by Неизвестный
“Michael undressed me?”
Did she hesitate? “No. He left immediately.”
Carl ran a hand along his hipbone. “My legs and back ache like fury.”
Her frown deepened, but she didn’t say anything.
He pulled the quilt up over his shoulder. “Would you close the windows?”
“All the advice for treating the flu says to leave windows open for fresh air.”
He remembered the Red Cross poster he read and re-read every day, mounted above the windows in the trolley he took to and from work: “What to do if you catch the Spanish flu.” She was right; leaving windows open was right there on the list. Despair swept through him. The Old Spanish Lady had killed thousands, including healthy young soldiers his age. Would he become one of her victims? His gaze slid to Bettie. She was in danger, too. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You‘re too weak to care for yourself.”
“But I barely know you.”
“Patients usually don’t know their nurses, do they?”
“You’re a nurse?” Hope nudged at the despair.
“No, but I’ll do what I can for you.”
“You’d best get out while you’re able.” His eyelids lowered. He struggled to open them again.
“Too late; I’m already exposed.” She poured him a glass of water from the white pitcher.
“I’m not thirsty.”
“You’ll feel worse if you become dehydrated.”
He didn’t think it possible to feel worse, but he drank half the water anyway.
She laid a hand on his forehead, making him uncomfortably aware of his sweaty, unkempt hair. A guy shouldn’t need to be seen in this shape by a woman.
“You’re feverish. Try to sleep. Your body needs rest to fight off the flu.”
He barely heard her finish the sentence before he fell back asleep.
# #
Bettie pushed back hair that had come loose from the fashionable puffs she’d curled at her ears with such care that morning. Frustration tightened her chest. A boarding room held no conveniences for caring for an ill person. She’d looked through the chest of drawers for items that might help. It held a few pieces of clothing of the more personal nature, a razor and blades, a hairbrush, and some handkerchiefs, but not much else.
She pulled back the striped curtain that created a makeshift closet. On a nail beside the clothes rod hung a used wash cloth and towel. As she reached for them, the sound of footsteps hurrying down the hall caught her attention, and she rushed to open Carl’s door.
Michael, the handsome, flirty young man who worked at the drug store, stopped a few feet away. His gaze swung to hers. He hesitated, and then started on again.
“Please!”
Her one word halted him again. He stared at her with a guarded expression. “I can’t help. I took too much of a chance already, helping you get him up here.” He broke the connection of their gazes and started toward the stairs.
She raised her voice. “Would you bring me a pail? You could leave it outside the door.”
Michael glanced over at her and nodded once, hard. “All right.” His shoes clattered against the wooden stairs as he hurried down.
Bettie glanced back at Carl. He still slept. She could go to her own room and sleep, at least nap, and check on him later. After all, even her mother hadn’t stayed at her children’s bedsides every moment when they were ill. But Carl’s collapse, combined with news reports that thousands of strong young men his age had died within forty-eight hours of contracting the Spanish flu, worried her. No, she wasn’t comfortable leaving him for more than a few minutes, but she could get some things from her room.
Ten minutes later she bumped Carl’s door shut with her elbow, set a blanket on the chair, an oil lamp on the chest of drawers and a hot plate on the floor near the curtain closet by the room’s only outlet. At least the building had electricity — though the room’s only light was too bright for flu-sore eyes — and a telephone in the entry hall. Many buildings lacked both.
A glance at Carl showed his eyes were still closed. The sound of his labored breathing filled the room.
Three loud knocks sounded, and Bettie opened the door.
Mrs. Anderson, the landlord’s wife, was bent over, setting a pail and dipper on the floor. The chubby, gray-haired woman almost stumbled over herself hurrying backward when she saw Bettie. “Keep your distance, Miss Watts. Michael said you needed a pail.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Mr. Anderson and I, we run a respectable boarding house. We can’t be letting you stay in Mr. Richardson’s room without a chaperone. It isn’t proper.”
Bettie fought down the anger that rose from her stomach through her chest and throat like bile, and forced herself to answer politely. This woman could kick her out on the street, and that wouldn’t help Carl at all. “I’m glad you are offering to chaperone. I’ve been concerned the other boarders might misinterpret the help I’m giving Mr. Richardson.”
The woman’s eyes widened above her gauze mask. “I’m not going to chaperone.” Shock increased her Swedish accent.
“Perhaps you could locate a chaperone for me. Surely you realize I’m unable to search for one myself after exposure to the flu.”
“That’s another thing, this young man bringing the flu into the house. We’ll be quarantined now. Maybe you should look for a place in another boarding house, for you and for him. Take the flu with you.”
“You know that no one would accept us with the flu, and if the health department discovered you’d forced us to leave this house after Mr. Richardson came down with the flu, you might be in trouble with the law.” Bettie could tell by Mrs. Anderson’s expression that her words hit home. “Please, I barely know Mr. Richardson. I’m only trying to help him.”
Mrs. Anderson shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“I assure you nothing immoral will take place. Even if either of us should wish it, which we don’t, he is far too ill to engage in such behavior.”
The older woman’s lips tightened. “I guess that’s so. I’ll bring porridge by in the morning and make some chicken soup tomorrow, for the both of you.”
