White Wind Blew (22 page)

Wolfgang and his friends would sneak into the church spires and race up the three-story spiral staircase to the top and overlook the grounds. They’d race back down, Wolfgang always coming in last (unless chubby Franklin Ferbough joined them), and all became dizzy by the time they reached the bottom, where they’d stumble out the door and fall in the grass and stare up at the sky. In the winter, when snow covered the grounds, they’d sled down the hills toward the lake. And when the lake was frozen, they’d coast right on out over the ice.

Christopher Schmiltz, a major seminarian who had almost been kicked out twice (once for smoking and another time for having a picture of a woman on his wall), showed Wolfgang’s group of minor seminarians how to make ketchup-flavored alcohol. They added yeast and a little sugar to the monks’ homemade ketchup. Then they pushed the cork in really tight and placed it in the windowsill so the sun could hit it. It would be ready when it popped its cork. And on that day, Christopher Schmiltz, who ended up leaving the seminary a year later and starting a family, was long gone by the time Friar Christian heard the cork pop and confiscated the bottle.

Wolfgang had met Friar Christian the first day at Saint Meinrad and had instantly taken a liking to the man. He taught Latin, and he was Wolfgang’s favorite teacher. He had an appreciation for music and liked to tease Wolfgang, calling him Saint Meinrad’s young doctor, for Wolfgang often found himself playing doctor to his fellow classmates. When Jimmy Hatcher broke his hand in the carpentry shop and when Chester Tankersly sliced his leg open pulling some farm equipment out of one of the barns, Wolfgang had taken care of them, stabilizing and administering to the wounds until Brother Allcut, the seminary’s designated medic, could get there with his wooden container of wraps, gauzes, and creams.

“Latin will be especially important for you,” Friar Christian liked to joke. “You’ll need it to memorize all those medical terms.” He was a stocky man with a head of curly hair, but the hair wasn’t confined to his head. It sprouted from his nostrils and ears with equal zeal, and it was so noticeable that Ronald Middleton had joked one night that Friar Christian had a bird nest inside his skull and the leaves and twigs were growing out his ears and nostrils. You could hear the nest moving like a dry-leaf whistle every time he inhaled and exhaled.

Good old Friar Christian.

As a minor seminarian Wolfgang always looked upon the major seminary students with admiration as they moved across the grounds in their Roman and Jesuit cassocks and the birettas on their heads. So when his time came to enter major seminary, at age eighteen, he was honored to be wearing the cassocks instead of the regular trousers and shirts they wore as high school kids. He’d felt so proud when he’d first walked up the big marble steps that led up to the abbey church, wearing those sacred garments.

After his summer with Rose he questioned whether he was worthy of the cassocks. Twenty now, torn and confused, Wolfgang prayed beside his seminary bed and stared up toward the tall ceiling, remembering all the monks as if he’d made up his mind to leave Saint Meinrad. But he hadn’t made that decision. Not yet. He convinced himself that he was still weighing his options.

But the Spanish flu had come to Camp Zachary Taylor, and they needed help in Louisville. And Rose was back home, waiting. How could he leave her behind when her flesh and her scent had already become so ingrained in his senses that he craved them like a drug?

Rose
rested
on
the
bed, naked, her left leg lost in the sheets, the rest of her backside in perfect view.

Wolfgang
emerged
from
the
bathroom
and
sat
next
to
her
on
the
bed. “Rose, what are you doing?”

“Helping you study, Wolf.”

“Is that so? Looks more like a ploy to convince me not to study.”

She
rolled
over
and
handed
him
a
wooden
baton
Charles
Pike
had
used
while
conducting
his
imaginary
choirs
and
orchestras. “Here, it’s the first thing I could find.”

Wolfgang
laughed
as
he
took
the
baton. “And what would you want me to do with this, Rose?”

“Use it as a pointer, Wolf.” She rolled onto her side. “Go on. Review. You have a test in the morning on the human body, do you not?”

He
ran
the
tip
of
the
baton
softly
along
her
exposed
hip. “Yes, I do.”

“Then what are you waiting for. Start studying.”

As much as Wolfgang wanted the dream to be real, as soon as he blinked the weariness from his eyes, the vision of Rose faded. A cruel trick of memory. And by the time he reached the sanatorium that morning, he could barely remember what his mind’s eye had rehashed during the night. He was in a hurry to see if Dr. Barker had removed the piano. But, no, it was still there. Wolfgang found McVain playing it as if nothing had occurred last night. Lincoln sat in a chair beside the piano with his fedora on, turning pages for McVain.

