A Fierce Radiance

by Lauren Belfer

  Stiffly she made her way to the shadows by the corner of the room. A tapestry hung on the wall before her. A tapestry of leaves and birds, in the style of the unicorn tapestries owned by the Rockefeller family. She studied this tapestry. As she studied it, it became three-dimensional. The leaves swayed in the breeze. The birds flew out from it. The birds were twittering around her. The smallest landed on her shoulder. Pecked gently at her ear.

  Am I hallucinating? she wondered. Ever so slowly, not wanting to startle it, she lifted her hand to pet the head of the tiny bird on her shoulder. She wished Charlie were awake, so he could tell her what type of bird it was. The bird was so beautiful, so perfect, as it studied her. Ever so softly she placed her index finger on the back of the bird’s head. Her finger went right through it.

  She was hallucinating. She was terrified. For Charlie. For herself. She began to cry.

  Her father was beside her. She didn’t know where he’d come from. He turned her around. Suddenly she was leaning against her father’s chest, and he was holding her. Protecting her. He caressed her hair and she sobbed against his chest. She was his little girl again; she’d been lost and afraid and he’d rescued her. He began to speak to her, in what sounded like a foreign language. He spoke several sentences before she realized that the language was English.

  “I’m sorry,” he was saying. Over and over. “I’m sorry. Do you hear me, sweetheart? Everything I’ve done, everything that’s happened.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Do you hear me, Claire?” He pushed her away slightly, so he could see her face. She nodded. She heard him. She understood him, he knew. “I looked at things differently then. I never would have”—he gasped for breath—“I never should have given you up. I didn’t know what it meant, to give you up. All those years without you. Thirty years, like a lifetime. Without you. Never met Emily. A whole life. Gone. I’m sorry.”

  She pressed her face against his shoulder. She wished she could pull his jacket around her, to keep her warm and safe. She breathed deeply the cigar smoke on his jacket.

  “You can trust me now.” He caressed her hair as if she were a child, as if they could—they would—start over and live together through the years that they had lost. “I’ll never leave you again. I’ll never leave you. Do you forgive me?” He needed to hear her say it. He couldn’t simply sense it, he needed to hear it, so he could remember her words when she was no longer in his arms, when she was home with her new husband in her own house, as she should be, and her father was home alone in his study, and he would hear her words echoing over and over, and her words would console him forever.

  For Claire, all the years of pain and misunderstanding slipped away. She was left with the truth, stark and wondrous. He was her father, and they understood each other, and they loved each other. “I do, I forgive you.”

  “I love you, my sweet little daughter.”

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  When Charlie woke up, he heard birds singing. He lay still to listen. The sound was beautiful. He wished he could coax out each bird’s separate song and follow its line. What was the month? February. What birds sing in the last days of winter, the earliest days of spring? Sparrows. Of the many types of sparrows, the song sparrow was his favorite. He heard the song sparrow in the concert.

  He remembered now. He’d been ill. He wondered if he’d died and was hearing birds singing in heaven. If he were hearing the song of God. He opened his eyes, looked around. He was in a room he didn’t recognize. The room had paintings, wood paneling, and pictures made from cloth. His legs felt heavy, and he didn’t try to move them. His shoulders felt heavy, too. Too heavy to lift. He turned his head. His neck ached. His grandfather was asleep in a big chair. His mom, wrapped in a blanket, was asleep in a chair pushed against his grandfather’s. She was curled on her side, her head resting on the armrest. Grandpa’s hand was on her shoulder.

  So he knew he wasn’t dead. He looked past his family to the long windows. The city, too, was asleep in the gray half-light.

  He was too tired to call out. Instead he lay still, looking at his city. While he watched, the skyscrapers of Manhattan turned lavender. It was dawn.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Look, Orion,” Claire said. Gripping Jamie’s hand still more tightly, she pointed with her other hand through the bare tree branches toward the constellation.

