The Plague Tales

by Ann Benson

  Janie watched all this with tentative curiosity and compared it to her memories of him. She decided that Bruce the Mature was a lot more elegant and charming than Bruce the Raw, that his years of living in the orderly society of England had given him an understanding of the value of social ritual that most American men simply couldn’t grasp. His manners were courtly and all of his rough edges seemed to have been smoothed. He had become an altogether attractive man.

  The lounge looked out over a nearby canal and the light of the setting sun danced prettily on the slow-moving water. Everything touched by its nearly horizontal rays turned a brilliant fiery red, and Janie was captivated by the warmth of it. The magic of the wine transfused itself from the glass into her veins. More than once the steward appeared without being summoned and unobtrusively refilled their glasses before stepping back into whatever shadow had previously hidden him from view. And though she tried to resist letting go of its protective walls, Janie felt the stress of the long, hard day gradually slipping out of her as she relaxed into her low chair. She closed her eyes and drifted into a state of near-serenity. When she opened them again, she found that Bruce was staring at her. She quickly turned her eyes away.

  He was curious about her. She knew it without question, and to the level at which she could accept it, his unabashed interest in her felt wonderful. She knew he had no way of knowing what she’d been through, how it had hardened her, and how difficult it was for her to let herself be contacted deeply. For the first time since the day she’d buried her husband, Janie allowed the huge ache of wanting to be touched to come to the surface. She sat there under Bruce’s benign gaze and let the electricity of longing sizzle on the surface of her skin, and for once made no attempt to push it back down again. Her eyes misted, and she bit her lip in a noble effort to keep the tears at bay. She did not want Bruce to see her in a state of emotional upheaval.

  He placed one hand gently on her arm, and the warmth of his hand almost startled her. As if he had read her fears, he said, “Janie, I promise I won’t think poorly of you. But I really want to know what happened to you.”

  Her lower lip quivered and she cast her gaze downward.

  “It’s all right,” he said soothingly. “You’re safe with me.”

  To achieve that state of loose-lipped Bacchanalian bravery where inhibitions melt, she drained her glass. After a small and delicate hiccup she said quietly, “Forty-five years old and I’m still a cheap date.”

  He smiled. “Not cheap. Inexpensive, maybe. But not cheap.”

  She returned the smile, but tentatively. “Inexpensive, then.” She said, very carefully, “The story starts out pretty, but it gets ugly toward the end.”

  “I understand. But I’d still like to hear it if you’re willing to tell it.”

  She spoke slowly and deliberately, as if the tale she told was fragile, knowing that the true risk of breakage lay in the teller. Her words were wine slurred. “After my residency I married a man named Harry Crowe. Harry was a pediatrician. We had a very nice life going for us, Harry and I did … a careful life. We did everything right. Everything. I used to pinch myself every morning and think to myself, What a wonderful orderly life I have. Sort of like the life you say you have. You know, content. Satisfied.”

  She paused and reached out to pour herself more wine, but Bruce took the bottle from her and said, “Let me do that for you.” He poured a very small amount in her glass and said, “Go on.”

  She could feel herself slipping into the old familiar melancholy, but she pressed onward, knowing Bruce would not be satisfied until the story was complete. “We bought stocks in the Reagan years and sold just before the crash. We bought our house before the prices peaked and held on to it until after they stabilized. We invested in technology funds in the early nineties. We both loved our work. Our daughter went to wonderful private schools and did really well; she had music lessons and played sports.…”

  Bruce watched her intently as the drama unfolded. As her steadiness began to disintegrate visibly he reached out and took hold of her hand. He felt it grow tense as soon as the contact was made. “Go on, Janie.…”

  She hitched in a rapid breath and let her pain pour out. “And one morning I watched them go off together; it would normally have been my day to drive Betsy to school, but Harry was going to a seminar at the university that day, and it was right on his way. I was on call and I didn’t have to go anywhere. I was still in my pajamas at eight o’clock in the morning.

  “We were just beginning to hear reports of epidemics in the medical community. The CDC had already issued a bulletin, but the news services hadn’t really picked up on it. So school officials hadn’t been notified. Well, the day before, one of the cafeteria workers had gone home complaining of a stomachache and a fever. The last thing she did before she went home was to prepare the morning snack for the next day.

  “By two o’clock all the kids who’d eaten the snacks were feeling sick, and by that time the cafeteria worker had died. When she went to the emergency room, one of the doctors had just read the CDC bulletin, and found out where she worked. He called the health department and convinced them to quarantine the school.

  “I’d been called in for an emergency procedure in the middle of the morning, so I’d already contacted Harry and asked him to pick Betsy up at the end of the day. When he got there, the quarantine was already in place, but he got in somehow, probably by saying he was a pediatrician. If I’d been one of those cops, I probably would’ve let him in. Out of the four hundred people who were quarantined in that school, three hundred fifty-six came down with it. Three hundred forty-two of them died. Harry and Betsy were not among the lucky ones. They took all the bodies away and held them for postmortems. I never saw either of them again. The bodies were burned within a week.”

