Eutopia - A novel of terrible optimism

by David Nickle

  Mr. Harper blinked at him, as though this fact had been just presented him and somehow altered everything.

  “My God, Dr. Waggoner, have I misread you? Do you wish to depart Eliada? I would not blame you if it were the case.”

  Andrew knew there was a part of him for whom that was the case. But it was only a small part—the part of him that had been afraid of leaving his father’s home for continental Europe, the part of him that would have settled for clinic work in Harlem rather than take a train to the wilderness of northern Idaho. And that part had not had much say in how Andrew lived his life for many years.

  “I would be a fool not to fear the noose,” he said. “But I have not offered my resignation either.”

  “I’m glad,” said Mr. Harper. “It is too easy for civilized men to turn away when faced with depravity. When I said earlier that I was ashamed, it is to that which I referred. When I came here those seven years past, to carve this town out of the hills, I did not intend to make just another haven for depravity. When I made the decision to hire a Negro physician to tend to people, it was not to bring him to slaughter. And although I am well glad to see you here and alive, I did not intend to taint Eliada’s soil with the blood of my workers.”

  Mr. Harper looked at Andrew expectantly. He’d delivered the whole speech in the manner of exactly that: a speech, written and well-rehearsed as for a university pageant, or from the stump in an election. This was a thing that Garrison Harper had done more than once since they had met. That first night over cigars and brandy, he had held forth uninterrupted for nearly three-quarters of an hour on his plans to create a paradise for workers and owners alike in Eliada: a community devoid of strife and class warfare where men happily lifted their tools at sunrise and set them down again at sunset, not once tempted by Bolshevism or bad morals—and on and on. It was a rich man’s habit, not, in this instance, shared by Andrew’s father. Of course, Andrew’s father was new to the game of wealth, and so did not have the generations of breeding that had so infected the talk of the Harper men.

  “You didn’t tie the rope,” said Andrew.

  “No,” said Mr. Harper, “but I might as well have loaded and aimed the guns. Why did I agree to have the Pinkertons of all people come here? This is not how I imagined my legacy.”

  “They’re hard men, no doubt of that. And they left three would-be murderers dead, without trial. But if they hadn’t been there, it would have been two innocent men dead.” Andrew took a breath. “I’d like to thank Mr. Green and his men for their aid.”

  “For that,” said Mr. Harper, “you’ll have to wait. I sent Mr. Green away.” He looked at Andrew, and noting something in his expression, hastily added, “I didn’t dismiss him. He’s off to Bonner’s Ferry. To collect my daughter and her friend, along with some visitors that Dr. Bergstrom is entertaining. Have you met Ruth?” Andrew reminded him that he had arrived in the autumn, some time after Miss Harper had departed for school. “Well. She’s a wonder. When you’re able, you must join us. Perhaps we’ll have our spring picnic soon, if the weather holds—in the orchards.”

  “That would be fine,” said Andrew. It was good, if baffling, to see this rich white man talk so easily about introducing him to his daughter. “I would enjoy that, thank you.”

  “Excellent.” Mr. Harper clapped his hands onto his knees and started to rise. “Have you finished your supper? No? I will leave it. Is there anything else you need?”

  “One thing,” he said. “Have you looked in on the patient?”

  “The patient?”

  “The one some fellows here call Mister Juke. Your men rescued him along with myself.”

  “Oh,” he said. “No. I haven’t.”

  “He has been here some time, I understand,” said Andrew. Harper stood hands in his pockets, no longer meeting Andrew’s eye.

  “Yes. Dr. Bergstrom has been most charitable with that one.” Mr. Harper shook his head, and smiled as though recalling a private joke. “One of the doctor’s many admirable qualities. Qualities with which,” he added, stepping toward the door, “you will have ample opportunity to acquaint yourself in the coming months and years. I am so glad you have elected to remain a part of our project. I will go see Dr. Bergstrom now, to make sure we are all of that same understanding.”

  “Thank you,” said Andrew.

  But Garrison Harper had already fled the room. Pondering the speed of his departure, Andrew wondered, did Harper know about Juke’s irregularities?

