Dragonfly Girl

by Marti Leimbach

  Weirdly, Vasiliev acts as though none of this violence is taking place. “Are you hungry?” he asks. “Would you like some toast?”

  I can’t think but I start to write just to keep Vasiliev at bay. What gauge needle had I used for the lumbar injection? Twenty-five gauge? One-centimeter length? I don’t want to tell them anything, but I have to tell them everything. And I’m trembling from my toes up.

  “Have you experimented yet with human subjects?” Vasiliev asks.

  Is he kidding? I shake my head.

  “The method will work for people,” he says, as though this is a well-known fact.

  His words chill me. Of course, post-death recovery will eventually work for people. But as Munn said, the ethical questions involved are huge. If we bring people back, it can’t be into a state of profound brain injury, paralysis, or vegetation. I think of Daisy, the rat whose motor skills will never fully recover. And Not Daisy, whose brief moments of consciousness were soon lost again.

  “You mean in the future, right?” I say.

  “Now,” he says.

  Would they bring me rats, then . . . people? Are they insane? But look at them, surrounding me like a pack of wolves. They seem capable of anything.

  I cover my face with my hands. “Rats and human beings metabolize drugs differently,” I say through my fingers. “I wouldn’t even know what to do!”

  “We will begin with rats.”

  “But for all I know, the rats I worked on in the US are dead now,” I say.

  Vasiliev shrugs. “Does not matter.”

  I have an idea. I’ll write down Dmitry’s original protocol. That way, I can make a big show of trying to save them but fail. Maybe this will persuade Vasiliev not to try the procedure with human beings anytime soon.

  But maybe not.

  What if they really are crazy enough to bring me people to work on? I have no choice but to hedge my bets, considering what I need to work on both rats and humans. I begin listing all the drugs, equipment, and papers I need to look at, including as much detail as I can recall. I think hard, blocking out the men before me, moving into the realm of my brain in which I become machinelike, unwavering, processing data from studies I’ve read, working out possibilities. I once described to Dmitry the way I feel when I’m “in the zone” like this, and he told me he was addicted to that feeling. It’s why he plays chess.

  Finally, I review what I’ve written the way I might a set of answers for an exam. “I’ll need additional equipment and drugs once I’ve read the papers listed,” I warn.

  Vasiliev regards the list, squinting from beneath pale, nearly invisible eyebrows. “You won’t have time to read all this information,” he says, taking a bite of toast.

  “I read fast,” I say.

  He grunts. “Very well,” he says stiffly, flicking buttery crumbs from his fingers. He hands the list on to one of the other men, speaking to him in Russian. “We go now.”

  I’m escorted to the bathroom. The door shuts behind me and I hear the men outside guarding it. The bathroom is flooded in places and the sink tap is rusted. No window from which to escape. But at least there is a toilet.

  Then they take me to the cinder block room, which is empty save the mattress and bottled water. I fling myself down onto the mattress, feeling drained.

  There is still no Will.

  I sit for hours listening to the ugly sound of the light humming above me. I must have fallen asleep, because at some point I open my eyes to the man with the scalp tattoos in front of me carrying a tray of borscht, brown bread, and a soft drink that is something like orange soda.

  I’m scared out of my mind at the sight of him.

  He hands me the tray.

  My voice trembles as I say, “I’m not hungry.”

  But he insists I take it.

  Until the research papers arrive, there is nothing to do but eat when food is brought and sleep when they leave me alone. Wait and wait. I lie on the mattress under the thin blanket in my ridiculous dress. This must be what prison is like. Or solitary confinement. I miss my mother so much it feels like a great chunk of me has been carved out. She depends on me for shopping, cleaning, driving. Who will help her now that I’m gone? Lauren is at an internship. She won’t be dropping by as she used to do.

  All that feels so far away. My old life is evaporating, has evaporated. I fight against the sense that it is forever gone, recalling how it felt to be in the woods with Lauren, the concentration on her face as she peers through her binoculars, her joy as she identifies birdcalls. And Dmitry, setting up a chessboard, grinning when I make a clever move. I think of Rik and Chandni, wondering what they will make of my sudden disappearance. Dmitry will be frantic. I know that.