  “Oh, Janie, my God, that’s so awful … I’m so sorry.…”

  “It gets worse,” she said. Tears were now freely dripping down her cheeks. “I set up a memorial service. There weren’t any bodies to bury, but I needed some closure, I needed to feel like I’d done what I was supposed to do when someone dies. My parents came. They were in Pennsylvania when it happened, so they drove up to be with me and to be at the service. On the way they pulled into a rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike and got something to eat.…”

  She hitched in a drunken sob and Bruce said, “… and they picked up the disease there?”

  She nodded rapidly and squeezed her eyes shut. Rivers of tears flowed down her face, dripping onto her arm, Bruce’s hand, and the tabletop. “Oh, God …” she said, “look at me. I’m leaking again.”

  Bruce couldn’t help smiling slightly. “I might have to report you for unauthorized release of body fluids in a public place.…”

  Wiping her eyes with one hand, Janie sniffed and said, “It’s a good thing it’s not illegal in the States. I’d still be in jail.”

  Bruce got up from his chair and went around to the back of Janie’s. Without asking her permission he wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder as he did so. He held on to her with tender firmness, as she continued to cry quietly. She didn’t resist his effort to comfort her.

  All around them, people stared. They hadn’t made much noise, but Bruce’s abrupt rising from his seat turned heads in their direction. Janie didn’t see how much attention was being paid to them; Bruce didn’t want her to see it, and looked around, meeting the gaze of all of their watchers with a look that said Please … don’t stare … and one by one the looks of disdain melted into softer expressions of sympathy.

  After a few minutes she reached up and patted his arm with her hand, a signal that she wanted him to let go of her. He understood it perfectly and withdrew his arms, then sat back down in his chair.

  With swollen red eyes she looked at him and, surprising herself, said, “I can’t tell you how good that felt. Thank you so much.”

  “My pleasure. Anytime. I don’t know that I would have managed
to keep it together at all if I’d gone through what you went through. You’re very brave to have plunged back into your life so quickly.”

  “Yeah, well, you get pretty tough after something like that. I was a very hard lady for a while after it happened. I felt like someone just pulled my guts right out, and I’ve been trying to shove them back in ever since.”

  For a few moments they sat in silence while Janie dried her eyes, the quiet of the lounge broken only by conversations from the surrounding tables. Bruce waved off the approaching steward, who carried a replacement bottle of wine. After a decent interval he said, “I was originally thinking we might go out of the hotel for dinner, but maybe we should just stay here.”

  “Food again,” she said. “I think we’re destined to eat every time we see each other. I don’t know if I’m sober enough to read the menu.”

  “I can order for both of us,” he said.

  She reached out and put her hand on his. “What a nice guy you turned out to be. Order anything but snails,” she said, slurring her words. “I hate all that grit.” And she remained drunkenly silent as the wise and thoughtful grown-up who had invaded the body of the more reckless Bruce-of-yore ordered an assortment of nonsnail items.

  Soon the food arrived and as she ate, Janie slowly began to slide back into sobriety. She wondered with some resentment how Bruce managed to stay sober while she’d gotten completely inebriated. But as the evening passed her mood gradually brightened a little and the conversation drifted to other details of their lives. The veneer of sadness slowly melted, and Janie found herself feeling unexpectedly comfortable with her companion by the time the meal was over.

  As they walked through the lobby toward the elevators, Janie could still feel the lingering effects of their brief but intense contact. Invited into her altered state, the warmth of an attractive male presence had slipped into her belly and was proceeding slowly but steadily in a straight line toward her groin. She looked at Bruce and thought, It’s so obvious, you can feel it oozing out of me, I know you can. It was late, and there was no one else around, and as they waited for the old birdcage elevator to reach the lobby, Bruce put his arms around her, this time face-to-face, and drew her close. She resisted, but only slightly, so he looked into her eyes and brought his lips to hers, lightly brushing them together. He pulled back and smiled, then pressed his mouth on hers again, this time closing his eyes.

  But the glow of the wine had faded, and as the elevator doors opened, Janie pulled back away from him. As the heady looseness of intoxication dissipated, she remembered herself and the work that remained to be done, some of it professional, some of it personal. No matter how badly she wanted to release herself from its suffocating grasp, the fear of letting herself become attached to someone who might be taken away from her still held her hostage. She recaptured her normal voice and said firmly, “I think I’ll walk up. I need the exercise.” Then she squeezed his hand and said, “Thanks for the lovely evening. I feel a lot better.” And leaving a bewildered Bruce staring at her retreating form, she wobbled resolutely toward the stairs.

  Nine

  If their prophet Jesus was a poor carpenter, why are his temples so splendid? Alejandro was astounded by the sumptuous carpets and tapestries that appeared everywhere he looked in the papal palace; the exquisite paintings were more intricate than any he had ever seen. The lush figures of barely clad goddesses were strangely exciting to him; he had never seen such erotic representations of the female figure before, certainly not in his medical texts, where the flat renditions had none of the appeal of the lifelike women on these walls. This castle is holy to them, he thought, perplexed, for he had expected it to feel more hallowed, more spiritual; instead, it seemed almost conspicuously profane. Should he feel reverence for these Christians, whose ways he admittedly did not understand, or contempt, that they had strayed so far from simplicity in their faith?

