We all fall down, p.21
We All Fall Down, page 21
There is no shame in that. I remember feeling the same when I was most afflicted.
Jacob broke into a weak laugh. Look at us two, he said. We have dedicated our lives to a profession of such futility and folly.
You cannot believe this to be so, my friend.
At least the builder has his buildings and the farmer has his crops. But what do we have? We might as well have practiced as soothsayers, for all our lack of usefulness.
Were it not for you, I would be long dead, I reminded him.
I am not so convinced, he said.
And without me, you would not be able to bend your elbow.
It is true. Perhaps, you are right. My Miriam used to always say that I had a penchant for pessimism.
You are a good doctor, Jacob. I am most proud to call you my colleague and my friend.
And I likewise. Now I have a favor to ask of you.
Anything.
You and Gabriella have become friendly in recent days.
She has cared for me as well as any doctor would have.
I am not blind, Rafael. I see how fond you have grown of one another. I hold no grudge or resentment over it. I understand affection does not follow the dictates of society or religion.
It is true, yes, Jacob.
Gabriella has her sister and brother, Rafael, he said. But they have families of their own and she will be still alone in this world. Promise me you will protect her as if she were your own kin.
I will, I said without hesitation. With my life, you have my word.
If she cannot be with one of our faith, it brings me peace to know that at least she will be with a learned doctor and a kind man, he said as he closed his eyes.
We spoke no words for a few minutes. Only the crackles of the fire and the gasps of his labored breathing filled the void. At one point I wondered if Jacob was slipping into the slumber of the dead, but then he stirred again.
Rafael, my family will never abandon me, he said.
Of course not, I reassured him.
You misunderstand me. Every moment I draw breath, I risk exposing them to this curse through my hostile vapors. Gabriella, in particular, will not be deterred.
Are you telling me that you want to die?
I will die. It is a matter of hours, a day at most. Why my frail body still resists when my mind and soul have already accepted my fate, I do not understand.
I reached out to him, but he recoiled. It will not be long now, my friend, I said.
It should be right now, he said as he directed his gaze toward the animal skin at his feet. It would be so easy.
I suddenly understood what he was asking of me. I backed a step away from the bed. No, Jacob, I said. You cannot ask this of me. My religion would not permit it. Neither would yours. It is a sin of the highest order.
How is it a sin to expedite the inevitable? he asked. Is it not our duty to address the suffering of our patients?
Please, Jacob, I said. Do not ask this of me.
If I had the strength and courage to suffocate myself I would do so, he said. I am ready to die. I should be dead. Only you can help me, Rafael. Only you can help protect Gabriella from my affliction.
Before I could reply, the door flew open. Gabriella stood on the threshold. They are here! she cried. The flagellants!
I rushed over to her and took her by the shoulders. Stay inside, by the door, but do not approach your father, I instructed.
I stepped out into the street. A group of Jewish men identifiable by their long beards and robes stood side by side in front of the row of houses, as though to protect them with their bodies. Across from them, at least ten or more flagellants gathered beside a cart that was loaded with hay. They held clubs, whips, and other weapons. Two of them held lit torches even though the sun was high in the sky. I recognized their leader from the previous sighting, when he had worn a crown of thorns and dragged a heavy cross behind him. Today he was encumbered by neither. He stood at the front of the gang, holding a bulky wooden club in one hand and shaking his fist with the other.
Where is David ben Solomon? he cried in a heavy Germanic accent.
The Jews looked fearfully from one to the next, but no one answered.
Where is David ben Solomon? the leader asked again, and the men holding the torches moved forward with deliberate menace.
We will burn down your houses with your vile women and progeny still inside, the leader said. Is that what you prefer?
A corpulent man took a hesitant step forward. I am David ben Solomon, he said weakly.
The leader marched over to ben Solomon without uttering a word. As soon as he reached within arm’s length, he swung his club and smashed it across the man’s crown. Ben Solomon crumpled to the ground. A younger man rushed to the aid of the older man but he only made it a few steps before he, too, was felled by the same club. The rest of the flagellants surged forward, while the Jews backed up in response.
How many more of you want the same? the leader shouted.
The younger man with the blood pouring from his forehead struggled to rise to his knees. The leader bashed him on the head again, and kept hitting him even after he fell still to the ground.
Three or four of the flagellants carried armfuls of hay and spread them around and over the two fallen men until it was piled to knee-height.
I stood paralyzed by revulsion, unable to look away from the abomination that I could see was imminent.
The men with the torches sauntered around the pile and lit the hay at multiple spots. Murmurs of protest emerged from the mouths of the other Jews, but none of them moved to stop the flagellants.
The fire soon took hold. The younger Jew might well have already been dead, as he lay still in the flames that consumed him. However, ben Solomon screamed out and managed to rise to his feet. His clothes were aflame as he staggered out of the blaze, only to be set upon by the leader, who bashed him over and over with his club.
After ben Solomon collapsed back to the ground, the leader turned to the other Jews and shook his fist again. Let this be your warning! he cried. You heretics, you murderers of our Savior! You have brought this cursed plague upon us believers. You will all be punished for it yet!
