The Second Life of Mirielle West

by Amanda Skenandore

  After supper, the Hot Rocks gathered with their instruments, and the music began. Mirielle sat at one of the picnic tables surrounding the newly mowed lawn, watching the dancers. It wasn’t Jelly Roll Morton at the Apex, but the band played far better than she’d expected. They started with a waltz, and several of the older residents whirled across the lawn. With far more men at the colony than women, those ladies keen to dance were never without a partner.

  Frank came and sat beside her. Tonight, he’d applied pomade to his wavy hair in a not-so-successful attempt to slick it down. His neck was ruddy with razor burn. “What a fine, fine time the kids had today. So can I count on ya for the turkey race at Thanksgiving?”

  “Not a chance.”

  He laughed. “Truth be told, I didn’t think you’d come along to the swamp. Certainly not catch frogs.”

  “You think just because I’m a woman, I’m scared of a little mud.”

  “You ain’t any woman, Polly.”

  “Right. I’m an uppity girl from the big city who couldn’t possibly know a thing about catching frogs.”

  “As I recall, ya did mistake a possum for a panther.”

  She batted his shoulder and faced the lawn. The band played the final notes of a one-step then started in on a jig. Jean and the twins scurried to the dance floor.

  “Ya weren’t much of a boatman either,” Frank continued.

  “That was your fault.”

  “My fault?”

  “You should have told me not to stand so quickly.”

  “How could I know ya were gonna do something so stupid?”

  “Because I’m an uppity city girl!”

  Frank laughed, and Mirielle too.

  Their laughter had just petered out to an awkward silence when Hector strode up to them.

  “You going to dance with Señora Marvin or just talk her ear off?” he said to Frank.

  Frank cleared his throat. His eyes were suddenly skittish of her. “I am a mighty good talker.”

  Mirielle regretted that moment on the observation deck when she’d declined his offer to dance. She’d behaved worse than a debutante.

  “Well then, señora,” Hector said. “May I have the honor?”

  Mirielle took his hand and followed him to the lawn. They danced a foxtrot and then a Texas Tommy two-step. He hadn’t Charlie’s finesse but knew the basic footwork. It was enough to make her forget for the length of a few songs who and where they were.

  “This is a nice party, no?” he said as a new song began. “I hadn’t expected to dance again. Especially not with a beautiful woman.”

  Mirielle’s hand fluttered from his shoulder to the lesion on her neck. It had shrunk to the size of a dime again and was only slightly raised. But it was the first thing she saw whenever she looked in the mirror. “You’re a peach for saying so, Hector.”

  He put her hand back on his shoulder and smiled in that kindly way that reminded her of her father. She had to admit, even if she didn’t say it aloud, it was a nice party.

  By the end of the song, a grimace battled Hector’s smile.

  “Are your legs hurting again?”

  He shook his head. “It’s nothing, señora. I am an old man and we tire easily.”

  “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll get you some lemonade.”

  “Thank you, no. I think I’ll go back to my room and lie down.” He kissed her hand in a grand, old-fashioned gesture, and shuffled toward the houses, rubbing his lower back.

  She watched him go, then turned back to the lawn full of dancers. The band struck up another fast-paced melody. Sister Verena stood at the periphery scowling. A few of the other sisters hovered wide-eyed beside her. Clearly, they hadn’t been taught to dance the collegiate shag at the nunnery.

  Everyone else delighted in the song, though most of the older residents retreated to picnic tables where they tapped their feet and watched. Irene danced with a fellow from house thirty several years her junior. She winked at Mirielle as they kick-stepped past. Frank danced with a blond woman named Hattie, who worked in the lab. He was a better dancer than Mirielle had realized atop the tower.

  Halfway through the song, Jean grabbed her hand and tugged her into the swarm of dancers. They hopped and kicked and lunged and turned through the basic steps Mirielle had taught her, laughing as they entangled themselves.

