Chapter Text
Class was dismissed. The students filtered out of the lecture hall, and Van Helsing raised the eraser to the notes on the blackboard.
“Excuse me, Professor?”
It was John Seward. His English student.
Van Helsing turned around. John was still seated with his casebook opened on the desk in front of him.
“Yes?”
“Would you mind letting the board stand for a few minutes? I haven’t written it all down,” John said.
“Of course.”
He watched as John continued writing in his casebook, his eyes occasionally flickering up to the blackboard. John was his most diligent student, taking care of every detail. He would make a very fine doctor.
Van Helsing was rather fond of him; he always asked a lot of questions, unafraid to look ignorant in his quest for knowledge. He often stayed behind after class with a list of questions gathered during the lesson, although it was not unusual for their conversations to stray and peter out into friendly conversation over a cup of tea in Van Helsing’s study. He had a most interesting mind, with many novel ideas.
John closed his book, then looked up and smiled at him.
“All done,” he said.
Van Helsing smiled back, then started erasing the board while John packed up his belongings.
He caught sight of him again when John was nearing the door, and he was loath to see him go. There had been a thought in his mind, swirling, and he decided to put it into words.
“John?” he called out, stopping the young man in his tracks. “Do you have scheduled something for the afternoon?”
“I do not,” John said.
“It is a fine day; I want to go for a walk,” Van Helsing explained, gesturing toward the tall windows where the warm September sun was filtering through. “Will you walk with me? We have things to discuss.”
John agreed immediately.
Amsterdam was beautiful that time of the year; the trees were just starting to shift from green to yellow, and the weather was still mild. The dark waters than ran through the city reflected their surroundings more clearly than in the summertime.
“What was it you wanted to discuss with me?” John asked as they started promenading alongside a canal.
“Yes, I have an offer. One of my students, his name is Pierre Sauvé, will conduct a surgery on a living subject the coming week. I am supervising, but I often invite two students to assist, if you are willing,” Van Helsing explained.
It was a bit early still for John to assist at surgeries with living subjects, but he knew that exceptional students should be picked up and encouraged, and John was exceptional indeed.
“Oh, you want me to-? Yes! Of course!” The words spilled out of John’s mouth, betraying his excitement, and he caught himself. “Thank you. I’m glad that you thought of me.”
“John, you are the best student of your class,” Van Helsing said and reached over to pat his shoulder. “The choice was with no question to it.”
“If I may ask, who is the other assisting student?” John asked.
“Herman Rijnders, he is your senior by some years.”
“Oh, yes, I know him. We are both boarding at Tomas Andreas. Although I have not spoken with him at length.”
“Hmm.”
Van Helsing knew that Herman did not speak much English, but that was hardly unusual for his students, Dutch or otherwise; in Amsterdam, students gathered from all over Europe, all of them connected by French and German. John’s grasp on both languages was acceptable, but it nonetheless created a barrier between him and his peers.
Van Helsing believed John found solace in another English speaker, and since the university was hard-pressed for British students at the moment, he would have to do. Luckily, John’s presence provided him with an opportunity to stretch the muscles of his unused English tongue. John had been surprised at first, like he had expected everyone on the continental side of Europe to exclusively speak French and German. Or, since Van Helsing was an educator, Greek and Latin. When Van Helsing had told him that he’d studied in London himself, a glimmer of recognition had flickered in his eyes as Van Helsing became his de facto countryman during his stay in this strange land.
As they walked, John turned his face towards the sun.
“The light here is fantastic,” he said. “Very different from London.”
“Oh?” Van Helsing urged, giving him a questioning look.
“I mean, don’t misunderstand me,” he continued. “London is also very beautiful, in its own way, with how the sunset mixes with the fog from the factories… but here, the light is so clear, it’s almost blinding. I feel like I woke up on the first day of Creation.”
As he spoke, the long beams of the autumn sun caught him and turned his skin golden. Van Helsing had to look away.
When John had arrived from England months prior, he’d been pale. With his hair dark and eyes grey like a winter sky, he had looked ghastly in his contrasts. Now, he had gathered some Dutch sun beneath his skin, and it had softened his visage with a modest tan. Still, there were shadows under his eyes, and Van Helsing had overheard some of the other students comment that they heard John pace in his room at night. He clearly had trouble sleeping, and Van Helsing wondered if homesickness was the culprit.
“Do you miss London?” he asked.
“Yes,” John confirmed, “although I must confess that I am growing to like Amsterdam a lot. It is a very charming city.”
But he was holding back; Van Helsing could see beyond his politeness, and decided to stop beating around the bush.
“John, is there something wrong?” he asked.
