Plague

There was another long pause. Then Mr. Blaufoot said, 'Leave us alone. We're all right.'

Kenneth Garunisch sighed. 'Mr. Bloofer,' he said leaning against the door, 'you have to know that a mob of people have broken into the tower. They could be coming upstairs to make trouble. Apart from that, they've probably got plague. Now, can you open the door?'

He heard the locks and bolts being drawn back, and the solid mahogany door was opened an inch. Mr. Blaufoot's glittering eyes looked out from the darkness.

'Mr. Bloofer? Please?' said Garunisch.

Mr. Blaufoot opened the door all the way, and stepped back. Kenneth Garunisch walked into the thick-carpeted condominium, and was surprised to find that it was in darkness. Across the room, sitting in a tall carved chair, Mrs. Blaufoot sat in a black dress, pale and red-eyed.

'Are you folks all right?' said Garunisch. 'Is there anything wrong?'

The Blaufoots were silent. Mr. Blaufoot walked over and stood next to his wife.

Kenneth Garunisch looked at them uneasily. Then he saw the framed photograph on the small polished Regency table, just in front of Mrs. Blaufoot. He stepped over and carefully picked it up. She looked very much like Mrs. Blaufoot.

Mrs. Blaufoot said coldly, 'Put it down, please.'

Garunisch frowned, but he laid the photograph back on the table. He said huskily, 'Is this your daughter?'

Mr. Blaufoot nodded. 'Yes, Mr. Garunisch, it is. We heard about her on Sunday morning, shortly before the telephone system went dead. A relative of ours had managed to escape from Florida early in the plague, and he was able to get to St. Louis. This relative had seen her.'

'And is she all right?' said Garunisch. Then he looked around at the closely-drawn drapes and Mrs. Blaufoot's black dress, and said, 'Well no, I guess she's not. I'm sorry. That was clumsy of me.'

'She's dead, Mr. Garunisch,' said Mrs. Blaufoot. 'She died of lack of medical attention, with bronchial pneumonia. She didn't even have plague. The medical workers were out on strike, and my daughter died.'

Mr. Blaufoot added, as if it made any difference, 'She was going to be a concert pianist.'

Kenneth Garunisch coughed. He hardly knew what to say. In the end, he muttered, 'Listen, I'm really very sorry.'

Mrs. Blaufoot stared at the screwed-up handkerchief between her bony hands. 'Sorry isn't really enough, is it?'

Garunisch shrugged. 'No, I guess it isn't. But I am sorry, and there is nothing more I can say. I acted, when I called that strike, according to my lights.'

Mrs. Blaufoot looked up. 'In that case, Mr. Garunisch, I hope that your lights soon go out, like ours did.'

During the night, most of the sixty or seventy people who were huddled together in the lobby of Concorde Tower died of plague. The black floor and the polished mirrors on the walls reflected their painful, grotesque faces as the bacilli swelled their joints and clogged their lungs. Their groaning and whimpering echoed like a terrible chorus of damned souls, but it wasn't the worst noise. The worst noise was the rustle and scamper of rats — big gray sewer rats — as they scuttled over the sleeping and dying bodies, and gnawed at dead and living flesh alike. Some of the rats sniffed at the locked fire door, which even the angriest rioters hadn't been able to break down, and some of them poured into the open elevator doors and dropped, with the soft thud of furry bodies down to the basement.

They scented warmth and they scented food and they began to climb, twisting their way up the elevator cables. The empty shaft echoed with their twittering and squeaking, and the scratching of their claws on the steel wires. Eventually, they reached the ninth floor, where the doors were wedged open by the gilt settee, and they ran out of the elevator shaft and on to the landing. The upper fire doors had been left open, and they wriggled and pattered up the stairs, sniffing at locked apartment doors and over-running floor after floor.

In three hours, the stairs and landings of Concorde Tower, right up to the roof level, were a scampering mass of ravenous rats.

Dr. Petrie was deeply asleep when someone touched his forehead. He stirred, and unconsciously tried to brush the hand away. He had been dreaming about Miami, and he thought he had been eating a picnic lunch on the beach with Prickles and Anton Selmer. He opened his eyes, and found himself in the den of Ivor Glantz's condominium, lying on the settee now converted into a double bed.

Esmeralda whispered, 'Sssh.'

He could see her in the gloom, her face pale and sculptured. She was wearing her black curly hair tied back with a ribbon, and she smelled warmly of Arpege.

'What is it?' he whispered back.

'Sssh,' she repeated.

He looked quickly to one side, and saw that he was now alone in the bed. He had been sleeping with Kenneth Garunisch, while Adelaide and Prickles and Mrs. Garunisch shared the master bed in the main bedroom.

Esmeralda said, 'Garunisch couldn't sleep. He's in the kitchen, having a smoke and reading a book.'

'He reads books?' joked Dr. Petrie. 'You amaze me.'

'Don't talk,' said Esmeralda, laying a finger across his lips. 'Even walls have ears.'

Without another word, she lifted the bedsheets and climbed in beside him. The bed creaked, and she suppressed a giggle. Then she curled her arms around him, and she was all soft and warm and slithery in her pure silk nightdress.

'We can't do this,' hissed Dr. Petrie, in spite of the fact that his body was all too obviously saying he could.

'Don't talk,' said Esmeralda. 'Just remember what I've been through and give me a chance.'

He sat up, and held her wrists. He could see her moist lips gleaming in the dim light of the den. 'Esmeralda, we can't do this.'

'You're a doctor, aren't you?'

'Sure, but — '

'But nothing! If you're a doctor, you know the importance of therapy after a psychological shock. I don't want love, Leonard, I just need a few moments' oblivion!'

He didn't release her wrists. 'Thanks for the compliment,' he whispered. 'Now I'm only good for a few moments' oblivion!'

'You know I didn't mean that.'

'Well, what did you mean?'

'I mean that this is an emergency. A medical and psychological and romantic emergency. For Christ's sake, Leonard, we could all be dead tomorrow. Don't you believe in final grand gestures?'

'If I believed in final grand gestures, I'd be lying dead as a door-nail in Miami, Florida.'

'What's that got to do with us making love?'

'I don't know.'

'Well, kiss me,' she said, 'and I'll show you.' He could have resisted. He could have said no. But her long warm thigh moved against his bare leg, and her hand reached down and cupped his tightened balls, and her sexuality washed over him like a wave of drunkenness. He leaned forward and kissed her, and their tongues touched, and their teeth bit.

They didn't say a word. She pushed him back against the bed, and sat astride him, lifting her glossy silk nightdress around her hips. He reached up and felt her hardened nipples through the slippery material, and she sighed, and kissed his forehead, and raised herself up so that he could socket himself between her thighs. Then she slowly sat down on him, squirming her hips as she did so, so that he felt a massaging warmth rising up him. The door of the den was still ajar. They knew that anyone could walk in at any moment. But they made love slowly and relished every sensation it brought, until they couldn't suppress their urgency any more, and they were panting at each other with bright eyes and expressions of something like pain.

Esmeralda twitched and shook violently. Leonard Petrie felt something grip him between the legs, and they both achieved the few moments of oblivion they were looking for. Then they were lying side by side, quiet and wet, and even if it wasn't a final grand gesture it was at least a kind of temporary therapy for traumatized minds that had been through more emotions and horrors than it was possible to take.