White Wind Blew Read Online Free PDF Page B

Susannah. “Heard they’re staying with her family in the Highlands, near Cherokee Park.”
    They were twenty yards away from the entrance portico on the south side of the sanatorium, where a cluster of visitors met with some patients on the lawn. One of the visitors stared at the building while the patient talked. The portico had archways with alternating sections of brick and stone that gave it a mosque-like appearance, although the building itself looked more like it was stolen from an Ivy League college campus. It was a five-story monster made of brick and stone, ornately fashioned by Gothic architecture from the first floor all the way up to the rooftop and bell tower. Solarium porches stretched the length of the building on each floor, six hundred feet long. Every room on the south side opened to the sleeping porches, where the patients who still had a chance at survival stayed. The terminal cases were on the other side of the hallway, behind the rooms that opened up to the solariums. The building was designed in the shape of a boomerang, with the idea that it could catch the breeze and keep fresh air on the patients at all times.
    Rest and fresh air supposedly helped tuberculosis, but the pressure to find a definitive cure led to experimental treatments such as pneumothorax—collapsing diseased lungs—and another surgery called thoracoplasty, in which Wolfgang and Dr. Barker removed several rib bones from the chest wall. They also performed lobectomies, in which they removed parts of the lung, and in some cases the entire lung. Phrenicotomies cut the nerve supply to one of the diaphragms in hopes of allowing the disabled lung to heal. They used heliotherapy, or sun treatment, because they believed that sunbathing killed the bacteria that caused tuberculosis. But these were all treatments, not cures, and the procedures, bloody and dangerous as they were, often only delayed the ultimate outcome.
    Recently they’d been losing almost one patient per hour, and the menace showed no signs of slowing. Waverly held its full capacity, and the waiting list was growing. While Waverly bulged at the seams, the town shrank. The disease consumed entire families. Wolfgang spent much of his day now hearing confessions, regardless of faith or denomination. But he refused to allow the dying to exit the world without cleansing their souls, and the patients never seemed to mind.
    Father, bless me for I have sinned…
    “Wolfgang?”
    “Yes?”
    Susannah grinned. “Where were you just now?”
    “Contemplating whether or not to open the door for you.” He stepped forward and opened it. They stood in the center of a hallway that stretched three hundred feet on either side of them. Shiny black and red tiles formed a checkered pathway down the center of the hallway. The walls were gray, the woodwork a dark brown. Globe lights hung down from the white ceiling. You could smell how clean it was.
    Coughing echoed down the hallway, reminding Wolfgang that it was still a home for the dying. Yet the doctors, nurses, and volunteers made it as much like home as possible. A retired farmer from Bardstown ran Waverly’s hillside farm, raising cattle, hogs, and chickens to provide meat, fresh eggs, and dairy products for the patients and staff. Those who turned to faith could visit the nondenominational chapel that Wolfgang oversaw on the second floor. Children could attend school in the pavilion building, and there were playgrounds there as well. The library contained hundreds of donated books, newspapers, and magazines. Waverly’s theater offered movies and plays, and patients could partake in activities from weaving rugs and making toys to the popular copper hammering and furniture manufacturing, and everything made was sold to the public to raise money for the hospital.
    And then there was Wolfgang, who brought them music.
    “Dr. Pike!”
    Susannah and Wolfgang turned. Dr. Evan Barker was dressed in his white lab coat buttoned all the way up,