White Wind Blew

by James Markert

  Wolfgang pointed down the hallway. “To the elevators.”

  Upstairs, McVain’s eyes opened and followed the squeaking sound as Wolfgang and Lincoln grunted their way across the fourth-floor solarium porch, pushing the piano, which by now had developed an annoying rumble near the base. The left side partially scraped the floor. Big Fifteen had left them at the elevators, determined to get a few hours of sleep before he had to get up and push his food and supply cart. He’d also told them he was nervous about being seen too often in the main sanatorium. Wolfgang and Lincoln took it the rest of the way.

  A few patients were awake and they watched amusingly as the two passed. One man said aloud, “Am I dreaming?”

  “No,” Wolfgang answered. “This is very real.”

  They parked the piano near the foot of McVain’s bed and in front of the screen window. Wolfgang stood at one end, quite proudly, and Lincoln stood on the other, hunched over at the waist and breathing heavily.

  “So this is the surprise?” McVain’s head never lifted from his pillow. His lips quivered in the cold.

  “What do you think?” Wolfgang asked. “It’ll need a few cosmetic repairs, but you can play whenever you need to.”

  “You wasted your time.”

  Lincoln shook his head and hobbled away.

  Wolfgang pointed toward Lincoln, who had already disappeared into the shadows. “They risked quite a lot bringing this piano here—for you.”

  “I didn’t ask them to.”

  Wolfgang bit his lip. “You stubborn mule.” He pointed a finger at McVain. “What is your problem with me, McVain?”

  “Ain’t got a problem with you as a doctor.”

  “So that’s it,” said Wolfgang. “What are you, an atheist?”

  McVain scoffed. “Why do you care, anyway? What does it matter if I ever play the piano again?”

  ***

  Wolfgang couldn’t sleep the rest of the night. His mind jumped from pain to worry and back again. Would Susannah knock on his door in the morning? He couldn’t sleep knowing she was still mad at him. Would McVain ever get up from his bed and approach the piano?

  He looked across the room, and beyond the patch of moonlight the wall was empty without the piano. His candle and vase stood on the floor. He stared at the ceiling and tried not to move. Every movement caused a different kind of pain. He hadn’t felt so immobilized since polio had kept him bedridden for nearly six months when he was eight years old.

  It had started three months after his father’s funeral. His mother felt sure he’d gotten it from another child at school. It started with headaches and a fever. His neck became stiff, his muscles sore and painful to the touch. Wolfgang was convinced he’d become sick like his father, but his mother repeatedly said he was not. How could she be so certain? But he was too exhausted to fight her when she held damp washcloths to his forehead.

  A few days later, on his way to the kitchen, Wolfgang fell to the floor. He could not stand back up. His mother had gone off to the store, promising to be back soon. He’d crawled along the floor like a slug for about ten feet before giving up. He punched his thighs and slapped his legs but felt very little sensation. His mother came home an hour later and screamed when she found him on the floor. Finally she brought in a doctor, a sterile man with narrow eyes, white hair, and a small, white mustache. The doctor confirmed that he’d been infected with polio. He’d know more after analyzing a stool sample, but after listening to Doris Pike explain the symptoms, he felt sure.

  “He could continue to shed the virus in his stool for the next three to six weeks,” the doctor had said. “Until then he needs rest. And a lot of fluid.”

  Is that it? Wolfgang thought.

  Doris managed to get him up to his bedroom. The polio virus had attacked the nerve cells that controlled the muscle movements in both of his legs. Only time would tell if the paralysis would be permanent. Wolfgang had no choice but to let his mother stay close to him. He couldn’t push her away. His arms were too tired, and his legs couldn’t move at all. Every time his bedroom door opened and she walked in with a tray, he feared the pillow. At night he’d awaken from nightmares of being suffocated. On several occasions he awoke to find that he’d fallen out of bed in meager attempts to run.

