A Death-Struck Year (7 page)

I gathered the infant, whom I discovered to be a girl, close in one arm. I scooped up the boy with the other. Then I spared one last look for their unconscious mother.

“I’m sorry. I will send help. I promise,” I whispered.

I stumbled to the front of the house, nearly dropping the baby as I fumbled with the doorknob. I half ran, half staggered down the path toward the car parked across the street. The roads were still empty. I looked toward the first house I’d visited. The woman with the yellow housedress watched me from a window. Our eyes met through the glass. She yanked the curtains closed, leaving me dumbfounded. I settled the children as carefully as I could onto the rear seat. I turned the crank at the front of the car, jumped into the driver’s seat, and started the engine.

We were off.

It was only then that I realized how badly my hands were shaking.

Saturday, October 12, 1918

The car came to an abrupt stop outside the Auditorium, sending a tall, dark-haired young man leaping out of the way onto the sidewalk. Brown liquid flew from the paper cup in his hands, soaking the front of a white lab coat. He looked down at the dripping stains, then turned to glare at me through the windshield.

“Hey—!”

Ignoring him, I jumped out and reached for the baby. She felt as if she were being cooked from the inside out. With her head cupped in my palm, I whirled to face the stranger. He marched my way with a scowl on his face but stopped in his tracks when he saw what I held, indignation dissolving into astonishment.

“Please help!” I stumbled over a sobbing breath. “There are two of them!”

The stranger tossed his cup. I moved aside so he could lean into the rear seat, where the boy lay sprawled and feverish. He checked the child’s pulse and muttered something under his breath.

I hovered, craning my neck to see around him. “Will he be all right?”

“I don’t know.” Lifting the boy in his arms, he backed out, then reached over and placed two fingers on the baby’s neck. I inhaled sharply. Ugly, puckered flesh marred the skin of the young man’s right hand, above the knuckles. Was it a bullet wound? Had he been shot? He caught me staring—his eyes were the clear, crystal green of sea glass. I didn’t even have time to be embarrassed. Sparing me one quick, unsmiling look, he said, “Let’s go!” before racing up the steps toward the main doors.

I ran after him, the baby clutched tight. There were people coming and going. Heads swiveled before we burst through the metal doors into the ticket lobby. Two white-clad nurses, masked, surrounded us in an instant. One rushed after the stranger, who had gone through the interior doors. The other I recognized as the older nurse from the volunteer table—the one who had thought I was far too young to be here. How I wished that Hannah had listened to her.

“Let me have her,” she ordered. I gave up my hold on the baby. And watched as they too disappeared through the glass doors.

Dazed, I sagged against a wall. The lobby was long and narrow, with black-and-white squares tiling the floor like a chessboard. Two ticket windows were positioned at opposite ends of the room. Chairs had been brought in, pushed against walls, every one of them occupied. A woman with a sleeping baby in her arms. Two men in sailor uniforms. There was a priest, a police officer, an old woman with a lap full of knitting. The ticket lobby had become a waiting room.

A cup of water appeared before me.

It was Hannah Flynn, her brows knit in concern. “Cleo, was it?” she asked. When I nodded, she said, “Here, drink this. You look like you’ve had quite the day so far.”

I snatched the cup and gulped down the entire contents before coming up for air. An ambulance siren wailed in the distance. “Thank you,” I said after I’d regained my breath. “The children. They’ll be fine, won’t they?”

Hannah glanced toward the glass doors. “I couldn’t say just yet. Why don’t we give Lieutenant Parrish some time with them, and then I’ll see how they are.”

I stared at her. “Lieutenant? You mean . . . he’s not a real doctor?”

Hannah shook her head. “Edmund is a medical student.”

I’d just handed those children off to a
student.
Someone barely older than I was. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Where are the doctors?”

“There are a few here,” Hannah said. “But many have been sent to the military infirmaries. Even more are abroad.” My feelings must have been written plainly on my face, because she added, “I know. But this flu is new to all of us, which means Edmund knows as much as I do. As much as any of the doctors. We’re all students here. Every last one of us.”

Her words were the opposite of comforting. I hoped she kept those thoughts away from her patients. I tossed the cup into a bin. Above it was a handwritten notice that read:
Visitors allowed in the wards only under extreme circumstances.