  Mirielle’s dress clung to her skin by the time the song ended. Jean raced off to dance the next number with one of the twins. Mirielle crossed to the edge of the lawn and leaned against the broad trunk of one of the oaks to catch her breath. A twinge of guilt stirred beneath her breastbone. Not for dancing. Charlie wouldn’t mind. But for laughing. For enjoying herself at this humble affair without him or the girls.

  A boom sounded, followed by a popping noise. Then a glimmer of light exploded above the small clearing between the oaks and the barbed wire fence. Jean and the other children squealed. Mr. Li squatted in the clearing beside a smoking cylinder. The flicker of a match and another boom. The night sky shone with flashes of light.

  Would Charlie take the girls to the Ocean Park Pier to watch the fireworks tonight like they’d done in years past? He’d need to remember cotton for Helen’s ears, otherwise she’d cry at the noise. And not to let Evie go barefoot on the pier or she’d end up with splinters.

  Mirielle’s heart ached in their absence. She sat on an exposed root, her knees drawn up against her chest, watching one last firework burst in the sky before the staff confiscated Mr. Li’s explosives.

  CHAPTER 30

  Carville buzzed with talk of the Fourth of July party for several days after. The Hot Rocks were local celebrities now and had already promised to play for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even the frog race was lauded as a success. Smiles about the colony seemed more commonplace too. Hellos along the walkway. Fewer people griping as they waited in line for their chaulmoogra injection. Maybe Frank was right. Maybe it was not only their bodies that needed healing but their spirits too.

  At the dressing clinic a week and a half later, Mirielle was unwrapping the bandages from a resident’s arm when he asked, “You were the one who got all them bullfrogs for the kids, weren’t ya?”

  “For the race, yes.”

  “It true you had to beat back gators to catch ’em?”

  Mirielle couldn’t help but smile. Gossip spread the same at Carville as it did anywhere. And for once, it was nice to be aggrandized instead of slandered. “We came across an alligator or two.”

  Dried pus cemented the last strip of gauze to the man’s skin. She loosened it with water and teased away the bandage one corner at a time.

  “You ought to start up a business, selling frogs for people to fry up on their hot plates. It’d sure beat whatever chicken Chef cooks up.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, though she’d sooner wear cotton stockings than go back to that swamp.

  At the end of the day, as Mirielle bagged up the day’s refuse— scraps of gauze, empty tubes of liniment, soiled dressings—and lugged it outside to be taken to the incinerator, she realized Hector hadn’t come in. Last week, the wounds and nodules on his legs had again improved. Could it be that now they’d healed completely?

  But that evening at supper, Mirielle didn’t see him in the dining hall. Probably eating in his room after a long day’s work, she told herself. She sat down beside Irene at their usual table and listened as her housemates talked about a runner nicknamed the Flying Finn and some world record he’d just broken. It was big news on the radio. Even if he were more handsome than Valentino, as Irene insisted, the however-long meter dash was a topic of little interest to Mirielle. She did laugh, though, when Madge suggested Irene ought to make him husband number three.

  Jean seemed not to care about the racer either. While the women talked, she made a tower of potato salad on her plate with a waterfall of peas cascading down one side. Were it Evie, Mirielle would have told her not to play with her food. But what harm was there in it? She plucked a c
herry tomato from the dregs of her salad and nestled it on top of Jean’s tower. They both giggled, even as Mirielle felt a pang of regret. She ought to have played more and scolded less as a mother. When she got back home, she’d make a point of allowing more horseplay, even at the dinner table. Mrs. Post and her book of etiquette be damned.

  When everyone had finished eating, they loaded up their dirty dishes and dropped their trays at the counter. Madge had suggested a game of bridge on the back patio once the sun set and swampy air cooled. Mirielle agreed Jean could be on her team if she promised to sit through a whole game without complaining she was bored. On the way out, Mirielle glanced at the bulletin board affixed to the wall beside the door.

  The service schedule for both chapels was pinned to the board along with handwritten advertisements for everything from bicycle parts to haircuts. At the far side was the infirmary list—a register of names updated whenever a patient was admitted or discharged.

