Songs for the End of the World

by Saleema Nawaz

  Emma makes no answer. She stops her restless pacing through the static rooms of the apartment and returns to the couch. The baby is calm and watchful from her bassinet. The mid-morning light floods the room. Emma holds the phone to her ear and stretches out her legs, which have begun to cramp. There is a flat purple throw cushion wedged underneath her right shoulder blade, probably exactly under her Dove Suite tattoo, which she keeps forgetting is there, like a ghost clinging to her back.

  Eventually, she sleeps.

  * * *

  Nights are harder because that was when it started. The phone rang in the middle of the night. It was the sister of the nanny they’d interviewed and hired before the baby was born. The sister said Bernadette was in the hospital with ARAMIS.

  “I don’t know how much time y’all spent together last week. But before she got real bad she asked me to call. Wasn’t sure how you’d be doing with the baby about to come and all.”

  Emma had thanked her and hung up the phone. She felt the need to pee even though she’d already gotten out of bed twice. She was thirty-six weeks pregnant.

  “Bernadette has it,” she said to Stu, who’d clicked on the light. He looked ashen.

  “That’s not good,” he said.

  * * *

  The darkness wakes her around nine. In the darkness she doesn’t sleep but feels free, as though she might be anywhere. Staying in one place doesn’t feel as good as she once thought it would. Not anymore.

  Imagine not being in a band. Imagine a regular job. Imagine being a barista. But people do that for the money. It would be stupid to take a job just to feel normal. To have something else to think about.

  Stu would say it is a job. Your job. A job you like. Just think about it that way.

  And it’s not like the job was easy. Not even close. So much online gossip and jealous rumours. And worst of all was the blowback from the benefit concert in Canada. One of the features published on Stu last month by a snarky online rag was subtitled Instant karma?

  Blaze cries and Emma sits up. Cradling her, she goes to look for her laptop.

  * * *

  A day after the phone call, Emma came down with a fever. The thermometer gave a tinny beep to announce its reading, and Stu said, “A hundred and four.” A hundred and four was bad.

  Emma had her hands on her belly. She couldn’t think of anything to say besides I’m sorry, so she didn’t say it.

  “I can’t tell,” said Stu, “if my legs are shaking out of fear, or if I’m sick, too.”

  It was after midnight when they agreed Emma should go to the hospital. She was starting to cough and was too dizzy to even sit up. But Stu said he felt too shaky to drive, so he called them an ambulance.

  In triage, they were both admitted to the hospital as presenting with ARAMIS. Emma saw a nurse fastening Stu’s hospital bracelet to his arm before her eyes fluttered closed. She was on a gurney being followed by several medical residents who were checking online databases for case histories of ARAMIS in women with full-term pregnancies.

  Her lung capacity was already reduced from the pregnancy, so she was ventilated, pumped with antivirals and antibiotics. Then a week and a half went by, her only memory a series of strange dreams. Blaze was delivered by C-section and isolated in quarantine for two days before Emma regained consciousness. The baby’s blood tested positive for antibodies to the virus.

  In another room in the same ward, it might have been the same for Stu—the fever, the weakness, the coma, the dreams—except that his body weakened irrevocably and both lungs were compromised and failed within four days of his being admitted. Eventually, the ventilator was removed and assigned to another patient with a better prognosis. Emma wasn’t there when it happened. She doesn’t know if he was afraid. She never got to say goodbye.

  * * *

  Via the grainy video feed, Ben and Jesse look like they could use some sleep. They almost look old. Or not old, just nearly middle-aged. Old compared to the kids coming up. The little prodigies on YouTube. Just a few months ago, Ben had shown her and Stu a clip of a five-year-old singing “Nessun Dorma.” He was superb.

  “Why do we even bother?” Stu had joked. “Let the next generation take over already.” Ben had laughed and said he was already selling his drum kit on Craigslist.