Lieutenant Edmund Parrish. Whoever he was, I hoped he knew what he was doing. Those poor children and their mother . . . I gasped.
Their mother!

“We have to go back!” I said, horrified at myself for forgetting. “I couldn’t carry their mother. I need—”

“Come with me.” Hannah strode toward the entrance doors. I hurried after her. We clattered down the steps toward an ambulance parked directly behind my car, the engine still running. Two uniformed men sprinted by in the opposite direction. Balanced between them was a teenage boy on a stretcher. I glimpsed a wan face and dull, listless eyes and had to force myself not to stare.

Hannah circled the truck until she stood in front of the driver’s open door. The man at the wheel had brown hair threaded with gray and skin that sagged like an old bloodhound’s. A pencil was lodged above one ear. He used a second pencil to scribble on a notepad.

He looked up at our approach and scratched his beard. “I’ve seen that look before, Hannah. I can guess what you’re after.”

Hannah smiled. “And you would be correct, Mr. Briggs. You won’t mind moving this one to the top of your list? It’s an emergency.”

Mr. Briggs looked exasperated. “They’re all emergencies,” he said, but relented. “Whattya got?”

“A woman at . . .” Hannah turned toward me, eyebrows raised.

I gave them the address. Mr. Briggs wrote it down.

“Got it.” He tucked the small notebook in his shirt pocket.

I stepped forward. “Mr. Briggs, she wasn’t awake when I left, but the front door should be unlocked. The back door, too.” I had also forgotten my new bag, filled with pamphlets and masks, on the back porch.
And
I had neglected to pull up my own mask before I charged into the house. I hoped I didn’t look as incompetent as I felt.

There was a sympathetic gleam in Mr. Briggs’s eyes. I had a feeling he knew exactly what I was thinking. “Both doors open,” he said. “Good. Saves us the trouble of breaking them down ourselves.”

I heard a loud thump. The men had jumped into the back with the empty stretcher. Hannah and I stepped away as Mr. Briggs swung his door shut. A siren pierced the air, and before I knew it, the ambulance sped down the street and careened around a corner.

I turned to Hannah. “Thank you,” I said.

She placed her hands on her hips and studied me. “Hmm.”

I looked down and grimaced. My navy coat hung open, revealing a white shirtwaist smeared with stains I had no wish to identify. I lifted the sleeve and sniffed, remembering too late the baby’s bare bottom. My eyes watered. Hannah’s lips curved. Behind us, a door slammed against the concrete wall. Startled, we looked toward the top of the staircase.

“No! I’m leaving. Don’t you try to stop me, Kate!” A young woman bolted down the steps, dressed in a serviceable brown coat and hat. Close on her heels was a girl, about my age, dressed in a yellow shirtwaist and slim brown skirt. She wore no coat. They were obviously related, both of them pretty and slender, with brown hair and rosy cheeks.

The second girl, Kate, looked infuriated. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Ruby! It will get better. You wanted to help.”

Ruby’s voice was shrill. “They’re beyond help! I’m not about to die for a stranger. And you shouldn’t either!” She brushed past us, jostling Hannah, but did not stop.

Kate stopped beside us and threw up her hands. “How am I supposed to get home?” she hollered at the departing figure. Ruby ignored her. We watched her wrench open the door of a battered old truck and drive away.

“Well, she lasted a full hour at least,” Hannah said, resigned.

Kate looked embarrassed. “I don’t know why she wanted to come in the first place. My sister’s never been very good around blood. I’m sorry, Hannah.”

Hannah rubbed the back of her neck with one hand, and for the first time I noticed the shadows under her blue eyes. “More will come, and stay. Kate, did you bring a change of clothing with you?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Could you spare a blouse for Cleo? She’s had her own interesting time of it.”

Skeptical, my gaze dropped to Kate’s bosom, far more generous than mine. I would feel swallowed up in anything she owned. From the look on her face, I knew she agreed.

“I’ll find something,” Kate said, extending her hand. “I’m Katherine Bennett. Kate.”

I took it, noticing for the first time that I was missing my right glove. When had that happened?

“Cleo Berry,” I said. “I would be grateful.”

I saw the instant the stench reached her. Kate opened her mouth to say something and then snapped it shut. She dropped my hand and stepped back.