  But more than anything, my thoughts are with Will. If he’s alive he’s as alone as I am. I long to hear his voice; I miss his displays of indifference. They gave me courage while facing all the threats of violence. He got me through the train journey. I need him even more now.

  Hours later, what might be the middle of the night, I wake to a bar of light from the hallway extending as the door opens again. There’s the same man, the one with the scalp tattoos, his body taking up the whole of the doorframe. Leather jacket, jeans, boots. I lurch into a sitting position, my back against the cold cinder blocks. He’s terrifying, but in his hands is another blanket. Also, a pillow, which he holds out now, an offering.

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  In answer, he puts a finger to his lips. Then he leaves.

  The pillow makes it possible to get into a comfortable position. And the blanket is a godsend. At least I’m no longer cold. I lie on the mattress, staring up at the blackness, trying to figure out how to save a person using post-death recovery. It’s a barbaric notion that they’d ask such a thing from me, but I should be ready if they do.

  I wake up at some hourless moment in the day or night, not knowing at first where I am in the darkness. The door opens and I see that the guy with the sweatshirt has changed it for a gray one, almost identical. Behind him is the guy with the scalp tattoos, his face showing none of the kindness it had when he brought me the blanket.

  I’m handed a towel, on top of which is a folded set of surgical scrubs, a small bar of soap, toothpaste, and a toothbrush.

  I’m taken to a changing room with a big drain in the middle of the floor. There’s a row of lockers on one side, a few toilets, and showers with old-fashioned metal showerheads fixed onto the tiles. I feel a rush of joy at the thought of a shower.

  Then I think that this is how they grind you down. Little “luxuries” meted out for good behavior. The last thing I should feel is joy. Or gratitude.

  I peel off my dress, hanging it on a hook on the wall. It looks silly there, a ball gown in a locker room. I step under one of the showerheads. The water is lukewarm. I shiver in the weak spray, but the tiny bar of soap is a luxury so precious to me, I hold it under my nose to sniff before beginning to wash. Gliding it over my shoulders, I can feel days of sweat and dirt dissolve beneath my fingers. I scrub my skin with my fingernails, use up all the soap. I stay in the shower until the water runs cold. Then I turn off the tap, listening to the pipes bang around me.

  The surgical scrubs are big, but at least they are clean. I’ve just tied the waistband when I hear a knock on the door. Time’s up.

  We wander back through the halls. The building is huge and dilapidated: damp patches in the ceiling tiles, brown water stains, cracked glass. Clearly, it was once a well-used laboratory but has been long since abandoned.

  Finally, we reach a room, smaller than a classroom but with a classroom feel to it. At the center is a desk on which breakfast has been laid out: two slabs of dark bread, juice, coffee, and three fat sausages.

  I eat quickly and voraciously, pleading for more, and get another slice of bread. Vasiliev arrives, and with him a cart of research articles and books, pens, and a calculator.

  “We are still sourcing some of the items you have requested. Once we
have located everything, you will perform post-death recovery on our rodents,” he says. “Please check that we’ve brought you all the necessary reading material.”

  “I’d like to see the friend I came with. Will.”

  “He is unable to help us with the procedure,” says Vasiliev. “We were misinformed.”

  “Where is he now?”

  Vasiliev checks his watch, heads for the door.

  “Why won’t you let me see him?” I call.

  But Vasiliev just disappears, leaving me with the articles.

  23

  I FEED MYSELF page after page, swimming in a haze of thoughts and emotions, thinking about the information on the printouts before me, then drifting into worries about what’s going to happen. To me. To Will. I scribble notes, boxing some, drawing arrows to link others. I look around for ways to escape. The sun streams into the room, heating the air so that its antiseptic smell grows heavier. It’s the same sun that shines back home, where I long to be.

