The Uninvited

by Cat Winters

  I sighed. “One more. But that’s all I have left in me before risking a crash.”

  I drove the ambulance to a flu-marked house, one-story tall and paneled in wide red planks. A pair of floppy-eared dogs whined at us from the front windows. Nela and Addie fetched the stretcher while I knocked on the door below the scarlet letters of the influenza sign.

  Behind me in the street, the Halloran’s Dry Goods delivery wagon rattled by. I smelled the eye-watering stench of death and decay and guessed, with a heavy weight in my stomach, that the vehicle now delivered the deceased instead of merchandise. I returned my eyes to the little red door in front of me, not wanting to see any bodies where bolts of cloth and cooking utensils ought to have been.

  No one answered my knocks, but the dogs barked from within. Their nails scratched against the floor on the other side of the wood, and from somewhere deep in the middle of the house, a child cried.

  “Open the door,” said Nela from the far end of the stretcher on the front path of broken bricks.

  I did as she asked.

  A dark hallway, lit by a flickering kerosene wall lamp, greeted us. One of the hounds, a skinny pup with a swollen belly and protruding ribs, turned and pattered toward the back of the house on tiny paws. We followed her down to a small bedroom in which a young black woman in a nightgown lay in bed with her right arm draped over her forehead. A baby with a thick head of hair slept in a crib below the window, and the ripe stench of soiled diapers hit my nose. The other child, the one I had heard bawling from outside, continued to wail in another room.

  The woman turned toward us with dark eyes that bulged from a gaunt face. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Landers,” said Addie. With Nela’s help, she lowered the stretcher down beside the bed. “I’m working with the Red Cross now. I took over my sister Florence’s duties. We’re here to transport you to a medical facility where you can receive proper help.”

  “No.” The woman curled onto her side and drew her knees to her chest. “No. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “It’s all right, it’s all right,” we told her in soft coos, struggling to uncurl her rigid body and slide her toward the edge of the bed.

  “Leave me alone!” she screamed. “No! You wicked women. No!”

  The three of us leaned in with all our strength and somehow managed to lower her down to the stretcher on the floor, while she fought and shoved and scratched at our hands and faces.

  “Please, don’t panic,” said Nela, unhooking the woman’s fingers from her hair.

  “Don’t take me!”

  “We’re here to help,” I said, receiving a sharp smack across my cheek.

  The woman clawed the back of Addie’s hand and slammed her palm into Nela’s stomach. “Don’t take me away from my babies! They’ve got no one else. Don’t take me away. I’ll kill you if you do! I’ll kill you!”

  Oh, God, I thought with tears welling in my eyes. What type of world are we living in? What is this hellish illness and paranoid country doing to all of us?

  In the end, we left the young mother behind. She sobbed into her pillow as we closed the front door behind us, but there was simply nothing more we could do for her or her children, aside from obeying her wishes to be left alone. We possessed no medicine, no vaccine, no miraculous cure. None of us even carried a bottle of whiskey. We were but ferrymen—or ferrywomen—in the night, transporting the masses.

  If anyone in the future were to ever ask me, How bad was that strain of the flu that destroyed so many people around the time your brother died—that “Spanish influenza” that raged out of control when Albrecht Schendel was found murdered in his store? I would tell them what I witnessed, all the pain and the grief and the seas of blood. Yet I don’t think mere words, mere fumbled attempts to articulate the suffering, would be enough to convey the horror.

  Even I didn’t completely absorb the full impact of that disease those first nights of taxiing flu patients around South Buchanan, and I half convinced myself it was all a terrible nightmare stemming from my own flu fevers. I would soon wake up, and Albrecht Schendel would live, and no pandemic would exist out there, devouring the earth.

  I DON’T EVEN REMEMBER arriving back at May’s house that morning. Beyond the closed door of her bedroom, she tittered and chatted with someone, and I assumed her telephone was located in that particular part of the house. I didn’t dare let my mind wander to her talk of Eddie’s spirit. My brain ached too much to think of ghosts and Uninvited Guests.

