A Fierce Radiance (4 page)

“By Monday morning,” Patsy said, “Ed’s knee was huge, and there were red streaks up and down his shin and his thigh and he could barely walk, and the pain was…” She inhaled sharply, fighting back tears. Claire touched her shoulder to comfort her, but Patsy pulled away, biting her lower lip and clenching her hands together. She stared fixedly at the river. “It happened so fast. By the time we arrived at the hospital, the infection was in his bloodstream and in his lungs and everywhere. The pain was so awful that Ed asked them to amputate his leg, but they said it was too late even for that.”

Searching for some way to comfort her, Claire asked, “How old are your children?”

Slowly affection transformed Patsy’s face. Her clenched hands relaxed.

Claire wondered how she herself looked when she talked about Emily and Charlie, wondered if she revealed the same combination of joy and love that Patsy now showed.

“Sally is eleven and Ned is nine. Sally goes to Spence and Ned goes to Collegiate,” she added, replying to a standard question, heard even when it wasn’t asked.

“I’d like to meet them. Take their picture.”

“For the magazine?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. I’d like that. I’m hoping they can visit Ed tomorrow.” She glanced at her husband in confusion. “If he’s not busy with the doctors, I mean.”

If he’s not dead, Claire assumed Patsy must be thinking.

“Maybe when the children are here, I’ll ask the doctor about the medicine. Maybe he’ll explain it to them. They’re only children, after all. We can say it’s a science lesson.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

Patsy gave Claire a grateful smile, as if they were two mothers at the playground plotting a treat that was supposed to be for their children but was actually for the grown-ups.

Patsy swayed, gripping the windowsill to steady herself.

“Are you okay, Mrs. Reese?”

“I’m a little dizzy. I haven’t been sleeping or eating.”

Claire gestured toward the sofa. “The doctor said he won’t know anything for several hours. You should lie down.”

“Yes.” Retrieving her coat, Patsy made her way to the leather sofa. Claire followed, careful not to touch her but close enough to help if she stumbled. Patsy shaped her coat into a pillow, unfolded the tartan blanket draped across the sofa’s armrest to cover her legs, and settled herself on her side. She closed her eyes. A lock of hair fell across her cheek. Claire pretended to busy herself with the equipment. After several minutes, Patsy’s breathing took on the steadiness of sleep.

Claire used the Leica. Although she bracketed the shot, she trusted she had what she wanted on the first try: the entire scene a blur except for Patsy’s now-innocent, sleeping face.

E
dward R. Reese Jr. received the first injection of 35,000 units of penicillin at 12:04
PM
, when his fever registered 105.9. He
received the second injection at 4:00
PM
, when his fever was 105.7. Claire confirmed these details when she reviewed the chart during one of Nurse Brockett’s breaks. His breathing was still a harsh, tortured moan.

At 6:00
PM
, Nurse Brockett ordered a junior nurse to escort Patsy Reese, who’d woken, to the dining room for dinner. An orderly brought dinner on a tray for Dr. Stanton and came back with a tray for Claire, an unexpected gift. She looked at Stanton, expecting him to ask her to join him, but he reviewed his notes while eating. Generally she shared meals with the subjects of her stories, but in this case Claire decided not to press her position by inviting herself to join him.

At 8:00
PM
, at the third injection, Mr. Reese’s fever registered 105.8. Stanton was troubled when Nurse Brockett told him this. She also gave him a report on the latest blood tests. The concentration of bacteria was down, but only slightly. Tia Stanton had rejoined them, accompanied by a colleague, a slight, white-haired British man whom she called David. The Stantons didn’t take the time to introduce David to Claire.

“Do you think we should raise the dose?” Dr. Stanton asked them.

“Hard to say,” David said. “We don’t know why he isn’t responding. In our experiments, the mice responded almost immediately.”

“We need to keep our long-term treatment options open, too,” Tia said.

Despite all that was at stake, they gave their opinions matter-of-factly. Claire was impressed.

“Several high doses short-term might be better than sustained doses long-term,” Stanton said. He, too, appreciated the attitude of his colleagues. They kept him steady. There was no room for overt emotion within the confines of the experiment. There would be time, too much time most likely, for emotion afterward.

“It’s a possibility,” said Tia. “We’ll design the protocols to test the hypothesis in mice.” She noted it on her clipboard.

Stanton thought for a long moment, considering the options. The staff waited on his decision, but he took his time. Impatience was an enemy. He had to keep his mind clear, thinking ahead to the next patient and the next. “I’ll continue with 35,000 units every four hours. We’ll use higher doses on the next patient. Next time, I’ll also use a double dose for the first injection.”