  I’m allowed to pace but not to stray too close to a door or a window. I’m allowed water and tepid tea but not coffee. Eventually, a second meal arrives on a tray. Stew and vegetables, slabs of bread and margarine. At some hour, deep into the night, I am told I must return to the bedroom now.

  The bedroom? Is that what they think it is?

  The second day passes much like the first. No shower this time, but the research papers wait for me as before on a cart beside a table. I read, leafing through one article or study, then another, always under armed guard.

  It couldn’t be more crazy, I think. And then it is.

  The man in the sweatshirt arrives through the double doors, balancing a plastic tub. He crosses the room and drops it in front of me, then tips the tub so I can see inside, rattling its contents as though it were a pot of pennies. There, on a layer of shredded paper, are a half dozen albino rats, their pink eyes like jewels against their ultrawhite fur, their delicate toes as pink as carnations.

  “Okay?” he asks.

  I look at the rats’ faces, fearful but curious. I don’t like the thought of putting them through this ordeal.

  “Vasiliev wants you,” he says. “Go.”

  He and the guy with the scalp tattoos bring me down a long hallway to the stairwell. I can hear noise in parts of the building and I wonder if it’s very windy outside. I peer through the industrial windows along the cold cement steps and see fat clouds moving across an azure sky.

  “I want you to know that I hate you all very, very much,” I say in a tone that might be used to comment on the weather.

  They have no response. Either because they don’t understand or because they don’t care. I may as well be one of the white rats in the tub.

  Eventually we end up at a laboratory, but it has been transformed, no longer disused and filthy but brightly lit with a shining floor. Across the counters are drugs, solutions, syringes, imaging machines, monitors, ice, a padded incubator rich in oxygen. The stethoscope and all the syringes and needles I had requested are laid out carefully on a table.

  But there is also a tripod and camera. These I did not ask for.

  Vasiliev greets me with a nod, his red beard catching the sunlight, his clipboard angled to take notes. “I would like you to speak very clearly, so that we can record what you are doing as you proceed,” he instructs me.

  I say nothing.

  “You do understand?” he says.

  I shrug.

  “Please check that we have made all necessary items available to you,” he says, gesturing toward the table.

  I have no choice. I study the equipment they’ve brought. Vasiliev tells me to prepare the syringes. Meanwhile, he makes sure the electricity is working.

  He says, “We will induce cardiac arrest in rat, then bring to you after eight minutes dead. Agreed?”

  I do nothing to signal that I agree, but after a short interval the first rat arrives anyway, brought in on a white lab towel. Its eyes no longer sparkle. They are half closed now, lifeless. The blood has drained from its muzzle and feet. I’d estimated the rats’ weight at 250 grams each and have already loaded the syringes for a correct dosage. I place the one before me on the scales now before taking it onto my lap.

  “No!” Vasiliev says. “You will work here! On the table!”

  So. That is a requirement. It is also a requirement that I not allow my hair to fall down, obstructing the view of the camera. One of the men steps forward, gathering up my hair roughly, then balling it into a rubber band.

  “Ow!” I say, as the rubber band pulls at my hair.

  “Proceed,” says Vasiliev.

  “I prefer to work on my lap,” I say. “It’s easier that way.”

  It’s not easier, but I have a plan, and part of that plan requires fooling the camera.

  Vasiliev shakes his head. “Here!” he orders, slapping two fingers on the tabletop.

  Again, I have no choice. I follow his instructions, working quietly. I try not to think of the passing minutes and the men surrounding me. The limited space in the rat’s spinal column makes the procedure challenging. I concentrate, becoming immersed in what I’m doing, my thoughts flowing easily one to the other.

  But Vasiliev interrupts me. “Aloud!” he commands.

  Apparently, I’m supposed to talk the whole time, explaining what I’m doing and why I’m doing it as though to a group of students.

  So it continues. If I work in silence, he blasts, “Speak!” disrupting my concentration. If I narrate as I work, my precision wavers. I have no intention of showing them what to do to bring the rat back. I just have to make it look like I’m trying. But everything about what is happening now is exhausting and infuriating. At last, I lay the rat down in the incubator, then fold a towel to provide a padded wall along the edges of the tank.

