by Maria Riva
“After the war—time enough.” John rose.
Following him to the parlor, Ebbely murmured, “Just be loyal, John!”
When Ebbely stopped by her house to say good-bye, Jane felt it was somehow different from the many such times before. As the little taillight of his flivver disappeared in the haze of early morning, it was as if suddenly all of him was gone. Even Michael must have felt deserted—for he began to cry until she took his hand and walked back into the house.
18
By the time Jane stepped off the trolley it had begun to rain—a penetrating drizzle that seemed to herald yet another brutal winter. Hugging her cape, she tried to shield her Red Cross uniform. She had marched in a victory bond rally in the city, rolled bandages, then missed her trolley, and had to wait for the next—it had been a very long day.
Pulling her shawl closer across her chest, she rose from her chair, extinguished the lamp—and in a voice that sounded her exhaustion said good night to her husband. “Buonanotte, John.”
Looking up from his evening paper John replied, “Go ahead, you look tired—buonanotte, Ninnie—I’ll lock up.” She smiled her gratitude and went upstairs.
When he moved, she half-asleep, as accustomed turned onto her back accepting his weight. His hands gentled her face—one slender finger traced her mouth, descended to the hollow of her neck, where it remained, stroking lazily along the line of her collarbone as though hesitant of reaching the pleasure of her. Something stirred in the woman he was fondling and John felt it. A response so unexpected—so new it arrested his exploration of her. She moaned—that primal entreaty calling him to her, he entered her as though his need to explore her newness overpowered him and she gloried in it. During the night his hands once more caressed—first choosing her small breasts, pretending aimless direction as they slid down between her thighs and Jane reawoke to being woman.
In the morning, he was gone and she was lost. Utterly confused—slightly ashamed, even shocked … her body no longer an ally, now an incomprehensible stranger—Jane surveyed her nakedness as if it belonged to another woman she had yet to meet wondering who she might be. Hearing her children calling, she dressed quickly knowing that whatever had happened to her during the night would have to wait until she had the time to think it through. With legs strangely unsteady, stirring a memory quite shocking in its delight—she hurried to her daily duties.
Being a rare pie-making day she couldn’t avoid seeing Hannah unless she pretended one of the boys was ill—Jane never liked to tempt fate with such lies and so arrived at Hannah’s as expected. Having been admitted, hanging her and the children’s coats and hats on the hall tree, she called to Hannah back in her kitchen, “I’ll be right there. I’m just taking off my galoshes. I brought the apples,” and wondered why her voice sounded so girlish. Securing an imagined strand of hair back into her sensible bun, Jane entered the kitchen and Hannah dropped her rolling pin! Bending down to retrieve it hiding a smile, she murmured, “It’s de grease on my hands make it slip.” And without further explanation continued to roll out her dough. “You look nice, Ninnie—have a good night?”
Blushing Jane nodded.
Those nights when her husband explored her, she who had always found his hands beautiful—now savored their knowing touch—waited—heart pounding—breathless for that moment when his need of her overwhelmed—demanded her willingness to welcome him inside her—where his passion resided—and her loving began.
Those nights when work kept him from her—she sewed. Wanting him became the catalyst of her days until his return to claim what was his.
Riding along the riverbank John’s thoughts were of his wife. Jane’s surprising response had unsettled him. No, he corrected his thoughts—not actually unsettled—confused perhaps—certainly surprised. As the horse stumbled he pulled it up, steadying its gait. It was the feel of her that lingered—that clung, its memory too pleasant to be ignored as simply sexual. Women as such had never bothered him beyond the confines of enjoyment. Certainly a willing woman be she a professional or simply accessible, was a normal man’s bodily relaxation. Making love, that misnomer of all time—had never been a part of John’s sexual affiliations. Love was such an intangible emotion—so multifaceted as to its very origin, dependent on so many individual concepts as to its source that very often when love was used as convenient catalyst for sex it could impede the very enjoyment sought of it. For most men love really had a way of getting in the way of a vigorous enjoyable form of exercise needing no further impetus. To find sudden recognition of physical delight within his marriage rattled John sufficiently to shy away from the woman who had fostered it, seek out those who had gained his confidence by allowing the game to be played without interfering emotion. Adjusting his grip on the reins, John lit a cheroot. Shielding the flare of the match against the slight breeze coming from the river he heard its approach. Often when riding this stretch of the Rouge—he caught the soft rippling sound of the electric boat that Henry Ford had given his wife when their Fairlane estate was first completed. John had heard its silent gliding approach often, never taking much notice of its passing, its intended destination, nor who was its captain.