“The mice will try that idea, as well,” David said.

Had they already given up on Edward Reese? Claire wondered. Their attitude was part of the story, too, the professionalism reflected in the steadfast expressions and straight postures, which she duly captured on film.

Tia and David left. After writing his notes, Stanton gave Claire an appraising glance. As attractive as she was, he wasn’t in the mood for small talk or flirtation. He retrieved a back issue of the
Journal of Biological Chemistry
. Might as well use the empty hours between injections to catch up on his journal reading. He didn’t want to leave the room for any length of time until he had a clear understanding of the outcome of the experiment.

Midnight. The fourth injection.
Protect us now and at the hour of our death
, the prayer came to Claire’s mind unbidden. Patsy dozed in one of the big leather chairs. Nurse Brockett took Mr. Reese’s temperature.

“102.4.”

The fever was down, dramatically. Stanton steeled himself to a pretense of calm impassivity. “Take the temperature again, would you, Nurse Brockett.”

“Yes, sir.” She looked as if she doubted it herself. Afterward, she went into the hall, where the light was brighter, to read it. Claire took a shot looking through the darkened doorframe, the hospital bed a shadowy presence on the left, Nurse Brockett in full light in the hall beyond as she read the thermometer. It was a design that reminded Claire of Dutch paintings: women glimpsed through doorways. Claire
was risking handheld long exposures because she didn’t think Dr. Stanton would take well to flashbulbs going off near his patient or to the maneuvering of the tripod. She prided herself on being able to remain absolutely still for a half second or even more to secure night shots without intrusive equipment. The photo-lab staff would push the film during development.

Claire glanced up: Stanton was watching her. Unexpectedly, she felt self-conscious, sensitive to his opinion of her.

Rejoining them, Nurse Brockett repeated, “102.4.”

“Kindly draw blood for a slide, Nurse Brockett.” Make no conclusions yet, Stanton cautioned himself.

“Yes, sir.” She followed his instructions, taking a small amount of blood from Mr. Reese’s left index finger. Stanton smeared the blood on a slide and stained it. When it was dry, he examined it through the binocular microscope on the counter. He made notes on what he saw. Even now, he didn’t let himself make a definitive conclusion.

“Mrs. Shipley, take a look?”

He beckoned to her, suddenly eager to share his work. He didn’t tell her what to do. He assumed she knew.

Claire hadn’t looked through a microscope since she took a required biology course as a college freshman. She didn’t want to disappoint the doctor or embarrass herself by making a mistake. The eyepiece was a jab of cold metal against her skin. She decided that the large black knob on the side must be the focus, and she turned it. He stood beside her, observing. His close physical presence stirred her.

“You’re looking for colonies of
Staphylococci
.
Staphylo
means ‘grapes’ in Greek, and that’s what they look like. Round and clumped together, like a bunch of grapes.”

Gradually dark shapes came into view, small, clustered circles like grapes, harmless-looking shapes that could make a thirty-seven-year-old man, and a three-year-old girl, die.

“I see two groups.”

“I found three, but even so, very few.” He turned to Nurse Brockett. “Well, I think we’re finally making some progress.” All at once he felt exuberant, as if pure energy flowed through him. His years of effort suddenly became worthwhile. When Claire raised her camera to capture the joy on his face, she sensed that his defenses had dissolved and she was sharing his thoughts.

Patsy Reese slept on. Stanton decided not to wake her. Let her catch up on her sleep. Good news is welcome anytime it arrives.

“Hi, everybody.” A young doctor bounded into the room with the boisterous demeanor of a man who’s just gotten out of bed, had three cups of coffee, and can’t wait to start the day.
DR. LIND
said the name embroidered on his white coat. He was blond and had the big, pudgy appearance of a college football player who’s no longer getting enough exercise. “You okay, boss?” he asked Stanton. “You look a little…off.”

“The fever’s down and he doesn’t know what to do next,” Nurse Brockett said smugly, as if she’d known all along that the medication would work. She prepared to turn her authority over to the night nurse, a pert middle-aged woman who looked like a Puritan and who rapped her fingers on the counter impatiently as Nurse Brockett reviewed several dozen details.

“We’re not ready to break out the champagne yet,” Stanton said, “but things are going well. Better than I expected. Sit down, Lind, and I’ll brief you. Mrs. Shipley,” he said with resigned forbearance, “Dr. Lind is covering for the night. The patient’s condition has stabilized, and I’m going to get some sleep.”

