Wickett's Remedy Page 17

  Terrence Donohue remembers a woman who hummed as she tended him.

  Kelly Frame admired the lady for not flinching as she changed her bedsheets.

  Lydia stroked fevered heads. Her fingers clasped other fingers. Never in her life had she so often touched and been touched. Beneath the smells of sickness she sometimes caught the musky scent of skin. Pajamas divulged geometries of chest hair, a small flat scar, a constellation of moles. Sickness and need obviated convention and left, in its place, intimacy. Lydia had perceived this intimacy once before. Because she had been tending Henry, she had assumed it was conjugal but she now discovered it was universal—a shared human undercurrent detectable only when the dictates of name, sex, and social standing were effaced. Revealed, it became an embrace. Lydia had not been three hours at Carney before she knew she was meant to be a nurse.

  When George McClellan recovered, he vowed to ask the pretty volunteer to marry him, but when he could not find her he asked his girlfriend instead.

  Hours passed in which she barely recalled her own name, in which the activity of Carney bestowed its own purpose and belonging. Awareness of the epidemic itself was subsumed by its particulars—the precarious gravity of a tray of water glasses, the smell of blankets imbued with camphor, the cavernous feeling of the sick wards compared to the tents. She preferred the tents. The air was fresher there, the smells less trenchant. Open tent flaps permitted sun and wind, healing forces that could not penetrate Carney’s red brick walls.

  Sarah Hoolihan was too sick to argue when the doctor put her in the boys section. She blames nits, and the haircut she was made to get because of them.

  Ethan Dougherty did not mistake Lydia for his sister—he thought she was a nun.

  Her day at Carney furnished her a strange education. She learned that a few deep inhalations could deaden her nose to the smell of bile and sputum and blood. She learned to steel herself against the sight of soiled sheets. Her face grew an invisible callus that held her features in place so she did not flinch at the gurgling blue-lipped boy; or the bog-chested woman whose skin was covered in dark blotches and whose nose dripped thick, black blood; or the delirious young man who, in his fever, mistook Lydia for his sister, dead days before. But however hard she tried she could not cotton her ears against the sounds of sickness. Influenza loosed pneumonia into the lungs, and pneumonia’s sounds were those of a body drowning from within. Pneumonia turned skin and lips the bruised gray blue of an evening sky before a storm. She was informed in hushed voices by the nurses that those with feet tinged that color seldom lived through the night. Patients unfortunate enough to arrive in such a state were partitioned from the rest. Doctors did not visit these patients, nor nurses. Only the Sisters in their winged wimples passed through, sometimes in the company of a priest. In the rush, the priest performed last rites over unconscious but still-moving forms, their toes already tagged for the undertaker. Passing through this part of the hospital, Lydia heard these patients struggling for breath, a dirge of clotted lungs.

  Across the ocean, the enemy had a discernible face and could be fought with something as simple as a gun. Battles in Europe had beginnings and ends. At Carney, no sooner had she brought water or blankets to one patient when she was called by another, only to be sent elsewhere by a nurse. Lydia could not believe she had given so much of herself to a sales counter, her labor meted in collars and shirts. By the end of the day she felt as if she had spent a lifetime at Carney, her memories of other places the products of dreams.

  The hospital’s frantic pace precluded the possibility of a slower, more peaceful existence elsewhere, and yet not ten blocks away her mother was preparing supper. If Lydia arrived late she would have to explain where she had been. The same nurse whom she had petitioned that morning was still on duty when she reluctantly took her leave. Despite the nurse’s assurances that Lydia had far surpassed expectations—that she ought to go home and rest and was welcome to return tomorrow—leaving Carney still felt just short of criminal.

  Katherine Jennings loved to tell the story of the woman who mysteriously appeared from nowhere to bring comfort to the patients during the worst of the epidemic, and whom future nurses took to be pure invention.

  The serenity of the streets beyond Carney was unsettling. Such stillness should not have coexisted beside such tumult without a rift in the paving stones. Lydia’s body ought not to have passed from one state to the other without suffering some sort of change, as when one stands up too quickly or is thrust into freezing water; and yet here she was, returned unscathed to a world where people ate sitting down, where masks did not cover mouths, and where the sounds and smells of the sick did not create a separate climate. She had returned to a world where she served as a conduit for cuffs and fancy buttons, a flesh extension of the baskets that traveled the length of Gorin’s delivering receipts and change. Once again she inhabited a world where human intimacy was as fleeting and rarely sighted as an obscure comet.

  As she returned home, she considered how to reconcile her newfound vocation with her old life. Once Gorin’s reopened, her work schedule would grant her three days a week to give to Carney. It was both not enough and more than she could hope for. In the unlikely event she was permitted to remain once the Red Cross nurses arrived, she doubtless would be relegated to tasks that kept her away from sickbeds. No matter how astute her powers of observation, she would not learn nursing in the hospital laundry or in its kitchen.

