The Virologist

By Steve Bailey

Dr. Li sat in the hospital cafeteria and consumed his bowl of noodles and broth with little interest. He had been on duty for eighteen hours and was looking forward to the end of his shift when he could go home and spend the next four days playing with his children and making love to his young wife. He looked older than his forty-two years. His hair, pushed back on his head, was a mix of gray and black. His long narrow face was already showing lines. He wore frameless glasses with oval lenses. 

Dr. Li heard voices behind him talking in a foreign language. When he recognized they were medical students from Japan on an exchange program, he felt a rage within him grow. Japanese people should not be allowed in China, he thought. He had been to the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. He saw the gruesome pictures and read the accounts of random killings, including macabre beheading contests with samurai swords. There were pictures of the murdered and stories of multiple brutal rapes performed by Japanese soldiers to relieve their boredom. Japanese soldiers inflicted their cruelty on everyone, children included. Pictures of Chinese babies floating face down in the Yangtze River stayed in his head for weeks. Dr. Li hated Japan and the Japanese people.

A page over the public address pulled his thoughts back to the hospital cafeteria. The coded message for Dr. Li directed him to the isolation ward for patients with highly contagious and dangerous diseases. Dr. Li took a couple more bites of his lunch and prepared to leave. As he walked towards the cafeteria door, he disposed of the remains of his lunch in a large trash can, picked up a house phone on the wall near the exit, and notified the operator he was on his way. The second broadcast on the public address ended abruptly.

In the hallway, a cluster of interns in their white coats stood in a circle, consulting each other. As Dr. Li approached, they all turned towards him and, bowing deeply, made formal greetings. He was the hospital’s leading virologist and deserving of their respect. He nodded in their direction and proceeded to the nurse’s station.

“Dr. Chen ordered the page, sir,” The duty nurse informed him. “He is waiting for you in station seven.”

Dr. Li entered the isolation preparation room and donned the hazmat outfit that was a part of his daily life. He had spent many hours in suits like it, examining and treating patients and tracking the path of viruses. 

Dr. Chen said nothing as Li entered station seven but handed him the latest lab reports of the 35-year-old patient lying beside him. Dr. Li looked at the cadaverous face partially covered by an oxygen mask and tape holding tubes that went into the mouth. Then, still holding the report, he walked over to the computer screen and brought up the images from the slides of the blood tests.

“Have you run a second test to confirm your results?” he asked Dr. Chen, his eyes locked on the screen.

“Yes, sir,” his assistant responded. “That report is from the second test. It was just like the first. He is not responding to any treatment, and his organs show signs of shutting down.”

Dr. Li moved the three-dimensional images around, expanding and contracting them. He watched closely as the pictures of the cells rotated slowly in front of him. His face began to take on a grave look. 

After several minutes of watching the cells and referring to the patient notes, Li pulled up a word processor and prepared a report to send to the Center for Disease Control And Prevention. When finished, he compiled it along with the video footage of the blood work into a secure file. He then used a hospital phone to call the center. When the phone emitted a low whistling sound, Li punched in his personal identification number.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Li,” a cheerful voice said at the other end.

“Hello, Chunhua. I need a security code for the center.”

“Yes, sir. One moment.” There was a pause, and when the young female voice came back on the line, she rattled off a string of numbers and letters that Li quickly copied down on a post-it.  

“Thank you, Chunhua,” he said into the receiver.

“Bao Zhong Dr. Li.”

The expert on contagious diseases returned to the computer and brought up the government site for ranking physicians. After he entered the code provided, the first prompt asked:

“What is the threat level?”

Li responded.

“Extreme!”

“Upload your data.”

Dr. Li uploaded his report and video and immediately signed off. He destroyed the post-it with the code. 

“Where is this patient from?” he asked his assistant.

“He is a Uyghur who showed up here with symptoms of the SAR virus. When it turned out that wasn’t what infected him, our emergency doctors sent him to us.” Dr. Chen replied. “He became unconscious while under their care and has not come around since arriving here. He has no papers, so we don’t know his name.” 

