How long before he gets to Katharine? (spoiler alert)
I was wondering how long Katharine waited for Almazy. How long was she dead by the time he got back?
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MovieChat Forums > The English Patient (1996) Discussion > How long before he gets to Katharine? (s...
He said it was gonna be three days but the problem when got there delayed him two more days of I'm not mistaken.
So I guess maybe she was death just one day before he came back, if it wouldn't have been for the complications he had with the two guys he would have seen her alive.
I don't recall how long the book says, but he has to work for the Germans, guiding them through the desert, to be able to get back. And before that, he's in an internment camp. So, it's more like years before he's able to return. She is, I guess, mummified and he's fully aware she's dead when he comes back. It's tragic and quite macabre.
Even in the film, we see her apparently just asleep when he lies down behind her, but look at how we never see much of her face at the end when he carries her out. It's as if, when we see her apparently asleep, we're seeing his hallucination of her rather than the reality of her dead body. But the delusion can't stand up to the light of day. That's why he's crying so hard when he's carrying her out.
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based on the temperature of the desert and lack of decomposition i'd say he missed her by 5 minutes, poor thing if he only he let them radio and confirm his identity she would off lived.
shareIt's been 20 years since I read the book (I read the paperback edition when it first came out), but my recollection is that the cave was very cold inside. There would have been little or no decomposition in low temperatures combined with low humidity. There'd be no smell, either.
Bored now.
In the book it was three years before he was able to get back to the cave
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