by Jody Shields
“Yes. We took a wagonload to the field past the barracks.”
Two men roped a canvas over the coffins to secure them in the wagon. The Baron waited until all the men were seated to hoist himself up next to the driver. One of the corpse carriers aimed his foot to kick him down from the wagon.
“Let him pay!” the driver shouted.
Another bribe. The driver shrugged. A fool’s errand, but to honor his teacher, the Baron would accompany the corpses to the burial ground. He sat in front with the driver, ignoring the men’s hostility. He snugged the hood tighter around his head, wrapped the fur blankets tighter around his body.
They headed north of Kharbin past the barracks into a wild unsettled area. The coffins slid and shifted noisily in back as the wagon navigated the icy tracks in the road, the snow unstable as water. The Baron huddled, as did the corpse carriers, the cold stripping their hands of sensation. Periodically, they checked one another for frostbite, telltale patches of white. The nose was especially vulnerable.
A long line of vehicles were stopped at a barricade near a railroad depot. They inched forward as several soldiers searched for plague-infected travelers and contaminated goods.
Other vehicles gave their wagon a wide berth, moved from the line to avoid them and the stack of coffins visible under the flapping canvas. Their cursed cargo.
Near the barricade, two masked soldiers slammed their bayonets against a fine carriage until the passengers, a bewildered man, three women, and several young children, slowly climbed down. A soldier herded the women and children together. He seized the smallest boy and, holding his coat, stuck a thermometer in his mouth. The father lunged forward but was held back by the soldier. He argued furiously until a bayonet was leveled at his chest. The children shrieked. The family was ordered back into the carriage but the boy squirmed from the soldier’s grip and ran away, foundering in the deep snow. His mother followed him, slowed by her long skirt and coat. A soldier overtook the woman, grabbed her shoulder, and she tumbled into the snow. It seemed the soldier was ordering her to leave the child.
The Baron twisted around to jump from the wagon and bribe the soldiers, rescue the family.
The driver put out his arm to stop him. “The soldiers won’t leave the child in the snow. There are too many witnesses. But before the family is locked in quarantine, the soldiers will rob them of everything. All their furs and clothing will be stolen. Surely the man has a gold pocket watch that’s worth their trouble.”
The most dangerous acts are those undertaken without consideration. Now the Baron was aware of his foolishness. The family could have been infected, and he would have perished if he’d left the wagon. The corpse carriers wouldn’t have waited for him.
The family clambered back into their carriage. Driven by a soldier, it quickly sped away from the barricade in the opposite direction. When the corpse wagon reached the barricade, the soldiers waved it through without inspection. Death was always accommodated.
The road curved along the railroad tracks, overlapping them in places. The wagon shook, jolted over an intersection, the hard metal tracks uncushioned by snow. Irregular shapes were scattered along the train tracks. Corpses. The bodies of travelers who couldn’t afford the train and died following the tracks as an escape route from Kharbin.
It was suddenly clear that the arrangement of the arms and legs of the sprawled bodies depicted the Chinese characters for peace and tranquillity. Excited, the Baron almost pointed out this extraordinary message to the men on the wagon but realized they were illiterate.
They stopped in an open field divided by a high irregular wall a distance from the road, extending for miles. The corpse carriers quickly shoved coffins from the wagon. The Baron slowly made his way to the wall through the snow, flattened and rutted by wheel tracks and the dragging of heavy objects.
The wall was a jumble of splintered wood and coffins that seemed to have been scraped across the field by a monstrous tide. Unflinching as the glass eye of a camera, he distinguished naked bodies embedded in this wall, frozen arms and legs bent at sharp angles like branches. Rags of clothing and shrouds fluttered in the wind. His teacher’s body was lost.
At the far edge of the field, a line of black shapes swiftly approached, as if driven by a pulse. A procession of huge sleighs drew closer, their blades easily knifing through the snow, the horses’ harnesses slapping. A shout from the corpse carriers, interrupted at their work, as the sleighs circled and surrounded them.
