Strange Bird (2013)

by Anna Jansson

  “Yes, it’s really bad. I’ve seen the garbage. It’s frightening,” said Morgan, rubbing his swollen cheek where a stone had struck him at the disturbance at Klinte School.

  Asa leaned back in the chair with a heavy sigh. “When Malin Berg’s neighbors said they were sure she hadn’t left her apartment all day Sunday, I really wanted to believe that. It was a relief to be able to let go and focus on something else at least as important, producing medication, nothing less. In the present situation we would need to give medicine for prophylactic purposes to the whole population, and preferably start mass vaccinations all over the country if we’re going to have a chance.”

  “The Minister of Public Health actually promised a vaccine for everyone back in February, when the emergency preparedness plan was presented,” Morgan added.

  “Laughable, if it wasn’t so serious. In the current situation we would need to vaccinate the entire population twice, that means eighteen million doses. Of course he didn’t say anything about where that vaccine would come from.” Asa sighed again and rubbed her throbbing temples.

  “No, it was pure bullshit to keep people calm. Calm! If there’s anything that creates confusion it’s mixed messages. The newspapers reported at the same time that it takes from six months to a year to produce a safe vaccine, and once it’s available that doesn’t mean we can buy it. The producing countries will most likely vaccinate their own populations first. I’m sure that’s why we’re not getting clear answers from them. What do we do now? What’s the best possible way to meet the new situation with the disastrously meager resources we have?” Jonathan heard his voice rising to a shout. His anger at the overwhelming situation was causing him to come close to losing control.

  “This is still about trying to avoid panic,” said Asa. “First and foremost we have to keep people calm and help them follow the directives we provide. I have nightmares about this, believe me.”

  “There must be a way to get more administrative personnel to help acquiring and coordinating resources. Retired medical secretaries, nurses, unemployed nursing assistants. In a situation like this it must be possible to order them in, not just in the event of war or force majeure.” Morgan, who usually seemed to be daydreaming or half asleep, had in recent days shown a new sharpness and intensity. As if he had been on the back burner for years waiting for a moment when he’d be needed in full capacity, Jonathan thought.

  The most burning issue other than procuring medication and personnel concerned hospital beds.

  “The sanitarium is not big enough if there’s a mass epidemic. We need functional premises, oxygen, beds. I don’t know how we’ll reach the staff on sick leave. People are afraid of infection and are staying home. There will be total collapse if we don’t manage to do something about the work ethic. Those who are working now can’t keep going indefinitely.” Jonathan visualized Agneta’s tired face and felt a lump in his throat. He had to find time to talk with her. Once this meeting was over nothing would intervene.

  “Years ago, when tuberculosis was raging, people still went to work,” said Morgan. “But those were different times, there was a different respect for authority and it was considered honorable to think of others and forget yourself.”

  “You didn’t get paid and you didn’t have a livelihood if you didn’t work. Although it doesn’t seem politically correct to say that.” Asa let out a short laugh, which was more like a coughing fit. “You either starved or died from TB.”

  “If there is an opportunity for relatives to take home their elderly, we can make use of those facilities. I was thinking about St. Goransgarden, Mariahemmet to start with,” said Jonathan. “But they’re in developed areas and that involves a risk. The best is if we can use facilities in the country.”

  “I’ve been in contact with a representative for the county funeral directors just this morning,” said Asa. “They fear that there will be problems taking care of all the dead. There isn’t enough refrigerated space and their employees don’t know how to protect themselves against infection. We have to consider that aspect too, ASAP. The relatives don’t know whether they can have a funeral or whether the deceased can still infect them, and so on. Information is needed. Do you think you can take care of that, Morgan?”

  “May I interrupt you a moment?” A nurse was standing in the doorway. “The county governor is on the phone, Asa. Can you take the call?”

  “We’ll need to have another meeting with the crisis management board tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock in my office,” she said, turning toward her colleagues.

  Jonathan heard the knock on the door, but did not respond. There was another knock and he murmured to wait while he put on his mask.

  “There’s a woman looking for you. Her name is Maria Wern. Can you speak with her?” It was Lena’s voice inside the protective get-up this time.

  “Yes, I’m coming in a moment.” Jonathan went up to the sink and rinsed his face in cold water, looked at himself in the mirror and moaned audibly. His face was blotchy and his eyes were swollen. For once it felt good to put on the mask. In the conversation with Agneta he had not been the strong one. He tried to say something, but his voice disappeared in tears and she said the words he needed to hear most of all, that it was not his fault, that he had truly done his best. Afterward he was ashamed.

  When Jonathan appeared on the other side of the glass wall, Maria stood up and came to meet him in the room set up for conversation. A room with an open fireplace, a simple lounge suite with large windows that looked over the level area below the sanitarium.

  “I heard about Zebastian.” She said no more before she suddenly fell into his arms and he had to mobilize all his strength not to take the consolation he himself needed so much, cross the boundary of what was appropriate and let his body live its own life. He took hold of her shoulders and pushed her gently away to be able to see her eyes above the mask.

