Plague

back.'

'Who sent you back, kid?' asked Dr. Selmer. 'National — Guardsmen — sent us — back — said we couldn't — leave — '

'So what did you do?'

The boy was biting his tongue so hard that blood was running down his chin. He shook his head desperately, as if he was trying to erase the memory of something that he never wanted to think about again.

'What did you do?' Dr. Selmer repeated. 'Did they shoot you?'

'My friend — said — we ought to make a — break — said — they wouldn't really shoot us. So we — put the gas — down and — tried to get — through. They — they blew off — his whole — they blew off his — they blew off his head — '

Dr. Petrie laid his arm on Dr. Selmer's shoulder. 'Leave the kid alone, Anton. We might have guessed they were going to keep us in the hard way. It's either die here or else die on the city limits.' Dr. Selmer nodded bitterly. He called one of his assistants to see to the boy's bullet-wound, and then he went through to the scrub-up room to wash. Dr. Petrie came with him.

'I've been on the emergency wards for a long time,' said Dr. Selmer, drying his hands. 'And if there's one thing that constantly amazes me, it's how totally callous we Americans can be to each other. Over the past ten years, I've had people brought in here who were found bleeding in the street, while dozens of passers-by walked around them. I've had women who were raped or beaten-up, while crowds just stood around and watched. And now this. We may be two hundred years old, Leonard, but if you ask me we're still a nation of strangers.'

Dr. Petrie was combing his hair. 'Would you do any different, if you had the federal government's problem? Wouldn't you seal off the city?'

'Maybe not. But at least I would let us unlucky rats, caught in our barrel, know what the hell was going on. So far as we know, and so far as the rest of the country knows, this is just a mild outbreak of Spanish influenza.'

Dr. Petrie said, 'Has it occurred to you that this might be germ warfare? That the Russians might have started this disease?'

Dr. Selmer laughed wryly. 'The Russians didn't need to, did they? We've done a good enough job of it on our own. I don't know where all this sewage came from, but I'm ninety-nine-per-cent convinced that you're right. The shit of sophisticated society has come to visit upon us the wrath of an offended and polluted ocean. What a way to go. Poisoned by our own crap!'

Dr. Petrie said, 'You're tired, Anton. Go take a rest.'

Dr. Selmer shook his head. 'The rate this plague is spreading, the whole city is going to be dead by Thursday. If I went to sleep I'd miss half of it.'

'Anton, you're exhausted. For your own sake, rest.'

'Maybe later. Right now, I could do with some coffee.'

They left the emergency ward and went out into the corridor, stepping over sick and dying people wrapped up in red regulation blankets. A couple of thin and desperate voices called out to the doctors but there was nothing they could do except say, 'It won't be long now, friend. Please be patient,' and leave it at that. No treatment could arrest the course of the plague, and most of these people would have done better to stay at home, and die in their own beds. Dr. Petrie found there were tears in his eyes.

A cop came slowly down the corridor towards them, wearing a bandit neckerchief around his nose and mouth. 'Excuse me, doctors.' he called. 'Excuse me!'

'What's wrong, officer?'

The cop stepped carefully over an old man who was wheezing and coughing as the plague bacillus clogged his lungs.

'It's the Chief of Police, sir. He's been taken real bad.'

Dr. Selmer looked at him, without moving. 'So?'

The cop seemed confused. 'Well, sir, he's sick. I thought that maybe someone could come out and take a look at him.'

'What's wrong with him?' Dr. Selmer 'asked. 'Is it the same as these people here?'

The cop nodded. He was only a young kid, thought Dr. Petrie. Twenty, twenty-one. His eyes were callow and uncertain as they looked out from between his bandit mask and his police cap.

'Well, then,' said Dr. Selmer, 'don't you think that if I could cure these people here, I'd have done it?'

'I guess so, doctor, but — '

'But nothing, officer, I'm afraid. I can't save your Chief of Police any more than I can save these folk. Keep him comfortable, and dispose of the body as quickly as you can when he dies.'

The cop seemed stunned. He looked around him for a moment at the huddled shapes of the dead and dying, and Dr. Petrie was surprised to find himself feeling sorry for a policeman. He touched the cop's arm and said, 'I should get out of here now, son. This place is thick with the plague, and if you hang around too long, there's a danger you'll catch it yourself.'

The cop paused for a while, then nodded again and stepped his way back along the corridor.

'Plague is a great leveller,' said Dr. Selmer hoarsely. 'Chief of Police or not, that's the end of him.'

'You're in a philosophical mood today, Anton.'

Dr. Selmer pushed the elevator button and waited while the numbers blinked downward to the ground floor. 'I think I'm entitled to be,' he replied bluntly.

Adelaide was still waiting in Dr. Selmer's office. She had been trying to call Washington on the phone all afternoon, but it was unrelentingly busy. She made them a couple of cups of instant coffee, and they took off their shoes and relaxed.

'Is it still bad?' she asked. She sat beside Leonard, stroking his forehead, and he loved the touch and the fragrance of her. It almost made the carnage of the wards seem like a half-forgotten nightmare, and nothing more. 'Worse,' put in Dr. Selmer. 'But I guess it can't go on for ever. Sooner or later, the people who keep on bringing people to the hospital will get sick themselves, and that will be the end of that.'

Dr. Petrie rubbed his eyes. 'This whole damned city is dying and we can't do a thing about it.' Adelaide said, 'I had a priest in here a little while ago.'

'What was he doing?' asked Dr. Petrie. 'Hiding from the vengeance of the Lord?'

'No,' said Adelaide, brushing her brunette curls away from her forehead. 'He seemed to think that America was getting no more than it deserved. He really felt that we were getting our just desserts for everything. For mistreating the Indians, for inventing the motor car, for suppressing the blacks, for destroying the environment.' Dr. Petrie sipped his coffee. 'I don't suppose he was willing to intercede with God, and get this whole thing stopped?'

Adelaide shook her head. 'If you ask me, the Church will be delighted. If this doesn't turn a few more millions into true believers, I don't know what will.' The office phone rang. Dr. Selmer answered it, then passed it over. 'It's for you, Leonard, Sister Maloney from the emergency ward.'

Sister Maloney spoke to Dr. Petrie in her careful Irish accent, 'We have a patient down here who is asking for you by name, doctor.'

'By name? Do you know who she is?'

'I'm afraid not, sir. She's very sick. I think you'd better come down quickly if you want to see her alive.'

'I'll be right there.' He put down the phone, swallowed the rest of his coffee, and collected his green mask and gown.

'Leonard,' said Adelaide. 'Is anything wrong?'

'Sister Maloney says a woman is calling for me. She's probably one of my regular patients. Why don't you stay here and force Anton to drink another cup of coffee?

'At least it'll keep him out of the ward for five more minutes.'

Dr. Selmer chuckled. 'Alone at last, Adelaide! Now we can pursue that affair I keep meaning to have with you.'

Dr. Petrie closed the office door behind him and walked quickly down to the elevators. There was a strange bustling whisper throughout the hospital, a sound he had never heard before — like a thousand people murmuring their prayers under their breath. He was alone in the elevator, and he leaned tiredly against the wall as it sank downwards to the ground floor.