The Second Life of Mirielle West

by Amanda Skenandore

  Could it be suppertime already? Her lunch sat untouched on the small table beside the wall. The only things she’d taken from the tray were her chaulmoogra pills. Those she’d thrown into the corner in the hopes of poisoning her cellmate. But the mouse seemed to have better sense than the patients here, for it hadn’t touched a single pill.

  Clipped footfalls sounded on the floorboards, and a gruff voice said, “Which cell is the absconder in?”

  Mirielle heard the scrape of chair legs as Watchman Doyle scrambled to his feet. He coughed and cleared his throat. “Ah, er, Dr. Ross. Good afternoon.”

  No reply from the doctor.

  The watchman cleared his throat again. “Ah, right. The absconder. Cell three.”

  Mirielle stood. Her bobbed hair had grown out to an unruly length and hung flat and messy around her face. With her arm shackled in a cast, she could barely manage to shampoo it, let alone curl or wave it. Her bangs—too short to tuck behind her ears—tangled with her eyelashes. Even during her bluest of moods, she’d never dreamed of leaving the house or meeting a stranger in such a shabby state back in California. Now, she didn’t even bother to open her compact. Whoever this Dr. Ross was, she could meet him with an unpowdered nose.

  Her cell door opened. The flood of light temporarily blinded her, and she shielded her eyes with her cast arm. A short, compactly built man strode in.

  “Mrs. Marvin, I’m Dr. Ross, the Medical Officer In-Charge here at Marine Hospital Sixty-Six.”

  Watchman Doyle hovered in the doorjamb until Dr. Ross dismissed him with a nod. To Mirielle he said, “May we talk a moment?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  He removed his white officer’s hat and tucked it beneath his arm. Four gold stripes decorated his shoulder boards. “No, ma’am.”

  She sank back onto her bed and motioned to the thatch-backed chair across the room littered with bedraggled magazines and candy wrappers. The doctor did not sit. He glanced about her cell—the untouched lunch tray, the scatter of chaulmoogra capsules in the corner, the rumpled quilt on which she sat—and frowned. “Mrs. Marvin, let me get right to the point.”

  “By all means. Between meals and my twenty minutes of afternoon exercise, my social schedule’s rather full.”

  His thin-lipped frown deepened. “You’ve been at this facility less than a month, and already violated rule six of the hospital rules and regulations by attempting to abscond. As you can see, we don’t take lightly to such behavior. Sister Verena tells me you’re aloof toward the other residents and noncompliant with your treatment regimen. Furthermore . . .”

  He droned on, but Mirielle didn’t listen. Instead, she watched the way his neatly trimmed mustache bobbed like an inchworm as he spoke. His black uniform was impeccably pressed, the gold buttons polished, not a speck of lint or stray thread to be found. She pitied his wife and the pains she must take each morning before sending him off.

  Charlie was a fastidious dresser too, but they had help to look after the laundry. Clothes on the floor were gone by midmorning and back, neatly pressed and hanging in the wardrobe, the next day. She’d happily take the maid’s place now, though, if it meant being home. She imagined the smell of shaving cream clinging to Charlie’s shirt collars, the smudge of crayon on his cuffs rubbed off from one of Evie’s drawings. Her stomach twisted as if she might be sick with longing.

  “Mrs. Marvin.”

  “Hmm?”

  That frown again. Dr. Ross threw a sour glance at the chair, then dragged it over to the bed, brushing off the seat before sitting. Magazines and sticky candy wrappers scattered onto the floor. “Mrs. Marvin, I know diagnosis with a disease such as leprosy can be devastating but—”

  “Oh, you know, do you? And how’s that? Were you torn from your family and locked away in some Podunk hospital in the middle of hell?”

  “I’ve worked at leper colonies all over the world and I assure you, Marine Hospital Sixty-Six is the most up-to-date and idyllic facility there is. Be grateful you weren’t cast overboard and expected to swim to the desolate island of Moloka’i or dragged to a shanty colony in India or South Africa.”

