A Death-Struck Year

by Makiia Lucier

  Kate wandered off to examine a seascape hanging on the wall. I headed toward a cart near the staircase. It was full of books.

  Curious, I read the spines. They were works by German authors. Many were printed in their original language. Goethe. Gryphius. Jacobi. Klopstock. Kafka. Stramm. Schiller. I tugged at a volume.

  The Writings of Kant. We’d been reading Kant that day when Miss Abernathy had told us school was closed. Enlightenment . . . demands nothing more than freedom—the freedom that consists in making public use, under all circumstances, of one’s reason, I remembered, and I couldn’t believe I’d been in a classroom less than a week ago. So much had happened since then. I wondered how Grace was doing in Florence. And how much trouble Margaret was in with her parents. I hoped Fanny was safe. I hoped Emily wasn’t too lonely and that Greta’s eyes were staying put. I didn’t know if anyone else would take the time to sew them back on. I told myself I would write to Grace. Tonight. Or tomorrow. As soon as I had a moment to spare.

  A man materialized beside me. He was in his twenties but already balding, with a belly that strained against the fabric of his red sweater. He gave me a sour look, plucking the book from my hands and returning it to the cart. “Excuse me.” His voice was strangely high-pitched. “These books are not for public use.”

  “Why not?” I asked, taken aback by his unfriendly tone.

  “Because they’re German,” he said, the same way one would have said, “Because it’s poison.”

  “You’re taking away all the German books?” I glanced at the cart. “Even the music books? For how long?” Until the war ended? I wanted to know. Or forever?

  His answer was to sneeze. Directly in my face. The sound echoed throughout the rotunda, and the spray misted around me even as I tried to avoid it. I’d forgotten my mask. I wiped my cheek with my coat sleeve and gave him the dirtiest look I could manage.

  Kate appeared by my elbow. “You need to be more careful!” she scolded, pointing a finger at him. Her voice rang out loud and indignant.

  The throat clearing coming from the reading room was loud and indignant too. I glanced over. Behind the circulation desk, Miss Tarbell glared at us.

  “Sorry,” the man said, without sounding sorry at all. He pushed the cart toward the reading room. Short, wheezing pants followed in his wake.

  Kate scowled after him before offering me a handkerchief. “Some people should be rationed more than others,” she said in a low voice.

  “Ugh.” I took the handkerchief, scrubbing my face as best I could. The stranger’s breath had been rank, his spit equally so, and I wondered how long it would be before I could stick my face beneath a faucet.

  The door opened. Mrs. MacMillan appeared with the new children’s librarian, whom I’d never met. She was young. Most of her straight black hair had escaped from its roll, straggling around her face. Mrs. MacMillan looked like she was going to topple right over trying to keep her upright. Kate and I rushed to help. I draped one of the librarian’s arms over my shoulder. Kate did the same with the other.

  The children’s librarian looked at Kate, her expression dazed. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “You’re very welcome,” Kate said.

  She turned to me. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Of course. It’s nothing,” I said.

  The children’s librarian looked at the floor. “Thank you,” she said.

  Kate and I exchanged a look. Excited whispers drifted over from the reading-room crowd, though no one approached. Mrs. MacMillan, teary-eyed, told us to be careful. We dragged the librarian down the staircase, past the marble columns, and out of the hush.

  The Evangeline was to arrive at the dock at two o’clock sharp. As it always did. Today it would be carrying Mrs. Foster, and I planned to drive down to the river and surprise her. I knew she was expecting to find her own way home. As far as she was concerned, I was still at St. Helen’s.

  I dropped Kate off at the Auditorium and promised Hannah I would be back the next morning. I would, no matter how much Mrs. Foster railed and threatened. I knew I was in for it, that I would receive a terrible tongue-lashing once she learned what I’d been up to. But right now, I was too happy to care.

  Good food. Clean clothes. A familiar face. Knowing there was someone else in the house while I slept. Simple things that I would never take for granted again.

  I drove home for a quick lunch. Parking out front, I cast a wary glance at the sky. It looked like rain. Which reminded me, I needed a new umbrella. My old one lay crumpled and broken on the rear seat, having lost the battle against Sunday’s rainstorm.

  “Hello!” a voice behind me called.

  I turned. A blond boy, no more than thirteen, rolled toward me on a bicycle. He wore a blue courier’s uniform with gold buttons. He slowed to a stop.

