Passage

by Connie Willis

  “With an NDE patient?” he asked, instantly interested.

  “No,” Joanna said, grateful that at least he hadn’t caught her going in to see Mrs. Woollam. Or Maisie. “A meeting, and I’m late already.”

  “This will only take a moment,” he said, planting himself in front of her. “I have two matters I need to speak with you about. First, Mrs. Davenport informed me you haven’t been back to take down the rest of her NDE. She has remembered additional details about the manner of her return. The Angel of Light—”

  “—gave her a telegram telling her she had to return. I know,” Joanna said. “She already told me about it.”

  “No, no, she’s remembered a great deal more. The telegram was only the beginning. The Angel told her she was to be a messenger, and as He raised His shining hand . . . ” Mr. Mandrake raised his hand in a sweeping gesture to illustrate, “ . . . the mysteries of life and death were revealed to her, and she understood All. She’s very anxious to share the knowledge she was given with you.”

  I’ll bet, Joanna thought.

  “When you hear what she has learned, there will be no doubt in your mind that Mrs. Davenport has truly brought back news from the Other Side.”

  “Mr. Mandrake—”

  “The second thing I wanted to talk to you about was, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but there is a new researcher here at the hospital whose intent is to undermine the credibility of our near-death research. His name is Dr. Wright. He claims to be able to reproduce the NAE in the laboratory through the administration of drugs. Of course that’s impossible. The NAE is a spiritual reality, not a drug hallucination, but people are gullible. They may well believe his claims, particularly when he cloaks them in the trappings of technology and science.”

  “I have to go,” Joanna said and started toward the elevator, but Mr. Mandrake went right along with her.

  “I’m very concerned about the effect of this so-called research on our studies. I tried to communicate my concerns to him, but he was extremely unresponsive. He has a partner, or so I understand, although I haven’t met him, and I’m hoping he will be more cooperative. That’s where you come in.”

  “Come in?” Joanna said, reaching the elevator. She pushed the button.

  “I haven’t been able to discover who this partner is. I want you to find out.”

  The elevator pinged its arrival. Joanna waited for the door to open. “I already know.”

  “You do?” he said, clearly surprised. “Who is it? Who’s his new partner?”

  Joanna stepped in the elevator, pressed the “door-close” button, and waited till it was already sliding shut. “I am,” she said.

  She almost wished she could have seen the look on his face before the door closed, but then she wouldn’t have gotten away. You had no business doing that, she thought, going up to seventh and across to the west wing. Now he’ll never give you any peace. But he and his network of spies would have found out soon anyway, and if she hadn’t told him, he would have accused her of intentionally deceiving him. Now, of course, he would accuse her of being gullible. Her, gullible!

  She cut through CICU and took the service elevator down to Peds. Maisie was sitting on the side of her bed, dressed in a pink jumper with butterfly-shaped pockets. Which she must detest, Joanna thought. “You rang, kiddo?” Joanna said, and then saw Maisie’s mother was in the room, busily stuffing Maisie’s robe and slippers in a plastic hospital carry bag.

  “Dr. Murrow was so happy with her progress on the inderone, he told us she could go home a day earlier,” she told Joanna brightly. She opened the closet door and picked up Maisie’s Barbie duffel bag.

  Joanna glanced at Maisie, but she seemed unconcerned. “Dr. Murrow also said Maisie could start thinking about going back to school,” Mrs. Nellis said. She laid the duffel bag on the chair. “I’ll give you two a chance to chat. I need to talk to Dr. Murrow about getting Maisie on an experimental ACE-blocker before we leave.”

  As soon as she went out, Maisie said, “I was afraid I was going to already be gone,” and pulled a folded piece of paper out of a patch pocket and handed it to Joanna. Joanna unfolded it. It said, “Joseph Leibrecht. 1968.”

  Maisie said, “Ms. Sutterly said the guy who wrote the book went to Germany and interviewed this Leibrecht guy when he was writing the book. In 1968. Can you use it? His NDE?”

  She couldn’t possibly. The Hindenburg had crashed in 1937, over thirty years before. Events remembered from that long ago would inevitably be distorted, details forgotten and added, blanks filled in with confabulations. It was virtually useless, but she hated to disappoint Maisie. “You bet,” she started to say, and realized Maisie was waiting, breath held, for her answer, as if it were some sort of test.

  “I’m afraid I can’t,” Joanna said. “NDE interviews need to be done right after the experience, or people forget things.”

  “Or make up things,” Maisie said.

  “That’s right,” Joanna said. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” Maisie said, not upset at all. In fact, she was grinning.

  Joanna grinned back. “So you’re going home? Are you happy about that?”

  She nodded. “Ms. Sutterly took my books for me,” she said, with a significant look at the duffel bag.

  “Good. So how’s the Lusitania?”

  “I’m not interested in it anymore,” she said. “It didn’t take very long to sink. Have you ever been to a circus?”

  She would never get used to Maisie’s sudden conversational shifts. “Yes,” she said, “when I was a little girl.”

  “Was it fun? Were there clowns?”

