The Last Good Man

by A. J. Kazinsky

  He was riding alongside Hannah. Maybe he woke up. In any case, he heard scattered voices, partial sentences, words that floated past: Hit by a train . . . No, hit by a car at a train crossing . . . Why not Skejby? . . . Poor weather conditions . . . burn unit . . . trauma center. . .

  One sentence he heard very clearly. I can’t get a pulse on her.

  Someone answered. It sounded like a discussion, but Niels wasn’t sure. He saw his hand reach out toward her. He heard himself whisper: “Hannah.”

  “We’re almost there.”

  “Hannah.”

  “We’re losing her. We need to start—”

  They stopped. At least that’s what Niels thought. Until he realized, in a haze of morphine, that it was only Hannah who had stopped. He kept going, and that was the worst moment of all. Worse than the accident itself. Worse than the instant when the car crashed into him. Niels had a feeling that he’d been torn in half, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw—or maybe just sensed—that doctors were leaning over her and . . .

  He was out again.

  It didn’t matter. It was over now. It was good. It lasted only a moment. Because a moment later . . .

  Wednesday, December 23

  . . . the light came toward him. He thought: So that’s that. He felt no fear, could manage only a resigned shrug for the light that was approaching at the end of the darkness, his life that was slowly ebbing away, a face that leaned over him, a beautiful woman, maybe an angel who . . .

  “Is he awake?”

  The angel was talking to him.

  “Yes. He’s coming around now.”

  Two nurses were looking at him. The younger one—the angel—seemed genuinely curious. The other’s expression was merely matter-of-fact, observant.

  “Hannah,” he whispered.

  “I’ll get the doctor.”

  Niels couldn’t tell which nurse had spoken. He was having a hard time separating their words from his thoughts. He looked out a window: snowflakes lit up by the hospital’s lights, eternally burning. He tried to remember, tried to gather all the fragments into a memory of what had happened.

  “Niels Bentzon?”

  Niels suppressed an inappropriate smile that was presumably due to something as banal as the joy he felt at being able to remember his own name.

  “You’re awake. I’m glad to see that. My name is Asger Gammeltoft. I’m the head surgeon here. I was part of the team that operated on you. We worked on you for almost eight hours.”

  “Hannah?” Niels couldn’t hear his own voice. “And the children?”

  “Can you speak a little louder?” The doctor bent down closer.

  “Were they hurt?”

  “Are you asking about the children?” The doctor straightened up and conferred briefly with the nurses, whispering, conspiratorial. “The girls weren’t hurt. They escaped unscathed. You saved their lives.” He pushed up his glasses. He wore a kind but slightly arrogant expression. He was a man who was making an honest effort to be attentive, though he had other things on his mind. “I’m going to be frank and tell you that you have a number of serious injuries. Many of them are typical for people who have been involved in a car accident. Injuries to your hips and back, lesions in your abdominal cavity, broken ribs and bruised cervical vertebrae, blood accumulations in your lungs. I won’t burden you with all the details at the moment. The important thing is that you’ve pulled through.”

  He wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief and then put it back where he’d found it. “During the first hours of the operation, we weren’t sure you’d survive.” He sighed. “Are you thirsty?”

  Before Niels could answer, a nurse was pressing a straw into his mouth. “Drink some of that. It’s juice. You need lots of fluids.”

  Strawberry and raspberry. Sickly sweet. The straw in his mouth stirred up some lost memories from his childhood. The wild rhubarb plants behind the soccer field. The tomato plants, with furry stalks, like the legs of a spider.

  “Good. Tomorrow you may be able to have some solid food.”

  Maybe it was the thought of solid food that made Niels look down at his body. His arms were sticking out from under the covers. He saw an IV and bandages. “What happened to me?”

  “Maybe we should talk more at some later time.”

  “No! I want to know now.”

  The nurse whispered something in the doctor’s ear. Dr. Gammeltoft nodded.

  “Niels. You’ve lost a lot of blood, but we’ve got you stabilized, so we’re optimistic.” He corrected himself: “I mean we’re very optimistic. We also discovered some extremely atypical accumulations of blood on your back. The medics at the accident scene thought they were burns. That was why you were brought here. But those aren’t burns on your back.”

  He cleared his throat. “At first we thought it was an old tattoo that had developed a rash, but it’s more likely that the tiny blood vessels in the skin, or rather under the skin, expanded or . . . We’ll have a dermatologist take a look at it. But it’s quite common to develop a fungal infection after an operation. It’s a sign that your immune system is fighting.

  “Right now you need to rest. We’ll probably have to operate again, but for the time being, the most important thing is for you to have peace and quiet. As we usually say here: The best doctor is your own body.” The doctor nodded, which apparently indicated that the conversation was over.

  Niels tried to stop him. He whispered: “Hannah.”

  “I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

  Niels tried to summon the last of his energy in order to speak. “Hannah . . .”

  Dr. Gammeltoft still couldn’t hear. Her name was made up of too many indistinct sounds that were almost nothing but air. “Han . . .” Niels tried again.

  “You need to rest.” The doctor was about to leave but changed his mind and again came closer.

