“Are you all right?” She asked that quietly, as if she knew noise would pain him, which it did. She took a couple of steps into the room.
“My head hurts,” he squeezed out between coughs.
She nodded, and the furrows in her forehead grew more pronounced. She told him she’d be right back with some water, and he closed his eyes and opened them again and there the glass was, with the water whose coldness was both soothing and oppressive. He drank and it eased his throat a bit, but it caused him to shiver all the more. Rebecca, seeing this, said she’d make him some hot tea. She reached for his forehead and asked if he felt hot or cold. Both, he said. She asked if he was hungry and he thought about this as if it were some abstract question, something he had never before considered, then uttered a no. He coughed again.
Rebecca rearranged his pillows so he could sit up without pressing against the cold wall, then she went out to get him another blanket. In the hallway she met Charles, who had been in their bedroom but had been stirred by the ominous sound of coughing from below.
“Get Dr. Banes,” she told him, whispering in the hall. “He looks terrible.”
Philip’s head was pounding, and the aspirin Rebecca had given him didn’t seem to be working. It was like throwing a glass of water on a forest fire. He felt weak and his legs ached. At first he had tried to rearrange them, to keep them perfectly straight or bend them just so, but he soon determined that no matter how they lay, they would ache as if they were being pummeled with hammers.
He tried to cough harder and dislodge something in his throat, but the coughs only made the something hurt more intensely. He wanted so badly to reach into his own mouth and find the something, to scrape around at the back of his palate and appease it. But gradually he realized the something was nothing—or perhaps it was his throat itself. It wasn’t going anywhere, and he had to breathe around it, breathe despite it. He sipped at the tea, which was now lukewarm, and tried not to choke.
“Is it flu?” he asked Doc Banes weakly as Charles and Rebecca looked on with worried eyes that seemed so large, since the rest of their faces were covered by gauze masks. The doctor said yes, it was influenza. Flu had a habit of taking you by surprise, he said, so maybe if Philip had felt himself coming down with something the day before, then it could be just a bad cold. But Philip had felt fine—physically, at least—the day before, and then woken as if someone had poisoned him while he slept. Rebecca started to ask what they could do for him and Philip coughed so she stopped midsentence, as if the exact cadence and tenor of his coughing were something they needed to heed and study. Then he was silent and she finished her question. Philip missed the doctor’s answer, ignoring it because his head hurt and Banes’s voice was grating. Philip closed his eyes because he was angry at the doctor’s sad and tired demeanor, angry at the gauze mask that served only to accentuate the distant look in the man’s eyes. Philip sat there with his eyes shut and concentrated on breathing. When he opened his eyes again his mug was filled with steaming tea and his visitors had fled.
What time was it? His watch was atop his bureau, and the headache had left him further disoriented. There was light peeking in through his drawn curtains, but not much. Still sitting up, he drifted off, his coughs mercifully subsiding.
He was dreaming about standing at the post with Graham when his eyes opened and he saw his tiny room before him, a sliver of light escaping from between the curtains and bisecting his bureau. Graham had been standing beside him a moment ago, telling him about Amelia and the baby. The first soldier had been there too, had said he’d like to meet Graham’s family. Graham had nodded awkwardly at the man’s polite comment, had looked away because he didn’t know how to tell the man that he was already dead. Philip hadn’t known how to tell the man, either. The man—the C.O., Philip now knew—had then looked at Philip inquiringly, his soft and wounded eyes searching for an answer to Graham’s sudden coldness. Philip tried so hard to think of an answer that the pressure forced his eyes open and woke him up.
He had to see Graham. He felt lucid for a moment, more so than he had all day. But he did not feel better—his head pounded every time the blood vessels grudgingly expanded to let his virus-infested blood through, and his legs ached as he kicked off the blankets. It was cold outside of the bed so he needed a sweater, but his journey over to the bureau took a while, the movement broken down into small, discrete steps: stand up; wait; step forward twice; wait; close eyes; swallow and try not to cough; cough; step forward and grip bureau; wait; open drawer, grab sweater; collapse in sitting position back onto bed, holding thick sweater between sweaty fingers.
