The Vines

by Shelley Nolden

  Around the onset of the Great Depression, Ulrich became equally obsessed with testing her resilience at a cellular level. Over the years, the uncomfortable silences between father and son had morphed into hushed academic arguments that could span several days. Although Otto’s experimentation on her had been torturous, his research had always maintained its noble purpose, and he’d never derived pleasure from her pain. The same did not hold true for his son.

  Recently they’d become so absorbed in their ethical debates that they’d stopped bothering to even lower their voices in her presence, as if she were just another lab mouse who couldn’t understand.

  And then, last Friday, before the pair had left the lab to board the ferry, Otto had given Ulrich an ultimatum: either adhere to the project’s original objectives or quit.

  Through what they’d left unsaid over the years, Cora had surmised that they spent their time away from Riverside apart. Yet they’d always returned together on the Monday morning ferry. Except this last time.

  Ulrich had stepped onto the dock alone, carrying his father’s black medical kit with Ingrid’s wristlet still looped around its handle. He’d informed the head nurse that Otto had quietly retired to avoid a big send-off party, then he’d shown her the papers from the Health Department that outlined his promotion to chief resident physician.

  Concerned about what Ulrich’s new position would mean for Cora, Mary had vigorously stirred the rumor pot from her sickbed.

  Although Cora couldn’t prove it, she’d always suspected that Ulrich had somehow caused the stroke that had paralyzed Mary in 1933. Frequently Mary had threatened both Gettlers, but the way she growled at Ulrich had reminded Cora of a mastiff who could sense evil in a man. Worried that he might similarly hurt O’Toole or his wife, she’d stopped confiding in the man who’d been so good at repairing her confidence and inner strength.

  Yesterday one of the mechanics had approached Cora to ask if the doc had gotten mixed up with the Mafia. Because of her routine visits to the lab, the staff assumed she was supposed to care for the animals in addition to her responsibilities as sole gardener following Canne’s retirement four years earlier. And so, the machinist, like all the others, was oblivious to the germs she exhaled with each breath, trapped by the wide-brimmed hat and neckerchief she always wore across her lower face as a “sun shield.” Leaving her spade and shovel in the planting bed, she’d run from him, further cementing her reputation as the island hermit.

  With Otto gone, Cora expected Ulrich to begin conducting the experiments he’d so carefully mapped out in the journals he kept within a locked filing cabinet in the lab. Did he kill his own father? she wondered again.

  Careful not to bump any of the raw incisions that ran down her thighs, she disentangled the clippings from the bush.

  Monday evening, after his first day as head physician, Ulrich had summoned her to his father’s lab, tied her to a table, and roughly taped her mouth shut. Without first giving her local anesthesia, he punctured her skin, like he was marking a yardstick, and smeared a different emulsion onto each of the wounds. He’d said he was starting small, with everyday microbes that most any immune system could handle. “Not yet should you worry.”

  Now, cowering in the dirt, hoping to catch tidbits from the nurses, Cora was worried.

  A stray tabby, which often trailed her while she worked, sidled up to Cora. Purring, he nosed her bag in search of scraps of meat.

  “Jeepers, get lost.” She shooed him away to prevent the women from turning their attention outward.

  “He might have been arrested,” said a silky voice. “Those animals in his laboratory; the Gettlers have been doing terrible things to them.”

  “Or he has—had—a gambling problem and his debts cost him his life.”

  Cora shook her head. Otto had viewed gambling as a sin. She tugged on her trousers to air the wounds. While she still had to be careful, advances in germ prevention theory and antiseptics allowed her slightly more freedom.

  “Maybe he’s simply Gone with the Wind.”

  This was pointless, Cora decided, slumping to the ground. Through her neckerchief, she inhaled the brittle smell of the browning leaves. Soon even the island’s plants, her greatest sources of comfort, would desert her for the winter.