Shortly after lunchtime, Dr. Barker stopped Wolfgang in the second-floor hallway, his face solemn and his voice surprisingly noncombative. “These are my rules, Dr. Pike, and you will obey them or it’s all over, whether
God
allows it or not.”

Wolfgang stood with his black bag of instruments and waited.

“You and the choir can meet three times a week,” he said, “but for no longer than an hour. Choir members must sit in chairs—I can’t have them standing that long. And you’re to finish before sundown. I can’t have the children up late.” He sighed. “And we shouldn’t have the colored patients up here. It could anger some of the other patients.”

Wolfgang wondered if Barker had heard about the note stuck to the pig’s head. “Have you heard specific threats?”

“He’s not supposed to be up here.”

“It can only be complete with Rufus. The healing.”

“You’ve already caused enough tension with your
healing
, Dr. Pike.”

Wolfgang started to walk away but then stopped. He tempted fate by opening his mouth. “You mentioned my sacramental wine the other day.”

“What of it?”

“You like whiskey, Dr. Barker. That’s no secret, so let’s not deny it because of the times.”

“I like whiskey. I like bourbon.” Dr. Barker checked his wrist watch. “Please tell me you have a point to this.”

“I read that doctors made millions last year writing prescriptions for whiskey to patients.”

“I can assure you that I’m not one of them.”

“And neither am I.”

“Don’t allow the rehearsals to interfere with your work, or I
will
go over your head. I hear priests can be moved quite easily.”

“I am not yet a priest, Dr. Barker. You know that.”

“Yes, of course I do, and so does the diocese. But wouldn’t they be interested in what you’ve been doing here…unofficially?”

***

For the next few weeks Wolfgang strictly followed Dr. Barker’s rules and met three times a week to practice with his choir and musicians. They gathered typically near the end of the afternoons when the weather was warmest. He was careful with the time, because he knew Barker would be monitoring. The situation with Rufus was not ideal for building chemistry and harmony with McVain and Josef, but Rufus practiced with them from the colored hospital down below while they rehearsed above. It was better than not having a flute at all, at least until Wolfgang could think of an alternative. The chorus came along quickly, most of them memorizing the words and the music on their own so that they could spend every moment of rehearsal on harmony. Wolfgang had almost everything he needed now except that strong bass singer.

They’d been hit by a string of days that refused to climb above twenty degrees, so Wolfgang took it upon himself to cancel five rehearsals. He didn’t want to take any chances in the below-freezing temperatures. He had too many ideas brewing, too many patients who seemed to be responding to his music medicine, and he didn’t want any of it curtailed by Barker.

Mary Sue was now strong enough to walk with baby Fred around the grounds for a half hour, without assistance but supervised. Wolfgang continued to allow her a visit to Frederick every night, and Wolfgang always brought his violin. Frederick’s battle with the disease was growing unpredictable. Some days he could barely move without assistance, and others he could manage to sit up in bed, yet his name always appeared on Wolfgang’s request list.

He’d yet to hold his son.

Wolfgang made his rounds. He heard confessions. He listened to their questions and gave them answers that would ease their passing. While doing so he came up with another idea. On a sunny day near the end of January, he asked Susannah to gather the choir a few minutes early because he had an announcement to make. Even she didn’t know what he had planned.

Wolfgang cleared his throat, stood by McVain at the piano, and faced the choir. “We’ve set a date.”

Abel shouted from the front row. “For what?”

“A date for our first concert, Abel. A little over two weeks from today. On Valentine’s Day.”

Susannah half raised her hand. “Valentine’s Day?”

“You have plans, doll face?” McVain asked.

“No.”

“Well, now you do,” Wolfgang said. “We’ll throw a party better than New Year’s and play for everyone here. From the rooftop.”

McVain coughed. “What about Barker?”

Someone else coughed in the background, and when Wolfgang turned he spotted Susannah covering her mouth. It was so cold. Her cheeks were pink.

“Dr. Barker doesn’t know yet,” Wolfgang said. “But I believe I can convince him. If the temperature is decent and, God willing, it doesn’t snow, we’ll have lawn chairs out on the grounds for all the patients and we’ll play from above.”

Susannah raised her voice above the wind. “What will we perform?”