As he pulled the sweater over his weak frame he reeled at the soreness in his arms and neck, a pain he’d never felt before, not even after the recovery from his accident. This was excruciating, but he would rather collapse in the street than sit in that bed any longer and wonder what his friend had done.
He opened the door and walked into the hallway. Not until that moment did it occur to him that his parents would stop him from going. He tried to be quiet, stifling a cough even though it nearly made him double over in pain. No one was in the hallway or the kitchen. He heard soft voices murmuring from the parlor, Laura and Rebecca reading to each other or telling stories or doing something to keep the horror at bay. Would he get them sick? He had not thought of this before, either—the realization had been buried beneath the difficulties he’d faced in simply lifting his head from his pillow. He wondered how common it was for one person in a house to have the flu without passing it on.
When Philip passed the small mirror in the hallway, he averted his eyes.
His hands were in his gloves and on the doorknob, turning it as slowly and silently as possible, and then he was outside. The light hurt. It was startlingly light out—blue sky! Perfectly blue with no clouds in sight, as if some long-earthbound angels had flown up to the clouds with glinting rapiers, slashing away at that underbelly of gray. Philip normally would have appreciated the sun, but the light seemed so strong that he squinted and looked down at the dirt. He walked slowly, momentum gradually taking control.
If it had seemed cold in his room, it felt arctic outdoors. The air was impossibly cold. Surely there was something wrong—and there was: him. He knew his body wasn’t working right, and he told himself it was just in his head, that the shivers sending his spine into spasms were not real, that the wind that seemed to cut through his clothes—the strangely aggressive cold—was not real. It was only a couple blocks more, and his legs were still working, and the dizziness he had felt at first was subsiding.
He felt frail and damaged, but he had to do this. He was scared of Graham, the man who had seemed like his big brother these last two years. But he needed to confront him.
There was Graham’s house, right in front of him. It stood facing the main street, strong and proud as the day they’d built it. The curtains were drawn on the second-floor windows but not on the first, and through one of those he saw Amelia gazing outside. She must have been sitting on a chair, and as Philip walked forward, he saw the baby in her arms, little Millie perched between her mother’s legs and staring wide-eyed into the world where nothing was happening. No one else on the streets, no sounds from church services at the town hall three buildings away, no children laughing. But the baby stared transfixed as if before her were colorful parades and painted dancers, elephants and zebras marching past. Death and desolation could still seem beautiful to eyes that didn’t know what more to expect from the world.
Then Amelia wasn’t there anymore and Philip was even closer to the house, almost at the steps in front of the porch, when the front door opened. Graham was not wearing a coat or gloves, yet he didn’t look cold in the wind that was so mercilessly assaulting Philip.
“Philip,” Graham said simply, letting it hang there while he stared. “What’s wrong?”
Philip swallowed and concentrated on not coughing. Graham stood on the porch, and Philip stopped before the first step.
Graham looked like he didn’t understand; Frank was a meaningless name to him.
Philip said, “What happened to the soldier, the spy?”
Graham’s expression changed. “Good God, Philip,” he said softly. “You sick?” He raised his right hand to cover his mouth.
“What happened to Frank, Graham?”
“I let him go.” Graham’s body was rigid. “Philip, you should be in bed. You gotta rest.”
“Why didn’t he take his girl’s picture?”
“I don’t know.” Graham turned back around to ensure that he had closed the door behind him. His hand still covered his mouth.
“Why was there blood on the ground?” Philip was seized with a wrenching cough. When it abated, he demanded, “What did you do?”
Graham stepped forward despite his desire to be as far away from this sick person as possible.
“I undid what you did!” he screamed through gritted teeth. He had looked so controlled at first, his shirt tucked in and his hair neatly parted. But now that they were closer and Philip was focusing better, Graham did seem a bit puffy in the face, a bit red in the eyes, and his face grew tainted by the emergence of feelings he had been trying to stifle.