  In a vain attempt to relieve the burning in her thighs, she rocked on her heels and thought about the collection of scalpels she’d been amassing over the years. They were hidden beneath a floorboard in the gardening shed. While Otto had been in charge, the sense of power they’d given her had been reassuring, but she’d never actually used one. Now they would need to serve as more than a psychological crutch. It was time to scrub off their rust and learn to wield them.

  “True, he’s handsome,” said a high-pitched voice from the parlor, “but the way he eyes me, it gives me the creepy crawlies. And so full of himself. Claire, would you like a top-off?”

  “Yes, please. His father may have been a loner, but at least he was a gentleman, a per—”

  “Did you ladies read about Jesse Owens?”

  The sudden shift in conversation made Cora tense.

  “He’s claiming that our very own president—and not Hitler—was the one to snub him.”

  To appear industrious, Cora raised the pruning shears, but the tremors in her arms prevented her from locking the blades onto a branch.

  “The way they treated him at the Waldorf, after that ticker-tape parade . . .”

  The smell of Foster’s hair gloss, mixed with antiseptic, soured the breeze, and Cora stifled her gag reflex.

  The nurses had stopped their chatter.

  She lowered the clippers.

  “Miss McSorley, the rosebushes by my cottage are diseased,” Ulrich said from the road in front of the residence. “Let’s have a look.”

  Slowly she gathered her tools.

  Since he wasn’t wearing protective gear, she fell into step her standard ten paces behind him. Hoping, irrationally, that Otto would suddenly appear, she kept her gaze fixed on the dock.

  Halfway across the central lawn, Ulrich swerved away from the site of the future tuberculosis pavilion, where the main hospital building had previously stood, and toward the morgue and pathology building, confirming her suspicion that the plagued roses had been a ruse.

  He entered, and she watched the door swing shut behind him.

  As instructed long ago, she waited outside while he put on a gown and mask. She felt the itch to run, but where could she go? The complex was too small to hide her for long, and the river—well, that simply wasn’t an option.

  A rapping on the far side of the door signaled that she should enter.

  Rocking on her heels, she couldn’t bring herself to do so. Yet she knew that the consequences of disobeying him would be far worse than whatever awaited her within the lab, its arch windows papered over when converted from its original use as a church.

  She mustered the courage, took one last deep breath, and entered the house of the dead.

  The corridor was empty; he’d already returned to preparing his instruments.

  Dawdling a moment longer, she stopped in the doorway. “Where’s Otto?” she asked over the squeaking of caged rodents. To deflect their scent, she kept her breath shallow.

  “The mutt’s got a new master,” he said without looking up from his mortar and pestle. “Take off your trousers and lie down so I can check for infection.”

  She tried to swallow, but the lump in her throat had swelled to the size of a peach pit.

  He looked up. “This isn’t a breadline. Get moving. I’ve got two more pavilions to visit before I need to leave for an NSDAP dinner.”

  The pit in her throat dropped to her stomach, and she did as he’d directed.

  Humming Bing Crosby’s new tune “Pennies from Heaven,” he removed the dressings as tears slid down her temples.

>   “No sign of infection, as I’d expected. Apparently only the more potent germs can coexist with your immune system. It’s a shame your unique cellular abilities don’t include accelerated healing, but we cannot let a little discomfort slow our progress, can we?” He leaned over to inspect the incisions at the top of her thighs, and she spat on his protective goggles.

  “You disgusting bitch,” he said, methodically setting them in the sink designated for contaminated glass, then donned a clean pair.

  When he turned to face her, an Erlenmeyer flask, now in his hand, glinted beneath the operating light.

  Cora’s stomach clenched, and she whimpered. Just like a mutt.

  He raised the object above his head.

  “No, please!” she cried and slid to the far side of the table.

  A rush of air hit her eyes, driving them shut, and glass shattered against her crown.

  “Excellent. Another test site.” Carefully avoiding the shards, he placed a bedpan on the floor to catch the dripping blood.

