Origin

by Diana Abu-Jaber

  Keller gave me his woolen overcoat in the elevator to cover my hospital gown. It falls to my ankles and I button it, hoping no one will notice my paper slippers. As we walk toward the woman, I become aware of a small creaking that turns out to be the sound of the woman’s chair legs, her right leg crossed over the top of the left knee, her right foot moving rhythmically up and down.

  There’s also a faint grunting—which comes from a round electronic clock on the wall, the second hand jerking across the face.

  And beneath these minuscule sounds there’s the skitch of her pen crossing the piece of paper. Our footsteps are the loudest sound in the corridor, but she doesn’t look up until we’re right in front of her desk, and even then it takes her another few seconds to stop writing, sigh, and look up. She doesn’t speak, but simply pauses, as though she’s fed up with the constant interruptions.

  Instantly my voice dries in my throat. Her gaze has the peculiar effect of rendering us invisible. Keller explains that we’re hunting for my records. The clerk studies both of us, her eye ticking over our clothes.

  When Keller finishes, there’s no sound for a moment, the clerk as impassive as if he hadn’t said anything. I become aware of a high, thin whistling coming from her nose. Finally, she tips her head carefully. “I can’t just let you rummage around in my cabinets,” she says. “You have to submit a written request. If you want a paper copy of your files, it’s a dollar per page.”

  Keller reaches inside his jacket and pulls out his wallet badge.

  “It’s fine, Keller,” I murmur behind his back. “It can wait.”

  But Keller doesn’t want to leave it alone quite yet—perhaps because he hears the defeat in my voice. Part of the problem is that I have so little information to go on—no birthplace, not even my family name—Pia and Henry named me after I left the hospital. Without guidelines, it seems as if the only chance we have is if we try to conduct the search ourselves.

  “I’m afraid I don’t write the rules around here—” The woman breaks off when she notices the badge.

  “Have you heard about the baby killer case?” he asks. “We need access to these files as part of our investigation.”

  The woman flicks her glance up at him coolly. “So you’ve got a court order?”

  I can feel my own back tensing, shoulders rising. The clerk keeps eyeing me, self-contained as a nun. When the phone rings—an old-fashioned plastic thing with a coiled line and a rotary dial—we all jump a little. She answers curtly, then says more cautiously, “Yes?” We watch her eyes lift. Keller touches my hand with the back of his. She listens; I hear a mumble through the receiver. “Yes, sir,” she says. “Yes, all right. All right. I will, sir. Of course. Yes. Thank you.” Finally she replaces the phone in its cradle. She stares at it a moment, then looks up at us. “That was Dr. Gupta,” then she adds coolly, “The head of the hospital.” She stands and straightens her skirt. “Do not touch anything until I say to.”

  I glance at Keller, who lifts his brows. She walks into the next room. And first we don’t even move. It feels like a magic trick: like seeing the lock melt off a gate. Keller grabs my hand and we hurry in behind her.

  THE FILES ARE organized according to an idiosyncratic, nearly indecipherable system, intersecting dates of admission, alphabetization, dates of discharge, and, occasionally, blood type. The sole purpose of such a system, I suppose, is to keep intruders out and ensure that this clerk has her job till the end of time.

  I tell her everything I know: a girl child, blood type B+, discharged approximately age two, name unknown, parents unknown.

  Recently removed from a rain forest—I wanted to say—still smelling of apes; if closely examined, the doctors would’ve discovered bits of their fur, leaf matter, fragrant earth still clinging to her skin, a mad careening of bird cries still in her ears.

  In the overheated silence of the records office—walls lined floor to ceiling with drawers—every sound is stifled under the towers of paper. The clerk’s reluctant to allow us into her sanctum. She moves to a number of different drawers—seemingly at random—and yanks them open, overstuffed and bristling with folders. “You can start there,” she says. “But I really don’t see how her files will help you with finding this killer person. Which, personally, I think is all a bunch of malarkey, anyway.” With that, she heads toward her desk in the front.

  I look at Keller in dismay. “This won’t work. How’ll we ever find anything in this place?”

