The Winter Station

by Jody Shields

  At a gunshot, all the Chinese fled, wading clumsily into the thick snow then disappearing into the alley.

  The Baron helped the bruised soldier stand. No broken bones. “Fools. Fools. Everyone who helped the sick men escape will die.”

  Shaken, the soldier clutched his arm. “What about me? I touched him.”

  The Baron cursed his own words, carelessly spoken. “Your name is Vladimir Vasily’vich, yes? Perhaps the man wasn’t infected with plague. Medicine is never certain.”

  They clambered up into the wagon. A few minutes later he put his arm around the soldier’s shoulder. “It may be wise to put yourself into the hospital. Just as a precaution. I’ll watch over you.” He directed the driver to take a route to the hospital.

  The soldier Vladimir Vasily’vich was admitted for observation. The Baron wished him good night, didn’t wait to see his first encounter with the doctors in their clumsy protective clothing. He would go home.

  Outside, it had become so cold that snowflakes seemed to grind their edges together. Every footstep in the snow made a sharp brittle sound. The wheels of vehicles rolled with a crushing noise.

  The Baron’s droshky slid across a layer of ice on the street, and at the sudden movement, shadows around a half-buried body fled, the red points of their eyes caught by lantern light. Feral dogs or wolves, savaging a corpse. In daylight, he’d noticed places where snow had been disturbed, dug up around a body, recognized it as the work of animals or thieves that stripped the dead of flesh or clothing. Never look twice. Make no attempt at rescue or salvage. He made the sign of the cross and swore that the pounding of his heart was audible through his clothing.

  The brush of calligrapher Zhang Huaihuan created dots “like balls of stone.” The suffering caused by the plague was so catastrophic that it could not be written—the words would plunge through paper. The Baron wished that his eyes would become balls of stone, obliterating what he’d seen, two weights that punched memory into a black hole.

  * * *

  Xiansheng arrived at the appointed hour for the Baron’s lesson.

  “A thousand pardons, Elder Born, but everyone who visits must be tested.” The Baron felt ragged shame for this request, but paranoia had made him the unhappy instrument of delivery. The plague had stepped inside his house.

  The Baron slid a thermometer under his own tongue, handed another to his teacher with a slight bow. Without the slightest hesitation, Xiansheng submitted to Russian custom, calmly folded his hands, and waited for the thermometer’s verdict.

  The Baron saw the future as a maze, imagined Xiansheng’s illness as an inevitable vigil of suffering, death, and grief. He slipped the thermometer out of his teacher’s mouth and looked at the red line, finer than a needle, encased in silvery-white glass that blurred and shook between his fingers. Nothing to fear. Temperature normal.

  Teacher studied him solemnly and suggested tea, although it was an enormous breach of courtesy for a guest to make this request of a host. They moved to an adjoining room and a servant, accompanied by the sharp clink of porcelain cups on a tray, carried in the necessities. They were safe, drinking from cups that warmed their hands until they were ready for the lesson.

  Calligraphy began with the familiar preparations. Fine goose-white paper, readied on the table. Ink stick, inkstone, brushes. A tall container of water.

  The lesson was a single character, qi, representing breath, air, vapor, floating, expanding, and also spirit, vital force. When Xiansheng pronounced the word qi, it sounded like the release of breath. An exhale.

  A smooth scratch as Teacher’s hand moved quickly, his brush painting the character, which combined wavy curved lines, representing the breath, and mi, the character for rice or grain, representing sustenance. The Baron watched, gradually conscious that the man focused from a knot of stillness that he could never hope to experience in his own body.

  Finished, Teacher straightened to study his writing on the paper. “The character qi is also described as the invisible presence of the calligrapher’s spirit. But it cannot be deliberately placed in a work. It’s only recognized by those who possess the right qualities.”

  The Baron’s mind buckled with uncertainty. “Qi is the characters on the paper, but it’s also a hidden code?” He joked to mask his bewilderment and anger that he was oblivious to this mystery. “How can qi be created if it’s invisible?” He felt foolish, grasping. It was weak to allow anyone to witness your confusion. To lose face. Everything he’d hidden in a corner of his memory.

  His teacher silently waited.

