Always October. C. E. Edmonson

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СКАЧАТЬ Philadelphia decades earlier, and the swirling grain of its veneer made the whole piece seem almost to be in motion. This effect was enhanced by the sideboard’s front feet, a pair of hand-carved paws that dug in to the carpet as though ready to spring forward. A photograph in a hickory hand-carved frame rested on the sideboard, taken at my parents’ wedding. The photograph showed the newlyweds, Momma in a white dress lent to her by her mother, Dad in a plain, black suit—standing before a trellis covered with white roses. Mom looked happy. Dad was suitably grave.

      Of course, it’s much easier to describe furniture than human feelings. I felt uneasy, a stranger in my own home, as if I’d somehow wandered into the wrong house. There was loneliness, too, a loneliness that would haunt me over time, and more fear than a boy should have to handle on his own. I think I might have drowned in that fear if I hadn’t wandered into the kitchen and noticed a little stack of white masks on the table where we took our meals. I knew at that moment I would go to the courthouse and find my mother. I would disobey my father. I had to do something. I couldn’t just wait and wait all on my own, with nothing but my fear to keep me company.

      And even as I made this decision, which surely violated the commandment about honoring my parents, my lips continued to move: “Please help Momma, please help Momma, please help Momma.”

      * * *

      I followed my dad out of the house the next morning, accepted a hug, and said goodbye. We couldn’t know what Dad would find when he got to the hospital, given the hours that had passed since he had left. I’d like to say I was more hopeful than afraid. After all, many flu patients recovered, and Momma could have improved overnight. But my thoughts were as dark as the sky was bright.

      Dad turned around to wave as he stepped off the lawn and onto the road. Then I watched his back until he reached the courthouse only two hundred yards away. Two days earlier, I’d walked out onto a small woodlot owned by a farmer named Earl Wegner. The woodlot ran across a small rise and I was able to sit there, lost in the shadows, and watch the flag on the courthouse flagpole, lowered to half-mast, ripple in a light breeze. The Army tents that filled the Square were lined up in neat rows, and there were men dressed in robes sitting on benches outside. Others—women for the most part—moved between the tents, carrying water and towels, or buckets held at arm’s length. I didn’t know exactly what anyone was doing, but that glimpse had been enough for me before I’d run into Joe Anderson. Now I wanted more.

      Calculation was new to me, as I said, but when I fell into it, I fell all the way. First thing, I decided not to approach the hospital from the front. I’d follow the creek to the back of the courthouse, where I’d wait until nobody was looking before I crossed the lawn. Once I got between the rows of tents, I’d act like I belonged there. If anyone asked, I’d tell them I was visiting my mother and that my father was waiting for me.

      I don’t exactly know how I came upon this plan. It just seemed to settle in, like I’d opened a door to find a secret room already furnished. But I’m not claiming I wasn’t scared. My heart was pounding away in my chest by the time I found a spot behind the hospital shielded by a clump of aspens.

      The smell claimed me first, an ugly reek of slop buckets in need of emptying and unwashed bodies and something else I didn’t recognize but now know was blood coughed out by dying men and women. I felt these mingled odors as a solid force, like a wall that had to be climbed, and I was overwhelmed for a minute or two. Then, slowly, I became aware of people’s coughing, moaning, crying. The delirious screamed.

      Something inside told me to run for home even faster than Max Flack had circled the bases in Chicago. But I stood my ground. I wanted to see for myself, wanted to see my momma alive and breathing. This was something I just had to do.

      I took a mask from my pocket and pulled it over my nose and mouth, then stepped out into the Square. Once I got started, I didn’t hesitate. No, sir. I walked up and onto a pathway of brown, trampled grass that separated the tents, my heart only stopping once or twice along the way. But Joe Anderson was right. Though adults moved about, some volunteers and some family, I went unnoticed. Then I saw other children, older than me and accompanied by adults. They’d come to say their last goodbyes to those they loved every bit as much as I loved my momma. I didn’t know at the time, but their presence encouraged me. Now all I had to do was keep one eye out for my father while I searched.

      I didn’t get ten feet before someone called out to me. Not one of the adults in charge, but a patient—a boy I already knew.

      “Who’re ya lookin’ for, Lucas?” Petey Aberg asked.

      I didn’t recognize Petey at first. He’d lost weight, a lot of weight, and his face was tinged with gray.

      “I’m gettin’ better,” he told me before I said anything. “I can breathe now.”

      “That’s swell, Petey. I’m trying to find my momma.”

      “Did you get the flu this spring?”

      “Yes, in June.”

      “They’re sayin’ you can’t catch it twice.” He smiled, revealing teeth as gray as his face. Then he began to cough and didn’t stop until his hand was stained with blood. I waited until he could draw breath again, wishing I could do something for him. Finally he pointed to the courthouse. “The ladies’ ward is inside.”

      Built at a time when public works were meant to speak for a community’s pride, the courthouse, which also served as the county seat, was much too grand for little Louristan. Three stories high and topped with a dome, you had to walk up two flights of concrete steps and pass between a row of columns to reach the front doors. A mural covered the interior of the dome, a history of Bear County that included Indians, pioneer farmers, grazing Holsteins, and a ferocious, black bear raised up on its hind legs. Marble columns, emerald green and streaked with gold, supported an upstairs balcony that circled the dome. A pair of winding staircases led to the second floor, their wrought-iron banisters an intricate marvel of flowers and vines.

      I’d been in the courthouse before, accompanied by my father, and been suitably impressed with its grandeur. But not on that day. Now I hesitated at the edge of the rotunda, which was covered with beds, so scared I could barely think. What if, what if, what if? I was too frightened to answer the question, so I reverted to my only defense and began to pray.

      “Please help Momma, please help Momma, please help Momma.”

      Though every window was raised, the smell was much worse inside the courthouse—a mix of blood and death, of incontinence and vomit, of a community overwhelmed, of people who could no longer care for their own. The moaning and crying were louder too, and not all of the crying came from the sick. I saw men and women, healthy in every respect, bent over the fallen, weeping rivers of tears.

      I stood in the doorway for a moment, trying to get my bearings. The interior beneath the dome was jammed with cots, the passageways between the cots narrow and congested. I could see women on the cots closest to me, but Momma wasn’t among them. I didn’t see my dad either, which encouraged and frightened me at the same time.

      Joe Anderson’s words came back to me as I began my search. The patient lying on the first cot was covered with a sheet from head to toe, all except for her right foot, which hung over the bed and was, indeed, black. The sight scared me, as if I weren’t already frightened enough, but I kept on going. The visitors I slid around spoke German and Swedish and Norwegian. The patients moaned and cried and mumbled to themselves. The ones still alive anyway. There were also those, like the first woman I passed, who were covered with sheets, and some part of me knew Momma could be underneath any one of them.

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