Place of Peace

by Debra Diaz

  The signs were unmistakable. It was typical for the onset to be swift and unexpected. Her head was bursting. Severe pains shot through her back; she began to shiver with a chill. No, there was no mistaking it.

  The problem was, she knew too much. She had seen first hand what this disease did to its victims, and a terror like nothing she had ever known swept upon her. Somehow she hadn’t really believed it could happen to her; she was young and healthy and strong. Somehow she had believed that Ethan wouldn’t let it happen …Ethan!

  He would want to take care of her. He would watch her change from the wife he loved into a gaunt, yellow hag…She thought of all the things that were about to take place within her body: the intense pain and discomfort, the high fever, the loss of bodily functions, the violent heaving and vomiting … Most people turned yellow or bronze, some bled from every orifice of the body, the eyes often turned fiery red, sometimes blisters or lesions broke out on the skin. Some people’s faces became so distorted they almost looked as though they were possessed by something evil, until death came and relaxed the awful expressions. And the odor, that indescribable smell of rot…

  She even knew some of the technical aspects of the disease from having listened to Ethan and his friends. The tissues “degenerated”; there was “dissolution of the major organs”; the “ejection of disintegrated blood”; “cerebral damage”. Not only was it horrific in the physical sense, it was the total loss of all dignity and personhood.

  Please God, she thought desperately, I can’t let him see me that way. I won’t let him watch me die like that. His last memories of her must not be filled with such horror. Of course, she might not die. But there was no telling what she might do or say in her delirium, and he would never be able to forget…

  She would leave. She would go somewhere, anywhere. She had to think, before her mind grew cloudy. Genny paced around the room and finally yanked open a drawer of the small desk, taking out paper and a pen. She made herself sit down and write, though her hand shook uncontrollably.

  “Dear Ethan, I pray you will forgive me. I know I have the fever, and I am going away; I will find a good nurse. I will have Tobe take me away from here, and I will make him promise not to let you know where I am. Ethan, I cannot bear to know that you might watch me suffer and perhaps die so dreadful a death. Tobe will let you know what happens to me, when it is time…With all my heart, I love you. Genny.”

  She didn’t know how she was going to make Tobe promise to help her, for she knew he liked Ethan and might believe his allegiance was due more to her husband than to her. But if he wouldn’t help her, she would go away by herself; perhaps she would be one of those who dropped dead in the street…

  Someone tapped on the door, and such was her nervous state that she knocked over the inkwell and jumped to her feet. She rushed to the door and opened it to see Tobe standing in the corridor, his battered hat in his hand.

  “You ‘bout ready to go, Miz Carey?” he inquired, and looked at her strangely.

  “Come in here, Tobe.”

  His eyes grew wider but he stepped inside the door.

  “You don’t look so good,” he said, his brow furrowed with apprehension.

  “You have to take me somewhere,” she said, running her hand over her face and trying to concentrate. “I know of a nurse I met at the city hospital — she was called away to take care of someone in a private home. It’s a good ways from here, near a place called Big Creek. Oh yes, you know where it is. You drove us there.”

  “Miz Carey, are you tellin’ me – ”

  “Yes,” she said impatiently. “I have the fever. And you’re not to tell my husband.”

  His look of uneasiness changed to one of horror. “No, ma’am, I don’t got to take you nowhere but straight to the hospital. Dr. Carey — ”

  “Tobe, who hired you when you had no job and no money and nowhere to go?”

  “Well, you did, but — ”

  “You owe me this one thing,” she said, hating to put the old man in such a spot but she could see no other way to convince him. “Surely you can understand. I don’t want him to watch me suffer. I cannot bear it, I cannot get well if I know that he’s there, trying to take care of me. I know what I must do, I know what medicines to take. You can get them for me. And you’ll stay there until — well, until whatever is going to happen, happens. It might take six or seven days at the most.”