  “Why did you do that?” Vasiliev wants to know.

  “Convulsions,” I say.

  “I see no convulsions.” He leans toward the rat, then pokes it with his pen. “It’s still dead.”

  The room is silent, the men standing around the plastic incubator, watching the rat, unmoving and pale. Vasiliev’s irritation grows as the seconds wear on, the tension in the room mounting. Finally, he exhales angrily, his eyes hard on the rat.

  “It isn’t alive,” he hisses.

  I shrug. “You killed it.”

  “Make it live!”

  When I do nothing, he steps forward, then back again, as though stopping himself from rushing at me in anger.

  “Do it!” he screams.

  He signals to his men, and one of them swats me hard on the back of the head so that I fall forward onto the table. Then they are screaming at me in Russian, slapping me, pushing me.

  It’s humiliating, and it hurts, but they aren’t damaging me. Not much anyway. I suppose they can’t knock me senseless and still expect me to think straight. But then Vasiliev holds up a hypodermic needle filled with some kind of fluid, and now I really am scared.

  “Do you know what is in here?” he says.

  I shake my head.

  “You’ve heard of an epidural?”

  I nod. “To block pain,” I say.

  “Yes, exactly. Normally, it is a simple injection into the spine providing pain relief so that mothers can have babies without so much screaming. Correctly placed, the patient has no feeling below the waist. But if you place the needle higher in the spine, it numbs the nerves to the lungs and the patient stops breathing. I’m very good with placement and will ensure the needle is precisely positioned so that you can still breathe, just not very well. During the hours you are gasping for air, you can consider all your options. By the time you can breathe normally, I am certain you will agree to show us the procedure properly, as we’ve asked.”

  “No!” I say, and begin backing up, but his men grab me, holding me so I can’t move.

  It takes both his men to force me down, rolling me into a ball so that my knees are touching my chin. I’m told to shut up as the needle goes
in. And not to move unless I want to die.

  For the next four hours, the sensation is as though I am being strangled, because I am. I have to think about every breath I take, willing my lungs to expand, then contract. I can’t get enough oxygen no matter what I do. The only way to cope is to stay as calm as possible, as still as possible, so that my body requires less oxygen. I lie on the lab floor, feeling for all the earth as though I’m asphyxiating. The first hour is the worst. After that, I seem to gain a little more breath, and the knowledge of this gives me a measure of hope. I stare up at the bright lights, trying not to panic, seeing water marks on the ceiling just like the one back home. The roof is caving in, slowly but surely.

  They bring me another dead rat. This time, I perform as they wish, exactly as they wish, because I don’t want to get that needle again.

  The rat comes back to life in a series of spasms. The feet twitch, then the legs and tail, then the whole spine as it convulses and shakes, moving sideways. I find this uncomfortable to watch. But there are good signs: the ears bloom pink, the muzzle twitches and moistens, the eyes flutter open. I set up the oxygen and wait as the rat slowly gains strength. At last it rights itself and sits, leaning against the plastic wall of the tank. Hunched over, its fur standing up, the rat sways its head from side to side in an effort to see, but one thing is certain. It’s alive.

  “Bozhe moy,” says Vasiliev.

  It’s as though a spirit has wandered into the cold body of the rat and, there, lit a fire. We are all transfixed as I put the rat on the table and watch it shuffle across the surface. Within a few minutes I can see improvements in its balance. In fact, the little white rat does better than the ones back at Mellin had.

  “He’s off and away,” I say.

  Nobody thinks about prisoners or threats. Nobody thinks about guns. We’re all amazed at what we’ve seen. Even Vasiliev appears pleased for a moment.

  Then he turns to me. “Repeat,” he says. “Rat number three.”

  My new plan is to vary the procedure slightly, undetectably, saving some rats and not others. I want to show that post-death recovery isn’t reliable and therefore cannot be tested yet on humans. But I sure don’t want another needle in my spine.