  Mirielle straightened. “Grateful? I’m imprisoned”—she gestured to the cement walls around them—“literally imprisoned with the most grotesque and pitiful human beings I’ve ever seen. Cast aside to die. My daughters, who knows how many hundreds of miles away, are without a mother. My husband—”

  “You cannot outrun this disease.” The reproach in his voice was gone, but the words were enough to strike her mute. “I’ve seen enough people in your position that I can tell you’re thinking of absconding again. Maybe you’ve already planned your escape.” He glanced at the bulky plaster cast around her arm and gave a slight smirk. “Who knows, this time you might succeed. For a while. But the disease will eventually catch up to you. And when it does, you’ll wish you were here.”

  Now it was Mirielle’s turn to smirk. “I’d never wish myself here. Not for all the gold and diamonds in the world.”

  His deep-set eyes flickered to the table where Evie’s drawing sat propped against the wall on display. “And your family?”

  What could Mirielle say to that? She hated Dr. Ross for bringing them into this—Charlie, Evie, Helen—but he was right. Just as Charlie was right. She had been distant since Felix’s death. Selfish. But she could be the wife and mother she’d been before if given a chance. She just had to get out of here to prove it.

  “You’re lucky, Mrs. Marvin. Your disease was detected early. With proper rest, a good diet, healthful activity, and adherence to your treatment plan, you may well be able to arrest the disease before you too are counted among the grotesque and pitiful.”

  “So I’m just supposed to sit around and hope that someday I’ll make it to twelve negative skin tests?”

  “Hope, yes. Sit around, no.”

  Mirielle rolled her eyes. He sounded just like that altruistic fool Frank.

  “Why don’t you take a job around the colony?”

  “Thanks, but I’m not really the working girl type.”

  He stood and tugged on his jacket until the fabric lay smooth. “There are two types of patients at Carville: those who count themselves among the dead, and those who have the pluck to claim their place among the living. The choice is yours.”

  Mirielle watched as he started for the door. There was the word again, pluck. Had she ever really possessed such a quality? And how the devil could she muster it now in a place like this?

  “But there isn’t a cure.”

  Dr. Ross stopped in the doorway of her cell and turned around. “No, there is not.”

  No cure. Sister Verena and her housemates had all told her the same thing. Chaulmoogra oil might help manage the disease, but did not make it go away. Each time she asked, Mirielle had hoped for a different answer. Each time she’d manage to talk herself out of believing the bleak truth. Like when the doctor had pronounced Felix’s death. For days her mind had rejected the idea. He wasn’t dead but sleeping. Tomorrow he’d be up galloping around the house again. Not until they’d closed the lid on his coffin and lowered it into the ground did she believe it. Not until she heard the plink of dirt against the wood. It still came back to her—that sound—in her dreams and sometimes even her waking hours. Plink. Plink. Plink.

  She pressed the cool plaster of her cast against her stomach and wrapped her other arm tightly over it. No cure. No chance to make amends.

  “Not at present, anyway,” Dr. Ross said.

  Mirielle looked up. “You think there’s a possibility of finding one?”

  “This isn’t a leper colony of old, Mrs. Marvin, no matter how provincial it may seem to you. I’m not here out of some over-pronounced sense of charity. I’m a scientist. I believe we can beat this disease.”

  “How?”

  “We’re experimenting with new treatments all the time. We’re finding new ways to study the bacillus. If there’s a cure to be had, this is the place that will find it.”


  “You really believe that?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

  Mirielle glanced at Evie’s drawing, then back to Dr. Ross. “I want to help.”

  March 30, 1926

  Dear Charlie,

  I know you didn’t mean those awful things you said in your letter. I haven’t been myself of late, that’s true. But a grieving mother has a right to be a little blue. You make it sound like I was tight from morning to night and didn’t care a wink about the rest of you. So I had a drink now and then. It was easier to face the day full of gin or champagne. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t care for you. At any rate, Carville is completely dry, so you needn’t worry on that account any longer.

  And it hardly seems fair for you to say I never struggled. After Felix’s death, every day was a struggle. You were lucky to have your work. I hadn’t any refuge.