  He took another bite of chicken and as he chewed, he reflected on that and other matters arising from their visit. He was glad enough to be still employed. But he was confounded by the deepening mystery of this strange creature that could survive a hanging. A hanging that some men in sheets thought due him, on account of the alleged rape of Maryanne Leonard. What, Andrew wondered, was the precise nature of the patient Mister Juke?

  Ask Dr. Bergstrom, Sam Green had told him. Never mind, Dr. Bergstrom had told him. And as for Garrison Harper? The man, with whom all responsibility in Eliada ultimately rested, was too spooked to say anything at all. Andrew set his fork down and pushed the dining table aside.

  It was a mystery, there in that quarantine. He could not let go of it.

  Andrew Waggoner winced as he swung his feet over the side of the bed. When he settled his weight on them, he wanted to scream. But he held it in, for nearly a minute, before he flopped back onto the bed, bathed in new sweat and breathing in hitching gasps. Pain was a message from the body to the mind—a message that a fellow failed to heed at his peril. Andrew knew this.

  But Andrew also knew that if he was smart about it and had a good enough reason, a fellow could ignore pain all the same. It was just, thought Andrew as he gasped air and felt the tears welling out, a matter of will.

  8 - The Lesson of Minos

  The hospital at Eliada was busiest Mondays, but as Sam Green pointed out, it stood to be busy any day the mill was running and men were engaged in the dangerous profession of sawing up trees for lumber. Tonight was Tuesday, and the Pinkerton man would not offer any guarantees.

  “Mondays are bad because men are coming off their weekend drunks,” said Sam Green. “But it doesn’t matter. Drunk or sober, they cut their hands and break their bones, and sometimes a chain will snap and a log will swing and one or the other or both will catch a man in the skull. There are saws and axes and mallets, swinging and sawing all the time, and not always true—and if one of those does not get him, why, you put enough men in a room doing nothing but twiddling their thumbs and sipping tea, and even here in this perfect world, before too long one of them’s bound to fall down with a bad appendix or a kidney stone or some awful tumour.”

  Or, thought Jason Thistledown, the whole room of them could drop dead from a strange disease, like Cracked Wheel did in the winter. Would this place, this hospital, have helped out any? If he’d been able to bring his mama here, would that have made a difference?

  “Thank you, Mr. Green,” said Aunt Germaine.

  The three of them stood in front of Eliada’s hospital in the deepening twilight. The building was a simple, rectangular box, made of white-painted wood and climbing fully three storeys tall. It was back some distance from the dock area (where a few moments earlier they’d bid fare-thee-well to Ruth Harper and Louise Butler) on what Jason figured was the very south edge of town. The land right around it had been cleared but it backed on thick, shadowy forest.

  “What I mean to say, ma’am, is that you may not be able to see Dr. Bergstrom for some time. He may be occupied. If you like, I could send for a boxed meal.”

  “Don’t be vulgar,” said Aunt Germaine. “We won’t be filling our faces in a waiting room, while others before us suffer.”

  Sam smiled and shrugged. “As you please, ma’am,” he said to Aunt Germaine. He tipped his hat first to her and then Jason. “Will you be all right with that bag, Mr. Thistledown?”

  “I expect.”

  “Then, I shall take my leave o
f you. Welcome to Eliada.”

  “Good night, Mr. Green,” said Aunt Germaine, and Jason repeated it. Then the two of them headed up the walk to the wide front doors to Eliada’s hospital.

  Carved into their frame were the words:

  Compassion. Community. Hygiene.

  “That’s Eliada’s motto,” said Aunt Germaine, and Jason said, “Sounds like a fine one to me.”

  §

  The entry hall to the hospital was not the pandemonium that Sam Green had led Jason to expect. It was a large room, bigger than the town hall at Cracked Wheel by about half, with benches along the walls. The tall windows had their curtains drawn, and the only light came from kerosene lamps set into little brass wall sconces. Aside from Jason and his aunt, there were perhaps a half-dozen other people there: a band of men huddled together on a bench and talking quietly. One, a young man not much older than Jason, looked hard pressed. Jason didn’t have to count on his fingers to put it together: someone had died or was dying—a person who was kin to the poor fellow. He knew how that felt, and from seeing himself in the glass those weeks alone in the cabin, he knew how it looked too.

