by Jody Shields
Messonier quickly retrieved a bottle from the cupboard. “Who told you?”
“I entered Dr. Wu’s laboratory. Without permission.” He described the unsecured laboratory, the preserved specimens from the Japanese woman’s autopsy. “Results of the Loeffler’s test on the woman for plague were documented in Wu’s logbook. They were positive.”
Messonier stood in the middle of the room, holding the vodka bottle.
A sense of foreboding filled the Baron’s head like music. “Like an idiot, I entered the laboratory without proper protections.” He kept talking, reassuring himself, perhaps braiding a noose. “The Japanese woman was the only confirmed plague death. But everyone at the inn could be infected. And those who handled her body. Who knows how contagious it is? I trespassed but it was critical to know the truth.” Was it his imagination or did an expression of fear flicker across Messonier’s face? There was an invisible presence in the room. “I wouldn’t be here if I believed it was a risk for you. I touched nothing that could put me in danger. Everything in the laboratory remained just as I found it. I didn’t handle the specimens. I only read the logbook.”
Vodka was poured and Messonier handed a full glass to the Baron. Then he fished a thermometer from a jar of disinfectant, held up the tiny silver wand, his expression a question. “This is probably overly cautious,” Messonier murmured. He inserted the thermometer in the Baron’s mouth and waited, counting under his breath, scrutinizing his face. “Time is up.”
The Baron squinted at the thermometer, and its red line was within the normal range. He swallowed the shot of vodka, then dropped the thermometer in the empty glass with a sharp ting. He nodded at the other man.
“Welcome back. Even if you were ill, I wouldn’t recognize your symptoms. I have no experience with plague.”
The Baron noticed Messonier’s slight hesitation. “So you won’t order me into quarantine?”
“Dieu. You’re the only doctor who has the ability to do something here.”
“Now that you’ve cleared my good name”—he waved aside Messonier’s protest—“let me make a prediction. The deaths at Chalainor, Manchouli, Hailar, Puhudu, and south of us in Mukden were plague deaths. The infection must be spread by passengers on the train, station to station.”
“The corpses from all the stations should be tested. We could learn how quickly plague spreads. Maybe the dead men were acquainted. Or they occupied the same train.”
The Baron gulped another vodka. “Exhume the bodies. Freeze them. Ship them to Kharbin in lead-lined caskets.”
“Even so, it isn’t safe to transport them by train.”
“Agreed. It would be a disaster if one of the esteemed shipping clerks on the CER train was curious about the casket contents. Perhaps deploy soldiers to escort the caskets here.”
“You have General Khorvat’s ear. But I imagine that tracking the bodies is probably impossible by now.” Messonier looked stricken. “I just remembered Wu invited several men into his laboratory for a tour.”
“What? Who?”
“The dao tai, the magistrate, and the chief of police.”
“Holy Mother of God.” The Baron imagined the men crowded into the small laboratory, curious innocents carelessly touching everything with bare hands, politely marveling at bacilli under the microscope’s glass eye without comprehension. It was a fine theatrical show for Wu. A performing bear in a cage. “The men should all be isolated and watched.”
Messonier raised his eyebrows. “Tell me which official would be willing to issue that order.”
If the honorable officials had been infected during this foolish laboratory inspection, it would actually serve a purpose, creating alarm, bringing aid and money into Kharbin. If he survived, Dr. Wu would be elevated to prominence. Everything—rule of law, civic duty, a doctor’s oath—was expendable.
The Baron groaned aloud but didn’t realize it until he caught the concerned expression on Messonier’s face. “How could Dr. Wu expose anyone to live plague bacilli?” he said.
“He’s foolhardy. Or ignorant. Or a gambler. The new medical team arrived in Kharbin to counter the plague. Wait and see how it’s announced.”
“Doesn’t matter. The plague has the next move.” The Baron was swept by panic. He felt his jowls sag, mouth droop, brows join in a frown. He checked to see if Messonier had noticed that his features—eyes, lips, nose—had been pasted on a mask of fear. His next swallow of vodka was automatic, unstringing the tension in his body, and he experienced a momentary fleeting spaciousness from care, followed by dull apprehension.
