Across 300 Years, I Love You

Immunization happened

5 January 1998

“Girls, get into rows of 2.” the teacher instructed the class the moment we entered the classroom from the morning assembly. Groaning, the girls plopped their bags onto their seats to get into 2 neat rows.

The teacher asked for 2 volunteers to help with handing out a blue booklet to every student. The booklet has a plain dark blue cover with a small logo in the middle that belongs to the Government Ministry of Health. As I was given my copy of the booklet, my curiosity led me to flip through the pages. The first couple of pages were charts of height and weight percentiles of children from ages 7 to 12. The back pages were tables and charts that are left empty. 

Following further instructions, we had to grab our pens to label the booklet with our names before we fall back into our rows again. 

“Immunization.” I read the word aloud from a page. 

“Do you know what that is?” I asked the girl behind me.

“Where did you get that word from?” she asked.

“It is in one of the pages of the book.” I replied.

“They are going to poke us with needles!” her face turned sour.

“Hey, it is supposed to prevent us from getting nasty diseases.” her friend stepped forward to hug her. “You are going to make her cry. She hates needles.” she snapped.    

My mind circulated to the time when mom brought Damien to the doctors for a jab. 

“It’s like an insect bite.” she comforted him but that did not prevent him from wailing at the top of his lungs.

The wait outside the school clinic was excruciatingly agonizing as girls would exit the clinic in tears. This sent shivers down my spine. Even though we are the first class of the day to go through the immunization process, I was one of the last few in my class, standing at the last 5 rows. 

In a single file, we would first enter a room for a quick measurement of our height and weight with a nurse marking those numbers in our booklets. We would then proceed to the second room where we are asked to roll up our sleeves while a nurse would be preparing a syringe filled with liquid and attaching a needle to it. Another nurse would then clean a segment of the upper arm with alcohol wipes and injection into the clean site the liquid from the syringe. 

Before I knew it, the process was over. I watched as the nurse marked the date on the table on a page and wrote Tdap under the vaccination column. 

“What’s vaccination?” I asked the nurse. 

“The injection that you just received in a vaccine.” she replied. Realising that the nurse had a tight schedule to follow, I told her that I would drop by after school when her shift is over. 

My curiosity is piqued. I had to find out what Tdap is and learn more about the concept behind vaccination.

“T for tetanus. It causes painful stiffening of the muscles that can lead to serious problems.” the nurse began her explanation when I visited the clinic again after school to spend the afternoon learning more about the vaccine. 

Since I am now Year 4, I am no longer required to take the mandatory school bus which is rather expensive. To save transport fares, mom had bought me a student card that would allow me to take the public bus at a discounted price.  

I watched her as she tried to simplify her explanations while doing her work. 

“So, you will learn in your Year 4 science that these tiny things that we can’t see, the bacteria and viruses are responsible for making us sick.” 

“But they are everywhere!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, indeed. There are the good ones that will also protect us from the bad ones too.” she reached over to hand me a piece of paper. “Go read up on it. I have the title of the books written here. You can check it out from the library.”

6 January 1998

[Elizabeth’s POV]

I woke up to a bad soreness of my arm over the site of injection. As I rolled up my sleeve, I noticed that there was a slight raised swell.

“Ouch!” I groaned as I tried to buckle the sides of the pinafore of my school uniform. Dressing up took a little longer than usual. By the time I was done, I had missed the time for my breakfast and had to rush out of the house to get to school on time.   

“What is wrong with your arm?” Yongqi quickened his pace after appearing behind me while I broke into a slow jog towards the bus stop that is 4 blocks away. 

“Immunization happened.” I replied. Seeing his head tilting to the left in confusion, I explained what I learned from the nurse to him. 

“Elizabeth!” he stopped dead in his tracks as if remembering something. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Yes. What is it?”

“Can you ask the nurse for more information about tian hua?”

“Tian hua?” I asked, sensing his urgency. 

“After school.” I said as he nodded his head.

[Yongqi’s POV]

Elizabeth made good on her promise. The moment the dismissal bell rang, she made a beeline to the clinic, looking for the chinese nurse that was working with the nurse that she spoke to the day before.  

“Tian hua?” the nurse was surprised. It is the chinese translation for smallpox.

“It is great that you are showing interest in medicine so young.” a nurse clinician walked into the room. 

“I’ll take it from here.” she gestured for the chinese nurse to go back to work while she did the explanations.

Elizabeth translated what she learnt from the nurse while we walked from the bus stop.