  “Yes and yes,” Joanna said, thinking, even Mrs. Nellis would approve of this conversation. “I remember one clown who had a red nose and baggy pants, and he pulled a big polka-dot handkerchief out of his pocket to blow his nose with, but it was tied to a big red handkerchief, and that was tied to a blue one and a green one and a yellow one, and he just kept pulling and pulling and pulling handkerchiefs out of his pocket, looking for the end.”

  “I bet that was funny,” Maisie said. “Do you know what a Victory garden is?”

  “A Victory garden?” Joanna asked, lost again. “I’m not sure. I know what one kind is. During World War II, people planted gardens to grow food for the army. And the navy,” she added, thinking of Mr. Wojakowski, “to help win the war, and they were called Victory gardens. Is that the kind you mean?”

  “I think so,” she said. “There was this circus in Hartford, that’s in Connecticut, and the tent caught fire and they all burned to death.”

  I might have known, Joanna thought.

  “One hundred and sixty-eight people died,” Maisie said. “I’d show you the picture except I don’t have my books. I’ll bring them next time I come to the hospital.”

  “How do you know there’ll be a next time? Your mother says you’re really doing well,” Joanna nearly said, and then bit it back. “How did the fire start?” she asked instead.

  Maisie shrugged her thin shoulders. “Nobody knows. It just happened.”

  It just happened, Joanna thought. A cigarette, a spark, in sawdust or canvas and, just like that, one hundred and sixty-eight people dead. And probably most of them children, Joanna thought, knowing circuses. And Maisie.

  “Lots of kids died,” Maisie said, as if reading her mind. “Do you think it hurts to die? In a fire, I mean.”

  “I don’t know,” Joanna said, well aware of what she was really answering. “Probably only for a little while. Most of them probably died of smoke inhalation. I think the worst part would be the being afraid.”

  “Me, too,” Maisie said. “When I coded, it only hurt for a minute. I wasn’t afraid either.” She looked at Joanna seriously. “Do you think that’s what NDEs are for, to keep you from being afraid?”

  “That’s what Dr. Wright and I are trying to find out.”

  “What do you think happens after that, after the NDE?” Joanna had known this was
coming, ever since their conversation about Ulla. She glanced at the door, wishing Maisie’s mother would magically appear with a wheelchair and happy thoughts.

  “I want to know,” Maisie said. “The truth.”

  “The truth is, I don’t know,” Joanna said. “I think probably nothing. When the heart stops beating, the body quits sending oxygen to the brain, and the brain cells start to die, and when they die, you can’t think anymore, and it’s like going to sleep or switching a light off.”

  “Like shutting down C-3PO,” Maisie said eagerly.

  “Yes, just like that,” Joanna said, thinking that if this conversation was upsetting or frightening Maisie she certainly wasn’t showing it.

  “Would it be dark?” Maisie asked.

  “No. It wouldn’t be anything.”

  “And you don’t even know you’re dead,” Maisie said.

  “No,” Joanna said, “you don’t even know you’re dead,” and for some reason thought of Lavoisier.

  “How come you said probably?” Maisie asked. “You said probably nothing happens.”

  “Because nobody knows for sure,” she said. “No dead person’s ever come back to tell us what death is like.”

  “Mr. Mandrake says he knows,” Maisie said, making a face. “When he came to see me that time I coded, he said he knows exactly what happens after you die.”

  “Well, he doesn’t.”

  Maisie nodded sagely. “He says all the people you know who’ve died are there waiting for you, and then you all go to heaven. I think that’s what he wants to be true. Just because you want something to be true doesn’t make it true. Like with Tinkerbell.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Joanna said. “But just because you want something to be true doesn’t make it not true either.”

  “So there might be a heaven,” Maisie said.

  “There might,” Joanna said. “Nobody knows.”

  “Except people who’ve died,” Maisie said. “And they can’t tell us.” No, Joanna thought, they can’t tell us. In spite of Richard’s and my best efforts.

  “So everybody has to find out for themself,” Maisie said, “and nobody gets to go with you. Do they?”

  No, Joanna thought. I wish I could, kiddo. I hate to think of you having to go through it by yourself. But everybody has to die alone, no matter what Mr. Mandrake says. “No,” she said.

  “Unless it’s a disaster,” Maisie said. “Then a whole bunch of people die all together. Like the Hartford circus fire. They couldn’t get out because the animal cages, you know, for the lions and tigers, were in the way, and everybody kept pushing and they all got smushed to death except for the ones who had smoke . . . ” She frowned, groping for the word.

  “Inhalation,” Joanna said.

  “All set,” Maisie’s mother said gaily, coming in with a wheelchair. “As soon as the nurse brings in your release form, we can go.” She began helping Maisie into the wheelchair.

  “I’ve got to go, too,” Joanna said. “Good-bye, kiddo. Be good.” She started back to the lab. Barbara was in the nurses’ station, filling out paperwork. Joanna looked back down the hall to make sure Maisie and her mother were still in Maisie’s room, and then said to Barbara, “Maisie’s mother said she’s doing better. Is she?”

