#Coronavirus

The Spanish Flu

Since my last novel spans the era including the year 1919, I would have been remiss not to include a reference to the Spanish flu epidemic.  As if my Slogans protagonists hadn't suffered enough with World War One, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Russian Civil War, by Chapter Sixteen, I had thrust them into the midst of a global sickness.  The chapter started with a brief history of epidemic and a child's view of its effect.

* * *

    Local newspapers called it the Spanish Flu but it was as American as apple pie. The disease first appeared in a military camp in Kansas in the spring of 1918 and followed the soldiers on their voyage to Europe. It gained strength on the crowded troopships and in the bivouacs and trenches of France. It hopped trains and rode horse carts into the remotest towns and hamlets and by summer the virus had spread around the world. The strain made its second sweep across the United States in August and was still contagious and debilitating, but growing weaker. By fall the flu was considered no more than a nuisance and just as English children played ring-around-the-rosy to commemorate the passing of Black Death, young American girls skipped rope to the rhythm of:

“Mother had a little bird.

Enza was its name.

She opened up the window

And in flew Enza.”

 * * *

Makeshift Hospitals

The Flue Hits Unkurda

But unfortunately the virus was not gone.  Within a few months a new and more lethal strain appeared.  I scoured newspapers from that period and found several contemporary articles describing the sickness's resurgence

* * *

    On the twenty-third of September, the Joliet Herald Evening News' banner headline dared to state, “Influenza Has Been Checked.” Less than two weeks later another article confessed, “Doctors Find 2000 Cases of Spanish Flu.” The disease had resurfaced, mutated and was deadlier. Its march would continue unabated until the next year. In its wake it would leave nearly one hundred million dead.

* * *

Transporting Flu Patients

Akulina Boriskova is Unkurda's seer and healer.  Anticipating the yearly winter sickness, she gathers a supply of local plants which she employs as remedies.  Chief among them is an orange flower called zharok.  I'm not really sure if such a plant exists or it could cure flu, but one of the members of my writers' group was a pharmacist and said there was a similar plant with those qualities, but its medicinal qualities were doubtful.  I went with it anyway.  In the following scene, Akulina having caught the virus, attempts to cure herself. 

* * *

    Please, don't let me die.

    Akulina staggered to the samovar and steadied herself against the table. She took a deep breath, waited for the swaying to halt and filled her cup and scooped in the powdered zharok. She was about to drink the bright orange mix when another wave of nausea swept over her. Again she had to grasp the table. Once more after the feeling subsided, she fumbled with the honey pot and added a small portion to the drink and stirred.

    Hold it down, she commanded herself. Hold it and sweat out the poison.

    Akulina lifted the potion to her mouth and sipped. The scalding liquid flowed past her lips and throat and spread through her body.

* * *

Armed with the healing power of zharok, Akulina's body attacks the virus.  I likened her resistance to that of an army defending its homeland.

* * *

The weakness she felt was just one part of her body's response. The feeling drove her to lie down and conserve her energy. Her system also forced her temperature to rise to make her a less desirable host. Every response was designed to blunt the sickness' attack, even if it meant killing her. Akulina's immune system had deciphered the invader's latest code and created special cells to search out and destroy each. Millions of these cells now flooded her blood stream and sought out its foe in every organ and tissue. There were no flags or banners leading this campaign; no masses shouting slogans while they raced into combat, just a single-minded force bent on a sole objective―save Akulina.

* * *

  Nurses Ready for Action

 

Akulina's Cure

Of course Akulina survives, but she learns many did not.

* * *

    “I had to, Papa. I had to help.”

    “And you did. Thanks to you there were fewer deaths.”

    “How many?”

    “Sixteen. But most were because of Simon Petr. He told the Staroverok the sickness was a sign of the end times and forbade his people to take the zharok. He said to do so would be against God's will.”

    “Ultia Yauhoraka?”

    “She's gone.”

   Akulina gasped. “Dead?”

   Boris shook his head. “No, not dead. She moved out. Went to watch over Simon Petr.”

  “Will she be back?”

  “Who's to say? Maybe rain, maybe snow.”

* *  *

Future Virus

The events portrayed in my novel happened just over one hundred years ago.  I wonder if a century from now some would-be historical fiction writer will weave today's coronavirus into their novel.

Preparing for the Coronavirus 2020

 

 

 Assuming, of course, there still are people around a hundred years from now.  So wash your hands and hope for the best.

Trauma of a Military Burial

Childhood Memories

As I stated in previous posts, many fictional accounts in my novels are based on my childhood experiences. Since these memories are over seventy-years old, they may be lacking in detail and somewhat exaggerated, but they still make good drama.  One occasion I incorporated in my second novel, Banners: For God, Tsar and Russia, happened just after World War Two. 

