In the Clear Read online

  But in the hospital, the doctor took one look at me and growled at the nurses, “This child needs a spinal tap. Get her up to the infectious ward. I hope there’s a space left.”

  I overheard the nurses explain the spinal tap to my parents – the need to draw out some of my spinal fluid to test for polio. No one bothered explaining anything to me. I was just a kid. But I heard the nurses warn my parents that I’d feel a sharp pinch when the needle went in. Ha! They’d have been more honest if they’d said, “It’s going to feel like a knife in her back.” And even if they had, I could hardly jump up and run away. By then, I couldn’t even crawl. Already I was so weak and achy all over, I could barely roll over for them when they wheeled me, alone, into a little room. They tucked me into a fetal position on my side, exposing my back. When that needle stabbed into my spine, I screamed for all I was worth.

  Out in the hallway again, I saw my mother. Her eyes had a new, wild look. Had she heard my scream? Why did she let them do that to me? She looked as terrified as I was beginning to feel. Two nurses had to hold her back as they wheeled me by. “No, Mrs. Teal. You can’t kiss her or touch her. She’s highly contagious.”

  They wheeled me into an elevator, down a hall and into a ward which had a long hall with glass walls showing many rooms. Each room was big enough to hold four children. They wheeled me into one and stopped. I saw the tin-can prison, the one I’d seen in those pictures and the poster in the doctor’s office. It was an empty iron lung – it was for me. Why did I need one? I could still breathe, couldn’t I?

  There were three other iron lungs in the room. They made me think of coffins, only there were real live girls inside each one. Just their heads stuck out near the glass wall, and I saw the reflection of their eyes, watching me, in the little mirrors fixed above their heads.

  The other girls didn’t talk to me. We were too sick to talk. Besides, the room was noisy with the sound of the bellows sucking air in and out of the airtight iron lungs. Whoosh, whoosh. “Sixteen times a minute,” one of the nurses explained loudly. “The iron lung forces air in and out of your lungs. It will do the breathing for you until your muscles work again.”

  The kind nurse who explained this had red hair and freckles, and looking at her I thought of Anne of Green Gables, from my mother’s favorite book. “The iron lung will keep you alive,” Nurse Anne continued.

  I shook my head, terrified, sure it was a coffin.

  “You’re lucky,” the other nurse interrupted impatiently. She was young too, but she had enormous bulging eyes and appeared to have no hair beneath her starched white cap. I called her Nurse Toad in my mind, for I was afraid of toads. “There’s an epidemic. This is the last iron lung available in the hospital. The next child who comes in here will be out in the hall without one.”

  Nurse Anne ignored her and continued to explain how the iron lung worked as she opened up one end and slid out my bed. Then they lifted me onto it and pushed me inside. Only my head stuck out the hole, through a rubber collar. They clamped the bed shut and turned it on.

  “You’ll feel better soon,” Nurse Anne said with a smile before she turned away to help another girl.

  Whoosh, whoosh, went the bellows. In and out. Whoosh, whoosh.

  I looked around me at the other girls. Did I look like them?

  Someone in the room was crying. Or was it … me?

  Whoosh, whoosh. I could feel a strange pressure on my chest as the air was forced out and then drawn into my lungs. In and out. Slowly, amazingly, I began to feel a little better. I’d had no idea I’d been fighting to breathe.

  Whoosh, whoosh. In and out. Tired. I was so, so tired. Finally I slept.

  3.

  DREAMING WITH

  TANTE MARIE, 1959

  First thing I do every morning when I get up is check the calendar. I’m counting the days until Tante Marie’s arrival.

  I write B a letter. He lives up north so I haven’t seen him since we both left the rehabilitation hospital four years ago. He’s still a great fan of Tante Marie’s and will be happy for me that she’s coming. I also finish two more books from the pile to make the time pass quickly, but I read them in secret so my mother won’t know. Last year, the summer I turned eleven, we had a family reunion in Québec. My two aunts called me spoiled and self-centered, thinking I wouldn’t understand when they whispered gâtée in French. Maybe they’re right. I don’t care.

