"I'm sorry," he says when I don't turn. "Boston General should have told you on the last call."
He removes his hand and waits patiently for me to respond. The receptionist returns to her desk and picks up the next form off the enormous stack. Dale has stopped to unwrap the rest of a sandwich he just bought down the hall. He leans over, allowing the lettuce strands to fall on the floor instead of his jacket, and then continues toward me. A sliced tomato hangs over his bottom lip. He swallows and keeps walking. After a few steps he stops to take another bite, this time scooping up the strands of lettuce with his free hand and pushing them in the corner of his mouth. The doctor picks the case up and, placing it against the wall, says a few words to the receptionist, who opens a drawer and shuffles through a bunch of papers. It is too late for Worcester, I think. When Dale sees that I am staring he stops walking and tries to swallow what's left in his mouth.
The doctor steps up beside me again carrying a clipboard. "We need to have you sign these," he says. I take the clipboard and the pen without looking at him.
"I was hungry," Dale says, shrugging his shoulders. "I figured we were here. I couldn't wait any longer."
"That's no excuse," I say and lower my head to the forms resting in my hands. I sign my name. Time of arrival, it says. I turn my wrist and look down at my blank watch. I look at the doctor. "Time?" I say.
He raises his naked wrist. "Forgot to wear it today." He smiles, dark circles under his eyes.
Dale shoves the rest of the sandwich into his pocket. "It's seven o'clock," he says, pursing his lips in an effort to take our job more seriously. He walks over to the silver case and picks it up. "What do we do now? I thought we were here."
I walk over to him, take the case out of his hand, and lay it down next to the wall. "It's too late," I say, but he furrows his brow and stares at the case. It is a good sign when a trainee doesn't understand how a job can fail. I remind him as we head for the door that a heart, once removed from the body, will last only twenty-four hours. There is nowhere left for us to drive. At the door he turns away from me looking for the silver case, which a nurse is carrying down a long yellow hallway. I give just a light tug on his arm, but he won't start walking until the nurse has disappeared down another corridor. I understand that this is the hardest part of the job; there is no way for me to explain how we could have driven all this way with a heart for which, in the end, there is no life.
THE 5:22
BY GEORGE HARRAR
Kendall Square
(Originally published in 1998)
For more than a year Walter Mason and the woman with one ear nodded to each other at 5:22 p.m., or thereabouts, when the Western Local pulled into Lincoln station. As he descended the steep metal steps clutching his briefcase, she would be standing near last in the small line of passengers waiting on the wooden platform to board. If it were lightly raining or snowing, she might hold a newspaper over her head. Sometimes she turned her face to the sky and opened her mouth a little, as if thirsty. In heavy rain she held a small yellow umbrella while the others waited under the eaves of the nearby shops. She always carried an overstuffed white shopping bag, but nothing ever protruded from the top to hint at what was inside.
Her complexion was dark, perhaps Mediterranean or Middle Eastern. But she dressed as any American woman might, in a blouse and skirt, or pants and a sweater. Invariably, though, she wore a colorful scarf around her head, wrapped delicately, it seemed to Walter, as one would a bouquet or live thing.
The scarf covered, of course, the missing right ear, as Walter assumed it was meant to do. He would never have known of the deformity if a gust of wind one afternoon had not whipped the scarf suddenly free of her head. She dropped her purse and shopping bag and fumbled to secure the fine silk under her chin. Then she looked up and saw his rude stare. It was awful of him, he knew that, and he averted his eyes. What had possessed him to gaze at her for those few seconds that the crimson scarf fluttered in the wind, revealing the thick, slashing scars of an ear that wasn't there anymore?
* * *
When the woman didn't appear on the platform the following Monday, Walter didn't think much of it. She had missed other days over the last year—he could recall two for sure. But both were during snowstorms, it occurred to him as he crossed the rutted dirt parking lot, not on unusually warm spring days such as this. He opened the door of his Saab to let the day's hot air exhale from the car. Then it came to him: perhaps she had not appeared today because he had noticed her missing ear. It charmed Walter to think of this woman's being so shy. He was shy himself. He hadn't married, even though he was forty-seven and interested—that in itself would demonstrate a lagging sense of forwardness. He did cheerfully submit to the blind dates arranged for him through the unstinting efforts of the married women at the institute. But they remained one-time affairs—or rather more precisely, one-time intersections of two people looking for something other than what they found.
What was he looking for? A certain sweetness of temperament was uppermost on his list, a flexible mind (though not one incapable of holding a firm opinion), and perhaps a sense of mankind's insignificance in the totality of the universe. The ability to apply order to the world would also be handy in a wife. These attributes, which he obligingly scrawled down as an aid to the matchmakers in his department, apparently were no help at all. They wanted to know what he desired in height and weight, profession, previous marital status, and postmarital attachments, such as children. He supposed it was curious that he never thought in those terms, but there it was. He didn't care about shape, occupation, or legal connections, just as he hoped a woman wouldn't care that he was unfit in the athletic sense of the word, underemployed for the number of degrees appended to his name, and suspiciously unattached for all of his adult years. He didn't try to camouflage the gray in his hair or wear the kind of tailored suits that would slim down the excesses of his appetite. Though he was not overly proud of his condition, he was at least comfortable with it. But if he had only one ear, he wondered, what would he do, without a scarf to hide the terrible secret?
