Fever (5 page)

“What’s this?” Dr. Soper asked as he entered the office and took the envelope Dr. Albertson passed to him.

“Ah,” he said simply when he was finished. “I see.”

“The samples must be tested immediately, Mary,” Dr. Albertson explained. “Or else the bacteria die. You’ve just told me that you often can’t get the sample out in the mail for a day, and then it might take three days to get to Ferguson. It’s no good. It’s not possible to test that way. And what’s more, they would know that if they really are scientists, as they claim. Have you already paid them? The results are meaningless.”

“You’re just saying that because you want to keep me here. What are your results, then? Why has no one told me the results from the lab here?”

“I can tell you, Mary, that so far, your blood and urine come back negative, but your stool comes back with a positive result roughly sixty-five percent of the time.”

“That’s not true.”

“Mary.” Dr. Albertson held up one of his hands, and Mary remembered that he’d always been kind to her. “I’m on your side, believe it or not. Don’t misunderstand—you do manufacture and carry Typhoid bacilli in your body, but I don’t think you should be held for that reason. You are not wrong when you talk about how valuable you are to our work. However, at this point we know that there are many healthy carriers out there, and it’s unfair that you should be here while the rest of them are conducting their lives.”

Dr. Soper bristled. “Or they should all be held. Or they should be taken case by case. In any event, Dr. Albertson explained it clearly, I think. These results are worthless.”

Mary looked at him and was so furious that she spat when she spoke. “You’re a liar,” she said to Dr. Soper.

Dr. Soper continued as if she hadn’t responded. “What I find interesting is that you dismiss our test results completely, give them no credence whatsoever, and yet you wholly believe these private results. So which is it, Miss Mallon? Do you believe in the science or don’t you?”

“You are a vile person.” Mary’s whole body shook as she said it.

“Mary,” Dr. Albertson offered, taking the envelope from Dr. Soper and returning it to Mary’s hands. “Why don’t you take these and think about it for a day and then come back when you have more questions? We can talk about all of this at length.” He gave her a look that said he was sorry to have called in Dr. Soper. He hadn’t understood. “I know it’s disappointing.”

“I want to see all the doctors. I want to see them right now.”

“I’m sorry. We have several new Diphtheria patients as of this morning. And Dr. Soper has come to give a lecture. Come back tomorrow morning. I’ll organize a group of doctors and we’ll all talk about this.”

“Oh, I’ll be back tomorrow. You can count on it.”

But she didn’t go back the next day, because she imagined them in wait for her, ready to punish her for taking investigative steps on her own. She was not a carrier. She had not made anyone sick. And yet, from time to time she felt a fissure in her certainty, like a reminder string wrapped around her pinkie that she’d forgotten about entirely until, at the end of a long day, she glanced down and noticed it there where she’d left it.

  •  •  •  

Though she had not yet replied to Alfred’s last letter, she decided it was time to break the silence.

Dear Alfred,

Thank you for the seeds. I have been thinking about how to respond, but right now I need your help with something important. I need you to go to the Ferguson Lab on W. 72nd Street and ask someone there to send more details on the testing they did for me. I’m going to write to them as well, but I think they need to see a person standing in front of them. Tell them that the doctors at Riverside won’t accept the results. Please, Alfred. Try to remember everything they say. Then write to me right away.

Mary

She didn’t know if the letter had reached him, if he’d been sober enough to read it, if he cared about her at all anymore, until two weeks later when the small rectangle came through the mail with Alfred’s writing on the front, saying that he’d been to the lab, not only once but twice, but no one there would talk to him about her. “What’s happening?” he wrote.

Alfred,

Thank you for trying. I had an idea that these private results would force the doctors here to set me free, but they’re ignoring them entirely. I don’t want to believe them, but there is one doctor here who seems to be on my side and he’s the one who told me the results are worthless. I feel sick thinking of all the money I gave them to do the testing. I had relaxed for a while but now I’m going to work harder to find a way out of this place. You think I’ll be here forever, but I won’t be, Alfred. I’m going to be home soon.

Mary

For a week or so she went back to old habits, waiting by the pier to watch the mailbag be carried into the hospital. And then, when she realized Alfred had resumed his silence, she armored herself against the hurt by writing more letters to lawyers, doctors, anyone who might help. Time was slipping by quickly, much more quickly than when she first arrived. Another new year arrived. Another winter turned into spring. The mailman rarely made his way down the path to her hut.