  I can’t wait to see Tante Marie. She never speaks a word against me, not in any language.

  My father brings Tante Marie and Grand-mère home from Union Station. My mother has welcoming hugs and kisses for Grand-mère, but when she turns to Tante Marie, she freezes and pulls herself back stiffly. She’s the ice queen.

  Tante Marie kisses her cheeks anyway and asks how she is. “Agathe. Ça va bien?”

  I am so excited. Tante Marie is here. I want to jump up and down.

  My turn! Tante Marie gathers me close and calls me beautiful. “Ma belle.” She kisses both my cheeks and she is soothing and electric, all at the same time. I feel special. Even the scent of her perfume embraces me. “You’ve grown so tall. Come, get your coat and we’ll walk and try to get caught up.”

  My mother protests, “Outside? It’s too icy; she could fall.”

  “Ridicule!” Tante Marie laughs and gently brushes my perfectly bobbed, chin-length hair back from my face, behind my ears. “Pauline can’t stay in all day.”

  My heart races. Mom and Marie have started, like they always do. If they don’t fight over me, it will be over Grand-mère, or what we’ll eat for dinner.

  “What do you know about it, Marie? She’s my daughter and you should mind your own business.”

  “I’m still her aunt and whether you like it or not she’s my business. Besides, a total stranger could see how you’ve got her cooped up in here …”

  “Mes filles!” Grand-mère scolds them from the living room where Dad is settling her in a comfortable chair. She shakes a bony finger at her bickering daughters. “Ça suffit.”

  But they can’t stop, not even with Grand-mère as referee.

  “She needs to walk and get outdoors. Books aren’t enough, Agathe.”

  “Polio crippled her legs, not her mind.”

  “Agatha!” My father leaves Grand-mère’s side. He’s angry; he rarely raises his voice against my mother. “She just got here. At least let them go for a walk.”

  My mother crosses her arms over her chest and glares at her sister. “Pauline doesn’t like to walk at this hour. Ask her yourself.”

  My mother’s right. I have to walk every day, to strengthen my muscles. But on weekdays I walk in the morning, after kids go to school, and on weekends I walk when it’s dark and I don’t have to endure curious stares.

  Feeling reckless in Tante Marie’s company, I do up my coat and shuffle out the door without looking at my mother. “I just got a letter from B. It’s in my pocket. You can read it while we walk,” I say to my aunt.

  Tante Marie holds the door and follows me. “We’ll be back in time for drinks,” she laughs over her shoulder, just before the screen door clicks shut. “We’ll run the whole way back.”

  Outside, I lurch slowly down the street while Tante Marie reads B’s letter. We pass Henry’s house, the Martins’, Mrs. Hankenstein’s and the Talons’. I keep my head down. I don’t want to see them if they’re gawking. I walk like Frankenstein. My left leg is short and thin and I wear a metal brace around it, up to my thigh, to support me as I walk.

  My father says Don Mills was the post-war dream for happy families. Everything along these wide streets, from the big backyards to the central library, was carefully planned. Everything but polio epidemics.

  “That boy,” says Tante Marie proudly, finishing B’s letter. “I’m so glad he found a high school that would accept him.”

  “You’re going too fast, Tante Marie,” I pant, stopping to catch my breath, seeking a dry patch of asphalt so my crutches won’t slip. “You know I can’t ru
n. I never will.”

  “What makes you talk like that? Look at B. He’s got braces on both legs, yet he’s going to a regular school.” She laughs, holding up B’s letter. “He’ll show them. He’s already Captain of the Debating Team. And look at me. Not one of my sisters believes I’ll ever be a successful artist. They hate my sculptures, but I dream, one day, my work – it will be in the Louvre.” She gestures dramatically toward the east, in the direction of Paris. “Everybody’s got a dream to keep them going. You too, n’est-ce pas, chérie?”

  I haven’t shared my dream with anyone. In my mind, I see our new backyard rink, the ice hard and gleaming. Here’s my chance to share my dream with Tante Marie pointing at a distant horizon. Her cheeks are so brilliant, they almost match the blazing red of her beret. No one wears a red beret in Don Mills.

