“No!” I said, in a frightened voice. “No! certainly not! They want to kill me. Don’t tell them where I am. They hate me.”
“Oh no! no! No mother ever hated her son. You must give me her address so that I may write. Are you married?”
“Yes,” I said, “I am. But my wife is the worst of the bunch. She puts poison in my parcels, and I’m going to divorce her, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to divorce the whole crowd of them, wife, mother, father—every one of them, and be a Turk, for they are all bad, bad, bad!” (I burst into tears.)
Madame Paulus wrung her hands. She was very nearly in tears herself, poor lady, and I hated the whole business. She turned to the Sertabeeb.
“Il dit qu’il va divorcer sa femme!” she cried.
“C’est comme ça, cette maladie,” the Sertabeeb said, sympathetically.
Madame Paulus and the Sertabeeb conversed together in low tones—I could not catch what was said—and then she turned to Hill.
“You will be going home soon,” she said. “Will you like that? All sick prisoners are going home in July.”
Our hearts leapt within us. This was the first news we had had of a general exchange of sick prisoners. But we had to keep it up. I could see the Sertabeeb was watching us keenly—as we discovered later, he knew a little English.
“I am not sick,” said Hill.