by Cat Winters
“Is she still . . .” I cleared my throat. “She’s still alive, isn’t she?”
He nodded. “As far as I know.”
“Have you slept at all since last night?”
“No. Have you?”
“No. I helped drive an ambulance late at night. And there’s been . . . a strange thing happened this morning that . . .” I covered my eyes with my fingers and experienced a wave of tiredness for the first time since I had witnessed Eddie in May’s room. “I’m exhausted actually. We should both go to our homes and get some sleep.”
“I’ll walk you home.”
“No, no need. I don’t live at the farm anymore. I’m renting a room in town.”
“Really?” he asked with more than a hint of shock in his voice.
Another Red Cross ambulance charged our way on Farnsworth and rattled off to the hospital’s back entrance around the corner. I felt the wind from its wake tangle through the unpinned strands of hair around my face.
“It had nothing to do with any of you, Wyatt.” I lowered my hands to my cheeks. “Me, hiding away so often. I loved you as a friend—I truly did. And I loved Sigrid with all of my heart. It had everything to do with my father and the way he treated Billy out there on the farm.”
Wyatt tipped his head sideways and squinted at me through the sunlight. “But Billy moved out of the house five years ago. And you still stayed inside.”
“I know. I don’t know what happened to me. I thought I could protect Peter, too, but he was—” I brushed out the wrinkles in my skirt. “He was always too much like Father.” I lifted my face and looked Wyatt in the eye. “I just want you and Sigrid to know I’m sorry I never visited you or seemed to take an interest in getting to know your children. It was terrible of me, and I wish I could go back and change everything.”
Wyatt pressed his lips together and nodded. “I’ll give Sigrid the roses if I can.”
“Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”
I patted his arm and left him behind on those lush hospital grounds.
Police interrogated Swedish-born Buchanan resident Hanna Lindstrom, aged 22, after a neighbor overheard her singing a song by German composer Johannes Brahms. The neighbor reported Mrs. Lindstrom to the American Protective League, stating that the young woman also speaks Swedish in public and refuses to post the United States Food Administration pledge card in her window. The police questioned Mrs. Lindstrom for two hours, but they did not press charges, after failing to find solid evidence of Espionage Act violations. Mrs. Lindstrom’s husband, Isak Lindstrom, is currently serving overseas in the U.S. Army. The young mother of three claims to have been singing a lullaby to her two-year-old daughter, who was sick with influenza.
Local American Protective League chief Charles Williams stated that Mrs. Lindstrom’s interrogation is an opportunity to remind local residents of Buchanan’s strict stance against German music. “German propaganda, including subtle propaganda through art and literature, will not be tolerated,” said Mr. Williams. “If you celebrate Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, you are celebrating German culture. We will question anyone caught singing or playing enemy music. Influenza or no influenza, we are still fighting Prussian devilry twenty-four hours a day. Germans—not germs—remain our greatest adversary.”
—BUCHANAN SENTINEL, October 9, 1918
Chapter 14
A group of four men in three-piece business suits and fedoras stood in front of Daniel’s store, facing the boarded-up windows and door. They held their hands on their hips and folded their arms over their chests and discussed matters I couldn’t hear from down the block.
My skin went cold. I crossed the street before any of them could see me and tucked myself around the corner of the Masonic Lodge’s east-facing wall. As best as I could without being spotted, I watched them, my right hand braced against cold brick, my breathing irregular. I had wanted to check on Daniel before daring to return to May’s for a rest, but I didn’t realize ominous-looking strangers—most likely the APL—would be clustered in front of his door in the light of day. I had believed rats to scavenge mainly after dark.
Three of the men turned away from the store and walked westward, puffing on cigarettes and cigars, chuckling as they went.
One man remained.
Lucas.
He must have caught sight of me from across the street, for he lifted his chin and peered straight at me through his colossal lenses.