For the first time the Baron sensed he was being watched. His calculations, the information he’d gathered in the laboratory, encounters with the sick, and rumors of the dead were known to others and had been tallied. Perhaps it was the dead woman in the inn who watched him. According to Chinese belief, those who were murdered, who were suicides, or who had no surviving male descendants to provide for them in the afterlife become gui, hungry ghosts condemned to wander for eternity.
* * *
Two bodies abandoned on the tracks at Central Station in Kharbin. A man’s corpse on the street by Churin’s department store. A partially clothed woman’s body at a Fuchiatien inn. A man’s body at the Railway Club. Some details of the corpses were similar: no broken bones, cuts, or visible injuries. Faces discolored. Clothing showed evidence of bleeding. Bodies may have been moved after death. All but one of them frozen. Cause of death: unknown ailment or misadventure. Only one body had been identified. No witnesses.
A massive red wax seal, blind stamp, and a tricolor ribbon were affixed to this official report. Without signing it, the Baron refolded the thick papers, careful of the wax seal, and gently returned it to General Khorvat. He’d been requested to review the document in Khorvat’s office. Now he understood the loophole that the general wanted closed. He placed his fountain pen on Khorvat’s desk to show he didn’t intend to sign the report.
Khorvat ignored this. “Baron le docteur, once you’ve signed the paper, it will be translated from Russian into English and delivered to Dr. Wu. I believe in full cooperation with the Chinese. Any objections?”
“Please explain how the bodies found on the streets disappeared. Where were they taken?”
Khorvat snapped, “I won’t rehearse my decisions with you. It’s not for you to judge.” His thick finger jabbed in the Baron’s direction. “The five deaths are mysterious but don’t merit extraordinary concern. Perhaps the dead were suicides. Took poison. Miscalculated a dose of opium. Or were drunk and froze to death. Not uncommon.”
The Baron couldn’t allow Khorvat to build a case for random deaths and then disagree with him. He’d risk insubordination and the general would look like a fool. His throat tightened with anxiety as he prepared to speak. “I visited Dr. Wu’s new laboratory.”
“And?”
“Bacillus pestis. Plague. The dead woman at the Fuchiatien inn was infected with plague.”
“One infected woman. One. In a city of tens of thousands. A single confirmed death is sobering but not of great consequence.”
He’d had a forbidding sense of recognition before Khorvat had spoken, anticipating his answer. “Yes, one woman. But everyone around her, the guests, former guests, and workers at the inn, should all be examined for symptoms. Residents from surrounding buildings should be questioned.”
“We have no authority to investigate in Fuchiatien. No Russian soldiers, no officials are allowed in Chinese territory governed by the dao tai. It’s their problem. I have other concerns.”
“The residents of the Chinese district travel throughout the city every day. Fuchiatien is only two verst from your office. Anything contagious will immediately spread from there to here.”
“Baron, I’m a soldier. I have a grasp of what’s going on. I can recognize an ambush.”
“General, I don’t question your ability. I’m a doctor. I can anticipate the spread of infection.”
Khorvat resisted. “
The most qualified doctors and disease specialists are now in Kharbin as a precaution. They’ll be apprised of the situation, and a plan will be unveiled. Everything has been considered. Once this sickness is identified—”
“General Khorvat, it is plague.”
“We can make a policy. Until then—”
“You put the entire city in danger. Your decisions are ineffective until we know how plague spreads and how to contain it.”
“You’re an alarmist. I’ve been told it is spread by rats.”
The Baron continued as if he hadn’t heard him. “How contagious is plague? How is it treated? Who’s susceptible?”
Without breaking eye contact, Khorvat lounged back in the chair, his confident posture enhanced by an unyielding uniform. “I simply cannot barricade everyone inside Fuchiatien. We depend on the laborers to run the city.”
“The only option is to enlist Chinese officials to help. Search for the sick, set up a clinic, distribute information.”
“No. We can’t hand over responsibility to the Chinese. It’s not our policy. A delicate situation. We must protect the balance of power. Better to avoid circulating too much information. It could cause panic.”