  “If your old master hadn’t gone so easy on you, mankind might already be rid of disease. Tens of millions died from the Spanish influenza. Because of your weakness, and Otto’s lack of resolve, those corpses sit squarely on your conscious.”

  His accusatory stare pierced her, sharper than the sting of the split skin on her forehead, and she fought the impulse to curl away from him.

  “The next time that foreigners bring a novel disease to our shores, we will be ready for it. I’ll let you go back to your work, digging in the dirt. But know this: if you ever resist; if you tell anyone; if you attempt to harm me, I’ll destroy what matters most to you.”

  “You don’t know what that is,” she taunted.

  Ulrich grinned. “Sure, I do. Otto’s records—the ones relating to curing you, so you can leave this island. Without those files, you’ll never be free.”

  He despised her, to his very core, she knew. Throughout the past ten years as Otto’s assistant, he’d been making offhand remarks that had amounted to an obvious conclusion for Cora: Ulrich blamed her for his lonely childhood, absent of love. To some extent, his view was merited. If it weren’t for her, Otto would have eventually returned to Kleindeutschland to comfort his son. The incident with her blood spraying onto Otto’s gown, after Ulrich had already witnessed so much trauma, had been her fault. Those first moments during their reunion following the tragedy had been so crucial, and her impulsive reaction had destroyed any chance of them uniting in their grief.

  Fortunately, Ulrich appeared to have no memory of the encounter. For if he had, she would have heard about it, and directly experienced his pain. Whenever she thought back to those moments, the guilt overwhelmed her. So, she tried not to.

  “I’ll find another doctor, a smarter one,” she said, bracing for a second blow.

  Ulrich lunged, stopping just shy of her, and laughed at the way he’d made her flinch.

  Backing away, he removed his mask. The strap had riled his short, blond hair, and the sides of his broad forehead bore red indents. “Do you know what happens to dogs who bite their masters? They’re euthanized. Since I need you alive, your consequences will be inflicted upon others. Do you understand?”

  She closed her eyes to blockade the tears. The knives hidden within the gardening shed would do her no good.

  “Do you understand?” He picked up a scalpel.

  Cora nodded.

  “Good doggy.”

  November 1938

  n the hallway outside the laboratory, Cora inhaled deeply to calm her nerves while keeping her gaze on the watch Otto had given her. Since his disappearance two years earlier, whenever she checked the time, a wave of sadness crashed down on her, quickly replaced by fear.

  During Ulrich’s first week in charge, she’d arrived late to her long-standing weekly appointment. That night, he tied her to a chair and forced her to watch as he sadistically dissected Jeepers. Her eyelids held open by a pair of surgical sutures, tears streamed down her cheeks as he sliced the tabby like a melon. Aside from Mary, who was currently suffering from pneumonia, the cat was her only remaining friend. “Next time you’re late,” he said, “it’ll be a child.”

  The dial reached twelve with a tick that seemed to reverberate down the corridor. Clutching the brown bag with her urine and stool samples, she inhaled and opened the door.

  The stench and chittering of the rodents didn’t greet her as usual.

  The hair on her arms rose; something was wrong.

  “Stay in the hall,” Ulrich said without looking up from the carton he was sealing. Nor did he consult the clock.

  Even more astounding to Cora: he wasn’t wearing protective gear. And the drawers of the file cabinets along one wall stood open and empty. The room smelled of musty paper instead of mouse droppings.

  He’s leaving, she realized, and her heart pounded so hard she worried it might crack her sternum. “What’s going on?”

  “The Fatherland needs me, but don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

  She bit her lip to keep from screaming with joy.

  As his praise of Hitler’s ideology had intensified, she’d fantasized about him joining the movement. During his first month on the island, she’d perceived his internal struggle to establish a sense of identity. Cora had understood exactly how he’d felt; she, too, didn’t know where she belonged. Seven years later, when Hitler became the chancellor of Germany, Ulrich swore his allegiance, and in doing so, found himself.