Then in June 1909, as Mary was making her way from the water’s edge in bare feet, John Cane came rushing across from the hospital with a letter in his hand. “For you,” he panted. “I told them I’d deliver it.” He watched her study the return address: O’Neill & Associates. “What is it? They said you’d want to see it right away.”

“You are so nosey,” Mary said as she slid her finger under the flap. They were right. It was a letter from a lawyer named Francis O’Neill. He’d been working on a case in Texas for the past two years, but now he was back in New York City and a letter she’d written to a colleague had been passed on to him. He wanted to meet with her. “I’ve read all the press,” he wrote, “and I’d like to hear your side. The case I was involved with in Texas was also a medical-legal issue. If your situation is as I understand it, and you have not yet secured other representation, then I am confident I can win your freedom.” He understood that she was not allowed visitors, but if she told the hospital that he was her lawyer they would have to make an exception.

Still in her bare feet and clutching the letter in her fist, she ran up to the hospital, gave the head secretary the name Francis O’Neill, and wrote back to him within a half hour asking him to come, please come.

FOUR

Mary sent her response to Mr. O’Neill on a Tuesday, and on Friday she watched an unfamiliar young man step off the ferry and steady himself for a moment before continuing up the path to the hospital. He clutched his briefcase with both hands. “Mr. O’Neill?” she asked. She was waiting in the shadow of the hospital’s western wall.

“You must be Mary,” he said, shaking her hand. She had so much to say and so many questions that she didn’t know where to begin.

“Why don’t I check in?” he said after a moment, nodding at the hospital doors. “They’ll want me to sign something.”

“I’ll wait down there,” she said, pointing to her hut.

Twenty minutes later, after a brief conversation about what was what on the island—Mr. O’Neill seemed interested in the X-ray building—she showed him inside and watched as his gaze skittered across the counter to the pile of rubbage she’d collected for John Cane. She offered him tea, but he declined. He pressed his handkerchief to his nose, and then opened his briefcase and removed a pile of papers. He had with him a copy of every newspaper article about her, plus her records from Willard Parker. She noticed he had notes attached to each item. He opened a notebook to a blank page.

“Let’s start with your arrest,” he said as he uncapped his pen.

“You mean my abduction,” she corrected him, and bit her lip. She didn’t want him to think she was unreasonable.

“Well, yes,” he agreed. “That’s probably more accurate.”

They spoke for two hours, and when he left, they had a plan. As Mr. O’Neill explained, the Department of Health may have been within their rights if they’d tested her first, and then put her in quarantine in Willard Parker following a positive result, but not the other way around. They were completely out of line to arrest her without a warrant and to test her once she was in their custody. First, he told her, she would apply for a writ of habeas corpus. There would be a hearing. He warned her that this meant her real name would be released, and asked if she needed to think about that. “No,” Mary said. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“The papers have been sympathetic to your side,” Mr. O’Neill said as he gathered his things. “That will help, too. Don’t be surprised if reporters come out here looking for you.”

“Will they be allowed to see me?”

“I’ll arrange it. I don’t see how the hospital can get around it.”

“And what about other visitors, could you get them to allow that, too?”

Mr. O’Neill touched her shoulder. “Try to be patient. I know it’s been a long time since you’ve seen your friends. But we have to proceed carefully, and remember, you’ll be home soon.”

“Wait,” she said as he began to leave. She had to address it now or else it would hang over her until they saw each other again. “I haven’t worked in over two years. I had a little money saved, but—”

Mr. O’Neill held up his hand. “There’s no fee.” She narrowed her eyes. He seemed decent, but no one was that decent. She decided to worry about that later, once she was free. As soon as he left, she got out a sheet of paper.

Dear Alfred,

Finally! I have news. I’ve just met with a lawyer named O’Neill and he seems certain he can get these people to let me go. There will be a hearing, I’m not sure when. Soon. I’ll send the details when it’s scheduled. I know it’s been a very long time and we have much to talk about but I miss you, Alfred. And I’m worried about you. I can’t wait to see you again. Let’s just forget these horrid two years and celebrate when we see each other soon. I am the same, I hope. Are you?

Mary

As Mr. O’Neill had predicted, within days of their habeas corpus application there was another newspaper article about her in the
New York American,
a long one, and for the first time, they used her real name. Her appeal was popular news in the city, and reporters began to request face-to-face interviews. The hospital allowed no more than one reporter per day.