  “Hello,” I said. “A telegram?”

  “Two, miss.” The boy pulled identical yellow envelopes from a battered leather satchel. He glanced at both. “Are you Luciane or Cleo Berry?”

  I eyed the envelopes. Why would someone send Lucy a telegram here? Everyone who knew her was aware of her trip. Knew she wouldn’t be home for weeks. “I’m Cleo Berry. I’ll take both, thank you.”

  He handed me the envelopes. “Good day, miss.”

  The courier pedaled down the street. I opened the telegram addressed to me first. It was from Jack. It read:

  CLEO, TELEPHONES ARE USELESS. SEND WIRE—TODAY—CONFIRMING MRS. FOSTER’S ARRIVAL. NEED TO KNOW YOU’RE BOTH IN GOOD HEALTH. HOPE TO BE HOME NEXT WEEK. LUCY IS WELL AND SENDS HER LOVE. I’M SENDING MINE TOO. JACK.

  I smiled. Opening the second telegram, I saw that it had originated in Hood River, from someone named Hazel Balogh. I’d never heard the name before. I read:

  DEAR MRS. LUCIANE BERRY, ADELINE FOSTER TAKEN TO HOSPITAL WITH ENTIRE FAMILY. INFLUENZA. CONDITION SERIOUS. I AM THE FOSTERS’ NEIGHBOR. CORRESPOND AT ABOVE ADDRESS. SINCERELY, HAZEL BALOGH.

  My hand trembled as I reread the telegram. Oh no oh no oh no oh no. Mrs. Foster. The entire family? I pictured the photographs cluttering her sitting room. Her grandchildren were very young. A boy and a girl. Toddlers. Condition serious.

  I read the note a third time. Then I looked at my brother’s telegram. I needed to reply today. If I didn’t, he and Lucy would assume the worst. They would come home. Lucy would insist on it, despite her condition and in one of the crowded trains with their stagnant compartments. It was dangerous. But if I told Jack about Mrs. Foster, if he learned I was alone, they would come back anyway.

  Leaning against the car, I stared across the street at the Pikes’ house. What was I supposed to do? I thought of Mrs. Foster, strict and kind at the same time, who had patched up Jack’s skinned knees and mine. And Grace’s and Margaret’s and Fanny’s too. The tears threatened. I blinked them back. Stop it, I told myself fiercely. Stop panicking. Sick did not mean dead.

  I focused, startled when I saw Mrs. Pike standing in her open doorway watching me. She wore a green dress and a white mask. Our neighbor was in her forties. A striking lady, with fair hair and blue eyes. When I was younger, she’d reminded me of the porcelain dolls lining the shelves of the toy emporium. The ones with the blank expressions. The ones that made me grateful for my own scruffy, well-loved doll.

  Sniffling, I gave her a small wave. She was the last person I felt like talking to, but I couldn’t ignore her. I started across the street, intending to be polite and ask after her health.

  Mrs. Pike held up a hand. “Don’t come any closer, Cleo,” she called out.

  I stopped in the middle of the road, surprised. “I won’t, Mrs. Pike. Are you well? And Mr. Pike?”

  She ignored the question, her eyes fixed on my Red Cross band. “Have you completely lost your senses?” she demanded. “Where is your brother? How could he allow this?”

  I stiffened at her tone. In all the years I’d known her, any goodwill toward Mrs. Pike had never lasted more than a minute. “Jack and Lucy have been delayed in
San Francisco,” I said. “I’ve been volunteering at the hospital.”

  Mrs. Pike pursed her lips at the news. “I’ve not seen your housekeeper.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. Of course she would notice me coming and going at odd hours, and see how few lights were left on in the evening. Turning back, I held up both telegrams. “Mrs. Foster is sick.”

  Mrs. Pike stared at me for such a time that I was reminded, once again, of those dolls on the shelves. “Then I am sorry for you.” My neighbor backed away, into her house, and shut the door.

  “I’d like to send two telegrams, please. One to Hood River, the other to San Francisco.”

  “That’s fine, miss. Fill these forms out. Be sure to sign at the bottom.” The Western Union clerk, an older man with a mask, was polite but brisk.