  Three nights after Charlie’s fever broke, Claire was leaving him for the first time. She and Jamie were going out to dinner and then to her house for the night while her father stayed with Charlie. As they walked along the paths to the Institute’s main gate, Claire sensed the life coursing through her. She hadn’t been outside in over a week. She felt as if she were rediscovering the world after a long absence; that she, too, like Charlie, had returned from near death. She was alert to the sharp chill against her cheeks, the crunch of late-winter snow beneath their feet, the shimmering of the stars in the dim-out.

  For his part, Jamie didn’t want to shatter Claire’s well-earned happiness by telling her his suspicions about where the medication came from. He needed proof first, and he didn’t know where to find the evidence. In the meantime, all he had was the color, that beautiful blue. He wouldn’t force Claire to choose between her father and her fiancé based on nothing but the arrival of a rare and beautiful blue. So Jamie was watching and waiting. Reviewing the words and actions of his supposed friends to try to piece together the truth.

  Claire sensed he was preoccupied. Often he was, these days. She suspected he recalled incidents from the war that he didn’t want to share with her. She didn’t want to imagine that he’d learned about her and Nick in Boston and was hiding his anger and pain. Whatever the cause, she had to work to keep Jamie’s attention, which she’d never had to do before. She was self-conscious around him, as she’d been when they first met. “Charlie once told me that Orion has three of the brightest stars in the sky,” she said, more to fill the silence than from an interest in the stars. “Naturally he knew their names, but the only one I remember is Rigel,” she chattered on. “Part of the left foot. See?” Jamie didn’t respond. She studied his face. His thoughts were far from her.

  Nick came down a side path from the administration building. “Hey, Jamie,” he called.

  “Hi, Nick. Heading out?”

  “As usual.”

  “Good for you.”

  Did Claire hear envy in Jamie’s voice, that Nick was heading to a party or a bar, whereas Jamie was committed to her for the evening?

  “Last gasp before heading to the Pacific,” Nick said.

  Claire had heard that Nick’s orders had finally come; he’d be leaving New York for San Francisco in a few days.

  “I’m sure you’ll need it,” Jamie joked.

  “I don’t doubt it.” Nick seemed his old self, Claire thought, or at least he was putting on a better front than he had that afternoon at the Hotel Lafayette. “I heard Charlie’s doing better,” Nick said to Claire.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Thank you.”

  This exchange seemed innocuous enough to Claire. When she looked at Jamie, he was staring toward the gates, as if he hadn’t heard.

  A crowd of about twenty had gathered. An unexpected sight. When Jamie had arrived from Penn Station in the late afternoon, he’d noticed only six or seven milling at the gate, and he’d paid them no attention. Now, as he observed them from the top of the path, they looked like a crowd with a purpose. The guard was trying to keep them out. He’d already closed the gates to the driveway and was now closing the sidewalk gates.

  When they reached the guard, gray-haired Mr. Hodges, he was as imperturbable as ever.

  “What’s the trouble here?” Jamie asked.

  “They’re wanting the medicine, sir. The penicillin. They think we have it.”

  “We don’t have any. We couldn’t give it away even if we wanted to. It’s illegal to give it away.”

  “I told t
hem we’re not a pharmacy, sir, but that wasn’t what they wanted to be hearing. The big crowd of them came over here from New York Hospital about ten minutes ago. With Dr. Rivers away, I’m not sure what to do.”

  In the light from the streetlamps, Claire had trouble making out their individual faces. But the impression from their clothes was poverty. Loose coats, patched sleeves, rain-swollen shoes with cracked leather. A Depression that had never ended.

  After the Cocoanut Grove fire, everyone seemed to know about the miracle drug. Andrew Barnett had told Jamie that crowds gathered outside hospitals all across the country, every day, desperate for it. Meanwhile the hurdles to mass production remained. Chemical synthesis was going nowhere. But the family members gathered here couldn’t wait for mass production or chemical synthesis. They needed penicillin now, just as Charlie had desperately needed it—before he was lucky enough to be given the secret, blue cousin.

  “Poor souls,” Nick said. “Well, I’ll just wait till later. Or tomorrow night—pack tonight and go out tomorrow.”