  At the other end of the room, next to another set of doors, was a long dark wood counter. Aunt Germaine went there, and pressed down on a little silver bell. Jason set the carpet bag and his own sack down beside Aunt Germaine, excused himself politely and made his way back to the bench. He wasn’t intending to eavesdrop, but that wasn’t clear to the group of men and the preacher he supposed, the way they shut right up and gave him a look as he went to sit down.

  “Pardon me,” he said, and skidded farther down the bench until they judged him enough past earshot to start up talking again.

  Jason didn’t hold it against them; after all, he’d damn near shot his Aunt Germaine in the back, just for looking at his mama’s corpse the wrong way. Sadness had a way of changing the rules.

  Up at the counter, Aunt Germaine was talking to a woman wearing some kind of uniform. Jason had never seen a bona fide nurse before but he expected that was what this woman was. She wore a white smock and a sort of frilly white cap that held most of her hair in. Jason started to get up as the nurse, nodding, backed through the swinging double doors. Aunt Germaine turned to Jason with a look that was, if he were to be honest about it, more than a little bit smug.

  “It is as I said,” she said. “We were expected, and Dr. Bergstrom will see us presently.”

  “Well good,” said Jason. “Why don’t we sit a spell. But—” he leaned to Aunt Germaine “—not next to those fellows. Let’s give them their room.”

  §

  “It is,” said the doctor, “a boy.”

  The sad-looking fellow on the bench stood up and hooted, and the doctor, wearing a white smock, long black rubber gloves and a facecloth dangling by the strings around his neck, strode across the waiting room to clap him on the shoulder.

  “Congratulations, Albert,” he said. “Baby and mother are fine and resting.”

  “That is Dr. Bergstrom,” said Aunt Germaine.

  “And that’s a new father. I sure figured him wrong.”

  Germaine shrugged. “I would have made the same guess, had I not known Dr. Bergstrom as I do. Hospitals are places for the dying and the sick, hmm? Not babies.”

  Dr. Bergstrom let the other men shake his hand and nodded and smiled at their thanks, before he extricated himself. Dr. Bergstrom looked over to Jason and Aunt Germaine. He was a tall fellow, tall and lean, and he stood to his full height and huffed, as though he’d just finished some heavy lifting.

  “Mrs. Frost!” he exclaimed. “Welcome to Eliada—at last!”

  Aunt Germaine got to her feet, and Dr. Bergstrom beckoned her over. “Come, we will go to my office where it is a bit more private.” And then he looked to Jason.

  “And this is—?”

  “Forgive me,” said Aunt Germaine. “He is my nephew, Jason.”

  “Your—nephew.” An odd expression fled like cloud-shade across the doctor’s eyes. “I wasn’t aware you had a nephew.”

  “Well, I do. This is he. Say hello to the doctor, Jason.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” said Jason.

  “Hmm. Likewise.” Then, to Germaine: “He’s a strong lad, Mrs. Frost. Surely he did not travel all the way from Philadelphia with you.”

  “No. We met along the way. He has experienced a family tragedy.”

  “I see. My condolences, young man.” Dr. Bergstrom turned back to Aunt Germaine. “How is our Dr. Davenport keeping?”

  As she explained, Dr. Bergstrom led them back through the doors, along a wide hallway and up a flight of stairs. As they moved deeper, Dr. Bergstrom motioned to various rooms off the hallway: Obstetrics, Surgery, Recovery.

  There were laboratories on the second floor, along with a library, and that was where Dr. Bergstrom kept his offices and some spare rooms for visiting doctors.

  “You can use these rooms for your work,” he said. “There are cots there, and you and young Jason can stay there tonight. Until you find more suitable accommodation in town.”

  “That will be excellent,” said Aunt Germaine.

  “But first, I am curious,” he said as they stopped outside his own office, and he dug around in his pocket for a little silver key to open it. “What is the manner of the tragedy that befell young Jason’s family?” He looked to Jason and Germaine with eyebrows raised, then opened the office.

  Aunt Germaine opened her mouth, blinked, and then did something of which Jason did not think her capable: she stammered.