  He struggled for control, a familiar sensation. Bowed his head. “I don’t know. Tell me, Elder Born.”

  Xiansheng recited the words of the master calligraphist Zhang Huaihuan.

  Mind cannot consciously give to the hand and hand cannot consciously receive from the mind. Both mind and hands are one’s own but fail to grasp wonders when searching with intention. It is very strange indeed!

  If the Baron allowed himself to weep, he’d be disgraced. He took a breath and turned to hide his face, lowering it over the paper. His hand shook slightly as he picked up the brush, stroked the inkstone. He hesitated as if approaching a precipice. The brush wobbled on the first mark. He made an error then another error but continued. He was aware of an edge of self-criticism and ignored it. Only his hand—his mind—made an error. Not the brush. For a moment, the bodily sensation of his hand holding the brush was lost and he floated with the black line of ink, completely weightless. He didn’t experience pleasure but a kind of suspension, frail and delicate, that vanished the instant it was examined. Startled, he blinked, noticing Xiansheng’s faint amusement, and he was unable to ask for an explanation of what he’d felt. The sense of the experience lingered like déjà vu.

  After the lesson, Li Ju joined them at the table. Companions of tea. They needed nothing from the world outside their circle. The last of Chang’s special wuyi tea was brewed, the rare spring-picked qingming.

  Li Ju was unfailingly solicitous and the Baron sensed Xiansheng’s quiet appreciation for her attention to their comfort, refilling the cups, requesting hot water, adjusting the chair cushions. He dared to broach an intimacy and ask his teacher a personal question. “Have you ever seen a fox spirit?” Then instant regret for his foolishness, the question irreversible as a brushstroke.

  Unfazed, Xiansheng answered in a slow voice, as if he’d dipped a finger in ink and spelled out the story.

  “Manchurians sacrifice to fox spirits in special shrines to court their goodwill. But these spirits must always be approached with caution. Even the character for fox spirit is never written on paper, as it would offend the animal. A character with the same spoken sound is used in its place. I will write it for you one day.”

  “Why do the fox spirits cause trouble?” Li Ju leaned forward for his answer, a lock of hair falling in front of her ear.

  “The fox spirit can transform itself into human form, often as a beautiful young woman who leads mortals astray or causes misfortune.” Xiansheng’s expression was distant. “One night, when I was a young man, a fox spirit came into my chamber. It had glowing golden fur and an immense tail that was as full and waving as grasses. The fox spirit rested its head near my hand on the blanket. Its tail moved slowly back and forth like a woman’s fan. I saw its green eyes, tiny pointed teeth, long silky whiskers, and knew the fox spirit meant no harm. The fox spirit’s jaws didn’t move, but it gently asked if I had a question. My mind whirled. I was too shy to answer. In an instant, the fox spirit vanished into a chink in the lattice. Sometimes I imagine the questions I should have asked and the fox spirit’s possible answers. I could have had wisdom.”

  “You really saw the fox spirit? How do you know it wasn’t a dream?”

  “The fox spirit brought a gift.”

  “A gift?”

  “The fox spirit allowed me to pluck one of its long whiskers. It was wrapped around my finger when I woke. It was not a dream. I kept the whisker folded
in a gold paper until I had enough money to have it set into a special brush. I always carry it.”

  “Do you have it with you?”

  Xiansheng nodded. “I brought incense, a carved tablet, and meat to the fox spirit’s shrine. But the fox spirit never appeared again. Years later, in Tsingtao, I saw a woman on the street with fiery gold hair the same color as the fox spirit’s. I hurried after her. She had green eyes but cruelly pretended not to recognize me. I couldn’t speak. I lost my second chance to question the fox spirit. I later learned that the woman was the wife of a missionary. I knew where she worshipped. But you cannot provoke fox spirits or they will ruin your life.”

  Xiansheng looked deep into the tea remaining in his cup. The lesson had ended.

  * * *

  “A tiger?” Dr. Wu Lien-Teh stood in the doorway, his stoic expression changed to transparent wonder as he saw the taxidermied animal head hung on the wall. The Baron noticed Wu’s momentary loss of composure.