“Thank you. May I trouble you for some cinnamon and honey tonight, and some aspirin powders?”
“I’ll bring the cinnamon and honey, but I’ve no aspirin powders.” She turned and then looked back. “You can’t be wandering around the building, you know.”
“I won’t, though I will need some things from my own room, and to use the water closet.”
“I’ll tell the others on this floor to use the water closet on the floor below.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
The landlady left then, a self-righteous lift to her chin and determined step to her walk.
Bettie picked up the pail and closed the door behind her.
“You should leave.”Carl’s cracked whisper greeted her.
“We’ve already had that discussion.”
“I heard what the old battle-axe said. She’s right. People might talk.”
“The only people who know I’m here are Mr. and Mrs. Anderson and the boarders, and they all know the truth of the situation.”
“People don’t always care about the truth. Starting rumors is more fun for some folk.”
“No one can stop people like that from saying what they will. You and I know there’s no foundation to” — she searched for an appropriate word, one that didn’t actually say the awful things Mrs. Anderson had hinted at earlier — “to unkind allegations.”
Carl tugged the quilt closer about his shoulders. “Go back to your room, Miss Bettie Watts. Thanks for getting me up here, but I’ll be all right now.”
I hope so, but probably not, she thought as she poured a glass of water. “Drink this before you go back to sleep.”
He struggled to sit up far enough to drink.
Bettie touched the back of her hand to his forehead. Was her imagination playing with the news reports of
terrible flu cases, or was he warmer than before? Spanish flu fevers often rose quickly to dangerous temperatures.
“You don’t have to tell me, Nurse Watts. I know I have a fever.”
“I wish I had a thermometer, but only real nurses have them.”
“You aren’t leaving, are you?”
She smiled at his accusatory tone. “I might go to my room and take a nap later.”
“See that you do. Don’t want a sick young lady on my conscience.” He rolled onto his back and winced. “Besides, my legs and hip joints hurt something fierce, and a fellow can’t swear proper with a lady in the room.”
Aspirin powders might help him. She should have thought to request Mrs. Anderson ask the boarders if they had any. Lack of freedom to ask them herself frustrated her. “You don’t strike me as the type of gentleman who swears.”
Carl didn’t answer. He was asleep again.
# #
The warm, homey scent of an oil lamp burning greeted Carl next time he awoke, bringing him back to the farmhouse in which he grew up. The scent made him feel safe and secure, like a sick child in his own bed, with his parents nearby watching over him. Then he opened his eyes.
He was still in his barren room in the boarding house, but things didn’t look as orderly as usual. The lamp he’d smelled stood on the chest of drawers, casting a mellow light against night’s darkness. The curtain that normally hid his few shirts, trousers and two suit coats was pushed back. The clothing lay in a pile against the wall a few feet away. Was it a blanket that hung over the clothes rod? Bettie knelt on the floor, her back to him. Steam rose from in front of her and he heard water boiling.
“What are you doing?” The words didn’t come out nearly as loud as he intended, but she must have heard him, for she came to stand by his bed.
“I’m steaming a blanket. The warmth might help your muscle aches.”
“Is that pail sitting on a hot plate? And where did you get the blanket and oil lamp?”
“I brought them from my room.”
He picked at his red and yellow quilt. “My m-mother made this. Insisted I take it along when I moved to the city. Usually that and the wool blanket beneath it keep me toasty, but right now, I wouldn’t mind a dozen more quilts.” He reached behind his neck and pulled out a cold, damp towel. “What’s th-this?”
Bettie took it from him. “I put it there to help lower your fever. You were so hot — ”
“Guess it brought it d-down.” He pressed his lips together to keep his teeth from chattering and stuck his arm back under the covers.
Bettie shook her head. “No.”
“How can I have a fever and f-freeze at the same time?”
“That’s how fever works sometimes.” She folded a dry towel. “Can you lift your head? Your pillow and sheet are wet where the towel laid.”
It felt like a great effort to move, but he couldn’t refuse to when she was going to so much trouble to help him. Even that little movement increased the throbbing inside his head and face, where congestion pushed for release. He laid his head back slowly and closed his eyes. They felt swollen. His legs and lower back felt like his bones were melting from pain.
Bettie began removing the blankets and he grabbed for them. “No.”
“I can’t put the steamed blanket on if I don’t move these.”
He could hear the apology in her voice, but she couldn’t possibly realize how hard it was for him to let her take their warmth away even for a moment.
She moved the pail and hot plate before dragging the blanket from the rod. Steam rose from it even as she laid it over him. She pulled the other blanket and quilt back over the steaming blanket to keep the heat in.
“It feels w-wonderful.” He pulled the covers up under his chin. “Reminds me of when I was a kid. Mother let me curl up in a blanket on the floor in front of the parlor stove.” He rolled onto his side, pulled his knees up and balled his hands into fists up close to his chin beneath the blanket, trying to stop the shivers that ran continuously through his body. “D-did you ever do that?”
Bettie sat down on the chair. “Yes. I love watching the fire dance behind the isinglass.”