  Mirielle stopped, causing a backup of grumbling residents behind her. Hector’s name was on the list.

  Instead of heading to her house, Mirielle hurried down the walkway to the men’s infirmary. There were all kinds of reasons a patient was admitted to the infirmary. Some were frighteningly serious like pneumonia, blood poisoning, or laryngeal affection, where nodules crowded the windpipe and a patient slowly suffocated unless a tracheotomy could be performed. But others weren’t so deadly, Mirielle reminded herself. A mild reaction, overtiredness, eye inflammation.

  Except in special circumstances, women weren’t allowed in the men’s infirmary. Thankfully, Sister Loretta was the only nurse on duty.

  “Why, Mrs. Marvin, are you here for your shift?”

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “And in the ladies’ infirmary.”

  “That’s right.” She took Mirielle’s hand and patted it. Her age-spotted skin was always soft and cool. “These long summer days get me so confused.”

  “I came to ask after Hector.”

  “Nephritis, I’m afraid.”

  “How severe?”

  “It’s too soon to know, dearie.”

  “Can I see him?”

  Sister Loretta glanced around as if to be sure Sister Verena wasn’t there, then nodded. “Bed fifteen. Just a quick visit, mind you.”

  Mirielle walked down the center aisle of the room past several beds before reaching Hector’s. The overhead lights had already been turned off for the evening, but twilight stole in through the open windows.

  In bed fifteen lay Hector, asleep. Mirielle pulled over a stool and sat down, but did not wake him. Five months had passed since their journey from California. How frightened she’d been of him, of everyone in the boxcar. How little she’d known about the disease.

  She tucked his blanket around his shoulders and made sure his water glass was filled. His face looked puffy, his closed eyes like overstuffed pillows squeezed into their sockets. Not a good sign. Edema like this happened when the kidneys weren’t working and the body couldn’t get rid of fluid, Sister Verena had taught her. But Mirielle had seen women with swelling like this improve suddenly, their bedpans dry one minute, overflowing the next.

  Before leaving, she leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek. A few days and he’d be just fine. Doc Jack was treating him. And Sister Verena. As much as Mirielle disliked the woman, her skills as a nurse were unparalleled. Even Sister Loretta, who now sat knitting at the nurses’ desk, would show him the utmost care and love. Mirielle needn’t worry. Or so she tried to convince herself.

  CHAPTER 31

  For the next two weeks, Mirielle went about her routine—work in the hospital, card games with Madge and Irene, bedtime stories with Jean—and tried not to worry over Hector. Some days when she’d sneak into the infirmary to see him, he looked better, sitting up in bed and sipping broth or reading the newspaper. Other days he was drowsy, confused, his legs and feet so swollen they looked like tree trunks beneath the blankets.

  Payday rolled around at the beginning of August. She’d learned from past months that the day was a celebration all its own at Carville. House orderlies distributed the money, collecting signatures for Sister Verena’s meticulous records in exchange for the ten to forty dollars each worker was owed. It might have been an onerous task—tracking down everyone on the list—but word got around quickly, and residents queued wherever their assigned orderly could be found.

  Afterward, residents rushed to the canteen and rec hall. The crowd swelled at the far corner of the hall where dice were shot and cards played. So too did the noise—cheers and curses and arguments that, often as not, ended in fisticuffs. In the canteen, stock flew from the shelves as quickly as Frank could replace it. The soda fountain went dry, and the ice chest empty.

  Mail piled up for the sterilizer, five and ten dollar bills neatly folded and tucked within the pages of letters by those residents whose families on the outside still depended upon them to eat. Some families wouldn’t take the money, Mirielle had heard. Others soaked it in bichloride of mercury as soon as it arrived, then hung it on the clothesline to dry. Those in direst need wasted no time in handing it over to the landlord or grocery clerk, she suspected.

