Magdalina El-Masry
Fiction
The Rest Cure was named a finalist for the 2026 Clarissa Dalloway Prize for Short Prose, judged by Lucy Ives. This piece will appear in our upcoming anthology: Beauty, Anyhow: Writings on Woolf.
Out of the gloom they gather about my bed.
They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine.
Siegfried Sassoon, “Sick Leave”
I.
She saw; she understood. Later, Rezia would remember the soft breeze through the windows, making the curtains blow into the room and brush against the chair where one of them would often get stuck, draped over the back of it; curtains billowing like shrouds behind her as she leaned over the windowsill and looked down at him looking up at her, eyes glassy, Septimus dead. She held no illusions, not yet.
Hands maneuvered her away from the window. Fingers enclosed hard around her upper arm and pulled her away—but I won’t jump, she thought of saying, I won’t do the same. Mrs. Filmer pulled her in, pressing her face against the scratchy wool of her sleeve, and Rezia’s open mouth caught against the fibers. Shut your eyes, said the woman, shut your eyes. Rezia could not. Mrs. Filmer did not let go of her until she’d been safely deposited into a chair in the far corner of the room, and from the moment she touched the seat she felt herself near collapse. A glass was pressed into her hand by Dr. Holmes and forced to her lips, puppet motions to make her swallow the sweet drink. Septimus sat here, she thought, and glanced at the clock on the mantlepiece—he sat here only a few minutes ago. The cushion was still warm beneath her, she could feel it through the layers of her clothes as she could feel the sun coming in through the window, bright on her face, brighter on his, outside and below them. She sank deeper.
Why did he do it? What possessed him? And Rezia watched, as she was sinking, Dr. Holmes maneuvering Mrs. Filmer in turn as he exclaimed, What the devil would make him do it? The sweetness on her tongue deepened and her head lolled to the side and Dr. Holmes leaned over her, taking her wrist in his hand, strangling her pulse. Let her sleep.
II.
She awoke in her own bed and in complete stillness. Her limbs weighed down, the heavy sweetness still lingering on her tongue. She tried to lift her head and found that difficult, so she turned towards the window and saw that it was dark. Often, she would wake here in their small London home and feel momentarily out of time and place. Mostly she would be back in Milan, with the bustling sounds of people from outside the open window on the ground floor. And then she would open her eyes and see him there and think of the night before, when he had either been himself or, in the last months, someone else. A ghost, a demon, crouched somewhere inside him; she could see it behind his eyes. But she had resolved to not feel frightened anymore. Not of him, not when he held her hand to stop the trembling of his own—but the fear would always come back around in the morning when she woke and saw the freckles on his stiff back and knew that he was already awake.
But now he was gone, and Mrs. Filmer entered and pressed a glass into her hand again, a new and taller shape but filled with the same sweetness. Rezia drank it obediently. She opened her mouth and felt struck dumb, could do no more than watch as the woman walked about, stopping here and there around the room, rightening things, picking them up and putting them back down, smoothing the fabric of Septimus’s shirt, which still hung from the top of the wardrobe door and needed to be washed. Oh but how beautiful this hat is, she said as she stroked its burgundy rim, all the while glancing over at Rezia, who hoped she would just tell her (what did she hope to hear?), or go away and leave her to the memory that she had interrupted. Eventually, she heard herself asking whether Mrs. Filmer had heard anything.
“They took him away,” she said carefully. And Rezia felt herself slip away again.
III.
In the bright morning, the landlady came in again, fussing around with freshly washed linens. She said that Rezia had given her such a fright, smiling like that, after it had happened. You poor creature, she cooed, hovering over her as she lay in bed and propping her up on a pair of pillows. But you mustn’t move, the doctor said. I’ll fetch you something warm. And Rezia remained, somewhere between laying and sitting in the very middle of the bed, drinking the milky tea. It pooled in its navy-rimmed enamel saucer, which shook with the faint tremor of her hand.
“The doctor?”