  But the pillow never darkened his vision. Instead, his mother took care of him with frequent baths of water and almond meal, mustard applications and massages. One night he opened his eyes and found her sitting next to his bed. He was so startled, he pushed himself back against the wall beside his bed. She was holding a violin. She attempted to play something but quickly stopped. She held out the violin and the bow toward Wolfgang and said, “Sit up, son. I know your arms work.” Wolfgang grabbed the instrument. He stared at her, waiting until she left the room, and then he lifted the violin to his neck. He played until he tired, and the next day he reached for the violin again. In time, his mother carried him downstairs to the piano.

  Two months later the feeling in his left leg returned, first the thigh and then a few days later below the knee and into his foot. Sensation started to come back in his right leg days later. The following week he tried to walk but collapsed on his bedroom floor. His mother helped him back into bed and cautioned him that he may not be able to walk again. He was determined to prove her wrong, and he’d told God as much every day when he prayed for his legs to come back.

  So many weeks he’d slept on his back with the hole in the wall above his head, but he’d been unable to get up on his knees and look through it. He could hear his mother crying at night. Did she cry for him? For his father?

  His left leg recovered fully, but some of the nerve cells in his right ankle and foot had been completely destroyed. They tried splints, rigid braces, and uncomfortable corrective shoes. The doctor called it equinus foot; the muscles in his right leg that pulled the toes downward worked, but the muscles that pulled them upward did not. So his foot tended to drop toward the ground. His Achilles tendon at the back of the foot had retracted to the point where his foot couldn’t take on a normal standing position. His left foot could stand flat on the floor, but his right foot could not. He couldn’t put his right heel on the ground, so it remained permanently raised. He’d walk on his right toes for the rest of his life and drag them when he tired.

  But he’d survived, and with the help of a cane and miles of Louisville streets, he’d learned to walk again. In fact, he still had the cane in his closet, as a reminder of what he’d endured.

  ***

  As Wolfgang lay in bed, he contemplated getting up for a glass of wine. If he still felt this sore in the morning, he feared he would need that childhood cane to get up the hillside.

  Then something caught his ear.

  The piano.

  The music carried down the hillside from the fourth-floor solarium porch. Wolfgang got back into bed and listened with a broad smile etched into his face.

  He knew it. McVain had caved.

  Chapter 16

  As Wolfgang walked across the drafty floor, his muscles screamed, but he’d managed to gain his balance by the time he made it to the bathroom. He braced himself against the wall as he urinated. He winced as he dressed, but the more he moved, the more his muscles loosened.

  At seven o’clock he heard Susannah’s familiar rapping on the door. He jumped up so quickly he nearly spilled his coffee down the front of his lab coat. Not only had she come, but she’d arrived early. He opened the door. She stood at the bottom of the steps, as always, smiling.

  “Morning, Wolf.”

  As they walked side by side through the woods, he did his best not to appear too stiff.

  “I want to apologize for the way I spoke to you yesterday,” she said.

  “Think nothing of it.”

  “Rita got me thinking of my family.”

  “Of course.” Susannah’s parents and both of her brothers ha
d been taken by tuberculosis, all within a span of seven years, all but her father passing away at Waverly Hills. She was the only one not infected. Wolfgang suspected it was another reason she felt so attached to Abel. Both of her brothers had been younger.

  Susannah grinned on their way up the hill. “You’re hobbling more than usual.”

  “It’s nothing… Well, all right.” Wolfgang gave in and allowed his shoulders to sag. “I’m in severe pain, and my back is so stiff I could hardly tie my shoes. I’m sure I’m quite a sight.”

  She giggled. “So the piano’s up there? No one got hurt? Arrested? Fired?”

  “Not yet,” Wolfgang said. “Lincoln survived.”

  “Not without a few complaints, I bet.”

  “We never would have made it without Fifteen.”

  Susannah folded her hands as she walked. “He always seems helpful.”

  Wolfgang did his best to keep up with her, but his legs were not dependable. Her comment about Big Fifteen surprised him. She’d barely spoken a few words to him in all the years she’d known him. Wolfgang knew it wasn’t prejudice. She didn’t have a hateful bone in her body, but he’d noticed the way she carried herself, the way she became withdrawn over the years whenever they ran into a Negro.

  “We’re early, Wolf.”

  “Yes…yes, I’ve noticed.”

  “The other night I wanted to show you something that I’ve been working on.”