  In time you will know, he told himself.

  In his hand was the scroll that conveyed the order for him to report here, and he looked around for someone who might know what he should do now, finally settling on an ornately armored guard standing against one wall.

  “Excuse me,” he said to the guard. He showed him the scroll. “I am summoned by this notice. Where shall I go?”

  The guard looked at the scroll and pointed to his right. “Over there, through those doors,” said the bearded man, a scowling ruffian who, Alejandro decided, was not a priest beneath his substantial armor. Another guard stood outside the new doors, which were handsomely carved out of lustrous wood and larger than any doors he had previously seen. So many guards, he thought, and wondered, Why does this poor carpenter need an army? He showed the scroll again, and the new guard opened the heavy doors, admitting Alejandro to a large room, some sort of court, he supposed, where many other equally bewildered-looking men waited.

  He stood in the middle of the room, overwhelmed by his surroundings, with a group of other men who seemed equally awestruck, all staring at the splendor that surrounded them. They turned in unison toward a sound at the far end of the room. Large wood doors swung open, and two more armored guards entered. Each carried a ceremonial staff, and between them walked a tall man of regal bearing. A murmur of excited whispers went through the waiting men.

  The gentleman who entered was richly attired in a long red robe trimmed with white ermine at the collar and cuffs; the buckle of his belt was gold, encrusted with bright jewels and lustrous pearls. He strode regally into the center of the room, and stood there silently waiting for the attention of all present to be turned toward him. From his air of impatience, Alejandro had the idea that the pinch-faced man, scrutinizing the unruly crowd with overt disapproval, was accustomed to having attention paid to him, and quickly. His intelligent and perceptive-looking eyes, narrow-set over a long, pointy nose, moved from man to man; they rested for a moment on Alejandro, and the two physicians stared at each other for a brief time. With the barest hint of a smile the red-robed man looked away, then nodded at one of the staff-bearers, who banged loudly on the floor, and the surprised occupants of the room hushed their whispers quickly. The tall man then cleared his throat, and began to speak.

  “Are there any Jews among you? If so, step forward.”

  Fear gripped him. Have the Spanish soldiers reached Avignon? Am I finally to be discovered? He looked anxiously around, waiting to see what others would do. Why does this man call forth only the Jews here? There had been no word that the pope’s edict protecting Jews had been rescinded. He tried not to show his fear as he stood in the room full of strangers, but had to struggle to hide his trembling. If closely questioned about his heritage, he knew that he would surely lose what little composure he had managed to maintain and give himself away.

  He watched in terror as, one by one, the Jews stepped forward, some of them wearing yellow circles sewn to the sleeves of their clothing. For those men there was no decision. They gathered together in a group, nervously awaiting their unknown fate. Alejandro saw the fear in their eyes, but also the proud defiance, and he was ashamed of his own cowardice.

  The tall man in red looked at the group with contempt. “You are dismissed,” he said.

  The Jews looked at each other in disbelief, expressions of relief washing over their previously terrified faces. All quickly turned toward the door, and hurried out, stunned by their good fortune.

  It was too late for him to join them. He watched with rueful envy as the Jews disappeared from the room. The tall man motioned those remaining to be seated, and all shyly looked around for a suitable place. To Alejandro’s surprise they were directed to sit in a grouping of luxurious cushioned chairs he had admired earlier.

  When they were all settled, the man in red sat down in a splendid gilt chair perched on a dais before the assembled men. “Learned physicians and colleagues,” he began, “I am Guy de Chauliac, and it is my great honor to be the personal physician to His Holiness Pope Clement VI. I act today on behalf of His Holiness, who r
equires your services in a matter of utmost importance to the Holy Church and the Kingdom of France.

  “As you all undoubtedly know, we are smitten by a horrible plague of devastating proportions. It is reported that the whole of Europa is now afflicted by this scourge, and thousands fall daily. Reports from other nations are as grim as those we would send out to them. Our beloved brother Edward III of England has written to us of the pest’s arrival on his shores, and we mourn the passing of the archbishop of Canterbury as a result.

  “King Edward is himself now mourning the death of his daughter Joanna, who was on her way to be wedded into the royal house of Castile when she was cruelly struck down by the pestilence.”

  The young noblewoman on her bridal journey to Castile! He recalled the cantina where the story had first been told on his journey to Avignon.

  “His Holiness has great regard and affection for the English royals, and recognizes their importance in maintaining the political stability of Europa. His Holiness wishes, despite the current rancor between our two countries, to encourage the noble leaders of France and England to set aside their differences, and to pursue the alliances that are so essential to renewed peace and prosperity. It is imperative that England be allied to the other noble houses of Europa. If the royal houses are decimated, there will be grave consequences for the order of our world, and the Church’s interests will not be served.”

  Alejandro looked around at the men seated with him; all were paying rapt attention to de Chauliac, who continued with his dramatic speech.

  “I have personally seen to the health and well-being of His Holiness during this dreadful plague. My methods have been unorthodox, and while it’s true that my patron dislikes his confinement, one can hardly argue with the results.