“Dr. Holmes. He’s sent word saying he would come see you this morning. Very good of him, to make the time I mean.”
“Yes,” murmured Rezia. He could tell her more, he would, she’d make sure of it. He could tell her where Septimus had been taken. He was dead, she knew. Mrs. Filmer did not want to risk saying it, fearing what Rezia would do. She saw her glance at the window and wondered if the landlady supposed she would like to jump out of it too, follow him to wherever he’d gone—the morgue, but which one? Rezia did not know where the morgues were. When her aunt Mariela had fallen ill and died there had been no morgue, only the priest who came to their home flanked by a few men from the neighbourhood waiting for their cue to carry her away and prepare for the burial, which took place the following afternoon. And when a young man who worked in the bakery from across the way had died, there had been whispers of suicide, sentito che si suicidò, che Dio l’abbia in gloria, and Rezia had never heard what happened to him after that. The funeral prayers had surely been said in private, and she had not known him anyway, only heard him working sometimes in the back of the cramped bakery, where the ovens were. In the months that followed, his mother could still be heard crying through their open window. Rezia sometimes heard people talking about it, but she never knew where the man and his mother had lived, nor in which churchyard he had been buried. No Catholic church would take a man who had killed himself. Septimus believed in nothing. She did not know how such things happened in this country.
Rezia had not cried. She had smiled, Mrs. Filmer said, and she remembered doing so. How strange.
“When?”
Mrs. Filmer startled where she stood with Rezia’s blue peacock-feathered cloche in her hands. “What, dear?”
Rezia set her tea down on the bedside table and pushed herself up straighter. “When will the doctor be here?”
IV.
Dr. Holmes sat in the chair Mrs. Filmer had pulled up for him, close enough that his knees pressed against the delicate coverlet. He held Rezia’s hand in between his, and she longed to pull away. The feeling of his clammy skin against hers filled her mind as he told her what had happened, afterwards, speaking quicker when he sought to elide over something. There was an inquest underway, he said, and she would be asked questions, if she was well enough. Here he patted the top of her hand.
She could tell them how Dr. Holmes had moved her out of the way to get to Septimus, and how even though she had told him not to, he had done it regardless, nonsense, and besides, they’d agreed on a plan of action, and everything was ready.
“He did not want to see you,” she said, and Dr. Holmes went quiet. “I told you that.”
“Mrs. Smith—”
Now tears stung her eyes, and her breath caught in her throat when she tried to speak. “You said to me that you came as a friend.”
“Yes—”
“And I told you I would not allow you to see him.” She made her voice as even and calm as she could, but still it shook. “And now—”
“My dear,” he said, turning away and patting her hand once more, “If I had gotten to him sooner—but it is no use speculating. It is a tragedy. It weighs heavily on me.”
“You have taken him from me.”
“You are most unwell.” He said it with resolve. “You have had the most terrible of shocks. You need rest.”
V.
Rezia lay curled beneath the blanket, listening to their words through the door cracked open and over the sound of her own breathing.
She has withered away.
She has become so thin, you see, over the past few months. I could sometimes hear her weeping through the floor just as I could hear him shouting and moaning. Lord knows he was unwell, but look at what has happened to her.
Such a beautiful young woman.
She was terribly tired. In the last few months, she had taken to walking with Septimus every day, coming up with some errand or other, or simply wanting to take a stroll to the Gardens and take some air. She liked to think he leaned on her just as much as she leaned on him, and it was true that with her arm looped with his, and their fingers sometimes enlaced when he wanted it to be so, she would feel his weight heavy against her side. He held her hand to keep himself upright. She leaned into it, into him, and in this manner they walked the streets of this dreary city and commented on other people’s hats, their fashions, their general demeanours, in hushed conspiratorial tones. After a while he would go quiet and she would continue, until she could not. Until he squeezed her hand and they began to turn back. Over time a silent language had developed between them—but this was before he first said he would kill himself.
Earlier in the morning, Mrs. Filmer had come in with breakfast and sat beside Rezia as she ate and drank her tea, watching her the whole way through, until all that remained on the plate were crumbs from the dry toast.