My mind travelled to the events over a month ago as I recounted my story to Eizabeth. It was snowing heavily for a week and Mother Empress was concerned that the weather might be too cold for the baby Crown Prince. She had caught a cold and I advised her to remain rested in her chamber while I went to the Imperial nursery on her behalf to visit the Crown Prince and fetch some extra thick clothing for the infant. 

Upon my entrance into the nursing room, a palace nanny looked flustered for a brief second before getting down on her knees to greet me. 

“Your highness.” she said. “The wet nurse has just fed the Crown Prince.”

“What has you flustered?” I probed.

“The weather, your highness. A gust of wind earlier had caused a window door to open. The cold air is bad for the Crown Prince.” she answered convincingly as I noticed that the window latch is indeed loose.

“Get someone to fix the window.” I ordered her.

I looked around the room again after she had left. Something doesn’t feel right. But everything is in place. Nothing missing and nothing added. Squinting down at the charcoal burner, there was a tiny charred fragment of what I could make out as a piece of blue cloth. It was less than 1 inch in size. Without careful scrutiny of the burner, one would have easily missed out on the presence of the cloth in the burner. 

With my instincts kicking in, I put out the fire of the burner and went to the room next door to fetch a pair of chopsticks to get the cloth out to investigate further. Upon my return, the cloth was no longer there and I had not heard or seen anyone entering the room. 

“That smells of trouble.” Elizabeth crossed her arms.

“Indeed.” I replied.

10 days after the mysterious disappearance of the blue cloth in the burner, the Imperial physicians were rushed to the nursery to attend to the Crown Prince who had started developing a high fever and vomiting badly. 

On the 4th day, the Crown Prince cried lesser and slept better. However, to the Physicians’ horror, rashes had developed in the mouth in the form of small red spots and within the day, the rash spreaded to all parts of the body, beginning from the face, spreading to the arms and legs and finally the hands and the soles of the feet.

“It’s smallpox, Your Majesties.” an Imperial Physician confirmed his diagnosis to the Emperor and Empress. The confirmation of the diagnosis caused the Empress to pass out cold instantly.

By the 10th day, the Emperor had taken time off from court meetings to be with the Empress and the Crown Prince as his illness had taken a turn for the worse. White opulent pus had filled the skin sores, forming a dent in each sore - disfiguring and blinding the Crown Prince in the process. 

By then, the Empress looked pale and hagged from worry. The extra makeup she had on her face could not hide the bloodshot eyes and the dark eye circles that have formed under her eyes. She had tirelessly stayed by the cot, tending to the Crown Prince personally. Feeling sympathy for the Empress, the Empress Dowager had ordered Imperial Noble Consort Lan to take over the Empress’s duties in the  management of the palace. 

“Please pardon the uselessness of your humble officials!” the team of physicians in charge of treating the illness kowtowed in dismay.

“I have already lost the Eldest Princess and 2nd Prince to smallpox. How can I live with losing another child to smallpox? How can I?” Mother Empress sobbed into the arms of Father Emperor. 

“We deserved to be put to death!” the physicians trembled. 

“Do everything you can to save the Crown Prince or face me with your dislodged heads!” boomed Father Emperor. 

Neonatal deaths are a common occurrence even with the improvements and new discoveries of Chinese medicine. The death of each of his children is a new blow to his heart especially a child he has every intention to groom for the dragon throne. 

The Emperor, no doubt high and mighty with all the power and influence of the world, stern with the ability to instill fear into the toughest of men. However, he is still a father and no parent should go through the loss of their child.   

“It is entirely possible that the blue cloth contained scab or pus from an infected person.” Elizabeth said.

“That’s murder of the highest degree!” I raged, folding my arms behind my back and paced around in circles in front of Elizabeth. I thought of the giggles of the Crown Prince and the laughter Mother Empress had when she tickled the infant. The priceless bliss and the bright pure joy that the infant had brought to the palace.

Feeling the blood rising within me to boiling levels, “What cold heart who could kill without a blade and in such a cruel way with a torturous death!” and with a flick of my robes, I paused my steps and coldly, I said; “The baby is innocent! I’ll hunt down the suspicious nanny and the mastermind.”

Elizabeth stopped me. 

“It would rattle the hornet’s nest and alarm the snake.” she said.

Her words brought my mind into clarity. Indeed, the crafty mastermind would not leave any clues behind. The fact that they had retrieved the blue cloth from the charcoal burner is proof that whoever they are, chances are, the nanny might also be dead to prevent a loose tongue.