“Why do you ask, Professor?”
“I heard the other students speak of you, that you are up at all hours of night and day. They hear you walking around; ‘de wandelaar’, is what they call you. It means ‘the wanderer’,” Van Helsing said.
John ducked his head, embarrassed.
“I never meant to bother them,” he said, but Van Helsing dismissed his words with a wave of his hand.
“Pfft, never mind them. Why are you walking the Earth like restless Cain in your room?”
“It’s nothing,” John insisted. “I do not sleep well, but it is nothing new. Insomnia has plagued me since I was a boy.”
“Ah, I see,” Van Helsing said, his mind already working. “This insomnia, she comes in periods, or is she constant? Is she dependant on the seasons, or the different weathers, the way the full moon drive men to lunacy, and the whiff of thunder give people an ache behind their eyes?”
“Are you attempting to diagnose me, Professor?” John asked, a small smile on his lips.
“Hush, my boy, and answer the question.”
“I cannot possibly do both.”
“You shouldn’t tease an old man, John,” Van Helsing said.
John gave him a sideways glance.
“You’re not that old,” he said, then cleared his throat. “No, it’s not bound to any discernible pattern. I am simply lucky if I manage to fall asleep easily every day of a single week.”
“Have you tried pharmacological aid?”
“Morphia, at times, as well as laudanum. They are, ah, effective, but I do not much care for the veil it leaves behind. It would not allow me to focus on my studies, should I use them regularly.”
Van Helsing was momentarily overcome with fondness for him and his diligent ways. Of course John was the kind of man who would sacrifice his sleep for his studies; the devotion he had to knowledge reminded Van Helsing of his own, although it was still in the budding stage.
“I understand,” he said. “And your studies, is that to what you devote yourself when sleep will not come? Is that why you wander?”
“Yes,” John said. “Or, it is part of it. I have a lot of thoughts – of my studies, naturally, but also… other things. The future, the past. Home. Myself, and my heart.” He huffed out a small laugh, as if he had said too much. “There are a lot of them, and they stumble over each other, falling down in a scuffle, and it is difficult for me to sort them. And I pace when I am sorting them, as it helps me focus.”
“Ah! Sorting, classifying… You have the mind of a true scientist, like Linnaeus who wanted to take the whole world and submit it to his catalogue!”
John seemed pleased by the comparison.
“Do you write a diary?” Van Helsing asked.
“I do not. Why?”
“Some people find it to be soothing. They put down all the stumbling thoughts onto a paper, and it brings clarity to them.”
John looked intrigued.
“I have never considered it,” he admitted. “It is an excellent idea; I shall try it at once.”
They had walked for quite a bit, and Van Helsing knew of a paper shop not far away.
“Come,” he told John, lightly grasping his elbow and steering him towards the busier streets.
“Where are we going?” John asked, but didn’t protest against Van Helsing leading him.
“You will see,” he evaded with a mischievous smile.
A bell jingled as they entered the paper shop. The shopkeeper greeted them from behind the counter.
“I aim to have you equipped,” Van Helsing told John.
John stole a furtive glance around the shop.
“I did not bring my purse,” he said.
“Not to worry. It will be a gift,” Van Helsing said.
John looked taken aback.
“Professor, I can not possibly accept–”
“Nonsense!” Van Helsing interrupted. “Is a professor not allowed to gift a simple notebook to his pet student?”
John flushed at his words.
“Go on,” he urged. “Choose one that you are liking.”
John forewent the fine leather journals and instead opted for a modest one bound in blue linen cloth. With one hand, he held it to his chest for the rest of their walk.
~
Over the rest of the week, Van Helsing did not see much of John; he travelled to Prague to give a few guest lectures and to confer with fellow researchers, and did not return until the day before Pierre Sauvé was set to conduct his surgery. However, when he saw him again, John did not look quite as haggard as he had before. Van Helsing wondered if the diary had helped – if John had even employed it – and was itching to ask him about it, but this was not the time for it: the surgery was about to embark, and it was quite the urgent one at that.
A railway worker had a gangrenous infection in his hand that he had let spread more than he should have; by now, his lower arm was shifting to a dark colour. Pierre would perform a debridement surgery to remove the diseased tissue, with John and Herman assisting. Van Helsing himself would instruct and supervise.
They gathered in the operating room and cleaned themselves thoroughly, and while Van Helsing and Pierre moved on to sterilise the instruments, John and Herman sanitised the patient. The man groaned as they washed his arm, which was a good sign; if sensation had left his arm, they might’ve had to amputate.
Pierre drew up morphia in a syringe and injected it, and the man gratefully dropped off into unconsciousness.