Another green streetcar rattled by. Steel wheels whirred against the tracks; electric wires bobbed and swayed overhead. I slipped around the corner and stole inside the front door of the Masonic Lodge before the vehicle could finish passing.
No one else made a peep inside the building. Assuming myself alone, I retraced my steps to the upstairs ballroom and hid myself behind the grand double doors with the brass eyes peering from the knobs. The ballroom lay empty and silent. Daylight streamed through the five closed windows framed by thin red curtains. No crumbs of party food littered the floors. No forgotten gloves or hair ribbons revealed hints of the enchantment of the nights. The mute piano rested against the wall, the keyboard cover down.
I sauntered over to the leftmost window and peeked out from behind the gauzy curtain. The fabric brushed against my cheek and smelled of perfumes and whiskey. No one stood in front of Daniel’s store down below. I held my breath and listened for any indications of the lodge’s front door opening—or any whines in the floorboards beyond the closed ballroom doors.
I simply disappeared in a puff of smoke behind the streetcar, Lucas, I mentally willed to my brother’s wayward friend, wherever he might have been. Don’t search for me.
I DON’T KNOW how long I stood in front of the window, barely breathing, my eyes locked upon the sidewalk in front of Liberty Brothers Furniture. An amateur spy spying on APL spies. An amateur spy watching over the storefront of a potential German spy. Watching, watching, watching . . .
Another Emily Dickinson poem wandered through my brain—a rather odd and dramatic one, even by Miss Dickinson’s standards.
Before I got my eye put out,
I liked as well to see
As other creatures, that have eyes,
And know no other way.
The image of a poked-out eye made my stomach tighten, and both of my eyes stung. Such torture seemed a highly feasible punishment for a person who lurked in the shadows and defied the U.S. government by wanting to protect an enemy alien.
My back ached from standing still for so long. Lucas didn’t seem to be on the verge of throwing open the ballroom doors and dragging me down to the APL headquarters. Even if he waited for me somewhere inside the lodge, where could I possibly run? If I jumped out the window, the awning down below might break my fall a tad, but the ensuing injuries might be worse than an APL inquisition.
If anyone ever corners you or threatens you, there’s only one thing you need to say, I remembered May instructing me. You tell them, “I’m the daughter and sister of men who dispose of Huns.”
I stepped over to the piano, which tempted with its promise of comfort. I lifted the keyboard cover and exposed the black and white treasure chest that held all the songs yet to be played. I then scooted onto the hard wooden stool, my skirt swishing with the slide, and inhaled the regal and dusty smells of the instrument, as if breathing the perfume of fresh sweet corn. Or Sigrid’s roses.
I leaned forward and embarked upon Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1—but, a moment later, my fingers jerked away from the keys.
Forbidden music.
German music.
I peeked over my shoulder to make sure such a blunder wouldn’t send Lucas storming inside the double doors, and then I cracked my knuckles (a terrible habit, I know) and sorted through the musical files of my brain for a song that spoke nothing of patriotism or treachery. An older favorite, Irving Berlin’s “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” came to mind. I closed my eyes and poured my entire being into the notes, and the louder I played, the more the cruel world
fell away. Nobody lay dead and buried in the ground, and no one hated and murdered and mangled and spied. Music consumed every particle of the darkness inside my mind, and I felt just like Alice sailing down the rabbit hole, fleeing the real world that waited miles and miles above.
I played the piano for at least an hour—maybe more. Nobody pushed open the ballroom doors. No one seemed to care. I made music until my exhausted head drooped down to the keys. After one last discordant note, played by my right cheek, I fell asleep, right there at the piano.
“MISS?” ASKED AN UNFAMILIAR VOICE—a tenor—and a warm hand touched my shoulder.
I awoke with a start and slammed my hands into the keys, creating a horrendous crash of notes that echoed across the room.