  “Miz Carey, you sick. You not thinkin’ right. Dr. Carey might be the only one that knows what to do for you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I won’t have it. Tobe, if you don’t do this for me I’ll go off by myself, and then Dr. Carey will sure enough be mad at you for letting me go.”

  The man said, after a moment, “Yes’m, he would, even madder then if I was to go with you.”

  “And you have to swear you won’t come back and tell him where I am. Until it’s … it’s over.”

  Tobe stood looking at the distraught woman before him. Loyalty to his employers had always been a strong part of his nature, and in the short space of time he had known the Careys he had come to like and respect them … even though Mrs. Carey had a tendency to be a little bossy. Her illness shocked and saddened him.

  “Yes’m. I swear.”

  Too sick and scared to be relieved, Genny turned back to the desk. “I’m going to write down some things for you to buy. You know there’s only one store left open now and it’s on Main Street. Or you could try the drugstores. And when we get to the house, you mustn’t leave it. You mustn’t go anywhere that Dr. Carey will see you. I’m sure you can find something to do to keep you busy.”

  “Yes’m.”

  She wiped up the spilled ink with the edge of her dress; what did it matter what her dress looked like? What were the things Ethan used to treat his patients…She wrote “lemons, sugar, honey, bicarbonate of soda…” Her handwriting was so shaky she wondered if the clerks would be able to read it.

  She handed the list to Tobe and grabbed some bills out of her reticule. “Please,” she said, putting her hand to her head, feeling that her eyeballs would burst, “would you get my shawl out of the closet? I’m so cold.”

  He did so, and asked, “Ain’t you gonna take any clothes with you, Miz Carey?”

  “What do I need clothes for? Let’s just go.”

  * * * *

  The nurse took one of Genny’s arms and Tobe the other, leading her into the house. It was a two-story frame house, removed from the city and surrounded by fields, and beyond them a forest stretched as far as the eye could see. A barn and a chicken coop, both built with old, unpainted wood, stood behind the house. Hens scratched busily in the dirt. Two cows were eating hay beneath a lean-to next to the barn.

  Genny’s fever had gone so high she couldn’t speak; she sat down dazedly on a bench in the hallway. Tobe looked around, trying not to show his revulsion at the smell permeating the house.

  “Mornin’, Miss Vann,” he said, removing his hat and thinking, not for the first time, that the woman had the saddest eyes he’d ever seen. “Sorry to come in on ya this way.”

  “It’s all right, Tobe. Oh, Genny, I am so very sorry. You must go and lie down.”

  “She says you would take care of her,” Tobe explained. “She don’t want nobody to know she’s here. Are there sick folks here?”

  “They’re all dead, except for the wife. She’s upstairs. We buried the husband and their son and his wife. There’s a man who works here, takes care of the place. He lives in the barn. Are you going to stay here?”

  “If that’s all right, ma’am.”

  “We can certainly use the help. Why doesn’t Miss Genny want anyone to know she’s here?”

  “Miss Vann, she a stubborn woman and she got her own ideas. She don’t want her husband to see her so sick, and mebbe die.”

  “Well, then, help me get her upstairs. Mrs. Pannell is still very weak and so distraught about her family that she probably won’t even realize anyone is here.”

&nb
sp; “I am mighty sorry. Lot of heartache these days.”

  They half carried Genny up the stairs and into one of the bedrooms. Tobe couldn’t leave the house fast enough, hurrying outside to unload the wagon. They had brought food as well as medicines … enough to last at least a week. Vann helped Genny out of her clothes, leaving on her chemise and a light petticoat, and covered her with blankets.

  “We must get your fever down, my dear.”

  “I brought some things,” Genny managed to say, her teeth chattering. “You will know what to do. Things my husband did. I tried to write it down.”

  “I know what to do. But you must want to live, Genny. You mustn’t be like Mrs. Pannell. She’s given up.”

  “I do,” Genny gasped, as an excruciating pain ripped through her stomach. “I do … want … to live.”

  * * * *

  Stunned, Ethan read the note a second time. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and experienced much the same emotions as Genny had. Disbelief, denial, dread.

