The Plague and I

I HAVE ALWAYS liked any special day, be it Mother’s Day, Groundhog Day or Bastille Day and the big full-bodied holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter fill me so full of feeling and spirit that I can get tears in my eyes just looking at a fruitcake.

Lying in bed at The Pines day after day, week after week, month after month, engaged in pursuits such as listening to the split, splat, splat of the rain hitting the gutter outside my window or waiting my turn to have my lung collapsed, should have increased this feeling for holidays about a billionfold. It didn’t. The days were all so exactly alike and followed each other with such monotonous regularity that I lost all interest in holidays as such.

I knew them only as “gas” day, bath day, fluoroscope day, visiting day, supply day or store day. It was in part infiltration into sanatorium life, divorce from normal living. It was also in part the childish self-centered attitude of an invalid. What I was doing, how I felt, what was to happen to me became more and more important to me as time went on.

At first when my visitors told me of happenings in the outside world I was vitally interested and relived each incident vividly with the telling. Then gradually, insidiously, like night mist rising from the swamps, my invalidism obscured the real world from me and when the family told me tales of happenings at home, I found them interesting but without strength, like talk about people long dead. The only real things were connected with the sanatorium. The only real people, the other patients, the doctors, the nurses.

At home Thanksgiving had always been a delightful occasion even when we were being thankful for meatloaf shaped like a turkey. We thought about Thanksgiving, planned for Thanksgiving and talked of Thanksgiving for weeks beforehand, but the evening before the actual day was the best time of all. Then the house seethed with children and dogs, with friends and cooks, and with delightful smells of baking pies, turkey stuffing and coffee. Every time the doorbell rang we put on another pot of coffee and washed the cups and by the time we went to bed we were so nervous and flighty that when accidentally bumped or brushed against, we buzzed and lit up like pin-ball machines. Thanksgiving morning usually found us all quite nasty and with too many things planned for the oven, but even the fighting was fun. Warm, family fun.

At The Pines I awoke the morning before Thanksgiving to darkness and drumming rain and thought only, “Shampoo, today. I wonder which nurse I’ll get.” In the bathroom after breakfast, I overheard Sheila telling Kimi that we were having turkey and coffee without saltpeter for Thanksgiving dinner. “Thanksgiving?” I said. “When is it anyway?” “Tomorrow,” Kimi said with obvious disgust. “Surely you have not forgotten how, with tear streaming from your motherly eye, you begged the Charge Nurse to let Anne and Joan come four day early so that you could see them on Thanksgiving.” I remembered then and was lightheaded with joy at the prospect of seeing my darling Anne and Joan, but I had no feeling about Thanksgiving until after supper that night.

The ward was very quiet. The radio had been turned off and the smooth surface of the evening stillness was broken only by the faraway clatter of the nurses washing nourishment cups and the dreary slip, slop of the rain. I tried to read but kept losing my place and reading the same paragraph over and over again.

Every magazine story seemed to be about a girl who was nauseatingly little, nauseatingly thin and said “Jeepers.” As I was only interested in stories about large plump women with tuberculosis, and had always nourished an overwhelming desire to kick in the groin anybody, no matter how tiny, who said “Jeepers,” I threw the magazine to the foot of the bed and turned off my bed light. “Pulitt, pulatt, pulitt, pulatt,” said the irritating rain on the roof of the porch. There was no other sound from anywhere.

I lay and thought about the quiet until it finally dawned on me that this was the night before Thanksgiving, that everyone was thinking about home, that the air was so thick with longing, so crowded with memories that it was difficult to breathe. Someone across the hall, pushed aside the heavy curtain of remembering to draw a long shuddering breath. There was a sigh from the room next door.

I too sighed as I thought of candlelight and the dear faces of the family around the dinner table; of the delicious Thanksgiving morning smells of cranberries, freshly chopped parsley and boiling giblets; of the time Dede made the gravy thickening out of powdered sugar; of how invariably at the last minute somebody in the family unearthed a big bore who of course had no friends, no other place to go for Thanksgiving.

I remembered the year we had sat at the dinner table for four hours listening to a deservedly lonely man from Mary’s office recall every bridge hand he had held since 1908; the old Alaskan friend Cleve had produced who sharpened his knife on his tongue and spit tobacco juice at the fireplace; the girl from my office who ate four helpings of everything and then ran around the table so that we could all see how full she was, how her stomach rang like a drum. “Oh, thanks for the memories . . . dada, dada, da, da. . . .”

