by Kris Tualla
Matt rose to his feet and strode out of her life without another word.
*****
Lunch was comprised of several containers of liquids. Just like breakfast.
Sveyn had been instructed several times that if he wanted or needed anything to press the red button on the end of a cord clipped to his bed. He pressed it now.
A nurse walked into the room and turned off the alarm. “What do you need Sveyn?”
He waved a hand over his tray while he concentrated on English. “I am hungry.”
She smiled apologetically. “Have you passed gas yet?”
The look of shock and disbelief that must have reflected Sveyn’s stunned reaction to that question made her laugh. She clapped an apologetic hand over her mouth.
“Gas?” He struggled to get the words out in his newly permanent language. “Does this mean flatulence?”
The nurse uncovered her mouth but she was still smiling. “Yes. After abdominal surgery, the patient—that’s you—can’t have solid food until we know that their body is functioning correctly. And that’s how we know.”
Sveyn nodded solemnly, considering this startling information. “I understand.”
What must be done, must be done.
He shifted his weight away from the nurse and squeezed. In spite of the discomfort from his surgery, a little rumble escaped his buttocks.
He settled back in place. “Now I eat?”
*****
The nurse was crying, she laughed so hard. Sveyn didn’t care, as long as he received food that actually required chewing. While he waited for a new tray to be delivered, another nurse came in and released him from the compression contraption.
“I thank God,” he said. “You are angel.”
The sheets and backless tunic still irritated his skin, so he lay still as much as possible. He held the television’s remote in his hand and flipped through channels, sorry to see that the offerings were limited.
An official-looking woman walked through his open door without knocking. “Sveyn Hansen?”
He only moved his eyes. “Yes.”
She pulled the room’s single chair next to the bed. “I’m missing your information.” She opened a notebook. “I need to ask you some questions.”
Sveyn lifted one hand. “Before you ask, I need Hollis McKenna.”
The woman looked up from her papers. “I’m sorry. Who is that?”
“Hollis McKenna. Room three-oh-five.”
*****
Hollis received Dr. Khan’s go-ahead to check out of the hospital the next day as long as she continued to blow in the little plastic air-measuring thingy between now and then. The doctor explained that he wanted to make sure she didn’t develop pneumonia from the shallow breathing which her injury prompted.
“You do not want to start coughing, Ms. McKenna. Trust me on this,” he said in his delightful East Indian accent. “If you think deep breaths are uncomfortable now, then coughing will be a very unhappy surprise.”
I can imagine.
“Thank you.”
He scribbled notes in his chart. “I want you to see your primary care physician as soon as possible. Have him contact the hospital and we will send him your chart.”
Hollis looked at the heart monitor, blinking silently and measuring her steady pulse. “I’m going to be okay. Right?”
“Right as rain.” He glanced out the window at the desert. “Or perhaps I should say, right as the hope of rain.”
Hollis grinned her appreciation of the jest. “Thank you, Dr. Khan.”
Nurse Marla hurried in. “I’m glad I caught you, Doctor. We just received a call that Ms. McKenna’s presence is required on the fourth floor.”
Sveyn’s floor.
“What’s happened?” Hollis asked.
The nurse continued to address the doctor. “The man who was brought in at the same time as she was has asked for her to be present while he talks to the admitting staff.”
“That’s right,” Hollis forestalled Dr. Khan’s questions. “He has a special circumstance, and I’m like his… sponsor.”
“Sponsor?” he asked.
“He’s a refugee. From the gypsies.” At the doctor’s blank stare, Hollis continued. “I’m hiring him to work at the Arizona History and Cultural Museum.”
Now I have to make that happen.
“So I have his pertinent information.”
Dr. Khan watched her heart monitor for a minute, then nodded. “Go ahead and unhook her, Nurse. But I want her back in this bed and reconnected to the monitor within thirty minutes.”
*****
When Hollis was rolled into Sveyn’s room, the atmosphere was tense. The Viking’s mattress was raised at the head, and he sat silently waiting. Only his eyes moved.
“Hollis McKenna?” the admin gal asked.
“Yes.”
“Finally.” She flipped her notebook open. “Now, Mr. Hansen, what is your date of birth?”
“February twelfth.”
“Year?”
Sveyn had done his math and named the year that made him thirty-four. Almost thirty-five.
“Where were you born?”
His gaze shot to Hollis and screamed for her help.
“Sveyn’s mother was a gypsy, so he was born somewhere in the desert,” she said, adding the best possibility, “But it was in Maricopa County.”
The woman gave Hollis an irritated look. “And why doesn’t he tell me this himself?”
Hollis gave the woman an understanding smile. “May I tell you what I know?”
“Please.”
Hollis drew as deep a breath as she could without coughing.
That’s for you, Dr. Khan.
“Sveyn appeared at the museum where I work and asked for a job.”
The Viking in question was listening intently.
Good.
“That’s when I discovered that he has no driver’s license, birth certificate, or state ID because, as you know, gypsies live off the grid.”
“And no insurance, of course,” the woman growled, making a note on her paper.
