
The English Patient Page #12
- R
- Year:
- 1996
- 162 min
- 1,485 Views
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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