Soldiers helped Wu Lien-Teh, his translator Zhu Youjing, and the doctors Zabolotny, Iasienski, and Broquet from the first sleigh. They were joined by General Khorvat, the dao tai, the viceroy, and a few other Chinese officials and dignitaries. The Baron recognized Mr. Greene, the American consul, in a wolf-skin coat. The men gathered in the area where the snow had been leveled, their eyes locked, fearful of breaking the link that held them together, protection from the terrible wall of bodies. No one noticed the Baron, and when he walked toward them, they recoiled, as startled as if a corpse had been resurrected. A ghost in daylight. He stood silently outside the group. They could hardly ask him to leave, as there was no place to go.
Wu was the first to speak, addressing his translator Zhu Youjing. “Is it possible to dig a hole here?”
The translator repeated his question in Chinese to the corpse carriers.
The corpse carriers gaped at him, slow to answer. “The ground is frozen. Like stone.”
“How deep?”
“Very deep.”
“Deep as a man is high?”
The corpse carriers looked at one another, anxiously made confused gestures. Was this a trick question? “Deeper.” They motioned depth, stretching their arms overhead.
Wu turned to the group. “There’s your answer. The ground is frozen seven feet deep. The corpses cannot be buried. They must be burned.” Wu’s words were repeated in Chinese for the Manchurian officials.
The Chinese shouted that it was sacrilege to burn a body.
Zabolotny’s arm jabbed at the Chinese. “Who will bury the bodies? You? The Russians? Japanese soldiers? There are no workers.” His angry response didn’t need translation.
“It would take months to bury thousands of bodies in these conditions.”
“There are thousands and thousands of frozen bodies here. They’re eaten by rats and wolves. The animals become infected and bring plague back to Kharbin. When the weather becomes warmer, the situation will be worse.”
No one responded. The silent Chinese officials moved closer together. The wind flattened their thick fur coats in one direction as if smoothed by a giant hand.
“A petition for permission to cremate the bodies will be sent to the Imperial Throne and the governor of Kirin. Everyone here will sign it.” Wu had forced their participation by bringing them to this grotesque stage. A brilliant strategy. But for the Chinese, the dead had been deprived of burial rites. Their spirits would never rest.
The Baron remained after the men departed in the sleighs. He lit incense and burned paper offerings. He was reciting the Russian and Buddhist prayers for the dead for his teacher when a pounding noise and the sharp crack of wood interrupted him. He turned to see the corpse bearers hammering a frozen body, breaking its arms to fit it into a coffin.
The snow broke crisply as lacquer when hundreds of men crossed the open field to the miles-long wall of the plague dead. During the few hours of available daylight, the laborers would dismantle the wall to prepare it for the mass burning. Under the pressure of its own weight, the terrible wall had compacted into a frozen mass, the bones of the dead hard and resisting, cemented in place by the filler of flesh and snow.
The wall was clawed and chopped apart with saws and hatchets. Huge sections were looped and bound with chains and ropes, then pulled by horses until they separated. When the temperature plunged well below zero, the wood and ice were wrenched apart with a shattering high-pitched noise.
Load after load of massive trees, timber, and
logs were hauled in, bringing the raw scent of the forests in northern Manchuria to this bleak landscape. This new timber and the corpses were piled into twenty-two enormous pyramids, temporary tombs of gray and black, threaded with dirty tangled shrouds, white in places where fresh snow had settled. There was enough space for teams of horses to pass between them. From a distance, the jagged structures appeared to have been created from the ruins of many other buildings by a mad giant.
On a morning of unusual brightness, doctors from the hospitals, Russian and Chinese officials, and the curious arrived at the pyramids in the field. They waited in their sleighs, black droshkies, and carriages, warm under fur blankets, the white evidence of their breath hanging over them like a canopy. Icy snow struck their vehicles in scratchy bursts.
The Baron stepped down from the droshky, an anonymous interloper in the crowd, unrecognizable in his furs, only a small circle of face exposed through the porthole of his hood. He scanned the crowd, although he didn’t believe any families of the dead were here to pay their respects. He overheard strangers joking about the weather.
