Caravaggio and the sapper take a trip by cart down into the valley to pick up a sack of flour. Also, the soldier has to deliver maps of the cleared areas to headquarters at San Domenico. Finding it difficult to ask questions about each other, they speak about Hana. There are many questions before the older man admits having known her before the war. 

 

 

“In Canada?”  The sapper asked.

 

 

“Yes, I knew her there.” 

They pass numerous bonfires on the sides of the road and Caravaggio diverts the young soldier’s attention to them. The sapper’s nickname is Kip.The name had attached itself to him curiously. In his first bomb disposal report in England some butter had marked his paper, and the officer had exclaimed, “What’s this? Kipper grease?” and laughter surrounded him. He had no idea what a kipper was, but the young Sikh had been thereby translated into a salty English fish. Within a week his real name, Kirpal Singh, had been forgotten.

That summer the English patient wore his hearing aid so he was alive to everything in the house. The amber shell hung within his ear with its translations of casual noises—the chair in the hall scraping against the floor, the click of the dog’s claws outside his room.The English patient within a few days of the young soldier’s arrival had thus become aware of his presence around the house, though Hana kept them separate, knowing they would probably not like each other. 

But she entered the Englishman’s room one day to find the sapper there. He was standing at the foot of the bed, his arms hung over the rifle that rested across his shoulders.

 

 

Caravaggio and the sapper take a trip by cart down into the valley to pick up a sack of flour. Also, the soldier has to deliver maps of the cleared areas to headquarters at San Domenico. Finding it difficult to ask questions about each other, they speak about Hana. There are many questions before the older man admits having known her before the war. 

 

“In Canada?”  The sapper asked.

 

“Yes, I knew her there.” 

They pass numerous bonfires on the sides of the road and Caravaggio diverts the young soldier’s attention to them. The sapper’s nickname is Kip.The name had attached itself to him curiously. In his first bomb disposal report in England some butter had marked his paper, and the officer had exclaimed, “What’s this? Kipper grease?” and laughter surrounded him. He had no idea what a kipper was, but the young Sikh had been thereby translated into a salty English fish. Within a week his real name, Kirpal Singh, had been forgotten.

That summer the English patient wore his hearing aid so he was alive to everything in the house. The amber shell hung within his ear with its translations of casual noises—the chair in the hall scraping against the floor, the click of the dog’s claws outside his room.The English patient within a few days of the young soldier’s arrival had thus become aware of his presence around the house, though Hana kept them separate, knowing they would probably not like each other. 

 

 

But she entered the Englishman’s room one day to find the sapper there. He was standing at the foot of the bed, his arms hung over the rifle that rested across his shoulders.