Jody Shields - The Winter Station

“He’s more sentimental than the microbiologists.”

“Debatable.” Messonier stared at the decorative pink flowers painted in the bottom of the teacup. “You know the Imperial Throne gave Wu permission to perform autopsies?”

“What? Where?” The Baron was astonished.

“An abandoned temple has been converted into an autopsy room. Near the Russian Orthodox cemetery. Wu set it up with Dr. Richard Strong, who just came from America. Recruited by the Red Cross but paid by the Chinese.”

“At least they take the dead. There are rumors patients have been spirited away to secret nursing facilities by the microbiologists. But where do they find corpses for dissection? Here at the hospital? Or the quarantine train cars?”

Messonier hesitated. “I’m not certain. It’s not discussed. But I heard they’d hired a Russian to find bodies and transport them for autopsies. They probably figure he’s less likely to spread rumors than a Chinese.”

The Baron swore softly. “The hospital is a laboratory for these microbiologists. The experimenters. Corpse hunters. The patients are just subjects for their observation and testing. We do the bloody work.” He shaped his grudge, describing them as a group that trusted only petri dishes, test tubes, glass slides that held evidence, the promise of an answer, a cure. “They stoop and sniff at the keyhole. We’re inside the room, listening to patients. Our intuition is as valuable as their experiments.”

“Remember Zabolotny and Wu both studied under the microbiologist Metchnikoff in Paris. It’s their area of expertise.” Messonier tried to remain neutral.

“Yes, they’re such experts that they blamed rats for the epidemic. It’s not surprising that young Dr. Wu recruited microbiologists. Thinking of future fame rather than tending patients. These micros come in and demand help from the youngest doctors, who are too intimidated to refuse. They should take care of patients rather than swabbing them for samples and running to the laboratory.”

“Who couldn’t understand wanting to avoid patients? I don’t mean to sound as if I’d like to neglect my duties.”

“You’d never neglect a patient. But do I seem resentful? Paranoid? Old?” The Baron struggled with anger, freed by the vodka. “I’m not arguing for myself. My concern is for the patients. We’re like two detectives debating which clue is superior, a fingerprint or a footprint. A hair or a thread.”

“Meanwhile the body is sprawled on the floor, Sherlock,” Messonier said to soothe him. “Nothing to solve here. Just look the other way. Move along. I’ve been troubled by my own experiences with these laboratory men.”

“Not everyone can hold up under the stress. Maria Lebedev?”

“Still at one of the temporary hospitals. She isn’t sleeping, stays there all hours. She’s an excellent doctor but you might as well throw yourself under a train as do this work. I wrestle with myself because it seems pointless. Our patients need a priest, not a doctor. We cannot save anyone. We should at least save ourselves. There. I’ve said it. I’m not proud.” His expression was rueful. “I have a silly dream. I find a magic carpet. I steal Maria away. We wake on the magic carpet on the grass in the Bois de Boulogne. Love follows.” His smile was lopsided.

“Friend, I pray for your happiness. I’ll speak with Andreev about the magic carpet.” He enjoyed the vision of Messonier’s tryst in Paris. “And the gold ring? Have you given it to Maria?”

“Not yet. The right moment hasn’t presented itself.”

“The time will come.”

“I carry the ring with me.” Messonier pointed to his neck. “On a chain.”

“You have courage. I’m afraid to touch my wife. The fear of infection. She’s also wary of me, although she denies it. I should grow a shell. Everything smells like disinfectant to me. Even my wife.” Embarrassed by this confession, he finished the vodka.

“What will we remember of this experience, I wonder.”

“God help us.”

The Baron returned to the ward, maneuvering around patients sprawled on cots, mats, and blankets crowded along the corridor. Some had turned their faces to the wall, claiming privacy for their suffering. His evaluation of their condition spanned a few breaths. There were so many sick. It was impossible to remember a patient’s symptoms, the curve of a face, a name, a scrap of personal information. There were no talismans. It was as futile as trying to memorize a blade of grass in a field.

Five patients in one family had died that afternoon and the only survivor, a young girl, wouldn’t live long. The walls were speckled with blood, fine as a growth of lichen. The Baron carefully pulled a sheet over her brother’s body in the next bed, a ritual that should have been accomplished with more delicacy than he managed, his hands burdened in thick gloves. He hoped the girl would die before she realized her family was gone.

A medical assistant in a protective white uniform brought in two large buckets and dropped them on the floor near her bed. The Baron thought he was here to clean and, irritated by the intrusion, quietly told him to return later.

“No. This must be done now.” The assistant stood by the buckets.

There was an abrupt movement inside the buckets. The Baron peered over and saw two small white rabbits. “What is this?”

“It’s an experiment. We close the door, leave the rabbits here with new corpses for four hours to see if they catch plague.” The assistant was impatient with his explanation.

“The girl is dying,” the Baron hissed.

The assistant’s shoulders moved up and down in a shrug. Sometimes it was easier to communicate by pantomime in the bulky uniforms.

The Baron calmed himself to avoid alarming the sick girl and slowly turned to face her. She’d managed to prop herself up on one elbow and looked down as the rabbits cautiously stood up inside the buckets. Frightened, she cried out and then fell back against the pillow, violently coughing.

“Get out.”

“I have orders from Dr. Wu Lien-Teh and Dr. Strong.” The angry assistant left with the buckets.

Speaking Chinese, the Baron reassured the girl, told her not to be afraid. Her face was pinched and her lips were a blue line. He called for a nurse to bring an ampoule of morphine. He swiftly gave the girl an injection, praying that it soothed her pain. Perhaps the spirits of the two rabbits would follow her into the next world. The mythical jade rabbit, associated with the moon, made medicine for the goddess Chang’e and brought good luck. He considered injecting the animals with morphine. A better death for the poor beasts.

The temperature had fallen to twenty below zero and he’d sleep at the hospital again tonight, restless on a cot near a supply room. Another day unmarked by sunlight in a closed world, moving between patients. The body of the city outside was lost to him. Veins of the streets, viscera of the markets. The mo of Kharbin.

The Baron studied the temple from the window of the droshky to confirm it was unoccupied. He’d waited to search the building until this particularly bitter day when it was too cold for the doctors to perform autopsies, as he was certain the place was unheated. The driver refused to accompany him so he asked the man to wait.

A chain across the road interrupted tracks in the gray ice from different vehicles and wider lines where boards had been dragged. The shutters over the windows of the temple were closed. At the side of the building, a splintered heap of pine coffins, their lids missing. There was no evidence of doctors or guards, but the outline of a glove was visible under a thin layer of snow on the steps. Perhaps it was a sign.