black, as if the irises had taken over the pupils.
“Jonathan, darling, it is your Mina. I have come all this way to see you and to take you home,” I said.
The sister whisked the curtain around the bed and went away. I could hear the quick march of her hard heels on the wooden floor as she left the ward. I was afraid to be left alone with this stranger who was inhabiting Jonathan’s body, this fearful man who had aged at least ten years in the eight weeks since I had seen him, and who looked dubiously at me.
“Is it really you, Mina? Come closer so that I may touch your hand and look into your eyes.” His voice returned to nearer his normal way of sounding. I slid closer to him and gently put my hand out, palm down, as one might do to a strange dog. He took my hand in his, which was terribly hot. He spoke in a confidential tone. “Forgive me, Mina, but I must be careful. Very careful.”
I explained to him that I had traveled for days and days from the Yorkshire coast all the way to Graz to find him. He looked at me as if I were a riddle he needed to figure out. He beckoned me closer with his index finger and he whispered, “Women can change. They are not always as they seem.”
What brought on these ideas, I did not know. “I have not changed, Jonathan. I am as you left me.”
“I must be assured that you are not one of them,” he said. “They always feign innocence, just as you are doing now.” He leaned back against his pillow assessing me.
“Who feigns innocence? Remember when we said that we would keep no secrets from each other? Please tell me what happened to you.”
“I have been deceived, but I will not succumb again,” he said. “If you really are my Mina, then you will help me get far away from this place.”
I wanted to pursue this idea, but Jonathan was in no condition to speak rationally about whatever had befallen him. I needed to find his doctor. Perhaps confusion and paranoia were symptomatic of the disease. If only I had asked Dr. Seward more questions about brain fever, but I had been in such a hurry to come to Jonathan. Now I worried that I had arrived unprepared.
I kissed him gently on the cheek, which he allowed, and told him that I was going to find his doctor and make arrangements to take him home. But I could not find a doctor-or anyone for that matter-who spoke my language. Finally, the staff produced a petite, French-speaking nun from Alsace, Soeur Marie Ancilla. I asked her to speak slowly because I was not accustomed to speaking with French people, who generally spoke rapidly.
With great patience, the sister explained to me that Jonathan had been found wandering the countryside in Styria. Some peasant women who harvested pumpkin seeds for oil found him one morning as he walked out of the forest and into their field, calling out names. He did not seem to know where he was or who he was, and he was shaking, either from the chilly morning air or because he was in shock. One of the women gave him a mixture of herbs to drink to calm him and asked a farmer coming to market to drive him in his cart to the hospital in Graz. Groggy from the sedative, he slept, fevered and delusional, for several days. The staff doctor examined and observed him, and diagnosed him with brain fever. Finally, Jonathan woke and started to cooperate, taking food and drink and the prescribed medication. But it took him a week before he remembered his name.
“Did he ask for Mina?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “That name does not sound familiar.” She explained that no one understood Jonathan’s babbling. At first the sisters thought that he was praying, but they soon realized that he was having delusions. His body showed the signs of wickedness, she said, which let the sisters know that his rants were of an obscene nature. The nuns prayed for him, knowing that he was in the grip of the devil. In the past few days, however, he had been quiet and passive.
I questioned the sister on the use of the word
“What do you mean that his body showed the signs of wickedness?” I thought she would deliver some superstitious nonsense, but she spoke with candor. “I grew up on a farm. The patient was like a bull in a meadow of cows.”
I knew what she meant, of course. Who had put him in this state of arousal? All my fears of his infidelity came rushing back. “If he was not crying out for me, was he crying out for someone else?” I asked.
She shrugged, declining to be specific, perhaps in the interest of discretion. “The imaginations of men can be terrible,” she said to me. “And fevers confuse the mind, making it easier for the devil to plant his seeds.” I wanted to ask her more questions, but I could tell that she was too uncomfortable to elaborate. Before she left I asked her to find Jonathan’s doctor and ask permission to bring Jonathan home.
I returned to the ward, where other visitors had come to see the patients. Conversations in languages I did not understand came from inside the curtained cells. I stood on the other side of the drape from Jonathan and his bed. It was quiet inside. I slid the drape open gently so as not to make a sound. Jonathan had dozed off. His skin glowed from the fever. His mouth was slightly open, and if not for the gray streak that had taken residence in his hair, he would have looked like my Jonathan having a nap. But then his brow furrowed, his breathing quickened, and his head began to move from side to side so rapidly that I thought he might injure his neck. Little moans escaped his lips as if someone were hurting him. Suddenly he grabbed the bed rail and thrust his hips upward, his manhood creating a tent in the middle of the blanket.
I stood very still, not knowing what to do and too embarrassed to call for help. I watched him in fascination and horror as he shoved his pelvis at the air. Chatter and laughter from the other patients’ cubicles drowned out his moaning. I threw the curtain closed behind me so that no one else could see inside and I waited and watched until Jonathan’s frenzy came to an end with a few loud moans of either agony or ecstasy, I could not be sure. Exhausted, he settled back on the bed.
I sat by his feet, not wanting to disturb him. When his eyes opened and he saw me, he hugged himself protectively. “They have been here,” he said. “They have come back.”
“I think that your fever is causing you to have bad dreams,” I said, though after my conversation with the nun and what I had just witnessed, I was sure of nothing.
I put my hand on his forehead as Headmistress had taught me to check the girls for fever. Jonathan’s skin was cool to the touch. “The fever has already broken. I will soon be able to take you home.”
“Oh, Mina, I thought I was lost forever. Thank God you have come.” He opened his arms to me and I went to him and let him hold me tight.
A doctor interrupted us. He was youngish, just a bit older than Dr. Seward, with dark hair slicked back with some sort of oil. He had a thick, impeccably combed mustache, and wore a somber, tight black jacket and vest with a skinny tie in a bow at the neck. His manner was formal and his English was hesitating but easily comprehended. He explained to me that he could not give permission to someone who was not a relation to move a patient who was not quite ready to be discharged.
Jonathan objected. “No, I must go home. I must get away from here, Mina. Bad things will happen if we do not leave here at once.”
“You are very safe here, Mr. Harker,” the doctor said. “Have the sisters not taken good care of you?” He turned to me. “Miss Murray, can you stay with us in Graz for a few more weeks while we treat Mr. Harker?”
Before I could answer, Jonathan spoke up. “Mina, if we marry here in Graz, then we can leave at once.” The doctor and I both looked at him, and then at each other, surprised. “Is that not correct, Herr Doctor? If Mina is my wife, then on what authority might you demand that I remain in this hospital?” I was astonished at the change. If I closed my eyes, I would think that I was listening to a barrister in a courtroom, when moments ago, he had seemed so confused.
“Yes, I suppose that if Miss Murray is your wife, and she wishes to take you home, I will not have the authority to keep you here. But I wish you would heed my advice and wait.”
“Perhaps we should listen to the doctor, Jonathan,” I said sweetly. “Why don’t we wait until we are certain of your recovery?”
Jonathan’s arms were folded across his chest, but he reached out with one hand to take mine. “Please, Mina. If you love me and if you came here to help me, you will marry me as soon as possible. If you do not get me away from this place, there will be no recovery.”
A few hours later, I left the hospital to find an inn to freshen myself and to get something to eat. I was walking through the courtyard when I heard someone call out from behind me. “Fraulein!”
I turned around to see the nun who had greeted me upon my arrival hurrying toward me. She took me by the
