White Wind Blew (34 page)

Susannah was back in her bed when Dr. Barker came by for his morning rounds. He’d noticed her smile. She’d told him she was feeling stronger. Wolfgang had the piano moved down to the third floor, where he played for her every evening and held her hand until she fell asleep every night.

Wolfgang’s mind hadn’t been so peaceful since before Rose died. Susannah understood him in the same way Rose had. No, not in the same way, he thought one morning, but in her own unique way, yet just as deeply.

They listened to the radio a lot to pass the time. Herbert Hoover was inaugurated as the thirty-first president of the United States, succeeding Calvin Coolidge. Susannah and Wolfgang were optimistic about the country’s future, about their future. She continued to work on her book, and Wolfgang helped her by typing and writing when she was too tired to do so.

One morning on his way to the sanatorium, Wolfgang took a different route. He walked by the livestock and stumbled across Abel and a couple of his friends, who didn’t realize he was watching from the trees. Abel lifted the gate to the pigpen and lured three pigs out with a handful of acorns. The boys laughed and ducked into the woods. That evening Wolfgang had taken Abel up to see Susannah. She surprised him by wrinkling up her nose and snorting like a pig. They’d all laughed over it. His game was up. Susannah made him apologize to Lincoln the next morning.

As the months moved on, Susannah’s health declined. The infection had spread from her lungs to her bones. Wolfgang tried to remain optimistic, and he had reason to be. Josef no longer had to use the chalkboard to talk. He and Rufus would meet several times a week to play music together. Wolfgang was no McVain, and he never pretended to be, but sometimes the three of them would play for Susannah. Their music never failed to bring out her smile.

Spring came, along with the thunderstorms and rain showers, and Susannah seemed to have a constant fever. She improved briefly during the beginning of the summer—just about the same time that Anne Barker checked out of Waverly, cured, with her husband escorting her to their idling car.

For several weeks Susannah’s energy level rose, her complexion improved, and her appetite grew. Wolfgang had begun to make plans of possibly finding a house for the two of them, but he never allowed himself to become too engaged with the future. In late August they laughed together at the new
Amos
and
Andy
radio show. They couldn’t wait for it to come on each week. He loved the way Susannah’s nose pinched when she laughed.

In November, Susannah took a turn for the worse. Her coughing increased, and after a while, she began to spit up blood. Not enough fresh air. Not enough rest. For the first time, Wolfgang began to truly fear for her life. On the surface he still urged her to fight. By the end of November she’d aged ten years. She lost weight. Flecks of gray began to show in her hair.

They celebrated Christmas on the third-floor solarium—Susannah, Abel, and Wolfgang. Susannah was too weak to see the Christmas tree that Wolfgang had set up at his cottage, so he’d arranged to have it brought to her. Abel had helped decorate it. They opened presents and drank hot chocolate.

The New Year brought with it eight inches of snow. Wolfgang held Susannah’s hand all night as she shivered her way into the new decade. Wolfgang wiped snow from her cheeks and covered her with blankets. After midnight, when the party in the cafeteria had died down and most of the patients had gone to sleep, Wolfgang crawled into bed with Susannah. He covered them both with a blanket, scooted behind her like a spoon in a drawer, and draped his left arm over her. He held her tight, as if his closeness could reduce the heat that was making her half delirious.

“Wolf.”

“Yes.”

“I cried when Rose died.” Her breathing was shallow. “I cried when I heard you were planning on becoming a priest.” She nestled up closer to him on the bed. “When I heard you were coming back to Waverly, I thought it was unfair.”

“We never know what the future holds, Susannah.” Wolfgang squeezed her softly. “I would take your pain in an instant if I could.” He kissed the back of her neck and smelled her hair. “Maybe we should sneak off to Lover’s Lane.”

She laughed. “Why are you crying?”

He sniffled. “I miss you.”

She coughed. Wolfgang could hear the disease rattling loose inside her frail body. “Take care of Abel.”

“I will.” Wolfgang gathered her in a warm embrace. His left hand rested on her left breast. He wanted to feel her heartbeat, which was growing weak.

