Dooms Day Book

by Connie Willis

  Dunworthy sat on the windowseat and looked up the Black Death. It had started in China in 1333, and moved west on trading ships to Messina in Sicily and from there to Pisa. It had spread through Italy and France—eighty thousand dead in Siena, a hundred thousand in Florence, three hundred thousand in Rome—before it crossed the Channel. It had reached England in 1348, “a little before the Feast of St. John the Baptist,” the twenty-fourth of June.

  That meant a slippage of twenty-eight years. Badri had been worried about too much slippage, but he had been talking of weeks, not years.

  He reached over the cot to the bookcase and took down Fitzwiller’s Pandemics.

  “What are you doing?” Colin asked sleepily.

  “Reading about the Black Death,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

  “They didn’t call it that,” Colin mumbled around his gobstopper. He rolled over, wrapping himself in his blankets. “They called it the blue fever.”

  Dunworthy took both books back to bed with him. Fitzwiller gave the date of the plague’s arrival in England as St. Peter’s Day, the twenty-ninth of June, 1348. It had reached Oxford in December, London in October of 1349, and then moved north and back across the Channel to the Low Countries and Norway. It had gone everywhere except Bohemia, and Poland, which had a quarantine, and, oddly, parts of Scotland.

  Where it had gone, it had swept through the countryside like the Angel of Death, devastating entire villages, leaving no one alive to administer the last rites or bury the putrefying bodies. In one monastery, all but one of the monks had died.

  The single survivor, John Clyn, had left a record: “And lest things which should be remembered perish with time and vanish from the memory of those who are to come after us,” he had written, “I, seeing so many evils and the whole world, as it were, placed within the grasp of the Evil One, being myself as if among the dead, I, waiting for death, have put into writing all the things that I have witnessed.”

  He had written it all down, a true historian, and then died himself, all alone. His words trailed off, and below them, in another hand, someone had written, “Here, it seems, the author died.”

  Someone knocked on the door. It was Finch in his bathrobe, looking bleary-eyed and distraught. “Another one of the detainees, sir,” he said.

  Dunworthy put his fingers to his lips and stepped outside the door with him. “Have you telephoned Infirmary?”

  “Yes, sir, and they said it would be several hours before they can dispatch an ambulance. They said to isolate her, and give her dimantadine and orange juice.”

  “Which I suppose we’re nearly out of,” Dunworthy said irritably.

  “Yes, sir, but that’s not the problem. She won’t cooperate.”

  Dunworthy made Finch wait outside the door while he dressed and found his face mask, and they went across to Salvin. A huddle of detainees were standing by the door, dressed in an odd assortment of underthings, coats, and blankets. Only a few of them were wearing their face masks. By day after tomorrow they’ll all be down with it, Dunworthy thought.

  “Thank goodness you’re here,” one of the detainees said fervently. “We can’t do a thing with her.”

  Finch led him over to the detainee, who was sitting upright in bed. She was an elderly woman with sparse white hair, and she had the same fever-bright eyes, the same frenetic alertness Badri had had that first night.

  “Go away!” she said when she saw Finch and made a slapping motion at him. She turned her burning eyes on Dunworthy. “Daddy!” she cried, and then stuck her lower lip out in a pout. “I was very naughty,” she said in a childish voice. “I ate all the birthday cake, and now I have a stomachache.”

  “Do you see what I mean, sir?” Finch put in.

  “Are the Indians coming, Daddy?” she asked. “I don’t like Indians. They have bows and arrows.”

  It took them until morning to get her onto a cot in one of the lecture rooms. Dunworthy eventually had to resort to saying, “Your daddy wants his good girl to lie down now,” and just after they had her quieted down, the ambulance came. “Daddy!” she wailed when they shut the doors. “Don’t leave me here all alone!”

  “Oh, dear,” Finch said when the ambulance drove off. “It’s past breakfast time. I do hope they haven’t eaten all the bacon.”

  He went off to ration supplies, and Dunworthy went back to his rooms to wait for Andrews’ call. Colin was halfway down the staircase, eating a piece of toast and pulling on his jacket. “The vicar wants me to help collect clothes for the detainees,” he said with his mouth full of toast. “Aunt Mary telephoned. You’re to ring her back.”