  The first time she’d received her pay—thirty dollars, minus fifteen for the wasted ointment in the pharmacy and ruined uniforms—had indeed felt like cause to celebrate. It was a paltry sum considering she’d had more than ten times that amount for pocket money back in California. But that money had been given. First by her father, then by Charlie. This money she’d earned all on her own. The coins felt heavier somehow, the bills crisper. Every time she bought a soda at the fountain or flipped through a catalog, dog-earing items to buy, she felt . . . capable. Able to effect her own ends.

  But today, Mirielle didn’t feel like celebrating. Not for thirty dollars or three hundred. She avoided the swarm of women around Irene and sat down on the nearby porch steps. Though it wasn’t yet ten o’clock, the August air was hot and sticky, and she fanned herself with a palm leaf fan.

  “Sorry about the wait, baby,” Irene said a few minutes later, grunting and wincing as she sat down beside her. “These old bones ain’t what they used to be.”

  “I’m in no rush.”

  She handed Mirielle her thirty dollars, and Mirielle scribbled her name. The first few times she’d signed, she’d had to cross out her real name and print the name Pauline Marvin. Now, she hardly had to think about it.

  “What you gonna do now that you’re a rich woman?” She nudged Mirielle with her elbow. “Oh wait, you always was rich.”

  Mirielle shrugged.

  “You sure are a sad sack lately. Why don’t you head over to the canteen and pick yourself out something nice from the Sears and Roebuck catalog?”

  “And by nice you mean cheap and common?”

  Irene smiled. “There you go, baby. More like your normal high-hatted self already.”

  Mirielle managed a fleeting laugh.

  “You go on, and I’ll meet you,” Irene said. “I gotta get these signatures back to Sister Verena before she has a conniption fit.”

  They stood and parted ways halfway down the walk. Mirielle was in no hurry to get to the canteen. She fanned herself as she walked, drawing what cheer she could from flowers and birdsong beyond the screens. It might be hot, but the lawns and trees and gardens colored the colony a vibrant summer green. In this, California’s woody palms and pale eucalyptus couldn’t compare.

  The walkway brought her past house twelve. As always, several men lazed on the porch in rocking chairs, their outstretched legs spilling onto the walkway like hurdles on a racetrack. She knew better than to listen in on their gossip, but she heard one of them mention Hector’s name followed by the word greaser.

  Mirielle stopped. “What did you just say?”

  “Huh?” one of the old men grunted.

  “Hector’s in the infirmary, and you lazy heels are sitting here calling him a greaser?”

  The man gave a snort. “I told you she had a
thing for spics.”

  Mirielle’s fingernails dug into her palms. It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard such words before. She’d uttered them a time or two herself. But that was before. Hadn’t this disease and its stigma taught them anything? “You’d think, seeing as we’re all lepers here, you might find it in your old withered hearts to be a bit kinder.”

  The men flinched at the word leper. She stepped over their outstretched legs and continued on.

  “He ain’t got no business here,” one of the men called after her. “This place is for Americans.”

  Mirielle didn’t turn around. Telling them Hector had been born in California wouldn’t change their minds. Instead, she raised her arm and extended her middle finger—the way she’d seen drunken men in clubs do.

  Not until she rounded the corner did Mirielle lower her hand. That would show those nosy old men. But Sister Verena was just beyond the bend walking in her direction.

  “Good heavens, Mrs. Marvin, what are you doing?”

  “Just . . . er . . . stretching my arm. I had a cramp.”

  “And your finger?”

  “A cramp.”

  Sister Verena stopped. The great wings of her hat cast her face in shadow, but Mirielle could still make out the sour disapproval in her eyes. “See to it that it doesn’t cramp again. This is a hospital, Mrs. Marvin. Not a back-alley saloon.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Why is it that your best always seems to come up wanting?”

  Mirielle’s jaw clenched, but she held her tongue and let Sister Verena pass, extending her finger again quickly behind the sister’s back.

  When she arrived at the canteen, it was a throbbing tangle of customers. Only a few cans of sardines and a couple of cakes of shaving soap remained on the shelves. All four of the tables were filled with people sipping Cokes and flipping through newly purchased rags. Mirielle sat on the last free stool at the far end of the counter.