  “Thank you.” Using one of the pencils scattered across the counter, I scribbled away, grateful to be at the front of the queue after waiting for two hours. Most of it outside in the rain. At least I hadn’t forgotten a new umbrella. Many had, and they’d looked wretched trying to shield themselves with newspapers and briefcases and purses.

  Behind me, the line snaked out the open door. The office was cramped and overheated, and the sounds of traffic drifted in from the street. No one complained. The mood was quiet and sober, with everyone looking downward, preoccupied with their own troubles.

  Just like me.

  The first telegram was to the kind Mrs. Balogh in Hood River. Explaining who I was. Thanking her for her note. Asking to be kept informed and offering any assistance she could think of. Though, as I wrote the last part, I wondered what I could really do. Even if I took the steamer to Hood River and searched out the Fosters in the hospital, what would I do? Spoon soup? Change sheets? Feeling helpless, I eased my grip on the pencil so I would not snap it in half.

  I set Mrs. Balogh’s form aside. Behind the counter, more clerks hunched over their desks, typing madly. Through the front window, I could see the Skidmore Fountain. A man stood by the fountain’s stone steps, waiting patiently while his horse drank its fill.

  The second note was harder. I wrote it quickly, before I changed my mind. And as I signed my name at the bottom of the form, it occurred to me that I didn’t used to be such a liar. It wasn’t a good feeling, knowing how much I kept from my family. The clerk looked up at my sigh.

  “All done, miss?”

  “Yes.” I handed both forms over, along with my payment, and watched as they were passed on to one of the transmitting clerks. I accepted my receipt and left, feeling several levels below wretched.

  TO JACKSON BERRY, THE FAIRMONT,

  SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.

  DEAR JACK, MRS. FOSTER IS HOME. WE ARE BOTH WELL.

  COME HOME WHEN IT’S SAFE. LOVE, CLEO.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Wednesday, October 16, 1918

  From the Oregonian:

  Deaths yesterday wiped out all but one of a family of four received at the emergency hospital Tuesday—all in delirious condition. Mrs. Godfrey Marshall, who succumbed yesterday, was preceded in death by Carl Marshall, eighteen months of age, and Nina Marshall, eight years, whose fever was one hundred and four when brought to the hospital. Mr. Marshall was removed to the county hospital yesterday. His condition is believed critical. They resided at 123½ Third Street.

  A home for two girls of three and six who are convalescent from influenza is being asked by Miss Waverley Bennett of the American Red Cross. The mother and father still are confined at St. Vincent’s Hospital and the children have no place to go.

  How the influenza attacks whole families again was illustrated by a report yesterday of eight cases in the family of G. F. Linton, 555 Flanders Street. No deaths yet have been recorded.

  Two hundred and seventeen new cases of Spanish influenza were reported to the City Health Bureau, bringing the total number of cases to 1,517. Total influenza deaths number 86.

  “You think you’re smarter than me.” I kept my voice low and threatening. “And maybe that’s true. But if I wanted, I could take you apart. Piece by piece. I could use you for firewood. What do you say about that, huh? What do you say?”

  The washing machine said nothing. It stood there, a useless wooden tub, with its hoses and belts, its cranks and levers. As foreign to me as a submarine. How did Mrs. Foster manage this thing? How did anyone?

  I was downstairs at home, in the room used for washing and ironing. A pile of laundry filled the basket by my feet. It was early, not yet five in the morning, but since I couldn’t sleep, I thought I might as well attempt the wash. I’d hoped to have some of my clothing cleaned—the bloodiest shirtwaists, the foulest coat—before I left for the hospital. The trouble was I’d never laundered anything before.

  I spent some time searching for an instruction manual. Rummaging about the worktable, I found an iron and a small wicker basket filled with needles and thread. Another basket held buttons and ribbons. Above the table, boxes of washing powder and stocking shampoo lined the shelves. Several shirts, draped across the back of a chair, needed mending. But no manual.

  Vexed, I studied the washer. The attached wringer looked ominous. I was afraid to go anywhere near it. Wasn’t there a girl once who’d caught her fingers in a washer wringer and had them torn right off? Two fingers. It was in all the newspapers. Maybe if I unplugged the washer cord from the socket and plugged it in again? I tried, gasping when a nasty jolt raced up my arm.

  “Stupid thing!” I cried, dropping the cord. Grabbing my blue coat from the basket, I flung it at the washer. It hit the tub, before slithering to the floor in a puddle of smelly wool.