Chapter
Forty-Six
Byron and Alana spend much of the afternoon with Dr. Pietro Polese, Naples’s chief public health officer, a heavyset man with a quick laugh and a good command of English. Polese drives them out to the Scampìa suburb where Lalia Renzi fell ill. As they walk, Alana hugs the bag holding her passport and wallet a little tighter to her chest. Even in broad daylight, the neighborhood feels less safe than some of the worst inner cities she has seen after dark.
“Scampìa was built in the sixties and seventies to house Napoli’s rapidly growing workforce,” Polese says sadly. “High-rises everywhere. Then the economy—especially in manufacturing—slowed. Many of the working people left. In the last twenty years, Scampìa has been overrun by unemployment, addiction, and crime, especially the gangs. It’s so very sad. A black eye for all Neapolitans.”
As if to prove the point, they have to slow to step over the legs of an addict who is sprawled across the sidewalk. His beard is crusted with food, or possibly dried saliva, and the stink of his body odor follows them for several feet. Half a block farther, a man with wild spiky hair stops digging through a dumpster to look up at them and scream obscenities. Metal fences and padlocked gates line the building fronts, and Alana notices surveillance cameras mounted at regular intervals high up on the walls. Graffiti and litter are everywhere. The faint stench of garbage wafts through the air. The neighborhood strikes Alana as a dream ecosystem for rats. She realizes that trapping any infected animals among the undoubtedly huge endemic rodent population could prove to be a challenge of needle-in-a-haystack proportions.
As they get back into his car, Polese receives a phone call and speaks urgently for a few minutes. After he hangs up, his tone is grim. “They have found a second victim.”
“Where?” Byron asks.
“Here in Scampìa,” Polese says. “In an alley. A few blocks from where we were just walking.”
“Let’s go talk to him,” Byron says.
“It won’t be much of an interview, I am afraid,” Polese says. “He is dead.”
“How do they know it was the plague?” Alana asks.
“The police found his body about two hours ago. It was assumed he died of a heroin or fentanyl overdose. So many of them do. However, once he arrived at the morgue, the pathologist found buboes in his groin. He took a biopsy. It is Yersinia. No question.”
“Perfect,” Byron groans. “Public Health is going to have to quarantine this whole damn neighborhood. Lock it down.”
“How can we quarantine an entire suburb?” Polese asks in disbelief.
“What choice do you have?” Byron says. “With the self-neglect and lack of hygiene we just saw, it’s almost as bad as the Middle Ages. Can you imagine how quickly the plague could spread under those conditions? At the very least, everyone in Scampìa is going to require antibiotic prophylaxis.”
“Prego,” Polese says. “This we can try. I will put my entire staff on it.”
“We’ll send a WHO team to help,” Byron says.
Alana doubts those steps will be enough, but with one glance at her despondent colleagues, she decides to keep the thought to herself.
Polese drops them off at the airport. As soon as their flight is airborne, Byron opens his laptop and furiously types more notes. Alana studies him while he works. “What is it, Byron?”
He barely looks away from the screen. “What is what?”
“What’s troubling you so much?”
“Everything. You saw and heard what I just did.”
She won’t let it go. “C’mon, Byron. There’s something else, isn’t there?”
He shakes his head and begins to type again. After a short while, he slams the laptop lid shut. “I didn’t expect this, all right? Is that what you need to hear?”
“Expect what?” she asks quietly.
“Any of it!” He takes a breath and lowers his voice to avoid being overheard. “I’m good at what I do, Alana. Very good. When they asked me in Geneva to lead the response team, I believed I was the right choice. The best choice. I never doubted that we would contain this outbreak.”
Alana can see that he needs to talk, so she just nods.
“Look where we are a week later,” he says. “The plague has gripped Genoa and has now spread to Rome and Naples. And you just saw the disaster that is Scampìa. How the hell will we contain that?” He looks away for a few moments. When he speaks again, his voice drops to a near-whisper. “The best choice? I am not even convinced I’ve been a competent one.”
“You’ve done as well as anybody could.” She puts a hand on his leg. “You were the one who told me that our primary job is to minimize further spread and death. And that’s exactly what you’ve been doing.”
“But you said it yourself. We can’t contain this until we figure out where it comes from and how it’s spreading.”
“Agreed. We’ll figure it out. In the meantime, we can only do what we can. One step at a time.” She forces a grin. “Epidemiology 101, remember?”
“Yeah, I do.” He lays his hand on top of hers and gives it a squeeze. “Thank you.”
The unexpected moment of intimacy confuses her. Up until a few days ago, she hadn’t even particularly liked Byron. She’s still not sure how she feels about him. Flustered, she pulls her hand free.
Byron smiles shyly, avoiding eye contact. “We make a decent team, huh?”
“Especially with Justine here to keep our feet to the fire.”
“True.” He turns back to his laptop.
Once they touch down in Genoa, Alana’s phone buzzes with several text messages, including two from Olin and another one from Claudio.
Byron checks his phone, too, as they leave the airport. “Four more dead in Genoa and several new cases,” he says with a shake of his head. “I have to go meet the health minister and my WHO team at City Hall. Do you want to join us?”
