No one calls it “consumption” until it is clear that the illness is so far gone that no improvement can be expected. Only when all hope is gone, and death is considered inevitable, does one give the condition its proper name.
It was only a slight cough in the beginning, last spring, one that lasted week after week. As a child, he often had a cough, but it was never anything to take notice of. Then came the nighttime fever, bouts of sweating after which he would wake on drenched sheets and blankets. By summer, Cecil Winge had to disguise his cough with a handkerchief so as not to arouse attention, and one day in June the embroidered cotton fabric was mottled by red spots. He lost his breath easily and often felt a cramp in his side, as if he had just been running. In his chest it felt as if a great weight had settled in, one whose domain was expanding at the expense of his lungs and curtailing each breath.
Physicians palpated the swollen nodes in his neck and called them scrofula. Their prescription was a foul-tasting concoction of elm, madder, ginger, licorice fern, and star anise. He was to take half a bottle a day. When there was no change in his condition, the doctor thoughtfully polished his eyeglasses and suggested a drain in order to extract the unhealthy liquids from his body. With potash lye, the doctor seared a hole into the left side of his chest, an opening no larger than the nail of his little finger. A pea was inserted into the hole to prevent the wound from healing. In a few days, pus was flowing freely from the wound and the physician assured him this was a sign of an auspicious outcome. That was not to be the case. The burning wound kept him up at night. He alternated between freezing and sweating. His wife was always at his side with a cloth to dab his forehead, a towel to dry his gaunt body, a song to soothe him and allow him to drift away for some moments of mercy.
The year went on and winter became spring. One cure followed another. He bent over vats with vinegar and chalk, he drank unfiltered cow’s milk and breathed stable air. Every morning he woke up exhausted, his skin cold and damp, and nothing could warm him. His veins were blue and swollen, his eyes bloodshot with dark circles, a constant ache was spreading in his hip. When his cough started, nothing could stop it, and when it was at its worst, it brought dead tissue into his mouth. His spittle stank. When he was bled, it was found that the blood quickly congealed into a bluish crust, a sure sign that the contagion had spread. He could no longer be a husband to his wife and could not bear to share her bed when his coughing and night sweats set in and he was plagued with an anguish so consuming he thought his ribs would crack.
A month has elapsed since Winge abandoned all curative advice from medical professionals. Every attempt to lessen his suffering had only served to worsen his condition. All he can do is call upon every ounce of self-discipline to ignore the tickles in his throat, and he has found that distractions help more than anything else. Mental concentration empties his mind of thought and his body relaxes.
At night, in his lonely room in Roselius’s house, he sits by a lighted candle and dismantles his pocket watch. He spreads the various parts before him until they are all sorted by rows. Then he puts them together again. One after another, the wheels are reunited, fixed at their center and fitted into each other. Tiny screws hook into their grooves and are tightened. From a collection of parts all individually worthless, a clockwork is formed that functions anew.
Winge steers towards death by the same compass that has shown his way his entire life: reason. He tells himself that all men will die and that all are dying. This helps. But when the night sweats come and his thoughts race wildly, it is rather the particulars of his own demise that haunt him and not the general principle. All the clinical details of phthisis. Will the infection spread to all joints and bones as sometimes happens? Will he pass silently in his sleep or in spasms and paroxysms? What flavor of agony awaits him? When nothing else helps, he tells himself that most of him already died the last time he saw his wife. But this is also little comfort, as that part of him that has gone on living seems the one that most clearly perceives the pain.
Evening falls and Winge is dressing to go out. The mirror in the room is so narrow that he has to step far back in the room in order to see even half of his body. The clothes he is wearing are the only ones he owns. The shirt and his long socks are washed regularly according to a schedule he has arranged with the maids. A few strokes of the brush are enough for the rest. The fabric is starting to wear out and neither coat nor waistcoat is still à la mode, but they serve. The clothes he has chosen to keep are the same he wore in his service in the lower courts, and their purpose was never vanity but propriety, intended to convey to an observer a feeling of indifference in the face of anything other than what is of the utmost importance.
He winds the cravat around his neck and ties it, puts his arms through his coat, and lifts his walking stick from its corner, the one that was once only for show and that he now depends on more frequently. Winge walks slowly down the stairs, quietly, so as not to encounter any of the people of the house.
