The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fourteenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  Kromer was surprised and he moaned and I got away from him. Gloria punched him again. Then she turned around and gave Gilmartin a kick in the nuts and he went down. I’ll always remember in spite of what happened next that she gave those guys a couple they’d be feeling for a day or two.

  * * *

  The gang who beat the crap out of us were a mix of the militia and some other guys from the town, including Lane’s boyfriend. Pretty funny that he’d take out his frustration on us, but that just shows you how good Fearing had that whole town wrapped around his finger.

  * * *

  Outside of town we found an old house that we could hide in and get some sleep. I slept longer than Gloria. When I woke up she was on the front steps rubbing a spoon back and forth on the pavement to make a sharp point, even though I could see it hurt her arm to do it.

  “Well, we did get fed for a couple of days,” I said.

  Gloria didn’t say anything.

  “Let’s go up to San Francisco,” I said. “There’s a lot of lonely women there.”

  I was making a joke of course.

  Gloria looked at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that maybe I can get us in for once.”

  Gloria didn’t laugh, but I knew she would later.

  DR. TILMANN’S CONSULTANT: A SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE

  Cherry Wilder

  Born in New Zealand, Cherry Wilder has lived for long stretches of time in Australia and also in Germany, where she currently resides. She made her first sale in 1974 to the British anthology New Writings in SF 24, and since then has sold to a number of markets such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, Interzone, Universe, Strange Plasma, and elsewhere. Her many books include The Luck of Brin’s Five, The Nearest Fire, The Tapestry Warriors, Second Nature, A Princess of the Chameln, Yorath the Wolf, The Summer’s King, and Cruel Designs. Her most recent books are a collection, Dealers in Light and Darkness, and a new novel, Signs of Life.

  In the powerful and somberly evocative story that follows, she takes us back to the turbulent days just prior to World War I, for a study of a doctor who has found a Secret Weapon in the War On Disease—one a little more secret than usual, though … and one which better be kept a little more secret too.

  Above the grove of pines there was one lone chalet where Dr. Tilmann sometimes lodged a special patient. During the summer of 1913, when Rosalind accompanied the Ostrov family to Bavaria for the second time, there was a young woman in the annex. An Englishwoman, declared Marie-Louise Ostrova excitedly; exquisitely beautiful and mad as a bird. She could sometimes be heard in the night, playing the harmonium. Rosalind expressed mild disapproval of this gossip, as a governess should. Marie-Louise had made friends with a little nurse who spoke French. Rosalind did not believe that this was at all the place for a lively child of thirteen but the trials of the Ostrov family were such that there seemed to be no help for it.

  St. Verena’s hospital specialized in nervous complaints of the European aristocracy; Dr. Lucas Tilmann had recently taken over from his father, Professor Dr. Wilhelm Tilmann. The old man still wore a frock coat, a cravat, and the kind of high stiff collar called in German a vatermörder, a father-murderer. Many of the gentlemen about at the time did so too, but the junior chief, Dr. Lucas, was a dress reformer who went about in a soft collar and a lightweight jacket of beige linen.

  The Ostrov family came ostensibly for the Countess Valeria’s nerves but really it was for poor Leonid, the only son, who was losing his reason. Besides being unfortunate, charming, cultivated, and in decline, the family were so astonishingly rich that they had retained an important French specialist at the estate on the Black Sea for the winter. On Christmas Eve, the anniversary of the general’s death, Leonid made another attempt, this time from his balcony, and poor Dr. Patin restrained him at the cost of a broken arm. Rosalind dared not reveal much of what she experienced during these years to her widowed mother in Cheltenham.

  One evening, after a long day with the countess during her hydrotherapy, Rosalind followed a path up into the pines to her own favorite retreat. It was a clearing in the wood with a rustic bench and a wayside shrine that contained not a carved wooden saint but an icon of St. George, painted on metal. Many Russian families patronized St. Verena’s; they valued its discretion as well as its natural beauty. Rosalind could sit on the bench and look out to the ranks of the mountains or down to the village. Overhead the annex was visible among the trees and an even higher mountain meadow, bathed in bright sunlight.