“This is bad. Without this information, we have no idea how many people he has infected. You have done all you can for this man.” Dr. Li said, tapping the report still in his hand. “The best we can do right now is to find out as much as feasible about this virus.”

The two men spent the rest of the afternoon extracting samples from the dying Uyghur and hunching over their microscopes. There was nothing good in what they found. Instead, their research revealed that it was a virus like no other in its capacity to spread and kill. At the end of that afternoon, Dr. Li filed another report to the Chinese Center for Disease Control And Prevention and headed home for his four-day break.

***

Lunch at home was far more enjoyable than lunch in the hospital cafeteria. The food was much better, and he loved the company. He joked and teased his children and flirted with his wife. When the meal had finished, Dr. Li helped his wife clear the dishes and then stretched out on his living room sofa to catch a postprandial nap. 

He watched his children play with their toys on the living room floor. It was a small apartment, but his family lived comfortably in it. Someday, he told his wife, they would get a bigger place. Unfortunately, many “somedays” had come and gone, and this promise remained unfulfilled. 

As his eyes grew heavy, they fell upon the small altar his wife had created for her three favorite gods, Fuk god of health and good luck, Luk god of financial success, and Sau, the god of longevity. Dr. Li thought belief in gods was superstitious and silly. But his wife’s rituals to these three ancient deities, with her silent prayers and incense, endeared him to her. Most everything she did endeared him to her. He smiled as he slid off to sleep. 

 In his dream, a different spiritual being appeared. It was a Fangxiangshi, an ancient god who exorcized the demons that cause sickness. With four eyes on its sizable red face and fangs poking out of its mouth, the Fangxiangshi danced around Dr. Li’s laboratory and smashed his equipment using a three-pronged spear. Suddenly soldiers from the Red Army appeared and began shooting at the Fangxiangshi, who collapsed on the floor and disappeared. The soldiers then pointed their rifles and fired at Dr. Li. At that moment, he awoke to the sound of his ringing telephone. It was Dr. Chen.

“I hate to bother you on your time off, sir, but something extraordinary just happened.”

Still groggy, Dr. Li tried to keep both sleep and irritation out of his voice.

“What is it, Chen?”

“Officials from the Ministry of State Security just came and took away the Uyghur with the virus. No explanation, just demanded we turn the unidentified man over to them.”

“The Ministry of State Security never has to give a reason,” Dr. Li replied. “There was nothing you could do about it. I hope you didn’t try to resist.”

“Of course not. That would be foolish.”

“Was the man alive?”

“Barely. Honestly, he surprised me by surviving the night.”

“I will make some inquiries,” Li said.

The two doctors hung up, and Dr. Li dialed the number of a friend at the Center for Disease Control And Prevention. Zhang Wei went to medical school with Dr. Li. He left partway through to finish his education in the United States. Because Zhang Wei was such a common name, he asked his friends to call him by the name he used in America, Bobby.

“Li!” the voice on the other end exclaimed. “Good to hear from you. How is your family?”

“Good, Bobby and your loved ones are well, I trust. I wonder if you heard about the new virus we encountered at the hospital.”

“You know that stuff is confidential right?”

“Yes, Bobby. But goons from the Ministry of State Security took my patient away, and I was hoping to autopsy him when he died to learn more about the disease. Do you know why they took him? Do you think I can get him back?”

“Goons? Be careful how you speak about those people, Li. Yes, I did hear about that. Your patient was a Uyghur escapee from one of the internment camps in Xinjiang. No, I don’t think you can get him back. He is not here at the center. No one here knows where they took him. Judging from the ranks of the people from the Ministry hanging around here now, this is big.” 

Dr. Li could sense that the subject made Bobby uncomfortable, so he changed, and the two spent a few minutes catching up on each other’s lives before the conversation ended. Li sat back on the couch when it did and stared at the three gods. 

Something didn’t fit. The only information sent to the center was data about the virus. The virologist sent no information about the patient. So how did the Ministry people know the Uyghur was in the hospital unless they knew about the virus? 

