Sometime- the Plague World

by Meredith Mason Brown

  “Over a month,” Dan said.

  “Any coughing by you since then? Any change in the color of your face? Any difficulty in your breathing?”

  “None of the above.”

  “If you had caught a nasty flu from the Grace woman or the other two, the odds are strong that it would have surfaced by now. I think you’re OK. Call me quickly if something bad develops. Travel at Christmastime can be a challenge. Have you bought a ticket to Los Angeles?”

  “I have. For December 22. I hope that day is OK for you.”

  “Is your ticket non-refundable?”

  “It is.”

  “Well, come on out here. We’d like to see you. Last year was Michael’s time to host you in Los Angeles. So this year is our year to have the pleasure of your company – and also that of Michael and his family – in Santa Barbara. E-mail or fax me the info on your ticket to LAX, and I’ll pick you up there and drive you back to Santa Barbara. The temperature will likely be in the 70s – none of the minus 5 stuff you’ve been putting up with in the Northeast this year. In California we have drought, dust storms, forest fires, and frequent water shortage, but we don’t do sub-zero weather. And it’s Christmas. And why should you squander the cost of your non-refundable airplane ticket? And if you like, Dad, we can catch up more on flu, and on the mysteries of hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, at a safe distance from Rockinam. Bring a couple good-sized suitcases, so you can stay a while. We’d love to see you.”

  “You’re more than kind,” Dan said.

  “These men start with what appears to be an ordinary attack of LaGrippe or Influenza, and when brought to the Hosp. they very rapidly develop the most vicious type of Pneumonia that has even been seen. Two hours after admission they have the Mahogany spots over the cheek bones, and a few hours later you can begin to see the Cyanosis extending from their ears and spreading all over the face, until it is hard to distinguish the coloured men from the white.” (Letter from Dr. Roy Grist, an army physician at Camp Devens, quoted in Barry, The Great Influenza, The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, pp.187 and 480.)

  8

  I Wish You a Merry Christmas

  Dan flew out to Los Angeles on Dec. 22, carrying too much luggage and a bagful of Christmas presents. Like so many travelers, he had to change planes in Atlanta. He remembered one of his colleagues from Kentucky had told him, a year earlier, after Dan complained about the absence of a direct flight: “Listen, buster, a person can’t even go to hell without changing planes in Atlanta.” Dan’s trip out west was long and tiring for a man about to turn 75. Nat met him in the Los Angeles airport and drove him to Santa Barbara.

  “You look great, Dad,” Nat said, early on their drive. That statement was a lie. But it was true, however, that Dan’s face was pale pink, not some shade of blue or black. Nat had been brushing up on his recollection, from his years at the CDC, and from a quick look at John Barry’s book “The Great Influenza,” that the lethal H1N1 flu of 1918-19 often caused cyanosis – the patient would turn blue or purple because the lungs could not transfer oxygen into the blood.2 The absence of oxygen, in the 1918-19 flu, generally led to the patient’s death.

  In the car on the way to Santa Barbara, Nat talked to Dan, in an exploratory way, probing whether Dan was flu-infected. “Still no coughing?”

  “Not by me,” Dan said.

  “How about in the plane on the way here?”

  “Not to any noticeable extent in either leg of my flight today.”

  “Vomiting?”

  “Not by me or anyone I saw on either plane.”

  “Screaming infants?”

  “One on the second plane, but the kid was about five rows ahead of me. His screaming only lasted a few moments. His mother was good at bouncing, patting, and speaking to the kid. The way your sainted mother, God rest her, treated you, Nat, on some of your earlier flights.”

  “Anyone pouring out blood, from their noses or any other part of their body?”

  “Not a one. Not even from the briefly screaming kid.”

  “Any blue or purple faces?”

  “None that I saw – in Rockinam or in the planes or the airports, or anywhere else, for that matter. No one looked cyanotic, like a lethal flu-bearer. Nor were there bloody noses which might indicate a lack of success in fisticuffs, or the vile blood outpourings that typify those who suffer from Ebola virus. Forgive me, Nat, but what the hell is this, the Inquisition? A son’s Inquisition of his own father? Is that your idea of a Christmas greeting?” Dan attempted a smile, to soften his expressed irritation.