At least he would try to get some sleep; he felt so jazzed up he doubted he’d be able to. As a resident physician at the Institute, he was required to live at the hospital, which was both good and bad on nights like these: good because his bedroom was nearby, bad because he could have used a little distance, a quiet walk home to gather his thoughts.

“I suggest you do the same,” he said.

Claire saw no reason to insist on working all night if the physician in charge, her story’s co-protagonist, felt confident enough to go to bed.

“You may come back tomorrow. Around noon, shall we say?”

“That sounds a little late.” Claire challenged him because presumably he would expect it, while thinking to herself, good, I’ll be able to walk Charlie to school and drop off the film at the lab.

“No visitors in the morning, hospital rule. The patients have to be bathed and the rooms cleaned. Dr. Rivers made an exception for you this morning. I’ll tell the guard at the gate to let you in at 11:45.” He felt unexpectedly pleased at the prospect of having her around tomorrow. “Good night, Mrs. Shipley.”

“Good night,” she replied, putting on a bright tone.

On her way out, she captured the two doctors reviewing the chart, their faces drawn together in concentration. The angle of the light, a slanting wedge from the desk lamp, emphasized the darkness around them.

L
ook, Daddy’s article,” Charlie said the next morning.

The discovery of one of Bill Shipley’s newspaper articles, which occurred almost every day, was always a cause of excitement. For Charlie, at least. He sat at the kitchen table, the
Herald Tribune
open before him. Their house, on Grove Street in Greenwich Village, had belonged to Claire’s mother. Claire had grown up here, and now she was raising her son here.

Eight years old, in third grade, Charlie had narrow shoulders and a slight frame. His cheeks were round and full, his face still shaped by baby fat. His strawberry blond hair, straight and fine, was trimmed in a bowl cut.

Watching Charlie from where she stood at the stove, apron over her work clothes, Claire’s yearning for him was like a stab in her chest. If anything ever happened to him…she couldn’t finish the thought.

Emily, impish and giggling on an autumn day, gazed at Claire from a photo on the mantel. Pictures of Emily filled the house. As much as the pictures hurt Claire to see, taking the photos down would be like saying that Emily had never lived, and that would be worse. After all, what evidence did she have that Emily had, in fact, existed? A lock of her hair. Her first pair of shoes, barely worn because Emily had outgrown them so fast. Her favorite doll, stained and tattered. And these photographs.

After Emily died, Claire’s mother had warned her that some par
ents responded to the loss of a child by turning away from their surviving children. Claire had responded the opposite way, loving Charlie with a vehemence and protectiveness that could be frightening even to her.

As a mother who’d lost a child, what was she supposed to call herself? Maybe if she could find a word to define herself, she’d be able to cope with both her suffering and her possessiveness. The English language had a word for a woman who’d lost her husband, a man who’d lost his wife, a child who’d lost parents, but why wasn’t there a word, an identifier, for a parent who’d lost a child? Did other languages have such a word? Claire didn’t know.

Charlie, too, had had his share of illnesses. Nature’s way, the doctor told her.
Ashes to ashes
,
dust to dust.
The frailty of life greeted her along with her love each morning when she teased Charlie awake.

“Daddy says, ‘The British government’s reaction to the news of America’s entry into the conflict…’” Charlie labored to sound out the long words.

From her position at the stove, Claire listened, gently correcting his pronunciation when necessary. She was making French toast. The kitchen was on the ground floor in the back of the house. Glass doors opened onto a walled garden, which looked dreary and barren under today’s gray sky.

“‘British naval reaction to the losses suffered by the American fleet at Pearl Harbor…’”

Claire hated this morning routine of searching the newspaper for Bill Shipley’s dispatches from London and reading them aloud. She put up with it only because Charlie needed the contact with his father. Typically Bill wrote to him once a week, but for the past several months, Charlie had heard nothing from his father. Claire hadn’t received any checks from Bill for Charlie’s support, either. Claire’s questioning letters and telegrams to Bill, and a series of messages sent through his office, went unanswered. Claire wanted to get on with her
life without Bill’s specter haunting the background of her thoughts and plans, but she found herself continually pushed into confrontation with him, not only in her imagination but also in the time-consuming chores required to force him to fulfill his obligations.

“‘Prime Minister Churchill told the
Tribune
this morning’—Daddy’s trying to tell me that he got to see the prime minister!” Charlie exclaimed.

“Yes, you must be right.” Claire tried not to sound as grim as she felt. For want of any other explanation, she’d told Charlie that the ships carrying Bill’s letters to him had been sunk by German U-boats in the North Atlantic. She had no idea whether this was true, and it was an awful excuse, but Charlie believed it. As long as Charlie had the newspaper articles to prove his father was alive, he didn’t seem to notice the lack of letters. Charlie cut out the dispatches each day and pasted them in a scrapbook. He seemed to think that they’d been written for him personally and were filled with secret messages.