  “He—it was—well, it was an illness, Doctor.”

  “Was it? Was it that—”

  “It was that grave,” Aunt Germaine interrupted. “Yes.”

  “Mrs. Frost, we ought to speak privately,” said Dr. Bergstrom. “Jason, could you wait in the examination room?” He pointed to a set of double doors across the hall.

  Jason didn’t say anything, just nodded. There was something passing between the two adults—something that went back a long time, and started, he figured, in a place that was no good. He was not about to step into the midst of it, not without knowing a bit more. Waiting in the hall would be fine.

  Dr. Bergstrom beckoned Aunt Germaine into the office and she followed, shoulders slumped a little. The door swung shut, and the latch clicked. Jason stood alone in the hallway.

  Mama in Heaven, he thought, what has your sister got herself into?

  §

  Jason felt ashamed at even considering it, but he did it anyway—pressed his ear against the door to see if he could make out anything about the conversation that would explain things. It wasn’t a good plan. The doors were thick at the Eliada hospital, and even holding his breath and sitting still, he could only figure so much of their talk.

  There was anger on both sides of the conversation. Some words repeated themselves: “female” was one, most often from the doctor’s lips, and once or twice punctuated by a bang that Jason guessed might be an open hand on a tabletop. Another was “fool,” and another “never” and a phrase that Germaine kept repeating: “had you been specific”—it all suggested a conversation going the wrong way for everyone. If it had been his mama in there, Jason might have just gone in. As it was—and as grateful as he was to his Aunt Germaine—Jason let her look after herself. He crossed the hall, and let himself into the examination room.

  It was a big space. Everything—walls, floor, ceiling—was painted white, but the twilight admitted by two long skylights and a tall window at the far end made it purple as a fresh bruise. In the middle of the room was a sort of bed that was on iron stilts with wheels on the base; along one wall were glass-covered shelves filled with bottles and bright silver instruments next to a couple of big metal wardrobes, all behind a long wooden bench covered in strange, curving instruments of metal and glass such as Jason had never seen. There was a glass jar, filled with sliced, dried apples.

  And along the other wall were shelves filled with books.r />
  He had never seen so many, not in one place, and not all together. His mama had just a couple at the cabin—and that was only if you counted the Bible—and the Cracked Wheel Town Office had a few more. But there was nothing like this.

  Jason walked along the rows. The books were about doctoring and medicine; he read titles like General Surgical Pathology and Therapeutics, History of the German Universities, and Account of the Sore Throat Attended with Ulcers.

  His mama would have called this a treasure trove. For the first time in weeks, he let himself remember her.

  There was that one night when he was very small for instance. It was autumn, he thought, because the wind was up and the fire was on, and the trees that had leaves in the summer were bare and rattling. All in all, things were what you might call foreboding around the Thistledown homestead, but his mama was of good cheer. If Jason remembered right, she had sold some pigs in Cracked Wheel for a better price than she expected, but it could have been another thing too.

  But that was the night she’d cracked open Bulfinch’s Mythology. The book came out of a chest that she had at the back of the house. She had kept it hidden there until this cold fall day when her mood was right and Jason was big enough, and she brought it out with a flourish.

  It was a fine-looking book. The cover was like cloth, a deep red, and on it was a picture of a very strong man with his arms thrust in the air, a great curling beard pushing forward from his chin. The letters were solid gold, although they were chipping a bit here and there.

  “Gold!” said Jason, pointing at the letters.

  “It is a treasure, that’s certain.”

  “We’re rich!” he said, and his mama laughed.

  That night, she read him his first tale. It was the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, and it became one of his favourites. He thought part of that may have been because his mama spared him the harder facts of the tale. She stopped reading the moment Theseus emerged from King Minos’ maze, the huge bull head of the Minotaur in one hand and the thread and sword given him by beautiful Ariadne in the other. No mention of how subsequently he abandoned Ariadne sleeping on the Isle of Naxos. Then, just to show he was a complete no-good, Theseus forgot to signal his pa that things had gone fine in the maze, subsequent to which the old man, thinking his son was dead, slew himself in misplaced grief.