  Wolfgang rubbed his forehead. “Yes, and I’ve been too pigheaded and self-involved to remember.”

  “I can’t deny that.” She smirked. “And Marlene’s already at the sanatorium.”

  “Very funny.”

  “It wouldn’t take me a minute to show you.”

  Wolfgang extended his right arm. “Lead the way.”

  After they traveled half the distance to the nurses’ dormitory Susannah caught Wolfgang smiling. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Barker’s reaction when he sees that piano.”

  Susannah was right. The dormitory was empty when they arrived. No one emerged from the showers and onto the porch half naked. No one watched him suspiciously as he walked inside, but it didn’t stop the butterflies from swirling when they climbed the steps to the second floor and entered her room. Unlike his room, her walls were decorated with pictures of her family members and a few oil landscape paintings. Her bed was neatly made and fit snugly in the corner next to the window. Beside it was a wooden dresser painted white and covered with more pictures and two stuffed animals—one bear and one puppy dog with a missing left button for an eye. She grabbed his arm and walked him across the room to her desk, which was cluttered with stacks of paper, pens, and medical books. A large black typewriter—the kind in which the type bars struck upward and the typist could not see the characters he or she had hit until the subsequent lines scrolled into view—took up much of the desk’s surface.

  She pulled out her chair and lifted a stack of pages that was about two inches thick. She appeared nervous as she handed it to him. “I’m not finished yet, but that’s most of a first draft.”

  “What is it?” Wolfgang flipped through it with interest and then returned to the top page, which read: White Death by Susannah Figgins.

  “Is this a novel?”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s a book on tuberculosis. I’ve been working on it for five years, reading medical books, studying treatments. I’d like to eventually publish it and help find a cure.”

  Wolfgang flipped through it again, read a short passage about sun treatment, and closed it. “This is wonderful. I had no idea.”

  “I’d like to become a doctor.”

  Wolfgang smiled.

  “I know. You laugh—”

  “No, no, I’m not laughing. I think it’s great. I’m just shocked.”

  “My father would be as well,” said Susannah. “I loved him dearly, but let’s just say he was not of the opinion that women should vote. Or have any kind of equality in the workplace.” She took the manuscript from him, placed it back on the seat of her chair, and pushed the chair back in the well of the desk. “Well, now you know why I stay here.”

  “I’d like to read it sometime.”

  “Give me a few more months.” She looked at the clock on the wall. “We better get going. Barker’s probably thrown the piano overboard by now.”

  ***

  Dr. Barker stared at Wolfgang pensively from behind his desk. His deep-set hawkish eyes glared through his thin glasses. Wolfgang waited for the eruption, but what came instead was an attempt at a controlled temper. “Need I ask what your piano is doing on the fourth-floor solarium?”

  “An act of God, sir.”

  “Don’t mock the Lord. You of all people.” Now came the eruption. He stood and pointed at Wolfgang. “You did this behind my back.”

  “Look, you refused to let me take him to the piano, so I brought the piano to him. What else could I do?”

  “I’m sure Lincoln had a hand in this as well?”

  “It was my doing.”

  “And Susannah?”

  “She was against it.”

  “Big Fifteen?”

  “Just me.”

  “Why does he call you Boss?”

  “Maybe he calls everyone Boss.” Wolfgang knew that Fifteen addressed Barker simply as Doctor. “Repairs are badly needed at the colored hospital. It’s overcrowded, dark, and—”

  “Do you think I don’t know that, Dr. Pike? I can’t do anything without more funding.” Barker sat on the corner of his desk. “We can’t have McVain playing the piano in the middle of the night, not when everyone is trying to sleep.”

  “See if his mood doesn’t improve.”

  “Don’t play innocent. You know this isn’t only about him. We have hundreds of other patients to worry about. We have occupational therapy, movies, and all kinds of activities—”

  “But not a piano.”

  Dr. Barker pounded his fist against the top of his desk. Papers scattered to the floor. “They need their rest. We can’t have him playing at all hours of the night.”

  Wolfgang stood eye to eye with the older man. “McVain already has fans. When I arrived this morning, dozens of patients asked me who was playing the piano and if he’ll continue. They smiled.”

