White Wind Blew

by James Markert

  “Rose!” Wolfgang screamed.

  She looked over her shoulder, a smile still etched on her face.

  Rose’s body folded. She hit the windshield, and when the car finally stopped, her body flew through the air and landed in the middle of the street.

  Wolfgang hurried with her red shoe still in his grip. He knelt beside her. Her eyes followed his. Blood pooled on the street behind her head. A crowd gathered around, and the driver jumped from his still running car, left his door open, and ran toward them. Wolfgang’s outstretched hand kept him at a distance.

  “Rose…” Wolfgang ran his hands across her hair and face.

  She found his eyes again and smiled. Only Rose would smile. Blood stained her dress, bright red on yellow. Wolfgang spotted the rose from her hair a few yards away, propped against the dirty curb.

  “Wolf…”

  He touched a finger to her lips and stretched to examine the wound in the back of her head, shocked that she was still alive at all. He kissed her forehead, inhaling the scent of her. He pressed his hand against the wound, but the blood continued to pump through his grip.

  Rose stared upward. “Wolf…where do we go?”

  Then the life vanished from Rose’s eyes. He closed them for her and looked up toward the sky, and he blamed God.

  Fourth Movement

  Allegro con brio

  Chapter 29

  God continued to deliver. A new patient, a fifty-year-old man named Cecil, arrived three days after Big Fifteen’s death. He’d played the clarinet for forty years and agreed to join the ensemble if and when Dr. Barker reinstated the concert and allowed the rehearsals to go on. Two days later a new nurse arrived at Waverly. Beverly was a twenty-five-year-old brunette with a deep southern drawl and a budding violin hobby, and was spotted taking tips from Josef after hours on her first night on the job. Four new patients volunteered for the chorus, three men and a woman—not professionals, but willing and eager to sing—and their ranges included two tenors, one contralto, and one soprano.

  Wolfgang stopped Dr. Barker in the hall one afternoon. “God continues to send musicians. I truly believe we all have a purpose here.” Barker moved on without comment.

  The new arrivals fueled Wolfgang. He continued to work with the choir members individually and in small groups, by their bedsides, as often as he could. He encouraged them to not give up hope, leaving the door open for Barker to have a change of heart. He visited Frederick several times a day and played for him beside his bed. On one of his visits, Wolfgang left him with the picture Susannah had taken of his wife and son. Frederick placed it beside his pillow.

  Valentine’s Day was rapidly approaching, only a few days away. Despite the spotty security in the woods, or maybe because of it, Wolfgang continued to walk Susannah home every night and then returned to the piano and the fourth-floor solarium to work on the requiem. It was progressing quite well. He was three-fourths of the way through and moving quickly, even more so now that rehearsals had been canceled. But underfoot he was beginning to feel the quagmire of doubts that had bogged him down before McVain’s arrival. He was still in need of the perfect ending.

  ***

  Herman was ranting again, shouting Dr. Barker’s name from the rooftop, as loud as his tubercular lungs would allow. Wolfgang endured it for a few minutes before slamming his pen down, standing from the piano and marching down to Barker’s office, where he found his boss at his desk, massaging his temples.

  “What does that lunatic want?” Barker asked Wolfgang.

  “I don’t know.” Wolfgang leaned against the doorway. “But he won’t stop until you pay him a visit.”

  Dr. Barker stood so fast that his chair toppled over.

  When they reached the nurses’ station on the rooftop, they found Susannah standing at Room 502. Apparently Herman wouldn’t even allow her inside. He was still chanting, “Dr. Barker…Dr. Barker…Dr. Barker…”

  Barker ignored Susannah and hammered on the door. “Herman, open up, it’s me. Stop screaming…HERMAN!”

  Maverly Simms showed herself in the doorway to her darkened room. “Maverly at Waverly…Maverly at Waverly…”

  Dr. Barker turned toward Wolfgang and hissed. “Shut her up.”

  Maverly started to whimper. The doctor pounded on Herman’s door again, and finally Herman stopped. The door opened a crack and Herman’s face was visible, his wandering eyes looking Barker up and down.