  He watches the clerk’s retreating back. “We’ve got a starting point, it’s not so bad. Look for gender and blood type first—we’ll narrow it down.”

  We go to different drawers and begin reading through the files, but the details run together—myriad childhood illnesses and accidents. There are dozens of B+ types and dozens more children whose blood type isn’t listed at all.

  My fingers crawl over the soft old cardstock. The drawers go on and on, the folders wedged in so tightly that they’re almost impenetrable. The paper ruffles under the yellow light: I seem to hear a murmuring rise and subside, rise and subside. I hunt, my mouth pinched in concentration.

  We work quickly, saying very little, pulling files one after another, trying not to lose their location in the drawers. But there are too many folders sticking up, all sorts of GIRL, Infant files—malnourished, abandoned, some abused—and none of them say: rescued from jungle. Certainly there is nothing to connect these lists of names—Ada Minot, Harry Dacini, Erin Billings, Maryann Darwon—to a tooth on a string. But I don’t seem to have any resources—my energy wisps away too quickly.

  My senses start to feel dampened. My throat is hot—scalding, in fact—my lips and nostrils and the rims of my eyes burn. I start to suspect that a low humming sound is coming from the clerk in the other room; she occasionally appears in the doorway, watching us.

  We pass through a fog of time—disembodied hours of searching. My thoughts wander away from the folders at some point and I find that I’m considering the tooth that I’ve kept all these years, finally admitting to myself—that all this time I’d believed the tooth had come from my rescuer—the ape mother. And to see this artifact, which until recently had seemed like a token of love—a treasure of the magical past—draped around the neck of a murderer, might mean that I would have to reevaluate all the ways I’d come to think of my past. But these thoughts are so depressing that they seem to sap my last bits of energy and concentration. Finally, I’m slumped at the table, hands sunk in my hair. Keller comes and crouches by my elbow. “I think that’s good for now,” he says.

  “We haven’t gotten anywhere.”

  “We made a good start. And you’re bushed.”

  “I’m having bad thoughts about my little necklace,” I say. “And none of them help move this case any further at all.” I don’t want to go, but I have no energy to argue. We leave the drawers open, the files standing up. The clerk doesn’t so much as glance at us as we walk past, but once we’re in the corridor, I hear her cool voice saying, “I hope you found what you were looking for.”

  CHAPTER 38

  NURSE CARTS RATTLE THROUGH THE NIGHT. I REPEATEDLY SURFACE to near-consciousness, float through sensory impressions—a series of unfamiliar and familiar sounds and smells. Down the hall, a patient in another room moans in an intensifying register, then falls silent.

  In the morning, Opal comes in to check my pulse and temperature. “Not quite ready to go home, I think,” she says, frowning at the thermometer. “I’m sorry, Lena. Shouldn’t’ve let you go roaming around yesterday.”

  I watch her a moment, uncertain, fingering the edge of my sheet. “Someone helped intercede for us, you know, with that clerk in the records office.”

  Her smile is tilted. “Ah, you met Sabrina, our Records Nazi.” She lifts her chin. “Well, Laeticia told us about your work on the baby killer,” she murmurs, as if we’re co-conspirat
ors, slicking the wide cotton sheet over me. “We all ganged up, all the nurses on our floor, and told Dr. Gupta he had to make the Records people help you. Did you find what you needed?” But she can already see the answer on my face and presses her lips shut. She sits on the edge of the bed, a folded sheet over one arm, and studies my face; then she runs her fingers along my jaw—a quick, affectionate gesture, so fleeting it seems accidental. “You were asking about that Lyons Hospital before.” She stands and spreads a clean top sheet over me, then a new blanket. “Are you researching something?”

  “Not exactly. It’s a criminal investigation I’m involved in. But part of the problem . . .”—I gaze around the room—“is that I also have to investigate myself.”

  “Sounds like something more people should do.”

  I laugh with a short exhale. “I wish I didn’t have to.”

  “It takes a lot of courage.” She says this so earnestly and looks at me so intently that I drop my eyes.

  “Well. I don’t know. . . .”