The pianist from the jazz band stood over me in his black tailcoat, his slicked hair shining on his head like oil spilled across his scalp. “Have you come to join us?” he asked with a smile on his thin face. He seemed to wear a little powder and rouge, now that I saw him up close.
The rest of the band members lugged in their instruments around me and grinned down at me as I slumped over the keys on the stool.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, my face burning, and I darted out of the room like an intrusive mouse, caught by the owner of a house.
NELA AND ADDIE WAITED FOR ME in front of the Red Cross headquarters. I cranked the ambulance to a start and crawled into the driver’s seat beside them.
“I’m so horribly embarrassed about what happened to me just now,” I said, and I rubbed the sides of my face, causing my lips and cheeks to stretch all over the place. “I fell asleep at the piano of the Masonic Lodge. The jazz band I was telling you about had to wake me up.”
“You can still drive, though, yes?” asked Nela.
My chin drifted toward my chest. “This is precisely what I meant about needing to teach you both how to drive. You can’t rely on me. I haven’t been myself since last Friday.”
“Come on.” Nela jostled my arm enough to stir me into an upright position. “We’ve got to go. Even if we’re tired. We’ve got to help.”
I lowered my hands from my face and gripped the black steering wheel. “Just . . . give me a moment . . .” My cheek sank forward and landed against my knuckles. My eyes fell shut, and I hovered between alertness and sleep. A deep breath, halfway to a snore, whispered free from my mouth.
“Ivy.” Nela shoved me in the shoulder, knocking me to the left with such force that I nearly fell out of the ambulance.
“All right, all right.” I sat up straight and discovered that the truck sat cockeyed in the road in front of the Red Cross building. “Did one of you try driving again?”
“I did.” Addie raised her hand in the darkness beside Nela. “That’s why it’s parked so crooked.”
“I’m awfully proud of you.”
“I said it’s crooked.”
“It doesn’t matter. You both simply need practice. No matter what anyone tells you, you don’t need to be a man to handle a truck.” I shifted the levers and poked my head out of the side of the ambulance to view the dark road behind us. “In fact, trucks are a little like men. They often require firm persuasion to get them to go where they’re needed.”
I pushed my foot into the reverse pedal and rolled the ambulance backward.
Without warning, a uniformed man—a soldier—showed up in the street behind us. I saw his face, clear and bright in the lamplight.
“Oh, God!” I slammed on the brakes.
“What’s wrong?” asked Nela.
“Oh, God!” I jumped out of the truck and ran to the empty spot in the road where I’d just witnessed the figure. “Billy!”
Addie hustled around the ambulance from the other side. “What are you doing? Who’s Billy?”
“I just saw my brother back here.” I scanned the darkness with my hands threaded through my hair on my scalp. My heart pounded. Gooseflesh tingled across my arms. “He was just standing here. I saw him. I know I saw him.”
“I don’t see anyone.”
“He was killed at the Battle of Saint-Mihiel in September, but I saw him. I swear”—my voice turned hoarse and painful—“he stood right here.”
Nela hurried into view behind Addie. “What is happening?”
“Ivy just saw a ghost.”
“There was another one this morning.” I dug the heels of my palms into the sockets of my eyes. “Oh, God. I don’t know who I’m going to lose next. I hate this. Why are they coming here?”
Nela took hold of my arm. “As you said, you’re tired. It was a trick of the mind.” She lured me back to the driver’s seat. Our two pairs of feet made a steady pitter-patter against the road, but I heard a third set of footsteps—not Addie’s. Heavy, boot-clad feet wandered down the road, away from us.
“How about you drive and just stay in the ambulance while we fetch?” asked Nela. “You can sleep while we’re carrying our patients.”
“I should check on Daniel.”
“Our shift already started.” She held my arm and my waist and lowered me down to the padded seat, the way my mother used to assist my grandmother into chairs after she suffered her first stroke when I was nine. “Please—just drive, and we’ll fetch.”