Thanksgiving Day dawned cold and rainy and for dinner we had cold turkey, cold mashed potatoes and gravy, cold peas, cold squash, cold fruit salad, cold coffee, which tasted the same with or without saltpeter, and cold pie. Our trays were set with little baskets of candies and the nurses were very pleasant, even closing the windows before dinner in honor of the day. The Pines had certainly done their share in trying to make the holiday a success but in spite of good intentions, I ate little and without relish. I longed for meatloaf shaped like a turkey and my warm loving family.

On the stroke of two, my dear unselfish, faithful mother brought Anne and Joan, with new raincoats, shining eyes and fresh damp curls. They were all in determinedly high holiday spirits and I thought what a trial it must have been for Mother to have to leave her family, her warm house and open fire, to come miles and miles in the rain by bus to that chilly cheerless hospital; to sit in a draught and listen to me complain. It was hard on Anne and Joan too, who, though they loved the ride on the bus and looked forward to each visit with me, had to spend one hour and fifty minutes in the dreary fireless reception room.

I asked them how they would pass the time while waiting for Mother, and Anne said, “I brought along the Mexican Twins and I’m going to read to Joan.” Joan said, “She said she was going to read to me whether I wanted her to or not.” Then Anne presented, in an intensely dramatic fashion, a play they were rehearsing at school. She took all the parts, throwing herself into each with such fervor and abandon that at the finish there was applause from some of the nearby cubicles.

Joan had brought out a book of interesting facts and at each pause in Anne’s recital she produced an interesting fact. Anne: “No, no, you wicked queen, you’ll never marry the Prince!” (Pause for character change.) Joan: “Betty, did you happen to know that the earthworm has a life span of seven years?”

By December I had been moved across the hall to a two-bed cubicle, I had one hour reading-time, I was taking pneumothorax but once a week and I was colder than I had ever been before. Our bedpans and water glasses froze solid each night and we wore woolen mittens and woolen hoods even at mealtimes. My new roommate, Eleanor Merton, was an inspirational patient and on silence, which was as near as you could get to being by yourself with someone four feet away from you twenty-four hours a day.

In the cubicle next to me, with her bed separated from mine only by the thin plywood partition, was a woman who smelled like a skunk and coughed like a barking dog—“haha, haw haw, haw, haugh haugh, hawwwwww, huh!”—day and night. She was never told that “patients can control their coughs—a cough can be controlled,” which made me think that either she was dying or owned a half-interest in the institution.

Eleanor explained in her kindly way that the Barking Dog could not help the cough, that she had had an unsuccessful stripping operation. This explained the cough but not the pungent skunk smell that arose and spread like smoke from a bonfire each time she moved.

Also by December first I knew the entire Bedrest Hospital routine by heart and could tell exactly what was going to happen every minute of every day. This made the time move with glacial slowness, made me even more restless and crotchety. Things which I had grown to accept as part of being institutionalized suddenly became unbearable and, I regret to state, I began to complain constantly about everything, finally even developing small vague aches and pains which I eagerly reported, morning and evening, to the long-suffering Charge Nurse, who gave me meaning looks and aspirin.

Of course the major irritation of all was my roommate, who was so damned happy all the time, so well adjusted. She loved the institution and the institution loved her. She loved all the nurses and all the nurses loved her. She loved all the other patients and all the other patients, but one, loved her. That one used to lie awake in the long dark cold winter nights and listen hopefully for her breathing to stop.

One night the maxim on my supper tray was: “Dare we face the question of just how much of the darkness around us is of our own making?” The Official-in-Charge-of-Beautiful-Thoughts was not only Miss Bartlett of Bartlett’s Quotations, she was psychic.

On December twelfth Kimi was given a chest examination and three hours’ time up; Sheila was moved to the Ambulant Hospital and Eileen had a hemorrhage. Molly Hastings brought me the news and she was grave about Eileen. She said that for weeks they had suspected Eileen of shaking down her thermometer, of not reporting her cough, that the hemorrhage had been severe and was a bad sign. She also said that Eileen was not like herself, that she was sullen and quiet and seemed to have lost all her spirit.

I said passionately, “It’s because she’s alone. It’s horrible to be alone. Look what it’s done to me.” Molly said, “But you’re not alone now,” and she smiled at Eleanor who looked inspirational and smiled back. I said, “Why don’t they move Eileen in with me, I know I could make her want to get well.” Molly was very unenthusiastic. She said, “Neither of you would get well and you’d probably both be thrown out. In tuberculosis it’s each man for himself.”