  Had she been questioned on returning home, she would have admitted that she had avoided Thomas’s sickbed by attending countless others. She would have done her best to temper her family’s dismay by describing the imperative to volunteer and the nobility and purpose of her labor, but hiding the truth—no matter how distressing—would not have been a possibility. But her arrival was not met with questions. The Lydia who had left that morning appeared no different from the Lydia who returned. Michael might have been able to detect the change, but Michael was gone. With no outward sign of her internal revelation, her family had no cause to ask anything.

  Thomas’s fever was down and his cough no worse. Though Lydia and her father were still barred from sleeping in the bedroom, the kitchen was no longer a no-man’s-land between health and sickness. Thomas’s improved condition was the day’s only good news. John had arrived at school to learn that class had been canceled due to his teacher falling ill. James was one of four metal punchers who had reported to Gillette healthy enough to work.

  Lydia considered mentioning Carney over dinner, but was deterred by the sight of the table’s two empty chairs. She remarked only that Gorin’s had been closed. She did not describe nurses ferrying aspirin between tents or the small room toward the rear entrance where the bodies lay stacked. Neither did she share the comforting sound the wind made as it whistled through a tent or the warmth that filled her chest when a patient’s eyes met hers. She would explain Carney to them tomorrow. And if, by chance, she arrived to Carney tomorrow only to be turned away, she could postpone the topic for less troubled times.

  John told James he thought it might be the end of the world. James tried to convince him otherwise, but it was clear he was wondering the same thing.

  She was leafing through her father’s newspaper when she saw the notice. Mr. H. G. Cory of the Public Health Service was seeking experienced nurses to aid in a government test concerning the flu, to be conducted on Gallups Island. Lydia looked up from the newspaper, feeling as if she had been caught reading a dime-store romance, but her mother was tending Thomas in the bedroom, her brothers were talking in low voices on the front stoop, and her father was dozing at the other end of the divan. She carefully tore the ad from the page. She was a more experienced nurse than she had been when she woke up this morning, and this morning her lack of experience at Carney had been counteracted by their need and her ardor. Three times that evening she verged on throwing the notice away. She fell asleep certain that tomorrow morning she would disregard the notice she still held in her hand.<
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  When did this one come in?

  A few hours ago, Doctor.

  Well, there’s nothing we can do for him now. Who’s next?

  Here, Doctor.

  Is there any room in the field hospital?

  Tent D-4 is vacant.

  Wasn’t that the young woman?

  Yes, Doctor.

  Well, put this one in D-4 then.

  Does her family know?

  They’re—waiting out there. I’m supposed to tell them—but it’s too much.

  How bad is it?

  The husband—arrived a few days ago. He was dead—by the time she came in but we told her—he was too weak to see her. In case—it made a difference, but it didn’t.

  She was bad off?

  Couldn’t even get enough air—to push properly. The wee thing—had to be pulled out of her and of course he was dead. God I can’t—talk to ’em so long—as I’m crying like this.

  Then let them wait a little longer. Shh. It’s all right. You’re doing a kindness letting them wait.

  TO THE PUBLIC:

  It is important for the Public to know at this time that the telephone service of this Company is to considerable extent impaired as a result of the prevalence of Grippe among its forces. As a result of a daily absentee list of several hundred employees, the service is necessarily slower than at normal times in spite of the splendid effort of those who are capable of remaining on duty.

  The Public can greatly aid the efforts of our operating forces in the following ways:

  By eliminating unnecessary calls.

  By refraining, so far as possible, from special appeals to the Chief Operators, whose entire time should in the present emergency be given to the supervision of their Central Offices.

  By showing leniency to those still capable of remaining at work.

  New England Telephone & Telegraph Company

  By W. R. Driver, Jr., General Manager

  THE QDISPATCH

  VOLUME II, ISSUE 4

  JULY 1993

  QD and Me: A Sodaman’s Journey By Ralph Finnister

  Chapter 14 Sad Ascension

  It seems fitting that 1968, such a tumultuous year for our country, was also a season of change for QD Soda. After those grueling months fending off the soda consortium, the great Sodaman announced his intention to retire. It should not have come as a shock. By that time Quentin Driscoll was in his seventy-second year and the battle against the consortium—though successful—had taken its toll. But still, when Quentin Driscoll called me to his office and told me that the time had come, my first reaction was disbelief. Though the features of the Sodaman’s face had softened, a fierce light still shone from his eyes. Quentin Driscoll may have no longer been as proud and tall as he had once been, but I still saw in him a Sodaman strong of figure and fearless in thought and deed.

  For thirty-five years I had been groomed to lead QD Soda into the future. Now this future had arrived. The soda Quentin Driscoll had created still looked and tasted the same after fifty years—but he had become an old man.

  Many parallels exist between the world of soda and the world of man, and many paradoxes as well. Man, like soda, is well over fifty percent water and yet the differences from soda to soda and man to man are striking. Some sodas are bland and undistinguished. Others are sickly sweet, while others have a flavor that becomes tiresome. The same is true for man who, like soda, is created by a manufacturing process that renders him different from the way he begins.