  “How is Emil taking it?” he asked.

  “He’s sad, but he can talk about it. I came to tell you that Malte and your mother are at my house right now. She is spending the night and taking care of both kids. Nina is somewhere in the hospital. I don’t know how she’s doing. I mean, I can’t tell whether she’s sick or whether she drank too much, or how serious it is.”

  “Thanks, I don’t know how I can—”

  “I would like to stay with Emil tonight. I know that your policy is that parents can’t stay, but he needs me now. I have to be with him, please don’t deny me that.” Maria’s eyes got large and round and flooded over. “I have to be with him. His fever has gone up and … there’s still no medicine to give him, is there? What’s going to happen, Jonathan? I’m scared and I see that you’re scared, too. That frightens me even more.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Yes. Why isn’t any help coming from outside? Other countries must have emergency supplies to help us. From pure instinct for self-preservation, if nothing else. Why isn’t anything happening?” Maria could hear that her voice had become accusatory and hard. She noticed that he pulled back, crossed his arms over his chest, and avoided her eyes.

  “Administrative mills grind slowly. We have a semi-promise to get a small quantity of medication when they start up production again. But it’s not going to be enough for everyone. Not by a long shot. We would need medication for the entire population of Gotland as long as the bird flu persists.”

  “By the time it has been produced and we finally get it here, how many will have become sick? How many are going to die, is there any prognosis for that? I’m sorry, Jonathan, I see that you’re tired. It’s not my intention to … but I’m so worried that I don’t really know what I’m saying. Forgive me.”

  “Stay with Emil tonight, but don’t tell anyone. We don’t have room for the parents that want to sleep over with their children, no protective equipment or bedding, and the risk of infection is imminent for you too, you realize that?”

  “I realize that, but I need to do this.” She opened h
er arms again to give him a hug and this time he let himself be embraced. There was consolation in her gentleness, in the warmth and also in the tears.

  “I read a book about the plague last summer,” she said when she had calmed down and was seated on the couch. “It sounded mostly like an exciting fairy tale. I never thought about it as the reality of living people. Maybe you can’t understand history without experiencing it. That’s why mistakes are repeated over and over. It’s not just about reason. The author had a theory that the plague spread so quickly because people fled from death. They didn’t know that they were infected themselves and so it spread like wildfire. That is exactly the mistake you’re trying to prevent by closing the island’s borders. Is there going to be a VIP line out of here for those who can pay for it? I heard that the Cabinet is going to be evacuated early tomorrow morning, it was announced on the news. Who else?”

  “I don’t know, Maria, I’m just an ordinary doctor. Those kinds of decisions are far above my head.” He could not keep from touching a strand of her hair that had fallen down on her face, he caressed it and let it glide between his thumb and index finger. “Go now. I think you’ll find a mattress in the closet in the room, but unfortunately we’re out of blankets.”

  Maria got up and went toward the door, where she remained standing a moment without really being able to get out what she wanted to say. He looked at her searchingly. Wondered if she was smiling behind her mask or if she was going to start crying again.

  “I like you, Jonathan Eriksson, I just wanted to say that, that is … hmm, that sounded really stupid.”

  “I like you too, Maria.”

  The room was in darkness. Only a small nightlight was shining over Emil’s bedside table. He had kicked off the blanket. His forehead was shiny and his bangs swept back and sweaty, yet his skin was covered in goose bumps. Maria held back an impulse to hug him. He might wake up and he needed to sleep. He must have sensed her presence anyway and opened his eyes.

  “It’s just me, Emil. I’m sleeping here with you tonight.”

  “Am I going to die now, Mom?”

  “No, don’t talk like that.”

  “Parents can only be here if you’re going to die.”

  “I got special permission from Jonathan to be here, even though you’re not that sick, but it’s a secret. We can’t tell anyone.”

  “I saw Zebastian. He came and sat down right there on the chair where you’re sitting now. He didn’t say a thing, he just sat there.”

  “Did you dream that? Did you think it was creepy?”

  “I didn’t dream it. I saw him, although he was little—no bigger than a first-grader. I asked how he got here. If he flew. And then he laughed. Not so you could hear it, but I saw that he was laughing. I didn’t get scared, I was happy about that. He didn’t look sick. He looked like he always does. I wonder what it’s like when you’re dead. If you’re a kind of vapor, if you can decide for yourself if you want to be fog or a person or like a cloud that can be whatever—an old man’s face with a big nose or a witch or a cream cake or a skinny beam that can go through a keyhole. I wonder if you decide for yourself where you’ll be when you’re dead. Then I want to be away from here. What do you think, Mom?”

  “I hope that we are, that we exist I mean, because I hope that people can meet again when they’ve died. I would like to see my grandmother Vendela again. I loved her so much. At the end she was very forgetful and confused, but still kind. I would like to see her the way she was when I was little and I would crawl up in her lap and nothing felt scary.”

  “Do you think it’s scary now, Mom?”

  “Well, Emil, this isn’t at all how I wanted this summer to turn out.”

