by Jody Shields
That night, the Baron sat facing a blank paper spread on the table. The hard carved chair was a knot at his back, the brush a pressure in his hand. The paper was a waiting white abyss. Grinding the dry ink stick into the water on the stone released a faint scent of soot.
Now.
He struggled not to direct the brush but continued its movement, stroking characters on the paper. It was a paradox, this disengaging. For a brief instant, he didn’t question or interpret what he’d written. He felt suspended above the four corners of the paper, and the black characters became a floating pattern below him. Exhilaration filled him like breath. He knew the brush and his hand held the entire work that would follow.
He had kept vigil in the Russian hospital’s quarantine ward most of the night, arriving home at daybreak. A messenger came to the house, handed the Baron a summons from General Khorvat. It was eight o’clock in the morning. He dressed quickly and returned to the hospital.
He crossed the lobby, recognized by the char lady as chumore, a plague doctor. The woman moved away, shifting even her gaze to avoid him. As he passed, she muttered and crossed herself, invoking the holy against harm, against the death figure who walked the corridor, carrying sickness, stinking of disinfectant.
General Khorvat, Wu, Zabolotny, Messonier, Haffkine, and Lebedev were seated around the conference table and barely looked up when he entered the room. Tension was woven around them. The doctors’ protective masks, wrinkled strips of white cotton, lay on the table like surrendered weapons. How had it fallen to these six men and one woman to stop a catastrophic epidemic? Their knowledge was nothing but theories and guesswork propelled by fear. Their efforts were so puny. A fist against a wave, a wall of brick.
The group at the table were the most dangerous people in Kharbin. Was someone among them already infected with plague, their symptoms hidden? Could a single unprotected breath, a cough, infect everyone around them, cause their deaths? The Baron imagined one of them coughing, a droplet of infected blood spattering on the table, bubbling as if heated, magically condensing into infected smoke that rose and forced itself into the others’ bodies, entering their throats, their moist lungs.
He was relieved when a young Chinese nurse carried around a tray with small folded towels, and they each cleaned their hands with one of the formalin-soaked cloths while she waited behind their chairs. The strong smell revived him.
Khorvat impatiently tapped the table and the nurse bowed her head, scurried from the room with the crumpled towels. “Good morning. Dr. Wu, will you kindly start the meeting.”
“Thank you, General Khorvat. First, I regret to announce that all the Chinese doctors in the Fuchiatien hospital died with their patients. Every one of them.”
“The fools.” Zabolotny broke the silence after Wu’s statement. “I knew their hospital was rubbish. Chinese medicine is nothing but quackery and folklore. Bear bile and children’s urine aren’t cures. This tragic failure is proof.”
“God rest their souls.” The Baron had secretly hoped Chinese medicine would be effective against the plague, humiliating the Russian doctors.
Even after an expression of grace, Zabolotny was relentless. “The Chinese are against us. Sabotaging our fight against the epidemic. The patients refuse to give information about how they were infected. Or name others who are sick. We’re only trying to cure these people. What’s the advantage in lying?”
“The Chinese tell the truth when it suits them,” said Wu. “It’s characteristic passive resistance.”
“It doesn’t help that the Chinese hide their sick.” Khorvat glanced around the table for confirmation. “Entire families become infected. We’ve found inns filled with bodies. My men also found hidden corpses.” He grimaced. “The corpses are frozen as solid as marble. Then the Chinese wrap them in blankets and hide them in wagons or under stacks of firewood or in the stable. They sew bodies into bags and bury them in snowdrifts.”
“In the face of death, desperate people will try anything.” Maria Lebedev tried to ease the tension, although her frustration was obvious. “Are we so different with our trial injections?”
Messonier caught Maria Lebedev’s eye. “Only desperate doctors blame their failures on others, including their patients.”
“They hide bodies to save their families from being thrown into quarantine.” The Baron’s voice was mild from fatigue. “It perpetuates the epidemic. But it’s not hard to understand their desire for self-preservation.”