Before turning over the French toast, Claire added a touch of cinnamon.

“‘American Special Envoy—’ would you read me the rest?” Charlie pushed away the paper in frustration.

“Breakfast is almost ready. Let’s have a break from Daddy’s article. I’ll read it to you later.” In an ideal world, she’d never have to read one of Bill Shipley’s dispatches again. “Let’s find some maps.”

Before serving, Claire reorganized the newspapers that were spread across the table and emblazoned with the war news: the Japanese bombing of the Philippines, air raid alarms in San Francisco, the horrific suffering of the men trapped on the
Arizona
at Pearl Harbor. Claire wanted to protect her son from understanding how bad the situation was for America. Protect him from the unanswerable questions that filled her own vision of tomorrow, next week, and the months to come.

Maps were the solution. The
Times
could be counted on for several
maps each day. With the objectivity of a geography lesson, the maps showed the movements of enemy forces around the world. The arrows and dotted lines revealed no hint of the human slaughter that these movements represented. Claire found what she needed, then brought the plates to the table. She and Charlie examined the maps while eating. Soon their fingers were covered with black newsprint. Between bites of French toast with maple syrup, they laughed at their muddled pronunciations of Tarakan and Balikpapan, Soerabaja and Makassar. The names took on an incantatory power. A week ago Claire had never heard of these places in the Pacific. Now they were vital to the nation’s future.

Claire and Charlie had begun their morning map reading in September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. By the spring of 1940, they were monitoring the German invasion of Denmark and Norway. In May and June of 1940 they followed each day as the Germans marched across the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. They learned about North Africa through the battles fought there in 1941. Sidi Omar, Mersa Matruh, El Agheila, Soluch—the strange names became familiar. Charlie pinpointed the location of Crete when it fell to the Nazis. In June of 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, and Claire and Charlie traced the borders of the Ukraine and Belorussia. They located the Pripyat Marshes and the Dvina River.

In the beginning, their map reading had been extremely personal: Bill Shipley was reporting from Berlin in September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. Now Bill was in London, where he’d been during the worst of the Blitz in September 1940. Claire had managed to shift Charlie’s attention away from the nightly bombing raids on London by studying maps of the Italian campaigns in British Somaliland and Egypt taking place simultaneously.

The geography of war. Claire never knew how much Charlie understood or how he visualized the world in his imagination. She hoped that for Charlie
the war
meant arrows across a newspaper, not blaring
radio reports on casualties, and particularly not the whispered speculation on whether New York City would be bombed.

Charlie pursed his lips as he examined the newspapers. His hair was like an artist’s palette with half a dozen colors, blond, red, pale brown, even shades of gray. Claire wanted to touch his cheek, caress his hair, but she stopped herself, knowing he’d be annoyed. He liked to think of himself as being very grown up.

Charlie claimed that he remembered his sister, but he was only six months old when she died. He talked about her as if she grew younger as he became older. Nowadays he imagined her as a baby. Baby Emily. Remember when Baby Emily learned to walk? Remember the time she took her nap in the laundry basket? Maybe Charlie was projecting from photographs, or from stories Maritza or Claire herself had told him. Or perhaps he was projecting memories of his own life onto her.

Emily and Charlie, her children. Claire put her hand on Charlie’s shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t shrug her off, grateful when he didn’t. She was afraid that she would lose him, especially now, with the world enflamed.

When the United States entered the Great War in 1917, Claire had sat here at the kitchen table with her mother and studied the maps in the newspapers. The second battle of the Marne, the movement of Bolshevik forces during the revolution in Russia…together they’d followed the events far away. Even at the breakfast table, preparing for a day of volunteer work at the settlement house clinic, Anna had worn a lacy shirtwaist, pearls, and a flowing skirt. She’d held herself with the stiff elegance born of corsets. A powdery scent of perfume surrounded her. Anna wore muslin gloves to prevent the newsprint from dirtying her fingers.

Anna had been a rebel as well as a lady, living openly with another man while awaiting her divorce from Claire’s father. Of course she was financially independent, which made all the difference in a woman’s life. She’d taught Claire not to fear the judgments of others,
to look forward, not backward, and to work toward her goals regardless of what others might say to discourage or dissuade her. She’d given Claire her first camera, a birthday present when Claire turned fourteen. When Anna died, she’d left Claire this house, virtually all that remained from an inherited fortune lost during the crash of 1929. Sitting at her mother’s table, using her mother’s china and silver, Claire could pretend that Anna’s spirit was with her still, giving her an extra push when she faltered.