“Write down about the closeness of this place,” she reminded each one who made the trip. “And the cot. Do you see how it cups in the middle?” The numbers used to condemn her were inconsistent: one had twenty-two sick, one dead; another had thirty sick, two dead; the third had twenty-eight sick, six dead. But none believed that was the whole story. She’d been cooking since she arrived in America in 1883, but the records that led to her discovery and capture went only as far back as 1901. “You can tell me,” each reporter said in a different way, and each made a show of putting down his paper and pencil like Mary was some kind of imbecile who didn’t know how the world worked. “When did you know?” The young man from the
Herald
had a vein that jumped at his temple.

“When did I know what?” she would reply, willing herself to stay calm. She offered each reporter one of the black-currant scones the hospital cook had sent down with John Cane. “I’ve never been sick a day in my life, and that’s all I have to say on the matter.”

Each reporter shrank away from the plate. “No?” she said, holding the plate aloft a few moments longer, as if the person sitting across from her might change his mind.

Ever since arriving in America, she kept her head down and she worked. She’d found Alfred, but that was no crime. They couldn’t lock her up for not being married, for demanding a good wage and getting it, for not attending any brand of church services and loving instead to spend Sundays roaming Washington Market, and then going to hear the fiddler who played on the corner of Fulton and Church Streets. She was thirty-nine years old and healthy. Did any of them realize the strength it took to lift a pot of boiling water? To knead bread for thirty minutes? To pound one of the tougher cuts of beef until it was tender and ready for her skillet? At the end of a workweek she was exhausted in her bones, in the muscles of her shoulders and her back, but still, she often walked all the way from the Bowens’ brownstone on the Upper East Side to her place farther downtown because she liked using her own steam, didn’t feel like squeezing herself into a streetcar.

“Miss Mallon,” the reporter from the
Herald
asked, “do you yourself believe you carry Typhoid Fever and pass it to those for whom you cook?”

She made sure to look him directly in the eyes. “No, I do not.”

“Then why has the Department of Health gone to the trouble and expense of keeping you here?”

“That’s exactly what I would like to know.”

And when it came time for each reporter to leave, she walked with him down to the dock and spoke of other things. The weather. That Frenchman’s attempts to cross the English channel in an aeroplane. The hurricane in Texas. “Where do you live?” she asked each one, coming around to it just before arriving at the dock. One was from Brooklyn. Another from Fort Lee. But the writer for the
Herald
lived on Twenty-Eighth Street and Third Avenue; upon hearing it Mary held her breath. Surely, living so close, he’d passed Alfred in the street, brushed up against him at the grocer, sat beside him at Nation’s Pub, maybe struck up conversation. The thought came to her that she should give this man a message to bring to Alfred, have him climb the stairs of their building and knock on the door to their rooms. But the reporter was backing away already, thanking her for her time, stepping down into the boat, and Mary felt the chance slip past her like a life ring thrown into the water and swallowed by the waves.

  •  •  •  

On the morning of the hearing, Mary wondered once again who was paying Mr. O’Neill’s legal fees. John Cane said it was possible some of the
New York American
’s readers had pitched in to pay for her defense since the writer took such a forgiving view. He also pointed out that sometimes Mr. Hearst got involved in cases that interested his readers. “Who named John Cane an authority on these matters?” Mary asked him. He’d been getting a little too comfortable with himself lately, standing on the single step outside the door to her cottage as he told her the hospital gossip, having a say-so on matters that didn’t concern him in the least. He brought the papers down to Mary to read out the most important passages. That he couldn’t read the sentences himself didn’t matter when it came to forming opinions on everything from the garbage strike to city taxes to Mary’s case.

“And what do you mean a forgiving view? They told the story accurately.”

“And sided with you, it seemed to me,” John said, crossing his arms and leaning against the rail as if he were born and raised on that very spot.

“Who else would they side with?” Mary demanded.

“I’m only saying,” John Cane said. “I’m only making a point.”

Mary felt nervous enough about the day ahead, and didn’t see how John Cane gave himself leave to make points when he was no more literate than a flea. All she knew was once she stepped onto the ferry later that morning, she might never return to North Brother again.