  He shouldn’t be surprised that she had contracted the disease; she had as good a chance to do so as anyone else. But he’d had too much confidence in her overall good health … and too much confidence in his own ability to protect her and, if need be, to treat her and help her to recover. Now she was gone, he could do nothing for her, and he had no idea where to start searching.

  He got up and looked wildly around the room. She had taken nothing with her. As many places as there were to go, she and Tobe might as well have disappeared off the face of the earth. He tried to think whom she might know, someone she might have mentioned by name, but he could think of no one.

  All right, then. He would go to the Howard office and inquire where their nurses were; perhaps Genny had found one of them to help her. He would ask them all to be on the watch for her whenever they went out. He would ask every doctor and nurse he could find to watch for her. He would search the city’s hospitals and churches, he would go door to door until he found her…

  Abruptly, music floated into the profound silence of the hotel; the violinist was walking slowly down the hallway. Someone had told Ethan and Genny that the musician was a member of an orchestra, who had been visiting Memphis when the fever struck. His family had been with him and they were now dead. It was said that he never spoke, never left the hotel, and once every few days he would take out his violin and play, with his great skill unaffected … or perhaps too greatly affected … by his ineffable sorrow. It was a hymn this time … what was the name of it?

  Rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee…

  How many times Ethan had heard that song sung in his father’s church! Now it seemed like an omen, but whether for good or ill he didn’t know. He listened to the haunting, vibrating beauty of the hymn and felt calmed somehow; he sat down at the desk, noticing how Genny must have spilled the ink when she was writing her note to him. His heart clenched at the thought. How frightened and unnerved she must be!

  It was just past noon. He’d walked back to the hotel when Genny had failed to appear at the Mansion. She had seemed well enough when he left this morning; she had looked tired, but everybody looked tired. Now he blamed himself. He was a doctor, he should have known…

  He wondered if she had visited a drug store. He would check those, too; there were only three left open in the entire city. Where else might she have gone to get supplies? He had to think, he had to overcome his fear and fatigue and clear his mind. He needed a horse; he would borrow one from one of his Howard friends.

  She couldn’t have gone far, because if she was exhibiting symptoms she was already quite sick. Tobe wouldn’t get far with a sick woman in tow.

  He was going to find her.

  * * * *

  Before running down to the kitchen to get some clean towels, Vann had recorded Genny’s temperature at a hundred and five degrees. Genny writhed and thrashed on the bed; she got up and tried to walk, stumbling; she tried to raise the water pitcher from the basin on the dresser to her lips. Vann rushed into the room and took it from her.

  “Honey, you know if you drink all that water at once it will kill you. Get back into the bed. I’ll bring you some lemonade.”

  “No,” said Genny. “I won’t.”

  “Tobe!” shouted the nurse.

  Tobe dashed from down the hall, where he’d been sitting with Mrs. Pannell. Together they put Genny back into bed and covered her, just before she began vomiting. Her mind in a fog, Genny barely realized what was happening. She didn’t really care.

  * * * *

  Two days had gone by and Ethan felt he was no closer to finding Genny than the day he’d found her note. He and Dr. Mitchell and a few other physicians he knew had contacted the Howard Association, the Citizen’s Relief Committee, the Masons and every other organization he knew about to be on the lookout for her; all the well people in town were watching for either her or Tobe. Their descriptions were rather unique, Genny being of striking appearance, and Tobe being a small, elderly black man with gray hair and a missing front tooth. No one had seen Genny, though two clerks, one at a drug store and one at the grocery store, remembered selling items to someone who fit Tobe’s description.

  A man who worked at the city hospital knew of a nurse who had befriended Genny, someone known as Vann. The nurse had been asked to go to a private home, but the only person who knew where she’d gone was now dead of the fever.