Dr. Li knew little about the Uyghurs. He knew they were not Han like he and most Chinese people. They were Turkic Muslims living in the far western region of the country. The government was very secretive about what they were doing to the Uyghurs, but everyone knew about the camps in Xinjiang. As far as Dr. Li could discern, Uyghurs were locked up because they were not Han.

“You look like you are waiting for my little gods to give you an answer to something,” his wife said, coming up behind him from the kitchen. “What is on your mind, dear husband?”

Dr. Li stood and turned towards her. “It’s just work.”

“You are on your break now,” she said, her face expressing a faux pout.

“Yes, I need a distraction,” he said, looking at the bedroom with a sly grin.

She smiled back at him. “I know. That is why I sent the children to visit their aunt for a couple of hours.”

Dr. Li expected his hiatus from work to be ephemeral, and calls from the hospital as cases of this new virus came pouring in through the emergency room door would force him back to work. That did not happen. He expected the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to request blood and tissue samples, but Dr. Chen said that did not happen either. The virologist watched the television for news about the virus, but there was none. He thought it alarming that no warnings from the center suggested preventive measures for citizens or procedures citizens should follow if they showed symptoms. 

When his wife and children were out of the apartment, Li called the major hospitals in every province between Xinjiang Province and his hospital in Shanghai. There were no cases of a virus as he described it. Even viruses that remain hidden after infection would manifest symptoms by this time. He wondered if this was some strange isolated event or if something was wrong with his equipment. No, the Ministry of State Security had taken his patient for some reason. 

 Returning to work, Dr. Li found his colleagues doing their quotidian tasks as if nothing unusual had happened. The hospital administrators had made no changes in preparation for the onslaught of patients Li expected from this virus. He stopped by the emergency room and tried to extract more information about the Uyghur. 

“The police found him and brought him to us. Other than that, we know nothing about him,” one of the emergency room doctors told the virologist. 

Dr. Li rifled through the emergency room files and found the police report, copied the names and identification numbers of the two policemen, and sought them out at their precinct house. Neither one would tell him anything, and his questions made them nervous.

“Did someone tell you not to talk about this man?” Dr. Li asked.

They did not answer but gave him a telling look. Eventually, one of them responded with

“Doctor, this is police business and none of your concern.”

Dr. Li took that and the facial expressions to mean, “Yes, and it was people from the Ministry of State Security.” 

He thanked them, returned to the hospital, and invited Dr. Chen to join him in a lounge for tea. Dr. Li shared what little information he had gathered as the two physicians sat across from each other at a small table. Chen offered a theory:

“Perhaps the Uyghur did not manifest any symptoms before he arrived in Shanghai, and the virus is only contagious when symptoms are present. But, of course, given what we know about the nature of these types of viruses, that is unlikely.”

“What is more likely,” Dr. Li responded, putting his teacup down on the table, “is a virus with a longer than usual incubation period, and there are people out there infected that have yet to show symptoms. Unless the Uyghur flew over here, which I seriously doubt, the journey would have taken him more than the normal incubation period, so others would be showing symptoms by now.”

“I read somewhere that Russian scientists were experimenting with genetic engineering to extend the viral incubation period as part of a biological warfare project. That way, they could infect the enemy over a longer period without the enemy knowing. The Russian government, of course, denied the story,” Dr. Chen took a sip of his tea and waited for his boss to respond. 

“Genetic engineering would explain many things about this virus,” Dr. Li said. “I hope that is not the case. Germ warfare is stupid. The virus will find its way back to the attacking country. There is no proven way to prevent that. No matter how hard you try to shut down borders and limit travel, a virus can get in and, once there, spread fast.”

The two men sat in silence. A nurse came in to heat her tea in the communal microwave.

“Did you all hear about the Uyghurs?” She asked the doctors. The microwave made a beeping sound as she punched in the numbers.

The two men looked at the nurse and shook their heads.

“The government just announced they are deporting two hundred from those internment camps in Xinjiang. The news said they were all incorrigible criminals. Various relief agencies in the United States and Western Europe are willing to take them in. Maybe I should become an incorrigible criminal so the government will pay my way to the United States!” 