“A bit of everything. We’ll decide in the coming days.” Wolfgang pointed to the chorus. “With your input, of course.”

Abel raised his hand. “We need a name.”

McVain rolled his eyes. “And what name shall that be?”

Abel shrugged. “I don’t know. The Orchestra of Waverly Hills.”

“Sounds reasonable enough.” Wolfgang surveyed the crowd. “Any objections?” There were none, not even from McVain, who appeared more tired than normal as he slumped lower against the piano. “Very well then. On Valentine’s Day, the Orchestra of Waverly Hills will present its debut performance.”

***

Wolfgang’s enthusiasm about the concert made the night’s work go by much more quickly. When his rounds were finished he searched every floor and solarium porch but couldn’t find Susannah. He couldn’t wait to see what she thought of his surprise announcement. She’d appeared happy, but there was something in her departure after the rehearsal that made Wolfgang think she was preoccupied. Like she was hiding something.

He ran into Nurse Marlene on the third floor thirty minutes before midnight. He was finally able to approach her without feeling uncomfortable. “Have you seen Susannah?”

“She left a few minutes ago,” Nurse Marlene said. “She told me to tell you she’d see you in the morning.”

Wolfgang sighed and walked over toward the porch screen. It didn’t make any sense. They always told the other when they’d be unable to walk the hillside at night. He looked down the slope of the snow-dusted hill below but didn’t see her walking toward their trail in the woods. He breathed in the frigid air and inched closer to the window, the cool screen clipping his nose. Down the hillside to the left some movement caught his eye.

Susannah’s white dress blew behind her as she carefully stepped over the frozen ruts in the muddy road near the sanatorium’s entrance. Her left hand held her white cap pinned to her head while her right arm clutched something against her chest. He strained to see but couldn’t tell what it was. She entered the line of trees on the far side of the road, navigated a grassy downhill toward a narrow footpath, and disappeared under a canopy of low-lying limbs.

Where was she going? He walked down the solarium, his face nearly brushing the screen window as he peered down into the woods. And then he saw the only cottage on that side of the hill about thirty yards deep in the trees. He knew where the footpath would take her.

A light was on in Dr. Barker’s cottage.

It was the summer of 1918, the summer of Rose, and Friar Christian and Wolfgang sat side by side on a concrete bench outside the monastery. Friar Christian rested his elbows on his knees, leaning forward, fingers interlocked with his lowered chin resting upon them. Wolfgang attempted to read the face of his favorite monk, but as usual, Friar Christian just looked serene. That was how Friar Christian prayed, eyes open and slightly glazed, staring at something no one else could see. He inhaled deeply, and his squatty face seemed to shrink in upon itself. And of course Wolfgang could hear the dry-leaf whistling sound of his breathing, the air fighting through the hair inside his nose.

Wolfgang smiled inside.

A breeze ruffled Friar Christian’s unruly hair. The grass on the hillside was growing brown in spots from the heat of the summer and lack of rainfall. Many of the leaves on the surrounding trees had turned colors early. Wolfgang found himself staring at them when Friar Christian finally spoke.

“Would you believe me if I told you I was once in love, Wolfgang?”

“I would,” said Wolfgang.

Friar Christian smiled. “Her name was Julie. She had brown hair and freckles, and she lived next door to me when I was a teenager.”

“Was she in love with you?”

“Oh, yes.” Father Christian’s façade thawed. “She wanted to get married. And she was a delightful girl. I did love her. But the spark for me was not as great as my love for God. Or this place.”

Wolfgang looked down. “I see.”

“No, I don’t think you do, Wolfgang.” He was teacher again. “Distancing myself from her was the test for me. I proved my love for God by doing so, and I don’t regret it. Not once did I think I’d made the wrong decision. But that was my greatest hurdle. It eventually faded away. Julie married another man, who made her much happier than I ever would have.” He patted Wolfgang on the shoulder. “But we all are different, are we not?”

“Yes, Father.”

“I am not you, and you are not me,” said Friar Christian. “And Julie was not Rose. She sounds like a truly remarkable woman.”

Wolfgang looked up. “She is. Unlike anyone I’ve ever known.”

Friar Christian laughed. “How old are you, Wolfgang?”

“Twenty.”