  “One day … I want to skate with my father,” I say softly.

  “Ahh. Such a wonderful dream.” She smiles. “Before I go back to Montréal, I will do something for you about that dream.”

  Tante Marie is the only adult I know who keeps her promises. She helped me once when I was desperate, and I know she will help me again.

  Walking home, I see Henry playing road hockey with Stuart and Billy. They are his two best friends now. They live at the other end of Chelsea – why do they have to play up here? They wear the same blue, shiny jackets as Henry, and I suspect they are on the same hockey team. Henry stands in goal and is the only one facing me. He doesn’t gawk, but he can’t be paying attention, for the other boys yell “Score!” twice in the minute it takes us to walk by.

  “Hi, Pauline.”

  It takes me by surprise and I stop. Why is Henry saying hello? Does he hope for an invitation to skate on our new rink? Never!

  Stuart and Billy turn around and stare at Tante Marie and me.

  Are they gawking? No. They’re just looking.

  Tante Marie is looking at me too, waiting. I should say hi. There’s another reason for Henry saying hello. Tante Marie is incredibly beautiful. People always like her.

  The “Hi” starts in my throat — and stops.

  I still have to walk — lurch — the last hundred yards to the front door. I nod my head stiffly.

  “Come on, Henry. Let’s play,” Stuart says, shooting the ball to Billy.

  I walk. I wish I could hold my head up, but I have to watch carefully for ice. It would be awful if I fell, sprawling in front of them. My face, I’m sure, has turned brighter than Tante Marie’s beret.

  Then I remember Tante Marie’s promise. She is going to make my dream come true. I won’t fall in front of these boys. I won’t! I can do this — and more! For the first time in four years, hope flexes its muscle as if rising from a long and troubled sleep, rising like a bird on a strong breeze, soaring up there just like the dreams of every other kid in Don Mills.

  4.

  IN THE HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN, 1954

  The nurse was right. I was lucky. I had the last available iron lung.

  For over a week I lay feverish, sleeping most of the time – but breathing. A little mirror was attached to the iron lung, over my head. Whenever I woke up I could see, in that mirror, whatever was happening in the hallway behind me.

  There seemed to be a constant traffic of beds coming in, piling up in the hallway, waiting. Nurses scurrying back and forth. In the days and then weeks that passed, I twice saw a bed leave from that hallway. Both times the sheet was pulled up over a small body, up over a face. I knew what that meant. I knew it was another kid, just like me.

  Now I was awake most of the day, thinking. With all that time to think, I’d figured out the reason I was here, sick in the hospital. It was because of the red horse. If I had had the blue horse, it would have been Henry to get polio instead of me.

  The strange thing about polio was that it affected the nerves that told my muscles to move. But it didn’t attack the nerves that told me what hurt.

  And I hurt.

  The nurses were tired and busy. They seemed to run from one bed to another, checking, feeding, cleaning. There were little round plastic windows in the sides of the iron lung that they could open to check for sores or clean me or move me around.

  The last time I spoke, I asked for help. My legs were aching terribly, but I was unable to move them or relieve the pain in any way. The paralysis had spread up to my neck. I lay unable to move my head, struggling to swallow, feeling a searing pain in my legs. Unfortunately, Nurse Toad was on duty. I could hear her croaking as she attended the girl next to me. If only Nurse Anne would come. I waited and waited. But my legs. What was happening to my legs? I couldn’t see them, but it felt like something horrible was sawing and burning through them.

  “Please, help!” I moaned. “It hurts!” My voice was weak and I could barely whisper.

  Nurse Toad moved over me quicker than a storm cloud. “Who do you think you are? Of course you hurt. You’ve got polio. Everybody in here is hurting. At least you’re alive. At least you’re in an iron lung. You’ve got a chance to live in an iron lung. But if you don’t stop that hollering, I’ll take you out of it and give it to one of those poor children in the hallway. And believe me I will!”

  I knew she would, too. Her eyes were bloated with anger.