  “If you’re afraid, Mom, you can sleep next to me. I’m a little cold. Will that make it better?” She heard him laughing behind the mask.

  “Yes, that will make it better.”

  When Emil fell asleep Maria curled up on the lumpy mattress on the floor. It was cold even though she had her jacket on and the window frames in the old building creaked eerily when the wind blew. Here Emil had been lying alone listening to the sounds.

  Now when Maria no longer felt his warm body against hers worry came over her without mercy. His fever was higher now. He was like a stove, yet he was cold. Maria asked to speak with Jonathan again, but the nurse said that he was sleeping. He had to sleep the few hours in order to cope the next day. And of course Maria understood that, although the worry made her twist and turn on the mattress and listen to every breath from the boy. He was breathing much too fast. He tossed and turned and whimpered in his sleep, raving about Zebastian. Maria got up and felt his forehead. He was sweating profusely, but did not feel cooler. She tried to calm herself but could not stay still. She walked back and forth in the room and finally stood by the window. She looked out over the garden, lit up by moonlight. A white coat fluttered between the trees. Jonathan. On his way to one of the barracks. How long had he been able to rest before he was wakened, two hours, maybe three? I like you a lot, Jonathan Eriksson, can you feel it? Can you feel my hand on your back and my arm around your shoulders when you need strength?

  Maria had tried to call Krister earlier in the evening to vent her worries, but he had not been receptive. Just drunk and stupid and cowardly as usual.

  “Do you understand that this is serious, that your son is sick?” she’d asked him. Then he had reversed himself and became tearful and childish and ridiculous and needed a thousand assurances that everything would be fine again. He would never be bigger than that. Now when she really needed him he was not even in any shape to look after Linda.

  Maria saw the headlights from a car on its way to the sanitarium. As it drove past the parking lot and up toward the barracks where Jonathan had gone at a jog, Maria saw in the glow from the streetlight that it was an ambulance without flashing lights and sirens. Two persons in what looked like spacesuits went into the building and came back after a little while with someone lying on a stretcher. Jonathan followed with an IV bottle in his hand. She saw him walk slowly across the courtyard as the car left the area at high speed. He looked lonely. His head was hanging. She wished he would look up toward the window, that he would see her and know that she was thinking about him. If he even cared about that.

  Slowly the hours crept toward dawn. By two o’clock there was already a lighter tone in the sky. Maria could not sleep when worry was rushing in her blood making her fingers tingle. Convulsively she opened and clenched her ice-cold hands. The tension headache made her feel nauseated. Good Lord, let Emil get better. Nothing else is important. Emil and Linda, if we only get out of this torment alive I’m going to be a much better mother. I’ll spend more time with my children and never quarrel with them about trifles and I will never …

  What would happen if a bird flu epidemic advanced across the island with full force? How many would get sick then? How many would survive? Would you dare go places where people gathered? You would have to go to work, of course, and to the store. There would be long lines for everything if almost all the workers in the grocery stores were bedridden. If healthcare personnel could no longer come to work or were caring for their own sick relatives what would be done with all the sick and dead? All the old people who needed care? How would anyone dare leave their children at daycare and then at school? Who would dare ride a bus where everyone was breathing the same air and sitting close together, or go to concerts, or to an athletic event? And if the contagion spread further over the rest of Sweden and Europe—what would happen to food supplies when we’ve made ourselves so dependent and no longer produce our own food? There was something to what Arvidsson always said, that he intended to invest in pension insurance in the form of chickens and potatoes and his own woodstove and his own water. Well, maybe not chickens—but there was something to it. Maria sat carefully on the edge of Emil’s bed and leaned her head against his back. If only you get better, my love, nothing else in the world really matters.

  Ch
apter 26

  When morning came, Emil’s fever was almost gone and Maria could no longer stay with him. A mouth protector is effective for eight hours and the supply was limited. Although she pleaded and cried and begged to stay, now it was someone else’s turn to sit with their child. Nurse Agneta promised to call if there was any change.

  So Maria was at work when she heard the news. The TV was on in the staff room and everyone had gathered to hear the newest update. Maria remained standing with her coffee cup in hand and screamed out loud when she heard: access to medicine was secured. Viktoria Hammar was shown in a close-up. She smiled into the camera and her smile was like the sun as she relayed that a large shipment of an effective medication, Tamivir, had been received that very morning, which would be distributed through Vigoris Health Center in consultation with the county disease control officer. Approved and ready. Vigoris Health Center could also supply an effective vaccine.

  “I can’t believe it! Shouldn’t it take at least six months to produce a vaccine?” The reporter’s eager face was glimpsed from the side.

  “We did not dare release the news before we were completely sure that the vaccine would work on the epidemic that has just broken out on Gotland. Fortunately this is the same virus that caused problems in Vietnam and then in Belarus a year ago. The company that manufactured Tamivir went bankrupt and our corporate group then bought up the patent and the medicine in the warehouse because the epidemic died out on its own. We had vaccine production of our own previously, but there was no mass vaccination either and there was a considerable quantity of vaccine remaining.”