  Upstairs, I changed into my white nightgown and crawled toward the pillow across the bed like a blind pup in search of its mama.

  Hours later, I opened my eyes on that lumpy attic mattress, and darkness squeezed around me again. Daytime had waned. Nighttime awoke. Time to fetch more of the sick.

  The reported number of influenza cases, as well as fatalities resulting from influenza complications, continues to rise in Buchanan and the outlying regions. The Red Cross has issued another call for emergency volunteers. Interested parties, especially anyone with nursing or home health training, should report to the Red Cross headquarters on Lincoln Street. Furthermore, the Emergency Hospital, located in Polish Hall in South Buchanan, is in dire need of cots and blankets. Donations should be taken directly to the Red Cross, not to the hall itself. The city urges healthy members of the public to refrain from visiting Buchanan Hospital, Polish Hall, and any other facility tending to the sick.

  The Buchanan Board of Health is discussing the mandatory use of three-ply gauze masks for all residents. In the meantime, police officers continue to strictly monitor all sneezing, coughing, and spitting. No house should be exited without a handkerchief tucked inside one’s pocket.

  Mayor Hoyt, along with other noted officials, continues to remain in tip-top shape. City Hall has not reported any deaths among its employees and states that Buchanan is running “as smoothly as a ship in peaceful waters.”

  —BUCHANAN SENTINEL, October 8, 1918

  Chapter 9

  I desperately required a reprieve.

  After three nights in a row of driving and fetching and washing blood out of my blouse, reliving the sounds of flu victims choking in my sleep—remembering the sight of my own flu-stricken face in the mirror—my soul thirsted for music.

  The jazz band complied.

  I stood in the shadows in front of Daniel’s store, not even caring if Lucas spied on me from somewhere nearby. I nearly even called out, Hey, Lucas! Stop hiding in the doorways and come listen to this music. I’m tired of worrying about everything and just want to have some fun. Don’t you?

  Up on the second floor across the street, beyond the open windows of the Masonic Lodge, the musicians serenaded our poor broken world with a fox-trot. No lights shone in Daniel’s business behind my back, but I longed for him to open the door and join me—to imbibe the music meant for living and loving and dancing.

  Two more songs passed, and yet I stood out there alone, afraid of knocking and fearful of leaving.

  One more song, I told myself, peeking at the entrance of the store out of the corner of my eye. And then I’ll leave.

  No cars drove by in the street. No Lucases seemed to lurk nearby. I remained alone, accompanied by the jazz and the sweet promise of escape beyond those upstairs windows.

  A minute or so later, the shop door opened with a jingle of the bell that hung above it. Daniel appeared in the lighted entryway and leaned his back against the doorjamb. He wore his shirtsleeves and tweed vest again, and the red mark from the noose hid beneath his collar.

  My lips parted, but no words slipped through them. He regarded me for several silent seconds, and I regarded him, while the music nudged us to inch closer together.

  “Well,” he finally asked, and he picked at a splinter hanging down from the doorframe above him, “do you now feel you understand what all the fuss was about?”

  I sputtered a laugh. “Yes, I think I do.”

  He snapped the spl
inter off in one piece and tossed it out to the street. “I wasn’t sure you’d ever come back.”

  “I’ve been helping out with the Red Cross quite a bit. I drive an ambulance and fetch flu victims down in Southside.”

  “Really?” He arched his eyebrows. “You fetch flu victims?”

  “Yes, I do. I’m quite useful down there.” I straightened my posture. “Why? Are you the type of man who believes women ought to stay away from automobiles?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think I wouldn’t help the Southside sick, then?”

  “Jesus Christ.” He raised his hands in the air. “I wasn’t trying to pick a fight.”

  “Well, anyway”—I turned my face back up to the Masonic Lodge windows above us—“that’s what I’ve been doing.” I watched him watching me in my peripheral vision. “Do you want to head across the street with me? They’re playing fox-trots tonight, so I assume there’s dancing.”

  Daniel grimaced and swallowed as if I’d just force-fed him turpentine.