  These boys, as she calls them. These men. Ben in his faded U2 shirt, half a week’s stubble sprouted unevenly over his neck and chin. Jesse’s usually perfect hair lying flat and dark with grease, the hollows around his eyes nearly purple. Whether they’re her family or her colleagues or both, Emma knows, seeing them, that they’re hurting, too.

  She can tell from the Lone Star flag and the Dixie Chicks poster that Ben and Jesse are together at Jesse’s place. They all live in Texas now, most of the year, but Jesse is the only one of them who can call it his home state.

  “Don’t shut us out, Em,” says Ben.

  “I’m not,” she says. Seeing their anxious faces, she feels a sudden responsibility for making everyone feel better. “How’s your Canadian girlfriend? The long-distance thing going okay?” Ben had started dating Emma’s Vancouver tattoo artist after the benefit concert.

  “Marisol’s good. She’s pretty funny, actually. We Skype a lot.”

  Jesse cuts in. “So the next album, Em. We need to decide what we’re doing.”

  “Do we?”

  “There are all those tracks we’ve already recorded. Hell, some of them are even mixed.”

  Jesse means all the extra songs that didn’t quite make the cut for the fourth album, the one they released before ARAMIS. Not all that long ago, though it feels like an eternity now.

  “They’ll keep,” she says.

  “Maybe. But right now we have momentum.”

  Emma leaves that alone. The band is her and Stu’s band, really. They were never in charge, technically—just actually, factually. Artistically, acoustically. They started it and generated the material, even if they all share the credit. With Stu gone, it should be her band. Her songs. But here they are, crowding her.

  Jesse pulls a scrap of paper out of his back pocket and begins reading out a list of posthumous albums he thinks could be relevant to the process.

  Emma cuts him off before he gets past From a Basement on the Hill. “We already have a way of doing this, guys,” she says.

  “Not without Stu, we don’t.”

  She falls silent.

  Ben says, “It’s just…” She knows he can read the anger on her face. “We need to do something, don’t we? I can’t stand this sitting around. I need to think about something else.”

  She nods. “I get that,” she says. “I do.”

  “Yeah,” says Jesse. “That’s it.” His mouth twitches.

  And Emma realizes he’s afraid. Afraid she’s going to take Stu’s legacy for herself and move on without them.

  * * *

  At the service, her parents seemed almost embarrassed by the weight of their grief. Faye stared at the ground, and Harold clutched the program like a ticket to some faraway place where things weren’t falling apart. They looked shocked and scared, like most of the attendees. If it could happen to Stu, it could happen to anyone. Emma had gotten word that Gertie Coleman, the folk singer whose career Stu had helped resurrect, had died, too. The same week. As the priest read a passage from Isaiah, Faye fiddled with a tennis bracelet while Harold kept an arm around her. Solid, protective. It had comforted Emma to see them. Dom was in the U.A.E., unable to fly in due to border quarantines. And presumably their grandfather had already sought shelter in his secure location, along with all the other wealthy people who had paid to be there, though Emma didn’t know that then.

  Afterwards, Ben had pulled her aside and said, “Do you want to head back with your parents?”

  She’d said, “No, I want to go home.” Her home. And it was true, but at the same time Emma di
dn’t want to be alone with the baby in that huge, soundproof, concrete high-rise. She was still afraid. Of the sickness, of her daughter. Of living without Stu.

  If she screamed, she wanted somebody to know.

  * * *

  After midnight, she calls Domenica. Blaze is in her bassinet, sleeping her restless baby sleep. Emma could watch her all night long.

  “I want you to come here,” says Dom. This has been an ongoing refrain since Stu’s death. Emma knows her sister will never be able to get over the fact that they asked to visit her in Abu Dhabi and she turned them down. Though Domenica can wear guilt as lightly as anyone she knows, for which Emma is grateful, too. She and Stu could probably have travelled anywhere they wanted, pregnancy notwithstanding, and they didn’t. The only person she can really blame is herself.