  I swallowed back my terror. It was dangerous to talk in here. And I didn’t want to lose my iron lung. I didn’t want to end up with the sheet pulled over my face.

  So … I stopped talking.

  In those first weeks, while we were considered contagious, my parents weren’t allowed in. After a while, when the hallway cleared of beds, they were allowed to stand outside the glass wall behind me. I saw them in the little mirror. I knew they couldn’t help me. All I had on my side was this noisy, whooshing iron lung. The best way to stay safe – and alive – was to keep quiet. The iron lung was not a coffin; it was a cocoon.

  It wasn’t hard to stay silent. The muscles in my throat were affected anyway, and I was very tired. So I concentrated on breathing. There was a big clock on the wall and I counted the whooshes. Sixteen a minute.

  More weeks passed slowly. My parents were allowed to visit on Sundays. They could stand outside the glass wall and wave or send messages with Nurse Anne if she was on duty. I counted Sundays now. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Swallowing got easier. I could nod and shake my head at them, although I still couldn’t move my arms or hands or legs.

  Christmas came. My parents stood outside the glass wall and waved at me. I watched them in the mirror. Nurse Anne brought me their gift, a new teddy bear. He was brown with a bright red bow around his neck, and I could tell by looking at him, he’d be soft and cuddly. If only she’d lay him against my cheek. But I kept quiet, even with Nurse Anne. I tried to tell her with my eyes.

  “Your parents brought you a gift. Don’t let yourself get too attached to him,” she warned softly. “You won’t be allowed to keep …”

  She stopped talking. She snuggled his soft face against mine. “He’s giving you a kiss,” she said. “Merry Christmas, Pauline.”

  He smelled like apple cider, spiced with cinnamon, the way my mother made it. He smelled of home.

  “He wants to stay close to you,” Nurse Anne said. “Here.” She hooked him over the mirror so that he sat looking directly at me.

  When my parents left, I felt like there was a big hole inside me. I wanted to go home and see my room. I imagined our Christmas tree. It would be a pine, filling the house with its fresh, wintry, forest smell. I was sick of the antiseptic smell of the hospital ward and the metal air of the iron lung.

  Then I looked up and saw my bear, sitting on the little mirror. I liked his bright red bow and black button eyes. I didn’t feel quite so lonely.

  “I’ll call you Henry,” I told him silently. “That’s my best friend’s name.” It was nice to have a friend to talk with again.

  And Christmas wasn’t over.

  Later that afternoon, I got another present, a d
ifferent kind. I wriggled the toes on my left foot. Nurse Anne was changing the bedpan under my bed and must have seen the movement.

  She stood up, nearly dropping the bedpan. “Oh, Pauline! You moved your toes,” she said with excitement. “Let me go get the doctor.”

  It didn’t take her long to find him and bring him into the ward. He smiled, encouraging me. “Can you show me that movement? Try to move your toes again, Pauline,” he said.

  I did. Months of nothing … and now I could move my toes again!

  The next day, the doctor came back and told me I was going to come out of the iron lung for a short period to see if I could breathe on my own. I was scared. My eyes must have shouted my fear.

  “Relax,” said the doctor kindly. “Don’t you worry. We’ll put you back in the iron lung the second you show signs of having trouble. But if you do okay, we’ll take you out every day for longer and longer periods. And then one day, when you’re in the clear, you might be able to go to a rehabilitation hospital, maybe even home. How does that sound?”

  I didn’t speak … but I nodded.

  They turned off the bellows, opened the iron lung and slid me out. My lungs kept moving. I was alive, breathing on my own. Excitement must have shone in my eyes because the doctor and Nurse Anne smiled and clapped their hands. I could breathe on my own! I didn’t need the iron lung. And I could wriggle my left toes!

  I felt great hope. “Don’t you worry,” I told Henry, “we’ll be home soon.”

  5.

  CHRISTMAS WITH

  TANTE MARIE, 1959

  We celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. It is the only tradition my mother keeps from her childhood in Québec. But before gifts are opened in the early hours of the morning, my mother, Grand-mère and Tante Marie go to celebrate midnight mass at church.