Taji's Syndrome

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  Slowly and sarcastically Susan clapped a derisive smile on her lips. “I haven’t heard such medical integrity since Urgent Care was canceled.”

  “Then you haven’t been talking with your husband or Sam Jarvis, have you?” he shot back, ashamed of himself for this behavior but too irritated to resist the urge.

  She stood very still. “I talked to Mason last night.”

  “Ah, yes; Mason,” said Jeff, glad for a change of focus. “He’s been helpful and cooperative. He volunteered to any tests we might need. So far he shows no symptoms of TS. I pray there’s no change, but I don’t want to rely simply on prayer.”

  “Next you’ll try Apple Pie,” said Susan. “I really don’t want to talk to you anymore, Doctor Taji.”

  Jeff made one last attempt. “The Governor of California has declared nine Southern California counties disaster areas because of TS.”

  “A lot of Californians consider Southern California a disaster area even without your disease,” she said sharply, and laughed without amusement.

  “Please help us, Missus Ross. If nothing else, let us run a Standard Public School Blood Screen on you and your son.” It would not be much, but it was better than nothing.

  “I’d like you to leave now,” Susan informed him.

  “All right.” At the door he stopped. “If you reconsider, I’ll be at the Sonoma Hilton until tomorrow morning. I’d welcome a call from you.”

  “And the permission from Harper? You mean you aren’t going to wave that around?”

  “I’m going to leave it with the local office of PHES and let them tend to it. Your husband is in Washington State and this is California. They’ll have to make up their minds how or if they want to enforce it,” he said, feeling defeated.

  Susan gave a tight smile. “I’ll call an attorney if I have to. I don’t want any more disruptions for Grant, not with what he’s already been through.”

  Against his better judgment, Jeff made one more try. “Missus Ross, you’re not protecting Grant if he’s got TS, you’re only increasing the likelihood that he’ll die from it.”

  “Everyone dies from it,” Susan countered.

  “We don’t know that for sure. It’s got a very high death rate, but there is at least one woman in Texas who has survived it. I read the report two days ago. And if there is one, statistically there ought to be more. We’re looking for others now, in the hope that through them we can save more.” To his own ears he sounded pompous, but he noticed that Susan was staring at him with skeptical interest rather than outright hostility.

  “Who survived?” Susan demanded.

  Jeff took a deep breath. “Her name is Irene Channing. She’s an artist, a widow, with two children. Boys, I think. She lives in Dallas. Her fever broke more than a week ago and it hasn’t returned. Blood tests and PAST scans aren’t normal yet, but they’re . . . improving.”

  “One woman in Dallas,” said Susan. “What about the kids?”

  “No sign of TS in either of them,” said Jeff, mentally adding the ominous word yet.

  “And what does that have to do with Grant or me?” This was blatantly a challenge.

  “I don’t know yet. I won’t know if you don’t have the tests. But Harper will be doing a complete battery tomorrow and Mason will the day after. If you were willing, you might have the key. Someone has the key.”

  She looked away from him, out across the street where a large truck emblazoned with the name and logo of a local nursery was drawing up. “The Doniers are getting roses. It’s a little late for planting them.”

  “Missus Ross, please reconsider. It’s very, very important. To all of us.”

  “They don’t understand about gardens,” said Susan. “They expect them to be ready in a minute, like microwave dinners.”

  “Missus Ross.” He waited until she grudgingly gave him her attention. “Help us.”

  She made a gesture in front of her eyes and said nothing.

  “TS is out of hand. We don’t know how it’s triggered, but we know that in pockets where it has been reported, it’s spreading.” He tried to read her expression and failed. “If only you’d take the tests. It takes three hours, Missus Ross. That’s all.”

  “No, it’s not all. There are the tests and the waiting and the reports and everything that happens afterward. You’re asking me to turn my boy—and he already has serious problems—into an all-out freak. There are kids in his school who won’t speak to him, won’t sit near him, because his brother died of TS. Do you know what that’s like for him?”

  “f have some idea,” said Jeff quietly. “I’m truly sorry, but it doesn’t alter anything. In fact, if we can give Grant a clean bill of health, it could improve things for him.”

  “And if you can’t?” Susan braced her hands on her hips again. “That doesn’t matter to you, does it? Not really. No, not really. You’re determined to have those tests done, and one way or another you’ll find a way to get them. I don’t want them done, but you can win, and you can let PHES sanitize it for you.” She looked out the window, once more entranced by the nursery truck. “My brother thinks we should go to the ACLU.”

  Jeff lowered his head. “If that’s what you want. But if you’re concerned about Grant feeling . . . out of place, then you might reconsider.” He opened the door. “I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time, Missus Ross. I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t you ever get tired of saying that?”

  “Yes: I get tired that it’s necessary, not of the sentiment.” He let himself out, taking care to close the door. As he walked to his rented Nissan Comet, he shook his head, defeat blackening his thoughts. He ought to have found a way to make her understand how urgently her help was needed. He upbraided himself for botching the interview, and then he opened the door of the car and got in.