  You’ll be pleased to know I’m working now, though. The big bug himself at Carville came to see me and asked for my assistance in fighting this disease, which, by the way, isn’t so terribly contagious as Mr. Niblo and his little film would have you believe. Of course I said yes and from here on out shall be endeavoring alongside the doctors and nurses to find a cure. Very important work, as you can well imagine.

  My disease, I have been assured, is a very mild case, and I shall be home in a year when all my tests are negative. Sooner if we find a cure. And then you’ll see I’m the same woman you fell in love with and married.

  Your wife,

  Mirielle

  P.S. What excuses have you made to the girls for my absence? I suppose others are asking too. Best we keep it simple. Say I’ve gone east to take care of an ill relative—a great-aunt in Chicago or some such fancy. You must tell the girls every day that I love them and that I think of them constantly. This, at least, is the truth.

  CHAPTER 13

  Mirielle stood in the doorway of the dressing clinic, loath to cross the threshold. When Dr. Ross said he had the perfect idea how she could help, this was not what she’d had in mind. Already the smell of liniment and rotting flesh threatened to unsettle her breakfast. But the words in Charlie’s letter—You’ve never endeavored after anything in your life—propelled her inside.

  She avoided the patients’ wide-eyed stares. Some sat on low stools, soaking their feet in basins of water. Others perched on chairs scattered about the room as the sisters bandaged their raw and ulcerated limbs.

  “You’re late,” Sister Verena said, coming up beside her.

  Mirielle fought back a grimace. She hadn’t pictured Sister Verena around when she imagined helping to find a cure. “I wasn’t sure what to wear.”

  Sister Verena eyed Mirielle’s satin crepe day dress as if it were a burlap sack. “Indeed.”

  “This won’t do? I thought the royal blue was a suitably serious color, while still complementing my complexion, of course. I simply can’t wear dark yellows or lavenders with too much pink in them. They wash out my cheeks such that not even rouge can save me.”

  “You’ll need to wear a uniform. Report to the materials office and tell them you’ll be assisting in the clinics.” She gave Mirielle’s outfit another withering glance. “They’ll provide you with more suitable attire.”

  A uniform? Uniforms were for maids and waitresses and street sweepers. But Mirielle decided it best not to argue and left in search of the materials office. After several wrong turns, she found it tucked between the laundry and the water treatment plant. When she explained why she’d come, the man at work there rummaged through several racks of woefully outmoded clothes before handing over a heap of scratchy white blouses and skirts.

  “This is the uniform?”

  The man nodded.

  “But shouldn’t someone take my measurements first?”

  “These are factory-made garments, ma’am. No measurements needed. Alls they come in is small, regular, and stout.”

  Mirielle’s face puckered. “And which did you give me?”

  “I got a good eye for lady’s sizes.” He winked. “You’re a regular.”

  Mirielle scowled. “Regular indeed.”

  Back in her room, she changed out of her satin dress and into the cotton uniform. The skirt hung clear to her ankles, and the blouse had no shape or softness. The sleeves were too short and the collar scratchy. The cuff was too narrow to button around her plaster cast. No matter how tightly she fastened her girdle, the skirt flared at her hips like a bell. One look in the filmy bathroom mirror and Mirielle cringed. Even her grandmother—when she was alive—had dressed more smartly than this. But for a chance to see Charlie and her girls again, Mirielle would wear anything.

  On the way back to the dressing clinic, she passed a group of men seated where the walkway abutted the porch in front of house twelve. The Rocking Chair Brigade, Irene had unaffectionately called these men, warning Mirielle about their perpetually sour dispositions and propensity for gossip.

  “You thinking about taking the vows and becoming a nun?” one of the men said as she passed. Several of the others snickered.

  “All you need is one of them goofy hats,” another said.

  “Not that it’s any of your beeswax,” Mirielle said. “But I’ve taken a job in the hospital. I’m going to help find a cure for this wretched disease.”

  “That so?” said the first man. “Well, thank God you’re here. Ain’t like they’ve been looking for a cure for the last half-a-century.”

