Jody Shields - The Winter Station

Zabolotny swore. “See? Now we may be too late.” In a fury, Zabolotny grabbed the hypodermic and turned aside to load it with a vial of serum.

Mesny’s coughing was violent, joining the energy of all the muscles, forcing his body into great rolls and shuddering waves, firing in spasms, blood erupting from mouth and nose. He was turned inside out by plague.

The shots of morphine and the serum had no effect. Mesny bled so profusely that it seemed he’d been stabbed, spattering the white-masked figures around him. During a brief respite, he stared at his witnesses, panting, breathless, bewildered by the blood soaking his clothing, the bed, the walls, the floor. His room a canvas for a gaudy crimson display. Finally, blood was more alive than the figure in the bed.

Father Orchinkin whispered Mesny must confess in private. The doctors reluctantly stood in the corridor in their blood-stained clothing, fearing discovery by a hotel worker or guest.

After they were readmitted, the priest recited kondaks and irmos, short psalms and verses, in a low voice. “‘My soul, why sleepest thou? The end is nigh, and prayer is needful for thee.’”

Their vigil soon ended with Mesny’s death.

The Metropole Hotel on Kitayskaya Street was made from imported stone so pale that the sand blown from the north in the summer settled nearly invisibly over the building, erasing the fine carved ornamentation above the doors and windows.

Swords drawn, Russian soldiers swept into the hotel lobby, their boots depositing snow over the ornate carpet. They were followed by five men in masks and loose-fitting white coveralls, the uniform of the plague worker.

“Everyone out!” a soldier yelled at astonished guests sitting by the fireplace. “The hotel is closed.”

The bewildered desk clerk waved his hands in protest but the soldiers shoved past him and ran upstairs. The chandeliers shivered as the soldiers sped from door to door, shouting orders. At first, some guests laughed in disbelief at the white-uniformed figures, believing it was a prank or an absurd Chinese demonstration. But then the guests were allowed to grab only their coats before they were hurried down the stairs and outside.

A woman screamed at the white figures reflected in the tall mirrors at the end of the corridor. Belligerent drunks and businessmen were hauled from their rooms. An angry German was forced out at sword point and a second young man, unregistered, was discovered hiding in his wardrobe.

After guests were cleared from the hotel, the five uniformed plague workers entered the room where Dr. Mesny had died. The windows behind the heavy curtains were unsealed, and the insulating sand between the double panes flowed onto the floor. The men worked quickly, as the room rapidly became freezing. Clothing, cushions, towels, and bedding, stiff with red-brown stains, were rolled up in the carpet. The bed, chairs, and wardrobe were splintered with hammers. When the room was empty, a carbolic acid mixture was haphazardly swabbed over the walls with mops as snow blew through the open windows. The disinfectant and the water on the walls and bare floor gradually froze, transformed into an icy shimmer.

All the refuse was carried downstairs through the kitchen into the alley behind the hotel. The furniture in the pile quickly burned but the mattress smoldered for a day, unnoticed, as the Metropole was empty.

A sharp bang as a firework rocket was shot from a window and then descended, wobbling, into a Fuchiatien market stall. Then explosions shook the small building, transforming it into a lantern filled with brilliant red and blue stars, a cascade of yellow arrows. The next explosions lined the windows with flowing silver sparks, quicker than rainfall. Someone had died of plague on the second floor and the sulfur fumes from the fireworks were disinfecting the building. The light, fire, and pattern of the fireworks had no power over contamination.

A child laughed loudly but the Baron hadn’t seen any children in the crowd watching the fireworks around him. Unnerved, he stepped back, colliding with a stranger as several frightened people hurried away through the clouds of gunpowder, bitter gray smoke hanging over chalky snow. It seemed the snow, even the air itself, had become strange, foul, poisoned. He imagined snowflakes erupting from a seedpod, a malignant container, spreading plague across the city, whirling furiously into every crevice and corner, sticking their spiked edges into skin, drawing blood. There was no protection, no safety.

Each morning, plague dead appeared on the streets like carnage from a secret battle. The plague-stricken crawled from home to die alone. Others were dragged outside and abandoned, or their bodies were hidden. Many of the dead were naked, stripped by thieves who stole their clothing to sell or wear. Snow buried and reburied the corpses but drifts betrayed what they concealed. Shadows formed in the hollow of a bent arm or leg. A head was exaggerated by a helmet of thick ice. A dark shape on the ground could be the sleeve of a dead woman’s coat, a foot in a boot, a hand in a glove.

Like a dreamer confronting an absurd situation, the Baron carefully scanned the ground before he took a step, afraid his boot would strike a body frozen in the posture of death. He was more secure here on trampled snow where others had already walked, making paths around bodies. He felt like a sleepwalker but there was no waking.

He gulped cold air to jolt himself into movement and leave this place. He shouted for the droshky driver, then clambered into the vehicle. Exhausted, he fell back against the thick bearskin rugs and ordered the driver to Central Station.

Reluctantly, he left the comfort of the droshky and walked through the waiting room. He stopped at a small shrine where a group of Chinese women crossed themselves and bowed before the icon of Saint Nikolas. The Chinese had adopted “Grandfather Nikolas,” convinced the Russian saint brought travelers luck, and left him offerings of incense, candles, coins, food, tea, and paper money heaped on a red cloth below his icon.

There was shouting near the departure gates and then the abrupt movement of bodies. Following the noise, he hurried across the waiting room as if his name had been called, dodging passengers burdened with baggage.

At the departure gates, Wang Xiang’an, a young doctor in a white uniform, and another intern held a struggling man as passengers jostled them, angered by the man’s rough treatment. Wang held the flailing man’s chin, pinched his cheeks, and poked a thermometer into his mouth. Frightened, the man bit down then spat out bloody glass pieces. The two doctors loosened their hold on him, moved back to a table set with medical supplies, gloves, and jars of disinfectant.

“Give him water. Rinse your mouth.” The man spat bloody water on the floor, wiped the red from his face with a sleeve.

The Baron hesitated, reluctant to interfere. Where were the soldiers? More men were needed to keep the situation under control and prevent passengers from storming onto the train.

“The glass stick isn’t poisoned. Look here.” Wang’s voice carried over the crowd. He confidently dipped a thermometer in a jar of clear liquid, wiped it on a cloth. “You see? Nothing to fear.” He momentarily held up the thermometer, then inserted it in his own mouth.

The crowd murmured as if he’d revealed the secret to a magic act.

Wang produced a fresh thermometer and waved it in front of their stubborn captive’s face until he accepted it between his lips. After a minute, Wang removed the thermometer, studied it, and smiled. “You’re not infected. You may go.”

Dazed, the man wandered in the direction of the departure gates and the lone waiting soldier.