  “What is it, Herman?” asked Dr. Barker.

  The door opened wide and Herman took up most of the doorway. “You stopped the concert.”

  Dr. Barker closed his eyes and sighed, as if trying with every fiber of his being not to strangle Herman.

  Herman stepped closer. “You stopped my concert.” Wolfgang saw the overhead light glisten off the polished tines, but he couldn’t shout in time as Herman brought the fork down into the meat of Dr. Barker’s left shoulder.

  ***

  Barker allowed Wolfgang to stitch him up, but he remained silent.

  And when he left for the night, he stalked past Wolfgang and Susannah through the Grand Lobby, still in a silent fury, a hump underneath his coat by his left shoulder, where he was heavily bandaged.

  The door to the entrance opened before Dr. Barker reached it. He froze. His wife, Anne, walked into the lobby with a gray satchel in each hand. She stood in her black shoes and ivory coat, staring at her husband. Her hair was brown but beginning to gray beneath a rounded ivory hat.

  Wolfgang stopped and watched the estranged couple. Anne was normally quite friendly to Wolfgang, but this night she didn’t smile. Her green eyes were tired and focused on her husband, the surprise on her aged face as apparent as the shock on Dr. Barker’s.

  Then Anne coughed into her fist.

  Dr. Barker’s head lowered, and Wolfgang understood.

  The newest patient had arrived at Waverly.

  Chapter 30

  The next day Dr. Barker surprised Wolfgang with an appearance in the chapel near the end of Mass, where seven choir members had volunteered to sing. Wolfgang’s slight choir viewed him cautiously from afar, never slowing their song as the doctor leaned against the column in the back of the chapel and waited for Mass to finish. After everyone cleared out, he accosted Wolfgang in the center aisle. “Are you behind this?”

  “Behind what?” Wolfgang asked.

  “The choir members. And others. A hundred others. They’re refusing to take any medication. They’re refusing to eat. They’re refusing treatment unless I reinstate the concert.”

  “I knew nothing about it,” said Wolfgang.

  Dr. Barker’s mouth closed. He held up his index finger. “Have your damn concert. But only by my rules. We’re being reckless as it is. Rehearsals are limited to thirty minutes. I’ve seen your program; the concert itself must be shortened.” He stopped before the last row of chairs. “And any work with Rufus will be done down the hillside.”

  “Is that all?”

  “And no more secret practices after I leave at night.” He smirked. “Did you think I couldn’t hear you?”

  “What if I need to work at the piano at night?”

  “I have no problem with that.” He pointed to his ear. “But give me some credit. I can tell the difference between you and McVain on the piano.”

  “How?”

  “I know the difference between a genius and a dabbler.”

  ***

  Wolfgang couldn’t flex his fingers enough. No matter how much he moved or blew into them, they remained numb. Tiny white cracks in the skin scarred his knuckles and the webbing between his fingers. He stared at the rose atop the piano. It needed to be changed.

  McVain coughed behind him on the bed. Wolfgang turned around on the piano bench and faced him. “How are you feeling?”

  McVain cleared his throat. “Hollow.”

 
“It must be torture to watch us practice.”

  “What’s torture is listening to you play.” He winked. “Concert back on? Told you I’d think of something.”

  “Blackmail? Cute. Almost as sneaky as making women appear on the fourth floor overnight. It was Lincoln, yes? He helped wheel the ladies up here for you?”

  “You got me,” said McVain. “How could I keep the truth from a fake priest?”

  “McVain…”

  McVain simply smiled.

  “It troubles me to know how much pull you have here.” Wolfgang faced the piano again. “He would have reinstated the concert anyway.”

  McVain was silent. When Wolfgang turned to him again, McVain was staring at the wedding band on Wolfgang’s right hand. “Ever think of marrying again?”

  Wolfgang folded his arms, hiding his right hand. “You never quit, do you?”

  McVain chuckled. “Good thing the seminary-from-afar makes it easier for you.”

  “Tell me about your wife, McVain.”

  “I’m divorced.” Wolfgang waited. “We were happy before the war. When I came back…” He stopped.

