White Wind Blew (10 page)

But that was also why Wolfgang loved his father. He was a man of such passion. His father had given him music! The vibrations of the stringed instruments as they’d hum through the floor like a current; the sound of the piano keys under his father’s delicate fingertips, flowing like honey; the clarinet reverberating off every nook of the house. Despite all the letdowns he’d experienced, Charles never failed to get excited when he finished scribbling down yet another row of notes he believed would carry him to greatness. Pages still locked in his hands, he would hurry upstairs to find his wife and son.

“Doris… Wolfgang…” He’d scurry from room to room until he located them. “I’ve got it. This is the one. You have to come and listen.”

Those were the evenings when a smile and giggle would return to his mother’s face. Life surged to her cheeks, and her eyes would glow as she and Wolfgang sat on the couch, waiting eagerly as Charles readied his violin or straightened his posture at the piano. He winked and smiled at them. “You ready? Here it goes.” No matter what it sounded like, they applauded. Charles stood and bowed and waved to the vast imaginary crowd around them.

“Well, is it not brilliant, Wolfgang?”

“It is brilliant, Father.” Then he would hug Charles around the waist and Charles would ruffle his hair. They would laugh and dream, and soon, just like his father, the music consumed Wolfgang too. Soon he couldn’t live without it. He spent most of his early childhood indoors, learning how to play all the instruments. He understood that the same passion that caused the sadness and silence in the house also caused the happiness in his heart. Without the music, he would have been lost.

Every day when Charles returned from the factory, Wolfgang begged for a lesson on one of the instruments. Most days his father obliged, working with him on the piano and violin until dinner. They were the only times he could remember his father allowing him to sit close. “Here, Wolfgang,” Charles would say, placing his hands over Wolfgang’s on the piano. “Like this.” Or “Stronger, Wolfgang,” gently prodding Wolfgang’s shoulder as he held the violin. “Feel it there,” Charles said, rubbing his son’s throat, as Wolfgang tackled the harmonica.

So music became Wolfgang’s life, the invisible bond with his father, until a few weeks before Wolfgang’s eighth birthday, when Charles Pike was killed. And Wolfgang saw it all through the hole in his bedroom wall.

Wolfgang slept through the night. His body was exhausted from wheeling McVain out of the sanatorium and down the hillside. He dreamt of the small ensemble he had started in his later years at Saint Meinrad, up in the choir loft of the abbey church with three other students. One of them had played the flute, and as he slept he could hear the sound resonating as clearly as if he’d journeyed back in time. His eyes didn’t open until after the sun rose over the trees and the sound of music woke him up.

At first he assumed it was the birds, but it sounded more like…a flute?

Wolfgang tossed the covers aside. He felt the erection before he saw it. He reluctantly looked down and immediately wondered what kind of dream the flute had lured him from. Glimpses of Marlene’s breast teased him again.

With Rose dead, he’d been determined to focus on the Lord and his patients. But he was also a man, and a doctor at that, who knew there were urges that couldn’t just be turned off like a faucet. All the more reason to remain strong in his vows to the Church and to his music. Wolfgang forced himself from the bed and thought about birds, food, music, God—anything but.

He rubbed his eyes. The flute continued. He slipped on his bathrobe and stepped outside into the cool morning. The flute music was louder and clearer.

Where was it coming from? Whoever was playing had talent, he thought. He surveyed the woods and eyed a cluster of squirrels as they sprinted down the hill, falling over one another and crisscrossing seamlessly around the trees.

Susannah came walking around the corner wearing a long brown coat. He looked over his shoulder and did a double take before realizing what time it must have been. She giggled. “That’s what you’re wearing to work now?”

Wolfgang pulled the lapels of his robe together. “Do you hear the music?” He pointed down the hill where portions of the colored hospital were visible through the naked trees. “It’s a flute.”

Susannah folded her arms. “Someone’s been playing for an hour now. Come on. We’re going to be late. Get dressed. And please do something with that hair.”

***

Outside, near the tree line, the combination of wind and damp hair made Wolfgang’s skull feel like an icy ball, but his brain was full of optimism. The sound of the flute reminded him of Dr. Waters, and specifically what he’d said days before his death, something about never seeing where Wolfgang’s music would take him. Wolfgang’s pace quickened. Susannah had to hurry to keep up with him, and then suddenly Wolfgang stopped.

“What would you think if I formed an orchestra here?”

She looked up through the trees. “At Waverly?”

“We have a theater,” he said. “Why not a music program?”

“Anyone can pretend to act, Wolf, but unskilled music is just painful noise.”

“Maybe not a full orchestra…” He continued walking. “Never mind.”

“No, tell me.”

“What if I taught the patients to play? And sing?”

Susannah looked amused. “A choir and an orchestra, here? This isn’t Carnegie Hall. They’re too tired, Wolf. They lack the energy.”

“Not all. And some of them already know how,” he said.

Susannah sidestepped a narrow dip in the ground where water had collected in a puddle. “Is this because of McVain?”

“No.” He walked for a moment in silence, staring at his shoes, and then his chin popped up again. “But watching McVain last night, it sparked ideas.”