He walks down the slopes towards the sea with a handkerchief held to his mouth to ward off the dampness of the air. Down by the shipyard it does not take him long to find a man willing to row him into the city for a couple of coins. Far away he hears the faint roar of the current, but out here the water is still, only disturbed by the groans of the oarlock and the sound of the oars as they dip in the water.
They pass underneath the arch of the shipyard bridge, and with regular glances over his shoulder, the rower finds a path through the labyrinth of ships anchored outside the Quayside. Anchor cables as thick as men’s thighs straighten and slacken around them. Under the predominant smell of tar, there are other more subtle scents of arrack, cinnamon, coffee, and tobacco.
After half an hour’s trip, Winge accepts the assistance of a steady hand to take the step over to land at the Stairs of the Master of Revenue. From there, the walk to Bagge’s Row is short.
The alley is lively as always. Here the brothels are stacked on top of each other, and clients in various states of inebriation mill about either on their way to or from a visit. Cheerful songs in praise of Venus echo between the buildings, mixed with bragging about deeds that have either been or soon will be performed. Others are more discreet. Many married men choose to hold a handkerchief up to their noses, as Winge does.
He finds the right entrance and walks in. The woman who has inherited this business from the late Captain Ahlström has a face as inscrutable as it is ancient, and she does not betray any sign of recognition other than a curt nod.
“Is she available?”
The madam shakes her head. Winge sets his cane down and sits heavily in a chair.
“I’ll wait. And fresh bed linen, if you please. A tidy room.”
The woman gives him a look that is difficult to interpret and leaves him. Others come and go without him paying any attention. Almost an hour goes by until she returns and waves him up the stairs. He finds her door without guidance, knocks, and enters.
The one they call the Flower of Finland is waiting for him perched on the edge of the bed, her legs temptingly crossed. She wasn’t easy to find. He has searched for someone close to his own age, and three decades is more than most in her line of work will see. But she has remained remarkably untouched by this underground world, whose inhabitants appear to live their lives at twice the pace of others. Recognition registers on her face in the same moment that their eyes meet. Her body language changes instantly. Her shoulders sink, the back that had arched, the better to display her charms, relaxes.
“It is you. The old bat could have told me.”
Her eastern accent is pleasant. The vowels sing. Winge nods in response and looks around the room in order to ensure that it has been prepared according to his instructions. He hands her the little cloth purse he has prepared with a sum they both know from before. She gestures for him to lay it on the dresser.
“You will stay the night, as usual?”
“Yes, Sara. I hope the money will suffice.”
She laughs.
“Even if there hadn’t been enough, I am prepared to give you a discount. You are my best customer. You pay well and ask very little, which is the opposite of what I am used to. Or is there anything else you are looking for this time?”
Winge shakes his head.
“No. Just the usual.”
He hangs up his coat and unties his cravat. From his waistcoat pocket, he takes out the little bottle and hands it to her with great care. She pulls out the stopper and splashes a few drops over her throat and décolletage. He folds his shirt and breeches over the back of a chair while she also removes the few pieces of clothing she is wearing, and together they crawl into the bed.
He turns his back to her and she puts her arm around him in the same way that he has shown her. Every rib can be felt under her hand and his breaths are so shallow they are almost imperceptible. She resembles his wife, with the same long hair and the same color of her eyes. Now she smells the same and the warmth of her arm is the same.
She blows out the candle next to the bed and feels his pulse beating weakly and his breathing slow as sleep overcomes him. Several times he becomes agitated without waking fully and she strokes his forehead with the movements he has shown her, humming the words she has been instructed in.
He wakes at dawn, and as usual he does not know if he should count it as a blessing or a curse, these brief moments between sleep and consciousness where his as yet dormant reason allows him to relive what once was. He climbs out of bed and puts on his clothes. Sara stays in bed and does not wake up until Winge turns the key to unlock the door.
“Tonight was the last time.”
She stretches and rubs the sleep from her eyes.
“Have you grown tired of our arrangement?”
“No. Not at all. But these coins are the last I have.”
She shrugs with a little smile. Winge pulls his coat over his shoulders and notes that the fabric is starting to wear thin at the elbows, thin enough to see through. No matter. He is confident all his garments will last him the rest of his life.