Rezia sat up and slipped out of bed for the first time in—how long had it been? She couldn’t tell. She had been changed into a fresh nightgown at some point in her sleep. Rezia silently opened a drawer and pulled out a shawl, soft cotton embroidered along the edge with a light pattern of two-toned blue roses, one of her favourites from before she had even married, one which had belonged to her mother. Her hair felt limp; her skin was cold. She draped the shawl over her shoulders and padded over to the bedroom window.
It was darker this morning than it had been the day before, and from the window she could see a light drizzle. The sun took on a particular quality in this country, like the sky was overlaid by a thin gauze. Darker clouds in the distance threatened to burst and unload a heavy rain upon the city. A child cried in her mother’s arms on the street corner (she would now never have a child)—an omnibus roared by—the clock began to strike in the distance. It was eleven o’clock. Rezia moved towards the door and pushed it open without a sound.
Dr. Holmes sat comfortably on the sofa, his back to her, and he did not see her straight away. She moved like a ghost towards the desk.
“Mrs. Smith!”
Mrs. Filmer saw her and rushed over, stopping her in her tracks. Rezia held the shawl tight against her breast and shrank away from the woman’s touch.
“You should be resting,” said Dr. Holmes, rising from where he sat, bowler in hand.
“I only need a pen and paper,” she said. She wondered at his presence—hadn’t he other patients? “I must write a letter.”
“Of course.” They crowded her now, hands on her once again, leading her back towards the bedroom. “Whomever to?”
“My family. I should tell them—”
Mrs. Filmer nodded gravely. “I’ll take a letter for you if you like, dear. I have always been told my handwriting is wonderfully clear, so you needn’t worry about that. But we must get you dressed; it’s almost time.”
Dr. Holmes nodded, checking his watch against the clock on the wall. “Yes, the inquest. The Coroner was good enough to accept coming here, given the circumstances.”
“The Coroner?”
“It couldn’t be helped,” he said, his tone impatient. “The inquest requires a testimony from you as well. I have spoken to the man at length already, of course. He’s been made aware of everything in great detail. Even so.”
Mrs. Filmer pulled Rezia into the bedroom and shut the door behind them. Rezia stood and watched as the landlady looked through the dresses hanging in the wardrobe and picked one out—the black one she had worn to her aunt Mariela’s funeral. She neatly laid it out on the bed before looking up at Rezia, eyes wide and uncertain.
“Will you be quite alright?”
“I can dress myself.” And didn’t Mrs. Filmer have other things to do, other tasks and responsibilities besides waiting at Rezia’s side for any hint of movement? After a moment she added— “Thank you.”
VI.
When the Coroner first shook her hand and introduced himself (she could not remember his name), bade her to sit across from him on the sofa, firmly invited Mrs. Filmer and Dr. Holmes to leave the room, and began explaining the inquest to her, Rezia could barely tear her eyes away from Mrs. Peters’ straw hat. They had made it together, she and Septimus, and she had made a mess on the table as she always did when making a hat, unloading ribbons and chiffons and silks across her makeshift workstation, but that mess had been cleared away while she slept, caught in the whirlwind of Mrs. Filmer’s nervous tidying. The hat, however, remained on its stand, perfect and untouched. Mrs. Filmer did not know it had been made for her daughter, or she would perhaps have already taken it away. Rezia suddenly thought she couldn’t possibly part with it, and that it should remain where it sat forever, something she could point to and say, look, he was happy, he was himself, right up until the end. I made it so.
With much stopping and starting, gently coaxed along by the Coroner, who only twice glanced at his wristwatch, Rezia detailed the events of that day, from the quiet morning to the unspeakable end. She could feel herself begin to stall the further into the day she got, until she stopped completely at the moment when they had returned to the flat and she had begun to make Mrs. Peters’ hat. The Coroner twisted around in his seat to see what Rezia was pointing to.
“It’s lovely,” he said unconvincingly. “And where was your husband then?”
