The Orphan Collector

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  “How are you feeling?” she said quietly.

  She lowered her voice and mumbled, “Tired.”

  “There’s a nurse here. She wants to talk to you.”

  She groaned and, in the low voice, said, “Send her away. I don’t want to see anyone.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe it would help.”

  “I don’t need help,” she said, pretending to weep. “I need my baby.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  She moved on the mattress to make the springs creak again, as if someone was rolling over or sitting up, then said in a frightened voice, “Don’t let her take him. I need him here, just a little while longer.”

  “I won’t, I promise,” Bernice said. “Why don’t you rest while I make you something to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “But you need to keep up your strength. I’ll wake you when the food is ready.”

  After a moment, she stood, ran her clammy hands over her skirt, raked her fingers through her hair, and prayed the nurse believed her little act. If the nurse insisted on seeing for herself that someone else was in the bedroom, Bernice would have to come up with another excuse. She had no idea what the excuse would be, but no matter what, she wasn’t going to lose the twins because of some nosy nurse who couldn’t mind her own business.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then backed out of the bedroom, quietly closed the door, and turned to face the woman. To her surprise, the nurse was holding herself up with both hands on the kitchen table, her face blotchy, her lips blue. Her throat rattled as she gasped for air and stared at Bernice with frightened eyes.

  “I’m having trouble breathing,” the nurse said. “I think I’m getting sick.” She pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down hard.

  A strange mixture of relief and panic swept over Bernice. The nurse didn’t care who was in the bedroom anymore. She didn’t care about anything but surviving the flu. But she couldn’t die here. “You need to leave,” Bernice said.

  The nurse put her head in her hands. “I know. I’ll go. But I... please... I just need a few minutes.” She started to cough. “I need something to drink. Please. I don’t care what.”

  Cursing under her breath, Bernice took a glass from the shelf and turned toward the washbasin.

  “Please hurry,” the nurse said behind her.

  If giving the nurse a drink would make her leave, Bernice was glad to do it. She felt bad for her, of course; she clearly had the flu and might die. And maybe she had a husband and children at home. But Bernice had her own problems. The last thing she needed was someone meddling in her affairs or dying in her apartment. Then alarms sounded in her head. What if the nurse left and sent someone else back to check on them? What if she sent someone to the Langes’ and they found Pia there, distraught and looking for her missing brothers? They might put two and two together and discover what Bernice had done. She started to fill the glass, frantic and trying to figure out what to do, then noticed the container of rat poison on the cupboard below the washbasin. And her half-empty teacup from earlier that morning sitting next to the basin. “I’m out of clean water,” she said. “Would a little cold tea help?”

  “Anything,” the nurse said. “Please. My throat...” She coughed, hard and loud. “It’s burning.”

  Bernice glanced over her shoulder at the nurse. She was still sitting with her head down, trying to stifle her cough. She seemed dreadfully sick. Sometimes people died within a few hours of contracting the flu; there was no harm helping it along. Bernice sprinkled a little rat poison in the teacup, put the container in the cupboard again, gave the tea a good stir, and delivered it to the nurse.

  The nurse took it with shaking hands and drank it down. “Thank you,” she said, gasping.

  “You’re welcome,” Bernice said, and stepped back.

  The nurse pushed herself up from the table, then sank back down in the chair again. “Oh my word,” she said. Her eyes, frightened and staring, turned red at the rims. The skin on her face started to turn blue. She tried to stand. Her legs gave out and she collapsed on the floor, hitting her head hard on the wood. Bernice had no idea if rat poison worked that quickly or if the nurse was overcome by the flu, but she told herself it was the latter. Surely the poison didn’t help, but Bernice wouldn’t take the blame. The nurse was going to die anyway. Bernice had to do what was best for the twins. That was all that mattered now.