Returning home for the last time

I was probably four or five when the remains of a neighbor were returned home for burial and I was expected to attend the funeral.  Unfortunately, my older friends took me aside and twisted the event into something horrific.  "After they open the casket," they whispered, "you have to kiss him good-bye." 

The last farewell

My "friends" said the soldier's body would look and smell like the dead dog we had found in the woods earlier that summer.  The ghastly image that pounded in my mind convinced me to stay away from the church and no amount of my mother's begging or threats could make me go.

Real and imagined terror

Poor Stepha

Using this memory, I placed my protagonist Stepha in a similar situation.  Because Stepha was the deceased soldier's godson, his mother told him he was to perform special duties at the funeral.  Akulina explained what an honor it was, but like me, someone had planted black seeds in his mind.

***

         Nothing worked. She screamed, she begged, she threatened, she swatted, but nothing could break Stepha’s stubbornness. Akulina stood over her son and looked down at him in total exasperation. "If your father were here, you would be singing a much louder song.” Stepha refused to look at his mother. Instead he sprawled on the izbah floor, his balled fists rubbing his puffy, tear-flooded eyes. His crying had finally ceased, but his little body still trembled with silent sobs.

* * *

Why did Stepha behave like this?  The usual culprit, his aunt and perpetual tormentor, Kataya.

* * *

Stepha lay on the floor and did not look up even after he was sure his mother was gone. He did not want to bid farewell to Ribba, nor did he want to see Ribba. Tet-ta Kataya had told him Ribba was dead, just like the samka they had found in the woods. Tet-ta also said Ribba would be full of the white worms like the wild pig. Stepha thought of the stink and the flies, the hollow black eyes, and how shrunken lips pulled away from the yellowed tusks. No, Stepha would not go. He wouldn't do what Tet-ta said a good godson must do. He didn't want to see Ribba when they opened the box and most of all he did not want to kiss him. Stepha pressed his face closer to the cold, hard floor and tried to hide from the sight and the smell.

* * *

As it turned out, Stepha need not have worried.  The caskets were symbolic and contained only the memories of Hutava's lost sons.  

* * *

On the burial hill, the last handfuls of earth had been thrown into Ribba's grave. The fearful image Stepha imagined in the coffin did not exist. The only portion of Ribba Kunatz in the ground was his memory. In the hearts of the villagers, Ribba rested along side the two Gerous boys who would no longer work the store, Antonov who would no longer farm, as neither would Kulemhov. Ribba was with young Lev Shimonsky, who they said would have become a fine leather maker and good father had not an Austrian shell blown him to bits. Seven graves marked the soldiers' corner and only one held a body, that of Pinchuk who died of a sickness before he arrived in Pinsk. The others contained only memories: an ikon, a picture, a mallet, a leather knife, a hoe, and a tattered fishing net.

* * *

Shameless Plug

There are many incidents culled from my childhood used in creating my novels.  Notably, the one where Stepha and Vanya are startled by two disfigured veterans.  Akulina uses their reaction to tell the parable of the Mouse, the Rooster and the Cat and how one should not judge by appearances.  But to get the full effect you need to obtain a copy of Banners.

#Free Stuff

The wild herd numbered several dozen swine and had grown fat on the roots, nuts and berries the forest provided. The old peasant who lived near the forest looked upon the herd with hungry eyes and an even hungrier stomach. Many a night he would fall asleep in his izbah and dream of salt pork and pickled pig's knuckles, but every trap he set for the swine was for naught. The tuskers and sows, wise to the way of man, avoided his snares and pits and never allowed their young within rope range.

   One evening after yet another meal of watery shchi and hard black bread, the farmer told his wife of his failed dream. “That's because they fear you,” his wife said. “You must win their trust.”

    The next morning the farmer went to the edge of forest and dumped a bushel of spoiled cabbage and beets. Later that day a few piglets, emboldened by their youth, ventured out and ate what the farmer had offered. As the youngsters ate, the wary older swine hid behind the trees and watched.

The next day the farmer brought some rotted apples and potatoes and again the piglets ate. Within a week, all the swine gathered at the edge of the woods and awaited the farmer's food.

  That evening the farmer installed a sturdy section of fence near the spot where he had placed the food. The swine were curious but saw no danger. Two days later, the farmer added another section and on the next day yet another. By the fourth day a gate-less corral circled the food. The pigs, enticed by the food still saw no threat. 

   On the fifth day the farmer added a gate and on the afternoon of the sixth, as the pigs were eating their fill, he closed it. 

***

 Excerpted from "Slogans: Our Children, Our Future."