Each man for himself or not, I wrote Eileen a long and probably unconvincing letter, telling her about Kimi’s time up and how much fun it would be when we were all at the Ambulant Hospital. I didn’t get an answer from Eileen, who was not allowed to write, but I had a note from Minna that should have been bordered in black. Minna said that her pneumothorax was not successful, as she knew it would not be, that she was scheduled for a thoracoplasty operation, but she had little hope of its success as she was so tiny and delicate and the doctors were so incompetent. Then she told me about Eileen’s hemorrhage. She said, “I knew it would happen some day. Eileen won’t take care of herself, won’t obey the nurses. They’ve got her down now with sandbags and ice packs on her chest, but I suppose this is the end.”

I also had a note from Kimi. She wrote, “I have had my chest examined and have been granted three hour time up, but I feel no joy with Eileen so sick and the grim raper [I gathered that she meant reaper] so near. The only bright spot in a succession of long dark cold days is the removal of my former roommate to the porch and the moving of Pixie Josclyn in here with me. Pixie is small and young, like Eileen in disposition and with the long red nail. She was a dancer in a nightclub and eats like a mouse for fear of losing her figure. One pea, a crumb of bread, an eyedropper of tea and she is filled to bursting, while I, like a giant steam shovel sit across from her and demolish mountains of food. I also have occupational therapy time . . . one half an hour a day. The occupational therapy teacher is forcing me to crochet. She says it will release tension. I have made a chain eleven feet long. It is knotty with released tension and dirty with sweat which I find releases more readily than tension. ‘What will be the use of this chain,’ I ask the O.T. teacher but she evades answering and helps Pixie with an enormous Bertha collar she is tatting. When I ask Pixie what she will do with the collar as Bertha collar have not been in style since about 1923, she says she cares nothing for the usefulness, she merely follows the pattern. When I pointed out that by filling in the large center hole she could change it to a tablecloth, she said for me to release my tension and she would release hers.”

That night, after confused dreams involving hospitals and mice and Death wearing a big, Bertha collar, I awoke in the cold, early night to the dark stillness of the ward. I always hated The Pines at night. It was so much a hospital where anything might happen, anyone might die. My pajamas and three sweaters were in a lumpy uncomfortable mass under my ribs, so moving slowly and carefully I tried to straighten them out. The paper blanket immediately reacted like some vindictive living thing and snapped and crackled like a newly lit fire.

The Barking Dog began to cough, her coughs bursting from her like balls from a Roman candle. She coughed twenty-two times, then drank water and put the glass back on the stand with a clink. The woman across from her coughed, drank water and coughed again. Then all was quiet. Everyone was asleep with faint buzzing snores sounding faintly at intervals. My right leg grew lumpy with a cramp and I had to turn over quickly. When I moved, the paper blanket exploded with noise, waking the Barking Dog who began to cough, which disturbed her roommate who aroused the woman across the hall. Finally everyone seemed to be awake and there were coughs up and down the halls like a relay race. A grim terrible race with Death holding the stakes. I thought of Eileen cold and alone with sandbags on her chest. Sylvia had said that hemorrhages were very frightening. That the blood was bright red and foamy.

Someone was tapping on her stand. It was the way to summon a nurse but never used, especially at night, except in an emergency. The tapping went on, clink, clink, clink, clink. The nurse didn’t come. I could hear her in the office telephoning. The elevator door clanged shut. The tapping went on, clink, clink, clink. It seemed to come from down the hall where the private rooms were. Eleanor said in a whisper, “Something’s happened. I hear a doctor.”

I grew panicky and thought of course that Eileen was worse. The tapping on the stand grew louder, more insistent. Everyone was awake now. There was a low hum of voices, the carrying sibilance of whispering. The elevator door clanged again. The tapping on the stand was now demanding, bang, bang, bang! No one heeded.

Morning came at last, dark and wild with wind and rain lashing and clawing at the windows. The ward was oppressively quiet. The day staff came on duty, cheerful and brisk, bringing breakfast. I gulped two cups of warm comforting coffee but I couldn’t shake off the horror of the night before. I felt as though I’d been in a dark filthy cellar and must and cobwebs still clung to me.

As I walked down the hall to the bathroom I thought I detected an ominous undercurrent. There was a furtiveness to the whispering. In the bathroom I learned, from one of the older patients, that a girl in emergency had died during the night. I had never seen the girl, didn’t even know her name but it was my first death. My slowly built up confidence and assurance of recovery were kicked from under me. I shivered uncontrollably. My windows had framed a magnificent expanse of sunlit sky, mountains and ocean, but when I looked out I saw only the hideous leering face of a Peeping Tom.

