This disease, however, had entered their lives treacherously, without warning. Now he traveled around the town wrapped from head to foot in thick clothes, with a scarf over his mouth, protective gloves over his hands, and his head covered. He visited the endless dying and did not dare to have skin-to-skin contact with them. He visited those to whom he could not give words of reassurance or hope in their agony, and those whom, in his outfit, he could not offer the comfort of seeing a friendly face at the end of life. For whenever they saw him arrive, they knew that it was to sentence them to death.
He had begun that day with a sadness he could not shake. He was gripped by the idea that the disease would not stop until it finished off every last living person. Such was the situation in the town, in the country, and in the world: no one who was infected survived. And though he clung to life like anyone else, it terrified him to imagine that he might be the last man standing.
He had tried to convey to the inhabitants of the town how important it was to remain in quarantine, to not leave the house if anyone was sick, and needless to say, to also stay at home if one was lucky enough to have no infection in the family. Following the instructions of Dr. Lorenzo Sepúlveda of the Monterrey Hospital and of Governor Zambrano, he had requested that, in addition to closing public places, people and goods not be allowed to enter or leave. The postal service was now at a complete standstill because its workers had been among the first to die. An occupational hazard, with so many letters passing from hand-to-hand. Sepúlveda had also sent an urgent appeal to the federal government to stop the trains so that the infection would be fenced in and contained in the northern states. But his request had fallen on deaf ears, and the disease had spread all over the country.
The miracle would have been if those arrogant fools with the fate of the country in their hands had listened in time to the voices of the experts. Now it was too late.
The reality was that all manner of instructions could be given, but people needed to eat and they needed supplies. Some considered feeding the soul as important as feeding the body, so they, too, disregarded the order to not attend Mass. Father Pedro himself had refused to accept that the illness was capable of entering the church, much less spread and grow during the sacred ceremony. But this disease did not respect holy places, rituals, or people, as the pig-headed and dead Father Pedro must now know, wherever he was.
Nor did the disease respect medical personnel. The town’s already limited hospital, founded by the ladies of high society, had closed its doors after the death or desertion of its nurses and the rest of its staff. Now Linares’s doctors and any surviving medical staff who dared do so roamed the town, like Cantú, visiting houses where they were not welcome.
As he crisscrossed the town between one tragic visit and another, for the first time, the doctor dared to ask for a miracle, believing only such a wonder could save Linares.
He was not expecting a reply, let alone an immediate one, when he came across a group of people walking in a hurry. They were going together to see the miracle of a Lazarus, they told him. God’s honest truth, Doctor. He expired, and now he’s back from the grave with messages from the dead for the living, they told him.
Dr. Cantú was used to the extravagances of these simple people. Often—most of the time—they turned something ordinary into something extraordinary, and elaborated on the simplest explanations so much that they ended up confusing rather than clarifying the point they were trying to make.
He had always devoted some of his consultation time to people who could not afford to pay, who proudly traded homemade cheese or a dozen eggs for an appointment and a remedy. Hardworking people who rose at dawn and had not a moment’s rest until nightfall. Anyone would have thought, therefore, that when they spoke they would get straight to the point and be sparing with words, but no: much of the time he spent with them was wasted on trying to understand the convoluted descriptions of symptoms given by the patients themselves or by their mothers, who sometimes required more attention than the patients. In addition to doctor, he had to be translator, linguist, and fortune-teller.
This was the case of a mother of two, a widow since the day before, whom he had just visited:
“Ay, Doc. This flu sure has hit everyone in the house hard—there’s no one fit to mend the others. We’re all sick, Doc! My old man didn’t have time to say a word. One second he was there, and the next he was God knows where. Even I can feel it coming on, and there won’t be no shakin’ it. And now this lad’s got some rashes which’re comin’ out like rashes, but they’re bumps, or who knows what they are? And he’s got little bumps on his weenie as well and on his little nuts and butt cheeks, where they’re worse still. Then he’s got that thing in his mouth, you can’t see it, but you can tell it’s there just by lookin’, and I don’t know what it is, but it’s somethin’. Poor as we are, all I can do is wash it with alcohol, but not even that stops the itchin’.
“And worse: my girl, just look at her. Her chest’s rotten. She ain’t far off chokin’ to death. The snot built up with the cough, and she’s drownin’ in it. And the cough’s gettin’ worse. She’s got what I call a dog’s cough, and around here, above the lungs, you can hear all the muck in there: her little chest goes gurr, gurr, gurr. Sometimes I can see her breathin’ ain’t working . . . It must be the cough, that’s what I say.”
“And has she had a fever?”
“Oh, no. No fever. Just a nasty temperature that heats her up good and hot, till her little heart’s thumpin’. And it never goes down. And then there’s the cryin’ all day, and she don’t sleep well from all the hallucillusions.”
Explaining to the mother that her son had touched poison ivy and then his private parts and mouth was very easy.
“The boy’s healthy, in spite of the rashes. Don’t put any more alcohol on him; it won’t do him any good. And he must stop touching himself, even if you have to tie his hands. Send him to the pharmacy for some ointment to cover the eruption. And sew a bar of lead into his underpants. That will help.”