“Can’t,” she says. “I have to go the hospital.”
“To meet Nico?” he asks, almost too casually.
“No. Claudio.”
“We can debrief later tonight? Maybe even grab a bite, time permitting?”
“Yeah, maybe, time permitting,” she says, surprising herself with the answer.
Chapter
Forty-Seven
Today is the first day of March. So much has happened in the two days since I last took up my quill that I hardly know where to begin. Perhaps I would best start with a confession.
The miscreants who call themselves flagellants did me an unintentional service with their act of barbarism. They spared me from a dilemma with no acceptable resolution. They also permitted me a coward’s escape from the final request of a dying friend. By the time I went back inside Jacob’s house, he was no more. Gabriella was weeping a few steps from his bedside. I later learned that she was respecting his last words, which were that even in death she should not approach him.
Ignoring the conventions of decency, I embraced her in my arms. She cried against my shoulder for so long that I lost track of time. Not a word was spoken between us, but her pain was as present as a scream. I thought of Camilla and how, in the hours after her death, it felt as though I had been gutted alive.
Gabriella began to wobble on her feet, so I guided her to the chairs by the table and sat her there. She took a few sips from the wineskin I offered. When she spoke, her voice was steady. Tell me what happened with the flagellants, she said.
It is over now, was all I said.
I heard the shrieks, she said. I smelled the smoke that carried the stench of burning flesh. Tell me, Rafael, please.
I told her of the two men who were put to flame and the ominous warning the leader of the flagellants uttered upon their departure.
Gabriella accepted the news with calm and poise. They sought David ben Solomon by name? she asked.
Yes, they did.
It cannot be a coincidence, then.
What cannot be?
You have told me the Archbishop also complained of his debt to ben Solomon, did he not?
He did.
So the Archbishop stood to benefit from his demise?
True, I said. But the Archbishop could not have been the only man to owe money to ben Solomon. After all, he must have been a successful lender, to have enough money to loan for the building of a structure as grand as the Archbishop’s palace. Other debtors would surely gain from ben Solomon’s death, too.
Perhaps. But who else would hold such sway over the flagellants?
I am not certain, I confessed.
I hope it was the Archbishop who dispatched them to kill ben Solomon.
How can you say this, Gabriella?
Do you not see, Rafael? If the Archbishop was motivated by his debt, then it is now canceled. And he might forget his grievance against the rest of us.
No, I said, as I clutched her hand in mine. The Archbishop will not forget. Neither will those crazed beasts in their bloodied robes. Their leader blamed this pestilence on the Jews. They will come back, Gabriella.
We were interrupted by the arrival of her older brother and sister along with several of their children. Between the death of their father and the terror of the flagellants, the family was in such a heightened state of agitation that it prevented further rational discussion. I used the distraction as opportunity to go see Don Marco.
I arrived at the gates of the San Giovanni Monastery more breathless than ever. It was the most effort I had expended since I had contracted the pestilence, and the climb up the hill seemed thrice as steep as before.
I was surprised to find such a hubbub of activity outside the monastery. Monks and peasants labored alongside each other, as they sawed and nailed planks. On the eastern side of the main church, mounds of dirt ringed a pit that was so deep I had to stand at its edge to see its base. At the bottom, men with spades hacked at the firm ground. A stocky man who looked to be neither peasant nor monk marched about, shouting directions to the other workers.
Don Marco rushed over to shake my hand with great affection. Your recovery must be complete if you are able to make the journey here, he said.
I am much improved. What is happening here, Don Marco?
We are building a sanctuary.
Underground? I asked in confusion.
Not for the brothers. For the harbingers sent to us by God.
You mean the rats?
At this juncture, the burly man shouting the orders joined us. I once constructed noble edifices, churches, and palaces! he exclaimed. Now I build underground crypts for rats.
Don Marco introduced the man as Giuseppe the builder, a master craftsman originally from Milano. Giuseppe was quick to respond that all great builders come from Milano.
What is the intention of this crypt? I asked.
Other churches house the relics of holy saints and apostles, Don Marco said.
These rats are hardly relics.
No, they are far more important, he said with unusual gravity. For they carry the Lord’s forgiveness along with His wrath.
How so?
These divine creatures possess the power to heal as well as to damn. God did not dispatch them to San Giovanni as a mere blessing for us insignificant brothers. No, I believe the Lord has entrusted them to us for safekeeping.
Safekeeping? For what reason?
The next time.
I shook my head in bewilderment.
Doctor Pasqua, this pestilence has been sent to punish man for our sins, Don Marco said. As mortals, we are destined to sin and sin again. The Lord has tasked us with preserving his messengers. For the time when atonement is again required.
I know nothing of this superstitious nonsense, Giuseppe interrupted. However, I will build the rats a crypt so secure and impenetrable that they will still be here when Gesù Cristo returns for the Second Coming.
I was tempted to argue, but my issue was far more pressing than the fate of these vermin, whether blessed or cursed. Instead, I asked Don Marco if there was somewhere we could speak in private.
