And then there was Wolfgang, who brought them music.
“Dr. Pike!”
Susannah and Wolfgang turned. Dr. Evan Barker was dressed in his white lab coat buttoned all the way up, covering his usual three-piece suit. His gray hair showed hints of the blond it had once been. Blue eyes moved behind the wire-framed glasses, positioned in such a way that he always seemed to be looking down on the unfortunate souls before him. His thin, upturned nostrils flared.
“Morning, Dr. Barker,” Wolfgang eventually managed to say.
Dr. Barker glanced at Wolfgang’s bag of instruments. “I see you have your
healing
supplies.”
“I don’t go anywhere without them.”
He handed Wolfgang a clipboard full of charts. “After rounds I need you to tend to these patients. They came in very early this morning.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Medical tests, Wolfgang.” Dr. Barker said. “Not their theories on music.” He glanced at Wolfgang’s black bag again and then stared at Susannah, who was not so smoothly disguising a smile behind her hand. Dr. Barker started to say something else but then stopped to exhale a breath he must have been holding onto all morning. He nodded, spun on his heels like a soldier, and hurried away.
“He’s still wearing his wedding ring,” said Susannah.
“It’s none of our business, Susannah.”
Wolfgang and Susannah went off in opposite directions. She stopped suddenly and looked over her shoulder. She’d caught him staring. “Lunch?”
“Cafeteria at noon,” said Wolfgang. “I just happen to know the cook.”
Susannah smiled. “Good luck with McVain today. And watch out for the mud.”
McVain, the new patient on the fourth floor, had yet to utter a word to Wolfgang since his arrival two days ago during the rainfall. Wolfgang had been fascinated by McVain ever since. There was something about the man. Wolfgang could see it in his eyes. He was a man of stories and secrets, a man of
opinions
. And, of course, the bigger mystery: the three missing fingers on his left hand.
He wasn’t a mute; that much Wolfgang knew for sure. On the afternoon of McVain’s arrival, Wolfgang had seen him chatting with some of the other men on the fourth-floor solarium porch. He’d spotted him on several occasions talking to Lincoln, and McVain had started responding to the nurses when they asked him their daily questions.
Even Susannah had managed to open him up on one of her visits. “How are you feeling this morning, Mr. McVain?”
“I’d feel better if there were women on the fourth floor, doll face.”
She’d tapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll see what I can do, Mr. McVain.”
“Just ‘McVain,’” he’d said grumpily. “Mister makes it sounds like me and you have got no chance.”
As Susannah had walked away, she heard the men around McVain’s bed cracking up. “Women,” he’d muttered, just before she turned the corner. “Can’t live with ’em. Apparently can’t die with ’em either.”
***
Later, when Wolfgang approached McVain’s room for afternoon rounds, he noticed five of the beds on the solarium porch were empty. The sunlight was shining perfectly, yet no patients? Then he heard laughter from McVain’s room, and McVain, in a Chicago accent: “So I bust the door down. Me and my boys move in to find him with his pants around his ankles and two broads on the bed—”
Wolfgang moved in at that point, knocking on the doorframe. “Party’s over, gentlemen.”
The men looked up from their folding chairs. “Hey, Father,” one of them said. “Father,” said another.
“Come on.” Wolfgang motioned for them to get up. “Enough fun and games. I’m your doctor now.” He grinned and then eyed McVain. “Back to the sunlight. Mr. McVain probably needs to rest that voice, since he’s been using it so much.”
McVain grunted and stared up at the ceiling as the men filed out. Wolfgang patted a couple of them on their backs. Every room in the sanatorium had the capacity for two beds, and each bed was equipped with a radio, phone, bell signal, and an electric light socket. McVain’s roommate was a man named Mr. Weaver, a forty-year-old man whose gray hair made him look twenty years older—that and the sickly pale color that masked his face. He was on his back, lying very still in his bed. Weaver smiled every time Wolfgang entered the room, because he cherished their conversations about music, but today it seemed that McVain had already brought about Weaver’s smile, with some story of ill repute.
“Guess what today is, Doc?” Weaver said, his throat raspy.
“Your birthday?”
“Nope. My one-year anniversary here.”
“Congratulations, Mr. Weaver.” Wolfgang put on a smile that he hoped appeared genuine. “Maybe we’ll get you out of here before year two.” Then he added four more ounces of shot pellets to the bag that rested on Weaver’s right collarbone. The shot-bag method was typically used on patients with infections in both lungs. Several weeks ago, Wolfgang had begun the procedure by placing a one-pound bag of shot on both collarbones. He increased the weight by about five ounces a week. The weight restricted the excursions of the lungs, made them quiescent, and taught the patient correct breathing.
Weaver was a good patient, and he was always careful not to move around when he had the bags on him. Only his beady eyes roamed. “What are we up to?”
Wolfgang squinted. “Four and a half pounds.”