And then they began. Pierre cut into the decaying tissue, at times explaining what he was doing. He wrinkled his nose, clearly displeased by the putrid smell; Van Helsing saw a similar disgust on the faces of John and Herman.
The surgery was going well, but it took time to carefully separate the bad flesh from the good, and assessing which was which.
“Professor, how should I cut here?” Pierre asked as he encountered sinews.
The area was tricky; one wrong stroke and the man’s arm would end up useless.
“Over here,” Van Helsing said, reaching out his hand to show the safest way.
There was a light sheen of sweat on Pierre’s face, his anxiety palpable – and disastrous.
It happened in the blink of an eye, so swiftly that it took a moment for Van Helsing to process it, even as it happened right before his eyes. Pierre’s knife, wet with blood and gangrene from the patient, sliced into his hand.
The pain was inconsequential, but the horror was acute.
“Nom de Dieu!” Pierre cried out, his voice too loud in the otherwise quiet room. “Oh, Professor, I am so sorry, please forgive me!”
Before Van Helsing could reply, or make a move to do anything about the filthy wound that now marred him, John stepped up and grabbed his arm. He lifted it to his lips and closed his mouth over the wound.
It took a moment for Van Helsing to realise what he was doing, but then he felt John sucking. He was sucking at the wound, sucking the filth of the knife, of the patient’s transferred sickness, sucking the tainted blood from his veins. Van Helsing watched him, astonished.
Then, John removed his mouth and spat on the floor to rid himself of the poisoned blood that had filled his mouth.
Everyone stared at him.
“We should see about getting that disinfected,” he said easily. “Where’s the phenol?”
And here, Van Helsing saw in him the true workings of a great doctor. Taking initiative and steering a tense situation; his thoughts solely on his patients – now two, the railway worker and Van Helsing – without acknowledging the heroic act he had just performed.
“Yes,” Van Helsing agreed, “and we will also be having your mouth disinfected.”
He and John stepped aside, while Pierre and Herman continued the surgery with even more care than before.
“Make sure you are washing your mouth properly, John,” he instructed while disinfecting the wound on his hand.
Obediently, John gurgled the liquid thoroughly and made a face as he spat it out, this time in the offal bucket.
What had he been thinking?
Van Helsing couldn’t help but be grateful though; his wound looked pristine even before he started cleaning it. Had the pollution been allowed to linger, perhaps it would have taken hold of him.
When he had finished cleaning his wound, he found John already holding out a roll of gauze for him. He took it and started wrapping his hand.
Afterwards, when the surgery had been completed with no further incident and the patient had been moved to a different room to recover, their little crew of doctors were washing up. Pierre was the most affected, both physically and mentally; blood from the patient had splashed on his clothes, and he felt terrible about having cut Van Helsing, even though he assured him that with John’s swift help, he was fine.
All in all, the surgery had been a success, and with some practice Pierre would overcome his nerves. Still, he was in dire need of a glass of brandy, which Van Helsing overheard Herman suggest in a low voice as he comforted him.
Van Helsing turned his attention to John, who was disposing of the rag he’d used to clean himself up. He walked up to him.
“John…” he started, unsure what to say. Part of him wanted to chastise him for such a dangerous action, but in his heart, he felt a deep gratitude. “Thank you.”
John looked him in the eyes, searching, as if he was trying to find something there.
“I- of course, Professor. Don’t mention it,” he said, with a warm tenderness.
Then, a horrible thought entered Van Helsing’s mind.
“I hope it is not for the notebook,” he said.
Now, John’s eyebrows furrowed, replacing all the tenderness in his face with confusion.
“I am not following,” he stated.
“I hate the idea that you are believing you have to repay me for it, and that is why you felt compelled to endanger yourself for me,” Van Helsing explained.
John merely smiled at him.
“I am very glad for the notebook, and I wish to thank you for it properly,” he started, “but it had no bearing on my actions. I would have done the same even if you had caned me like a schoolboy.”
Van Helsing chuckled, relieved, and amused by the image of John as a naughty schoolboy in need of punishment. He could not imagine it; he was not a gambling man, but he would bet that John had been the darling of all his teachers.
“I never would,” he said.
With his uninjured hand, he reached out and grasped John’s.
“You are my favourite student, and you will be a fine doctor. But for what you today have done for me, I beg to also call you my friend.”
“There will be no question of it,” John said. “I’m honoured.”
Van Helsing smiled at him, and squeezed his hand.
“No, friend John, I am the one who is honoured.”
And he was. John was young, but he was good, and Van Helsing didn’t doubt for a moment that he would like to hold his friendship close to his heart for a long time.