“The dead Japanese woman at the inn was a warning. More deaths will follow.”
“If there are any additional deaths, we will manage. A warning serves to keep us on guard. A window was opened but it will be closed.”
The Baron was a stone.
After a few moments of silence, Khorvat asked the Baron what he was proposing.
He toyed with the fountain pen. “The Chinese trust me. I speak the language. I can go into Fuchiatien. Check the rooming houses and inns. Visit the eating places. Count the sick. Note their symptoms.”
“Very well. Meet with this dao tai and request permission to inspect Fuchiatien. Be discreet. I don’t want this information shared with other medical staff or doctors. Russians ask too many questions. Avoid them.”
“Until?”
“Until a better time.” Khorvat kept his finger on the scale. “In future, stay out of Wu’s laboratory.”
The Baron’s grimace signaled his acknowledgment.
“Now. Enough of this miserable business.” Khorvat pulled a bottle from under his desk. He nodded at the glass-fronted cabinet and the Baron retrieved two glasses behind the six thick volumes of the CER Annual Report 1909.
A generous pour of zubrovka, vodka steeped with stalks of buffalo grass. The fresh scent wafted into the room over their words of death and unknown death. He inhaled deeply and drank. One gulp. A tiny rim of heat around his lips. “What news of your villa in Crimea?”
“The last letter from my wife took five weeks to be delivered. She reported sultry weather. The workmen have completed the terrace. I picture myself sitting there. At a table. On the table is dinner. Roast veal with caviar sauce.”
He could tell Khorvat was on the verge of inviting him to visit, his courtesy as host automatic. He couldn’t imagine the general as genial host, wearing a thin shirt in the heat, his long beard blown by wind off the Black Sea.
“The blue sky over Crimea. I hope you’ll be privileged to see it someday.”
“Seems that more than distance separates us from that sky, General.” The Baron signed the document with a flourish.
Khorvat poured vodka. “Pust’ angely tebia privet stvuyut. May the angels greet you.”
After another drink, the Baron left the CER building and walked into fresh snowfall. It was a dusting, not enough to hold the imprint of a boot on the ground.
* * *
In the Chinese Eastern Railway Club, a table the length of the grand assembly room was draped in white linen and set with over a hundred large and small plates of zakuski to welcome the new medical workers. The banquet was in the Russian style, so guests served themselves from huge cut-glass bowls of black and gray beluga, sevruga, and osetrova caviars, cold salmon, raw herring, anchovy paste, smoked eel and sturgeon, goose en croute, wild-fowl sausages, pashto made with boar, roast pheasant, suckling pig, and huge crabs from Vladivostok, their two-foot-long legs thicker than a man’s thumb. Dishes of pickled mushrooms, preserved fruits, freshly grated horseradish, and mustards were arranged near twenty kinds of flavored vodka and two sherries for the women.
Most of the men, except for the newly arrived student doctors and nurses, wore dark Russian uniforms. The few women doctors and medical workers were in sober-colored civilian dress. It was a gathering of foreigners, nearly all strangers to one another, and there was an edge of tension that vodka didn’t ease. Only the young volunteers at the far end of the table were lively, joking about the weather and the inadequate housing in the local hotels. The room was hot, humid, and smelled of roast meat and wet wool.
At the main table, Dr. Wu Lien-Teh, in a sky-blue Chinese uniform, had the place of honor between his young translator, Zhu Youjing from Soochow, and General Khorvat. Dr. Boguchi, the CER hospital supervisor, Mr. Kokcharoff, a government official, and Lin Chia-Swee, a tall Cantonese, were seated across the table.
The Baron arrived late and slipped into a seat next to Messonier, nodding to Dr. Iasienski, a Pole from the medical service of the CER. He surveyed the table and whispered, “I see General Khorvat has assembled the ark here.”
A spoon chimed against a wineglass and General Khorvat stood up, towering over the table. He saluted the czar, “our Little Father,” welcomed the medical staff as Kharbinskiis, praised future cooperation between Russia and China. Dr. Wu Lien-Teh was introduced as the chief medical officer, a position created for him.