On Sunday, December eighteenth, Mother, Mary and Dede came loaded with food and enthusiasm. I immediately skimmed the cream from their visit by telling them of the woman who died, of my preoccupation with death. Dede said, “For you to be worrying about death seems to me as asinine as someone who is tone deaf worrying about losing his voice.” I said coldly that I didn’t get the allusion. She said, “My God, haven’t you looked in the mirror lately? You’re so big and healthy you’re frightening.” We all laughed and I cheered up a trifle.

Then I told them about Eileen’s hemorrhage. Mother asked if the sandbags were a punishment and I explained that they were to keep her lung compressed. My sister Mary said, “You knew from the very first that Eileen was resisting every effort to cure her t.b. The only reason the Medical Director is keeping her here is because tuberculosis is contagious. Now for heaven’s sake close the door of that vault and cheer up, Christmas is coming and so is another spring!”

The maxim on our trays that night was: “Mental sunshine makes the mind grow, and perpetual happiness makes human nature a flower garden in bloom.” According to the maxim I was just wondering where to put my garden; Eleanor was about five acres in full bloom.

On her rounds after supper the Charge Nurse informed us that we would draw names and exchange small Christmas presents, that we were not allowed any kind of a Christmas tree, not even imitation ones, as it made too much work for the nurses. She said that the institution would decorate the wards. She also said that any presents sent by us to the outside world would first have to go through fumigation.

Having seen the results of fumigation on my sweaters and pajamas I realized that this limited my gift selection to objects of stone but I didn’t care, Christmas was in the air at last and I borrowed Eleanor’s two-year-old Sears Roebuck Catalogue and spent a happy evening roaming from plows to perfume. I slept all night that night and never again became obsessed with death.

The next afternoon two nurses fulfilled the Charge Nurse’s prediction and decorated the wards. I had counted on cedar boughs and pine cones and waited breathlessly for their spicy scent to vie with the lysol for domination of the ward. What I got were limp festoons of red and green crepe paper (obviously well fumigated) and red cardboard bells, hung slightly askew in each doorway. In my new happiness, I didn’t care, it was something and it spelled Christmas.

The nurses began delivering packages twice a day. Eleanor got one or more with each delivery. The nurses put them under her bed, where they rested within my vision, opulent and exciting and attesting to the fact that good sports had hundreds of friends. I knew that I would have to depend on relatives, people who had to like me because of blood, for anything I got.

I don’t know whether it was due to Jesus’ influence or just plain holiday spirit but as Christmas drew nearer and nearer the nurses let their austerity slip down a little, showing small areas of well-rounded warmth and friendliness. Eleanor too became more friendly, even offering to lend me her copy of Science and Health.

The day before Christmas it began to snow. The flakes were big and wet and thudded straight to the ground, where they surprisingly did not melt but soon coated the lawns, the trees and the buildings of The Pines in a most Christmas cardy way.

Christmas Eve my brother Cleve, calmly ignoring every rule of the sanatorium, suddenly loomed in my doorway large and handsome, smelling deliciously of cigarettes and out of doors and bearing a huge carton overflowing with presents from the family. The evening nurses arranged our presents in exciting heaps on the foot of our beds but instructed us not to open them until morning.

Except for large wrinkly packages, bearing thousands of Christmas seals, which were easily identified as being from Anne and Joan and brought quick tears and a large lump to my throat, it was like Christmas Eve in boarding school. We drank hot chocolate, talked and laughed furtively and listened to the clear sweet voices of carolers coming up the drive.

There were several groups of carolers and they wandered around the grounds stopping by the porches and under the windows and singing all the lovely familiar Christmas songs. “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,” “Joy to the World,” “Silent Night,” “Adeste Fideles,” “Wind Through the Olive Trees,” “We Three Kings of Orient Are,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “Once in Royal David’s City,” “Oh, Holy Night,” and “Away in a Manger.” They were apparently volunteers from church groups or good-hearted local people, for their voices were untrained and discorded occasionally in a homely, friendly way.

As they moved around the grounds the songs came to us now loud, now faint like songs from a campfire or over still water on a summer evening. When they sang under the windows of our ward, the melody was interwoven with sounds of deep sorrow, weeping and long broken sighs, for some of the patients were spending the second, third, even sixth Christmas away from home and a few knew they would never be home for Christmas.

But in spite of wet snow and thick dark the carolers sang with spirit and vigor, and “Joy to the World” came streaming joyously in every open window and soon drowned out the sighs and strangled sobbing. When the carolers left, the ward was perfectly still, frosted with peace and good will.