Andrea Barrett - The Middle Kingdom

‘Bed,’ she said firmly, studying her book. ‘Here, hospital.’ She checked something in her dictionary. ‘Ox-y-gen,’ she said. ‘Penicillin, by needle. Not go home.’

Walter rolled his eyes at me. ‘I’ll call,’ he said, and he stepped into the hall. I drew my knees to my chest, trying to splint my racking cough. Trying to figure out what was happening to me. The doctor came over, syringe in hand. ‘Blood?’ she wheedled.

I pressed my arms to my chest and covered my elbows with my hands, promising myself I’d run before I’d let her stick me.

‘No,’ I said firmly, and then I faded away again, caught up in a vision of the children at the model nursery school we’d visited earlier in the week. Row after row of obedient faces, singing a welcome in unison. On the playground they’d moved in neat groups like flocks of birds. ‘Chinese children very well-behaved,’ our guide, Lou, had told us, as our group of Western wives and mothers gaped in astonishment. ‘We give discipline early,’ one of the teachers said. ‘Discourage bad behavior.’ There were no children crying, beating up on each other, tearing the wings off of flies; no solitary ones hiding in bushes or dreaming alone at the top of a ladder. The scene had charmed us all but left us all uneasy, as uneasy as I was making this doctor now. I knew she was wondering how I’d been brought up, why I was so resistant to her well-meaning help. I retreated into unconsciousness, the melody the children had sung repeating in my ears, and when I came to myself Dr Zhang was there, arguing furiously with Walter in front of the silent young doctor.

‘She is correct,’ Dr Zhang said. ‘Wife has pneumonia, absolutely. We will admit her here. This is the best hospital in our country.’

‘No way,’ Walter said, so angry he was shaking. ‘No way. We have to leave tomorrow for my lecture tour.’

‘Yes?’ Dr Zhang said. ‘You wish her sick in Xian, where there is no good hospital? You wish to cause extraordinary incident?’

Walter glared at him coldly. ‘Bronchitis,’ he said. ‘She’s had it before. All she needs is some erythromycin.’ He was eight inches taller than Dr Zhang, but Dr Zhang stood firm.

‘It started as viral bronchitis,’ Dr Zhang said patiently. ‘But it’s pneumonia now, most probably pneumococcal. Bronchitis interferes with the clearing of bacteria from the lungs. She has consolidation now in right and left lower lobes — she should not be moved.’

‘Walter,’ I said feebly, ‘I think he’s right. I’ve never felt this way before.’

His face fell and he stared at me miserably. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Really? Jesus, Grace, I don’t know what to do. All the lectures are set up and they’re expecting me, and Katherine and I have been working on this joint presentation …’

‘Katherine?’ I said.

‘Katherine Olmand,’ Walter said. His cheeks reddened. ‘The ichthyologist? You sat next to her at the banquet? We’ve been working on this thing, a comparison of British and American lakes …’ His voice trailed off. ‘But if you’re sick,’ he said. ‘If you’re really this sick — I thought this morning maybe you were just giving me a hard time.’

I thought for a minute and then looked over at Dr Zhang. ‘You go,’ I told Walter. ‘I’ll stay here. Come back and get me when you’re done.’

Dr Zhang, kind man, picked up his cue. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Absolutely. You stay. My wife and I will look after you here, and make sure all medical care goes well.’

Walter’s relief was written on his face. ‘She’ll be fine here,’ Dr Zhang said, as if reading Walter’s mind. ‘Tell the people at your hotel what has happened, and have them send her papers here. I’ll speak to the hospital director and to the CAST liaison. You give your lectures, and return here when you are done. How long will you be?’

‘Eight days,’ Walter said slowly. He turned and touched my face, and I watched him struggling not to smile. I couldn’t blame him — hell for Walter would be eight days in a Chinese hospital nursing a sick wife. Eight days watching me when he could have been listening to applause. I wondered what he was working on with Katherine Olmand, and why he’d spoken of her. He’d dropped her name several times; he’d been dropping it all week. But Katherine was dry and wry and at least as smart as Walter, and I’d never known him to find that attractive in a woman.

‘You’ll be all right here?’ Walter said.

‘Fine,’ I told him. I had never felt worse in my life, but I knew having Walter around wasn’t going to fix me.

‘I’ll admit you as my patient,’ Dr Zhang said. ‘It’s irregular, but we’ll make up some reason for why you need a thoracic surgeon. Then I can watch you legally.’

‘Fine,’ I whispered. ‘Thank you.’ Walter and Dr Zhang huddled together and I passed out again.

When I woke, Walter was gone and I was upstairs in an open ward, tucked into a narrow bed at the far end of a long row. There was a bandage on my left elbow where someone had stuck me after all, and a sore spot higher up on my arm where someone — Dr Zhang, I hoped — had apparently given me a shot. In my other arm an IV dripped clear liquid. The sheets were crisp and cool except directly beneath me, where I’d soaked them with sweat. They smelled of nutmeg, like the rooms downstairs.

Walter was gone — that sunk in slowly. Walter was gone and I hadn’t even had a chance to say good-bye. For company, I had nine other patients lying hot and wasted in their beds. I wondered if Walter had seen this room or if Dr Zhang had spared him. The floors in the ward were dark wood, the walls and ceilings tan, and there wasn’t a scrap of aluminum or plastic in sight, no disposable anything anywhere. No monitors, no televisions, no beeps or flashing lights, no call buttons, no drapes, no rails on the beds. On the table next to me was another copy of the English-Chinese hospital dialogue, thoughtfully placed within my reach. An orange paper slip marked the pages someone must have thought I’d need.

‘Admission and Discharge,’ I read aloud, and then I scanned the next few pages. There were lines for all the things I might need: food, help, the bathroom, a haircut, an enema, the telephone. All the ways I might feel — hungry, thirsty, listless, constipated, insomniac, allergic to certain foods — and what I might prefer to eat: clear soup or cream, milk or tea, cake or soda crackers. There were complaints and wishes: too hot, too cold, too noisy; open the window, close it, please; turn the heat on or off; my wound is hurting; I need a pill. And one sad little line: I am so scared. I have never been in a hospital before.

The nurse’s and patient’s lines alternated in both languages, like lines in a play, and although they were soothing I didn’t know what I’d do if I wanted something that wasn’t included in the script. I flipped through the pages and found a dialogue in case I broke my leg, one for a pebble in my eye, another for cramps and bad periods and another for epilepsy. More and more, cancer and TB and chicken pox, hernias and ulcers and gas, even a small psychiatry section in case I went suddenly mad.

All this — but no doctors, no nurses in sight. We were alone in the dusky ward, and when I realized that I started to panic despite my reassuring book. But just then Dr Zhang appeared, with two X-ray films under his arm. Behind him came Dr Yu, bearing a big wicker basket. I opened my mouth, wanting to say how happy I was to see them, but I’d lost my voice.

‘Do not attempt to talk,’ said Dr Zhang. ‘I need only to inform you of your status. Your blood culture was positive for pneumococci, your sputum showed polymorphonuclear leukocytes and cocci, your X-rays showed homogeneous density in the right lower lobe and some parts of the left. No doubt whatsoever you have pneumococcal pneumonia.’