Jody Shields - The Winter Station

“What is the patients’ recovery rate, Dr. Zabolotny?” The audience hushed.

Broquet answered for him. “We don’t know.” His face was shiny with sweat, and his voice rose. “ Recovery isn’t a word that we use. I’ll speak plainly. You must always be on your guard with the patients. If you wish to stay alive, treat the patients as if they mean to harm you. Never expose your bare skin in the hospital. Touch nothing without protection.”

A murmur of astonishment at Broquet’s outburst rippled through the assembly room.

Afterward, the Baron and Messonier stood near the stage, speaking quietly about the pall Broquet’s last comment had cast over the assembly. The Baron could hardly restrain his anger at the doctors’ haphazard and evasive demonstration. “We’ve just seen two conjurers demonstrate poor magic tricks with pieces of cotton.”

“Nothing that can’t be explained away by reason.” Messonier was distracted, watching Maria Lebedev across the room.

“Who could feel secure knowing that cotton is the only thing that protects you from death?”

Messonier’s eyes widened. “Remember, that’s not yet proven. Regardless, we’ve accepted it.”

“As an acrobat accepts a tightrope.”

The two doctors joined the small group gathered around Broquet. Messonier praised his informative lecture.

Broquet thanked him. “I regret Dr. Wu didn’t approve the second mask I’d proposed. I copied the mask worn during the plague epidemic in Florence from a fifteenth-century illustration. The mask was a hood that completely hid the face and covered the shoulders.”

“Perhaps it was impractical?”

“No. Dr. Wu was concerned the hood would frighten the patients.” Broquet shrugged, turned to speak to a student.

“This could be the last group assembly,” the Baron said. “It’s too dangerous to bring all the medical staff together in one room. Dr. Wu is a fool to take this risk.” He turned away at Messonier’s stricken look.

“I overheard your comment,” Wu said. He and Zabolotny stood behind the Baron. “If you have criticism, discuss it with me face-to-face. It’s disrespectful of my position.”

“I apologize, Dr. Wu.”

Zabolotny smiled. Messonier pretended he hadn’t heard their exchange.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” Wu left the room. His translator, Zhu Youjing, stayed behind and spoke with Maria Lebedev. A few minutes later, she found the Baron and Messonier.

“Wu dismissed Dr. Mesny.” She gripped Messonier’s arm.

Messonier struck his fist into his palm. “He made an example of Mesny. No disagreement is acceptable. A warning for others.”

“ Gospodi-pomiluy, God have mercy.” The Baron shook his head. “The man was quarrelsome and opinionated but we need every pair of hands. Dr. Wu has robbed us of a valuable ally.”

“The patients will suffer for this.” Maria Lebedev’s voice was steady but her eyes were thick with tears.

As Xiansheng entered the Baron’s study, his fur-lined coat steamed from the lingering effect of the cold outside. The servants removed his garment, a bow was exchanged, and he accepted a cup of tieguanyin tea before the calligraphy lesson.

Xiansheng silently observed the Baron carefully set out brush, inkstone, ink, and paper—the wenfang sibao , Four Treasures of the Abodes of Culture. The rinse pot was filled with water. The paper was unrolled on the table and weighted with small stones. The wet brush was stroked on the inkstone. The careful ritual of preparation usually calmed the Baron, but this afternoon he was possessed by restlessness. It had been five days, perhaps a week, since he’d last practiced calligraphy.

Xiansheng had written the character jen for the Baron to copy, explaining it represented goodness, the virtue that must unite men. “When you work, remember each brushstroke must have vitality, life. Otherwise, it is baibi, a defeating or dead stroke. An empty stroke is a fault.”

He straightened his body in the chair at the table, his neck aching. He balanced the brush between stiff fingers, its quivering bristles finer than feathers. He tried to summon calm to his fingers, to his wrist. His awareness of his hands expanded, bones inflating inside the flesh of his fingers like a glove. I cannot make the first mark. He tried to focus but his eyes continually slipped off the paper, sliding across it without the anchor of a black brushstroke.

Then he became angry. He was a doctor, an aristocrat, intimidated by the silent regard of a man whose language he imperfectly understood. A dead stroke? Was he at fault for not understanding? No one could understand. It was a trick, a puzzle.

He glanced at Xiansheng, aware that his expression was defiant. He thinks I’m a barbarian.

Xiansheng answered his look. “When I was young and studying calligraphy, my teacher took away my brush to help me.”

The Baron was confused. “No brush?”

“I had practiced and practiced. Many considered my brushwork excellent. But my mind was unsettled. My teacher quoted the Taoist master calligraphist Yu Shi’nan: ‘In the transformation of his mind, the calligrapher borrows the brush. It is not the brush that works the miracle.’ He instructed me to write the characters without a brush, to only imagine using it. I did as he said. My teacher was unable to tell if I had followed his direction, but my hand became freer.”

The words seemed simple, but as the Baron struggled to understand them, their meaning became more dense and tangled.

“The brush isn’t the tool. A famous calligraphist used a brush the size of a cabbage.”

By the time he translated this sentence, the Baron was smiling, pulled from the web of his thought. The spring wound inside him loosened. Uncoiled. His hands relaxed and the brush made its first mark, luo bi, on paper.

“Judging by your nervousness, I’d imagine you were preparing a banquet for the czar.” Messonier watched the Baron pace around the table in thick fleece slippers.

The Baron barely acknowledged him, checking and rechecking the place mats arranged over the table. For Messonier’s pleasure, he’d persuaded Chang to conduct a tea ceremony. “I’ve been cautioned about the amount of water required to make tea. There are extra mats in the wardrobe over there.” They rummaged together through the shelves and found the stack of mats.

Messonier lowered his voice. “I make tea for Maria every day and take great care with the preparations. She believes I have expertise. But I’m certain my knowledge is very rudimentary compared to Chang’s learning.”

“I don’t believe you need to be concerned.”

“I’ve no wish to make a fool of myself in front of Maria. I don’t know what to expect. What if Chang asks my opinion of the tea? Quizzes me?”

The Baron glanced at Messonier. “Chang is a stern master but he won’t embarrass you. If you fail his test, it won’t change Maria’s opinion of you.” Strange to comfort Messonier when he needed comforting himself. But he was relieved by the Baron’s answer and they joined Maria and Li Ju at the table.

But the Baron was restless, uneasy with everyone’s closeness. He calculated that, between them, the three doctors had treated over fifty patients in the hospital earlier that day. Li Ju had wandered through the busy market. One of them might have met a symptomless carrier of plague, someone at the stage when the infection was ripe and could be transmitted to others. One of them might have brought the bacilli to the table.

There was no protection. Everyone was suspect. But for the moment, they had the shroud of innocence and he would trust it. He wouldn’t draw attention to his concern. He banished his calculations. They were simply friends sitting at a table. Companions of tea, chalu . He forced a smile to his lips, extended it to his eyes.