Claire sighed. The past years had been filled with death, first Emily, then Claire’s stepfather, then her mother. Now the country was at war once more, her family’s personal losses set in perspective against the charnel house of the world.

December. Winter pressed upon them. Claire had forgotten to fold towels against the cracks at the base of the French doors to keep out the wind. Her feet were cold in her slippers. She felt an urge to bring Charlie a blanket to wrap around his legs, even though she knew he would push it aside. Late last winter, along with a half-dozen kids in his grade, Charlie had contracted scarlet fever. He’d been out of school for six weeks, four of those weeks spent in isolation. Claire was beside herself. Simply hearing the words
scarlet fever
could strike terror in a parent. The doctor told Claire to burn Charlie’s sheets and blankets, his pajamas, his books and toys. This was the treatment for scarlet fever. No medicine could fight it. Claire took a leave from her job and sat with him, night after night. In the end, Charlie was one of the lucky ones: he didn’t die, and he suffered no permanent physical harm. Several of his classmates experienced severe hearing loss, and two boys developed rheumatic fever and heart damage. With help, Charlie had managed to catch up in school, and he hadn’t needed to repeat the grade.

Claire and all the parents she knew defined the seasons based on the diseases that preyed upon their children. In this neighborhood, generally one child went deaf or died from meningitis each winter.
Last year it was Danny, the younger brother of Charlie’s friend Ben, made deaf overnight from meningitis; his parents were grateful that he’d survived. Several children struggled with pneumonia each winter. When Charlie was in second grade, his classmate Rebecca died from pneumonia. Her wooden desk with its attached chair remained empty for the rest of the school year. Early spring was the time of septic sore throat and scarlet fever. Every summer, two or three children—in the bad years many more—were crippled or killed by infantile paralysis. Guilio down the block now walked with leg braces and crutches. Like Danny, he was considered one of the lucky ones: he was alive. As a parent, you could never let down your guard. Measles, whooping cough, diphtheria…. Some children survived, some didn’t. The luck of the draw. Nature’s way. God’s will. Claire never took Charlie’s life for granted.

She thought of Edward Reese and of the story she would continue today. She tried to comprehend James Stanton’s hopes and ambitions, and the sense of futility he must sometimes experience. Doctors could do nothing, or next to nothing, to help their patients. Serum treatments. Several vaccines, including those to fight diphtheria, tetanus, and smallpox. Recently (too late for Emily) sulfa drugs, with their toxicity and limited effectiveness. Pneumonia could put an otherwise healthy adult in the hospital for a month. Claire’s colleague Jen, one of the reporters she worked with, still hadn’t returned to work after contracting double pneumonia in August. President Coolidge’s son had died from a blister he developed while playing tennis in new shoes. A scratch from a rosebush could kill you. Three summers ago, a rose-thorn scratch had killed Andrew, the gardener at St. Luke’s church down the block; he’d left four young children, and the church raised money to help his widow. Tuberculosis was rampant and contagious. Last May, Claire walked Charlie to school and learned from the other parents that Miss Robertson, his art teacher, had been “sent to Saranac.” Claire knew what that meant; everyone knew what it meant.
Saranac was a village in the Adirondacks where TB patients received treatment in isolation from their families and friends, so they couldn’t infect them. Some patients stayed for decades. A wave of fear had passed through Claire for Charlie, but the doctor said Charlie appeared to have escaped TB infection—this time, at least.

Could a medicine made from green mold fight all that? The idea was outlandish. Incomprehensible. Nonetheless Claire was determined to capture the drama of the attempt. And if the attempt succeeded? Well, penicillin would transform the nature of life itself. Imagine Emily alive, right now. Dressed for school and sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast. Teasing her younger brother. She’d be eleven years old. In sixth grade.

Abruptly Claire rose to pour herself another cup of coffee. She returned to the table and warmed her hands around the mug. Upstairs in the formal dining room, directly above the kitchen, Maritza was Hoovering, pursuing her daily, futile battle against dog fur. Meanwhile their golden retriever, Lucas, lay beneath the kitchen table stretched out on his back, four legs spread wide, tummy revealed, as he indulged his personal version of bliss. Pushing off her slippers, Claire rubbed her cold feet into Lucas’s thick fur. His warm silkiness soothed her. He still gave off an uncharacteristically sweet scent from the bath Claire and Charlie had given him the previous weekend.