  Mirielle raised her chin and kept walking.

  “Careful you don’t chip a nail now.”

  “Or smudge your perdy makeup.”

  “And look out that you don’t get any of the gazeek on you.”

  Mirielle made the mistake of glancing back. The man who’d last spoken was covered hairline to collar with rough, lumpy nodules.

  “Otherwise, you’ll wake up with a face like mine.”

  There was a sniggering quality to the way he spoke, and several of the men laughed, but his dark, flat eyes were humorless. Her brisk step flagged. Could she really accelerate her own disease by working with others whose illness was more advanced?

  “That’s better,” Sister Verena pronounced when Mirielle arrived back. “Did Dr. Ross explain what your role and responsibilities would be?”

  Mirielle shook her head.

  “I thought not.”

  “I told him I wanted to help find a cure, and he said he’d find me a position where I could do that.”

  Sister Verena pursed her lips. “Dr. Ross oversees all aspects of the facility, but his role is more . . . administrative. As Sister Servant and head nurse, I’m in charge of day-to-day operations of the infirmaries and clinics.” She paused and didn’t continue until Mirielle gave a short nod.

  “You’ll report to me or, in my absence, Sister Loretta.”

  Wasn’t that swell, Mirielle thought. She bobbed her head again for Sister Verena to continue.

  “Tuesdays, you’ll work here in the dressing clinic. Mondays and Wednesdays in the ladies’ infirmary. Fridays in the pharmacy and every other Thursday in the shot clinic.” She strode the length of the room as she spoke, and Mirielle followed after her. “You’ll be tasked with simple things. Cleaning and dressing wounds, rolling bandages, preparing supplies for disinfection, answering patient call bells, helping change their linen . . .”

  Mirielle stopped, and Sister Verena spun around. “Is something wrong?”

  “How’s any of that going to lead to a cure?”

  “Do you have advanced schooling in chemistry?”

  “No.”

  “Biology, pharmacology, medicine?”

  Mirielle looked down. Her shoes gleamed with the fresh polish she’d given them last night while envisioning herself surrounded by glass tubes and beakers like the photographs of Marie Curie she’d seen in Vanity Fair. “No.”

  “Do you have any skills whatsoever related to the medical profession?”

  “I cared for my children when they were sick.” She
raised her eyes and met Sister Verena’s gaze, doing her best to look assured.

  “Then you should do very well at the tasks I’ve laid out for you.” She pointed to two men soaking their feet. “Dry their legs so Sister Loretta can rebandage their wounds and then prepare fresh water for the next patients.”

  Mirielle sighed and grabbed a stack of towels from the nearby linen cupboard. Sister Verena thought her useless, incapable of even menial work. Just like the men in the Rocking Chair Brigade. Just like Charlie. Well, she’d prove them all wrong.

  She marched over to the first man but hesitated before bending down. Several of his toes were missing, and open sores covered his legs. This is what the men in front of house twelve had meant by the gazeek. The poisonous microbes that caused their disease. She imagined them like teeny-tiny jellyfish floating in the water and clinging with their tentacles to the man’s skin. The minute she touched him, they’d latch on to her too, adding to the gazeek already inside her.

  He looked at her expectantly. She glanced from his face to his ruinous feet and shook her head. There had to be some other position for her. She’d never make it to twelve negative tests or survive until they found a cure doing this work. But before she could stand and slink away, a soft, fleshy hand patted her shoulder.

  “Let me show you how it’s done, dearie.” Sister Loretta squatted down beside her with impressive ease for one so ancient. She smiled at Mirielle and grabbed a towel. “All right, Ronnie, here we go.” She spread the towel wide, and the man raised his leg. “The skin’s especially fragile after soaking, so dab, don’t rub. And don’t forget between the toes.”

  With gentle, careful movements, she dried one leg, then the other. The smile she wore never faltered. “Many patients suffer nerve damage and can’t feel much anymore, so a light touch is best. And when you get fresh water, make sure it isn’t too hot or you’re liable to cause a burn.”