Jody Shields - The Winter Station

“Dr. Kitasato is a recognized expert at the Tokio Institute for the Study of Infectious Diseases. He’s studied plague for years. But I believe I understand your position.” The Baron’s words were drawn out, calculated as a brush on paper. “The viceroy of Manchuria cannot allow the Japanese vaccine to succeed.”

“I’m not authorized to discuss the viceroy’s decision with you.”

“So national pride is what determines the use of the vaccine. Not the needs of the people.”

An uncomfortable silence bound everyone at the table. Maria Lebedev struggled to keep her expression composed.

Wu ignored the Baron. “Your opinion, Dr. Haffkine?”

“Yes, of course. The patients are treated with my serum when the first symptoms develop. I anticipate it will slow the progress of the sickness. For those exposed to plague but without symptoms, the infection can be stopped with the vaccine.”

The doctors shared smiles of relief.

“Your claims are very positive.” The Baron set his cup on the table, the movement jerkily animated by anger. “I’m curious to hear what type of trials were conducted to test the Haffkine serum’s effectiveness?”

Haffkine avoided his eyes. “Just recently in the Russian hospital, four plague-infected Chinese were treated with various amounts of the anti-plague serum made from pure plague endotoxin. Two hundred, three hundred, four hundred, and five hundred ccs were injected subcutaneously into their abdomens. A second group of sick patients received no treatment. We wait for the results of this trial but it seems promising. Everything is well documented.”

“Were the patients informed that they were receiving this serum?”

“No.”

“No?”

“It wasn’t considered necessary.”

“No?” The Baron recognized this game of charades, the players asking question after question to identify the hidden answer.

Haffkine’s fingers tapped against a folder in front of him. “How could the concept be explained so these illiterate patients could understand it? No translator was available. It was simply more expedient to administer the medication.”

“More expedient?” Iasienski spoke in a whisper.

Dr. Wu said, “There was no plot against the patients, as you and the Baron seem to imply. It was a decision that I approved.”

“Of course they’d want treatment that would extend their life.” Zabolotny nodded. “Anyone would make that choice.”

The Baron turned to Haffkine and unfolded his challenge. “Mother of God. You claim the patients couldn’t understand life and death? Shameful. And you support this decision, Dr. Wu?”

With Wu’s backing, Haffkine was bold enough to show his exasperation. “I’m not making excuses, but these risks are necessary to save other lives, Baron. Some decisions are guesswork but must be made quickly before we all sink. Deaths are counted by the dozen every day.”

“It’s a state of emergency.” Zabolotny raised his voice. “The city collapses if the epidemic strikes. If we fail here, the consequences are disastrous. Should plague spread inside the wall at Shanhaiguan and Tientsin, Beijing is threatened.”

“Yet you refuse to consider Kitasato’s vaccine.” Maria Lebedev gestured violently with both hands. “We all desperately wish for a solution and a cure. Every minute we make this wish. But we shouldn’t foolishly dismiss other possibilities, other answers. Or abandon our honor.”

“At this point, there’s no proof Haffkine’s injections have saved a single life.” Messonier opened his hands palms up on the table, as if this vulnerability would soften his statement.

“Say what you like.” Haffkine finished with his argument. “My serum is the only therapeutic measure that offers hope. I believe that when this crisis has passed, my actions will be viewed positively. I will be praised.”

The Baron fought his anger, trying to give space to the others at the table who were afraid to show him their support. “I sense you view this situation as an opportunity to experiment. It’s death by plague or death by injection. Toss a coin. But unlike the patients, we have a choice about death.”

“With luck.” Wu moved his head and light sliding over his spectacles blocked his eyes. “Bold words, since you lack any knowledge about vaccines.”

Messonier gasped.

Wu continued, “Let’s adjourn for today. Your differences can be settled with more information, which Dr. Haffkine can provide at our next meeting. In the meantime, he’ll arrange for your inoculation with the vaccine.”

The doctors slowly pushed back their chairs and stood up, woodenly, clumsy in one another’s presence without the security of the table between them. They were numb, as if their dialogue, all the planning and strategy, was simply a useless vanity.

He was driven home. Bitter cold on his cheeks. A life in rags of disorder. He fell into bed after disinfecting his hands and face. In the dark, he was unable to see Li Ju reach toward him until she touched his mouth, her fingertips like cold coins. She should be locked in a tower. How could he work, touch the infected, and return home if he carried a fatal souvenir, a hidden weapon that could cause her death?

The hospital was filled with hundreds of new patients. One after another, the sick were carried or stumbled in, some barely conscious of their surroundings; others walked as if spellbound from the effects of their illness. The largest ward was a plain rectangular room, the beds crammed close together as if they had been forced there by an upheaval of the floor. The plague sick in the beds weren’t silent, as blood was violently expelled with choking, heaving gasps, red stains branching like coral across the white sheets, bedclothes, the thick towels held to their mouths. The floors and walls were spattered with blood, a record of suffering. The room appeared to be an execution chamber. As the doctors moved from patient to patient, their feet constantly struck pans, spittoons, and buckets filled with bloody sputum.

In the hospital disinfecting room, two attendants stripped off the Baron’s day clothes and roughly bundled him into overalls, a long cotton coat, a close-fitting cap, a mask, gloves, and galoshes. He stood patiently during this process, waiting for the mask to be positioned across his eyes, a barrier that partially blocked his sight of the patients. He was ashamed of how quickly he had accepted this limitation. In this cumbersome white uniform, his senses were blunted, his movements slow and clumsy, as if directed from a distance. He was transformed into an uninfected living soul in a uniform that hid his health. What did patients imagine as he towered over them, a ghost-white figure, unidentifiable, featureless as a column?

The Baron recognized the shape of the thing that occupied the hospital ward, dulled the patients’ eyes, filled their lungs, stole their breath and substituted blood. He could smell it. Plague burned quickly through their bodies. Pain could be muted with morphine but there was nothing that halted the trajectory toward death.

He was suffused with tenderness for the afflicted. When he could steal a few minutes, he spoke calmly to those who could tolerate conversation, who were coherent. A few patients sat up in bed and spoke amiably or were even strangely exuberant. Others died in anger, revealing the chain of their illness, naming loved ones, friends, or acquaintances, recently deceased, who had infected them. Many victims died anonymously, refusing to reveal their identity or place of residence, fearing their families or co-workers would be hospitalized, their homes destroyed.

There was also a web of purpose. Snow was cover for the dead. Dressed in their finest clothing, the dead were hidden outside, frozen solid, waiting until spring for a proper burial. It was a curse to be buried away from the ancestral home.