The door began to open behind Graham, who twirled around to shout at it, “Stay inside, please!” His voice was harsh and strong, and the door shut before Philip could even see a person behind it.
“Where’s Frank?” Philip asked again. He walked up a step. “Where’s Frank?”
“You know where he is.”
Philip could hear Graham’s breathing as loudly as he could hear his own tortured gasps. Breathing was becoming more difficult, his chest tighter, and whether this was some new symptom or the price of exerting himself, he wasn’t sure.
“How could you just—” Philip cut himself off. His eyes were tearing up again.
“Go home, Philip. Please.” Graham had lowered his hand after warning Amelia not to come out, but again he lifted it to his face. “You need to rest.”
“Don’t tell me what I need to do!”
Graham’s apparent desire to change the subject, to pretend that Frank had never existed, enraged Philip. He kept shaking his head, and when he finally stopped, when he looked into Graham’s eyes, he shouted:
“You’re a murderer!”
“You’re the murderer!” Graham stepped forward again, the two of them separated only by a couple of feet. His hand-mask fell away and there was his full face again, his red cheeks and his lips curled back in a snarl. “You’ve killed this whole town from letting him in here! I did what I had to do to keep everyone safe, no thanks to you!”
Philip launched himself forward without thinking, and then he was upon Graham, his gloved hands reaching for Graham’s neck or his face or his heart, he wasn’t sure which. He only wanted to shake at Graham’s certainty until all the events of the last few weeks could somehow return to the way they once were, when he and Graham had been friends and they both knew what they wanted out of life and it was the same thing.
Graham pushed him back easily and Philip fell, slipping back and hitting against one of the porch posts. They looked at each other for a moment, amazed to be fighting. Then Philip lurched forward again, this time leading with his fist, which caught Graham on the side of the face and swung him to the right. But Graham turned back and grabbed Philip’s collar with his left hand to hold him in place, and he was about to sock him with his stronger hand, his full-fingered right hand, when something seized inside Philip’s chest and he coughed in Graham’s face. Graham froze and looked as if Philip had just poured a bucket of his warm blood over Graham’s head.
They realized they were being screamed at from two directions.
Amelia had been watching from the window with Millie in her arms, and though she hadn’t been able to hear the conversation until they had started shouting, she had hurriedly put down the baby and rushed to the door when she’d seen Philip attack her husband. She had started screaming for Graham as her hand grasped the doorknob.
“Stay inside, Amelia, please,” Graham tried to shout, but it came out as a whimper. “He’s sick—don’t come out.”
When Amelia heard Graham’s plea she stopped, her hand pressed against the door.
The other person screaming was Charles, coming down the road after his son. “Philip!”
At his father’s voice, Philip gave in to his body’s agonized pleas and slumped down onto the porch, huddling there and catching his breath and coughing yet again. He closed his eyes and for a moment things were quiet, then humming at a low and steady pitch. He wondered where he was.
Charles was crouched above him and Philip felt a hand behind his back. Charles was wearing his gauze mask. “Are you all right?”
Philip nodded, and his father helped him to his feet. Philip leaned against the post again while Charles asked Graham what was going on.
Graham found that he couldn’t bring himself to look Charles in the eye. He breathed in and out, and his mouth was tight as if trying desperately to prevent some toxin from slipping in. “He needs to be in bed,” Graham finally said.
Charles didn’t understand, but he could demand explanations later. He put an arm around Philip and guided him home, walking slowly and stopping every time Philip coughed. It took them quite a while.
Graham stayed on the porch, willing away his tears and breathing loudly, as if he had just emerged from under water. As the adrenaline slowly faded, though his arms and knees were still shaking, he felt the harsh cold on his arms, the hair prickling up against his shirt. And still he felt Philip’s breath on his face.