Zabolotny grimaced. “We know you’re a Chinese lover, Baron. Always an explanation.”
“The Baron has searched many inns for plague victims. A dangerous mission no one would willingly choose.” A rebuke to Zabolotny from Khorvat. “He’s saved lives.”
This answer didn’t please Zabolotny, but he didn’t waste energy arguing as the Baron continued.
“The situation is complex. The Chinese won’t cooperate because they’re certain everyone in quarantine is forced to drink poison and eat disinfectant. They believe our goal is to rid the city of Chinese. But they’re not against just the Russians. They claim Japanese poisoned all the wells with disease. People drink and get sick.”
Haffkine pointed out that several Japanese pharmacists had recently arrived and set up a laboratory in Pristan, probably to peddle cures.
“No law against Japanese who treat plague.” Messonier remained calm.
“They probably hope to become rich from selling cures.” Haffkine waved his hand. “Always profiteering in a crisis.”
“I wonder how long the Japanese will remain healthy,” Zabolotny said. “The Chinese hospital didn’t last long.”
“I welcome Japanese medical personnel unless they’re escorted by the Japanese army.” Khorvat was grim. “Now, let’s get to the numbers. I was told there are one hundred dead every day. And the count is going up.”
“Yes,” Wu responded. “The actual numbers are probably higher. It’s difficult to get figures from the buildings around the city where patients have been dispersed.” He measured his words. “As you know, a boys’ school, a theater, a department store, a bank, and two inns have been converted into hospitals and quarantine wards. Messengers with supplies go back and forth between these locations but communication is erratic for many reasons. We’ve lost many messengers. Large amounts of supplies have been stolen.”
“The reason is simple. No one will go near the plague victims.” Zabolotny expanded on Wu’s explanation. “We’ve had to pay Chinese workers double wages just to get them to take supplies from the train station to the quarantine ward. Of course, they must undergo a disinfection process each time.”
“Thank you, Dr. Zabolotny, for sharing that information.” It was difficult to tell if Wu was being sarcastic. “The team of microbiologists who just arrived from St. Petersburg have set up a laboratory and living quarters in a stable. The largest stables on Artilleriaskaya and Pskovskaya Streets were converted into laundries, disinfection stations for mail and vehicles, eating halls for corpse carriers and plague-wagon men. Needless to say, there was resistance from the owners of the buildings when they were ordered to relinquish their property. But the general’s soldiers were very persuasive.”
“My soldiers are dependable.” Without looking up, Khorvat searched through the papers on the table for his cigarettes. “The new arrivals—five hundred men—are quartered in Bogoslovsky’s mill by the Sungari. Conditions, I admit, are not optimal. But they’re temporary.” His expression showed his unease.
The Baron stared at Khorvat. “Five hundred soldiers in the flour mill? It’s not possible. One infected man and the plague spreads like fire.” He turned to Wu. “You’ve allowed the men to live in these conditions?”
“There’s no proof infection spreads from close contact, Baron. The cause has yet to be determined. There are many theories. But we’re in crisis. There isn’t enough housing for hundreds of soldiers.” Wu recited his words as if reading from a textbook.
“Your hopeful calcul
ations don’t change the risk to these poor soldiers. Plague thrives where people are packed together. I’ve seen it in the inns. One death. Then three deaths. Then everyone else.”
“The history of medicine is filled with risk. It’s the only path to progress.” Haffkine was severe.
“You’re unreasonable. The soldiers are provided with masks, soap, and water. Disinfectant is spread on the floors by the latrines.”
“Yes, unreasonable. It doesn’t matter what proof I present. Death will fix their accommodations.” The Baron checked the faces around him to gauge their reactions. “God have mercy. Gospodi-pomiluy.”
“We can only make our best choices.” Wu’s voice was as flat as if he were discussing the weather.
The Baron, reacting to his composure, violently pushed back his chair and left the room.
