The English Patient Page #12

There's A KNOCK at the door. Alm�sy sleeps. Another. A third. He's

roused from the dead. Stumbles to his feet, opens the door as the

knocking continues.

It's Katharine. She's bathed, luminous, stands back-lit by the

afternoon sun - an angel in a cotton dress. She walks past him into

the room. He closes the door. She turns. He KNEELS before her, head

at her thighs. She's crying, her face expressionless as her hands go

to his head.

KATHARINE:

You still have sand in your hair.

She starts to BEAT on his head and shoulders, violently. He pulls

back, to look at her, the tears streaming down her face. She kneels

and covers his face with kisses. He pulls blindly at her dress and it

RIPS across her breasts.

95*.INT. BATHROOM. DAY.

Alm�sy is in the bath. Katharine, wearing his dressing gown, pours in

a jug of steaming water. Alm�sy leans over the rim of the bath. He's

sewing, carefully repairing the torn dress.

KATHARINE:

I'm impressed you can sew.

ALM�SY

Good.

KATHARINE:

You sew very badly.

ALM�SY

You don't sew at all!

KATHARINE:

A woman should never learn to sew,

and if she can she should never

admit to it. Close your eyes.

ALM�SY

(laughs)

That makes it harder still.

She pushes the sewing from his hands, then pours water over his head,

then begins to shampoo his hair.

Alm�sy is in heaven. The biggest smile we have seen from him. She

continues to massage his scalp.

ALM�SY

When were you most happy?

KATHARINE:

Now.

ALM�SY

When were you least happy?

KATHARINE:

(a beat)

Now.

ALM�SY

Okay. And what do you love?

Say everything.

KATHARINE:

What do I love? I love rice pudding,

and water, the fish in it, hedgehogs!

The gardens at our house in Freshwater -

all my secret paths.

She rinses his scalp, then slips off the robe and CLIMBS IN BESIDE HIM,

covering his neck and shoulders in kisses.

ALM�SY

What else?

KATHARINE:

Marmite - addicted! Baths - not

with other people! Islands. Your

handwriting. I could go on all day.

(a beat)

My husband.

Alm�sy nods.

ALM�SY

What do you hate most?

KATHARINE:

A lie. What do you hate most?

ALM�SY

Ownership. Being owned. When

you leave, you should forget me.

She freezes, pulls herself away, out of the bath, looks at him, then

SLAPS HIM VERY HARD across the face.

She picks up her dress, the thread and needle dangling from it, and

walks, dripping, out of the room.

96*.INT. THE PATIENT'S ROOM. NIGHT.

To the Patient it's as if Katharine is walking out of his wall. He

sighs with pain, then looks away to where Hana has fallen asleep on the

bed, almost on top of him. He touches her. He speaks as if each word

burns him.

THE PATIENT:

Could I ask you to move? I'm sorry -

but when you turn, the sheets, I can't

really bear the sheets moving over me.

Sorry.

HANA:

(mortified, moving quickly)

Yes, of course, I'm so sorry.

Stupid of me.

Hana gets up, upset to have hurt him.

HANA:

I'm so sorry.

97*.INT. THE MONASTERY KITCHEN. NIGHT.

Hana comes to the table, carrying a jug of water and a bowl. She's

still sad. She unbuttons her dress, pulling it off her shoulder,

begins to pour the water to cool herself against the night's pressing

heat.

98*.EXT. EMERGENCY FIELD HOSPITAL. 1944. LATE DAY.

The EMERGENCY FIELD HOSPITAL is a cluster of tents practically ahead of

the Front Line SPORADIC GUN FIRE, LIGHT AND HEAVY, SOUNDS THROUGHOUT.

Mary walks by on her way to the Nurse's tent. It's 1944 and the war in

Italy is still intense.

99INT. EMERGENCY FIELD HOSPITAL TENT. LATE DAY.

JAN is washing out of her HELMET, and stands naked in her socks. Hana

is using a flannel to wash Jan's back. A couple of other girls like,

exhausted, on their cots. The mud is everywhere. Another nurse is

making tea out of an adapted plasma can on their tiny primus.

MARY comes in and flops down. She's GIVEN BLOOD and is pale and

enervated.

MARY:

Okay, Type Os, the vampires wait.

Everybody's giving a pint.

JAN:

Ugh! If they were sucking it out

I wouldn't mind. It's the needle

I can't stand.

HANA:

(laughing)

You're a nurse - how ca you be

frightened of needles!

100INT. TRIAGE TENT, EMERGENCY FIELD HOSPITAL. NIGHT.

Hana walks through the main TRIAGE TENT. It's packed with the ruined

bodies of the injured, swaddled in bloody bandages. Hana stops at a

couple of beds, shares a word or two with the patients. She stops at

another bed, leans over its occupant. His bandaged face is bloated and

yellow. He's not breathing. She bends over him, his open eyes fixed

in a glassy stare. No pulse. She snaps the triangular cardboard ID

from his bed to indicate HE'S DIED. Then tenderly closes his eyes.

THEY SUDDENLY SNAP OPEN. HE REARS UP, GRABBING HER.

WOUNDED SOLDIER:

Can't wait to have me dead? You b*tch!

He slaps her hand away. Slaps at the tubes going into his arm. Hana

is absolutely shocked. But just as suddenly he's sunk back into semi-

consciousness.

Shaken, she sits by him and takes his hand, he pulls it away, she takes

it again. He is in terrible pain. His face creased with anger. Now

his hand is clutching at hers. She tries to soothe him.

HANA:

Try t be calm. Ssssshhh. Come on.

Be calm now. Ssshhhh. Be peaceful.

It's okay. It's okay.

HIS FACE STILLS. HIS HAND LOOSENS. Now he has gone. As Hana inspects

him, a shell seems to land close by. THE LIGHTS FLICKER. She ducks,

along with everyone else.

Below the bed, on slatboards, above the mud, are the now dead soldier's

possessions. They include A PAIR OF TENNIS SHOES.

101INT. TRIAGE TENT, EMERGENCY FIELD HOSPITAL. EVENING.

HANA, WEARING THE TENNIS SHOES, IS GIVING BLOOD. She lies in a cot,

next to JAN. The shelling sounds closer.

OLIVER, the Doctor, is working on the most recent patient, a young

CANADIAN Boy who is critically ill - the tubes hanging above him, of

plasma and of blood. The curtain drawn around him is pulled back, to

reveal the two nurses in the background. The Soldier can just see

them. He's going to die any minute.

CANADIAN SOLDIER

(whispering to Oliver)

Is there anybody here from Picton?

OLIVER:

Picton? I don't know.

CANADIAN SOLDIER

I'd like to see somebody from home

before I go.

Hana can only really hear Oliver's end of this conversation, but the

mention of Canada chills her, and she knows, now, not later, that

Stuart is dead.

HANA:

(to Oliver)

Why Picton?

OLIVER:

He's from there - edge of Lake

Ontario right, Soldier?

The boy nods.

JAN:

(innocent)

Where's your Stuart from?

Somewhere near there, isn't it?

HANA:

(to Oliver)

As him what company he's with?

Oliver leans over, then turns to Hana.

OLIVER:

Third Canadian Fusiliers.

HANA:

Does he know a Captain McGann?

The boy hears this, whispers to Oliver.

CANADIAN SOLDIER

He bought it. Yesterday. Shot to bits.

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