  Each morning he’d ridden out on his borrowed horse and headed to a different neighborhood, looking for any sign of Tobe, the wagon, the decrepit horse. And always he stopped to help someone, to go into a house, a church, one of the infirmaries. He was needed everywhere, and even his zeal to find Genny could not keep him from responding to the stricken. He found it impossible to refuse to help them. Each night it was into the morning hours when he returned to the hotel; he got very little sleep. He bathed but didn’t take time to shave. His eyes were bloodshot and he knew he was perilously close to exhaustion.

  On the second day he passed by St. Mary’s and went inside, walking down the main aisle among the empty pews. There were doors just beyond the altar, but before he reached the front one of them opened and a man in a dark suit and white collar came out. He was rumpled and harried-looking, and he gazed at Ethan in surprise.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  “Are you Reverend Dalzell?”

  “No, I’m Reverend White. I’ve come here from Ohio — I’ve been helping out at the other churches and sometimes come by here to see what I can do. I’m afraid Mr. Dalzell is occupied elsewhere. Is there something I can do for you?”

  “I’m looking for my wife. I believe some of my associates have already been here to inquire. She has the fever. Her name is Virginia Carey, though she could be using another name. Perhaps Stuart. She’s five feet and four or five inches, blonde hair, blue eyes, twenty years old. She has refined features, and is well educated. Have you seen her?”

  “Why, no, I’ve seen no one quite like that. But someone did inquire for her, yes. From the Howard Association, I believe. I am sorry. Are you Dr. Ethan Carey?”

  “Yes, I am. How did you know?”

  “Sister Ruth has spoken of you most highly.”

  “Thank you, Reverend. How is Sister Ruth?”

  The priest glanced away for a moment, and Ethan knew the look. “Oh, no,” he said softly.

  Reverend White replied, “She is very ill. She gave all she had to others, and she has nothing left, no strength nor will to fight.”

  “May I see her?”

  “She will not see anyone. She wants only to see our Lord, and that might happen very soon.”

  “Perhaps I can help her.”

  “She is in God’s hands. If you don’t mind my asking, Dr. Carey, how did you come to be separated from your wife, and why would she be using another name?”

  Ethan ran his hand through his hair and swayed for a moment. Immediately the priest took his arm. “Sit down, please, Doctor.”

  Ethan
sat on one of the pews; the priest sat sideways, facing him, on the pew in front of him.

  “You’ve seen the foul nature of this disease, Reverend, and the loss of dignity, of control. My wife knew I would be the one taking care of her, and she didn’t want me to see her that way. She didn’t want me to watch her suffer. She went away seeking someone else to take care of her, and I don’t know if she found anyone or what has become of her.”

  “Ah, you have my deepest sympathy. But one can understand her feelings.”

  “She shouldn’t have done it,” Ethan said raggedly. Days of frustration and repressed anger were taking their toll. “I could have saved her.”

  “Could you?”

  “By God, yes! I wouldn’t have let her die. This disease has no cure … all you can do is alleviate the symptoms, and try to raise the body’s natural defenses. You talk to people in a certain way and make them believe they’re going to live. I have lost very few patients, Reverend.”

  “And when you do lose them, it is an affront to you, is it not?”

  Ethan almost glared at the priest. “What do you mean?”

  “I have met many doctors, some very humble, but in order to be a doctor, especially a surgeon, there must be a supreme self-confidence … a certain ego, shall we say. It is an admirable thing to desire to help others. But at the same time such an intellect, such a gift, may cause one to depend too much upon oneself. You are not God, Dr. Carey.”

  Ethan fought for control; he was furious. “No, I am not God, and if I were I would not be torturing innocent women and children!”

  Where did that come from? He thought he had settled all this; he thought he had reconciled himself to whatever God allowed to happen.

  “Disease entered the world because of sin, Dr. Carey. And the sin of pride is one of the most insidious, most subtle and yet the most heinous of all sins. It was, after all, the sin of Lucifer. I am not saying that this is your particular weakness, sir. But when you swore just now, it led me to believe that you are angry with God, and that — perhaps — you feel you could do a better job of ruling the universe.”