“Tell me a little about what you were like as a little girl, Bettie Watts. I’m too c-cold to sleep and listening to you might keep my mind off how lousy I feel.”
She looked at the wall above him and took a deep breath. “I was born and raised in a small prairie town in western Minnesota, maybe a hundred fifty miles from St. Paul. My father works as a clerk in the town’s general store, and my mother sometimes helps out in one of the two cafes. There isn’t a lot more to the town: a blacksmith shop, a leather and boot shop, a butcher shop, a law office whose owner sells insurance and real estate when he hasn’t enough law cases to keep him busy, a school and two churches — one Lutheran and one Catholic.”
“Which did your family attend?”
“The Lutheran church.”
“Mine, too. Did you like school?”
“Yes, I did. I like to find out why things work as they do, especially the God-made things, like people and animals and plants.”
He could picture her growing up, her nose in a book while other kids played hide-and-seek or more boisterous games.
“Mrs. Anderson brought the cinnamon I asked for. I’ll make you some cinnamon tea. My mother swears it brings fevers down.”
He watched her place two brown sticks of cinnamon in a porcelain cup with roses painted on the side and pour boiling water over the sticks. She carried the cup on a saucer back to the chair and sat down. “We’ll let it steep to bring out more of the medicine from the sticks while it cools.”
He was too congested to smell the spice. He wished she’d remove her mask so he could enjoy watching her entire face, and hated that she wore it to protect herself from him. “Did you wear your hair in b-braids as a girl?”
“Yes.”
“Did some boy who was sweet on you dunk them in an inkwell at school?”
Her laugh was sweet and filled with surprise. “The boy who inked my braids wasn’t sweet on me. He was a holy terror.”
“He was sweet on you.”
“Did you dunk the braid of a girl you were sweet on growing up?”
“Of c-course, how else does a fellow let a girl know he likes her when he’s eight years old?”
“Perhaps doing something nice for her, like carrying her books home from school?”
“That comes later. First comes dunking braids and dropping garden snakes down the back of the girl’s dress.”
Her shudder made him smile. He watched light and shadows from the oil lamp play over her mask-covered face, and wondered whether there was a special young man in her life now, but didn’t ask. The question seemed too personal, together alone as they were in his room. He shifted to a safer subject. “Did you have b-brothers and sisters?”
“One brother, Gerald. He’s in France with the Rainbow Division. Maybe he and your brother Peter met.”
“Maybe,” and fought beside each other, his thought continued.
She took the coat she’d hung over the back of the chair and slipped it over her shoulders. Her move made him realize the steamed blanket was helping the aches but hadn’t warmed the chill away. “Where did you learn what to do for people when they’re sick?”
“Remembering what my mother did when Gerald and I were sick, and from reading the newspaper articles about the Spanish flu.” She shifted her position, folding her arms over her chest. “Where did you grow up?”
“On a farm about fifty miles south of here. My three brothers and I went to a one-room school house. We could see it across the fields from our kitchen window.” He closed his eyes to relieve the burning, but kept talking. “Since it was so c-close we had to help the teacher get the wood stove going in the morning. It made me feel grown up at first. Later it j-just seemed like work, but I always suspected the teachers gave me a few extra points because of it when needed to keep my grades respectable.”
Bettie laughed again, and Carl wondered that it gave him so much pleasure to cause that bit of joy. She held the cup toward him. “I think the tea is cool enough to drink now.”
He pushed himself up on one elbow and took the delicate cup. His hand shook so from the chills that he could barely bring the cup to his lips without spilling, and she helped him steady it. The tea felt good, spreading warmth down his throat and into his chest. He could smell the spice now. It reminded him of Christmas.
“So you have two brothers besides the one at Fort Snelling?” Bettie asked.
“Only one left. The youngest, Thomas, was thrown from a horse when he was thirteen and broke his neck.”
She looked stricken. “I’m sorry.”
So was he, but he didn’t want to talk about sad times right now. “My brother Andrew is in the navy.”
“It must have been difficult for your parents to send two sons off to war.”
He hadn’t thought of it that way; only that he’d wanted to join his brothers.
“What brought you to St. Paul?” she asked.
He closed his eyes. Talking was wearing him out. “Harvest was over. I figured with so many men in the service it would be easy to find work in the city. I’m a clerk in a men’s store. It doesn’t pay as well as I’d hoped, but I like not wearing manure-covered boots every day. I’ve been thinking about taking a bookkeeping class. Seems there are plenty of jobs for bookkeepers and the pay is better than I make.”
“What kind of work did you hope for when you moved here?”
He stared over her shoulder, where the glow from the streetlight lit the window glass. “Nothing special. I just wanted to get away from the farm. I wanted to fight the Kaiser with my brothers and schoolmates, but the army didn’t want me, or the navy, either.” He held out his right hand. “I lost my trigger finger helping Dad and my brothers clear a field when I was ten. Thomas and I were working a large rock out of the ground, when it toppled back and landed on my hand. I jerked it out, but my finger stayed behind. The military powers that be seem to think a man can’t fight without his trigger finger. I told the recruiting agent they were wrong, but he wouldn’t listen.”