  There was a rustling in the bushes: She thought of a pair of marmots or even a deer. In fact it was a young woman, of about Rosalind’s own age, dressed in a gray silk dress of “reformed” cut. Her poor stockinged feet were stained and hurt, her golden hair stood out round her pale face in a cloud and hung in long, ragged elflocks down past her hips; leaves and pine needles had caught in it.

  Rosalind understood the situation at once. She rose up, took the patient’s arm, and said: “Let me help you!”

  “You are English!” whispered the girl. “Oh please…”

  “Sit here with me,” said Rosalind. “Let me brush your poor hair.”

  She had a large bag of toilet articles that she had carried with her from the bathhouse: The girl turned her head obediently and Rosalind went to work with professional skill.

  “You have an English touch,” said the girl. “My body is covered from head to foot with the imprint of his fingers.”

  “Hush,” said Rosalind gently.

  “He comes to me at night,” continued the girl. “All the poor doctor’s beastly medicines can’t make me sleep. I wake up, very hot and wet under the horrid German featherbed and there is Teddy, my darling Teddy.…”

  Rosalind began to plait the magnificent fall of golden hair into a loose braid. She turned her head and saw Dr. Lucas Tilmann emerge from the bushes warily, as if stalking a butterfly. The mad girl had not seen him but her mood had altered; she began to weep, pouring out a stream of confused regrets and sorrows. She would never be well, she was imprisoned, the wretched little harmonium was out of tune, her mother was cruel, the swans had all flown away from the lake … Teddy knew what she should do and she had tried, more than once, but it was too difficult, the guns hurt her fingers.

  “Oh no,” said Rosalind softly, “you must never do that. Never try to hurt yourself.”

  She fastened the enormous Rapunzel braid of hair with a pink ribbon from her bag. Dr. Tilmann drew closer and said cautiously: “Miss Courtney … Maud?”

  The patient screamed aloud; before she could spring up Rosalind put her arms around her firmly.

  “No,” she said. “Please, Maud dear. Please be good! Dr. Tilmann will give you a nice cup of tea … see, he has brought your slippers. How kind.…”

  A nurse appeared now on the path from the annex and a young intern, Dr. Daniel, alerted by telephone, came running up from the hospital. Maud Courtney was docile again; her slippers were put on, she was led away down the hill to the main building. Lucas Tilmann accompanied the party a little way then rejoined Rosalind in the clearing.

  “Miss—Lane? I am deeply indebted…”

  “Poor thing,” said Rosalind. “I hope that she…”

  He sat down beside her on the bench and covered his face with his hands.

  “The prognosis,” he said, after a few seconds, “is not good.”

  “She spoke of someone called Teddy…,” prompted Rosalind.

  “Her brother died in the Punjab,” sighed Dr. Tilmann. “She has never been told.”

  “Dr. Tilmann,” said Rosalind, “what is the matter with the poor girl? What would you call her—disorder?”

  “A retreat from the world,” he said. “Bleuler has characterized it as schizophrenie. I swear to you, Miss Lane, I would give my life, I would make any Faustian bargain if I might effect an improvement, a cure, in some of these patients.…”

  * * *

  The season was nearly at an end; Leonid Ivanovitch ag
reed to remain in St. Verena’s for the winter months. Rosalind was the last member of the Ostrov family party to speak to the young man; they walked in the orangery, speaking in a mixture of English and French.

  “I know it is my nose,” said Leonid. “It still bothers me a good deal.Chère Rosaline, take care of my mother, see to the butterfly collection, I have left a box of swaps for the Nabokov boys … The voices will keep me informed. I am quite happy here. Dr. Lucas loves you, did you know that?”

  “You are exaggerating, I think,” said Rosalind, with a smile.

  She had dined twice with Lucas Tilmann and driven as far as Berchtesgarten in his new Daimler Landaulet. Leonid was very upset by her mild deprecation and fell into a brooding silence, picking at the spots on his face. An attendant lurked behind the orange trees in their tubs. Leonid was twenty-eight years old and unfit for military service.