  “Easy does it, Dad. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. As a Christmas kindness, I won’t sing those words. Nor will I sing ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,’ or “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” And Michael isn’t here yet, you’ll be pleased to hear, to sing them to you. In my questions, I’m just following up on what you started – the Floyd family quiz on plagues.”

  There followed several minutes of silence, before Dan began asking Nat polite questions about how his children were doing at school. Before long, Dan ran out of questions about Nat’s kids. There was silence, as Nat drove north towards Santa Barbara and Dan looked out towards the Pacific. Eventually Dan spoke up again: “You mentioned the Floyd family quiz on plagues. What should we be looking for, Nat, to find out whether there is a bad form of flu in Rockinam? You worked for the Centers for Disease Control – can you get in touch with the CDC doctors, and get them looking at that little town? I don’t want everyone there to get sick, and maybe most of them to die.”

  “Dad, it has been twenty years since I was working for CDC. I’m rusty and out of date, and I’m an oncologist, not a virologist. A doctor may think he knows all forms of illness, but he doesn’t, and he shouldn’t pretend to. We’re only a couple of days away from Christmas. You and Michael and his family will be at our place on Christmas Eve and on Christmas day. So let’s give it a rest, and think about it quietly, and maybe then, after Michael and his brood go back to LA, and my kids go back to school, you and I can talk quietly. We may even have some thoughts by then.”

  “Thoughts would be welcome, though they’re not always easy to come by. They would be timely. You and I, Nat, might have an epiphany, as the Feast of the Epiphany approaches.”

  “Maybe so, though I’m no churchgoer. But in the meantime, let’s have family time and Christmas. Touch wood, the ordinary annual flu seems to have flown away from the West Coast. The drugstores are selling flu shots here, of course, and charging fancy prices, but that’s what they do every year, just to make a buck. I haven’t heard of any flu deaths in Santa Barbara or in the City of the Angels. And I’m sure, Dad that you won’t try to change that.”

  There was no further mention of flu on the rest of the drive. Dan did notice, on arrival at Nat’s house in Santa Barbara, that Nat’s wife Beth and children did not shake his hand or hug him, and that the room to which Nat led him had a single bed and was not a room he remembered as having used or seen used before. The room smelled of some kind of disinfectant.

  “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

  “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:2-3)

  “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)

  9

  If All Els

  Dan found virtues in the room to which Nat had assigned him. It was not next to rooms filled with Nat’s three children Joel, Manuel, and Raphael, who, though they seemed smart enough (each was a student in, or a graduate from, college), tended to noisiness, thanks to such things as watching the TV at wall-piercing volume, and trying to out-yell each other. An
d the Wi-Fi in Dan’s room worked well. Thanks to his iPhone and his iPad, Dan was able to stay in touch with the world without leaving the room.

  Much of the time, Dan lay on the bed, sleeping. His trip to Los Angeles and up to Santa Barbara had been exhausting. So, at Nat’s house, had been the energy of Nat, Nat’s wife Elsa, and their sons. Being polite was tiring. So was Dan’s increasing age, his declining ability to remember things, and his concern about the number of people in Rockinam who had died in recent weeks. The number kept mounting. At seven in the morning (10 A.M. in East coast time) on December 23, after an early breakfast, Dan called Jimmy Madeiros, to get an update on what was going on in Rockinam. After general chatting (weather; will it be snowing on Christmas; what’s the temperature in Santa Barbara; how’s business), and some silent pauses, Dan continued:

  “What’s new in town, Jimmy? You been putting up more of those grim news clippings of obits on the front door of your shop? Is that good for business?”

  “Two more obits,” Jimmy said. “Rector Templeton’s wife passed yesterday, after midnight. Rebecca was her name. And there’s another one who died this morning, too recent to make it into the paper. That was a man named Jacob something, who was in town only a year or two, working at Whizzer, which you probably know is a fast food place on the way into town.”