  “Don’t you dance?” I asked.

  He picked at another splinter above his head. “It’s been a long while.”

  “There’s probably booze.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not in the mood for parties. I’d go for the booze, maybe, but not for anything else.”

  “The music’s so loud over there. Not one person would hear that you have an accent.”

  He peeked up at the windows across the way and breathed a sigh that chilled to white fog in the crisp nighttime air.

  “Please come, Daniel. I don’t like the idea of you lingering here on your own with just dark thoughts for company.”

  “I’m not going to kill myself, if that’s what troubles you.”

  “I’d believe you more if you escaped this place. Come with me.” I gestured with my head toward the street. “Let’s go have a drink and relax in a corner of the room. We don’t have to dance or talk to anyone else.” I stepped toward him with my hands stuffed in my warm coat pockets. “I’ll even come back here with you”—another step—“for a little while. Afterward.”

  “Ach.” He reached out and tucked a stray strand of my hair behind my ear. “Du begehrst mich.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He glanced up at the lodge again. “Go up there for me, Fräulein. See what it’s like. I’ll wait in my window across the way, and you peek out and wave if it’s to your liking.”

  I furrowed my brow. “You’re just going to watch from across the street?”

  “I’ll listen to the music. I’ll imagine you drinking and dancing. But”—he fixed my stray lock a second time, for it had fallen back in my face and tickled my cheek—“I am not going over there. You can come back and tell me about it afterward if you’d like.” He unhooked the top button of my jacket. “I’ll even look after your coat for you, so you don’t have to worry about losing it when you’re dancing.”

  “I probably won’t dance . . .”

  “But you’ll get warm.” He unfastened the rest of the buttons, and the skin of my chest prickled at the pressure of his so-close fingers. I smelled his rich shaving soap and the scent of sawdust, and my head went a little bit tipsy. I braced my right foot behind me.

  He eased the coat off both my shoulders “Go. See what it’s like. I’ll be here.”

  THE BAND PLAYED “Livery Stable Blues” again. Once I entered the lodge, the instruments sounded muffled, as if hidden behind thick closed doors. A tantalizing treasure kept safe from the outside world.

  I meandered down an upstairs hallway lined in a faded green rug the color of moss. The dark-wood walls smelled of age and oak and smoke, and upon them hung oil portraits of Masonic Grand Masters past, who stared at me with glints of distrust in their no-nonsense eyes. Weak electric light shone down from old lamps that flowered out of the ceiling with curved copper and frosted glass.

  Toward the end of the hall stood a closed set of four-paneled doors that stretched high above my head. The knobs themselves spoke of grandness and secrecy, with an eye surrounded by a triangle carved into the patina-covered brass of each of them. From within the sealed-off room beyond, the clarinet crowed like a rooster; the cornet whinnied like a horse. Laughter and music beckoned, Come closer. Come see. Come see . . .

  I held my breath, turned one of the knobs with a brass eye pressing against my skin, and entered what looked to be a party inhabited by a couple dozen locals. I saw jewels, booze, a brick wall with five arched windows, gold-papered walls in the rest of the room, Sunday-best dresses, suits and ties, and round tables set up along the perimeter of a dance floor made of gleaming wood with black and white stripes on the edges. Three doughboys in olive-green U.S. Army uniforms poured glasses full of liquor at one of the back tables. An interracial band—the only interracial sight I’d ever witnessed in Buchanan, Illinois, aside from the patients at Polish Hall—blared “Livery Stable Blues” from the leftmost side of the room. A dozen couples fox-trotted around the polished boards, their upper bodies stiff, their legs and feet moving in perfect synchronization, as if the tips of their toes connected to their partners’ shoes with invisible strings. I saw former classmates, unfamiliar couples, and more army boys in uniform, perhaps on leave from the training camp ten miles down the highway. The piano player—a young fellow with slicked dark hair that looked practically painted across his head—attacked those ivories with the same fervor I would have adored to use on that keyboard myself. My fingers itched with the urge to make music again. It had been far too long since I closed my keyboard cover at the beginning of October and retired upstairs with the first symptoms of the flu.

