Pawnshops drew their curtains but secretly continued a flourishing business in certain goods, solid durable valuables that could be disinfected—jewelry, silverware, icons, jade and ivory objects, precious metals.
Pleasure was accessible for the brave or foolhardy. Opium dens and nightclubs defied the ban on public gatherings and remained open. As a dark joke, the young women selling cigarettes and cigars added a few thermometers to the offerings on their trays.
The Baron stared down the dim alley at the plague wagon next to the inn. Three reflected points of light indicated the bayonets held by the soldiers seated in the front of the wagon. The Baron spoke to the men’s silhouettes. “Wait here. Let me enter the inn alone. I’ll shout if I need help.”
“Be quick with your inspection.”
Lanterns illuminated the center of the low, overheated inn, and the faces of the laborers massed around the tables shone with sweat. It was like being confined in the belly of a ship.
He addressed them in Chinese about the sickness. “If one person becomes sick, everyone around him will become sick. Then you’ll give the sickness to your families. In the hospital, you’ll be made comfortable.” His words were unconvincing.
A bottle was tossed from the back of the room. It missed his shoulder and struck the wall. Shouting, boiling movement as men rushed forward, but he didn’t flinch. He’d suffered worse blows. The innkeeper waved his arms, and the men withdrew.
The Baron held up a thermometer, a brilliant white line of glass reflecting the lantern light. He allowed a few men to gingerly inspect the thing. No one would touch it. He slipped a clean thermometer into his own mouth to demonstrate its safety. After a moment, he removed the thermometer and tied a mask over his face. He stood still, waiting for them to accept his transformation, his retreat into a disguise. He was an object of fear and wished Wang were present to ease the situation. He moved very slowly through the room as if to diminish the threat of his grim task, examining each man in turn for signs of ill health. The laborers sullenly cooperated. Two men were found to be symptomatic, with high temperatures and rapid pulses.
He accompanied them outside, their few possessions bundled in a cloth, to the waiting plague wagon. A soldier leveled a gun at the frightened Chinese men and they drew protectively together. The other soldiers stood atop the wagon and fastened masks around their faces. It was a show of business, dressing before a performance. A soldier leaped from the wagon, seized one of the Chinese men, and dragged him, struggling, to the cage in the back of the wagon.
The inn door slammed open and a crowd of laborers streamed out. Shouting, they attacked the two men wrestling in the snow, kicking and punching the soldier.
At a gunshot, all the Chinese fled, wading clumsily into the thick snow then disappearing into the alley.
The Baron helped the bruised soldier stand. No broken bones. “Fools. Fools. Everyone who helped the sick men escape will die.”
Shaken, the soldier clutched his arm. “What about me? I touched him.”
The Baron cursed his own words, carelessly spoken. “Your name is Vladimir Vasily’vich, yes? Perhaps the man wasn’t infected with plague. Medicine is never certain.”
They clambered up into the wagon. A few minutes later he put his arm around the soldier’s shoulder. “It may be wise to put yourself into the hospital. Just as a precaution. I’ll watch over you.” He directed the driver to take a route to the hospital.
The soldier Vladimir Vasily’vich was admitted for observation. The Baron wished him good night, didn’t wait to see his first encounter with the doctors in their clumsy protective clothing. He would go home.
Outside, it had become so cold that snowflakes seemed to grind their edges together. Every footstep in the snow made a sharp brittle sound. The wheels of vehicles rolled with a crushing noise.
The Baron’s droshky slid across a layer of ice on the street, and at the sudden movement, shadows around a half-buried body fled, the red points of their eyes caught by lantern light. Feral dogs or wolves, savaging a corpse. In daylight, he’d noticed places where snow had been disturbed, dug up around a body, recognized it as the work of animals or thieves that stripped the dead of flesh or clothing. Never look twice. Make no attempt at rescue or salvage. He made the sign of the cross and swore that the pounding of his heart was audible through his clothing.
The brush of calligrapher Zhang Huaihuan created dots “like balls of stone.” The suffering caused by the plague was so catastrophic that it could not be written—the words would plunge through paper. The Baron wished that his eyes would become balls of stone, obliterating what he’d seen, two weights that punched memory into a black hole.
Xiansheng arrived at the appointed hour for the Baron’s lesson.
“A thousand pardons, Elder Born, but everyone who visits must be tested.” The Baron felt ragged shame for this request, but paranoia had made him the unhappy instrument of delivery. The plague had stepped inside his house.
The Baron slid a thermometer under his own tongue, handed another to his teacher with a slight bow. Without the slightest hesitation, Xiansheng submitted to Russian custom, calmly folded his hands, and waited for the thermometer’s verdict.
The Baron saw the future as a maze, imagined Xiansheng’s illness as an inevitable vigil of suffering, death, and grief. He slipped the thermometer out of his teacher’s mouth and looked at the red line, finer than a needle, encased in silvery-white glass that blurred and shook between his fingers. Nothing to fear. Temperature normal.
Teacher studied him solemnly and suggested tea, although it was an enormous breach of courtesy for a guest to make this request of a host. They moved to an adjoining room and a servant, accompanied by the sharp clink of porcelain cups on a tray, carried in the necessities. They were safe, drinking from cups that warmed their hands until they were ready for the lesson.
Calligraphy began with the familiar preparations. Fine goose-white paper, readied on the table. Ink stick, inkstone, brushes. A tall container of water.
The lesson was a single character, qi, representing breath, air, vapor, floating, expanding, and also spirit, vital force. When Xiansheng pronounced the word qi, it sounded like the release of breath. An exhale.
A smooth scratch as Teacher’s hand moved quickly, his brush painting the character, which combined wavy curved lines, representing the breath, and mi, the character for rice or grain, representing sustenance. The Baron watched, gradually conscious that the man focused from a knot of stillness that he could never hope to experience in his own body.
Finished, Teacher straightened to study his writing on the paper. “The character qi is also described as the invisible presence of the calligrapher’s spirit. But it cannot be deliberately placed in a work. It’s only recognized by those who possess the right qualities.”
The Baron’s mind buckled with uncertainty. “Qi is the characters on the paper, but it’s also a hidden code?” He joked to mask his bewilderment and anger that he was oblivious to this mystery. “How can qi be created if it’s invisible?” He felt foolish, grasping. It was weak to allow anyone to witness your confusion. To lose face. Everything he’d hidden in a corner of his memory.