“Sveyn is leaving the gypsy lifestyle with the intention of becoming a legal and productive member of modern society.”
The woman glanced at Sveyn.
He gave her a solemn nod.
Hollis kept talking so the woman couldn’t ask any questions. “That’s why he was attacked and stabbed. Some radical gypsies think like street gangs do—trying to leave the lifestyle is tantamount to treason.”
“Huh.” The woman seemed to be softening. “So what happens now?”
“We have to get him documented.” Hollis tipped her head and enlisted the woman’s help. “Is there a social worker in the hospital who can help him with that?”
“I’ll check. But—”
“Because as soon as he is recognized as a citizen,” Hollis interrupted, “I can hire him as a fulltime museum staff member and he can start paying the hospital back.”
Chapter Four
Hollis was infuriatingly exhausted when she got back to her room. She liked to think it was because she was awakened every hour last night and not because her heart had stopped and she nearly died yesterday.
She considered the blinking monitor beside her bed.
Maybe I should stay another day.
Sveyn wasn’t going anywhere for a while. Plus this hospital was a good twenty miles from her condo and she wasn’t allowed to drive until she saw her own doctor.
As much as she wanted to, Hollis wasn’t able to stay behind and talk to Sveyn after the admin gal left because she ran out of time. She couldn’t face Nurse Marla, who had been so kind to her, if she deliberately disobeyed Dr. Khan’s orders.
She looked at the old-fashioned phone sitting on the stand beside her bed.
If I call his room, will he answer?
Hollis lifted the receiver and dialed Sveyn’s room.
The phone rang six times before a deep masculine voice said, “Hello?”
“Ah, good. I want to talk with you.” His voice was rough and his words halting, but the Viking was speaking English, and through real live vocal chords. “Your story was very good. That woman believed you.”
“It’s the story we both must tell, all the time, to everyone,” Hollis stated. “Do you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“Good. And when we get better and they send us home, you’ll come live with me.”
Sveyn was quiet.
Hollis’s heart lurched, causing a momentary disruption of the steadily blinking lights. “What’s wrong?”
“I do not want to ask you this question when I cannot see you.”
“Ask me what?”
Sveyn made an airy, irritated sound. “I cannot see you. So I will not ask you.”
“Oh.” Duh. “Are you all right? Are you upset about something?”
“I am not upset. I am in pain. I will stay in bed until tomorrow, when I will walk in a circle.”
Hollis tamped down her apprehension as best she could. “Okay…”
“We have much to talk about, Hollis McKenna,” he said gently. “And now we have time. I am not leaving you. Not ever.”
*****
Two men in uniform with badges and guns entered Sveyn’s hospital room.
“Fifteen minutes, guys,” a petite African-American nurse warned. “Then I’m kicking you out. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the younger of the two answered. “We shouldn’t be long.”
The older man approached the bed. “Sveyn Hansen?”
“Yes.” He vaguely remembered the paramedic telling him that police officers would be coming to speak with him. Thanks to Hollis, he now had a tale to tell them. “You are police?”
“Sheriff’s Deputies, actually. The attack took place on unincorporated county land. That’s our jurisdiction.”
Sveyn nodded and pretended he understood what they were talking about.
“I’m Deputy Smith and this is Deputy Wisenhauer.” He held out a business card and Sveyn accepted it. “We have a few questions about the man who attacked you at the Renaissance Faire.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know him?”
“No.”
Deputy Smith frowned. “No? Then why do you think he attacked you?”
“I am leaving gypsy life.” Sveyn remembered what else Hollis said. “This makes people angry. Like street gangs.”
“So you’re saying you were stabbed with a massive, what? Machete? Because you are leaving the gypsy community?” Smith looked at Wisenhauer for back up. “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
The younger deputy cleared his throat. “Yes, I actually have, sir.”
Smith’s eyebrows shot upward. “Really?”
Sveyn was as surprised as Smith. “You have?”
“Yes. There is an enclave up in the Superstition Mountains that has a reputation for being radical.” He tapped his chin with his pen’s clicker. “The Romano Clan, I believe.”
“Searching for the Lost Dutchman’s mine, no doubt.” Smith’s voice dripped with sarcasm. He turned back to Sveyn. “In that case, this appears to be a rather fruitless conversation. But if we send over our artist, will you give a description so he can make a drawing?”
“I will help any way I can,” Sveyn promised.
And I’ll describe the miscreant who did run me through—in ten-seventy.
“I guess we’re done here.” Smith held out his hand. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Hansen.”
“Thank you for protecting the people.”
“Uh, yeah.” Deputy Smith turned crisply. “Let’s go Wisenhauer.”
As Sveyn watched the deputies leave, relief flooded his veins. He closed his eyes, relishing the relaxing sensation.
As much as every inch of his body hurt, to be able to feel pain again was more refreshing than he could ever have imagined. Because it meant that he was alive.