  Susan watched Jeff drive away, anger rising volcanically in her. She turned on her heel so abruptly that she almost tripped on the carpet as she crossed the living room toward the family room, which opened onto an enormous covered patio filled with large tropical plants. Since she had come to her brother’s house she had spent a lot of time on the patio; the huge plants seemed to restore her perspective and calm.

  This time she realized it would not work. Frustrated, feeling betrayed, she rushed to the phone and dialed Harper’s lab number. It irked her to have to ask the department switchboard to find Harper, and she was outraged when she was given a number at the medical center to call. She slammed down the receiver and paced through the kitchen twice before trusting herself to dial again.

  “Just a moment, Missus Ross,” said the operator at the medical center when Susan had identified herself.

  “This is long distance!” Susan barked.

  “Just a moment,” the operator reiterated.

  By the time Harper picked up the phone three minutes later, Susan had worked herself into a thunderous rage.

  “Susan? Is anything wro—”

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, sending that two-faced bugger down here?” She was shocked by her scream and she made herself speak more evenly. “If this is your idea of being a good father, then you have real problems, Harper.”

  “Jeff Taji was there?” Harper said.

  “You signed the papers for him: you know damn well he was here. What are you playing at, Harper? Isn’t it enough that we’ve lost one son? You’re like one of those neurotics who pick open a wound as soon as it scabs over, and make it bigger and bigger and bigger each time. Let Kevin rest in peace and let us get on with our lives. Keep out of that cesspool.”

  “Is that how you see it?” Harper asked, pain in his voice.

  “That’s what it is,” she corrected him sternly.

  “Susan, I know you don’t believe this, but there is nothing I want more than for us to be able to put
Kevin’s death behind us, and for the family to get on. I swear to God that’s what I want.”

  “Liar.”

  He paused, making himself ignore her accusation. “We can’t get on with our lives with this hanging over us. We need to get questions answered or they’ll haunt us forever.”

  “You’re not convincing me, Professor,” she said with deliberate malice. “You’re playing Sherlock-Holmes-meets-Jonas-Salk. You’re exploiting Kevin and the rest of us.”

  “I don’t mean to do that,” said Harper, afraid that outright denial would close the door. “I don’t want TS to claim any more victims. It’s had too many already. I have to do something to help stop it, or I’ll never forgive myself. I wish you could believe that, Susan.”

  “It’s a touching justification,” she said sarcastically. “I thought for years that I knew you. I used to think how lucky I was to have a husband I could understand. But it wasn’t so. You’re a stranger, Harper. You’re some foreigner who wandered into my life in my husband’s skin and I don’t know what to do about it.”

  Harper remembered how he had felt in the one serious accident he had had in college, when his motorcycle careened off a center divider and flung him into a lightpole. The anguish in him now was more inescapable, more intense than the broken femur and three broken ribs had been. “Susan, please.”

  “They tell me you’re going to do a test series again. Don’t you get tired of it?” She hung up before he could say anything more, but the surge of victory eluded her, and she wandered back to the living room to watch the gardeners wrestle with the roses.

  —Corwen Blair and Maximillian Klausen—

  Whenever Corwen Blair sensed he was at a loss, he would stand in front of the wall where his autographed photographs and sealed testimonials were displayed. He stood there now, his shoulders squared and his jaw firm as he faced his unwelcome visitor. “You don’t know how impossible that is.”

  “No, I don’t,” said Max, coughing once. “I only give up on impossible things. I’m not giving up on this.”

  “We can’t possibly issue such an order.”

  “You saw Aaron Post last night. You heard what half the country heard. You know that we’re”—he interrupted himself—“Do you mind if I sit down? I’m running on five hours’ sleep for the last thirty-six and I’m tired.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Corwen unctuously. “The chair by the window is the most comfortable.”

  “Thanks.” Max slumped into it. “Aaron Post has about six weeks left, assuming he follows the usual curve. You say that you don’t want a panic in your schools, and that there is no guarantee of cooperation from other states.” He cleared his throat. “There’s no guarantee of non-cooperation, either.”

  “Doctor Klausen, you’re behaving as if I were the enemy, not the disease. I am only trying to discharge my responsibilities to the best of my ability and with the greatest good served.” He rocked back on his heels. “I have to answer to Governor Cooper as I am sure you are aware. The Governor has always put public safety as his highest concern. I can’t help but think that I would be remiss if I contributed to the sense of panic that has already begun. I think it would be best if we took a moderate course during this time.”

  “Which says a shitload of nothing,” Max responded in his most polite tone of voice.

  “That’s offensive,” said Blair.

  “It was meant to be. You’re offensive. You stink, Doctor Blair. We’re in the middle of a disease outbreak that might well be potentially as damaging as AIDS, and you’re thinking politics as usual. Well, it won’t fadge, Blair. You have work to do and whether or not you want to do it, you will.” He broke off, his hand over his mouth. When he spoke again, his voice was low. “My wife died of TS. Died of it, Doctor Blair. One of my oldest friends and his wife died of it. You have less than six quarantine beds left in the State of Idaho, and you don’t want to contribute to panic.” He laced his hands together. “Oh. One more thing. I have TS. It isn’t at the critical state yet, but I have it, and unless we achieve a major breakthrough, I’ll be dead before August.”