  “Not now,” says Emma. “But we will.” She imagines Blaze growing older, sitting up, playing with her cousins. Something comes to her as she pictures it, like a small seed of hope blowing in.

  “I’m going to hold you to that.” There is a smile in her sister’s voice. “You’ve always been the brave one, Em.”

  “I can’t be,” she says. “Not anymore.”

  “But don’t you see?” says Dom. “Being brave means you keep going, even when you know how bad things can really get.”

  Emma stands in front of the large dark windows, peering out onto her city that has endured so much suffering. She holds the receiver to her ear, so she can listen to her sister breathing. “Dom,” she says, “will you tell me a story?”

  Her sister begins speaking quietly and without hesitation, spinning a tale of princesses and magic, adversity and fate. She is well practised in delivering stories made to order, with the requisite kind of happy ending.

  There are lights on everywhere; Emma is not the only one awake. If she stands here long enough, morning will come.

  * * *

  —

  The next day, she leaves a message on Ben’s voicemail.

  “I think you’re right,” she says. “This is how we keep him with us.” That isn’t what Jesse talked about, not really, but it’s what Emma needs. She can’t think of another way to stay alive.

  Blaze is strapped to her chest as she gathers up her notebook and a few odd scraps of paper where she’s jotted things down. The home recording studio is the way Stu left it. There are picks scattered on the floor and his blue Coronado is on the guitar stand. Emma’s Korg is in the opposite corner. She unplugs the telephone in the control room and steps into the soundproof booth with her daughter, a melody already at work inside her heart.

  jerichoslanguagecafe.wordpress.com

  Posted by Jer on November 18, 2020 in phrase books

  Hey guys. Sorry for the lack of posting but things have been a bit hectic. We’ve been overrun at the refuge with ARAMIS pets—animals rescued from dead or sick owners who can no longer care for them. We’ve had so many come in we had to start turning them away, although I ended up bringing a few home. That’s really why I’ve been MIA. It’s a long story, but let’s just say it’s causing some ongoing problems with my landlord. I know some of my friends keep tabs on me here and I’m sorry for worrying anyone.

  Anyway, I know there’s a lot going on, but don’t lose faith in keeping up with your practice. The universal language is more important than ever right now. I’ve made a little cheat sheet that could come in handy.

  Peace, Jer

  Useful Esperanto Phrases for the ARAMIS Crisis

  Hello. Nice to meet you. Saluton. Mi ĝojas renkonti vin.

  My name is ________. Mia nomo estas ________.

  Are you hungry? Ĉu vi malsatas?

  Are you thirsty? Ĉu vi soifas?

  Can I help you? Ĉu mi povas helpi vin?

  I have food enough to share. Mi havas sufiĉan manĝaĵon por dividi.

  I know where we can find some clean water. Mi scias, kie ni povas trovi iom da pura akvo.

  There is shelter not far from here. Estas rifuĝo ne malproksime de ĉi tie.

  Let us walk together after dark. Ni iru kune post mallumo.

  HUFFPOST PERSONAL

  12/21/20 9:02 am ET Updated 1 hour ago

  The ARAMIS Girl Speaks

  Xiaolan Fraser

  Guest Writer

  For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt invisible. And at other times, I’ve felt too visible for all the wrong reasons—for the shape of my body, the colour of my skin. But like so many of us, I grew up obsessed by celebrity. I wanted to be the girl who stood out, who drew everyone’s eyes, the one everyone recognized as special. I wanted to be seen, to be somebody.

  Needless to say, I’ve been cured of that desire.

  Yes, I was working as a server at cipolla when Zhihuan Tsiang—the man identified by the World Health Organization as the real index patient—ate there on July 31, but I didn’t get sick. I only became aware of the public health advisory after I left New York City to go back to Lansdowne, where I was attending college. At that point, I self-quarantined myself for the recommended three weeks. I never developed any symptoms. And this was weeks after Mr. Tsiang ate at the restaurant and infected some of the other patrons and staff.