Giving bad news had become part of his daily routine, but that did not make it any easier—next, he had to explain to this devoted mother that there was no way to save her daughter.
“All we can do is keep her comfortable. Sit her up with pillows to help her breathe more easily. Dab her with cool cloths to bring her temperature down. Keep the windows open, and don’t go near her when she coughs. Wash your hands, Señora. Whenever you touch her, or touch her things, wash your hands. If you’re not careful, you’ll be infected and so will your son.”
“Just give her a vaccine against the chokes, Doc. I’ll get the necessary.”
But it was not a question of the necessary, of money, or of willingness. He wanted to believe that a vaccine would someday be found to make influenza nothing more than a bad memory in humanity’s long history, “But today, Señora, today,” Dr. Cantú said to the distraught woman, “there is no vaccine at any price. I’m sorry.”
How he would have loved to have been able to prescribe the new aspirins that the Germans had invented, but it was a sophisticated, costly medicine, made even more expensive by the Great War. They had been easy to obtain in the United States before the conflict, but now, with the recent theory that the Germans had launched a bacterial attack by means of their Bayer aspirins, they no longer sold them even across the border.
At first, the pharmacy had endeavored to procure willow bark, the source of the main component of aspirin. It was not as effective as the German tablets, but an infusion of the bark helped a little with the pain and fever. Unfortunately, the small amount the pharmacy acquired had been used up in the first days of the Spanish nightmare.
Frustrated that he could not do more, the doctor went away from that house knowing that the girl’s hours were numbered. He would not be surprised if the mother soon followed, for her eyes looked glassy.
It was then, on his way to another tragic visit, that he dared ask for a miracle, and then that he found t
he group in the street proclaiming it. He joined them so they could take him to the place where the phenomenon had occurred. He did not know what he would find there, but he wanted to believe it would be something different from the constant tragedy of recent weeks. That would be enough.
By the time they arrived, the man they were already calling Lázaro the Resurrected of Linares had gone into his house.
“We touched him, Doctor. We saw him clear as we can see you now. We smelt him and he smelt of pure death, Doctor, rotten-like . . . and you can’t fake that, right? And we knew he wasn’t going to last, because Doña Chela was rushing around giving him traditional remedies and cleansing rituals. Didn’t do any good. Then the poor woman howled to the heavens after she left him there, all wrapped up on the street. The gravedigger took him off to the cemetery, still fresh, all floppy, and he was a goner for three days, he was. Just like the Lazarus in the olden days, the real one. But this one’s our very own: the Lazarus of Linares! And when he got back today, the first thing that happened was his mama died, Doctor. I bet they switched ’em round in heaven, one for the other. She was a saint, Doña Chela: look how she traded her soul for her son’s . . . a true saint. Later, Lázaro told good Don Luis he saw his daughter Lucita in the land of the dead, may God have her in His holy glory, and by anyone’s reckoning he does, because Lázaro saw her happy ’fore he came back here. Now folks are lining up to ask him ’bout their dead, but right now they’re not ready to open the door to give ’em an audience.”
It was not the miracle he had imagined, and like any self-respecting skeptic, he needed to see it to believe it. He knew that when he went into Lázaro García’s house he would find a logical explanation. But later on, when he found time to recount the events of that afternoon to his wife and friends, he would admit that, for a moment, hearing the people who had gathered there, his hair had stood on end.
As a doctor, he felt entitled to knock and demand they open the door to the García home to him.
He found Lázaro freshly bathed, lying in bed vomiting. In the absence of his mother, his brother, Miguel, had warmed up the cabrito en salsa from the day before. The mere smell of the goat meat had been enough to make him feel sick, but he knew he needed to eat. At the second mouthful, his stomach rebelled.
“How many days have you gone without food, Lázaro?”
“I don’t remember, Doctor. I can remember the three days in the cemetery, but I can’t remember how many days it’s been since I fell ill. More than a few, I’d bet, because my clothes are all too big for me.”
“Well, you can’t start with something so heavy. Start with toast and chamomile tea, but slowly: small pieces and sips, bit by bit, so that your stomach gradually gets used to the food.”
Miguel took the plate of cabrito away and went to make the tea and toast. There was a persistent knocking on the door, which Miguel answered on his way to the kitchen. It was Father Emigdio. Dr. Cantú nodded a greeting.
“I’ve just sent a telegram to the archbishop to announce the miracle of our Lazarus.”
Dr. Cantú preferred not to contribute anything to that line of conversation. He wanted to hear the story from the mouth of the supposed risen one.
“What happened, Lázaro? They tell me outside that you came back.”
“That’s right, Doctor. The plain truth is that I was fed up, so I thought it best I come back.”
“You mean you got bored?” asked Father Emigdio, somewhat indignant.
“Well, yes. Imagine: all that was happening was that I was watching more and more dead people arrive, and then more dead people again. And then I thought how happy my mama would be to see me well, and just look what happened. Now I’m here and she’s there.”
“You decided to come back yourself?”
“With the help of God and His angels, of course,” the priest cut in.