  “But not Andrews?”

  “No.”

  “Has the visual been restored?”

  “No.”

  “Wear your regulation face mask!” Dunworthy called after him, “and your muffler!”

  He rang up Mary and waited impatiently for nearly five minutes until she came to the telephone.

  “James?” Mary’s voice said. “It’s Badri. He’s asking for you.”

  “He’s better, then?”

  “No. His fever’s still very high, and he’s become quite agitated, keeps calling your name, insists he has something to tell you. He’s working himself into a very bad state. If you could come and speak with him, it might calm him down.”

  “Has he said anything about the plague?” he asked.

  “The plague?” she said, looking annoyed. “Don’t tell me you’ve been infected by these ridiculous rumors that are flying about, James—that it’s cholera, that it’s breakbone fever, that it’s a recurrence of the Pandemic—”

  “No,” Dunworthy said. It’s Badri. Last night he said, ‘It killed half of Europe,’ and ‘It must have been the rats.’”

  “He’s delirious, James. It’s the fever. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  She’s right, he told himself. The detainee ranted on about Indians with bows and arrows, and you didn’t begin looking for Sioux warriors. She had conjured up too much birthday cake as an explanation for her being ill, and Badri had conjured up the plague. It didn’t mean anything.

  Nevertheless, he said he would be there immediately and went to find Finch. Andrews hadn’t specified what time he would call, but Dunworthy couldn’t risk leaving the phone unattended. He wished he’d made Colin stay while he spoke to Mary.

  Finch would very likely be in hall, guarding the bacon with his life. He took the receiver off the hook so the phone would sound engaged and went across the quad to the hall.

  Ms. Taylor met him at the door. “I was just coming to look for you,” she said. “I heard some of the detainees came down with the virus last night.”

  “Yes,” he said, scanning the hall for Finch.

  “Oh, dear. So I suppose we’ve all been exposed.”

  He couldn’t see Finch anywhere.

  “How long is the incubation period?” Ms. Taylor asked.

  “Twelve to forty-eight hours,” he said. He craned his neck, trying to see over the heads of the detainees.

  “That’s awful,” Ms. Taylor said. “What if one of us comes down with it in the middle of the peal? We’re Traditional, you know, not Council. The rules are very explicit.”

  He wondered why Traditional, whatever that might be, had deemed it necessary to have rules concerning change ringers infected with influenza.

  “Rule Three,” Ms. Taylor said. “‘Every man must stick to his bell without interruption.’ It isn’t as if we can put somebody else in halfway through if one of us suddenly keels over. And it would ruin the rhythm.”

  He had a sudden image of one of the bellringers in her white gloves collapsing and being kicked out of the way so as not to disrupt the rhythm.

  “Aren’t there any warning symptoms?” Ms. Taylor asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “That paper the NHS sent around said disorientation, fever, and headache, but that isn’t any good. The bells always give us headaches.”

  I can imagine,
he thought, looking for William Gaddson or one of the other undergraduates he could get to listen for the phone.

  “If we were Council, of course, it wouldn’t matter. They let people substitute right and left. During a peal of Tittum Bob Maximus at York, they had nineteen ringers. Nineteen! I don’t see how they can even call it a peal.”

  None of his undergraduates appeared to be in hall, Finch had no doubt barricaded himself in the buttery, and Colin was out collecting clothing. “Are you still in need of a practice room?” he asked Ms. Taylor.

  “Yes, unless one of us comes down with this thing. Of course, we could do Stedmans, but that would hardly be the same thing, would it?”

  “I’ll let you use my sitting room if you will answer the telephone and take down any messages for me. I am expecting an important trunk—long distance call, so it’s essential that someone be in the room at all times.”

  He led her back to his rooms.

  “Oh, it’s not very big, is it?” she said. “I’m not sure there’s room to work on our raising. Can we move the furniture around?”