As Jane’s body yearned and waited, her mind forming excuses for John’s many absences—death prepared itself for a global feast.
It came, as death so often seems to enjoy, first disguised as casual discomfort. A slight fever, a minor headache, a rolling cough that though it seemed strangely persistent, all were to be expected at the end of a particularly raw September. From Boston, where he had entertained recruits at Camp Devens, Ebbely telephoned the Geiger house, sounding the first alarm.
“Fritz?”
“Ja, it’s me.” As all who need to speak in a language not their own, Fritz didn’t like talking to a face he couldn’t see.
“Fritz, listen to me and listen carefully …”
“Ebberhardt, Hannah is not here …”
“I don’t want to speak with Hannah …”
“Oh—why not?”
“Because what I have to say may frighten her—but it must be said, so please listen!”
“I’m listening.”
“Something very strange is happening here. Healthy young recruits are suddenly becoming ill, and no one knows why—the army doctors are going crazy. So many sick here—not enough cots, not enough sheets, they are lying in hallways, in the mess halls, everywhere—all as sick as dogs …”
“Why—Ebberhardt—what is it? Typhus?”
“No—nor cholera either, nor yellow fever. It’s like some monstrous pneumonia—but even that doesn’t fit—although the doctors think it could be because something like this has started in Spain. Fritz, just in the past twenty-four hours, there have been a hundred new cases and more than fifty deaths!”
“Deaths?!”
“Yes! Young men in the prime of life and remember they have been conditioned as fit soldiers—are dying as fast as exhausted personnel can strip the sheets, make up a cot to receive still another. And on top of that, they are shipping out a thousand men a week. It’s a nightmare here! Fritz, I have a feeling whatever this is, it may spread to the other camps—perhaps, even God forbid, into the cities … be careful—tell Hannah to get out her trusty barrel of vinegar and wash down everything!”
“Ah, come on! You talk like it’s the Black Death …”
Ebbely interrupted him by yelling, “Very, very like it! I warn you! Have the women be extra careful. Especially watch the children—this horror seems to target the young and healthy. I am leaving here tonight for Louisiana …”
“Ebberhardt—you’re okay?”
“For now, yes. Don’t worry for me. Just do as I say. And, Fritz! Watch for the signs! Have Hannah tell Jane and the others. First it appears like a bad grippe. High fever, sweating and so on. Then very, very quickly it’s like serious pneumonia, only worse. The lungs seem to drown in the
ir own phlegm and then … Death! It can take only hours! It’s unbelievable, Fritz—it’s bedlam here! Warn everybody—I’ll telephone again when I reach New Orleans.”
Half certain that Ebbely had exaggerated as was his style, Fritz returned the earpiece onto its hook, cranked the handle, wondered how much to tell Hannah.
Within weeks the killing rampage of what was now thought to be a previously unknown virulent strain of influenza was in full bloom. Cities were under siege, their populations sickening and dying at an alarming rate. Wherever people gathered—churches, schools, those factories not involved in war production—were shut down, those left in production replacing their stricken workforce whenever and from wherever possible. In the first months of what was quickly an acknowledged epidemic—Ford’s Highland Park plant needed to replace ten thousand men.
No one ventured into the streets without a homemade face mask—firemen, policemen, conductors, shopkeepers, clergy—by October, every man, woman and child wore this protection that couldn’t begin to protect them.