  “How long has it been since you’ve spoken with her?”

  “Not as long as you went without seeing your mother,” McVain said. “Six years if you need to know.”

  “What happened during the war?” Wolfgang asked.

  McVain sniffled and then wiped his runny nose. “I wasn’t a violent man. I’d never fired a gun in my life. But I got pretty damn good at killing.”

  Wolfgang leaned forward. “Tell me about it, McVain.”

  “Don’t act like my psychologist.”

  “Go on…”

  “Trench warfare.” McVain’s eyes looked at the piano, but his real vision was probably somewhere much darker. “Mud and rain. Bombs everywhere. Mustard gas. I started smoking to calm my nerves. Couldn’t sleep.”

  Wolfgang thought about the man’s restless sleep. “Do you dream about it?”

  McVain looked at Wolfgang sharply. “I chased a Kraut out of a trench one time. He got stuck in the barbed wire without a gun. I couldn’t understand what he was yelling at me, but with his tone I could tell he was pleading for his life. I shot him. First in the face. Then in the heart. It was like I was standing there outside myself, watching from a different person, a different place.” McVain coughed heavily, leaned to his side, and spit into the bucket.

  Wolfgang leaned closer. “Go on.”

  McVain sighed. “Another night. I’m tired.”

  “Rest then, my friend.” Wolfgang stood.

  “You said you believe in fate.” McVain stared blankly toward the ceiling. “A man makes a choice to avoid danger only to then walk right into it. Choice A or B. I made a choice at Chateau-Thierry that determined my fate.” He wiggled the nubs of his mangled hand. “I chose B.”

  “Everything happens for a reason, McVain. Perhaps A would have killed you.”

  “Might have been better.”

  Chapter 31

  A snowstorm blew in unexpectedly from the southeast, dumping seven inches of pristine white fluff atop the hillside overnight. The morning walk up to the sanatorium was like walking through a painting of beauty. The air seemed fresher than normal, untainted by the wet leaves. A trio of deer watched from thirty yards away, the lower halves of their skinny legs hidden under the accumulation. Squirrels danced overtop the snow, sprinting to avoid sinking. Susannah stepped on a patch of snow-covered bramble and her foot sunk to the knee. Instead of helping her up, Wolfgang made a tightly packed snowball and hurled it toward her, hitting her on the rump.

  When they reached the sanatorium, Susannah bent to tie her shoes. Then as Wolfgang walked up the stairs, an explosion of white fluff hit the center of his back.

  Upstairs, patients too close to the end of the solarium’s screen windows had been rolled to the middle to avoid direct contact with the snow. Someone had thrown a blue tarp over McVain’s piano. When Wolfgang asked about it, McVain shrugged, claiming he’d first seen it when he’d opened his eyes in the morning.

  Mid-morning Wolfgang lifted Frederick up and placed him in a wheelchair.

  “Gonna remove another rib?”

  “You’re speaking now?”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “For a walk,” said Wolfgang. “And no, we’re not taking out another rib. Your lesion has not grown in weeks.”

  He wheeled Frederick out to the fourth-floor solarium and parked him right next to the screen. “Enjoy the scenery. And bundle up with those blankets. It’s cold out here.” Wolfgang pointed out over the treetops toward the road leading up the hillside. “You see that road? That’s where Mary Sue Made the Walk. She wept when we got to the bottom. You are not dead yet, Frederick. You want to hold your son?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then start breathing,” said Wolfgang.

  ***

  Wolfgang sat beside Anne Barker’s bed and played his piccolo for her. She’d requested his music and he’d played nervously, stopping after several miscues before continuing, afraid at any moment that Dr. Barker would hound him for disturbing his wife. He lowered the piccolo and Anne thanked him with her magnetic smile.

  “It isn’t the music that he dislikes, Wolfgang.” Anne said. Her smile had faded. “Give him time. He’s just confused.”

  Wolfgang almost laughed out loud. “Aren’t we all?”