  “You may do anything you like, so long as you answer the telephone and take down any messages. I’m expecting a call from Mr. Andrews. Tell him he doesn’t need clearance to enter the quarantine area. Tell him to go straight to Brasenose and I’ll meet him there.”

  “Well, all right, I guess,” she said as if she were doing him a favor. “At least it’s better than that drafty cafeteria.”

  He left her rearranging furniture, not at all convinced that it was a good idea to entrust her with this, and hurried off to see Badri. He had something to tell him. It killed them all.Half of Europe.

  The rain had subsided to little more than a fine mist, and the anti-EC picketers were gathered in force in front of the Infirmary. They had been joined by a number of boys Colin’s age wearing black face plasters and shouting, “Let my people go!”

  One of them grabbed Dunworthy’s arm. “The government’s got no right to keep you here against your will,” he said, thrusting his striped face up to Dunworthy’s face mask.

  “Don’t be a fool,” Dunworthy said. “Do you want to start another pandemic?”

  The boy let go his arm, looking confused, and Dunworthy escaped inside.

  Casualties was full of patients on stretcher trolleys, and there was one standing next to the elevator. An imposing looking nurse in voluminous SPG’s was standing next to it, reading something to the patient from a polythene-wrapped book.

  “‘Whoever perished, being innocent?’” she said, and he realized with dismay that it wasn’t a nurse. It was Mrs. Gaddson.

  “‘Or where were the righteous cut off?’” she recited.

  She stopped and thumbed through the thin pages of the Bible, looking for another cheering passage, and he ducked down the side corridor and into a stairwell, eternally grateful to the NHS for issuing face masks.

  “‘The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption,’” she intoned, her voice resounding through the corridor as he fled, “‘and with a fever, and with an inflammation.’”

  And He shall smite thee with Mrs. Gaddson, he thought, and she shall read you Scriptures to keep your morale up.

  He went up the stairs to Isolation, which had now apparently taken over most of the first floor.

  “Here you are,” the nurse said. It was the pretty blonde student nurse again. He wondered if he should warn her about Mrs. Gaddson.

  “I’d nearly given you up,” she said. “He’s been calling for you all morning.” She handed him a set of SPG’s, and he put them on and followed her in.

  “He was frantic for you half an hour ago,” she whispered, “kept insisting he had something to tell you. He’s a bit better now.”

  He looked, in fact, considerably better. He had lost the dark, frightening flush, and though he was still a bit pale under his brown skin, he looked almost like his old self. He was half– sitting against several pillows, his knees up, and his hands lying lightly on them, the fingers curved. His eyes were closed.

  “Badri,” the nurse said, putting her imperm-gloved hand on his chest and bending close to him. “Mr. Dunworthy’s here.”

  He opened his eyes. “Mr. Dunworthy?”

  “Yes.” She nodded across the bed, indicating him. “I told you he’d come.”

  Badri sat up straighter against the pillows, but he didn’t look at Dunworthy. He looked intently ahead.

  “I’m here, Badri,” he said, moving forward so he was in his line of vision. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

  Badri continued to look straight ahead and his hands began moving restlessly on his knees. Dunworthy glanced at the nurse.

  “He’s been doing that,” she said. “I think he’s typing.” She looked at the screens and went out.

  He was typing. His wrists rested on his knees, and his fingers tapped the blanket in a complex sequence. His eyes stared at something in front of him—a screen?—and after a moment he frowned. “That can’t be right,” he said and began typing rapidly.

  “What is it, Badri?” Dunworthy said. “What’s wrong?”

  “There must be an error,” Badri said. He leaned slightly sideways and said, “Give me a line-by-line on the TAA.”

  He was peeking into the console’s ear, Dunworthy realized. He’s reading the fix, he thought. “What can’t be right, Badri?”

  “The slippage,” Badri said, his eyes fixed on the imaginary screen. “Readout check,” he said into the ear. “That can’t be right.”

  “What’s wrong with the slippage?” Dunworthy asked. “Was there more slippage than you expected?”

  Badri didn’t answer. He typed for a moment, paused, watching the screen, and began typing frantically.

  “How much slippage was there? Badri?” Dunworthy said.

