Die Once Live Twice (20 page)

Park reached under Jonathan’s shoulders in an attempt to lift him, but before he could, four strong men reeking of onions swooped down to pick up Jonathan and carry him in the direction Park pointed. Park accepted the hand of the man who had just saved his life as he stood on his shaky legs. “Please, take him to Willard Hospital. Quickly, please.” Park watched gratefully as the men started to rush through the now-deserted street.

“Come doctor, you need help, too.” The rabbi pulled at Park’s torn jacket.

Park flinched free and reached down to tend to the Italian who had tried to kill them. Checking his carotid for any sign of life, Park fixated on the coldness of the man’s eyes. After a long moment it was evident no signs of life pulsated through his arteries. Shaking his head at the senselessness of it all, Park picked up Jonathan’s bag and headed after his colleague, leaving the dead man alone in the street.

At Willard Hospital, Park came out of Jonathan’s hospital room to find the Russians who had carried Jonathan were all waiting in the small vestibule entrance. Their robed leader came out of the huddle to offer his hand. “How is he?” asked the rabbi.

Park sighed heavily and sat next to the men. “I’m not sure, Rabbi. No one I know of has ever been overdosed with serum. Those that have come down with serum sickness can run a raging fever, up to 105 degrees. Their kidneys might fail or they break out into a large rash.”

The rabbi patted Park on the shoulder. “I will pray for him.” A heavy sigh seeped through his lips. “The boy, Angelo, saw what was happening and came to get me. The rumblings had been growing all morning. I know that man, that doctor, as he calls himself. He is a mean person. I knew of only one way to stop him. The local police will support me. But, oh...this is not the way of God.” Rabbi Radulavic stroked his long gray beard wearily, then began kneading his prayer cloth. This time it was Park who consoled the troubled man.

“Rabbi, I haven’t had a chance to thank you for this afternoon. I am very grateful for my life and I hope we can save Jonathan’s. We would have died, Rabbi. I’m sure God understands.”

The rabbi nodded, and as the two said goodbye, Marion rushed into the room. “What happened Doctor Park? Is he all right?”

As Park took Marion to Jonathan’s room he explained that Jonathan might be mortally wounded and that his fever would leave him disoriented and delirious. Jonathan lay with icepacks in his axillae and groin to reduce his fever. Talking nonsense, he mumbled about having diphtheria and how he must have antitoxin. “It’s good he hasn’t seizured,” Park said. “His urine output is very low, but at least his kidneys are still functioning.”

Marion sat at Jonathan’s bedside through the night. He had always seemed invincible to her, and now when he twitched she was frightened. She squeezed on his cheeks, opening his mouth to pour drops of water into it. When he swallowed one sip, she did it again. “You will not die,” she said fiercely. “You can’t leave me now.”

Chapter Twenty

O
n the second day, Park arrived to find Marion sleeping on the floor next to Jonathan’s bed. “There is no change in Jonathan, Doctor Park,” she said when he awoke her. “He mumbles nonsense. I force him to drink water and he is peeing. It is coming out some. The nurses keep giving him aspirin to lower his temperature and keep him cool with ice in his groin and armpits.”

Park worried,
If the kidneys quit, there’s nothing we can do.
The rash on Jonathan’s chest and arms was still rampant. Park told Marion he had wired Emil von Behring, the German doctor who first used diphtheria antitoxin. If anyone would have experience with serum sickness, it would be von Behring. He hoped to hear from him by wire tomorrow, and in the meantime, Park emphasized, Marion must keep forcing water into Jonathan. “It is life itself to the sick.”

Marion spent her waiting hours with her head full of childhood memories of Des Moines. Her family was well-to-do and her parents had sheltered her from the deaths of their friends. Though she had schoolmates who died from TB, they were quickly removed from school when they became sick and she never saw them again. She never went to any of the funerals of her parent’s friends. So Marion was not at all comfortable with thoughts of death. To her it was mysterious and awful.

She was sad that she had never taken Jonathan back to her hometown. Although the foundries lining the Des Moines River gave Des Moines a reputation as a dirty town—the Pittsburgh of the West—Marion had only pleasant memories of her childhood. The lawns around their home were expansive and dotted with trees, which became castles in her imagination. As she grew older, in the summer she and her friends rode horses to swim in Gray’s Lake and occasionally the Raccoon River, even though her parents had given her strict orders to not swim in either the Raccoon or the Des Moines river. Every summer two or three kids drowned and the whole town galvanized. Word spread rapidly and the river banks were quickly crowded with people as divers searched for the body. These drownings made death seem even more surreal to her.