He stood outside the door to quiet his breath. His hands trembled. Messonier would search for him but he needed to drain his anger, so he began to move slowly down the corridor. He passed an open door where interns, all of them young, probably Li Ju’s age, made face masks, yards of cotton and white gauze draped over three tables. He noticed a young woman drop the fabric she was holding and slump over in the chair.
The Baron rushed into the room, straightened her body in the chair, and felt her pulse. Normal. Then he jerked his hand back, remembering she might be ill. No, her skin had felt cool. The young woman had fainted. Her eyes blinked. After she had mumbled a few words, he walked her to a comfortable chair near the nurses’ station, brought her a cup of water. She stared at the cup in his hand, wouldn’t accept it.
He understood. He dug the rubber gloves from his pocket, pulled them on, and filled a second cup with water.
“Thank you,” she whispered, taking the cup from his hand.
“Tell me your name.”
“Gaidarova Manzhelei.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t worry. I’m the only one who can hear you.”
“I’m afraid of the room. Someone could be infected. No one wore a mask. I wanted a mask but I couldn’t be the only one covered, you understand.”
He nodded. In a few minutes, he coaxed her to return. They entered the room, interrupting a young man mocking Gaidarova for her weakness.
The Baron gently addressed him. “Your name? Stepan? I would listen to Gaidarova Manzhelei’s advice. She understands the perilous situation here. The number of people in a room multiples the chances someone is infected.” He took a finished mask from the table and tied it around his face. Everyone in the room silently followed his example.
Rude, fatalistic jokes and superstitions were survival tools in the hospital. Washing hands three times in succession guaranteed immunity for a day. A broken thermometer meant a broken promise. The Baron remembered this type of behavior from his wartime service, when soldiers clung to coincidences, and the smallest things—a knot in string, a lucky pencil, a specific number of steps across a room—were a guarantee against misfortune in battle. Every Russian child receives a small metal cross on a thin chain that is worn for life. Several days ago, he’d caught his own chain on a shirt button and realized it had snapped only when he felt a slight tug on his neck. There was little blood from the fine cut. Was this a warning of future ill fortune? Had he broken a charm, angered the gods?
Nothing could be trusted. Not the visible or the invisible world. What offered protection? Not gloves or a mask of cloth. Not vaccine in a needle.
Some doctors and nurses realized they were outmaneuvered by the plague as the infected emptied their bodies of blood, their last strength pumped the veins dry. The more experienced caretakers blocked their emotions, pulled themselves back from grief and the patients. Others blindly ignored the hopelessness of the situation, lying to themselves and those stricken with illness. Many became withdrawn, insomniac, overworked to the point of angry exhaustion, their focus narrowed to the raft of the patients’ medical charts. A few doctors and nurses turned to vodka or morphine or opium as a charm, a way to cope.
Dr. Wu, barely thirty years old, in a position of high authority, never praised his staff’s valuable work and sacrifice or relieved the ache of their isolation. It was not his nature.
The doctors distracted themselves, passing around a new crime book by Dr. Edmond Locard, a renowned French police investigator. Locard’s philosophy of investigation was every contact leaves a trace. Unconsciously, they followed his rule and avoided speaking the word plague out loud, as if it would leave a fatal trace on the tongue. They were all stalked by the same predator. “It is a bacillus,” they whispered.
* * *
The Baron, Li Ju, and Chang traveled by train to Kirin for Dr. Wang Xiang’an’s kaitiao, to pay their respects to the dead. On the long drive from the station through town, the Baron noticed the depth of snow in the streets surpassed even that in Kharbin. Then perhaps he dozed off, as the vehicle stopped and he was startled by a tall red pole in the snow, like sinister punctuation, outside the gate of Wang Xiang’an’s family’s house.
“What does it mean, that pole? Is it a warning?” he asked Chang.
“When a man dies, a red pole is placed at the left side of the gate. For a woman’s death, it’s on the opposite side.”
Chang’s explanation—symbolic order—didn’t soothe his unease. Red represented an alarm. He reached for Li Ju’s hand, immobile in her lambskin mitten.