  He typed for a full minute and then stopped and looked up at Dunworthy. “So worried,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Worried over what, Badri?” Dunworthy said.

  Badri suddenly flung the blanket back and grabbed for the bed rails. “I have to find Mr. Dunworthy,” he said. He yanked at his shunt, pulling at the tape.

  The screens behind him went wild, spiking crazily and beeping. Somewhere outside an alarm went off.

  “You mustn’t do that,” Dunworthy said, reaching across the bed to stop him.

  “He’s at the pub,” Badri said, ripping at the tape.

  The screens went abruptly flatline. “Disconnect,” a computer voice said. “Disconnect.”

  The nurse banged in. “Oh, dear, that’s twice he’s done that,” she said. “Mr. Chaudhuri, you mustn’t do that. You’ll pull your shunt out.”

  “Go and get Mr. Dunworthy. Now,” he said. “There’s something wrong,” but he lay back and let her cover him up. “Why doesn’t he come?”

  Dunworthy waited while the nurse retaped the shunt and reset the screens, watching Badri. He looked worn out and apathetic, almost bored. A new bruise was already forming above the shunt.

  The nurse left with, “I think I’d best call down for a sedative.”

  As soon as she was gone, Dunworthy said, “Badri, it’s Mr. Dunworthy. You wanted to tell me something. Look at me, Badri. What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Badri looked at him, but without interest.

  “Was there too much slippage, Badri? Is Kivrin in the plague?”

  “I don’t have time,” Badri said. “I was out there Saturday and Sunday.” He began typing again, his fingers moving ceaselessly on the blanket. “That can’t be right.”

  The nurse came back with a drip bottle. “Oh, good,” he said, and his expression relaxed and softened, as if a great weight had been lifted. “I don’t know what happened. I had such a terrific headache.”

  He closed his eyes before she had even hooked the drip to the shunt and began to snore softly.

  The nurse led him out. “If he wakes and calls for you again, where can you be reached?” she asked.

  He gave her the number. “What exactl
y did he say?” he asked, stripping off his gown. “Before I arrived?”

  “He kept calling your name and saying he had to find you, that he had to tell you something important.”

  “Did he say anything about a rats?” he said.

  “No. Once he said he had to find Karen—or Katherine—”

  “Kivrin.”

  She nodded. “Yes. He said, ‘I must find Kivrin. Is the laboratory open?’ And then he said something about a lamb, but nothing about rats, I don’t think. A good deal of the time I can’t make it out.”

  He threw the imperm gloves into the bag. “I want you to write down everything he says. Not the unintelligible parts,” he added before she could object. “But everything else. I’ll be back this afternoon.”

  “I’ll try,” she said. “It’s mostly nonsense.”

  He went downstairs. It was mostly nonsense, feverish ramblings that meant nothing, but he went outside to get a taxi. He wanted to get back to Balliol quickly, to speak to Andrews, to get him up here to read the fix.

  “That can’t be right,” Badri had said, and it had to be the slippage. Could he have somehow misread the figure, thought it was only four hours and then discovered, what? That it was four years? Or twenty-eight?

  “You’ll get there faster walking,” someone said. It was the boy with the black face plasters. “If you’re waiting for a taxi, you’ll stand there forever. They’ve all been commandeered by the bloody government.”

  He gestured toward one just pulling up to the door of Casualties. It had an NHS placard in the side window.

  Dunworthy thanked the boy and started back to Balliol. It was raining again, and he walked rapidly, hoping that Andrews had already telephoned, that he was already on his way. “Go and get Mr. Dunworthy immediately,” Badri had said. “Now. There’s something wrong,” and he was obviously reliving his actions after he had gotten the fix, when he had run through the rain to the Lamb and Cross to fetch him. “That can’t be right,” he had said.

  He half-ran across the quad and up to his rooms. He was worried Ms. Taylor wouldn’t have been able to hear the telephone’s bell over her bell ringers’ clanging, but when he opened the door, he found them standing in a circle in the middle of his sitting room in their face masks, their arms raised and hands folded as if in supplication, bringing their hands down in front of them and bending their knees one after the other in solemn silence.