White Dog Fell from the Sky - By Eleanor Morse Page 0,137

little and fell back onto the pillow. One moment he shivered, and the next moment he was on fire. “Forty point two degrees Celsius,” he heard the nurse say.

“Typhoid,” he thought dully. Every joint in his body ached. His head was a large bass drum that some maniac was pounding. The first Sister returned. He began to shake uncontrollably. Her pale lips reminded him of Number Four.

“Have you been in a place where hygiene might have been compromised?” she asked.

He laughed bleakly. “An … an understatement.”

“We will begin treating you with antibiotics, and then see what else.”

“An invasion of the mesenteric lymph nodes. Chloromycetin?”

She covered her surprise. “Yes, that’s the antibiotic of choice. Who are you?”

“An undesirable.” He didn’t want to give her any information.

She put a cold hand on his forehead. The Hand of Death.

“Ah!” He pulled away.

“Tomorrow we will move you to the ward. Tonight you will stay here. You must have a bath. You’re filthy.” She went away. When the other Sister returned, she urged him to drink more water. She bathed his head and neck and arms in cool water and made him swallow the first dose of the antibiotic. He recognized the beginnings of a feverish terror he’d had several times as a child. His head seemed to grow large and hard, and the room slowly revolved. He fought the horror. And then it erupted like lava flowing down a hillside, fiery, engulfing. He tried to get out.

The lights of the room flickered and went dark. When the generator kicked in, the light was duller. He had no idea whether it was day or night, or what country he was in.

Across town, the lights gave notice before they finally went out. Moses and Lulu were in the bathtub. The last of the bird songs were gone from the air. Lulu had wet a washcloth and laid it over her tummy. Moses pushed a plastic truck up the sides of the tub and down, brmm brmmming underwater and then up and out again. The lights flicked off, then on for thirty seconds, then off for good.

The sky had the smallest remnants of light in it, enough for Alice to find her way to the kitchen, where she felt with her hands across the big wooden table to the kerosene lamp. The glass sides of the lamp were slick with spilled kerosene, and the fragile shade clattered lightly against its restraining metal cup as she pulled it toward her. The matchbox should have been next to the lamp, but it wasn’t. She felt her way into the living room, pawed along the mantel, and found the box. All was quiet in the bathroom. A small stab of worry crossed her mind, and then she heard a splash. She made her way back toward the lamp, and at the kitchen threshold, slid the matchbox open and took out a match. She heard laughter, the darkness full of children.

Lulu laughed again. Her voice was strange for a child’s. Deep, gravelly, like sand thrown against a windowpane. Alice struck the match, and the kitchen sprang to life. She lifted the lamp chimney, lit the wick, and adjusted the flame, dark at its center, bright at the edges.

“I’m coming,” she called to the children, replacing the chimney. Her knee knocked against the wall as she turned, and her mind bumped against Isaac. The Sister in charge had seemed neither kind nor unkind. Full of business she was, with her capable hands and long, stern backbone. Healing was her job, her face said, like any other. But it was not like any other job. It dealt with the mysteries of the human soul. Isaac could come back to the world, or he might not, and who on Earth knew why one person returned and another didn’t?

She moved toward the bathroom with the lamp, momentarily blinded by the flame. At the doorway, she paused. Lulu was sprawled back against the tub and Moses sat between her legs leaning into her, the back of his head on her chest; his little willy floated placidly on the surface of the water. She wanted to tell them that Isaac was in the hospital, very near, but it felt too cruel. They wouldn’t be allowed to see him. She set the lamp on a shelf above the sink and grabbed a towel. “Come,” she said, and Moses scrambled up and let himself be wrapped up and dried. Then Lulu. Alice helped them brush their teeth and find