“He was helping me make the hat,” she said. “He was doing well, until the doctors arrived.”
“I see.”
“We were very happy.” Tears welled up in her eyes, this time uncontrollable, and Rezia began to wipe at her cheeks with her trembling hand. “We were talking like we used to—I mean, as we always did.”
The Coroner watched as tears continued to fall from her eyes and as she continued to wipe them away from her face, all the while waiting for his next question. He looked to be at a loss for a moment, until he began to reach into his pocket for a handkerchief. He was quite young, she now noticed.
“Were you in the war?” she asked, and when he looked down at his ledger, she saw his ears had gone red.
“No,” he replied curtly.
He ushered her through the rest of the inquest, looking helpless as the tears continued to flow freely from her eyes. She accepted his handkerchief and kept it crumpled tight in her hand as she spoke. Rezia began to feel like she was floating above her body, and as she described the struggle with Dr. Holmes at the doorway she floated towards Septimus at the window and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. I am very tired, she told her husband, and she watched wordlessly as he glanced back towards the door of the flat with a hurried look and flung himself onto the railings below. Had the front garden been ruined by his fall?
“My apologies, Mrs. Smith,” said the Coroner. “We’ve come to the end. I need not trouble you any longer.”
In the page of his ledger reserved for Septimus Warren Smith, he carefully inscribed— “Suicide whilst of Unsound Mind.”
VII.
Illusions came eventually, perhaps as they had for Septimus, for he had been himself until he was not. At the time she had not understood how he could think he was seeing Evans, always Evans, when it was only her standing before him, or when they were in the street and a man who looked nothing like him walked by. But now she felt Septimus’s presence so heavily around her that she could not keep it clear in her mind that he was not just in the other room.
After the Coroner had gone, Rezia rose from her seat and walked towards the window, to where she had embraced Septimus only moments ago, and she fought Dr. Holmes’s grip only enough for him to grip her more tightly and pull her away. More of the sweet liquid was brought to her lips, and again she was ushered to bed. She had had too much for the day, and now she must rest. The doctor had told her, up until moments before it happened, that he was a friend to her and to Septimus, and that nothing was the matter with her husband, that he needed only to feel alive and excited by the world again, and that would be all. Why, then, could she not go down to the window and look down at Mrs. Filmer’s flower garden? And where was Mrs. Filmer, anyway? Rezia still waited for her to give her what she needed to write a letter to her sisters and explain what had happened. Could she at least be taken to the telegraph office? She repeated all this to Dr. Holmes in a halting stream, tears still flowing freely from her eyes. Are you not hearing me? she asked, struggling against him in the doorway, as she had on that day. I must go outside, she pleaded as he pulled her into the room and called for Mrs. Filmer. I must write a letter.
VIII.
Over the years of their marriage, there were brief moments where Rezia felt their thoughts overlap, two near-identical pages one beneath the other. She felt close to him then, in those fleeting seconds. Sometimes they would speak at the same time, different words saying the same thing, and she would be jubilant at the coincidence and at the smile that broke over his face.
He dictated to her; she was his hand. In the sitting room or in the park on a sunny day she would write for him whatever he wished. When he tried it was illegible—his hands would shake too much, his mind going too fast for them, the whole mechanism stuttering and stopping. She wrote quickly and in a neat, slanted cursive, and only rarely did she ask him to repeat himself or slow down. Doing this gave her the thrill of being a poet herself—perhaps when she mastered the English language, she could write poetry, too. In idle moments, she would try poems in Italian in his margins, mouthing them soundlessly.
When he asked to see, she would show him and read them out loud to him, first in Italian and then searching for their corresponding equals in English. In this way, she would break her fragments of poetry apart for him and explain the meaning of each word. She felt much more comfortable working with her hands than with words the way he did, though when they had first met, he told her she had a very poetic name—Lucrezia, like Lucretia of Ancient Rome, or Lucretia Borgia—and so that must mean something. At the time, he spoke to her carefully and watched her with such focus that she would often have to look away, flushed and happy.