*****
Sveyn’s peace was sadly short-lived. This seemed to be the normal state for both this hospital and the one Hollis stayed in after her abduction. He decided to ask her later how the sick and injured were expected to recuperate when they were never allowed to rest.
“Good day, Mr. Hansen. I’m Doctor James Lance, hematologist.”
When Sveyn didn’t respond, the doctor explained, “I’m a blood specialist.”
“Yes. I was told you would come.” Sveyn wondered what sort of obstacle he was up against now—and how he would defeat it.
Dr. Lance sat in the chair beside the bed. “I ran some tests on your blood and I have a few questions.”
Sveyn nodded.
“What immunizations have you received?”
Sveyn felt his cheeks warming with his embarrassment. “I do not know this word.”
Dr. Lance looked surprised. “It’s where you are injected with a small amount of a virus with a needle.”
Sveyn was shocked. “Why?”
“So your body builds up an immunity against that disease.”
Sveyn understood the concept and decided to give an answer based on Hollis’s story. He prayed that it made sense. “My mother was gypsy. I never had these.”
“None?” the doctor clarified. “Not ever?”
“No.” Sveyn tried to sound certain.
“Then why…” Lance looked at his chart again, then back at Sveyn. “Why do you have smallpox antibodies?”
Sveyn hesitated, wondering if the question was some sort of trick. But even if it was, he could not lie.
“Because I had smallpox when I was a boy?”
“You had smallpox, what, twenty-five years ago?”
Sveyn had to accept that accounting; he had no other choice.
“Yes.”
Dr. Lance shook his head. “In Maricopa County? That’s not possible.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“Because there have been no reported cases of smallpox in the United States since nineteen-forty-nine.”
Clearly it was time to invent more of his story. Hollis only mentioned his gypsy mother, so, “My mother spent time looking for my father. We traveled for a very long time.”
“How old were you?”
“Five. Six.” He intentionally looked confused. “I am not certain.”
“Might you have crossed the US border?” the doctor suggested.
“Yes. It might be Mexico. Or farther south?” Sveyn decided to enhance the story to make it more believable. “I remember mountains. And it was hot.”
Dr. Lance stared at him. “What was it like, having smallpox?”
This part, Sveyn did not need to fabricate. “I was miserable. My body was covered with it. My younger brother died from it.”
Finally I can say I will see you in heaven, Urgaard.
Sveyn almost smiled before he stopped himself. It would be better to divert the doctor. “What other odd things did you see in my blood?”
Dr. Lance startled; obviously his thoughts had wandered further down the smallpox path. “I suppose there might have been straggling random cases in the jungles that were never reported.”
Sveyn said nothing. What could he say? He was never stuck with a needle and yet he had the anti-things in his blood.
“Were there other odd things in my blood?” he prompted.
“Uh, yes.” Dr. Lance looked at his chart again. “You have an unusually high number of regenerative cells.”
Sveyn wondered if he would have to ask, or if the doctor would launch his explanation on his own.
Thankfully the doctor did so on his own. “These types of cells are normally found in babies, because they grow so rapidly in their first year.”
Sveyn frowned. “Is this bad?”
“No! Not at all.” The doctor chuckled. “It’ll keep you from aging too rapidly, I suppose.”
That was more of a relief that Dr. James Lance could ever imagine, though until that moment Sveyn assumed that sinc
e he was once more in his body, he would age at the normal rate for a man nearly thirty-five years of age.
The idea that he might have come back as a weak and withered old man, dropping dead in a blink, had never crossed his mind.
Because—he never knew he could come back at all.
“So I will live a long time?” he asked.
Dr. Lance closed his flip chart. “You’ll have a better chance if you don’t get stabbed again.”
The doctor stood. “That said, I recommend a full round of immunizations, starting in about six weeks. No sense in you contracting another nearly-eradicated disease.”
Sveyn nodded. He’d ask Hollis about this.
“Get some rest.” Dr. James Lance turned and left the room.
Sveyn snorted.
I am trying.
*****
Something woke Hollis from her dozing nap. She opened her eyes. Miranda stood at the foot of her bed.
“Are you up for company?” the nearly six-foot-tall brunette asked. Her smile was apologetic but hopeful.
Hollis looked at the clock on the wall behind her boss. “For you? Yes.” Hollis pushed herself up straighter, wincing at the resulting pain in her cracked sternum. “Besides, dinner’s coming soon and you can distract me from wondering how bad the food will be.”
Miranda sank into the single chair. “I was so worried when I heard you were hurt. So was Mr. Benton.”
Hollis flashed a wry smile. The museum’s director wasn’t known for his touchy-feely style; economics made his heart go pitter-patter. “I’m surprised he hasn’t found a way to spin this for media attention.”
Miranda gave her a stricken look.
“Oh no.” Hollis slumped. “Don’t tell me.”
“I’m so sorry.” Miranda reached for Hollis’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “That’s part of why I’m here now—to watch the evening news with you and see what he’s come up with.”
“I should have known.” Hollis made a face. There was nothing to be done about this turn of events except just get through it.
It was time for a change of subject. “Did he tell you about my job offer?”