  The nurse gaped up at her, clawing at her throat, her mouth open, sucking in air. Bernice stepped around her, picked up the teacup, rinsed it out, put it next to the washbasin, and went over to the twins. Trying not to wake them, she knelt and picked them up. They squirmed and opened their eyes but didn’t cry. She carried them into the bedroom, laid them on their stomachs on her bed, closed the door, and covered them with a blanket. Then she sat on the edge of the mattress and rubbed their backs, humming softly. One of the boys turned on his side and looked up at her, his small forehead furrowed. In the other room, the nurse went on coughing and choking.

  “It’s all right,” Bernice said in a quiet voice. “I’m right here. Now be a good boy and go back to sleep. I’ll feed you supper soon.”

  Rubbing the boys’ backs, she softly sang Wallis’s favorite song, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” over and over and over. Finally, the twin who’d been wide-awake turned on his side, his watery blue eyes slowly closing. The other lay sound asleep, his mouth half-open, spit bubbles forming on his lips.

  When both boys were napping again, Bernice kissed their heads, got up, and stood over the bed. While putting them to sleep, she’d come to the realization that everyone in the building had seen Wallis and knew she had one son, not two. More than likely some of her neighbors knew Mrs. Lange also, and if and when the epidemic came to an end, they would recognize the twins. If she was going to keep the boys, there was only one way to protect her new family. They had to leave. And soon.

  But before she could decide how to proceed, she needed to get organized. And she needed to eat. For the first time since Wallis passed away, she was genuinely hungry. She tiptoed out of the bedroom and quietly closed the door.

  The nurse still lay on the floor next to the table, her breathing shallow and fast. Blood dripped from her mouth and nose. She gaped up at Bernice with wide, terror-filled eyes and croaked, “Help me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bernice said. “But I can’t. You shouldn’t have come in here.”

  Moving the scattered diapers and baby clothes she’d taken from the Langes’ apartment out of the way, she opened the front door and looked left and right. The neighbors’ doors were closed. No one peered out to see what was going on. No one clambered up the stairs. She grabbed the nurse’s bag, brought it inside, and locked the door. Then she went to the larder, found a leftover piece of cooked bacon, sat down at the table, and ate it. When she was done, she wiped her hands on Mrs. Lange’s apron, having forgotten she was still wearing it until now. Then she went over to the nurse, who was barely conscious, knelt at her feet, and started taking off her boots.

  CHAPTER NINE

  PIA

  At first, Pia became aware of a thin line of pale light seeping under her eyelids and a high-pitched ringing in her ears. Her body felt bruised and beaten, her arms and legs immobile, her head split open. She tried opening her eyes all the way, but her lids felt stuck together, as if someone had covered them with glue. Then she realized she was lying on something hard. Not her mattress. Her bed at home was soft, with random lumps of knotted horsehair. Her throbbing head rested on a pillow, but whatever she was lying on was stiff and narrow, like a board against her hips and back. The outside of her right shoulder pressed against another board, and so did the bottoms of her bare feet.

  She was in a casket.

  Terror plowed through her and she tried to scream. Nothing but a dry squeak came from her throat. She thrust her hands up to push against the casket lid, certain she was on the edge of madness, but her trembling arms flailed in open air.
She scraped the hard crust from her eyes and forced them open, squinting against a blurry, bright light. At first she thought she’d gone blind, confused because she’d always imagined blindness to be dark, not light. Then a curved ceiling slowly came into focus, soaring above her like an alabaster sky. Was she awake at her own funeral? Was she about to see someone looking down at her as she lay in an open casket for one final goodbye?

  She lifted her arms to look at her hands. They seemed to float, ghost white, against the alabaster ceiling. Blood caked her fingernails and knuckles. Then she noticed her heart, thundering in her chest. If she were dead, it wouldn’t be beating. If she were dead, her pain would be gone, not leaking out of her like a bad smell. She opened her mouth and took a deep breath. Her lungs felt like they were on fire. Then she started to cough, every bark like a knife in her ribs. Her throat involuntarily opened and her lungs desperately sucked in air, then forced it out again and again and again until she nearly choked. When she could breathe again without coughing, she held a hand over her mouth, a flood of relief washing through her. She was alive.