  “. . . nah . . .”

  “You’ve been unconscious for almost seventy-two hours. You’ve suffered serious injuries. You need to rest.”

  Seventy-two hours? Niels looked out the window. It was as if the date woke up his slumbering brain. Seventy-two hours.

  “Wednesday?”

  “Yes, it’s Wednesday. December twenty-third. You’ve been out for three days.”

  “Friday.”

  “What?”

  “It’s going to happen on Friday.”

  The doctor looked at the nurse. Their eyes carried on a conversation that Niels didn’t understand, but it didn’t matter. He had to get out of here. As far away as possible. He looked out the window and thought about how to do that. He couldn’t walk. Or could he? He looked around. The doctor had left the room.

  The young nurse came over to Niels. “You need to understand that it’s very common to have lapses in memory after a serious accident. But your memory will slowly come back. It’s not a sign of significant brain injury. I’m sure you’re going to make a full recovery.”

  “Hannah?”

  The older nurse offered some sort of explanation. Niels heard a somewhat distorted version of what she said. “He’s talking about his girlfriend.”

  “Hannah!”

  “Take it easy. You need to relax.”

  “Tell me.”

  The young nurse looked down at his stomach. With a great effort he turned his head and looked down too. He saw that he was gripping her wrist hard. His fingernails were digging into her skin.

  “Let’s take one thing at a time. Okay? The most important thing right now is for you to regain your strength.”

  “Tell me!”

  “We’ll get a doctor, Niels. Just a minute.”

  The older nurse disappeared. Niels struggled not to fall asleep. He wanted to wait until the new white-coat arrived to offer some reassuring words and a sedative. He wanted to feel the nurse take his hand and squeeze it with genuine sympathy as the doctor told Niels the news that he already knew. The news that he had long since read in the eyes of the young nurse as she tried
to avoid looking at him. The news that Hannah was dead.

  2

  Trauma Center, the National Hospital—Copenhagen

  She felt better than she ever had. An explosive feeling of freedom. Able to think so clearly, without any limits. Here she had room for her thoughts.

  Thursday, December 24

  A fissure of darkness in an overwhelming light. Hannah turned away. She didn’t care. Until she happened to think of Niels. Then the darkness opened, and there was nothing she could do except allow it to swallow her up.

  I’ve just experienced something incredible.

  Hazy, dreamlike shapes in a white room. One of the shapes came closer. Leaned over her. Shined something in her eyes . . .

  “She’s back!”

  “What?”

  “Come and look.”

  A murmuring all around her. Amazing. Someone laughed with relief. What a tough woman.

  The voices were coming through louder. Especially a woman’s voice. The other shapes came closer. They attached things to her body, fiddled with various machines, talked quietly as they focused on their work.

  “Unbelievable,” someone said.

  Another person said that she needed to be stabilized. Who did they mean by “she”?

  They shined lights in her eyes. Stuck needles in her hands. She sensed a faint beeping somewhere in the room.

  “Where . . . ?”

  Could that be Hannah whispering? There was no reaction. She tried to clear her throat. Only now she did feel her body. And that was an unpleasant encounter. A searing pain in her chest and throat. A prickling sensation in her legs. The voice was talking louder. “Where is—” She was interrupted by the sound of a helicopter. She glanced out the window and saw it fly off. The National Hospital. Of course.

  “She’s trying to say something.”

  Faces stared at her. She lay still, gathering her strength to swing her legs off the bed. She had to find Niels and warn him. But it was impossible. She couldn’t move. She was not in terrible pain. Her body was numb.

  “Can you hear me?”

  They were talking to her. A frantic male voice trying to sound gentle.

  “Hannah Lund? Can you hear what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve been unconscious for several days. You’ve been more than unconscious. Do you know where you are?”

  The National Hospital. The words refused to go from thought to speech. They refused to leave her mouth.

  “Do you know that you’re in the National Hospital in Copenhagen? You were involved in a serious accident in Jutland, and you were brought here by helicopter.”

  Hannah didn’t try to reply. The doctor was speaking to her as if she were a child.

  “Can you hear everything that I’m saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Because it’s important that you—”

  “What day is it?”

  “Thursday. December twenty-fourth. Merry Christmas.” The face was becoming clearer, and Hannah noticed a little smile. A young man wearing black-framed glasses.

  “Tomorrow . . .”

  “What?”

  “Where is Niels?”

  “She’s talking about her friend. The man who was also involved in the accident,” said a voice.

  “Where is Niels?”

  Only when the stand with the IV toppled did Hannah realize that she’d succeeded in swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Pain in her head. She seemed to have hit it on something. Presumably the floor or the IV stand. The door opened. White coats came rushing in. More anonymous, well-intentioned faces. A voice said, “She’s in shock. She needs . . .”

  Hannah didn’t hear the name of the sedative they wanted to give her, but it occurred to her that the voice was right. She was in shock. Her brain was a jumble of scattered thoughts. Briefly, she could feel every single artery and vein in her body, as well as the blood surging through her brain. She heard herself saying, “I’m not in shock.”