La brezza mi solleva tra le sue mani leggere e amorevoli. The breeze lifts me in its light and loving hands. On the boat to England, after the War had ended, the wind had whipped around them, and he had let her burrow into his thick woolen coat and warm herself against him.
Sono felice con te, she whispered against his breast pocket. I am happy with you.
IX.
She awoke heavy in her body, straining to turn around to face the window. The room was dim and blue; it was raining again.
Rezia found she could not begin to draft the letter even in her mind, that she was at a loss for words. My husband has committed suicide, and now I am alone. The sheet of paper in her mind was blank following this, and she supposed that could be enough. Send for me quickly—Rezia. And off to the mailbox bound for Milan, where her older sister Antonia would pick it up from the postal office and delight at the arrival of a letter from Rezia, something that had become rarer the longer she spent in England. In the last few months, she had written very little, for what could she say that was truthful? She missed them—she missed Milan—she felt so very alone here. She had begun to omit, to lie, to ask to hear news from home because here, she assured them, very little had changed.
She turned onto her back and stared at shadows cast by the trees outside her window onto the corner of the ceiling. Leaves swayed on their branches, now and then blotted by a cloud passing over. The sweetness remained on Rezia’s tongue, familiar now. She found a glass of water on her bedside table and drank until it was empty. She felt not unlike when she had been ill back in Milan—for she had been a sickly child, smaller and more fragile than her sisters from the moment she was born. Pains in her ears would cause her to cry and cry and cry, and crying would only make it hurt worse, until all she could do was tire herself out and lay there with her head pounding, hearing through muffled ears her sisters come in and out of the room, and drink the clear, lukewarm broth her mother would give her. Not until she had healed would she be allowed out of bed.
Mrs. Filmer came in with a bowl of porridge and sat with her while she ate. It had gone slightly cold, and Rezia’s stomach turned as she made an effort to swallow it—she had not eaten very much in the last few days, spending most of her time asleep. It had been three days, and she was told the burial would be tomorrow.
X.
Had this been how he felt, surrounded by watchful eyes that waited for the slightest movement before descending upon him with immobilizing care? The doctor did not seem to want to understand, did not let her speak, for when she spoke to him at the burial it was to ask what he was good for if not to save someone like Septimus. She was taken home as soon as it was over, and she saw that she had received a short, typed letter from Sir William Bradshaw’s office expressing his most sincere condolences. Mrs. Filmer helped her out of her black dress and Rezia let her, looking out the window all the while, nodding in response when she told her she had been quite brave, and that she should rest now.
He saw Evans everywhere, he heard him as clearly as if he were right there in the corner of the room speaking to him, coming up behind him to whisper in his ear. But how could Evans be here and not in France, where he had been buried? Had he held Evans inside him the way she now held Septimus—crouched protectively over his body as she had not been able to be on that day, pleading for them not to take him away from her, she was not ready? She now understood, listening to the sounds of people on the pavement outside. How could they not be wondering at what had happened to the well-kept garden they walked past, and how it had come to be destroyed? Had they read, in the evening paper that day, about the man who had died here? Would anyone remember?
She turned away from the window and looked at Septimus standing in the doorway of their bedroom, angled as if to walk away, but lingering just a moment. She watched him watch her obediently get into their marital bed and drink what the doctor had given her and lay down as Mrs. Filmer drew the curtains. Sunlight bounced off the faded wallpaper and lit him where he stood. But he was not there; he had flung himself from the sitting room window and been taken away to the morgue and had been buried just this morning. Men shoveled soil over his body as Mrs. Filmer drew the blankets over hers. He was not there, she held no illusions about that, but how nice it was for him to keep her company all the same.
Magdalina El-Masry is a doctoral student in English at Dalhousie University. She splits her time between Halifax and Montreal. Her work has been published in Cinephile, Film Quarterly, the International Review of Scottish Studies, and the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies.
Photo Credit: Natasha Coulis is a writer, designer, educator, and occasional photographer in Vancouver, Canada.