  ***

  Wolfgang opened the door to the chapel’s small freezer and removed a bag of frozen communion bread, hoping it would not be as hard as the last batch, which had caused most of the crowd to chew for several minutes after they’d returned to their seats. The bread would not be changed into Christ’s body and the wine would not be changed into his blood, but the Catholics who attended his service asked for communion anyway. A Baptist in the chapel mumbled, “as it should be,” as all the Baptists believed that the bread and wine merely represented the body and blood of Christ and could not be changed into the real thing anyway. And that was a process Wolfgang refused to emulate until he was ordained to do so. As he carried the bread to the altar to thaw, he spotted Susannah and Abel entering the chapel. Abel appeared a little distraught, his face blotchy. Wolfgang knelt down and touched the boy’s skinny shoulders. “You’ve been crying.”

  Abel stood stiff with his hands to his sides. Susannah squatted beside Abel and put her right arm around his back. “He didn’t sleep all night.”

  “I have a confession, Dr. Pike,” Abel said. “I’m a liar.”

  Wolfgang gave him a warm smile. “How so?”

  “I did see somebody.” Abel looked up toward Susannah, who kissed his forehead and nodded encouragement. “The night we found Fifteen in the tree.” He wiped his nose with a fist. “A big man. Dressed in white. With a hood. I ran into him when I was going through the woods.”

  “Then what happened?” asked Susannah.

  “He knocked me down in the mud. Said he’d kill me if I told anybody.”

  Wolfgang sighed heavily. “I see. Did you recognize him?”

  “No, but I seen ’em coming out of the maintenance shed.”

  “The shed?”

  He nodded. “He was watching me last night.”

  “Watching you?”

  “From the woods.” Abel became more courageous. “I was in bed on my porch. He watched from the woods, staring at me with his white hood on. Like a ghost. He put his finger to his face like this.” Abel put his right index finger to his lips.

  Susannah squeezed Abel’s shoulders. “They’re trying to scare him, Wolf.”

  “You’re sure it wasn’t just the snow and shadows?”

  Abel shook his head adamantly. “No, he was there to remind me—not to tell.”

  Wolfgang pulled Abel forward and embraced him.

  That afternoon, two wh
ite robes with hoods were found behind an old tractor in the back of the maintenance shed, concealed under a wooden crate that still carried the smell of ether. The maintenance staff had been questioned thoroughly, but none of the three men seemed strong enough to pull Big Fifteen up into a tree, and their answers had all checked out. They’d been too busy fighting the fire at the colored hospital to hunt down Big Fifteen in the woods and hang him.

  Dr. Barker demanded that the police bring in more security to stand guard at the children’s pavilion. Susannah wanted Abel to stay with her, but he’d insisted on sleeping with the other children. He claimed it was his job to keep them calm.

  After Wolfgang and Susannah dropped off Abel and met with the three new police officers, Susannah felt more comforted. The men were dressed warmly for the night shift, and they seemed to take their jobs seriously. They all had children at home. Wolfgang believed Abel and the children would be safe.

  Before Wolfgang and Susannah left the officers to their duty, one of them startled Wolfgang with a question. He had a handlebar mustache and big brown eyes. “Father, we’ve gotten a few letters from someone at Waverly recently.”

  “Oh, about what?”

  The man chuckled and scratched his mustache. “About some bootlegging activity into the sanatorium. Booze, Father.”

  Wolfgang laughed right along with him, as if the notion itself were preposterous. “Bootlegging, huh? Demon rum…into a hospital? Not a bad idea, though. We could serve the patients shots of whiskey right after they down their nightly milk.”

  The officer chuckled again. “Thought I’d ask about it, at least. Don’t mean to bother.”

  Wolfgang smiled. “No bother. Was there, by chance, a name attached to the letters?”

  “No. No name.”

  “Anonymous,” said Wolfgang. “Of course.” The officer turned away and headed toward the children’s pavilion. Wolfgang watched him until he disappeared into the tree shadows. The KKK was a major supporter of the Anti-Saloon League. They took pride in rooting out bootleggers, breaking up speakeasies, burning saloons across the South, and apparently foiling the plans of a sanatorium’s orderly who sneaked the demon rum up the hill through empty coffins.