She squeezed his hand. “I think heaven, Wolf, is now.” She coughed. “Or maybe in heaven we return to the place in our lives where we were most happy…and comfortable…and safe.”

Wolfgang kissed her neck. “And where would that be for you?”

“Here, at Waverly,” Susannah said. “Right now. With you.”

***

Wolfgang opened his eyes in the morning to the caress of Susannah’s hair against his cheek. He nudged her. Her hand was freezing cold. Her eyebrows had collected a few scant snowflakes.

A look of peace marked her face.

Later he would have to call Lincoln and the nurses. But for a few moments, Wolfgang just lay with Susannah, until the cold and the snow blowing into the solarium forced him back inside.

Wolfgang’s original ensemble and choir quickly dwindled, but others replaced them. In November of 1930, Josef was given a clean bill of health. He left Waverly Hills a cured man, Making the Walk arm in arm with his wife. Three weeks later, Rufus was released, cured, free to play his music wherever and whenever he wanted. Abel was released two weeks after Rufus, and after hearing the news that Josef and his wife were taking him in to keep him from returning to the orphanage, he ran down the hill in excitement.

Dr. Barker stood beside Wolfgang outside Waverly’s entrance, watching Abel descend the road that wrapped around the bend of trees.

“I do believe he’s the first person to ever Make the Run,” said Wolfgang.

Dr. Barker squinted, trying to spy him through the trees. “I just hope he doesn’t fall down.”

***

One day a little boy asked Wolfgang the very question Rose had often teased him about—the afterlife. Without hesitation he told the boy about heaven and clouds and angels and God. His answers calmed the child, however mundane they had been. Yet afterward the question got Wolfgang thinking about Rose and Susannah. Were they together somewhere? Could they hear his thoughts?

One day before Wolfgang was set to open his door and venture up the hillside to the sanatorium, he heard a knocking on the front door. He opened it to find no one there. Just a few rustling leaves.

***

Wolfgang still played for the patients even though his choir and cluster of musicians hadn’t regained the glory it had attained with McVain, Josef, Rufus, Herman—who would probably be at Waverly for eternity—and Susannah. Wolfgang often walked along the rooftop for inspiration. He carried a picture with him at all times, one taken a week before the big concert of McVain, Josef, Rufus, Susannah, and Lincoln. He often looked at it and laughed. Whether it had been fate, coincidence, or God’s doing that brought them all together during the winter of 1929, nothing could change the fact that it had indeed happened. Stories of McVain circulated through the staff and patients until his name became legend. The seven-fingered pianist.

One day at lunch, Wolfgang laughed with Dr. Barker about McVain and their run-in with the gangsters at the Seelbach Hotel. They both grew silent as a familiar patient approached their table, walking unaided and quickly. “Doctors.”

Wolfgang looked up with a smile. “Ah, Frederick. Is there something we can do for you?”

“Sorry, I’m a little anxious.”

Dr. Barker checked his watch. “Is it that time already, young man?”

Frederick smiled from ear to ear. “Yes, sir, it is.”

Wolfgang stood, placed his arm around Frederick Helman, and walked him toward a window overlooking the entrance to the sanatorium. Mary Sue stood outside next to a baby stroller. Wolfgang patted him on the shoulder. “Two and a half years. Is that right, Frederick?”

“Yes.”

“Come on then,” said Wolfgang. “I’ll go with you. It’s about time you Made the Walk.”

***

Mary Sue and little Fred, who was big enough to take some steps on his own, Made the Walk with Frederick as a family, and Wolfgang accompanied them. He walked behind and allowed them private conversation. Frederick and Mary Sue walked side by side, taking turns pushing Fred in the stroller.

The sun was out, warm against the skin. Wolfgang strolled casually and with a sudden sense of freedom, his mind clear. He walked with his hands in his pockets, occasionally glancing up through the overhanging trees toward a sky that was so blue and clear that only God could have painted it. Wolfgang smiled as a certain harmony consumed him, and he immediately began to compose in his head. He could hear the music. It would be a requiem Mass for Susannah. He could see it all so clearly, even the ending.

That evening, before he started, he sat as his desk and gripped his pen. He had another letter to write.