  “Which undertaker is in charge of Becky Templeton’s body?”

  “Carl Holmquist, the head of Holmquist’s.”

  Dan knew Holmquist; he was the undertaker in Rockinam who had been in charge of burying Dan’s wife Elizabeth.

  “Tom, what killed these latest two, Rebecca Templeton and Jacob from Whizzer Fast Food?” Dan said. “Flu?”

  “I sell newspapers, Dan. I’m not a doctor.”

  “Well, Merry Christmas to you anyway,” Dan said. “Be well.”

  “Thanks for the helpful guidance, Dan,” Madeiros said, with some bite. “Being well is a swell idea. Maybe I’ll try to have a Merry Christmas, too. I’ll try to follow your excellent suggestions.”

  Dan jotted in his notebook what he could about the two most recent deaths in Rockinam. He decided not to pass the information along to Nat, at least until after Christmas Day.

  On the morning of December 24, Dan’s son Michael arrived at Nat’s house, having driven up from Los Angeles with his wife Liz and their two sons, Samuel and Ariel. For a late lunch for the family, Beth focused on cooking a large Kentucky ham. The ham smelt invitingly of bacon and honey. Beth said the ham called for beer. That call was happily met by all of the sons. The family came to the table quickly. Dan, being by far the oldest of Nat’s guests, and the only regular church-goer, said grace. He had to talk quickly to finish a short grace before the other members of the family, who were not church-goers, began eating and drinking.

  The Floyd families didn’t see each other often. Conversations at the table ranged from rapid bursts of family news updating, to praise of Beth’s cooking, wisecracks from Michael, and several lengthy-seeming moments of silence. The beer moved quickly.

  “That’s it,” Michael said, after a silent moment. “They’re everywhere.”

  “What’s where?” Dan obliged.

  “They’re everywhere,” Michael said. “This whole family has gone to el. But I love them all. Including me.”

  “Maybe even most of all you,” Nat said.

  “Only because I’m so loveable and loving,” Michael said. “And not just me. I’d love a bull if one walked in this dining room now, horny as hell.”

  “We haven’t gone to hell, Michael. And we’re not going to hell in a hurry,” Dan said. “You’re good people, and, thanks be to God, each of us is making or has made a good living. That’s not going to hell. Not yet, anyhow. Michael, why do you say, on Christmas Eve, that the whole family has gone to hell?”

  “El, not hell,” Michael said. “Look at our names – Daniel, Nathaniel, Michael – that one is a particularly beautiful name, if I do say so myself – Joel, Manuel, Raphael, Samuel. Thank God for my wife Liz and for Nat’s wife Beth. But for them, every last one of us would have ridden the El train, as if we commuted in Chicago or New York. Liz and Beth will be around if all Els fail.”

  “Very droll, Michael,” Dan said. “You always are droll. Maybe we should sell the word with a “t”, not a “d” – you always are a troll, Michael. Anticipatory Merry Christmas to you. Liz and Beth are also both El-named – their informal names are short for ‘Elizabeth,’ which was also the name for my wife, your mom. Your parents and mine were God-fearing people. They chose names with ‘el’ in them, because they feared and loved God, and `El’ is a name of God.”

  “Was Elizabeth Taylor named after God?” Michael asked. “I think of her as a lover – a lover of Richard Burton and a horde of male surrogates, not as a lover of God. Elizabeth Taylor induced love by her beauty of her eyes and the perfection of her breasts. She had two of those – I counted them myself, from photos. I don’t know enough about God to know if he had and has the same lovely effect on people as Liz Taylor did.”