  “A-a-a-hg,” went Blair.

  “You’re one who has said that since the disease is triggered by the environment, it isn’t communicable in the accepted sense and therefore there is nothing to worry’ about. I have that right, don’t I?”

  Blair had taken a step back and smacked his shoulders into the wall. “Don’t you think you’re being unwise?” he asked in an effort to regain his position with Max.

  “How do you mean?” Max inquired innocently.

  “In your condition, you ought to be under care, not running around, possibly increasing the risk of others.” He put his hand to his throat, a curiously feminine gesture.

  “I’m doing this because it’s all I can do. There aren’t any more quarantine beds in Oregon, even if I wanted one. We’re asking the military to let us use two of their hospitals, but so far no luck.” He stared calmly at Blair. “So what is it going to be? Are you going to help me? Are you going to contact the Departments of Health in Utah, Wyoming, Nevada and Montana, or are you going to sit on your ass?”

  “I haven’t the authority . . . I—”

  “But you’ve said you have authority. Or is it that you have it when you refuse to use it, but don’t when you do use it?” He let his smile widen. “Do you enjoy your impotence?”

  Blair straightened up once more. “I refuse to become embroiled in a multi-state dispute. If you are truly as concerned as you imply—”

  “I’m as concerned as I can be and still be alive,” interjected Max.

  “—then you’ll bend your efforts toward a change in national policy instead of this . . . this piecemeal approach to the problem.” He had the satisfaction of feeling indignant.

  “We’re working on a national change,” said Max evenly. “But that takes time. We haven’t got that. So we’re working on our own as well. By the way, did you know that there have been over one hundred new cases of TS reported in Idaho in the last seven days?”

  “ . . . I . . . over one hundred?”

  “I think it’s one hundred eight, but I could be mistaken.” He leaned back, his gaze directed now to the patterned ceiling. “We’re asking the Canadians to help us. They’re pretty upset about the cases in Alberta and Saskatchewan. I don’t blame them.”

  “But surely there’s no link . . . This is an environmental disease. The SPSBS show that. It makes no sense that the . . . that anyone would think that—”

  “We’ve assumed all along that the disease was environmental, either cumulative or having an environmental/biological trigger. In either case, it fell under the environmental division. But it doesn’t change the fact that something is transmitting the disease and that the vast majority of the cases are in the western half of the United States, and that more than sixty percent of those cases are on the West Coast.” He paused and then reminded Blair: “Neither Alberta nor Saskatchewan are in the United States, nor are they on the West Coast. That might be called indicative. Given the pattern we’ve seen.”

  “Given the pattern we’ve seen,” Blair said with ponderous emphasis to make his point, “this is an almost classic outbreak of environmental toxic disease. The areas of outbreak are specific and limited, the spread beyond the area of contamination is slow and the disease is more properly a syndrome, in this case one that disrupts blood and brain chemistry. Now you say that you have doubts and you think there might be other factors.”

  “Yes,” Max said, determined not to be distracted from his purpose by Blair’s condescending attitude.

  “You mean that the trigger is communicative,” said Blair at his surliest.

  “That seems likely,” said Max. “The ironic thing is,” he went on in a distant, amused tone, “that from the first we’ve quarantined the patients with TS, not for
our safety, but for their safety. We didn’t want to introduce anything that might make the disease worse. Could be that the precaution was as much for us as for them.”

  “You’re looking for explanations for your own disease. Why is it impossible that you have reached the level of toxin necessary to trigger the disease?” Blair folded his arms and watched Max without sympathy. “I am sorry for your misfortune, but I will not be party to the kind of deception you propose.”

  Max turned on Blair, no longer willing to keep his temper. “That is the most self-serving, the shittiest thing I’ve heard all week! Jesus H. Christ! You don’t get it, do you? You won’t let yourself see it.”

  “If you mean that I refuse to box with shadows, then I agree. I don’t like your attitude or your choice of words and I am not going to give in to either.” His voice had got louder.

  “You’re irresponsible and dangerous, and I am going to stop that. I can’t permit you to continue this way, Doctor Blair. You’re indulging your ego at the cost of human lives: that’s going to end.” He strode to the door, his big, knobby hands seizing the knob as if to crush the brass. “You are placing the people of your state at risk, and I won’t allow that.”

  Blair stared at him. “You’re overreacting.”

  “The hell I am!” Max shouted as he flung out of the room and crashed the door closed behind him. He hastened down the hall toward the office occupied by Dien Paniagua. He was breathing hard; his ears rang and he felt lightheaded. For an instant he fought down the dread that TS was catching up with him sooner than he had thought it would. He put out his hand and braced himself in the open doorway, forcing himself to calm down, to breathe normally, to put Corwen Blair out of his thoughts.

  “Doctor Klausen,” said Dien as she came out of her office. She sounded hoarse and her eyes showed fatigue and worry but she did her best to make him welcome. “I wasn’t sure you were here.”