* * *
When the woman didn't appear on Tuesday, Walter concluded with some certainty that she had begun a week's vacation. Each succeeding day that the train arrived at 5:22 and she was not there only stiffened his reasoning. On Thursday, cold rain draped the region, and Walter found himself lamenting that the woman's time off might be spoiled by inclement weather. Perhaps she was a reader and would be happy enough within doors. When he leafed through the New York Times Book Review that Sunday, he imagined her vacation reading list, perhaps a book on exotic foods, such as Bengali Cooking, or an intimate collection of short stories, such as Women in Their Beds. For a lingering moment, Walter pictured her as the woman on the cover of that book, with her long black hair languishing on the pillow and one breast peeking above the sheet.
* * *
It was with some sense of anticipation on the following Monday that Walter rose from his usual seat and hurried along the aisle even before the train began its slow braking into Lincoln. He reached the heavy sliding door just as Mel, the conductor, opened it from the other side and called out, "Next stop, Lincoln. That's Lincoln, next stop."
Walter squeezed past him so he would have a good view out of the open car. "Where's the fire?" Mel asked.
"Oh, no fire, Mel," Walter answered with a little shrug. "I'm just . . . expecting someone."
Mel winked at him, which made Walter feel a bit odd. The train crept past the crossing signal on Concord Road, and he leaned out of the car to scan the small group waiting to get on. The woman with one ear was not among them.
"Mind your step," Mel said as Walter made his way down to the platform, and these words reassured him, as always, that his welfare was being looked after. He walked slowly across the parking lot, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the woman didn't come running late from one of the station stores. In a few moments, the train took off without her.
; Why was he so disappointed? It wasn't a sexual attraction, Walter decided, unless one so subtle that he couldn't discern it. Frankly, he didn't find her particularly attractive. He supposed that in another age she would have been considered a handsome woman. But he disliked handsome women—the blocky faces, the large eyes, the broad cheekbones. To another man, he supposed, she might be considered mysterious, and thereby interesting. But Walter disliked mystery. The simple question "What if?" could lead to so many disturbing places.
He was obviously not attracted to this woman sexually, and the evidence was perfectly clear: he had never spoken to her. Surely if he were propelled by a secret fuel of desire he would have managed some small step on the route to intimacy—a brief hello, a smile, perhaps even "Have a good day." No, not that insulting phrase. Who was he to be using the imperative with this woman? "I hope you have a very nice day"—that would be perfectly appropriate. And yet, there were only so many words one could say in passing. She might not hear all of them. She might misconstrue. Better not to risk conversation at the station, but rather simply stay on board one day in a seat precisely halfway down the car—her customary spot—where the rows turned from facing backward to facing forward. She would slide into the wide seat without even realizing he was there.
* * *
As the second week of the woman's absence stretched on, Walter became worried. His concentration, normally among his strongest attributes at work, failed him several times. At one point, a fellow researcher had the temerity to tap him on the shoulder and ask, "Daydreaming, Walter?" "No," he had replied courteously, "I was thinking." Thinking he certainly was, about why a person would take vacation time at the end of March, of all months, known as mud season in these parts. There were other possibilities, of course. She might have fled to some warm-weather island. Perhaps the woman with one ear had simply returned to wherever she had come from, or moved on to someplace new. Perhaps she would never again take the 5:22.
By Thursday Walter had decided to make inquiries, starting with Mel. The conductor knew something about each of his passengers, and it was his habit to share the news, discreetly, up and down the car. For example, with a nod of his head and a few well-chosen words, Mel let it be known to the single women in the car that James, the investment adviser, had just landed a big promotion and was available. On the other hand, Kelly—the young woman with the sad brown eyes—was definitely "not looking and might never be again." She had recently lost her boyfriend of three years as well as her beloved Honda Civic, events that left her crying some days and required Mel to start carrying tissues.
Walter had overheard himself being referred to in a respectful tone as "the professor . . . MIT—never married." That wasn't strictly true. He had been hired as a senior researcher to conduct experiments in machine vision, his specialty. It suited Walter to labor among just a few other engineers and their support staff. It suited him even more to retreat each evening to his apartment in the suburbs, where he could work uninterrupted on his book of odd designs. He was near finishing his collection of Impossible Objects, such as a teapot with the spout and handle on the same side. It amused him to imagine things that could never work. Often he listened to his shortwave, and the crackling sound of far-off voices seemed to him as if coming from a large immigrant family living on the other side of the thin walls. Sometimes, usually before one of his arranged dates, he imagined a woman in his apartment, a wife. What would she be doing right now, he wondered, what would she do there?
When Walter, with money in hand, looked up from his seat to ask Mel about the missing woman, he was shocked to see another conductor. "Where to?" the man asked. Mel never talked in such a clipped expression. He always asked, "And where would you be heading?" or, "Where can I take you today?"
