clapping to the words.
Its name was Enza.
I opened the window.
And In-Flu-Enza.
Then they shriek and fall to the ground, clutching their chests, giggling.
L.âs world is spun on its head. Now he deals with servants, people calling him sir, any food he likes at any time of the day, the palatial apartment filled with light. And, of course, midnight creeping, and free midafternoon siestas in the cavernous cool apartment, as the servants sit in the kitchen and gossip about the war. In mid-August, L. is deemed chaperone enough, and Rosalind stays home when they go to the Amsterdam or the Y. If Alietteâs father leaves for work a bit later than usual on those mornings, the servantsâ bland faces reveal nothing. Rosalind begins wearing a long strand of pearls, and French perfume. She takes to sitting on Alietteâs bed, combing her hair and asking the girl about her dates with the Ivy League boys. Her voice is rich and almost maternal.
Â
ALIETTE TELLS HER FATHER that she no longer needs Rosalind, that she is healthy, and he can let the nurse go. Then Rosalind becomes his nurse, for he has discovered gout in his toes.
One golden night at the end of September, they are all listening gravely to the radioâs reports of war dead, eating petits fours in Alietteâs fatherâs study. Mr. Huber and Rosalind go into his bedchamber to treat his gout. Through the walls, L. and Aliette can hear their murmuring voices.
L. takes the cake from Alietteâs hand and lifts her skirt on the morocco leather couch. She bites his shoulder to keep from screaming. Throughout, they can hear her father moving about behind the wall, Rosalindâs heels tapping, the maid dusting in the other room.
When Rosalind and Mr. Huber return, Aliette is reading a novel, and L. is still in his wing chair, listening intently to the radio. Nobody notices the pearls of sweat on his forehead, or, when Aliette stands for bed, the damp patch on her skirt.
Â
THE MARVEL IS, WITH ALL she and L. do together, that Aliette has the time to train. But she does, growing muscles like knots in her back, adapting her kick from the standard three-beat to a lightning-quick eight-beat flutter, better suited for her weak legs.
At the competition in September in the 200-meter freestyle, she is already ahead from her dive, and draws so far away from the other girls that she is out on the diving platform, wearing her green cloak, when the other girls come in. She also takes the 100-meter freestyle.
The captions below her picture in the New York Times and the Sports News say: âHeiress NYâs Best Lady Swimmer.â In the photo, Aliette stands radiant, medals gleaming in the sunlight on her chest. If one were to look closely, however, one would see a bulge at Alietteâs waist.
Â
THE SLOW RUMBLE OF INFLUENZA becomes a roar. September drips into deadliest October. In Philadelphia, gymnasiums are crowded with cots of soldiers healthy just hours before. America does not have enough doctors, and first-year medical students, boys of twenty, treat the men. Then they too fall sick. Their bodies are stacked like kindling with the rest in the insufficient morgues. More than a quarter of the pregnant women who survive the flu miscarry or give birth to stillborn babies.
Â
ALIETTEâS STOMACH GROWS, but she does not tell L., hoping heâll notice and remark upon it first. He is in a fever, though, and sees nothing but his passion for her. She begins wearing corsets again, and she makes a great show of eating inordinately, so that her father and Rosalind think she is simply getting fat.
Â
THE PLAGUE HITS NEW YORK like a tight fist. Trains rolling into the boroughs stop in their tracks when engineers die at the controls. After 851 New Yorkers die in one day, a man is attacked for spitting on the streets.
Mr. Huber sends his six servants away, and they are forbidden to return until the end of the plague. Three out of them
Its name was Enza.
I opened the window.
And In-Flu-Enza.
Then they shriek and fall to the ground, clutching their chests, giggling.
L.âs world is spun on its head. Now he deals with servants, people calling him sir, any food he likes at any time of the day, the palatial apartment filled with light. And, of course, midnight creeping, and free midafternoon siestas in the cavernous cool apartment, as the servants sit in the kitchen and gossip about the war. In mid-August, L. is deemed chaperone enough, and Rosalind stays home when they go to the Amsterdam or the Y. If Alietteâs father leaves for work a bit later than usual on those mornings, the servantsâ bland faces reveal nothing. Rosalind begins wearing a long strand of pearls, and French perfume. She takes to sitting on Alietteâs bed, combing her hair and asking the girl about her dates with the Ivy League boys. Her voice is rich and almost maternal.
Â
ALIETTE TELLS HER FATHER that she no longer needs Rosalind, that she is healthy, and he can let the nurse go. Then Rosalind becomes his nurse, for he has discovered gout in his toes.
One golden night at the end of September, they are all listening gravely to the radioâs reports of war dead, eating petits fours in Alietteâs fatherâs study. Mr. Huber and Rosalind go into his bedchamber to treat his gout. Through the walls, L. and Aliette can hear their murmuring voices.
L. takes the cake from Alietteâs hand and lifts her skirt on the morocco leather couch. She bites his shoulder to keep from screaming. Throughout, they can hear her father moving about behind the wall, Rosalindâs heels tapping, the maid dusting in the other room.
When Rosalind and Mr. Huber return, Aliette is reading a novel, and L. is still in his wing chair, listening intently to the radio. Nobody notices the pearls of sweat on his forehead, or, when Aliette stands for bed, the damp patch on her skirt.
Â
THE MARVEL IS, WITH ALL she and L. do together, that Aliette has the time to train. But she does, growing muscles like knots in her back, adapting her kick from the standard three-beat to a lightning-quick eight-beat flutter, better suited for her weak legs.
At the competition in September in the 200-meter freestyle, she is already ahead from her dive, and draws so far away from the other girls that she is out on the diving platform, wearing her green cloak, when the other girls come in. She also takes the 100-meter freestyle.
The captions below her picture in the New York Times and the Sports News say: âHeiress NYâs Best Lady Swimmer.â In the photo, Aliette stands radiant, medals gleaming in the sunlight on her chest. If one were to look closely, however, one would see a bulge at Alietteâs waist.
Â
THE SLOW RUMBLE OF INFLUENZA becomes a roar. September drips into deadliest October. In Philadelphia, gymnasiums are crowded with cots of soldiers healthy just hours before. America does not have enough doctors, and first-year medical students, boys of twenty, treat the men. Then they too fall sick. Their bodies are stacked like kindling with the rest in the insufficient morgues. More than a quarter of the pregnant women who survive the flu miscarry or give birth to stillborn babies.
Â
ALIETTEâS STOMACH GROWS, but she does not tell L., hoping heâll notice and remark upon it first. He is in a fever, though, and sees nothing but his passion for her. She begins wearing corsets again, and she makes a great show of eating inordinately, so that her father and Rosalind think she is simply getting fat.
Â
THE PLAGUE HITS NEW YORK like a tight fist. Trains rolling into the boroughs stop in their tracks when engineers die at the controls. After 851 New Yorkers die in one day, a man is attacked for spitting on the streets.
Mr. Huber sends his six servants away, and they are forbidden to return until the end of the plague. Three out of them
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