  She struggled to push herself up on her elbows, but her arms gave way and she collapsed back on the pillow. She turned her head to look around, taking slow, shallow breaths so she wouldn’t start coughing again. A piece of painted wood blocked her view on one side, and a white sheet hung above that, like a curtain. She turned the other way. A second sheet hung on the other side, reaching down to the floor. A water pitcher, a drinking glass, and an enamel basin sat on a stool between her and the second sheet. She lifted her head and gazed down at herself. A thin blanket mottled with brown spots covered her from the waist down, and dark stains peppered the front of her white nightdress. Her feet rested against a narrow footboard, above which more white sheets hung a few feet away, like a line of sideways flags. Above them, a row of arched, stained-glass windows stretched toward the ceiling. It all looked familiar and strange at the same time, like she’d visited it in a dream or another lifetime. Then it came to her.

  She was in a church. And she was lying inside a box pew.

  But how did she get there? And why?

  Finally, her thrashing heart slowed, and the ringing in her ears disappeared. Mumbled words and low groans filled the air, like the distant moans and shouts of injured miners returning home after a cave-in. Somewhere, a woman was crying. A person nearby gasped for air, each breath gurgling like a clogged gutter. It seemed to be coming from the other side of the curtain. Then the sweet, sickening smell of rotting flesh filled her nostrils and she remembered.

  People were dying of the flu.

  Mutti was dead.

  And Ollie and Max were shut in the bedroom cubby.

  She bolted upright and yanked off the blanket, a flood of panic filling her with a sudden surge of strength. She had to get out of there and go home. She had to get back to her brothers. Then she turned to drop her feet off the edge of the pew and her head swam, dark and heavy, nearly toppling her. She closed her eyes, gripped the edge of the seat with both hands, and took a deep breath, clenching her teeth against the pain in every inch of her body. When she felt steady enough to open her eyes again, she pushed herself up on quivering arms. Her chest felt like stone, her legs like jelly. She wiped the sweat from her upper lip with the back of her wrist and started out of the box pew.

  Patients on cots lined the center aisle of the church, their faces blue and bleeding. A nurse wearing a gauze mask and bloodstained apron and shoes tied a brown tag to a man’s toe, despite the fact that he was still gasping for air. Another nurse wound him in a sheet. The next patient called out for help, blood gushing from her open mouth. She, too, had a toe tag. Pia gazed down the line at the scores of patients, alive and dead, all wrapped in winding sheets, some still writhing in pain, all with tags dangling from their toes like holiday gift cards. The overwhelming sensation of being surrounded by the dead and dying was almost too much to bear. It felt like a boulder in the middle of her chest, crushing her lungs, like the sensation she’d had at the Liberty Loan parade, except a thousand times worse. She looked down at her feet. A brown tag hung from her big toe. She bent over to yank if off but stumbled sideways and fell, hitting the floor with a bone-jarring thud, the wind knocked from her lungs. She didn’t think she could get back up. Slowly she pushed herself into a sitting position, trying to ignore the pain in her elbow and hip, and yanked off the tag. Another wave of dizziness hit her and she put her head in her hands, praying for the feeling to pass. Every second it took her to get out of there and go home was another second in the cubby for Ollie and Max. She had to get back to them. She had to get back to them now. After what seemed like forever, the world stopped spinning. She reached for the arm of the pew and pulled herself up, determined not to let anything stop her, not even the flu.

  “What on earth are you doing?” a female voice said. “Get back in bed this instant.”