Philadelphia, out of coffins, had to instruct its citizens to leave their shrouded dead on the front steps for collection by the city’s roaming death carts. Undertakers overwhelmed, no longer able to perform their expected duties, stored their overflow in makeshift sheds.
Those cities hardest hit made do with communal graves, their trenchlike appearance a macabre reminder of another war being fought far away, where thousands of already infected American troops were arriving daily—soon the death count from influenza would outstrip that of war on all fronts.
As no medicine seemed to exist that could hold out any hope, desperate people began to concoct their own. Turpentine was sucked on sugar cubes, a brew of kerosene flavored with garlic and honey was tried. The more potent the smell, the more vile the taste, the more medicinal was the popular consensus, but nothing helped. One either died or for some inexplicable reason lived. There seemed to be no middle ground. In Chicago, a man claiming that he had found the cure cut the throats of his wife and children before slashing his own.
Many believed that with their use of mustard gas in war, Germans had already proven themselves to be monsters—it followed they were certainly capable of unleashing disease across the sea in order to destroy America on its home ground. Some barricaded themselves within what they mistakenly believed was the safety of their homes, others faced the inevitable, helped to nurse those in need—most did battle with death within their immediate families.
Her sodden lungs no longer able to cope, Carl’s Rosie died two hours before their child. As by now coffins were hard to come by, Carl buried his wife and daughter as one. At the age of only three, his Violet was small enough to fit snugly by her mother’s side. Quite lost without her twin, little Rose cried incessantly. At just thirty-three, a widower left with a small daughter to raise, Carl felt quite lost himself.
Zoltan buried his mother without ceremony—by October funerals as a whole were so numerous that the sheer necessity to get the dead underground took precedence over sanctified occasion.
With schools closed and adults too sick or too busy nursing, unsupervised, still healthy children played. Michael and his best friend, Gregory, thought climbing on caskets stacked on the latest sidewalk waiting for transport a lot of fun, until Jane, on her way to nurse Mrs. Nussbaum and her eldest daughter, scolded them—then they switched to the latest activity for children in many neighborhoods—a simple game, its rules requiring only the search and counting of front doors hung with crepe. Black crepe meant a grown-up had died within, white crepe—a child. As it was the hardest, whoever could find a crepe-less door won.
A light rain had made the white crepe limp the morning John took Michael to pay their respects to his best friend’s parents. Laid out in the parlor, his Sunday sailor suit making him appear quite smart, Gregory posed by the living, slept as though he could wake. Never having smelled death, Michael now had its fetid odor of warmed wax and formaldehyde imprinted onto memory. While Jane’s stirred to a time and place never forgotten, rarely revisited, mostly shunned.
Michael stayed properly attentive until the Gregorian chants had faded and the procession for viewing of the corpse was about to begin, then plucked at his father’s sleeve and urgently asked permission to leave. Holding hands, Jane and her son walked home in the rain.
With his best friend’s death, Michael began to wonder about his comforting theory of nondying worms. It had seemed so simple a solution; but now with Gregory gone, forever and ever loomed as a frightening possibility and he wasn’t so sure anymore if he or his mother was right. So many were gone, referred to as dead, that for the first time, Michael’s world tottered on the brink of uncertainty and he didn’t like it at all. Michael being what he was, believed life was supposed to be fun, full of wonders, exciting, adventure and all the sticky candy one could eat. Crying and worry, hushed whisperings, grown-ups being scared and sad was really very unsettling. Being all of nearly five and therefore grown-up in his opinion, Michael felt it his duty to set a good example—decided for now to be extra kind to all those who had someone gone forever but to pretend that Gregory was only on a journey and would return whenever he was able.
Jane always wondered how her firstborn managed to be so brave. He allowed her so little input into the formation of his character that she often felt as compliant outsider to one in no actual need of a parent. If she had been a clinging woman, this might have upset her, at least annoy her for the absence of control this afforded—but cloying motherhood did not suit Jane’s character. Despite restrictions, she was her own compass and as such admired those who thought for themselves, resolved their own confusion or at least attempted to gain a freedom from convention.