“I like the idea,” she said, “but Barker won’t.”

“At Saint Meinrad, the only instrument we had during Mass was the organ. All that room up in the choir lofts and only one organist. I convinced the monks to allow me to play the violin, and they allowed it.”

“But this is a hospital, Wolf, not an abbey.”

“A few months later another student volunteered to play the clarinet with us. And then another with the flute. Soon the choir loft was alive with music. I want to do the same here. I’ll handle Barker. I just need to get McVain.”

Big Fifteen made his way toward them, maneuvering his cart while he popped something into his mouth. He chewed. He passed right through the steam wafting up from his covered food, inhaling it as he angled the cart downward. “We got sausage this morning, Boss. Want one?”

Wolfgang waved. “I’ll wait, thank you.”

Susannah stepped away from them. “I’ll meet you inside.”

Wolfgang nodded and then approached Big Fifteen. “I heard music coming from the colored hospital this morning. A flute.”

Big Fifteen eyed Susannah as she reached the entrance portico and entered the sanatorium. “Heard it m’self, Boss.”

“Who is it?”

“New patient, I reckon. Group of ’em come in yesterday.”

“Could you get a name for me?”

“Sure could try.”

Wolfgang patted his shoulder, lifted the towel from the cart, and grabbed a piece of sausage. He half jogged up the lawn toward the sanatorium, crazy notions flirting with his mind.

Only eleven patients attended Wolfgang’s early Mass that morning, and he even found himself pushing his own heart to focus on the homily. He couldn’t get the flute out of his head.

***

After Mass, he was summoned to Dr. Barker’s office. Nurse Marlene, of all people, had been sent by Dr. Barker into the chapel to get Wolfgang. He’d managed to avoid looking directly at her when she’d spoken to him. Foolishly he’d stared at her white shoes and shapely calves, and then her bare knees just below the bottom of her skirt. Finally he turned away, as if something else had caught his attention. He’d thanked her and she’d moved on.

Wolfgang knocked on the large pane of frosted glass inside Dr. Barker’s office door. After knocking a third time, Barker invited him in.

Dr. Barker’s gaze remained on a set of files spread out atop his cluttered desk. A toothpick danced across his teeth. He looked up at Wolfgang and said nothing. He just sat there, gnawing on the toothpick. Then he said, “I warned you, Doctor.”

“Sir?”

Dr. Barker leaned forward. “I know what you did last night. You took a patient out of this hospital. A highly contagious patient. You deliberately—”

“I brought him back, sir.”

“This isn’t a joke.” He took the toothpick from his lips and tossed it into the trash can. “What kind of doctor acts this way?” He smirked. “Or is this the action of a priest? Deception?”

Wolfgang moved closer, placed his black bag of instruments on the corner of Dr. Barker’s desk, and sat down in a chair opposite Barker’s. “I’d call it more of a revelation. McVain’s speaking to me now.”

Dr. Barker pursed his lips, ran his hands through his hair, and sighed. “He’s been speaking to the rest of the patients for days now. They love him because he was in the war. It’s not as if you had a sudden breakthrough.”

Wolfgang remained silent.

“They need rest,” Dr. Barker said, his tone rising a bit. “They need fresh air. They don’t need to be walking through the woods in the middle of the night in the dead of winter.” He stood from his chair and leaned with splayed fingers on his desk. “You’re too friendly with the patients. Too lax with our rules.”

Wolfgang stood with him, eye to eye. “This isn’t a prison. And I’m searching for other options besides our medicine. I’m sorry if you don’t understand—”

“I understand music, Wolfgang.” Dr. Barker lifted Wolfgang’s bag of instruments and tossed them into Wolfgang’s lap. “Don’t tell me—”

“Then why do you keep fighting me?” Wolfgang leaned forward. “Henry believed in what I’m doing.”

“Henry is no longer with us.” Dr. Barker walked around his desk. “This disease is killing more people than we lost in Europe during the Great War. Five years ago Waverly Hills was a two-story wooden building. The overflow slept in tents. And now we have this grand place. But even still, half of our schools have vacant seats. Churches are empty.” He pointed out the window, in the vague direction of Louisville. “People are afraid to leave their homes. They think the white wind is going to come down and infect them. My wife is afraid to be around me.”

“Music can be contagious too. It—”

Barker rubbed his eyes impatiently. “Don’t speak to me of music, Wolfgang. Not until you can speak to me of a cure.”

“I’m closer to a cure than you, sir.” Wolfgang spun away and stepped out into the hallway, where he found Susannah, most assuredly listening to the entire conversation.

“I’m on my way upstairs,” she said softly because Barker’s door was still open.

“To check on Herman?”

“And the others.”

“I’m going with you.”

“It’s not necessary, Wolf.”

The bruise on her wrist was lurid in the morning light. “Yes, it is.”