She turned towards the two men, and her smile promptly faded when she saw the startled look on their faces. She mistakenly thought they were reacting to her comment.

“I was only joking. Really, I love it here.”

She took her cup of tea from the microwave and quickly left the room. The two men looked back at each other. They thought the same thing, but Dr. Chen waited for Dr. Li to say it. He did, in a low and trembling voice.

“It all comes together now. Someone in the government decided to apply what your Russian scientist had planned. It is why The Ministry of State Security is involved, taking away the Uyghur and silencing the police. They have the power to silence the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and keep our hospital from implementing epidemic protocols. It explains why there is no news about this virus or warning for citizens. If word got out that we had the threat of a new viral epidemic, none of those countries would accept the Uyghurs. The government has already infected them, but there will be no evidence of the disease until they have been in these host countries for a while. By then, it will be too late. It is germ warfare!”

“It will be a pandemic of awful proportions!” Chen looked panic-stricken, “Imagine what this virus will do when it gets to the United States!”

Dr. Li shook his head. “Judging from how the Americans handled the last pandemic, this could be the one that puts them down for good. That is probably the thinking of the people in government who came up with this scheme.”

“What should we do?” 

“I say we research this as much as we can so science can find a path for a vaccine. In the meantime, we must find a way to warn the rest of the world and protect our loved ones. This germ warfare strategy has already backfired, thanks to the actions of our missing patient. We have no idea how far it has spread here in China already.”

That evening Dr. Li called his friends and reminded them to use hand-cleaning precautions and recommended face masks as protection against air pollution. Of course, his friends knew what this really meant. He was warning them that a new virus was around.

 Dr. Li attempted to use social media to contact associates from other countries he had met at conferences but found his email account blocked. The government was limiting his access and monitoring everything he did online. A chill ran down his spine when he realized the Ministry could label him “an enemy of the Communist Party.” The Uyghurs were not the only people the Chinese government incarcerated for political reasons.

It was late when he finally went to bed. His wife was already asleep. Her three little gods appeared in the doctor’s dream. First, Luk spun madly about both hands pressed against his chubby cheeks and a look of alarm in his eyes. Behind him, the Shanghai and New York Stock Exchange boards showed all the stocks plummeting to zero value. Next, Fuk appeared, and a shadowy figure with a Jian, an ancient double edge Chinese sword, beheaded him. Sau walked in a graveyard that stretched around the world. 

Dr. Li awoke before dawn soaked in sweat. His wife was already awake.

“You were very troubled in your sleep last night,” she said. “And you don’t look very well right now. So, you should stay home and rest. You work too hard, my dear husband.”

He was about to dismiss her suggestion and tell her he had important work to do at the laboratory. But he realized that he and Dr. Chen were just about at the limit of what they could do to fight the virus without more people and more resources.  

“You are right,” he told his wife. “I will call and let Chen know I’m not coming in today.”

Dr. Chen did not answer his phone, and Li left him a message. 

He was about to doze off again when his phone rang. It was Bobby.

“Good morning, Li,” he said in a strained voice. “I have a friend I would like you to meet, and I am sending him to your office this morning.”

“Hello, Bobby. I am not in my office today. Who is the friend?”

“He is someone I think will be extremely important to you. May I send him over to your apartment?”

This was not like Bobby at all. So, Dr. Li figured he better comply with his friend’s request.

“Sure. Send him over.”

Dr. Li gave up on returning to sleep, showered, put on some fresh clothes, and had a cup of tea. He declined the breakfast his wife offered to make. Half an hour after he hung up the phone, there was a knock on the apartment door. When he opened it, he saw a small man in a dark suit.

“I am called Hysoka,” the man said with a bow. 

He had a pronounced foreign accent, and Dr. Li’s body stiffened when he recognized it was Japanese. His face turned to stone. He did not introduce himself. Undaunted by the silence, Hysoka continued.

“I am a virologist from the University of Tokyo Hospital. We met once at an international conference where you presented the most interesting paper on SARS. May I come in?”

