Jody Shields - The Winter Station

First there was a cough. Then coughing became constant, the pain striking his ribs and back like blows. His body jerked as if pulled by strings, muscles tense. Exhausted, he waited for the next cough like an inexorable wave.

He made a tunnel around himself. In delirium, he spoke loudly, ordered everything burned. His books, letters, calligraphy, the scrolls and brushes. Clothing and bedding. His voice, even his mouth, seemed distant. Li Ju must hear him.

She had sealed the corridor along the bedroom against the invisible enemy with a formalin-sprayed curtain. Buckets of diluted chlorine were poured along the floor and steam rose from the warm water. Li Ju brought a chair to the far end of the corridor. For hours, she read Sherlock Holmes and The Woman in White aloud in English, sang hymns in the Scottish-inflected accent acquired at the orphanage. She whispered endearments. It was meaningless to him, her voice as indistinct and soothing as if she spoke from a well or behind a screen. He’d sleep and then jolt awake to find her singing had changed to a one-sided conversation or a description of a foggy London street. Sometimes he recognized her voice.

One day, he was able to sit up in bed. Li Ju slipped a paper from the I-Ching Book of Changes under his door, an explanation of Hexagram 13 by Confucius.

The dreams brought by fever vanished. The Baron’s self-imposed quarantine ended. He had survived severe pneumonia. Plague had spared him. Illness had compressed sensation, and even lifting his arm took effort. Li Ju and a servant bathed him, helped him from the bed in slow stages. He wasn’t strong enough to test the length of her body against his. Her mouth, her breath were a sweet weight. At any hour when he called her name she would appear at his bedside.

Li Ju tried to persuade her husband to listen to the fortune-teller who had just arrived and stood outside the bedroom door. “She’s here. This is an auspicious time.”

“No. It’s not safe.”

Unperturbed, the fortune-teller agreed to calculate the destiny of an unseen man, although for a higher fee, sitting in a fur coat outside his door. Li Ju anxiously knelt beside the woman as she placed three coins in a tortoiseshell. The coins had holes in their centers and the blank side had a value of three. The opposite inscribed side had a value of two. The coins rattled inside the shell, and were shaken out onto the floor. The fortune-teller opened the Book of Changes to read the interpretation of the coins for dramatic effect.

“It is a time to resolve difficulties. This is a breakthrough. You should forgive the past and swiftly finish whatever task still lingers in your life.”

“Now I will read the image for the hexagram to you.”

Swept with relief, the Baron sank back against the bed cushions. He imagined Li Ju’s smile, her bow of acknowledgment, handing the money to the woman in an envelope.

“You see? Nothing to fear.” Li Ju’s body was against the partially open door, her voice fitting through the crack. “Her words were a comfort.”

He slowly walked to the door and leaned against it.

Her face was on the other side of the door, so close that he recognized the scent of her mouth. They played with their breath, in and out, a sigh of exchanging vapor as if it were the contact of their lips. Her hand pressed hard against the door and he felt its warmth.

Chang’s spoon bit into green-gray tea in the container, organizing its loose crumble. He glanced at the Baron, who had gained enough strength to sit at the table for longer periods. Li Ju hovered restlessly around her husband, adjusting the light, his cushions, the angle of the teacup on the table.

The Baron didn’t notice Li Ju, was pleased to see Chang, reassured that he hadn’t been infected. “You have courage to visit my sickroom.”

“I have no courage. According to the I-Ching , it isn’t my fate to catch your illness. I risk nothing sitting here next to you. To mark your recovery, I will prepare a special tea.”

The Baron recognized that he should respond to Chang’s words but he still couldn’t break the dull pressure that possessed him. A lingering effect of his illness. “I need more comfort than what’s provided by leaves and water.” He immediately regretted his words and apologized for his rudeness. “My health isn’t fully recovered. Please continue.”

But Chang took no offense. “There’s a saying: Bingzhong shi xin cha . ‘In sickness, I sample some new tea.’ Tea makes the bones light. Tea is an aid to immortality. So say monks and poets and scholars. A cup of tea warms your hands, your throat.”

Chang passed the Baron a shallow cup containing a few damp tea leaves. “Here. This young tea is delicate and slippery. Mature leaves are the opposite, firm and leathery.”

“Show me too.” Li Ju peered into the cup. Then she looked at her husband, huddled in a quilted jacket against the chill and the hard back of the chair. Neither of the men tried to bring her into the conversation, her husband curt because of illness and Chang distracted by concern for him. The Baron stared at the teapot on the shallow tray. Robust brown clay. A texture that held traces of the potter’s hand. Earth. With an effort, he smiled at Li Ju. Relief curved across her face.

Chang was also relieved. “Sharing pleasure is valuable. Chalu, we are companions of tea.” He handed her a tiny cup with the last leaves from the teapot. “Observe the oblong shape of the leaves. Flat leaves brew slowly. Crinkled and balled leaves release their flavor quickly because they greatly expand in hot water. Tea leaves can also be whole, flat, twisted, crimped, curled, needle-shaped, broken, granular, fanning. Like clouds that fill the sky.”

He sent a quizzical glance toward the Baron, who nodded, imagining how Xiansheng would unlock the characters that might form this observation. “I’ve had little news during my quarantine,” he said abruptly.

“No news from Kharbin is a blessing.” Chang lowered his face to the teacup in his hands and slowly inhaled. Exhaled. “Lately, the only good fortune is at the pawnshops. I’ve bought many things that others have cast aside. Ivory boxes, jade. Even an icon of some saint with pearls and amethysts. Why not? A man needs luck these days. Even from saints. There’s no work. People have no money.”

“Have you abandoned your Churin’s store uniform?”

“I’m no longer at the door. Too short to put a thermometer in the mouths of the Russian shoppers.” The Baron’s eyes widened and the dwarf laughed. “No. I’ll return in spring. They predict the world will be healed by that time, although store owners aren’t fortune-tellers. For now, there’s a guard with a bayonet at the door, keeping away sickness and looters.”

Li Ju silently toyed with a fan.

The Baron gently asked if stores had been looted.

“Only a few stores in Fuchiatien. Not enough police or soldiers to patrol the streets. They’re stationed along the railroad tracks and roads from Kharbin. I saw them force a droshky to drive through burning sulfur to fumigate his vehicle. The pony panicked in the smoke. The city is closed. Unless you’re rich.”