But then she was not to know Michael’s course had been charted and as such his time was limited, his impact on the lives affected by him therefore at a premium.
Morgana never did have to fully experience Serafina’s demonic prophecy, for while still a blushing bridegroom, her Emillian succumbed to influenza. A widow before a real wife, Morgana returned to Detroit and her father’s house to find a hysterical Serafina convinced nothing and no one could save her son from certain death. Without sleep or rest, Morgana nursed her sister’s child until he was out of danger. Having told no one she was with child—when she miscarried everyone assumed her ensuing weakness to be due to the grueling hours spent by Angelo’s bedside to achieve his resurrection.
Little Gloria, her eyes no longer pristine blue, already dimmed as though they knew what their host had yet to learn, died in her mother’s arms, before her father could reach home.
The death of Gloria affected Michael in ways not immediately apparent to those whose duty it was to be aware of them. At a time of great anxiety even good people lose their intuitive ability to fathom others’ needs. Later, when prodded by an insistent Michael, Johann explained his child’s departure as one resulting in permanent residence among angels. Hannah hugging him, murmured that his little friend was now happy sleeping among the stars, Fritz explained that the great sickness had taken Gloria as it had Gregory to a nonsuffering place. Home on leave, resplendent in aviator’s regalia, his uncle Rudy counseled him to remember his worm.
Michael’s first encounters with mortal death hurt so much it confused his once comforting theory of resurrection. For Gloria was not a worm and when taken to where she was buried, she remained beneath the marble angle placed there by weeping parents who seemed convinced she would stay where she had been put. Wherever everyone said Gloria was—Michael hoped she was okay—but wished she had been a worm, for then he would know exactly where to look and find her again. What worried him most was her enclosure. He didn’t like her being locked inside such a sturdy-looking thing. One night when John was home putting him to bed, Michael decided it was a good time to ask.
“Papa, why did Uncle Johann put Gloria in a box?”
“What? What are you talking abo
ut, Michael?”
“The box, Papa.”
“What about the box?”
“It’s so big, Papa! Maybe Gloria can’t get out! She’s very, very little, you know—littler than Gregory even.”
John put his arm around his son, pulling him to his side. “Michele,” John often spoke Italian when in intimate discussion with his firstborn. “You mustn’t be afraid. Do you know what a soul is? Has Mama explained this to you?”
“No. I don’t think Mama likes souls, but Uncle Rudy—he told me they are extra special and once Gregory said God made them, maybe.” Michael snuggled into the crook of his father’s arm. “You know, Papa? You know everything!”
“No, not everything. Your Uncle Rudy and Gregory—they are both right—a soul is so special only God knows how to make one, and when someone dies it is their soul that goes free …”
“Why?”
“Because only your body is dead—not the real person you are.” Eyes riveted on his father’s face, Michael swallowed a sigh. “Michelino, you mustn’t worry so! Death isn’t really bad. Some even think it must be beautiful—like a long sleep with no need to wake.”
“Oh, I know that, Papa … but …”
“No more buts—go to sleep. Don’t wake your brother.”
Left in the dark, snuggled down in his warm bed, Michael wondered if Gloria was cold, hoped she had already gotten out of her box and was gone to wherever souls lived.
This year the casual search for enjoyable fear was abandoned. With life and death playing their own ghoulish game of trick or treat, Halloween was unnecessary.
Jane woke more tired than when she had gone to bed exhausted. During the night it must have snowed for the intensified brightness of the morning light hurt her eyes. Dressing, seeing to the children, everything seemed such an effort, she gave in to their clamor to go out and play, returning to the kitchen that seemed overly hot, she shivered. Silly to feel so tired with the day just begun and so much to do, sinking onto a chair, Jane rested her head against the cooling surface of the kitchen table and without being aware of it slipped into oblivion. A half hour later Hannah found her semiconscious, drenched in sweat.