  * * *

  The winter passed quietly on the estate: Before she was too deeply involved in the amateur theatricals and the ball season word came that her mother was very ill. The countess managed to obtain a passage for Rosalind on a steam yacht, the Nereid, owned by a consortium of Greek-Americans, which sailed from the port of Odessa. She arrived home at the quiet, dark house near Thirlestaine Road, and took over the nursing of her mother shortly after Christmas.

  She sat by the bed in the darkened room and told endless tales of the wonders that she had seen. Clothes and jewels; the opera and the ballet; the country estates; priests, monks, holy icons … Father Fyodor, the Ostrov chaplain, sent a small one which Mrs. Lane held between her thin fingers on top of the eiderdown. She became upset when Rosalind touched on mutiny, civil commotion, the Ostrov cousin Kyril, who had joined a revolutionary cell at the university and been exiled to the district of Irkutsk.

  Rosalind knew what her mother wished to hear, though reason had told them both when she took the post as governess to the Ostrovs that she would not meet eligible men. Now, to please the dying woman, she went so far as to claim that she had an understanding, with a doctor, Lucas Tilmann, at the alpine clinic. He had indeed sent her a card, with a charming letter and a lace-edged handkerchief, which arrived with the Ostrovs’s Christmas box, in January.

  Mrs. Lane lingered until the summer, passed away in her sleep at the end of May; Rosalind went about in the dark house setting everything in order. She had cheated, sold the family silver, so that she was able to pay off the remaining maidservant and keep a nest egg for herself. The house went, lock, stock, and barrel, to her nephew, Richard. She waited for the expected summons and set out in June, traveling across Europe to meet the Ostrov family party at St. Verena’s hospital on the Altalm, the old alpine meadow, near Mariensee.

  She arrived at four o’clock when all the guests who were able to enjoyed pastries and English tea … as opposed to the Russian tea, which was swilled all day long … on the terraces. Rosalind hesitated in the shadowy entrance hall, putting off the first encounter with the Ostrov family, who would be sure to weep, even if she did not. She had her luggage sent up to the suite and strolled through to the terrace unbuttoning her gloves. A sweet English voice spoke her name as she stepped out into the sunshine: “Miss Lane?”

  It was a stranger, or at least someone half-known, a young blond woman with her hair in a pompadour. She took Rosalind’s hand and gazed into her face, smiling.

  “I have a message from the Countess Ostrova.”

  The family were out driving, would not return until later. The young woman still did not say her name but they sat down together at her table.

  “I have to thank you,” she said, with that very steady gaze. “I remember how you helped me once.”

  Rosalind was on the verge of recognition but she simply could not believe what she saw.

  “My name is Maud Courtney,” said the young woman.

  Rosalind felt her first astonishment turning at once to relief and pleasure.

  “But you are…”

  “Yes! I have recovered. It is a miracle.…”

  She spoke quietly, with a glance at the surrounding tables where English was not being spoken.

  “A new treatment from Dr. Tilmann,” said Maud.

  It was all she said; they moved on to ordinary conversation, which was pleasant for Rosalind after her long journey. She did not have to explain her black clothes: The Ostrovs had already mentioned her bereavement to Miss Courtney, who offered her sympathy. Another sign of her normality: One shielded patients from harsh reality, from death, sickness, financial disasters.

  “My brother, Edward,” said Maud, “was killed two years ago in India.”

  Rosalind expressed sympathy in her turn.

  The Ostrov family had taken a new suite of rooms in the west wing of the sanitarium. There was only one new Russian servant, a mere boy, with silky whiskers, playing cards with the little French nurse, Sister Clotilde, the friend of Marie-Louise. It was all so different from the musky headachey atmosphere of other years that she wondered if there had been some change in the family fortunes. Had terrible old Great-Uncle Paul given up the palace in Moscow at last? Had the countess, at last, taken a lover?

  There was plenty of time before the family returned—young Vasily informed her, dealing another hand—so she went out of doors again. She found herself climbing up through the pines to her precious clearing and admitted, with a smile, that she was eager to meet Lucas Tilmann, hear from his own lips the news of his miracle cure.