“Thank merciful God, no snowfall blocks visibility.”
“The light is perfect today. We’ll have a good clear view.”
There was General Khorvat in his distinctive white fur coat, his wispy beard unruly in the wind.
“Good morning, General.”
Khorvat didn’t recognize the Baron until he heard his voice. “You’re here?”
“A witness, like you.”
“A cold morning for a display. But the city will be rid of this pestilence.”
“You mean the evidence of pestilence. Nothing’s been cured.” The Baron regretted his words. “Where’s the priest from St. Nikolas?”
Khorvat was puzzled, but then his expression smoothed as he understood. “No priests were notified.”
“No?”
“This isn’t the place for a religious ceremony. We aren’t holding a funeral.”
“A strange claim, General Khorvat, since thousands of bodies are stacked right before our eyes. There are Russian dead among the timber. Our countrymen.”
Khorvat’s face, surrounded by feathery fur, appeared almost regretful. He understood the mechanics of an official operation. “Baron, in the midst of war—and we are at war—some details are overlooked. Survivors will mourn in their own way.” It was as close to an apology as the general would deliver.
The Baron released the burden of argument. He was aware of someone next to him demanding attention. A slight man in a fox coat addressed Khorvat, his eyes darting back and forth to the pyres.
“General Khorvat, we’re ready to set up the cameras. We need direction.”
Khorvat indicated the nearest pyramid. “Stay back at least two hundred yards.”
“We need more distance. The light will overexpose our photographs. It’ll be brilliant as a desert here soon.”
Khorvat addressed another aide and the Baron turned away to search for Messonier. The crowd slowly began to leave their vehicles and gather around Khorvat, sharing a tense excitement, the anticipation of a performance that held the risk of injury or disaster. They loudly greeted one another.
“We couldn’t have a better day for the spectacle.”
“This isn’t the launching of a ship. Show some respect, gentlemen.” Messonier quietly reprimanded the group of men. He touched the Baron’s shoulder, and they clasped each other with surprising emotion. Only the pantomime of large gestures worked in bulky winter clothing.
“You’re here, Baron. Still the outlaw at an official occasion.”
“I’m a witness to this strange ceremony for the dead. Our patients.”
Several fire trucks and wagons moved around the closest pyramid. Dozens of men filled buckets from the fire-truck hose and passed them hand over hand to others, who struggled to carry them up the dangerously unsteady piles of timber and coffins. Unskilled mountaineers, many slipped and fell before dumping their buckets and slowly descending. Someone shouted at them in Russian and Chinese to hurry and get down.
“What are they pouring on the wood?” The Baron was mystified.
“Kerosene. The fire trucks carry kerosene, not water.”
Fire trucks circled a pyramid. Spray from their hoses was directed in a high arc over its sides, a bright veil that didn’t freeze. The trucks moved on, spraying other pyramids along the row.
At a pistol shot, a crowd of men carrying burning torches, dots of light like a moving necklace, surrounded the first pyramid. Another pistol shot and pale flame spread quickly as wind over the huge pyramid. A great shout from the crowd. The fire’s hunger increased and the color of the flames deepened. With a roar, the heat reached them, hot on their faces. Fur coats were opened and hats were abandoned in the searing cocoon of heat.
A man, drunk, ran to the flames to toss a vodka bottle on the pyre but was tackled and dragged back by his laughing friends. There were cheers from those watching.
Flames rose from the second pyramid. The photographer and his crew jerked the camera tripod from the snow and fled, comic silhouettes, hobbling figures weighed down by their awkward equipment.