  I gave up. Thoroughly defeated, I rubbed my arm and slunk upstairs to pour myself a bowl of cereal.

  “Are you sure you won’t change your mind?” Kate asked. “We have plenty of room.”

  “I can’t. I need to spend some time at home,” I said, smiling to soften my words. Ever since she’d learned what happened to Mrs. Foster, Kate had been trying to get me to stay with her family. I kept one hand loosely gripped on the steering wheel. “Jack might get through on the telephone. Or a courier might come by. I’d hate to miss them.”

  “But—”

  “Leave her be, Kate,” her sister Waverley said from the sidewalk. “She’s made up her mind.” The head nurse at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Waverley was a shorter, plumper, and more serious version of her younger sister.

  Kate sighed and gathered her bag and umbrella, joining her sister on the curb. “I’ll see you in the morning. Don’t be late, or I’ll worry.”

  I smiled. “I won’t.”

  Waverley held the passenger door open. “You’ll give Hannah my regards? Tell her I can spare a nurse or two if she still needs them.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  “And, Cleo?” Waverley glanced up at the late-afternoon sky, a washed-out gray that was slowly darkening to lead. “It looks like rain, but try to keep these windows open as much as possible.”

  I promised I would, and Waverley swung the door shut. The sisters disappeared into the hospital.

  St. Vincent’s was a dramatic-looking building, rising five stories off the ground, with arched windows and dormers lining the rooftop. Unlike the other city hospitals, it was isolated, located high up in the hills and surrounded by rolling fields and farmland. My mother had spent some time at St. Vincent’s, nearly eighteen years ago. I was born there.

  Rather than driving off, I leaned back and closed my eyes. Now that Kate was gone, there was nothing to distract me from my own thoughts and worries. I tried to rub the tiredness from my face. A crinkling sound emerged from my coat pocket. I tugged free the copy of Family Limitation that Kate had given me yesterday, written by the nurse in New York. Margaret Sanger. I’d forgotten it was there. I opened the leaflet and glanced at a random passage:

  IT SEEMS INARTISTIC AND SORDID TO INSERT A PESSARY OR A SUPPOSITORY IN ANTICIPATION OF THE SEXUAL ACT. BUT IT IS FAR MORE SORDID TO FIND YOURSELF SEVERAL YEARS LATER BURDE
NED DOWN WITH HALF A DOZEN UNWANTED CHILDREN, HELPLESS, STARVED, SHODDILY CLOTHED, DRAGGING AT YOUR SKIRT, YOURSELF A DRAGGED OUT SHADOW OF THE WOMAN YOU ONCE WERE.

  I straightened. Quickly, I flipped through the leaflet and read from the very beginning.

  WOMEN OF THE WORKING CLASS, ESPECIALLY WAGE WORKERS, SHOULD NOT HAVE MORE THAN TWO CHILDREN AT MOST. THE AVERAGE WORKING MAN CAN SUPPORT NO MORE AND THE AVERAGE WORKING WOMAN CAN TAKE CARE OF NO MORE IN DECENT FASHION. IT HAS BEEN MY EXPERIENCE THAT MORE CHILDREN ARE NOT REALLY WANTED, BUT THAT THE WOMEN ARE COMPELLED TO HAVE THEM EITHER FROM LACK OF FORESIGHT OR THROUGH IGNORANCE OF THE HYGIENE OF PREVENTING CONCEPTION . . .

  On and on Mrs. Sanger went, discussing condoms, sponges, douches, and pessaries. There were instructions. There was a picture of a woman’s womb. There was a periodical, the Birth Control Review, available through subscription for one dollar a year. Sixteen pages in all. Every one of them riveting. Of course I’d heard of condoms before, but only in a vague sort of way, accompanied by giggles and whispers among my schoolmates and Margaret in particular. There was nothing unclear about Family Limitation. Mrs. Sanger was so explicit that I felt myself turning red, even though there was no one else in the car.

  A door slammed. Startled, I shoved the leaflet into my coat pocket. I felt a seam rip. A car was parked in front of me, a familiar figure standing beside it. It was Mr. Lafayette, looking just as dignified and somber as he had that evening outside the Auditorium. Well, I amended with a bemused smile, looking just as dignified as a grown man could while clutching two rag dolls. I followed his gaze.