When Park returned the third day, Marion was dripping water into Jonathan’s mouth. Jonathan shook his head from side to side in response to his cheeks being squeezed. Marion stopped and looked with pleading eyes at Park, who returned with the answer from von Behring. He shook his head no. Marion hung her head and cried. How much longer could he last without an antidote?

Marion wished she could take Jonathan to Younkers Department Store, where she and her mother had shopped together so often. They would ride a carriage over the iron bridge across the Des Moines River to the east side and visit the state capitol building. Her father had taken her there several times when he went to visit the governor. She and Jonathan would ride the streetcar up North Street to Drake University, which she had attended. Now, as he lay disoriented and febrile, she was frightened he might never see her former life.

On the fourth day, Marion awoke to Jonathan’s voice. “What are you doing sleeping on the floor?”

Marion propped herself up on her elbows and saw his face looking down at her from the edge of the bed. Through a big grin she said, “You kicked me out of bed!” She scrambled to her feet and nearly dove on top of him, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling his sweaty head to her bosom. Tears rolled off her cheeks onto his forehead.

When Park entered Jonathan’s room he stopped in his tracks. Jonathan was drinking from a glass and Marion was bathing him. Standing at the bedside, Park saw the rash had faded. He placed the back of his hand on Jonathan’s forehead. The fever was breaking. “You’re the biggest guinea pig of all,” he laughed with gusto.

“I’m not any kind of a pig at all,” Jonathan protested, which made Park laugh all the louder. “Marion told me the general picture of what happened, but perhaps you could fill me in on some of the particulars. The last thing I remember was being injected by that thug of a doctor.”

“He gave you six doses of antitoxin, which produced a severe allergic reaction. You have been semi-comatose for four days. To be quite honest, I wasn’t sure you were going to pull through.”

“When your mother told you to be a crusader,” Marion interjected, “she didn’t mean you should die in battle.” She turned to Doctor Park and asked, “Why did you call him a guinea pig?”

“It’s all because of George Bernard Shaw,” laughed Park. “He opposed vaccinations. Because von Behring originally used guinea pigs to develop the diphtheria antitoxin, Shaw compared these animals to the children being inoculated. He said the children were simply guinea pigs and the term stuck for any experimentation by doctors.”

While Park continued to describe the serum sickness to Jonathan, Marion excused herself. “I should let Jeffrey know the good news. He was terribly worried.” Jeffrey was in Chicago working for the American Medical Association, at the suggestion of William Welch, as the director of their Medical Council on Education. The purpose of the Council was to establish the educational program Welch was using at Johns Hopkins in all medical schools.

Marion’s telephone call was answered by a very young voice. “Hello.” This was Jimmy, her seven-year-old nephew. At Johns Hopkins Jeffrey had met a young woman named Julianna Hoekstra; he first saw her in an animated conversation with one of the male students, who was arguing that she took up one of the spaces that should be saved for a man. “You’ll just get pregnant, quit practicing medicine, and waste your education.” Julianna was vigorously defending the right of women to be in medical school and that they could both practice medicine and be mothers. As luck would have it, Jeffrey and Julianna became laboratory partners in biochemistry, which gave him the opportunity to ask her to have an ice cream with him. They were inseparable through medical school and married after graduating. Jimmy was born in 1900.

When Marion asked for Jimmy’s father, the boy answered, “He’s not home. He’s at work.”

“Yes, of course he is. Is your mother there?”

“No. She went on a house call. My governess Lulu is here.”

“Well, may I speak to her?”

“Auntie Marion, I am seven years old and quite able to take a message. My brain works fine. I am the smartest boy in my class!”

“My goodness, Jimmy. How rude of me to doubt your ability.” Marion smiled, glad he couldn’t see her.

“I don’t even need to write it down unless it’s strange.”

“I’ll keep it short. Tell your dad that your Uncle Jonathan is much better.”

“Is Uncle Jonathan going to die?” Jimmy asked.

“No. Not anymore. That’s the message, Jimmy. He is going to live.”