December 15th, 1930

Dear Friar Christian,

So many months have passed since our last correspondence, but much has happened here at Waverly Hills. We shall discuss it in time, and perhaps by then I will be able to explain it all. Before then, however, please know that I have searched deeply, and I’ve prayed. Finally, I have come to a decision…

A
White Wind Blew
is a fictional story about a very real place. In 1900, Louisville had the worst tuberculosis rate in the country. Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanatorium, built on one of the highest hills in Jefferson County, Kentucky, was considered the most advanced tuberculosis hospital in the country. But antibiotics hadn’t yet been developed, treatment was primitive at best, and most came simply to die. According to legend, at the height of the epidemic, patients were dying at Waverly at the rate of one per hour. Because the sight of the hearses pulling up to the sanatorium so often would have broken the morale of the patients, the supply tunnel was used to slide the dead bodies down the hillside to the railroad tracks. It became known as the body chute, and later as the Death Tunnel.

There was a separate hospital down the hillside for the African American patients. There was an African American man in the 1920s who walked the hillside three times a day, carting food and supplies between the two hospitals. They named him Big Fourteen because of his fourteen-inch feet and his enormous hands.

The patients spent most of their time on the solarium porches so they could breathe fresh air. Even in the winter, patients were kept outside in their beds, and because the solarium windows only had screens, it was not uncommon for snow to accumulate inside.

Doctors and nurses risked their lives to care for patients and try to find a cure for tuberculosis. Many contracted the disease and died with their patients. Many relationships formed between patients in tuberculosis sanatoriums because of the long duration of stay and because so many of the stricken were in the prime of their lives. It was not uncommon for patients to eventually marry men and women they’d met while sick or caring for the sick.

Because of the experiments performed at Waverly Hills and hospitals like it, tuberculosis began to decline near the end of the 1930s. It wasn’t until the discovery of streptomycin in 1943 that doctors had the first real medicine to fight the disease. By the 1950s, tuberculosis had been mostly eradicated.

In 1961, Waverly Hills Sanatorium was closed. The building was reopened in 1962 as the Woodhaven Geriatrics Sanitorium. The doors were closed for good in 1982 due to horrible conditions, budget cuts, and evidence of patient abuse. From that point, the building went the way of decay and rumor. Tales of unusual experiments, electroshock therapy, and patient mistreatment began to surface. Some have been proven false, but not all. Rumors that it was once an insane asylum came forth. Vagrants moved in. Vandals defaced every inch of the place. Stories were told of satanic rituals held within the walls. It was a place of death and disease, a place of legend, a place where, many believe, the haunted still roamed the halls. According to legend, well over sixty thousand patients died inside Waverly Hills. Some say the number is much less; some believe it could be more.

Waverly Hills has become known as one of the most haunted places in the world, spotlighted on Fox Television’s
Scariest
Places
on
Earth
and dubbed the world’s mecca of paranormal activity. One of the most popular legends revolves around Room 502, which was rumored to house mentally ill patients. Folklore says that two nurses committed suicide in this room: one hanged herself, and another jumped five stories to her death.

The building’s current owners have begun a restoration project and great progress has been made. Tours can be arranged and all proceeds go to renovating the building. I took a tour of the abandoned building several years ago, before any restoration. I’ve been inside the body chute and Room 502. Of the rolls of film I shot inside the building, all but four pictures came out clearly. Those four blurry pictures were all taken inside Room 502, as if something didn’t want the pictures to be seen. In many of the pictures, mysterious orbs are visible, none more prominent than those inside the Death Tunnel, or body chute, where we seemed surrounded by them.

Although it was the intrigue of hauntings that brought me to Waverly, I soon realized that the most riveting stories could come from its former flesh-and-blood inhabitants and from former patients. So I looked down the length of the massive fourth-floor solarium porch and imagined the patients lying in their beds. I imagined the sound of a violin hovering over the swaying trees. I imagined a piano and a choir and Wolfgang Pike conducting at a podium with his deformed leg, and the story came to life.

More than two million people still die from tuberculosis every year, mostly in developing countries. Someone in the world still dies of TB every eighteen seconds. The tragedy is that most of the deaths could be prevented with money and existing treatments.

James
Markert

2013