The Orphan Collector. Ellen Marie Wiseman
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the world had been destroyed.
Maybe she should just stop eating. Not that she had been eating much, anyway. How could she think about food when her baby boy was dead? How could she swallow a bite of doughy bread with sweet jam, or soothe her dry throat with hot tea with honey? How could she do any of those things when Wallis would never taste a strawberry or an egg, eat an apple or a warm piece of johnnycake? It seemed blasphemous to even think about eating when he couldn’t, as if she were betraying him.
A loaf of bread wrapped in cheesecloth sat untouched in her dresser drawer, along with a pound of lard, a few strips of cooked bacon, and a dozen eggs in the larder, three boxes of cereal, several jars of pears and tomatoes, and a half-dozen cans of beans and carrots on the kitchen shelves. She thought about leaving the food outside her neighbors’ doors, but couldn’t find the strength or desire to pack it up and take it out. And despite her revulsion at the thought of eating, every now and then the desperate gnaw of hunger grew unbearable, as if her stomach were eating itself from the inside out. She tried to ignore it by lying down and hoping she would pass out or starve to death, but an involuntary will to survive always seemed to win and she’d tear into a box of cornflakes, disgusted and crying and hating herself as she shoved them into her mouth. Then, with her hunger abated, she’d make a vow to start starving herself all over again, and beg Wallis to forgive her for being so weak.
Thinking about her beautiful baby boy, her burning eyes filled and she looked over at him. A week ago, he’d been the picture of health, giggling and babbling and reaching for her with his chubby little hands. Then he woke up with a fever and a cough, refusing to nurse. After two days of trying every recommended cure for the flu—onion syrup, chloride of lime, whiskey, Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup—she bundled him up and ran what seemed like a hundred blocks to the nearest emergency hospital—the local poorhouse, which had been converted after the epidemic started. Crying the whole way, she prayed that the good Lord would save her only child. She’d already lost her husband to war. How much misery was one person supposed to endure?
But when she reached the hospital, she’d slowed. Every type of vehicle she could imagine crowded the street—trucks and cars and wagons and carts, all of them bringing the sick, the dying, and the dead. Even police cars were bringing in victims. What looked like thousands of people—some wearing yarmulkes and dark clothes, others in babushka scarves and colorful skirts—swarmed the building, trying to get inside. Some sat or lay on the ground wrapped in blankets, while others were half-naked and soaked in sweat, moaning, coughing, and struggling to breathe. A number of them were already dead, their faces as purple as plums, their mouths and noses and eyes caked with dark blood. A colored man stumbled in front of her toward the hospital, begging to be let in, and a white man pushed him backward, telling him to go somewhere else. The colored man collapsed on the sidewalk, then lay there, lifeless. Masked policemen did their best to keep order, while nuns in white aprons prayed over the living and the dead. Beneath a canopy on the sidewalk, Red Cross workers handed out masks and sewed burial shrouds. A chorus of voices cried out for water and prayed in what seemed like a dozen different languages—English, Russian, Italian, Yiddish, Polish, German.
She fought her way through the crowd, clasping Wallis to her chest. “Please,” she cried out. “Please let me through! I need help! My son is sick!”
“Hey,” someone shouted. “Get in line!”
“Wait your turn,” a woman yelled.
Bernice ignored them and kept going, pushing and shoving her way through. A policeman and a nun stood guard at the hospital entrance, both wearing gauze masks. When Bernice reached them, the policeman stepped between her and the nun.
“Please,” Bernice said, trying to catch her breath. “You have to help me. My boy is sick.”
“I’m sorry, dear,” the nun said. “We’ve run out of room.”
“But he’s just a baby,” Bernice wailed. “My only child!”
“I understand,” the nun said. “But there are other mothers with children here too.”
Bernice looked around, tears blurring her vision. A young, dark-haired woman wearing a scarf over her mouth knelt on the sidewalk beside a pale, coughing toddler, her eyes filled with fear. Another woman held a young girl on her hip, swaying back and forth, trying to comfort her child. The little girl’s legs dangled skinny and limp against her mother’s skirt, and her skin was tinged a strange, bluish gray. A thousand faces stared back at Bernice, some gasping for air, others weary with pain, all knotted in terror.
Bernice gazed up at the nun. “Why aren’t you helping us?” she cried. “What’s wrong with you?”
“All of our beds and even the hallways are full,” the nun said. “We’re crowded to the doors, and most of our doctors and nurses are overseas. We’ve put a call out for volunteers, but I’m afraid we’re overwhelmed. I’m so sorry, dear, but you must get in line.”
Just then, a man carrying a little boy ran up the steps with a wad of money in his hand. He begged the nun to take his son inside, but the policeman pushed him back, threatening to arrest him for bribery.
Seizing the opportunity, Bernice darted around the policeman and started for the entrance, shoving the nun to one side with her shoulder. Suddenly a woman in a peasant skirt appeared out of nowhere, blocking her way. A feverish-looking toddler slumped in the cloth sling strapped around her chest.
“Volte!” the woman said. “Você tem que esperar como todo mundo!”
Bernice tried forcing her way past, but the woman stood her ground, snarling and pushing her back with rough hands. A broad-shouldered man came to the woman’s rescue and got between them, his arms out to keep Bernice at a distance.
“Não toque nela!” he shouted.
Bernice didn’t understand his words, but menace filled his voice. She tried to get around them again, but the policeman gripped her by the shoulders and pulled her backward.
“Come on, lady,” he said. “You can’t go in yet.”
The immigrant couple kept yelling at her, pointing their fingers and shaking their fists.
“What about them?” Bernice shouted. “You can’t let them in either!”
The policeman ignored her. She struggled to get away from him, twisting and pulling and bending, but it was no use.
“Who do you think you are, trying to stop me from getting help?” she screamed at the couple. “You don’t even belong here!”
The woman shouted something else, and the nun ushered her and the man away from the door. “It’s all right,” she said to them. “Please, calm down. We’re not letting anyone in ahead of you.”
The policeman turned Bernice around and took her down the steps, one hand gripping her arm, the other putting pressure on her back—almost pushing, but not quite. At the bottom of the stairs, he let go and went back to his post. She gazed down at her sweet little Wallis, gasping for air and struggling to stay alive in her arms. How could they make him wait in line behind people who should have been looking for help from their own kind? She’d tried minding her own business when it came to the strangers who had invaded her city, but this was too much. Between a German stealing her father’s job and this, she was done being civil.
She turned and looked up at the nun and policeman again. “What are you doing?” she cried. “Half these people are foreigners. They shouldn’t be trying to get help from doctors meant to help Americans. It’s not right!”
“We’re here to help everyone,” the nun said. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait like everyone else.”
Above the din of the wailing, pleading crowd, Bernice heard her heart break. No one was going to help her boy. No one was going to give him medicine or ease his pain. Not until they’d helped the hordes of people who didn’t belong here. It didn’t make sense. The immigrants should have been turned away, not her son. On legs that felt like stone, she turned and staggered through