THE PATIENTS WE TRANSPORTED all started to look alike, all of them poor immigrants and blacks with defeat dimming their eyes. We seemed to be cycling on an unending loop that would never allow for an end to the plague. No relief. No escape.
I stayed in the car while Addie and Nela fetched the patients, but just sitting there—helpless, useless, slumped against the leatherette upholstery—brought no relief to the fatigue fogging my brain. I joined in and helped them with the lifting and carrying until somewhere in the five o’clock hour, when my eyes turned bleary. I accidentally swerved too far to the right and ran the ambulance off the road. Pitch-black hedges clawed at the metal of the grille and the hood. Branches snapped. The car halted with a jolt that hurt my neck.
“That’s it.” I threw up my hands. “I’m now officially a hazard to the community. I’m done.”
“Just—”
“No.” I backed the truck out of the foliage with more scrapes and snaps from the branches. “Not just one more. I’m going to kill us all if I keep driving like this. I’m done.”
I drove back in the direction of the Red Cross headquarters on the north side of town, and none of us spoke a word. Our bodies jostled together with the rhythm of the rumbling motor; we swayed against each other during the wide turns around corners. Morning light hovered on the edge of the eastern horizon, and I felt the urge to escape its brightness. To sleep during the darkness again would feel divine.
I parked alongside the curb, stumbled out of the car, and tripped my way toward Willow Street, and Daniel’s place—not May’s. No more talk of ghosts and death for me that day.
Chapter 15
The Liberty Brothers shop bell jangled with a nervous clatter above me.
Daniel slid two nails out of his mouth and lowered the disembodied arm of an oak chair to the ground. “What happened to you?”
I ran my hands through my hair and found a bird’s nest of tangles and sweat and dislodged pins. The room rolled beneath my feet and tipped me off balance. I fell back against the door with a rattle of the splintered glass.
“Ivy?” Daniel rushed over and took hold of my waist and left elbow. “Come sit down. You don’t look well.”
“I’ve barely slept.”
He guided me toward the long front counter at the back. “Why didn’t you come here sooner?”
“APL men huddled outside your door when I came by again yesterday.”
“What?”
“You’re right—there’s nothing but chaos out there. I’m not sure how much longer I can tolerate it.”
He guided me behind the counter and lowered me down to a pale wooden chair with a rose carved into the back. I thought of Sigrid lying somewhere inside that cold and cavernous hospital. And her children. Little gold spots buzz
ed before my eyes. I sank my face into my lap and interlocked my fingers behind my skull to squeeze the wooziness out of my brain.
“Ivy?” Daniel cupped the back of my neck with a warm hand, and I heard him kneel down on one knee beside me. “Are you all right? Is it more than just exhaustion?”
“I’m terrified that you or someone else I know is going to die.”
“Why? Why did you come in here in such a panic yesterday morning?”
“I see—certain things—before someone close to me loses his life.” I breathed into the folds of my skirt, heating my cheeks with the air. “I saw two of them in the past twenty-four hours.”
Daniel’s second knee dropped to the floor. “What is it that you see?”
“I don’t want to say.”
“Why not?”
“It’ll sound like something’s wrong with my head.”
“I doubt it.”
I managed to lift my face. “Just . . . please be extremely careful of this flu. Stay inside. Keep far away from others.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing. You know that.”
“The world smells and tastes of death and fear right now. I can’t even play Beethoven on a piano for a moment of escape. Someone will march in and take me away to wherever it is they talked about taking you.”
He leaned his face closer. “Don’t worry about those APL Schweine so much. No one’s going to take you away.”
“I saw the one who called me a whore again. He stood outside the store with the others, and he looked straight at me. I used to lend Billy and him my marbles when we were younger. I dried his tears when he fell down and scraped his knee at our house. Now he won’t stop following me around like I’m a lethal criminal.”
“Here”—Daniel offered his hand, his fingers trembling—“let’s go upstairs and forget everything else.”