  She begins tugging the kinks from my sheets. “Could I ask you, are your parents still alive?”

  I say quietly, “I had foster parents. They’re still around.”

  She bites her lips and runs her hands over her white skirt. The skin on her face is very clear, the fragile skin above her eyes folded in one crease like silk. But I become aware that she’s avoiding my eyes, looking at my bruised forehead. She speaks—at first so softly, I can’t hear clearly: “Some children were placed in foster homes from Lyons.”

  “Did you . . . you worked with those babies?”

  She says, “Yes. But I frequently assisted with special cases. More difficult . . . situations. Babies that didn’t get adopted right away. Emotional problems, you know. Or the little handicapped children. That sort of thing. But sometimes—sometimes things weren’t done quite . . . right. Not according to procedures.” She looks at me so quickly her eyes seem to flicker. “Do you understand what I mean?” She straightens the thermometer and water glass on my bedside tray, then rubs her arms in an anxious, washing motion. “I shouldn’t say anything—it was all so long ago, it couldn’t matter to anyone now. I was just starting out at the time and I didn’t feel I could say anything.”

  Another nurse comes into the room and asks to borrow Opal’s stethoscope, and there’s a small silence in the room as Opal unhooks it from her neck and hands it over. After the other nurse has scurried out, Opal looks at me furtively. “I’m just trying to say . . . there might have been some irregularities. How the children were processed in the system. Perhaps your foster parents said something to you?”

  “In what sense?” I try to lift myself out of the blankets and pillows, but I just slide back into the bed. A deep lassitude has drifted over me. It’s like trying to move in a dream. My body lags behind my mind, my head feels heavy. Opal tucks the blankets in at the sides. “What sorts of irregularities?”

  But she only shakes her head briefly, gaze lowered again. “I said too much. I always do that.” She picks up my bed tray. “No, no—rest now. You can talk to your foster parents later. It’s better if you talk to them about it yourself.”

  BY MY SECOND DAY in the hospital, my senses—of smell and hearing in particular—seem to have eroded and the world has slipped back. I remember the cold, alpine scent of Anderson Woods. The sky outside the windows is so overcast, I can’t tell if the sun has already started to set or not.

  Keller comes to check on me in the morning, then Alyce and Sylvie stop by. Sylvie has a basket of fruit and back issues of Glamour, and Alyce has a slim green bottle of champagne with a gold-foiled top. Both of them marvel at my bruised forehead. Alyce eases out the champagne cork and fills a couple of paper cups. She hands me one and it fizzes in the cup like something alive. “Here’s to solving the big case!” she says.

  I place my cup untouched on the bed tray. “I’m not really feeling up to champagne right now.”

  Sylvie puts hers down as well.

  “All the more for me, then,” Alyce says grumpily.

  Charlie sidles around the doorway while they’re visiting and gives me a wave.

  “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Alyce says.

  Charlie scowls at her, then crosses the room to my bedside, his hard black shoes tapping. He plants a little kiss on my forehead. “Hello, beautiful wife,” he says. “Well, we did it, didn’t we? We bagged the bad guy.”

  “What d’you mean ‘we,’ white man?” Alyce says.

  “Oh yeah. I meant Lena and the police—not you,” he says, hoisting his leather belt. “Hey hey, is that champagne?” He clanks over to her.

  While Alyce and Charlie are drinking and bickering, Sylvie drags her chair in closer. “Lena, if you don’t think that man did it, then I don’t either.” She tucks some of her lank hair behind one ear. “Even though I want to.” She crouches into my bedside then and whispers, “I hope you don’t mind—I told someone you were here. In the hospital. I thought I should.” She looks around then murmurs, “It was Erin Cogan. Somehow she got the direct number to the Lab and I picked up the phone.” Sylvie shakes her head. “I’m sorry.” She presses the little cross with the flat of her hand. “She might try to come pester you again. Though she promised she wouldn’t.”

  “Syl.” I gesture her even closer. “That’s okay. In fact, you’ve got to get me a number—one of the victims’ families.”

  “Which one?” She looks over one shoulder then and whispers, “You know we’re not supposed to. It might flub up the evidence.”