  An empty bottle is filled with plain water, to which carbonation and flavorings are added. Like most men, I began life as something plain, and like most men I might have ended that way, had I not encountered Quentin Driscoll. The great Sodaman flavored the contents of my humble bottle to create something much better than would have otherwise been. And on the eve of his retirement, the full meaning of this truth was revealed.

  Soon before he was to hand me the reins to the empire he had single-handedly created, Quentin Driscoll called me into his office. It was very common for the two of us to remain at work long after everyone else had gone home. This evening, the sun had long set and the Sodaman’s office was lit by a lamp that graced his desk’s broad surface. The gold initials that fronted the desk glowed dimly. In such light, Quentin Driscoll’s face looked to have been carved from ancient stone.

  “You first came to me at a very dark time,” he began. “Life had lost its savor and I felt hopelessly adrift. If you and my dead son had not shared a name, you would have passed from my office that day without leaving so much as a ripple behind you.”

  How strange it was to hear this truth spoken aloud! This thought had haunted my nights and spurred me to prove—to myself and to the world—that I was worthy of all that chance had bestowed! I had thought of Ralph Driscoll countless times over the years, but not since my first visit to the great Sodaman’s office had he mentioned his son. I had been certain I would not hear that name pass those lips again. Never was I so happy to be wrong.

  “Though I will continue to miss my son with every breath I take, until I breathe no more,” Quentin Driscoll continued, “even had my own son lived I cannot imagine a more loyal and able partner than you. Dear boy, I am proud of you and of the Sodaman you have become.”

  My own father could not have inspired the joy I felt on hearing those words.

  “Thank you, Sir,” I replied.

  “That is all I ever wished for.”

  But while Quentin Driscoll was not a man to deny life’s happy moments, neither was he a man who could dwell in them.

  “Do you remember what you said the first time you stood before me thirty-five years ago?” he asked.

  I blushed. I remembered it all too well.

  “I was young,” I apologized, thirty-five years too late. “When I said I wasn’t sure if Ralph was the name of a great man, I was speaking of myself, not your son.”

  “What Ralph Driscoll may or may not have become is a question whose time is long past,” Quentin Driscoll said. “Thirty-five years ago I asked you whether it was better to be good or to be great and you answered that it was better to be good.”

  “But that it was best to be both,” I gently reminded him.

  “But if only one was possible—” he began.

  “I chose goodness over greatness,” I agreed. “But only because, of the two, it is the one quality an average man can ever hope to achieve. It has been my great privilege to work with one of the few notable exceptions to that rule.”

  The great Sodaman shook his head. To my surprise, pride had been replaced by deepest regret.

  “There is something I would like to tell you,” he said, his voice strangely quiet. “Something I have never told anyone.”

  For the first time in thirty-five years, I saw something close to fear enter the great Sodaman’s face. To imagine Quentin Driscoll might think he had anything to fear from me! I was overwhelmed by the desire to reassure my mentor, my master—my friend.

  “You don’t need to tell me a thing,” I cried as my emotions overtook me. “Nothing you could say would erase my profound regard for you. Sir, you have filled my little bottle with everything that you have, and I am all the richer for it.”

  Never had I dared to dream that my words—however spontaneous and heartfelt—would bring tears to the great Sodaman’s eyes.

  “My son!” Quentin Driscoll declared, rising from his desk like a mighty oak. We embraced like soldiers. I can imagine no greater honor than the one bestowed on me that day by those two words.

  In This Issue

  A New Look at Cara Blaine, QD’s Most Famous Cutie … Page 4

  Renaming B Street: How You Can Help Page 5

  The next morning, even as Lydia waited for the streetcar, she doubted the cogency of her plan. It was nonsense to think she would be offered the position—and if she was she did not know how she could possibly tell her family. But she was haunted by the timing of her discovery. A day earlier and the newspaper notice would have m
eant nothing; a day later and she might have been obliged to return to her sales counter. She preferred to present herself and be turned away by Mr. Cory than never to have made the attempt.

  Gerard Davis holds that sign one part responsible for his abiding good health, the second part being hot whiskey.

  The streetcar driver wore a mask. A handwritten sign above his head read: IF YORE FEELING SICK PLEESE DO NOT RIDE. I HAVE A WIFE AND FAMLY. The last time Lydia rode the streetcar into Boston, people had sung as they made their way to the soldiers’ parade. But the streetcar was no longer a place where people even exchanged greetings. When a man sitting toward the middle of the car coughed, the passengers around him recoiled as if snakes had slithered from his mouth.

  All her life Lydia had taken for granted the showmanship of Boston’s streetcar conductors. Some intoned each successive stop as one small part of a larger song, while others bellowed like Fenway Park umpires. Today’s driver dispensed the names from inside his mask in a muffled monotone. Perhaps even more contagious than the flu germ itself—which may or may not have inhabited that car—was the fear being inhaled and exhaled, spoken and swallowed, invisible yet tangible as it passed from person to person. Lydia knew she ought to have shared this fear; inside the moving streetcar she provided fear a captive audience. Instead she felt resignation. If flu wanted her, it would take her as it had already taken Henry and Michael. If it did not, then riding this streetcar would make no difference.