  Five weeks ago, the Germans had marched into Sudetenland, and Ulrich’s gait had become almost a goose-stepping march. Yet, still, Cora hadn’t allowed herself to hope that his patriotism would translate into freedom for her.

  He lifted the box and let it fall atop another with a thump.

  All her lab reports were in those towers. Without them there would be nothing to show for the torture she’d endured. And any new—kinder—doctor she convinced to help her would be forced to start from scratch.

  “Where are you taking those?”

  Ulrich smiled and rubbed his clean-shaven chin. “They’re going with me to Germany.”

  “They should stay,” she said, not daring to raise her gaze from the floor. “They’re mine.”

  He made a tutting sound. “You know that’s not true. I’ll return, and we’ll pick up where we left off.”

  “But what if you get killed?”

  He laughed. “I’m sure you’ll pray for that to happen. Go ahead, beg that God of yours to drop a bomb on me. He didn’t listen to my father; why would he listen to you?”

  Cora balled her hands. If I strike him in the eye, how fast will my germs kill him? she wondered, then realized that they likely wouldn’t succeed before he’d boarded the ferry, where he might infect others.

  Eyeing her fists, he cracked his knuckles. “Unfortunately for you, Hitler is the only god that exists. And his SS Medical Corps, with their microbiology aspirations, won’t risk an asset like me near the border.” His lips curled into a smug smile. “Trust me.”

  That she would never do.

  “Now run along, little animal. Go play in your dirt,” he said, then kicked the door shut with his boot.

  Late Summer 2007

  After the tornado

  August

  tupid. Lily clicked the remote to change the channel on her hotel room’s boxy television. Gettler. She jabbed the arrow again. Men.

  Because of their collective stupidity, any minute now she might feel the creeping onset of a headache, weakness, runny nose, or cough. Her temp would begin to climb, reaching more than one hundred four degrees as chills raked her body, followed by vomiting and diarrhea and an excruciating stomachache. Lesions could form on her tongue and palate, followed by macules on her face, with more popping up by the minute on her abdomen and chest, then her extremities. In the final stages, her liver and kidneys c
ould fail. She’d become delirious. Blood might flow from her eyes, nose, and mouth.

  As her condition worsened, the Gettlers might take her to a hospital. Or, more likely, Rollie would treat her in his lab to avoid tipping off the Health Department to Riverside’s resident “Patient Zero.”

  Even if she made it to the ER, she’d probably die. From as little as one or as many as seven infectious diseases. Only measles was covered by the immunizations Lily had received.

  Same with Finn, now quarantined in the adjacent room.

  She’d become habituated to the possibility of her own death, but the notion of Finn falling ill practically paralyzed her. To prevent that ball of dread from unraveling again, she concentrated on her hand. It was shaking. And her throat felt raw. Initial symptoms?

  To check her face, she moved three feet into the bathroom. Already a yellowish pallor had replaced her tan. But no rash. Yet. Although her acorn-brown irises weren’t rimmed by red, dark bags had settled beneath them. And her hair, the color of rich potting soil, clung limply to her neck.

  Her forehead seemed warm, which could be attributed to the ninety-degree room temp, thanks to the crappy air-conditioning unit sputtering in the window frame.

  From Finn’s phone conversations with his dad over the past four days, he’d learned that Kristian, two doors down, had better odds of survival, despite his punctured suit. As Rollie’s research assistant, he’d been vaccinated against typhus fever, smallpox, typhoid fever, measles, and VZ. Lily shuddered.

  She paced across the room, not much bigger than a coffin.

  According to Finn, inoculations didn’t exist for Cora’s three other contagions: Ebola, Rift Valley fever, and Spanish influenza, all of which Gettler men had intentionally infected her with.

  Neither Ebola nor RVF were airborne, but RVF could be transmitted through any mosquitos that had first bitten Cora. That rainstorm had washed off their bug spray, leaving Finn—and herself—fully exposed for over an hour.