  A nurse in a blood-spattered apron and a white mask rushed into the box pew and steered her back to the makeshift bed. Pia tried to resist, but it was no use. She was too weak. Her muscles quivered and her lungs ached with each labored breath. Maybe if she lay down again for just a little while longer, her strength would return. Maybe the nurse would give her something to eat—a biscuit or some soup, something to give her a little energy. Then she would go home to Ollie and Max. They had to be so scared and hungry. Just thinking about them in the cubby made her knees give out.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, as the nurse guided her back down on the pillow, she realized that the part of her that dreaded another person’s touch seemed to have disappeared. Either that or it was masked by her own suffering.

  She tried to speak. “I have to go home,” she said, her voice hoarse and raspy. “My brothers are—”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” the nurse said. “You’re not well.” She covered Pia with the blanket.

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re in St. Peter’s Church. The hospitals are full. Now what’s your name?”

  “Pia Lange.”

  “And how old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Well, Pia, the undertakers found you on Lombard Street. They thought you were dead, but you started moaning and thrashing about. You’re lucky they brought you here instead of throwing you on the wagon with the corpses. They saved your life. But you need to stay in bed.”

  Pia tried to sit up again but couldn’t. “You don’t understand,” she said. “I need to get back to my brothers. They’re all alone!”

  “Shh,” the nurse said. “I’m sure your brothers are fine. Right now you need to calm down and do as I say.” She picked up the water pitcher, filled the glass, and helped Pia lift her head to take a drink. Pia took several big sips—she hadn’t realized how thirsty she was until the cool water soothed her parched throat. Then she lay back down, her arms and legs shaking.

  “But Ollie and Max are only four months old,” she said. Her teeth chattered and her voice trembled. “My father is in the army and my mother died and I...” The words caught in her throat and she couldn’t go on. Her mind screamed at her to get up and leave, to push the nurse out of the way and run out of the church. But she couldn’t find the strength to sit up again, let alone stand or run. Her body felt strange and thick and heavy, like it belonged to someone else.

  The nurse pulled the blanket up under her chin. “There, there,” she said. “I know you’re scared and upset. But I think you’re going to be all right. You’ve made it through the worst of it. Not everyone has been so lucky.” She took a wet rag from the enamel basin, wrung it out, and dabbed the sweat from Pia’s forehead.

  “What do you mean I made it through the worst of it?” Pia said. “How long have I been here?”

  “Six days.”

  Pia drew in a sharp breath, her panic turning into horror. “No,” she cried. “That can’t be. I...” She tried to get up again, triggering another coughing fit, each forceful hack jolting her body like a plank of woo
d slammed against her back. When it was over, she collapsed on the pew, exhausted and shaking.

  The nurse looked at her with pity-filled eyes. “I’m afraid it is, sweetheart. I know because I’ve been taking care of you since they brought you in. Now, please, do as I say or you’re going to get worse again.”

  “No,” she cried. “I have to go home. I have to help my brothers!”

  “I’m sorry,” the nurse said. “But you can’t leave yet. You’re still sick.”

  Pia rolled on her side, her stomach twisting and dry heaving. Nothing came up but bloody mucus and bile. The thought of Ollie and Max trapped in the cubby, probably dying, with no one to hold and comfort them, no one to wrap them in a warm blanket or kiss their cheeks and tell them everything was going to be all right, was more than she could bear. She wished the undertakers had let her die.

  The nurse rubbed her back and shoulder. “Oh dear,” she said. “Try to calm down and breathe normally. You’re getting yourself all upset and it’s not good for you. I’m sure your neighbors are taking care of your brothers. Or maybe one of the visiting nurses picked them up. Either way, I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

  Pia swallowed over and over, trying to stop gagging and coughing. When she could finally speak again, she said, “What... what nurses?”

  “The Visiting Nurse Society sent people into the city to see if they can help citizens in their homes. Trained nurses, nursing students, anyone who has ever acted as a caregiver, really, has been called to service. I’m sure they’ll take care of your brothers.” She paused, her eyes growing glassy. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. This will all be over soon, then you can go home and—”

  Dizziness descended on Pia again. “But... but you don’t understand. I . . . I...”

  “You what?” the nurse said in a gentle voice.