***

At times, the wind on the rooftop was enough to knock over a well-balanced man. Wolfgang and his deformed foot managed to stay righted as he followed Susannah. His lab coat rippled in loud snaps. Susannah held on to her cap as she walked across the graveled roof and then onto the terra cotta tiles where most of the heliotherapy patients spent their time in the sun. Farther down the rooftop, inside the nurses’ station and bell tower, Herman’s bellow carried from the open windows of Room 502.

“I want my cakes! Give me my cakes!”

“I wonder what’s got him wound up.” Susannah approached a group of men lying on lounge chairs. Three of them, despite the thirty-degree temperature, sat with their sleeves rolled up to their shoulders, their skin absorbing the sun’s rays, which, at the moment, remained hidden behind a cluster of puffy white clouds. The men looked up politely. A thin man with sunburned shoulders nodded toward Wolfgang. “Morning, Father.” He tipped an imaginary cap toward Susannah and smiled. “Miss.” Three of his front teeth were missing. Wolfgang studied how the men all looked at Susannah—she was clearly flattered.

The doctors prescribed sun treatment for TB of the glands, bones, joints, skin, eyes…there was really no stop to where the white death could spread after it entered the lungs. The heliotherapy patients spent nearly every sunny day on the roof, and when it rained, some were treated with radiation by means of mercury lamps. Today, the men were in the middle of a game of cards, but they were struggling to keep the cards and chips on the table.

“Little windy for cards, Geoffrey.” Wolfgang bent down, picked one up off the floor, and handed it to Geoffrey’s buddy, a chubby man with a sunburned forehead named Cletus Janks, who, for whatever reason, winked at Wolfgang before he began to shuffle the deck. The wink was followed by a nodding of his head in Susannah’s direction, as if the man was trying to tell him something.

Wolfgang glanced at Susannah.

Herman screamed again. “My cakes! Who stole my cakes?”

In the background, over the ornately capped rooftop wall, the treetops danced with the wind. Susannah and Wolfgang stepped into the shadows of the bell tower and opened the door to the nurses’ station. What had once been a sleeping station for the nurses now held a handful of mentally ill, and Herman was the worst of them all.

“Susannah!” Herman screamed as she entered, as if he could smell her. Nurse Rita sat pale and very still behind the main desk, her eyes frozen in a daze across the room toward 502. Wolfgang touched Rita’s shoulder. “Rita…Rita!” Nurse Rita didn’t respond.

“I hear the music!” Herman shouted from behind the closed door, locked in but not restrained.

Susannah turned toward her fellow nurse. “Rita…?”

Slowly Rita turned toward Susannah.

The two young nurses stood silently for a moment, one calm and unflappable, the other completely on edge, too frightened to even talk. “Are you okay, dear?” Susannah asked again.

Rita looked back at Room 502 but said nothing.

Wolfgang lifted the food tray from the counter, but Susannah snatched it from him. “I’ll get it.” She walked toward Herman’s room, balanced the tray on one knee, and unlocked the door. Wolfgang followed behind her. The room had two beds and a large screened window. It smelled of urine and feces. Herman sat naked on the floor, slapping his belly and hairy chest repeatedly with the palms of his hands, which appeared to be smeared with excrement. His clothes rested in a bundle at the foot of the bed. He stood, fully exposing himself to Wolfgang and Susannah. Wolfgang wanted to cover Susannah’s eyes, but she remained calm. Her eyes didn’t waver as she pointed at Herman. “It’s time to eat, Herman. Put your clothes on.”

Herman looked toward the door for a split second, just long enough for Wolfgang to catch a glimpse of his dark eyes; it reminded him a little of a rat he’d seen scurrying across his porch early in the fall. Herman’s tangled hair and scraggly beard hung down toward his hairy chest in one matted plait. Somewhere within was a mouth that, when he spoke, caused the entire hairy contraption to move.

“Can you hear the train coming? Rita can hear it.” Herman hunkered down again, moaning with his right hand between his legs, the flesh around his eyes turning red. “The train’s a-coming.” He moaned, stopped abruptly, and then slumped over toward his bed.

Susannah remained calm but finally did look away. The fact that she wasn’t completely unnerved by the entire episode interested Wolfgang in a way he couldn’t truly explain. Herman wiped his hands on his bed sheets, coughed, and spat at the window. Yellow phlegm dripped slowly down the screen, filling the tiny holes with pockets of his saliva. He sat up with his back against the pea-green wall and faced them, smiling.

Susannah had her stern face back on. “Clean yourself, Herman. And put your clothes on now. You’re going to wake up Benson.”

Something moved beneath the covers on the other bed, and a high-pitched voice emerged from the tangle. “Shut up…shut up…shut up…shut up…No, I cannot hear the train. I do not hear it coming down the tracks…I love my dog…I would never hurt him…her…hurt her…so shut up, Herman. Shut up—”

“I want cake for my birthday!” Herman screamed.

Maverly Simms joined in on the madness from Room 504, shouting as if in competition. “Maverly at Waverly. Maverly at Waverly. Maverly at Waverly…”

“It’s not your birthday, Herman,” said Susannah.

“When
is
his birthday?” Wolfgang asked. “And why do they never use the toilet? There’s a bathroom right over there.”