  “Siberian tiger. Rare. Shot at fifty paces.” Alexeievich Nikolaevich Nestorov, the CER stationmaster, was flattered by the doctor’s attention. “Extraordinarily difficult to travel with the creature’s skin from the wilds of Manchuria. Over there, my bird collection.” His heavy arm rose in the direction of a corner cabinet, the neat silhouettes of mounted birds faintly visible inside. The CER stationmaster welcomed General Khorvat and Dr. Zabolotny, keeping his distance, obviously uneasy with several chumore plague workers crowding his office. His expression faltered when he encountered the Baron, but he didn’t acknowledge their previous meeting. The Baron wondered if Nestorov still had a hoard of medical supplies in his desk drawer.

  Khorvat ignored the taxidermy and casually took the chair closest to Nestorov’s desk. Wu hesitated. It seemed he would refuse the seat near the window because of Khorvat’s deliberate lack of protocol. As a Chinese government official, he should have been seated first. The Baron watched to see if Wu’s expression, his yanse, would show his anger, but the doctor’s face was implacable. A superior man doesn’t betray his emotions.

  Behind his desk, Nestorov inched his chair back from the visitors. “These days, with the sickness, you wish for another way to meet. Speak from a distance rather than the same room. Could be safer.”

  Zabolotny dismissed the idea. “We’ve been thoroughly disinfected, I assure you.”

  “There’s always a chance.” Nestorov cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, how can I help you?”

  Wu took charge. “There’s concern about the effectiveness of the passenger inspection at the train station.”

  “Passenger inspection? Death is a passenger. Many die on the train. Bodies are thrown off between stations. It is strictly forbidden, of course,” Nestorov snapped. “A few of my experienced train conductors have quit. Brave men, but afraid of Kharbin, city of the dead. That’s what they call it. Trouble everywhere. You’re aware of the huge quarantine wards built at the Chalainor, Manchouli, Tsitsihar, and Taolaicha train stations? A ward was even constructed at Imienpo for the timber workers. Hot water was poured on the frozen ground for half a day before the building posts could be driven in.” He turned his attention back to Wu just as the increasingly impatient man prepared to interrupt.

  “No inspection is completely effective. It’s the nature of the epidemic.” Wu shrugged off his concerns.

  Nestorov opened his hands to indicate he was waiting.

  “We will correct the situation,” Zabolotny assured him.

  “Nestorov, what’s the passenger count on the CER trains? An average day?” Khorvat acted as if the others hadn’t spoken.

  “Several hundred passengers. Busiest railroad station in China. It’s the gateway to Europe and the Americas. Everyone from China and Japan traveling to Vladivostok, Vancouver, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, all major cities, stops at Kharbin’s station. The greatest number of passengers is in January.”

  “January?”

  Nestorov forced a thick book from the shelf and thumbed through the pages. “All Chinese travel home to celebrate New Year, even to the most distant villages. They take trains to Mukden, Shuangchengfu, Ashihoh, Kuanchengtze and then go by mule or wagon to remoter villages.” He looked up. “Within two weeks, several thousand people will leave Kharbin on the train.”

  The doctors exchanged alarmed looks.

  “The trains must be stopped.” It pleased Khorvat to deliver this edict.

  Nestorov gaped. “Impossible.”

  “You don’t understand the danger. Plague is a bomb the travelers take into the world.”

  Nestorov sat back heavily in his chair. “A bomb? It’s diabolical. Reminds me of Kuschei the Immortal, the sorcerer in the fairy tales. His secret power, a needle, was hidden inside an egg.”

  The Baron recognized that Nestorov was talking around the subject. He’s probably afraid that I’ll say he was exposed to the plague while traveling with the Jesuit. He caught Nestorov’s eye to reassure him. “The plague has a brilliant strategy,” he said. “It hides so those who are infected spread the bacilli to others without suspicion. It’s a Trojan horse.”

  “Yes, it’s a Trojan horse.” Zabolotny nodded. “I heard a woman got it in a droshky, rode across town to the theater, and was dead on arrival, dressed in an evening gown.”

  Nestorov now allowed himself to acknowledge their alarm. “But I believed this plague was under control. Your doctors inspect all passengers at the station.”

