attend a hippie festival called the Christmas Paradise. Peter stayed behind in Karachi, and ended up languishing with hepatitis in the Civil Hospital.
An eastbound train took Peter and his father and brother out of Düsseldorf, and traveled through the industrial heart of northern Germany, past seas of warehouses and factories made of brown brick. It is unlikely that Peter would have had much to say to his father at this point. He would have lit a cigarette and looked out the window. The train arrived at the Ruhr River, and it followed the course of the river into the fir-clad mountains of the Sauerland, winding upstream under skies the color of carbon steel, until it reached Meschede.
Meschede is a cozy place, where people know one another. It nestles in a valley at the headwaters of the Ruhr, beside a lake. It had been snowing in Meschede, and the hills and mountains surrounding the city were cloaked in snowy firs. It was New Year’s Eve. Peter and his family celebrated the new decade, and he caught up with old friends and rested, recovering from his illness.
The weather was cloudy and dark, but in the second week of January the clouds broke away from the mountains, and clear air poured down from the north, bringing dry cold and blue skies. At the same time, influenza broke out in the town, and many people became sick with coughs and fevers. Around Friday, January 9th, Peter began to feel strange.
He was tired, achy, restless, and by the end of the day he was running a temperature. Then, on Saturday, his fever spiked upward, and he was very sick in the night. On Sunday morning, his family called an ambulance, and he was taken to the largest hospital in town, the St. Walberga Krankenhaus. He brought his art supplies and his cigarettes with him.
Dr. Dieter Enste examined Peter. He was recovering from his hepatitis, but perhaps he had typhoid fever, which is contagious, and which he could have caught in the hospital in Pakistan. They placed him in the isolation ward, in a private room, Room 151, and they started him on tetracycline.
The St. Walberga Hospital was staffed by the Sisters of Mercy, who served as nurses. The hospital was spare, simple, neat, and spotlessly clean. The isolation ward took up the entire first floor of the south wing, which was a semidetached building, three stories tall, covered with brown stucco, with a staircase that ran through the middle. The nuns told Peter to keep his door closed and not to leave his room for any reason.
He settled in on that Sunday morning and quickly began to feel better, and his fever almost went away. Even so, the nuns forbade him to leave the room, not even to use the bathroom, though it was directly across the hall. They made him use a bedpan, and they emptied it for him, and he washed himself at the sink in his room. The steam radiator under the window hissed and banged, and it made his room feel stuffy. He wanted a cigarette. He slid open one of the room’s casement windows just a crack, got out his cigarettes, and lit one. The nuns were not happy with that, and ordered him to keep his window closed.
That Sunday, a Benedictine priest named Father Kunibert made rounds through the hospital, offering holy communion to the sick. He was an older man, not strong on his legs, and he worked his way down through the building, so that he wouldn’t have to climb stairs. On the first floor at the end of the corridor, he put his head in Room 151 and asked the patient if he wished to receive communion. The young man was not interested. The medical report informs us that he “refused communion” and that “the priest was advised that his services were not desired.”
When the nuns weren’t looking, Peter continued to smoke, with his window open a crack. Cold air would pour in, filling the room with a brisk scent of the outdoors mixed with chirps of sparrows.
The tetracycline wasn’t working, so the doctors started him on chloramphenicol. He had a sense of creeping
An eastbound train took Peter and his father and brother out of Düsseldorf, and traveled through the industrial heart of northern Germany, past seas of warehouses and factories made of brown brick. It is unlikely that Peter would have had much to say to his father at this point. He would have lit a cigarette and looked out the window. The train arrived at the Ruhr River, and it followed the course of the river into the fir-clad mountains of the Sauerland, winding upstream under skies the color of carbon steel, until it reached Meschede.
Meschede is a cozy place, where people know one another. It nestles in a valley at the headwaters of the Ruhr, beside a lake. It had been snowing in Meschede, and the hills and mountains surrounding the city were cloaked in snowy firs. It was New Year’s Eve. Peter and his family celebrated the new decade, and he caught up with old friends and rested, recovering from his illness.
The weather was cloudy and dark, but in the second week of January the clouds broke away from the mountains, and clear air poured down from the north, bringing dry cold and blue skies. At the same time, influenza broke out in the town, and many people became sick with coughs and fevers. Around Friday, January 9th, Peter began to feel strange.
He was tired, achy, restless, and by the end of the day he was running a temperature. Then, on Saturday, his fever spiked upward, and he was very sick in the night. On Sunday morning, his family called an ambulance, and he was taken to the largest hospital in town, the St. Walberga Krankenhaus. He brought his art supplies and his cigarettes with him.
Dr. Dieter Enste examined Peter. He was recovering from his hepatitis, but perhaps he had typhoid fever, which is contagious, and which he could have caught in the hospital in Pakistan. They placed him in the isolation ward, in a private room, Room 151, and they started him on tetracycline.
The St. Walberga Hospital was staffed by the Sisters of Mercy, who served as nurses. The hospital was spare, simple, neat, and spotlessly clean. The isolation ward took up the entire first floor of the south wing, which was a semidetached building, three stories tall, covered with brown stucco, with a staircase that ran through the middle. The nuns told Peter to keep his door closed and not to leave his room for any reason.
He settled in on that Sunday morning and quickly began to feel better, and his fever almost went away. Even so, the nuns forbade him to leave the room, not even to use the bathroom, though it was directly across the hall. They made him use a bedpan, and they emptied it for him, and he washed himself at the sink in his room. The steam radiator under the window hissed and banged, and it made his room feel stuffy. He wanted a cigarette. He slid open one of the room’s casement windows just a crack, got out his cigarettes, and lit one. The nuns were not happy with that, and ordered him to keep his window closed.
That Sunday, a Benedictine priest named Father Kunibert made rounds through the hospital, offering holy communion to the sick. He was an older man, not strong on his legs, and he worked his way down through the building, so that he wouldn’t have to climb stairs. On the first floor at the end of the corridor, he put his head in Room 151 and asked the patient if he wished to receive communion. The young man was not interested. The medical report informs us that he “refused communion” and that “the priest was advised that his services were not desired.”
When the nuns weren’t looking, Peter continued to smoke, with his window open a crack. Cold air would pour in, filling the room with a brisk scent of the outdoors mixed with chirps of sparrows.
The tetracycline wasn’t working, so the doctors started him on chloramphenicol. He had a sense of creeping
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