“That good?”
“It’s better.”
Wolfgang glanced over at McVain, who lay in bed only a few feet away, staring blankly toward the gray wall, or maybe at the sunlight out on the solarium porch. Other than his coughing spells, he was quiet when Wolfgang was present, his lips in a scowl. McVain’s nose was flat and bent slightly to the left side up near the bridge, as if it had been broken several times and not set correctly. Wolfgang wondered if he was once a boxer. Probably not. His hands seemed too delicate.
His hair was uncombed, perpetually tousled by the constant breeze, and fiery red. With his green eyes, he looked Irish, possibly Catholic, not that it mattered. Either way Wolfgang would welcome him at Mass, which was neither official nor regimented in any way and often included a mixture of Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and a few who clung to no distinct faith at all. Mass at Waverly Hills was more or less just a nondenominational gathering of patients who needed to pray, talk, and discuss the Bible and the scriptures. The chapel was never full except during Christmas or Easter, in which case Wolfgang would have the bread and wine sent out to a local church for the transubstantiation so it could be changed officially into the body and blood of Christ for Eucharist.
Wolfgang stared at McVain’s hands, his left one in particular. Was that the reason for his foul mood?
“Doctor?” It was Weaver again. Wolfgang carefully placed the last few ounces of shot on his far shoulder. Weaver stared up at him with kind, trusting eyes. “Or should I call you Father, like some of the others? I’ve been here for a year and I’ve never called you Father. I’m Baptist, you see.”
“Call me whatever you like, Mr. Weaver. But I am not a priest yet, just in training on leave from the seminary. My parents were strict Protestants.”
“How’d you become Catholic?”
Wolfgang smiled. “The ultimate rebellion, I guess.”
Weaver stared, perplexed, and Wolfgang was careful to avoid his gaze until Weaver moved on to the next subject, which he did almost immediately. Weaver wasn’t one to pry. “Do you like jazz?”
“I don’t dislike it.” Wolfgang straightened the supplies on his cart. “I’m sure it would grow on me.”
McVain coughed painfully loud and then spat onto the floor. He ratcheted up another clump and expectorated it next to the first.
Wolfgang looked over his shoulder. He saw the blood on the floor. “You okay, McVain?”
McVain looked away.
“There’s a pail beside the bed,” he told McVain. “For the sputum.”
McVain grunted.
Wolfgang faced Weaver again but nodded toward McVain, speaking loud enough for both men to hear. “Does he ever talk to you?”
“Sure,” said Weaver. “He claims he knows Al Capone.”
“That’s something to be proud of, McVain.”
McVain didn’t respond.
Weaver tilted his head. “Hey, McVain, you like jazz?” No reply. McVain lifted up his right hand and produced his middle finger, holding it ramrod straight for at least ten seconds before lowering his arm back down to the wrinkled sheets that enclosed his body like a cocoon.
Weaver looked up at Wolfgang. “Sign language?”
“An enigma,” Wolfgang whispered to Weaver. “But I’ll crack him. I always do.”
“Can you plug me in?” Weaver lifted his headphones from beside the bed. “I like Mozart.”
“Ah, Mozart,” said Wolfgang. “His music put me to sleep every night as a child. It always put everything else in the background.” Wolfgang plugged the wire into a receptacle between the solarium’s double doors. “My parents named me after Mozart. My mother wanted me to become a preacher. My father demanded that I become a composer.”
“So what’d he say when you became a doctor?”
“He died long before I ever made the decision.” Wolfgang chuckled. “But he would have been furious. He was a strict believer that only the Lord could heal.”
“And your mother?”
Wolfgang hesitated. He and his mother hadn’t spoken for almost ten years. Weaver started to put on his headphones but stopped. He motioned for Wolfgang to lean down. “McVain’s fingers,” he whispered. “They move at night.”
Wolfgang shot McVain a glance and then whispered. “Move? How so?”
Weaver lifted his hands and forearms from his sides, careful not to dislodge the bags of shot, and wiggled his own fingers. “Goes on for hours.” Wolfgang helped Weaver put on his headphones. “Perhaps I’ll start learning a few of your instruments,” Weaver said. “What do you think? How about the violin, the piano, and the cello?”
“I’m afraid that has always been my curse, Mr. Weaver. I’m an expert at none. I suggest you stick to one and master it.”
Weaver pursed his lips. “Nurse Susannah says you play the piano like Mozart.”
Wolfgang grinned. “She’s kind.”
Weaver turned the volume up on his headset, closed his eyes, and smiled as jazz tunes poured into his ears. “Ahhh…like heaven.”
Wolfgang turned toward McVain again. “Anything I can get you, Mr. McVain?”