Walter handed over his three dollars to Edward, as the man's badge read, and said brusquely, "Lincoln."
"Lincoln it is."
"Where's Mel," Walter asked as he peered over the seats, "working up front?"
"Mel? Don't know him."
"He's been the conductor on this line for years."
Edward handed over the ticket. "Well, that explains it then. I've only been the conductor for a day."
"You mean you've replaced Mel?"
Edward shook his head. "I can't say that exactly, not knowing anything about Mel. I guess he was before my time."
Your time? Walter thought. You've only worked this train for one day. You haven't had a "time" yet. Edward moved through the train. Every few rows Walter heard him say, "Where to?"
There were others besides Mel to ask about the woman with one ear. Several people regularly waited with her at the station to board. Perhaps she had spoken to them.
Walter spent the twenty-minute ride to Lincoln plotting what he would say in the brief seconds as he got off and the others got on. "Excuse me," he might begin, "I just wanted to ask—do you happen to know anything about the woman with . . ." He certainly couldn't mention the ear. ". . . the woman in the colorful scarves who used to get on here each day?" Walter practiced his question at different speeds and emphases as the train slowed into Lincoln. As he moved down the aisle toward the door, he noticed that no one else was getting off with him, and no one was waiting to get on either. The Western Local left quickly.
* * *
Because March 28 was Good Friday, Walter had no opportunity to continue his inquiry until the following Monday. On that day, he boarded in Cambridge as always, took his seat at the back of the car, and waited for the conductor. This time he would be forceful in inquiring about Mel. Then in Lincoln he would stop in the shops by the station to ask about the woman. Surely she had made some small purchases there—a newspaper or mints, perhaps even medicine at the pharmacy. She would be remembered.
Edward approached, humming. "Where to?" he asked, with not a hint of recognition in his eyes.
"Lincoln," Walter said with a trace in his voice of You should know that by now. Mel knew the second day.
"Don't stop at Lincoln," Edward said.
The words and tone confused Walter. Was the conductor offering advice—Do not stop at Lincoln—or some new information? "What do you mean?" Walter asked. "The five o'clock out of Cambridge always stops in Lincoln."
"I wouldn't know about always," Edward said. "I only know about today. Today this train doesn't stop at Lincoln—the engineer told me himself. Now where else do you want to go?"
"I don't want to go anywhere else. I live in Lincoln. I've been getting off there for two years."
"I can see your problem," Edward said. "That's why people should always ask when they get on where the train's stopping. Saves a lot of this kind of trouble."
The train pulled into Waverly station, and Edward hurried to attend to the doors. When he returned he said, "Where to?"
Was it some kind of game this strange conductor was playing? Walter wondered. But Edward didn't appear to be a man capable of sustaining a joke this long. He did appear to be a man capable of stupidity, and so Walter said, "I'll prove the train stops in Lincoln. Let me see a schedule."
Edward checked inside his lapel pocket, but his hand came back empty. "Sorry, all out."
Walter had reached that point his mother had customarily referred to as her "wit's end." He had no wit left, at least to deal with Edward. Walter stood up to appeal to the familiar faces of the Western Local. There were more people than he had ever seen in this car before, but he recognized none of them. Walter sank in his seat. "Just let me off at the next stop—that's still Concord, isn't it?"
"Of course it is," Edward said, taking the three dollars. "That will be another fifty cents."
* * *
Walter exited from the train at Concord and stood alone on the platform. His Saab was a couple of miles back in Lincoln. There was no cab in sight. A few cars were going by, but he couldn't imagine standing with his thumb out while dressed in a tie and jacket. He would walk. And since the shortest route between stations was undoubtedly the rail line, he would go by th
e tracks.
He felt a bit adventuresome as he set out. The dwindling daylight did not bother him. He had never been afraid of the dark. He started off briskly, walking between the rails and stretching his stride to land on every other wooden plank. After a while he broke the monotony by balancing on one rail, and he surprised himself by how far he could do it. He looked back frequently, even though he knew he would hear a train coming well before he would need to step aside. At one point he knelt and pressed his ear to the cold rail to sense the vibration of an approaching train, but he felt nothing.
* * *
The woman gone, Mel gone, the Lincoln stop gone—what else might disappear from his life? Walter descended the long stairway to the platform in Cambridge on Tuesday. Perhaps the train itself wouldn't show up today. Then tomorrow, the whole station would vanish. He laughed at these fanciful ideas. They were more appropriate for some giddy science fiction story, not the real life of a mechanical engineer.
The train approached on time. Walter climbed aboard behind a half-dozen strangers. The car was quite full of commuters already. Walter scanned the aisle and finally spotted a vacant seat midway down the car, where the rows turned from facing forward to backward. As he slid into the wide seat, the train pulled away.
"Where can I take you today, my friend?"
Walter practically jumped at the voice. He turned around, and there was Mel at the end of the car punching out tickets. Walter called to him, but the conductor was busy and did not look up. The train sped on from one station to another, and Mel slowly worked his way closer. When he reached Walter he said, "Hey, Professor, how's your book coming?"
"Mel," Walter stammered, "where have you been?"
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