  “Junie Wilson.”

  “Oh, that’s a hard one—their phone was disconnected. The police had a line put in so they could contact them.” She writes a note on the inside of her palm. “I’ll try,” she whispers.

  When they’re about to leave, Charlie drains his cup and comes back to my bedside. “So, kiddo,” he says, his breath yeasty. “You forgive ol’ Charlie or what?”

  “For what, Charlie?” I ask.

  He peers over at Alyce and Sylvie, then turns back to me. “You know—for kicking Friendly’s ass!”

  “Oh that,” I say. “Yes, I forgive you.”

  “Good, excellent,” he says briskly. “And I forgive you too.”

  “Oh, that’s rich,” Alyce butts in. “What for?”

  He looks at her with disdain, then says, “For dating a detective.”

  DR. HOYD CHECKS me again at the end of her rounds. She shakes her head. “Sorry Lena. You’re not ready to go yet. Maybe tomorrow.”

  I feel once again that I’m lapsing back into myself, into a wave of exhaustion that’s been building all day. That night, my dreams are filled with disturbing and ineffable, unrememberable things—feelings of panic and terror so extreme that I awake with my heart shaking my whole body. I’m afraid to go back to that place in my dreams, afraid even to sleep.

  BY MORNING, I SEEM to be in even worse shape. There are odd gurglings in my lower abdomen and my skin has a pronounced, sweetish odor. My body seems alien to me, molten. I lie half awake but motionless on the bed and watch the filtered light rise in the room. I feel I could remain inert in here, this bed, like a jinni in a bottle, my body made of smoke.

  Dr. Hoyd comes by—I register her alarm. She says something about ordering new tests, an MRI.

  Opal wheels me into the elevator to go to the imaging center. On the way down, she says, “Lena, did a strange nurse happen to come into your room this morning?” I try to think about it, but I’m having trouble gathering my focus, so many people seemed to come in and out of the room, drawing blood, checking monitors. I look up at her face looming over my bed and mumble, “There might have been. Why?”

  “Who brought you your breakfast tray this morning?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  She looks at the buttons flashing on the elevator wall. “
One of the radiation techs mentioned it to me. It’s probably nothing, but the tech had never seen her before. Just let me know if you see anything strange.”

  I gaze up at her another moment before I start to drift off again.

  I can’t seem to get out of bed. I’m too tired to be frightened. My sleep is a riptide that sucks me under. Keller appears, disappears, reappears beside my bed. I dream of chemical chains and processes: I’m standing in the Lab with a bottle of ninhydrin. I wave the spray over a piece of wood; it’s a bar from a crib. The fingerprints develop instantly, the wood turning a rich dark blue. Then I’m back in the bed again. I have some visitors; the nurses move in and out. Sometimes I’m fairly alert, but more often I’m drowsing.

  At one point, I half wake and my room is filled with a jungly mist; the slats of the bed’s wooden footboard break into flowers, spiky red ginger. The door fissures into quaking palms trees. And she’s there. Silver fur; eyes like onyx.

  She enters the room and slips in between the sheets. She winds her arms around me and holds me close. I feel myself shrinking. I can fit on top of her broad chest like a baby. I hear the lub of her pulse. She tightens her grip on me until I can’t breathe. I expel the air in my lungs as she squeezes harder. But then, with seemingly no power to stop it, a cry rises out of me: You don’t exist!

  Her arms break apart and she and the rain forest dissolve into the bed and the floorboards.

  Come back, I shout, oh, come back.

  KELLER IS OUT in the corridor talking to someone: “No, she’s really not. No . . . no. . . . But . . . she’s always hot. . . . Well . . . well, I’ll try, but . . . I’ll try. Okay. But you’ll check again later? Okay. Thanks.”

  He comes into the room. There are circles under his eyes. He pulls the blankets up to my chin, tucks me in. I push them down. “Lena, please,” he says.

  “Too hot. I don’t want them.”

  “I just talked to Dr. Hoyd. She thinks you’re having symptoms from a concussion. She said you’ve got to stay down and rest.”