  They said their good nights, and Nick went back the way they’d come.

  “All right, Hodges,” Jamie said calmly. “We’ll push on through. You can close the gate again behind us. I’m sure they’ll go home after a while.”

  “Yes, sir.” Mr. Hodges opened the gate. “Let them through now, folks,” he said. “Come on then, make a path.”

  Jamie and Claire’s presence at the open gate galvanized the crowd. “Look, that’s one of them,” a man said.

  “My baby is sick,” a woman said. Her scarf had fallen back to reveal a white streak through her hair. She grabbed the lapel of Jamie’s coat.

  “My Jenny.” The crowd pushed forward. “Sarah, Tommy, Rebecca, Joey,” suddenly they were all shouting names—disembodied names to Claire, but startling and frightening when someone shouted “Charlie.” Then “mother, brother, wife, husband” in a shrill keen.

  Jamie struggled to recall where he’d heard such shouts before. Then he remembered. Years ago. Outside the hospital where his father died of pneumonia brought on by influenza. His mother had sent him there to find his father, or at least find information about his father. But when he arrived, Jamie saw the cause was hopeless. The hospital was packed with patients, the ill everywhere, the dead and the dying mixed together, their lips blue, their hands blue, some of them coughing up black blood, half the staff ill, no one left to take care of the mothers and fathers dying on the floors. Nonetheless he’d pushed his way through the crowd, got inside, walked the corridors searching. He never found his father. In retrospect, it was astonishing that he hadn’t become ill, too. Instead he had lived to help wrap his mother in a shroud and take his sister to their grandparents. To identify Tia’s lifeless body. To fall in love with Claire and be a father to Charlie.

  Without particularly registering what was happening, Jamie was swept into the center of the crowd. Claire was ignored.

  “I’ll call the police,” Mr. Hodges said, hurrying to his booth.

  “Where is it?” a husky teenage boy said, thrusting his hand into Jamie’s coat pocket. The boy was crying. He was too old to be crying in public. “My mother. Where is it?”

  “Try the other pocket,” a man shouted.

  Claire felt anguished. Powerless. Jamie…she couldn’t help him. He was so precious to her. She felt his vulnerability. She could lose him in an instant. The human body was so frail. She knew his body so well. Every detail, most intimate, she knew so well, and these desperate people could, would, injure him so easily and readily.

  “I have nothing,” he said, raising his arms to make their task simpler. He spoke gently. Soothingly. “Search as much as you want. I have nothing.” He unbuttoned his topcoat. He behaved as if he routinely encountered all of this.

  And the truth was, none of it disturbed him. He’d seen too much already. He’d been an infectious disease expert for years; he couldn’t even remember how many patients he’d lost. His sister was dead, his buddy blown up beside him in North Africa. Poor people begging on the street for penicillin didn’t bother him. Rather, he felt an overwhelming sympathy for them. These poor, poor people, bereft in every way, and here he was, a physician, in fact a prominent and successful physician, with no method or plan or knowledge or power to help them. He wanted to comfort the people around him, and yet he knew comfort wasn’t going to help them, either. So instead he served them by allowing himself to be the target of their despair.

  Claire watched the man she loved transform what could have been a humiliation into a moment of profoundest empathy.

  You must, his lungs, her stomach, my baby’s eye, a fever, a blister, you must, won’t heal, help me, help her, help him, a cacophony of desperate pleas.

  A police siren sounded, far away. Slowly it became louder. The people in the crowd took note. Looked around in all directions. Became cautious. The siren became louder still. They released their grip on Jamie’s coat. The revolving red lights of a police car were reflected on the windows of the buildings along York Avenue. The lights reached them sooner than the car itself. They couldn’t risk arrest. Who would take care of their loved ones then? The crowd dispersed into the darkness.

  When they were gone, Jamie adjusted his hat. He reached his arm toward Claire, his hand beckoning for hers. She emerged from the shadows near the gate. She put her arms around him. They embraced until the police arrived to question them.