“Whew!” she said.

“I’m sorry.” Unable to bear it, I peeled off my remaining glove and shoved it in a skirt pocket, then shrugged out of my coat. It made no difference. I would need a new shirtwaist, a new coat, and a bar of strong-smelling soap.

“Well, enough with the pleasantries,” Hannah said. She turned and started up the stairs. “Let’s get you freshened up and back to work, shall we?”

I was no stranger to the Public Auditorium. Jack, Lucy, and I had attended a performance of Verdi’s
Rigoletto
just last month. Walking onto the main floor, I saw that the first- and second-tier balconies remained unchanged. The red velvet stage curtain was drawn. And high above our heads, the same five crystal chandeliers lit the room.

But nothing else was as I remembered.

Gone was the Auditorium’s rich, patterned carpeting, now covered over with wooden floorboards. The red chairs were also missing, replaced by metal cots arranged in ten rows. I counted ten beds per row. Add to that the cots crowded into the orchestra pit—one hundred and twenty beds, approximately. The pipe organ, usually housed in the pit, was nowhere to be seen.

Gone too were the elegant men and women out for an evening’s entertainment, dressed in fine silks and jewels. Instead, doctors, nurses, and volunteers, all masked, circled the infirmary, monitoring the sick with brisk efficiency.

Hannah, Kate, and I walked down an aisle, my filthy coat clutched in one hand. I could not help it. I gawked, mesmerized by the men, women, and children lying hollow-eyed and feeble beneath white sheeting. The sound of misery suffocated me, an unsettling symphony of rattling coughs and unchecked moaning.

I scanned the room, but there was no sign of the lieutenant or the two children. We passed a soldier, still in his uniform, who hacked up blood onto a towel while a nurse gripped his shoulders. Others lay unmoving on their beds. They had a peculiar bluish cast to their skin. For some, the faintest stroke of color slashed across the cheekbones. But others were so dark they appeared almost black. What was causing it? Bruising? Had they fallen?

“There are so many,” I said through my mask.

Hannah looked somber. “There are more at St. Vincent’s,” she said. “And they’re setting up tents outside County Hospital and Good Samaritan. They’re already running out of room.” She stopped beside one bed, examining a blond girl who looked to be about ten.

I turned to Kate as we waited in the aisle. “Have you been here all morning?” I asked.

Kate shook her head. “Since last night,” she answered. “My sister Waverley is a nurse at St. Vincent’s. She came by the house, saying the Red Cross needed help and lots of it. My sister Etta is volunteering at County. Ruby, as you know, is useless. And my younger brothers and sisters are at home with my mother, helping with the pneumonia jackets and bandages.”

Briefly, I wondered how many siblings Kate had before my thoughts returned to the patients. “Are those bruises?” I whispered, gesturing discreetly across the way toward a young man.

Kate followed my gaze. “He has cyanosis,” she whispered back. At my blank look, she added, “It means his lungs are failing, and he doesn’t have enough oxygen in his blood. It can turn a person’s skin blue or purple. Sometimes even black. At least that’s what Hannah says.”

It sounded terrifying. “Will it go away? Once they get better?”

Kate glanced sideways at Hannah, who leaned over the child with a stethoscope. She kept her voice low. “Dr. McAbee has never seen anyone with cyanosis recover. And he’s been a physician for forty years.”

I turned to look at the man again, certain I’d misheard. “But . . . there are at least a dozen people here who look like that,” I said.

“There are thirty-one,” Kate said.

I didn’t have a chance to respond. Hannah tucked the girl’s blanket around her and straightened. Kate and I exchanged a look. The three of us continued down the aisle. This time I tried harder not to look at the patients.

Something else was bothering me. Most of the cots here were occupied. And extra room was being prepared at St. Vincent’s, Multnomah County, and Good Samaritan. I did a quick mental count. “We were told there were two hundred sick in the whole city,” I said. How many patients were they expecting?

“There
were
two hundred,” Hannah replied. “But that was yesterday. There are at least twice that now. And those are just the ones that have been reported.”

I stopped in the center of the aisle. Two hundred yesterday, at least four hundred today. What did that mean for tomorrow? Or next week? And what about me? How long would it be before I ended up on one of those cots?