He looked up and there was Amelia on the other side of the window. She had one hand at her breast and the other on the glass, not two feet from Graham. He wanted only to close his eyes and hold her. But he stood there, motionless, terrified, and unwilling to walk through the door.
III
Philip knew it was morning only because Rebecca told him it was. To him it was just the latest stop on this hellish train ride he had been sent on, an overcrowded train car so hot from the press of bodies that he felt the sweat pool on his clavicle and in his armpits and groin, felt the sweat roll from his forehead. The train was unsteady and it swayed back and forth, and the clattering of the rusty metal cars was a booming cacophony in his ears. The motions of the train had turned his stomach, contributing to the weakness that sapped every ounce of vitality from his body. He was standing in the car between two large men who hadn’t left him enough room, but when he opened his eyes he saw that he was actually lying down in his bed. He closed his eyes again and things made more sense: his legs ached and his foot throbbed because he was in this dark train car, his toes occasionally stepped upon by others and his leg muscles weary from too many hours of standing, trapped. Where was the train going? Every once in a while it stopped briefly, but only to board more passengers. No one ever seemed to get off the train. It was becoming more crowded, hotter still. His clothes were sticking to his flesh, the sweat was everywhere, and despite this, he shivered. He tried to look out the windows but there were too many bodies in the way. Where was he?
“Mom,” he tried to say, but instead coughed. There was something inside his chest, something large and waxy and heavy, something that had attached itself to his rib cage and woven its fibers into his muscles and ligaments. He coughed all over the man in front of him, whose chest was facing him even though his face was not, as if the man’s head were turned 180 degrees. But the man didn’t seem to mind Philip’s coughs, didn’t try to move away or demand that Philip apologize. That was when Philip realized everyone was coughing. It was the coughs that were making the train shake back and forth, the force of so many heaves and spasms. Was the train even moving forward, or were they just sitting in the middle of some wasteland?
Rebecca was telling him it was morning and he opened his eyes. The train dissipated briefly and there she was, holding a mug of so
mething steaming and placing it on the table beside his bed. She was wearing a gauze mask. He coughed again and wasn’t able to cover his mouth because his hands, balled into sweaty fists, were buried beneath the covers. Rebecca put her hand on his forehead and frowned. Philip closed his eyes and the train kept rocking. He thought he heard someone singing a familiar song. Then he was hit by such an awesome chill that his eyes bulged open and there was Rebecca again, her hands extended above him as she placed a cold towel on his forehead. Every nerve in his body stood up and genuflected with gracious thanks for that beautiful towel, even though Philip knew that in twenty minutes, maybe less, he’d again be wilting from the heat of the train car.
I can talk, Philip reminded himself. So he pulled one of his arms out from under the covers and put his hand before his face as he coughed. He was able to say, “Thank you.” Rebecca nodded. There was a grim look in her eyes, and the rest of her face was covered by her gauze mask. She sat down in a small chair she must have dragged in from the dining room, stayed watching him, but eventually, her soft, lined visage was replaced by the faceless heads on the train car, by the shaking and rocking and swaying and all those other coughs, the stale and reeking breath.
Then Philip felt something, and he opened his eyes again to see Rebecca standing up. His left hand shot out from beneath the covers and he grasped her hand, unsure whether he was holding her roughly or barely touching her, so unfamiliar had he become with the way his own body worked. Don’t go, he said. Don’t leave me. Everyone’s leaving me. My father left me before I could even remember and then my mother left me and Frank left me and Graham’s leaving me, too. Please don’t leave me. He wasn’t sure how much of this he was able to say through the mucus and phlegm, but the look in Rebecca’s eyes showed that she understood enough of it.
She sat back down, holding his sweaty hand.
As much as Philip preferred the sight of his bedroom and Rebecca to the image of the men with no faces, he kept slipping back into that scene. The sweat had begun to pour down his forehead again when he felt his hand jostled by something that he couldn’t see, something that wasn’t in the train car. He opened his eyes and Rebecca was leaving again, this time having already reached the door.
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