  The following morning, just before noon, Claire returned to the Institute, having seen Jamie off at Grand Central. At least today she had a general idea of where he was going: according to the schedule board, his train was headed to New Haven. At the Institute, two police officers guarded the gate. No crowd would gather now. Mr. Hodges cleared her through.

  As she walked up the hill toward the hospital, through a cool, early-spring breeze, she felt weak, as if she’d survived an illness herself. She needed time to regain her strength. She felt the warmth of the sun on her face, beginning to heal her.

  Recovering sailors, bundled in coats and hats, smoking, were lounging upon the benches under the bare trees. Jamie had told her that most of the sailors were suffering from streptococcal infections, endemic in the military.

  “Hey, nurse,” one of the sailors shouted at Claire. He was dark-haired, his eyes bloodshot. Like his colleagues, he was well shaven; apparently Nurse Brockett insisted on that. “Come on over here. I want to introduce you to my friends.”

  Much laughter from his fellow sailors on the benches.

  “Sorry guys, I’m not a nurse.”

  “Even better.”

  As soon as they were healthy, no doubt they’d be sent back to their ships. They’d end up in the Pacific, most of them. The Solomon Islands, New Guinea…How many would return?

  “Much better, as a matter of fact.”

  “Watch yourself, sailor.”

  “He is watching himself,” a buddy said, to guffaws.

  “I wish I could stop to visit, but I’m here to see my son. He’s waiting for me.”

  “Maybe we know him.”

  “I don’t think so. He’s only ten.”

  “Ten? Probably not. Hope he’s okay.”

  “He’s on the mend, thanks. Good luck to you all.”

  “And to you, lady,” he said.

  Claire stood outside the hospital for several minutes to let the sunlight seep through her. She still felt the pressure of Jamie’s hands upon her. At home last night, his preoccupations had seemed to dissipate, and he’d been himself again. This morning the combination of the sun’s warmth and the memory of his hands assured her that all would be well between them.

  When she arrived at Charlie’s room, he was sitting in a chair playing checkers with Dr. Lind. The board was on the hospital table between them. At the moment, Charlie found checkers easier to focus on than chess. Checkers was also easier for him to win. Charlie looked thin and very pale, as if all his blood had left him. Dark circles rimmed his eyes. He had little stamina and became
tired after the smallest effort. But his smile, and his spirit, were back to normal. He was still receiving the medication to make certain that the infection didn’t return. A container of it arrived from New Jersey every few days.

  “I won the first three games,” Charlie said when he saw her.

  “But I’m close to winning this one,” Dr. Lind said.

  “Don’t count on it.” Within four moves, Charlie had scored another victory.

  “Oh, brother,” Dr. Lind said, shaking his head. “Now that your mom is here, I’m going to take a break. I need one. I hope I’m a better doctor than I am a checkers player. I’m going to visit my other patients with what I’ve still got of my self-respect.” Lind left them.

  “How do you feel this morning?” Claire rubbed her knuckles against his arm.

  Now that he was feeling better, he didn’t like her to be obvious in her affections, and he moved away. “I feel good. I feel perfect. But Dr. Lind said I have to keep getting shots of that awful blue medicine for another week and stay here for at least a week after that. Maybe longer. The shots really sting. And Nurse B keeps taking my blood for all kinds of tests, and that hurts, too. Why can’t I go home?”

  “You were very ill, don’t you remember?”

  “Not really.” He glanced at her mischievously. “Could you bring me some doughnuts? Nurse B says I can only have broth. And maybe rice pudding.”

  “I’ll try to get you a doughnut for dessert tonight.”

  “With chocolate frosting. Please. Guess what? Tomorrow, if Nurse B allows it, Dr. Lind’s going to take me to see the Audubon bird pictures in the hospital hallways. He says I have to go in a wheelchair, though. And not complain about it.”

  “Not complaining is good, especially when Dr. Lind is giving you a treat.”

  “I want to walk.”

  “When Dr. Lind says you can.”