  “We know more about this epidemic than anyone on earth.” Wu’s voice was barely civil. “But none of us have encountered anything like this plague. Once you’re infected, you have a few symptoms until just before death. An elevated temperature, rapid heartbeat. You talk, eat, drink as if nothing is wrong. Until you cough blood. Your face turns blue from cyanosis. A few hours later, or the next day, you’re dead.”

  Nestorov whistled, and his astonishment was convincing. “There’s no cure?”

  They waited for Wu to speak but he only shook his head.

  “Why wasn’t I notified sooner?” Nestorov stared at the doctors, one by one. “The city will starve without supplies. The CER railroad operates with certain principles. Serving the czar and the people. I can’t allow the railroad to lose money. Not deliberately. I need permission from Russia, not China, to make any changes. General Khorvat, can you give this order?”

  Khorvat laughed. “Imagine how the Russians will react when they learn there’s no escape from Kharbin. They’ll push the locomotive from the station with their bare hands. By the time their complaints reach St. Petersburg, our city will be a graveyard. And I’ll be one of the early burials.”

  Wu’s posture indicated his disagreement. “Your plan is unacceptable. Let me speak plainly. If the trains shut down, it implies we have no control over the epidemic. There will be international panic. This isn’t to China’s benefit. Our standing in the world would suffer. There are also political situations—threats from outsiders—that are best avoided. The trains must continue to operate. Put more soldiers in place to screen the passengers.”

  “Thousands of Chinese passengers?” Nestorov’s voice slowed to a patient drawl to tamp down his anger. “There aren’t enough soldiers at Central Station to control the situation. It’s already chaos. They bring pigs and chickens on board. There will be riots unless you provide more soldiers.”

  It was Khorvat’s turn. “What kind of vise do you want to use? My soldiers are deployed at all major roads. They’re at the barricades inside the city to arrest the sick. Our good Russian soldiers keep order on the train and in Central Station. Where do I get additional troops? It’s hazardous to cross Manchuria in the middle of winter. We function on a thread and with God’s grace.”

  “Lock up anyone who wants to leave Kharbin in quarantine. After five days, they’re no longer infectious.” Wu was exasperated with the conversation. “We issue them official travel passes after quarantine.”

  Zabolotny agreed. “The advantage to quarantine is that everyone is released
after a few days.”

  “Or they’re dead.” Wu had the last word.

  “You’re mad with your petty travel passes.” The Baron’s voice was heavy with scorn. “We already shelter nearly five thousand people who were exposed to the plague. They’re shut up in boxcars, for God’s sake. There’s no place to keep even another thousand people in quarantine.”

  “Only the cemetery can accommodate thousands of people.” Zabolotny’s temper rose.

  “He’s correct.”

  “Quarantine them on boats.”

  “Boats?” Khorvat’s fingers stroked his beard. “Ridiculous. The Sungari is frozen. Even Chefoo has a seven-day quarantine for ships. Why not use spare rooms at the foreign embassies for quarantine?”

  Wu smiled briefly. “The viceroy wishes to avoid alarming the foreign embassies.”

  “China can’t stop this epidemic alone. It’s useless to pretend otherwise.” The Baron folded his arms.

  “Pity that the weather is against us. Otherwise, the quarantined could be put in tents. Surely there are military tents left over from Russia’s unsuccessful war with Japan.” Wu mocked the military.

  Nestorov called the boychick to bring tea. The men waited in uncomfortable silence.

  Then they worked out a strategy in a few hours. Money was the solution. During the period of the Chinese New Year, first- and second-class tickets would became hugely expensive. The cheap third- and fourth-class train tickets would be eliminated. The poor and those most likely to be infected with plague would be unable to travel. Doctors and soldiers would patrol the train cars every three hours, searching for sick passengers.

  Nestorov brought out pertsovka vodka to celebrate the plan. They’d nearly finished the bottle of peppercorn-flavored liquor when, as a joke, they splashed a little vodka over their fingers as disinfectant, a strange ceremony under the wild animals’ heads, Nestorov’s trophies.

  Afterward, the doctors walked through the Central Station waiting room in their face masks, surrounded by others with masks or rags over their noses and mouths as protection. From habit, the Baron searched the crowd for anyone with the spasmodic shake of a cough, the hunch and gait of ill health. He had developed a rogue eye. Outside the station, he caught a droshky back to the Russian hospital with Zabolotny.