They walked through the great entrance gates, solemnly opened by servants pulling on white cloth sashes attached to the latches. They followed another servant through a large courtyard paved with smooth stones that narrowed into a covered corridor. Servants dressed entirely in white, the color of mourning, crashed cymbals, drums, and gongs along the temporary walkway as they passed into a large inner courtyard and entered the house. Two large paper lanterns, painted with the family’s name, guarded the door of the room where the coffin reposed. There was a strong odor of incense.
Wang Xiang’an’s elderly father, his hair disheveled, barefoot in rough white clothing, stood next to the coffin, which rested on a draped bier in the center of the room. He was surrounded by mourners. A lama and Taoist and Buddhist priests loudly prayed and chanted at altars against the wall. None of them interrupted their ritual to stare at the three strangers.
Wang Xiang’an’s father bowed once after each guest’s three low bows to him. The Baron murmured the customary Chinese expressions of mourning and scanned the man’s face for signs of blame or anger but found none. He bowed three times.
The Baron was relieved the coffin was sealed, as he was concerned about the possible spread of infection. He crossed himself. Chang had explained that Dr. Wang Xiang’an would be buried in his best robes; a fan, handkerchief, and willow twig to brush away angry demons would have been placed in his hands. Dr. Wang’s body was never left alone. At night, the family took turns sleeping behind a black curtain near his coffin at the end of the room. Later, the coffin would be moved to a small separate building until it could be properly interred.
After forty-nine days of mourning, there would be a formal funeral procession with a long line of mourners, musicians, and priests, white lanterns on poles, banners, and servants carrying small painted pavilions containing incense and food. A tablet would be erected at the ancestral grave after burial.
The dwarf handed gifts to the servants, who added them to the table where paper replicas of houses, automobiles, horses, food, dishes, gold and silver ingots, clothing, and fancy umbrellas were displayed. After they were ceremoniously burned, each item crossed from smoke into the next world to serve and give comfort to the deceased doctor.
The train returned to Kharbin with only minor delays.
Outside the station, a man approached, and the Baron waved, thinking he was a droshky driver. But as he moved closer, the stranger walked stiffly, rocking back and forth as if his knees wouldn’t bend. The man fell forward onto the pavement. Li Ju stepped toward him but the Baron stopped
her.
“Stay away.”
Chang hurried in the other direction, frantically looking for a droshky in front of the station. From the corner of his eye, the Baron saw a second still figure sprawled in the snow. If he turned the two men over to check their vital signs, there was certain to be evidence of blood. He had no protection. A small black object rapidly moved toward them, rolling end over end through the snow. With a cry, Li Ju jumped aside as the man’s fur hat blew past.
An ungainly wagon emerged from the fuzz of snow thickening the air. The plague wagon appeared to have been built upside down, as the large slatted cage in back made the vehicle top-heavy and hard to maneuver. Two soldiers, identical in white clothing, leaped down from the wagon and cautiously approached the man sprawled on the pavement. The soldier with a bayonet prodded him with a foot. He didn’t move. They dragged him around the side of the vehicle and roughly threw him in the cage on the back of the plague wagon.
A droshky pulled up. Chang was inside, frantically gesturing to them. The Baron felt Li Ju help him lift one leg then the other leg into the droshky, and he fell heavily onto a seat. The vehicle jerked forward. They nestled together under an immense bearskin rug, Li Ju warm against the length of his body. In the uneven light from the driver’s lantern, her face was a white circle, and the points of the coarse fur were jagged as grass.
“No one is safe on the street.” He gripped her hand. “The plague-wagon men could have seized us. This was a warning. If anyone tries to arrest you, give them my name. Or General Khorvat’s. Or Dr. Wu’s. Never leave the house alone. Will you promise? Will you remember?”
The names were her catechism. Her lips silently repeated the charmed words.
“You must always dress well. Wear your best fur coat. The cape from Scotland. Your gold earrings.”
“How will this protect me?”