  Later, I did get sick. Very sick. But only after I contracted the virus in Massachusetts in November.

  I was not irresponsible, just unlucky. My actions were not criminal. By the time the insane manhunt caught the attention of people who suspected I might be ARAMIS Girl, I was already in intensive care. My parents were at my bedside, or as close to it as the doctors would let them get. I am grateful to the doctors and nurses at Boston Memorial who helped to keep me alive in spite of all the haters camped out in front of the hospital with signs saying I deserved to go to hell.

  I do regret not coming forward sooner. I was scared of the death threats already circulating online and by what was happening to other Asian Americans across the country. I wish I’d recognized earlier that I might have been able to make a difference, but at a certain point I truly did not know whether coming forward would have made everything better or worse. Maybe I was being a coward.

  For everyone online saying they hope I die of ARAMIS, I hope you never have to learn what it’s like to wake up to find out the entire world hates you. At least my experience has taught me one thing: I’d rather be unknown than infamous.

  ELLIOT

  DECEMBER 2020

  Elliot was listening to his parents argue, except they would have called it a conversation. Gretchen was hunched over her coffee at one end of the kitchen counter, while Frank fiddled with some oatmeal on the stove. Elliot had his laptop open and was trying to keep out of it by avoiding eye contact.

  “It’s just a matter of time before someone infects us,” said Frank. His striped bathrobe sagged open to reveal a white undershirt and flannel pyjama bottoms. “Or before looters break down our door.”

  “Civil society hasn’t quite disintegrated yet,” said Gretchen. Her voice was shaky but still sardonic. “Just because we’re afraid doesn’t mean we should walk out on our lives.”

  “Elliot did,” said Frank.

  Elliot winced but kept his gaze fixed on his screen. After Keelan died, he’d called his parents from the hospital and driven to Lansdowne that same day. Some reflex of retreat had kicked in even before he’d taken the time to question why he was on the highway to Massachusetts. There was, of course, the practical yet not insurmountable problem of his contaminated apartment, but mainly what he’d felt on the road was an overpowering urge to get out of the city itself. After instructing his parents on a few precautions to do with segregating bathrooms and dishware, he quarantined himself in his childhood bedroom for three weeks, taking comfort in the plates of food that appeared at his door and in the sounds of
home carrying on downstairs, feeling halfway between an inmate and an invalid. All things considered, he’d felt cocooned rather than confined during his second isolation. And when the twenty-one days had fully counted down, he’d capitulated to his mother’s uncharacteristically emotional plea and called his supervisor to request one week’s vacation. Through all the mayhem, his captain remembered Elliot had been exposed at the very first infection site. “Enjoy your family,” he’d said. “This isn’t the time to be losing our best men.”

  Gretchen sniffed, and Elliot glanced up to check whether it was a sound of derision, disagreement, or impending tears. These days he couldn’t always be sure.

  “That’s not the same thing at all, Frank. Ell was just here for his quarantine,” she said. No weeping, only dissent. “He has to get back to work in…how long now, honey?”

  Maybe she had noticed the growing shadows under his eyes or the way he continued to avoid discussing his return to New York, but she asked him this same question every day. Elliot had yet to confess it out loud, but his reluctance to go back to the city increased with every passing hour. Now he wondered if his mother had implanted the doubt in the first place and was nourishing it faithfully with her own fears, as though coaxing it to grow. Before answering, he scrutinized her for some such agenda, but she only looked curious, guileless, perhaps forgetful.

  “Three days,” said Elliot finally.

  “So we still have a little time,” said Gretchen. “Three days. Unless of course…”

  “Unless what, Mom?” The only reason to repeat the number was to hammer home the urgency of some sort of decision on his part. It was as though they were each waiting for the other to say it first. “Unless I decide not to go back?”