Unsmiling and pale, Dr. Wu spoke a few halting Russian phrases thanking General Khorvat for his hospitality and assistance, then switched to labored Chinese, acknowledging Councillor Alfred Sze, representing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the dao tai; the superintendent of customs; and the waiwubu, head of the Foreign Affairs Bureau. He abruptly sat down.
The Baron exchanged a look with Messonier. “Dr. Wu isn’t fluent in either language? Russian or Chinese?”
“He was born in Malay. Fluent in English, French, and German. Wu’s assistant, Dr. Lin Chia-Swee, was his student at the Imperial Army Medical College in Tientsin.”
“Dr. Wu is accomplished but he can’t be more than thirty years old. How much experience does he have? But with the obstinacy of youth, he’ll serve tirelessly as chief medical officer. General Khorvat can’t be pleased that the Chinese sent their own man with an entourage.”
Messonier frowned and flicked a finger over his glass to stop the waiter’s pour of vodka. “I would wager that the Imperial Throne calculated that a Western-educated doctor would be acceptable to Russians. And who benefits?”
“We do. China maintains their illusion that Dr. Wu controls the situation for them. Who could criticize Khorvat for cooperating with a Chinese doctor at Beijing’s request?”
“And our General Khorvat stands back, allowing the Chinese to make the errors.”
“Clearly it’s political. Not medical.”
Messonier’s chuckle was muffled by his napkin.
General Khorvat called for their attention. “Gentlemen and ladies. You may be aware of the recent unexplained deaths at Manchouli station, the intersection of the two great rail systems, the CER and the Trans-Siberian Railway. One week later, there was a second death at Chalainor, the station closest to Manchouli. Bodies were then found at Hailar, Puhudu, and Mukden, less than an hour away by train. Three, possibly four deaths here in Kharbin. We suspect an outbreak of plague caused the deaths but this isn’t confirmed. Plague has occurred in this region over the years. But Kharbin will be spared this misfortune because of our timely vigilance.” Applause stopped his speech briefly before he continued. “Three patients are currently in the Russian hospital under treatment by”—he consulted a paper—“Dr. Wu, Dr. Mesny, and Dr. Lebedev. The patients are recovering under the doctors’ excellent care. I myself have visited the ward. I would never hesitate to put myself in danger for the benefit of our ci
tizens.” He bowed slightly and stroked the length of his beard during the prolonged applause.
“Thank you. You’re here in Kharbin, sent by your respective governments. In the unlikely event there are additional infections, everyone will be informed immediately. There’s nothing to fear. Kharbin will continue to prosper with the blessing of the czar and the Imperial Throne in Beijing.” Everyone at the long tables stood up to cheer.
The Baron observed there was no sense of menace at the mention of plague but a pleasurable swell of excitement, as if a plan to explore new territory had been announced. A plan of conquest. An opportunity to perform heroic work. The risk of failure or death was distant lightning.
The zakuski course was finished and the guests slowly moved, in a haze of intense conversation, to dinner tables in the next room.
The Baron spoke quietly to Messonier. “The situation is more serious than Khorvat admits. He does nothing but make a bloodless speech. And he ignores two crucial points.”
“Which are?”
His voice was low so as not to be overheard. “First, how contagious is the plague? Second, look at the numbers. The new medical personnel outnumber the patients.”
“You say we’re overstaffed?” Messonier joked, his words a moat to keep fear away.
“Obviously, they anticipate an explosive increase in the number of patients. Numerous doctors and nurses will be needed.”
At the table, the Baron switched place cards so he was seated next to Messonier. “Judging by the extravagance of the banquet, we are in crisis. All the years I’ve lived in Manchuria, I’ve never seen Russians and Chinese share a table.”
For the first course, the waiters offered a choice of hot or cold soups, botvinia, okroshka, with tiny dumplings, or pirozhki.
Messonier’s eyebrows lifted. “I believe my appetite has been diminished by your speculations.”
“Enjoy yourself. This feast is unlikely to be repeated.”