“I kept an eye out, Father, to see if the angels would appear to show me where to go, but they didn’t. So, yes, it was just me. Who else? Of course, the gravedigger helped me onto the cart and brought me here, Doctor.”
“He got you out of the grave?”
“Oh, no. He never put me in there. He’s a good man. He’d never have done that. Just imagine. He left me at the edge with the other ones that weren’t ready yet.”
“Ready?”
“Ready for the pit. All the others eventually went, but not me. I waited and waited to be called, all blessed and everything by my mama, and nothing happened. I tried to wait, but I got tired of it, so I got up and walked until I found Don Vicente. Then he put me on the cart and brought me home.”
“They say that you told Don Luis, your neighbor, that you had seen his daughter . . .”
“Well, what could I say to him, with him hugging me like that? I tell you, Doc, I saw a lot of dead people, and God only knows whether I saw her. Maybe. I was embarrassed to ask Don Luis what time or what day she’d died, or what color her sheet was, but the honest truth is that, bored as I was, I took to counting them to pass the time. And he asked me whether I’d seen her, so I said yes, I think so. And then he asked me why I hadn’t brought her with me. But you won’t see me going in that pit—not a chance. Rummaging through those rotten, stinking bundles to find my neighbor, as much as I liked her—no, sir. And anyway, if Luz died, she should stay where she’s meant to be, right? What do you think, Father? The dead shouldn’t be wandering around, visiting Papa, should they?”
“You came back to visit your mother, Lázaro. Remember?”
“I did, Father, but not Luz.”
“And did you see a bright light as you returned?”
“In the day I saw light; at night I couldn’t see anything. That’s how I know I spent three days there, Father. I would’ve liked to have come back sooner, but the truth is, it was a while before it occurred to me, because at first I was really sick. But then, when I got bored, I realized I’d gotten better, so I just got up and walked.”
“Just like Lazarus.”
“How could it be like anyone else, if that’s who I am?”
“Lázaro García. Explain one thing for us,” Dr. Cantú interjected, suspecting that, if they went on like this, they would go around in circles for eternity. “Did you come down with the Spanish flu?”
“Yes, Doctor. In no time I felt like I was choking to death.”
“With a very high fever and aching body?”
“As much as my mama tried, may her poor soul rest in peace, it wouldn’t go down. I couldn’t even think anymore, and everything hurt so much I couldn’t move, much less breathe. My skull and my brain hurt so much I wanted to rip my head off, and the compresses my mama made for me did nothing. By the time my mama said, ‘Son, you’re not going to get better, you’ll have to go now because Don Vicente’s coming,’ all I wanted was to die.”
“That was when you died?” the priest asked.
“No, Father! Like I keep saying, I got bored!”
“Okay. When was it you died, so that you could return?”
“Who said I died? I never said I died.”
“But you returned!”
“Well, I went in good faith. My mama said to me, ‘Go,’ and I went. She wrapped me in my sheet, and I tried not to move too much. But after three days, I got tired of waiting, and I came back.”
“To be clear: You fell sick?” Dr. Cantú asked.
“Yes, Doctor.”
“They took you in the cart to the cemetery?”
“Yes, Doctor. The gravedigger put me on there.”
“But you were alive when you went?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You were alive? Your mother sent you to be buried alive?”
“Don Vicente never buried me, Father. He kept asking: ‘Are you still alive?’ And I always said yes. The other poor folks gradually went quiet, and then they were ready.”
“Ready for the pit. Dead, you mean.”
“Yes, Doctor. But not me, as much as I tried. So I came back here when I was able to get up. W
hat is it, Father? Why are you making that face?”
The information he had just received, processed, and accepted hit Father Emigdio like a bucket of icy water. “There is no miracle! What am I going to say to the archbishop? What am I going to say to all the people waiting outside?”
“Tell them, Father,” the doctor suggested, thinking it would reassure him, “that there is no resurrected one because he was never dead. But tell them that we now have the first sufferer of this influenza who has survived, and that, Father Emigdio, is the best possible miracle. Then tell them to go home, because this isn’t over yet.”
The visit ended when the little tea and toast Lázaro García had managed to ingest itself returned to air and light, and propelled itself with uncommon force onto the priest’s cassock. There was more noise than quantity, really, but some things not even a saint can endure. Feeling disgusted, as well as snubbed, Father Emigdio turned to leave the house, thinking it would be best to face the people and get it over and done with.
Dr. Cantú’s day had improved immeasurably. He was under no illusions: he knew that the miracle of Lázaro the Survivor did not mean the end of the infection and the deaths, especially after the hours the crowd had spent gathered together, talking and coexisting in close proximity.
He did not know how much longer the epidemic would last, but now he knew that at least some would manage to survive in the town, in the state, in the country, and in the world.
For Father Emigdio, on the other hand, it would be the worst day of his life. He had started it shut away, afraid, behind the cathedral walls. Now he knew he should never have opened the doors, but he had let himself be infected by the excitement of the faithful, and his day had been filled with a wonder that his own faith had prepared him to blindly accept since he was a boy.
The Murmur of Bees Page 8