The wind changed. Smoke rolled toward them, carrying a blizzard of particles, twirling specks of paper, bark, leaves, twisted threads from shrouds and clothing, an odor of wood and something foul. Panicked, the watchers pulled masks over their faces, fearing the spread of bacilli from the burning bodies. They fled as snow melted around their boots, trampling the sodden discarded clothing. A swarm of red sparks followed them like vengeance, directed by xiefeng, the evil winds that could strike mind and body.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Within minutes after she became chilled and her pulse raced, Dr. Maria Lebedev was swathed in blankets. By evening, her temperature rose and her face flooded with color as if she blushed. Her hand found Messonier’s hand. A sentinel at her bedside, he had stripped off his rubber gloves, unable to bear their thick clumsiness, the barrier to her skin. His mask, forgotten, dangled around his neck. When Maria slept and he could slip out, he wept in the next room, away from her eyes and ears. His anger was more difficult to hide because it made him reckless. Messonier had poured a bottle of her perfume, Jicky, all around the room, on the floor, pillow, and bed linens, to hide the odor of disinfectant. Maria was still lucid. She murmured a request to be taken to St. Nikolas Cathedral.
No, no, no. Messonier slid to the floor next to the bed, gripping the linen sheet as if to wring the fever from her body.
It seemed cruel to expose Maria to the cold, but he followed her wish. Messonier hired a sleigh and made a nest for her, a thickly swaddled figure, unrecognizable in blankets and furs in the back of the sleigh. It was a slow, halting procession to the church as the road was rough with ice under fresh snow.
The side door of St. Nikolas Cathedral had been left unlocked. The Baron and Messonier carried Maria on a stretcher into the building, followed by Li Ju and Chang.
It was only slightly warmer inside the church, faintly lit by the wavering pinpoints of candles on the altar. An odor of burning wax, the pressure of deep cold against wood. Maria was gently maneuvered to face the iconostasis, the royal gates, the towering gold screens hung with icons, that hid the altar. The gates had been specially opened for the service of extreme unction. The ceremony was usually performed by seven priests representing the seven churches, but only four men had been found at short notice. Each priest covered his mouth and nose with a protective mask.
They were uncertain if she was aware of her surroundings. “We’re in the church now, Maria. All of us.” Messonier’s whisper echoed in the space. He caressed her shoulder through the thick blankets.
The fine cloth placed over the lower half of Maria’s face rose and fell with her labored breathing. She had insisted on this caution for the others. Messonier, Chang, the Baron, and his wife stood behind Maria, as if her stretcher were a raft that they would help guide.
A priest paced around them, swinging a cense
r back and forth on clanking long chains, leaving a zigzag trail of incense, gray against the dim light. The candles held by the witnesses flickered as the priest’s full robes stirred the air.
In silence, Archpriest Orchinkin placed a dish of dry grain, symbolizing death and resurrection, on a small table covered with a white cloth before the royal gates. In memory of the Good Samaritan, a glass of oil and wine was set in the center of the dish. Tiny wooden sticks, their tips wrapped with cotton wool, were inserted in the dry grain and stood upright around the glass.
The priest read from James, chapter 5:
Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church;
and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
Archpriest Orchinkin raised his voice over Maria’s coughing as he read the psalms, litany, and prayers of benediction. He dipped a stick in the oil and made the sign of the cross on Maria’s forehead, cheeks, nose, lips, and breast and over her folded hands. Her chest heaved with coughing and Messonier tenderly dabbed bloody foam from her mouth and face with gauze until she was quiet. The four priests surrounded Maria, one by one anointing her with oil as the Seven Epistles and Gospels for Unction from Romans, chapter 15, were read.
The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the spirit is life and peace.
Maria groaned softly. She clawed at the blanket around her shoulders and struggled to free herself. The Baron secured the mask over his face and helped Messonier lift her into a slightly inclined position on the pillow. Messonier held her shaking hand, making the sign of the cross. He nodded at the Baron, who placed something in Messonier’s outstretched hand. A shine of gold as Messonier slipped the ring on Maria’s finger and closed his hand over hers. She recognized his gift and her fingers moved, responding to his touch. The back of Messonier’s hand was wet with tears.
Each priest grasped a corner of the Book of the Holy Gospel and held it open over Maria’s head as they prayed.