“Go to her. You’ve been back in classes for two weeks now. Clearly not yourself, though. The Wolfgang I know doesn’t mope about or doubt.” He watched two squirrels scamper across the lawn. “I hear the Spanish flu has hit Camp Taylor very hard. I’ve seen you with the others here. You have a good bedside manner, Wolfgang. Go back to Rose and help the soldiers defeat this illness before it spreads throughout the city.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“You see, you didn’t need my advice,” said Friar Christian. “You knew in your heart what you were going to do. You only needed my permission.” Friar Christian stood. “But you didn’t even need that, Wolfgang. Not really. I’m certain you would have made a wonderful priest, and the doors here are always open for you. But I think you have another calling.”

Wolfgang looked at him.

“You should become a doctor, Wolfgang.” Friar Christian walked him toward the abbey church as birds chirped from the transepts. “Love the Lord with a scalpel in your hand. And communicate with him through your music.”

***

Wolfgang returned home to Rose and Camp Zachary Taylor the next day, where the Spanish flu continued to spread. She gave him a quick kiss on the lips and immediately pulled him to work. The conditions at the camp were far from sanitary, and the tents were overcrowded. The virus struck the camp hard and fast. The men returning from action were believed to be carriers of the virus that would hit nearly 20 percent of the country’s population. Many of the barracks had been converted to hospitals for the thousands of soldiers who had become ill.

At its height, forty per day were dying inside the camp. Rose and Wolfgang and dozens of other volunteers spent their days tending to the sick, changing bedpans, washing sheets, wetting towels, and assisting the doctors with whatever was needed. Despite their futile attempts to keep it contained, the virus spread outside the camp, turning up in thousands of cases across Jefferson County. One evening Wolfgang hurried past a cot where Rose sat, holding a wet cloth on the forehead of soldier who was so hot with fever he didn’t know who he was. He trembled with his eyes closed, moaning.

“Wolfgang.” Rose stopped him. “Get the violin in our bag.”

“I didn’t pack my violin, why would—”

“I packed it this morning,” she said. “I had an idea. Just hurry and get it, please.”

Wolfgang returned a few minutes later with one of his father’s violins and a bow. Rose stood and offered her seat to him. Wolfgang looked at her and then toward the open seat next to the suffering soldier. Finally he sat down. “I don’t want to disturb the others, Rose.”

“Play, Wolfgang.” Rose squatted next to him. “Just play something. See if it doesn’t help calm him.”

Wolfgang eyed the other occupied cots inside the cramped barrack and then positioned the violin against his neck. He slid the bow across the strings and began to play a snippet from Vivaldi’s
Four
Seasons
, softly. Moments later the soldier’s arms and legs began to settle. The fever was still burning him from the inside out, but his face appeared calmer, more at peace.

“See, Doctor?” Rose winked at Wolfgang. “Keep playing.”

Wolfgang continued. Ten minutes later, the soldier managed to find slumber. On the far side of the barrack, another soldier cried out. Wolfgang tucked the violin under his arm, hobbled across the barrack, and played.

The epidemic eased by November, and by that time Wolfgang had gained a reputation at Camp Taylor for his musical medicine; the soldiers began calling him Music Man. Rose entered Saint Helena’s on South Fourth Street, a Catholic college for women, and set her sights on studying to become a nurse. Thoughts of the lingering Spanish flu were overshadowed by the announcement in November 1918 that the war was ending. An armistice was signed, and the telegraph operator at the
Courier
Journal
was the first to spread the word. Church bells sounded and factory whistles blew in the middle of the night. Sleeping Louisvillians jumped from their beds and hurried to the streets, where they celebrated well into the next day.

Wolfgang was shirtless when Rose pulled him from beneath the covers and tugged him to the street. She tiptoed and kissed him on the mouth. “The war has ended, Wolf.” They stood arm in arm for a few minutes and watched as their neighbors took to the pavement on foot, on bicycle, on canes, walking dogs, all of them hooting and hollering and waving their arms joyously in the air. They hurried downtown to dive right into the middle of it all. Men and women waved American flags and tossed confetti. Others had draped the flags across their bodies. Patriotic songs were belted out, one blending into the next. Stuffed dummies depicting “Kaiser Bill” hung in effigy from the Courier-Journal and Louisville Times building. Bands played. Couples kissed on street corners. Mothers hugged their children, and fathers walked with little boys and girls hoisted on their shoulders so they could see over the crowds. City leaders and politicians gave speeches from makeshift stages.

