would like to sit next to her."

The woman looked around the table and then she began to shake. "Let me out of here," she screamed as she rushed for the door.  

We never saw her again, but there was no easy way to heal the damage she had inflicted. I sat powerless as I watched Tess, Freda, Marjorie and the rest retreat into their shells. Things were not the same after that. Although they continued to confide in me, I had no magic words to offer and I was relieved when the doctor said I could go home.  

They all came around when I was leaving. I stumbled through a nervous good-bye. "I wish I had known what to say," I told them. "I'm afraid I haven't been much help."

"Oh, but you have," said Tess. "You have a healing ear."

Author's Biography

Brenda Ross was born in England but has spent 40 years living in Canada. She writes short stories, poems and articles.

Her book "On The Other Hand" is published by White Mountain Publications. She has recently had pieces published in several online magazines including:  Writerslife, Cenotaph Pocket Edition, A Freelance Writer, Doorknobs and Bodypaint, Kudzumonthly and Seven Seas with upcoming stories in print magazines Rainy Day Corner and Wynterblues Thunder.

More of her work can be found at Brenda's three websites:

Shaking the Kaleidosope
http://www.geocities.com/brerfoxkaleidscope

The Silver Arrow
http://www.geocities.com/thesilverarrow2001

Rosie and Me           http://www.geocities.com/rosieandme2001

E-mail Brenda at brerfox@dowco.com

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