Her last letter to Alfred was brief. On a small piece of lined paper she’d written only the address of the courthouse, the date, the time, then folded it inside a copy of the article that had appeared in the
New
York
American
. Surely, when he unfolded the article and read her note, he would remember the last time they’d been down on Centre Street together—how many years ago? Eighteen? Twenty? It was late fall, the weather brisk. They were deciding what to do with the rest of their day when a page ran down the courthouse steps shouting “Verdict is in!” and then tripped, tumbling head over heels until he landed at their feet. “Well?” Alfred asked as he offered his hand and the boy let himself be pulled up. “Guilty,” the boy said as he staggered and blinked, uninjured. Mary and Alfred had walked on, laughing with heads bent so the boy wouldn’t see them, until all of a sudden Alfred pulled her into an alley, deep into a shadow, where he pressed her against a wall and put his rough hands on either side of her face and told her he loved her, that no one would ever love her as much, and she, feeling a tug in her belly like a hand clenched into a fist, could not say it back, not yet, but felt it there, inside her, waiting to be pried open.

In the beginning, Mary would meet Alfred for regular Wednesday and Saturday evenings out. One Wednesday, he told her that he wanted to live with her, and also told her that he knew she wanted to live with him. So when Saturday came, he called on her earlier than usual and said that he’d found a flat on Thirty-Third Street. Would she come see it? To decide? He’d promised the landlord they’d let him know by the end of the day. Mary went with him and they walked along Third Avenue with Alfred making his case the whole time. He’d known her so well that he’d gone up earlier that morning to place in that gray and narrow kitchen a single hothouse orchid in a red clay pot so that the first thing she would see when she pushed open the door was something beautiful that needed tending. Needed
her
tending. And she’d said, in halfhearted protest, because she felt herself giving in, felt that she’d given in already, “But we aren’t married,” and he’d looked at her for a long time before asking, “What has that to do with anything?”

  •  •  •  

The special ferry that would transport her over to 138th Street was due at eight o’clock in the morning. That would give her time to get across the East River and all the way downtown to the courthouse by ten o’clock. She’d been preparing for two days, scrubbing each of her three blouses and hanging them outside in the sun, brushing each of her skirts. In twenty-seven months the two white blouses had gone a bit yellow, the ruffles fallen flat. Two of the wool skirts had gone shiny at the seat and to her shame, when she had them out in the sun and could look at them more closely, she thought she could make out a separation in the worn area of each, two moons next to each other and a narrow space in between. The nurses offered her clothing from the hospital, told her to help herself before they were sent to the mainland and donated, but she didn’t want those tubercular blouses and dresses, didn’t want dead women’s hand-me-downs. Besides, she had difficulty finding blouses that weren’t tight across the bust, and how dare they, anyway, assume she’d wear any old thing they offered, no matter what state it was in, how crooked the seams, how flimsy the lining, no matter who’d worn it before her and what kind of tailoring that person had paid for, and what quality of cloth. How dare they? She was no beggar. She was a cook and had earned good wages and she wouldn’t touch any of it.

“There’s many who’d be grateful, ma’am,” one nurse commented when Mary told her to take it all away, and she realized too late that they were only trying to be kind. They retreated from Mary’s cottage like it was on fire, and a moment later she watched their work-whites fade into the shadow cast by the main building of the hospital. She told herself to shout after them that she was sorry, that they must try to understand.

  •  •  •  

The afternoon before the hearing, when she picked out the best of her blouses and the best of her skirts, she asked John Cane to fetch an iron and board from the hospital laundry. “Just give them here and I’ll tell them to do it,” he said, and held open his arms for the clothes.

“I don’t want them to do it,” Mary said slowly. “I want you to fetch me an iron and board so I can do it myself.”

“You don’t even trust them to iron a shirt?”

“Please, John,” Mary said before she closed the door. After an hour, she went out and looked at the small side door of the hospital where he usually came and went. She waited two more hours. She spotted him coming around six o’clock, but it was only to bring her dinner, and he promised to come back again. At ten o’clock that night, long after he would have taken the boat back to the mainland, Mary went outside one last time in her bare feet to see if anyone was making his or her way along the footpath, but all was silent except for the distant bell of a trolley across the river. At midnight, she boiled a small amount of water in a saucepan and did what she could with the smooth cast-iron bottom, pushing it along the sleeves of her best blouse. When she was finished, the blouse hung neatly over a chair, the skirt flat on the table like a tablecloth, she climbed into her cot. She tried to imagine something peaceful that would put her to sleep, but instead, her left eye began to twitch. She squeezed both eyes shut, but she could feel it still, the muscle fluttering against her palm where she pressed it as hard as she could. The last thought she had was of Alfred, and how she’d have to explain to him why she had to keep one hand over her left eye.