  It was a perfect summer evening; the highest peaks of the mountains were caught in bright rays of sunlight, not yet tinged with pink or red. The whisper and fragrance of the friendly pines sank into her soul; she was free from care, freed from the bonds of her dark English house at last. She sank onto the rustic bench.

  Across the glade in a patch of sunlight was a circus wagon, brightly painted in green and gold. A stocky yellowish horse, with fringed hooves like a Clydesdale, grazed nearby and a cauldron simmered over a fire. As she watched, a bearded man in a fur hat came out to smoke his pipe on the steps of the wagon. Gypsies of course, Russian or Russianized gypsies of the kind who turned up in the stable yard at the feast of the Epiphany with a hurdy-gurdy and a dancing bear.

  Rosalind did not rest long, but set out again up a pathway to the annex. She looked back and saw that the gypsy now stood by the campfire facing up the hill, one hand raised above his head. A feeling of exquisite wellbeing grew upon her as she came up to the large chalet … the air of the mountains, the spring bubbling beneath the ferns, the flowers that cascaded from the window boxes, oh, these were all miraculous. If the doctor had appeared at that moment she might have flung herself into his arms.

  An older nurse, Sister Luise, came bustling out on to the porch and Rosalind could see that she was somehow—transformed. She looked like a nun who had seen a vision.… She was sharing the extraordinary euphoria that Rosalind felt growing upon her as she came up the path.

  “Oh, Fräulein!” said Sister Luise. “Oh you have come back! The doctor will be so pleased!”

  “Is he…?”

  “No, he is not here!” said Sister Luise quickly.

  She turned her head and looked back into the dark doorway of the annex. Rosalind had the absurd notion that this euphoria came from the chalet; it was streaming out like a golden mist from someone—from a presence inhabiting the simple, spotless rooms. She felt a deep twang of anxiety.

  “He is coming up the hill!” said Sister Luise. “If you take the path by the larch trees…”

  She pointed, smiling; Rosalind smiled too, and went obediently down that path. It seemed that at a certain point, under the first of the larches, she escaped some happy influence and was completely herself again. She stood still and presently Lucas Tilmann came hurrying up toward her. At the sight of him she was overwhelmed by a tumult of feelings: pleasure, anxiety, irritation, loving care. She went forward and grasped his hands and could only say: “What is it? What is it?”

  “Oh, Rosalind!” he said, ignoring her
question. “Oh my dear girl! I have missed you so much!”

  She allowed him to kiss her and then kissed him back with more enthusiasm than she had expected in herself. They held each other close under the larch trees and she found herself wondering if the needles clung to fabric when one lay down. Lucas drew back, smiling, and led her on down the path back to the clearing; they sat on another bench and she patted her hair. The Russian gypsy had disappeared into his caravan. The tops of the mountains had turned to gold.

  “Lucas,” she said, “there is something…”

  There was something about Lucas himself; he was full of contained excitement.

  “You spoke to Maud Courtney!” he brought out.

  “Yes, it is remarkable,” she said. “It is a miracle. What is the new treatment?”

  “I can’t tell you just yet,” he said. “It is a completly new technique for dealing with certain cases. It is still in the experimental stage and must be kept absolutely secret.”

  She was already trying to rationalize her feelings of euphoria up at the chalet: the rare mountain air, love, the aftermath of her journey. But some core of strangeness remained.

  “Lucas,” she asked. “Is there a patient up in the annex?”

  “Yes,” he said. “And I cannot say another word. I rely on your absolute discretion.”

  “Of course.”

  “Rosalind,” he said, “I want you to help me.”

  “Anything…”

  “I want you to observe Leonid Ostrov, tonight when they come back from Bad Reichenhall.”

  “They took him for an outing?”

  “To a concert in the park. A program of operatic airs.”

  “Leonid must be doing very well!”

  At last she put two and two together.

  “Does this mean that he has been given the new treatment?”

  The doctor put his finger to his lips and looked around warily at the twilit glade.

  “There has been a dramatic improvement,” he said in a low voice, “but I am wary of a relapse, of unexpected side effects. In particular I wonder how much he remembers or purports to remember of the treatment sessions at the annex.”