  Dr. Barker turned away. “Don’t bank on it.”

  Wolfgang gripped Dr. Barker’s elbow and spun him back toward him. Barker pulled away violently and shoved Wolfgang against the wall, where his head hit a picture of Barker’s wife, Anne. The picture dropped to the floor, cracking the glass inside the frame. Barker gave it no attention. Instead he stuck his finger in Wolfgang’s face. “Don’t tempt me. The Church doesn’t make you invincible. We have rules—”

  “Always about rules.”

  Dr. Barker sidestepped Wolfgang and stopped next to his door. “And don’t involve Nurse Susannah in this. She has aspirations that go higher than your music. Don’t bring her down with you.”

  “What do you know about Susannah?”

  Dr. Barker folded his arms. “You’re lucky the piano didn’t crush you.”

  “The piano stays.” Wolfgang slammed the door and left.

  ***

  Snow flurries spun frantically in the wind. The night’s frost had settled in, and the wet grass hardened to a crunch underfoot. It seemed as if January had finally found its cold weather, and it was here to stay now. Wolfgang navigated the downhill by himself, using his Babe Ruth Louisville Slugger as a makeshift cane. In his other hand he held his black bag of instruments. He found the colored hospital only slightly less depressing than he had the other night. The cold temperatures seemed to dampen the stench and bring with it a façade of crisp cleanliness.

  He played the piccolo on the solarium porch for a group of patients while Rufus followed along with his flute. Off to the
side, standing atop his creaky bed, Smokey playfully swung the Babe Ruth baseball bat, hitting probably a hundred imaginary home runs in the short amount of time that Wolfgang and Rufus had played together.

  Wolfgang lowered the piccolo from his lips. “Cold.”

  Rufus stared up the hillside. “I heard him playing last night. He’s not bad.”

  “He’s missing three fingers.” Wolfgang held up his left hand and wiggled his middle three fingers. He hoped McVain could hear the playing up the hill. “He’s learning to adjust.”

  “What happened?”

  “That’s what I’d like to find out.”

  Rufus nodded. “Your offer still stand?”

  “My offer?”

  “To play up there.”

  Wolfgang’s eyes lit up. He stood from his seat. “Of course. We can go now if you’d like. Dr. Barker has left for the night.”

  “What should I wear?”

  Wolfgang viewed Rufus’s attire—plaid pajamas, a brown coat, and black boots. “Come as you are.”

  Wolfgang started down the porch, thanking several of the patients for letting him play. He checked over his shoulder. Rufus was slow, hobbled by a limp of his own, and burdened by his hefty size.

  When they passed Smokey’s bed, the kid held the bat out for Wolfgang to take back. “Thank you, Father.”

  Wolfgang gripped the barrel of the bat and pushed it gently back Smokey’s way. “Oh, no, Smokey. It’s a gift. The bat is for you. Go and become the…the black Babe Ruth is what you called it?”

  “Yep, the black Babe Ruth.” Smokey swung again. “That’s right, Father.”

  ***

  No cold feet for Rufus. He played the flute as he walked. Once he’d decided to journey up the hillside, he moved at a brisk pace, stopping only when they’d reached the entrance to the Grand Lobby, where he stood in awe of the beautiful décor and pillars that stretched from floor to ceiling. He tested the shiny floor with his shoes, swiping over it like a baseball player clearing the dirt in the batter’s box.

  “It’s huge.” Rufus waddled beside Wolfgang, his flute tucked under the weight of his right arm. The first-floor hallways were clear. Wolfgang took Rufus on an elevator to the fourth floor. On the way up Rufus drummed his fingers against the length of his flute, his eyes darting, ears perked by the mechanical sounds of the elevator. The door opened and Wolfgang was the first to step out to the fourth-floor solarium. Again, Rufus moved behind him in awe, peeking through the screened window and down to the lawn four floors below. McVain was playing the piano from his spot down on the porch. Many of the patients slept. Others seemed to be relaxing to the sound of McVain’s playing. A few gave Rufus unfriendly looks as he and Wolfgang passed the foot of their beds.