Again, there was no reply. McVain didn’t even shake his head. Wolfgang used his right foot to unlatch the lock at the wheels of McVain’s bed and rolled it from the room, through the double solarium doors, and toward the sunshine, where dozens of other patients lay in their beds up and down the porch. There were more than a hundred patients on each floor, and many of them were out now, facing the trees and sunny landscape that surrounded the building. A swift breeze vented through the screens; it was a warm day for January—an odd twenty-degree change in temperature overnight, and a treat for the patients who were wheeled outside every day regardless of the temperature. It was easy to spot the rooftop dwellers, especially on the sunny days: their skin burned from the wind and sun.
Wolfgang patted McVain on the shoulder. “I could play you a tune if you’d like.”
McVain waved him away as if disregarding a fly.
“Very well.” Wolfgang pursed his lips. “Good day, McVain.” McVain shifted in his bed but said nothing. Wolfgang stared at his hands briefly and then walked away.
***
On the first-floor solarium porch, Mary Sue Helman sat up in her bed and squinted in the sunlight. She had a room to herself lately, a good distance from the other patients. Mary Sue was on the mend but still months away from leaving Waverly Hills. Now they had to do everything possible to protect the baby, which was due any day. Wolfgang sat beside her bed, and together they stared out toward the woods.
“Who will deliver him?” Mary Sue asked.
“Probably Dr. Barker,” said Wolfgang. “He delivered his two children, you know? Here at Waverly.”
“Have you ever delivered a baby?”
“I…yes, I have,” he said, and then added, “in medical school.”
Mary Sue looked at Wolfgang and touched his arm. “Tell me about Frederick.”
“Frederick is fighting the disease just as you—”
She squeezed his arm. “Tell me the truth. Out of all the people on this hillside, I can expect that from you. Or Dr. Waters. Why is Frederick not returning my letters?”
Wolfgang sighed. They were under orders to keep Mary Sue’s blood pressure down, and Dr. Barker feared that the truth about her husband would upset her too much. They didn’t want the baby to come too early. Wolfgang looked at her swollen belly. They were past the fear of her delivering too early, and as painful as it might be for her to hear, she deserved to know the truth.
“He is simply too weak to write, Mary Sue.”
Mary Sue relaxed her grip on his arm and returned her hands to her belly. “Then at least he is still alive. That much you can tell me?”
Wolfgang nodded. “I’m sorry. I know some of the rules here seem crazy, but trust me. Every rule has a reason, even though I might not agree with them all.”
Mary Sue wiped a tear from her left eye. “I must confess, Frederick and I didn’t report to Waverly when we were supposed to.” She chuckled softly. “We were supposed to come in immediately to start treatment.”
Wolfgang was well aware of their story. Frederick and Mary Sue Helman were only four weeks into their marriage when they’d gotten the devastating news that they both had tuberculosis. Mary Sue was twenty years old and Frederick twenty-two.
“It’s not a death sentence,” Frederick had told Mary Sue at the time, in an attempt to lift her spirits. “Jeffrey Cheevers…from church…he survived tuberculosis.”
“Yes, well, name another.”
Frederick had just stared at her, searching his brain for another.
“You see? And Jeffrey Cheevers is always alone in his pew, Frederick,” she’d told him. “He’s shunned now. I don’t want to live like that!”
“But live we must, Mary Sue.”
Reminiscing, Mary Sue rubbed her stomach again. “Everyone knew about Waverly Hills,” she told Wolfgang. “The castle on top of the mountain, the fortress on the hillside, the colony for the diseased. Well, we took our time getting here. We strolled hand-in-hand along the riverfront for hours, taking in the Ohio River. I can still remember the smell of the barges and riverboats. I can hear the water lapping against the wharves. The dock workers hauling boxes. The passengers unloading with their luggage and fancy hats. Bicycles and horse carriages bouncing along the banks. That night Frederick took me dancing at the Brown Hotel. We stayed the night and dined like king and queen.”
Wolfgang patted her hand. “Good for you.”
“And then we spent half of the next day at Fountaine Ferry Park.” Mary Sue grinned. “We shared a kiss at the top of the Ferris wheel. We could see the tip of the Waverly Hills bell tower in the distance.” Mary Sue looked away. “Frederick assured me that we would be okay.”
Wolfgang reflected back on the day Mary Sue and Frederick had arrived at Waverly. They didn’t know they would be separated, taken to different floors. Maverly had welcomed them to the sanatorium from her window. Even before Mary Sue entered the building, she looked up at the strange voice and started crying. They wrote letters every day, and Wolfgang and the nurses delivered them. It didn’t take long to make friends on their floors, and they weren’t the only ones writing letters. Many of the single patients had developed friendships—some romances had formed too.
Mary Sue shifted to her side, facing Wolfgang. “I was ready to crawl out of my skin after a few weeks. I’d seen Frederick in the cafeteria on several occasions, but I needed to be alone with him. I just didn’t feel gravely ill. I became friends with Charlotte. You remember Charlotte, don’t you?”
Wolfgang laughed. “I think everyone will remember Charlotte.”