  A wiry chap in a brown plaid suit brushed past my elbow and strutted into the room beside me. “So, this is where the jazz is,” he said in a thick eastern European accent that resembled Nela’s. He smiled, tugged his tweed cap off his blond head, and stepped farther inside with a little waddle of awe, as if he’d just wandered into a dream.

  I drank in the entire scene around me and debated whether I should scoot myself backward out of the room. I felt an intruder. A thief, stealing pleasure not meant for me.

  Before I could retreat, a woman in a gauzy midnight-black dress—Eddie Dover’s first sweetheart, Ruth Sellman—wiggled my way with two whiskey glasses in her hands. She wore her copper hair cut stunningly short, bobbed just below her chin, in the style of dancer Irene Castle, and she looked nothing at all like a war widow. I read in the paper that she had lost her husband, Jesse, to the Battle of Belleau Wood over the summer, but the toothy smile on her face and inebriated gleam in her eye spoke nothing of pain.

  “Well, hello, Ivy.” She bumped her broad hip against mine and dribbled a little whiskey onto the tips of her black shoes. “I never expected to see you here. You’ve been such a homebody since school ended ages ago.”

  “Yes . . . well”—I fussed with the limp collar of my blouse—“I live in town now, so I thought I’d come see what all the excitement was about.”

  “As you should. Here . . .” She handed me one of the glasses and sloshed more liquid over the rim. “Oops, sorry. Watch your feet there.”

  “It’s all right.” I turned my nose away from the sour smell that reminded me of Father and Peter charging into the house, spattered in blood. “Is this a party someone organized? Am I intruding on something private?”

  “Not in the slightest. This is all a rather casual affair.” She half-turned toward the musicians and talked over their loudening chorus. “The piano player came up here one recent night, feeling blue about everything going on in the world, and he just started attacking those ivories like he was living his last day on earth.” She slung her arm around my shoulder and spoke close to my ear. “People heard him, and the other musicians and folks around town migrated over here like a herd of antelope answering the migratory call of nature.”

  “I don’t blame them,” I said, sidling away from her whiskey smells. “I’ve wanted to come up here for the
same reason.”

  “Make yourself at home, Lively Ivy.” She bumped my hip again. “Drink up. Don’t give a thought about this damned killjoy flu or that nasty threat of Prohibition.” She waved all those troubles away with a flick of her hand and a shimmer of airy black sleeves. “Somehow, the music will always play . . . and the booze will perpetually flow.”

  “Thank you.”

  She sashayed away and grabbed hold of a stocky, red-cheeked fellow by his emerald-green necktie. With one last peek back at me, she led the man across the floor and braced her arms around his for a go at the grizzly bear—a silly-looking dance involving showing one’s teeth and yelling, “It’s a bear!” I had once danced the thing with Wyatt at the hall beside the lake, years before.

  I stood there on the edge of the dance floor, hovering on the borderland between the fun and the exit. The cries of the music tempted. I hesitated and wavered and rocked in place.

  Come here. Come closer. Dance. Live. Love . . .

  The song dwindled to an end, and without stopping for a single breath, the band eased into a piece with a softer tempo. The couples slowed their pace, inched closer to one another, and rocked in each other’s arms with a gentle grace that reminded me of September breezes brushing across the fields behind our house. I thought of Helen, Sigrid, and me playing hide-and-seek among green stalks of corn growing tall and pregnant with the coming harvest, our hair tied back with bows as large as the birds soaring overhead.

  I slipped away to an open window framed by pale red curtains and glanced out at the sleeping street beyond. Across the way sat Daniel, perched on the sill of his own open window, whittling a piece of wood the size of a flat shoe.

  I set down my whiskey glass and leaned my head out the window. “It’s nice in here.”

  Daniel peeked up at me. A train whistled through the air from the west, and a wind rattled across the leaves of the maple below him. The night tasted electric, as if lightning lingered nearby.