Deadly (17 page)

When I took this job, I wanted to see a cell in the microscope more than anything. But now that I've seen so many other disturbing things, I'm just not so sure what I want anymore.

Dr. Baker sat back in her chair, folding her hands against her waist.

“It wasn't easy seeing Mary in that police wagon,” I said quietly.

“Our actions were for the greater good, Prudence. Surely you must see that, for all your reservations. We have stopped the spread of disease. As a doctor, you must make impossible decisions and face terrible odds. You have to know whether you can do that or not.”

I nodded, wondering if I would ever see things the way she did.

“It's a slow process, learning about the human body and what makes us sick,” she said gently. “It's even slower
discovering ways to cure us. If we knew how to rid Mary of the typhoid germ, we would be able to release her. We need good brains to help figure these things out, brains like yours.”

I had come to her with the intention of finding answers; instead I felt even more confused. She said I had the ability to become a doctor. But I didn't know if I had the heart.

The air felt uncomfortable suddenly. I cleared my throat and said I thought Mr. Soper might be looking for me. I thanked her and stood and went to the door and bid her good day.

M
y life
is changing before my very eyes. Less than a year ago, I was sitting next to my best friend at school, trading notes with her about the silly lessons we were learning, and afterwards, shopping at the pushcarts together for supper groceries and talking about plans for our lives. She wanted to marry a writer of books—living above her father's bookstore gave her that. Imagine being married to one, she'd say, the stories he could tell you! Now she's in love with an older man, a farmer, no less. She would've laughed last year if I had divined her future the way it has turned out.

And what did I want? To see my father again, to understand how the world works, why the sky is blue and why dogs walk on four legs. I never would've guessed I'd have a job where I could use my brain to its very utmost capacity. I didn't think I would ever love a man, and that he would turn
out to be my chief. I didn't dream I could have the chance to be a doctor. Yet—I'm ashamed to say it—I am afraid. I fear going away to a school in Pennsylvania, far from Marm and Mr. Soper. What would happen to me there? Would I be able to understand the lessons? Would I fail and lose everything?

I don't know if I have the courage for this challenge Dr. Baker has presented me.

My family is made of pioneers. My grandfather left his home with his baby and his wife and came to America. What did it take for him to do that? He left his own parents, and his aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews, a language he knew, a farm he loved. My father left a wife and young child to go to another country and fight a war. I don't see how my family members tore themselves from the lives and people they loved, in order to press themselves into a new mold.

Why does a person have to leave so much behind when they make one decision over another?

I
found
myself seeking out an old classmate this evening, a girl who has known me for much of my life. My meeting with her was revealing; in a way, she showed me where I belong.

Mr. Soper sent me out of the office early so he could have a private talk with yet another strange man, which I must confess I did not like. It disturbs me when he keeps things from me.

I wandered up Sixth Avenue in the orange sunset, not wanting to go straight home. I followed the springtime hints of snowmelt and soil, longing for someone to talk to. I felt as if I were one of a swarm of creatures, all drawn upwards in the same direction. I passed the shoemaker's and the butcher's and the baker's, and all the office buildings that line the avenue. I looked into the faces of the winter-weary with curiosity. I'd been so absorbed in my own life, I had forgotten that
others existed. I felt desirous of something fresh—a scent, an item of clothing. Weaving in and out of stores on the avenue, I purchased a scone, but it didn't fill me. My hunger was not for food. Upon reaching 34th Street, I glanced in the windows of Macy's and thought I saw Josephine at the counter. I stared, unsure; I entered the department store and found it was another girl, similarly tall and pretty. I inquired after Josephine, and the girl told me Jo was in a family way and had been let go.

I suddenly wanted to see her.

I went to her East Side apartment, where her mother told me she had moved to the West Side with her husband, Willem Stryker. As I seemed to be on a mission, I jumped onto the nearest omnibus and rode west.

I knocked at the door of her townhouse, and Josephine herself answered; we looked at each other without speaking. Her extreme plumpness and the green tinge about her face shocked me.

“Prudence,” she said finally. “What are you doing here?”

I shrugged and shook my head, strangely happy to see her.

“Well, come in. I was just about to settle down for some tea,” she said.

She showed me to a pretty, lacy paradise of a parlor. On
her finger, diamonds sparkled, and for a moment I wanted what she had—a rich husband, a quiet place to read, long, empty days of waiting.

A serving girl came in with tea and white cookies; Josephine popped a whole sweet into her mouth and chewed and giggled. “These cookies are the only thing that make me feel better,” she said. “Cookies and ice cream and sweet potatoes. Everything else makes me sick.”