Two weeks later Louisville had the largest parade in its history as most of the residents stood to watch ten thousand soldiers from Camp Taylor march in lines along Broadway en route to Central Park. Rose and Wolfgang stood on the curb along Fourth Street, waving to the soldiers as they passed in their seemingly endless rows, recognizing so many of them. The young soldier Wolfgang had first played the violin for spotted them alongside the street and shot them a sharp salute, which Wolfgang and Rose returned.

The Medical School at the University of Louisville welcomed Wolfgang with open arms. He had experience and a high school diploma, which instantly put him on more solid ground with the professors who had their share of students with only two years of high school, or less. Many were students because their parents wanted them to become doctors and were willing to donate more money. The teaching staff immediately singled out Wolfgang because they knew he was there for the right reasons, and he was motivated.

Professor Montgomery Philpot, a sixty-year-old doctor with a reoccurring case of gout in his left leg, was particularly intrigued by Wolfgang’s musical medicine. He’d read an article in the
Courier
Journal
about a young man playing the violin for the soldiers at Camp Taylor. One afternoon after his pathology lecture, the professor asked Wolfgang about it, and Wolfgang admitted that he was indeed the young man from the newspaper article.

“I know it was popular with the soldiers.” Professor Philpot scratched his rotund belly as he sidled along with Wolfgang, both of them limping across a sidewalk that was covered with fallen leaves. “But do you believe this musical medicine to have purpose?”

“I do, Professor.” Wolfgang walked with books in his arms. “It is not the answer as far as cure, but I do believe it helps the soul, and when the soul is at peace, healing can take place.”

“Spoken like a man of the cloth.” Professor Philpot laughed. “Most of the staff here would think you crazy, young man.” He scratched his bald dome, which was covered with liver spots. Wisps of long white hair stuck out around his ears.

“I agree it’s unorthodox, Professor, but—”

“I for one think it’s brilliant, Wolfgang.”

Wolfgang let out an anxious breath. “It was my wife’s idea originally.”

“Of course it was. What are we without our wives, Wolfgang? Dogs chasing our own tails.” Professor Philpot patted Wolfgang on the shoulder and pointed toward a brick building across the lawn. “Come, tell me about your experience at Camp Taylor. And your music. I’ve got a cadaver in Dissecting Room A that hasn’t totally been plucked by our second-year vultures, if you care to take scalpel to hand.”

***

The stench Wolfgang expected, but not the dozen chickens clucking around the legs of the dissecting tables. The shelves along the walls were full with boxes, files, bones, skulls of various shapes and sizes, and jars with things floating inside of them. A broom leaned against the closest shelf. Philpot used the broom to corral the chickens to the far corner of the room, where a cage rested with its door wide open, the floor covered with hay, dirt, and feathers. Once he had them inside the cage, he closed the door and moved a box of bones in front of it to keep the chickens from escaping again. He leaned the broom against the wall and grunted as he faced Wolfgang. “Dr. Jennings.” Philpot wiped sweat from his brow. “The chickens are his. He’s doing an experiment on embryology, and they’re constantly getting loose.”

According to Professor Philpot, many of their cadavers were, as he called them, “indigent” Negroes, and it appeared that the body currently lying on the dissecting table had been badly hacked by the second-year students. The man’s heart was missing, as were most of his ribs and his liver. The right lung was still intact, and Wolfgang immediately got to work analyzing it, taking notes, sketching his own diagrams. “Make friends with the lungs, Wolfgang. With tuberculosis running wild, we’re going to need our share of doctors who are competent with them.”

While Wolfgang worked on the cadaver, Professor Philpot waddled around the room, rearranging things, looking for things, clanging things, his head moving not unlike the chickens inside the cage as he talked about the woefully underfunded medical school and the state of medicine in general ever since Abraham Flexner’s infamous report in 1910. “‘Quite without resources,’ Flexner writes.” Philpot grabbed a scalpel off a cart. “How can we expect to have resources without proper funding?” he scoffed. “Flexner was on the nose, Wolfgang. Blunt and a tad harsh, but on the nose. Not one university across the country went unscathed by that report. Things have improved here, there is no doubt about that, but our classes are still far too big, the labs are overcrowded, and the staff is undermanned.”

Finally Philpot got to the reason he’d brought Wolfgang into the lab in the first place—the music, which Philpot took to like a bee to honey. He even encouraged Wolfgang to write a paper on it, using his experience at Camp Taylor as an example. And then the professor motioned Wolfgang to the head of the table. “Care to take a look at the brain?”