  She was put back in bed. She was incapable of resisting. A soothing, almost drawling voice said, “You’ve been in a serious car accident. You were hit by a car moving at high speed.”

  “Tomorrow . . .”

  “You need to rest, Hannah.”

  “When the sun goes down . . . Niels.”

  “Listen to me, Hannah. Your husband, or your friend, is still alive. You both need to rest.”

  “What day is it?”

  The whispering voice again: “Can we hurry it up a bit?”

  “Don’t . . .”

  A warm sensation in her hand.

  “What day is it?”

  “We’ve already talked about that. It’s Thursday morning. Christmas Eve. But you shouldn’t be thinking about anything except getting some rest. You were both very, very lucky. We’ve given you something that will help you relax.”

  The voice grew muddy. Hannah could still hear it, though the words made no sense. The medicine was taking over her body. She fought against it, but she wasn’t equal to the battle, and the darkness came back. Releasing her.

  3

  Intensive Care, the National Hospital—Copenhagen

  Every awakening felt like an endless climb out of death toward life. The light hurt his eyes. It was as if his body were subject to the gravitational force of the realm of death, which was much stronger than the earth’s. This must be how Lazarus felt when Jesus brought him back to life, thought Niels, squinting his eyes and noticing how his body was being pressed against the mattress, down toward the floor, down toward the ground.

  He was breathing heavily. He looked around. The hospital. Always the hospital. He closed his eyes. Let himself fall.

  Thursday, December 24

  “Niels?”

  He recognized the voice.

  “Niels.”

  The bald head. The kind eyes that reminded him of his father’s.

  “Can you hear me? It’s Willy. Your uncle.”

  “Willy?”

  “I’ve been here a couple of times. You’ve been completely out of it, my boy. Good thing your father and mother don’t have to see you like this. They wouldn’t have survived it.”

  Niels smiled. Willy was just about the only family he had left. At least the only one he cared about of those who were left.

  “Can you tell me where Kathrine is working? Is it somewhere abroad? I want to give her a call.”

  Niels shook his head. “No. I’ll call her when I’m feeling better.”

  “Okay. Okay, my boy. You’ll be fine. That’s what the doctors say, too. You’re strong. You’ve always been a strong boy. Your father’s boy.”

  Niels wanted to go back to the darkness and the heaviness. Away. He heard Willy rambling on as he let himself fall. Something about flowers. And chocolate. And all the family members who had died. It was a pleasant voice to accompany him down into the darkness.

  “Merry Christmas,” someone said. Or sang. Maybe he was already dreaming.

  “Niels Bentzon?”

  A man wearing a white coat. A new man. This place seemed to have an endless number of them. Where was Uncle Willy? Had he been here or not? The hopeless bouquet of flowers on the table was proof of the visit. Only Willy would show up at a hospital with a bouquet better suited for a funeral.

  “Can you hear me?” asked the man in the white coat.

  “Yes.”

  “I have good news.”

  Niels tried to focus. A veil seemed to have settled over his eyes, making him feel as if he had his eyes open underwater. “Good news?”

  “About your girlfriend.”

  “Hannah?” said Niels.

  “She’s not dead.”

  “Not dead?”

  “She’s going to pull through, Niels.” The man smiled. “It’s highly unusual to be brought back to life twice. I’m a doctor, so I very seldom use the word ‘miracle.’ But if I’ve ever personally witnessed a miracle, it has to be when your girlfriend opened her eyes a couple of hours ago
. She may not even suffer any permanent injury.”

  “Girlfriend.” The word annoyed Niels. The doctor was saying something else, but Niels wasn’t listening.

  “I want to see her.” He spoke the words loudly and clearly.

  “We’ll have to arrange that. As soon as possible.”

  “I need to see her.”

  “You’ll need to stay here a little while longer first.” The doctor looked around and made eye contact with a nurse. He didn’t say anything out loud, but Niels had no doubt what he meant: I can’t keep standing here talking to this patient. I have other things to do. You’ll have to explain to him that he needs to stay here.

  The nurse came closer. “I’m afraid that’s not possible at the moment, Niels. You’re in separate wards of the hospital. Your girlfriend has been taken to the cardiology department. All the way over there.”

  She pointed out the window. The hospital was built in the shape of an incomplete H, which meant that two patients could be quite a distance from each other even though they were in the same building. So far away that it was impossible to see the people behind the windows on the other side.

  “Every time we move a patient, we increase the risk of stress and complications. The two of you will have to wait for a while. It’s for your own good. We’ve contacted family members for both of you.”

  “But it’s important.”

  “Maybe we can arrange something on the phone. How does that sound?” She smiled and touched the bandage on his head.

  “Good.”

  She left. Niels stared at the opposite wing of the building. He let his memory take over: the North Sea. The freight train. The convenience store. The accident. No matter what you do, Niels, you’re going to end up at the National Hospital in a week. That’s what Hannah had said. Because of the system.

  “Niels Bentzon?”

  Niels was jolted out of his thoughts. How much time had passed? The man introduced himself. “My name is Jørgen Wass. I’m a dermatologist. This young man is a student making rounds with me.”

  A younger man wearing glasses stood at the doctor’s side.