“You must drink milk and eat plenty of raw meat to have a good baby,” I told her.

“Ugh, meat, I can't even stand to smell it,” she said.

“And when the baby comes, you must have your nurse feed it a mix of raw eggs and cow's milk,” I said. “Keep it fat and healthy.”

She stuck another cookie in her mouth and tilted her head, crunching and looking at me. “You work for your mother the midwife, don't you?” she asked.

“I used to,” I said. I was surprised she remembered.

“Do you think she could tend to me?” she asked.

“Doesn't your family have someone?”

“The lady my mama used died. Will's mother wants me to go to Sloane's, but I'd rather use your mother, if she can take me. Maybe you can come too,” she said.

She couldn't hide her fear of childbirth; she seemed very alone. I wanted to promise her I'd help her, but I thought of my job, and how Mr. Soper needed me.

“If you can, Prudence, I would feel so much safer with you there,” she added.

I nodded, and I wondered what her life was truly like, being married and with child at the age of seventeen. Was it as easy as I assumed? Did her husband treat her kindly?

“How is Willem Stryker?” I asked.

She chewed another cookie, looking me over.

“You've never been in love, have you, Prudence?” she said.

I saw how she viewed me—a dull girl with her nose stuck in a book, a brain without a heart. How I wanted to tell her about Mr. Soper, and the feelings that so troubled me! How I wanted to free the ache that lived with me day and night!

“Love makes everything else seem unimportant.” She sighed.

I looked at the surface of her shiny, pretty eyes. Her words started a fresh pain in me; I wanted to push her away, to leave her. I could not tell her about my feelings.

“I must think about my studies,” I blurted.

“What studies?” she asked.

“At the Department of Health and Sanitation, where I work, there is a woman doctor. She has encouraged me—”

“A woman doctor!” Jo exclaimed. She laughed. “Yes, of course. You've always been a doctor, Prudence, the way you study those books, like there's actually something interesting in there!”

I smiled and lowered my eyes, taken aback by her outburst.

She said, “I remember in school you spent whole days just staring out the window, a cloud of thoughts above your head that no one else could see. Yet when our teacher asked you a question about the lesson, why, you could turn to her and always give the right answer. None of us ever knew how you did that.”

I looked at Josephine; in school I had been so unhappy. I was different. I had spent most days imagining I was somewhere else.

In a flash, I recalled my conversation with Dr. Baker. She talked about the cause, about girls who marched in the streets. They did not sit around thinking; they changed the world. But maybe they had started out like me, as doubtful, questioning girls, girls who longed to use their minds for a good and meaningful purpose. No matter how difficult a choice that might be.

“There is a women's medical college, in Pennsylvania,” I said.

“You'll be Dr. Galewski,” Jo said.

It seemed so clear to her.

“Dr. Galewski,” I repeated softly.

Yes, that is who I will be.

Josephine clapped her hands and laughed. “A woman doctor,” she said, “how
that
will turn Mrs. Browning's stomach!”

A warm grin started in my chest; it floated up through me and lifted the corners of my mouth. I rose to my feet, feeling lighter than I had in days.

“I will return soon with my mother to check on your progress,” I said.

I would start my doctoring, as Dr. Baker calls it, with Josephine.

——————

A case shrouded in mystery by the Department of Health and Sanitation has revealed that a woman cook suspected of carrying the typhoid fever inside her healthy body has been locked up for the better part of a month with no chance for freedom.

Mary Mallon, hired as cook by a dozen wealthy families in the New York City area, was captured at her place of employ late January. Mr. Herman Briggs, superintendent of the department, authorized Mr. George Soper and Dr. Sara Baker to raid the Bowing residence without a warrant in search of this human typhoid germ.

Miss Prudence Galewski was on hand to help Officers Kevan and Hill arrest and imprison the poor, helpless cook, treating her like a criminal for possibly carrying disease, despite her obviously healthy state. The
cook is presently being held at the Detention Hospital on the East River.

One unnamed source at the hospital says the department claims that up to forty people may have fallen ill from food Miss Mallon prepared, but nothing has been proven as of yet. According to several of the families she cooked for, her meals were tasty and satisfying.

——————

R
eading this
article, I feel stunned, sickened, queasy. I feel as if we were under physical attack from an enemy who wanted nothing more than to breed hatred and contempt for our department. We seem like fools mistreating an innocent woman. Where is the truth in that? Where are the real details of this story?

But I am not the one to talk to those reporters, who swim like sharks in front of our doors.