“I knew it!” Jimmy said. “We’re really tough, us Sullivans. I’m going to be a football player.”

“Wow. Your Uncle Jonathan played football for Harvard. Maybe that’s why he’s so tough.”

“Well, I’m playing for Notre Dame. We would smash Harvard.”

Marion laughed. “Jimmy, I’ve got to go. I’ll call again tomorrow and maybe I’ll be lucky enough that you will answer.”

“Bye, Auntie Marion.”

Jonathan remained in the hospital for two weeks while his strength returned. Marion read him the newspaper, told him every story of news from their friends and family. Knowing he was safe, she took her blanket and pillow and returned home to sleep.

When Jonathan returned home himself, his energy and strength steadily improved. One night while the two of them talked in bed, Marion said, “I thought I was going to lose you—to your own medicine, no less.” Jonathan’s face tightened. Ever since he came out of his coma, this strange attack was the only subject his mind would focus on and he poured out his thoughts to Marion. He had worked tirelessly in the tenements to help these people who lived in poverty, giving them the first scientific treatments of disease: inoculations for diphtheria, typhoid, and tetanus; clean water that eradicated typhoid and cholera; hygienic practices that minimized typhus. These steps had saved hundreds of them. Yet they tried to kill him. Why would these people choose snake oil over science?

“I can understand that part,” Marion said. “That’s the way it is with the farmers in Iowa. They don’t go to the doctor. There’s not very much doctors can do for them.”

Jonathan thought for a moment and then said, “For these people, God’s will is what determines their fate. Good things come from God, bad things come from man. So for them my needles are from the devil.”

“I think the answer for these people is trust, my love. Remember how we met? I came to you because I didn’t trust the doctors in Philadelphia. I knew I could trust Rockefeller Institute. You need to figure out how you are going to earn their trust.”

After about a month, Jonathan announced one night at supper that he felt fit to return to work. “I must get back to the laboratory.”

Marion had been expecting this, although not entirely happily. “Are you going back to your tenement clinic?”

Around a mouth full of beef, Jonathan managed, “Of course.” He chewed and swallowed before explaining, “I’m not giving up on those people. I’ve been going there more than ten years. That is my most meaningful clinical work. I save hundreds of lives.”

“Just maybe not your own.” Marion tipped her glass toward him and then drank a full measure.

“I’ve got a plan, honey. I’ve had a month to think. You’re not in a production right now and I want you to help me.”

Jonathan spent the next fifteen minutes outlining how he wanted to transform the tenements. Marion listened closely, sipping wine. When he finished, she smiled. “Jonathan Sullivan, you are just devious. No other man would court a woman by daily inspections of a smallpox pustule. Now you’re smooth-talking me into risking my life with yours. But...I will try. And of course I want to help you.” They lifted their wine glasses and toasted each other.

On the following Monday, Jonathan and Marion traveled his usual route to the clinic. Jonathan insisted on the trolley so Marion would get the full experience of this new world. Then they walked along 44th Street, past the houses with porches from which the men used to glare at Jonathan. Marion clutched Jonathan’s hand tightly. Suddenly Angelo was by their side. “I been waiting for you,” he grinned. “Many more wait for you, too.”

“Not again,” Jonathan groaned, and he stopped while Marion stared at him with fear in her eyes. Jonathan looked ahead and saw a group of men gathered at the end of the block. “Angelo, have you seen Doctor Park? He is coming today too. We need to warn him.”

“Dottore already at clinica,” Angelo answered.

“Is he locked inside?”

“No. He is surrounded.” Angelo couldn’t help but grin.

Jonathan was puzzled by Angelo’s nonchalance. “Angelo, what is happening today? You seem in a happy mood.”

“Mrs. Dottore, take my hand,” Angelo reached for Marion’s hand. “You safe with me.”

“Angelo, you’re twelve years old,” Marion said. “Don’t lead us into temptation.”

“You got no trouble with Angelo.” Although Jonathan did not understand the situation, Angelo’s mood encouraged him to move forward. As the three of them reached the men at the corner, the group parted to allow them a pathway. Most of the men spoke no English, but many uttered “Gracia, Dottore” as Jonathan went by. Marion’s face relaxed and then her mouth turned up in gratitude as she realized this was a celebration, not a confrontation.