Dr. Li remembered the conference. The man looked faintly familiar. He had met many people at that conference, and this man could have been one of them. He would not have given him any time, though. So why did Bobby insist he see this man? Dr. Li stood to one side and waved the small man into his apartment. As soon as Li closed the door, Hysoka began to speak again. His Mandarin was passable, even with the accent.

“You and your family are in danger; Dr. Li. Men from the Ministry of State Security are waiting for you at the hospital. When you do not show up, they will come for you here. Your colleague Dr. Chen came to work early this morning. They apprehended him and took him away.”

Dr. Li was shocked. “But why? We have disclosed nothing about their germ warfare.”

“So that’s what this is about,” Hysoka responded. “Bobby wouldn’t tell me all the details, just that you needed to leave the country. My government is looking for talented virologists, and none are more skilled than you. I can get you to Japan through our embassy, but we must leave soon. Bobby is at the hospital trying to delay the Ministry’s men but can’t do that for long.”

A sense of guilt came over Dr. Li. He knew he needed the safety Hysoka offered him and his family. But living among the Japanese went against so much of his beliefs. Any country but Japan, he thought. The pictures from the museum in Nanjing flashed through his head. Would he not betray the memory of those who died in Nanjing if he left with Hysoka? 

Hysoka sensed Dr. Li’s angst. He had been in China long enough to know when the sins of his country’s past were impeding decision-making.

“We are not the same people we were back then,” he said softly. “We will never be those people.” 

Dr. Li looked over at the three gods. If he stayed in China, good health and luck, financial success, and longevity were not in his future. Maybe they would be in Japan. He looked into the faces of his wife and children and told them the situation. 

“Dear husband,” his wife replied, “my place is always with you.” The children nodded their heads in agreement with their mother. He had his answer.

“Pack quickly,” he ordered. “We must leave soon.”

For the next ten minutes, the apartment was a scene of pandemonium as family members raced about gathering items they wanted to take with them. When Dr. Li saw his wife looking wistfully at the three little gods, he told her to bring them along.

“We are going to need all the luck we can get,” he told her.

Hysoka’s phone rang in his coat pocket. He listened to the voice on the other end and announced.

“That was Bobby. He just saw the Ministry’s men leave the hospital. We need to go now.”

Dr. Li and his family loaded their possessions and themselves into a black SUV Hysoka had for them. As it began to pull out from the curb, three official government sedans and two police cars came down the road. The police cars attempted to block the SUV, but Hysoka quickly put the vehicle in reverse and went down the street backward. He then turned onto an intersecting road and drove the Li family to the Japanese embassy with the government cars chasing him. The embassy gates were open, expecting his arrival, and the SUV made it safely inside. 

Dr. Li and his family applied for asylum, which the Japanese government readily provided. Then they flew the Chinese family to Tokyo, where the University of Tokyo Hospital arranged an apartment much larger than the one they left.

The first thing Dr. Li did in his new job as a senior virologist was to call for an emergency meeting of ranking members of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare. He provided Japan with updated information on the new virus that would soon bring about a pandemic.

As they settled into their new home, Dr. Li’s wife put her shrine with the three gods in the living room and smiled.

“You promised us a bigger home, dear husband, and here it is.”

Dr. Li connected his laptop to the building’s WIFI and located the online version of China’s state-controlled news, The People’s Daily. It had a story about the Uyghurs.

“All the deported Uyghurs say they are happy in their new homes and appreciate how our government took such good care of them. They are anxious to have their families join them. Government officials say they will release family members for deportation after completing necessary medical procedures. All major industrialized countries are taking our Uyghurs except Japan.”

The People’s Daily did not report anything about the sudden virus outbreak in every province from Xinjiang to Shanghai. Dr. Li found a Chinese edition of The New York Times. On page five was a story about an immigrant from China with an unidentifiable illness. The American CDC said it was not of any concern.

Steve Bailey is a retired history teacher. For the last three years, he has been a freelance writer. His work has appeared in The Bookends Review, Commuter Lit, Outlook by the Bay, and others. A complete list is on his website, vamarcopolo.com. Steve lives in Richmond, Virginia.