  Ignoring Michael’s attempt at humor, Dan continued. “I have next to no Hebrew,” he said, “but I went to a church school, and I’ve looked up the Hebrew meanings of biblical words that puzzled me. ‘El’ is a name of God (as in Eli, or Elijah) – a name that is so important that it’s centrally located in the Bible. How does the Bible begin? What’s the first verse in Genesis? ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’ That’s Genesis 1:1 – a text that uses El for the name of God. In Genesis 32, Jacob, after wrestling a mysterious unnamed stranger all night, is renamed by his opponent ‘Israel’ – meaning “he strives with God.” In Exodus 20, when God lays down the Ten Commandments, he starts: ‘I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ Again, ‘El’ is used as God’s name. And in Deuteronomy 6, the central Hebrew prayer, the Shema, starts ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.’ And ‘El’ is part of God’s name in the Shema, that fundamental statement, a statement at the root not only of the Torah, but also of the teaching of Jesus and the apostles.”

  “Here endeth the lesson,” said Michael, brandishing a fork. “Or at least I hope that’s the case. Let’s eat and drink. It is, as you astutely pointed out, Dad – no doubt after careful and prolonged study – Christmas Eve. And the beer is getting warm.”

  “I’ll give you a mini-ending to the lesson,” Dan said. “When my Elizabeth was still with us, and we were trying to think of names for our kids, I took a gallop through biblical names, which yielded this: Daniel means ‘God is judge.’ Nathaniel means ‘gift of God.’ Michael, hard though it is to believe it, your name is the name of an archangel – one of the only three archangels that are recognized in canonical scripture. Michael is Hebrew for ‘Who is like God?’ Raphael means ‘God heals.’ Joel is double-barreled God – Joel means ‘Jah is God.’ To me that sounds to me like saying God is God – a statement that is certainly correct, but that isn’t a news-maker. Joel is listed in Chronicles as the son of the prophet Samuel, a name which means ‘heard of God.’ Ariel is ‘lion of God.’ Manuel is short for Emmanuel – ‘God with us.’ I think that’s the list. It’s a list we should strive to be worthy of. It is a divine list. Ladies and gentlemen, Merry Christmas Eve, to all of us.”

  “Divine,” Michael said smirkingly. “Aren’t you forgetting the women – your Elizabeth, my Beth? You said they, too, bore the name of God. But what does the name Elizabeth have to do with God?”

  “A lot. I checked the name years ago, before I married my Elizabeth. Elizabeth comes from a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Elisheva – “My God is an oath” or “My God is abundance” – don’t ask me why the Hebrew scholars couldn’t agree on the word
ing. But I like the idea of our family receiving abundance from God – by means of my wife. And in that spirit, allow me to propose a toast built on what Michael was saying: ‘Thanks be to El, and to His son. Amen.’”

  To Dan’s toast, many glasses of beer were lifted – including some by some fairly young grandchildren. “Dad, I saw that the young kids had some beer,” Michael said. “That may not be legal, but it’s Christmas Eve, and maybe the beer was another form of Christmas spirit.”

  Between the late lunch and the late dinner, Dan went to his room and struggled further in an attempt to understand the recent deaths in Rockinam. He had brought with him a few books about influenza, which he tried to read to teach himself. Should he also draw on Nat’s much greater medical knowledge? Should Dan call Jimmy Madeiros for more information about deaths in Rockinam? But it was Christmas Eve. Dan deemed it better to pursue such matters later, after Christmas, and after Michael and his family had gone back to Los Angeles.

  After dinner, Nat, though rarely a churchgoer, went with Dan in Dan’s car to an episcopal church to sing and to listen to many carols and then to celebrate a post-midnight communion, ending with a kneeling singing of Silent Night, lit only by candles. Going out to the car with Nat, Dan heard himself singing quietly to himself bits from one of the pre-communion carols:

  Good Christian men, rejoice, With heart, and soul, and voice; Now ye need not fear the grave: Jesus Christ was born to save!

  “I sure hope so,” Nat said, quietly, as he climbed into the car.

  “I sure hope so, too,” Dan echoed.

  “I cannot give any scientist of any age better advice than this: the intensity of the conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or not.” British biologist and 1960 Nobelist Sir Peter B. Medawar, Advice to a Young Scientist (Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, 1979), p. 39.