  “That depends on how you define ‘better,’ ” Barbara said. “Her basic condition hasn’t changed, but her heart function’s up slightly, and the inderone seems to be working to stabilize her heart rhythm, though I don’t know how long they can keep her on it. The side effects are pretty bad-liver damage, kidney damage, but, yeah, her mother was telling the truth for a change. She is doing better.”

  “Good,” Joanna said, relieved. “You haven’t seen Mr. Mandrake on the floor, have you?”

  “No,” Barbara said.

  “Even better,” Joanna said. She slapped the counter of the nurses’ station with both hands. “See you later.”

  “Oh, good, you’re still here,” Maisie’s mother said, coming up to the nurses’ station. “I just wanted to thank you for spending so much time with Maisie. She loves visitors, but so many of them insist on talking about depressing things, illness and . . . they just upset her. But she loves to have you come. I don’t know what you two find to talk about, but she’s always so cheered up after your visits.”

  “Jesus . . . Jesus . . . Jesus . . . ”

  —JOAN OF ARC’S LAST WORDS, IN THE FLAMES

  JOANNA DIDN’T GET DOWN to see Mrs. Woollam until after three. Mr. Pearsall had arrived late, and his interview (which went fine) had been interrupted by a phone call from Mrs. Haighton, who was apparently calling from her crafts fair, because she kept shouting asides to people named Ashley and Felicia who were apparently hanging things.

  “This week is impossible,” she told Joanna, “but next week—just a minute, let me get my calendar—might just be possible—no, it’s too high on that end.”

  Mr. Pearsall was waiting patiently, and Joanna knew the appropriate thing to do was to tell Mrs. Haighton to call back later, but she had the feeling that if she did, she’d never hear from her again. “What times do you have available next Monday?” Joanna asked her, smiling apologetically at Mr. Pearsall.

  “Monday, let me see—it needs to drape more—no, the afternoon won’t work, and, let’s see, what’s in the morning? I have an AAUW meeting at ten. Would eleven forty-five work for you?”

  “Yes,” Joanna said, even though she already had Mrs. Troudtheim scheduled for eleven. Even taking Mrs. Troudtheim’s oral surgery appointments into account, she could reschedule Mrs. Troudtheim easier than Mrs. Haighton. “Eleven forty-five will be fine.”

  “Eleven forty-five,” Mrs. Haighton said. “Oh, no, I was looking at Wednesday, not Monday. I can’t do it Monday after all.”

  “What about Tuesday?”

  Joanna spent the next ten minutes listening to a litany of Mrs. Haighton’s meetings, in between instructions to Felicia, before finally agreeing to sandwich Joanna in Friday between her library board and her yoga class. “Although I was almost sure I had something else that day.”

  Joanna hung up before she had a chance to remember what it was and went back to questioning Mr. Pearsall, who had never had surgery, let alone been near death. “I’ve never even had my appendix out, or my tonsils. Neither has anyone else in my family. My father’s seventy-four and never been sick a day in his life.”

  Mr. Pearsall had never met Mr. Mandrake or read his books, and when Joanna asked him whether he believed in spiritualism, he said, looking faintly scandalized, “This is medical research, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Joanna said and let him go.

  There was still the schedule to set up, though, and she had to tell Richard about her encounter with Mr. Mandrake. “He thinks you’re trying to debunk his research,” she said.

  “I am,” he said. “What did he think about your working with me?”

  “I escaped before he could tell me,” Joanna said. “I imagine he’ll try to talk me out of it. If he can catch me,” she added. “I’m going down to the cardiac care unit to interview an NDEer. If Mr. Mandrake calls, tell him I went to see Maisie.”

  “I thought she went home,” he said.

  “She did,” Joanna said, and went down to the cardiac care unit, only to find Mrs. Woollam had already been moved out of cardiac care and into a regular room.

  Her watch said four-sixteen by the time she got down to her room. Mrs. Woollam had been in over seven hours. Mr. Mandrake had had time not only to ruin her for interview purposes, but to turn her into another Mrs. Davenport. Unless Mrs. Woollam couldn’t have visitors, in which case she wouldn’t be able to see her either.

  But yes, Mrs. Woollam could have visitors, Luann said. She was doing fine. They were just keeping her a couple of days for observation. “Has Mr. Mandrake been in to see her?” Joanna asked.

  “He tried,” Luann said, “Mrs. Woollam threw him out.”

  “Threw him out?”

  Luann grinned. “She
’s one tough cookie. Go on in.”

  Joanna rapped gently on the open door. “Mrs. Woollam?” she said timidly.

  “Come in,” a soft voice said, and Joanna found herself looking at a frail old woman not much bigger than Maisie. Her white hair was as fine and insubstantial as the fluff on a dandelion, and Mrs. Woollam herself looked like she might blow away in the first breeze. She certainly didn’t look capable of throwing anyone out, least of all the immovable Mr. Mandrake. She was sitting up in bed, hooked with an array of wires to a bank of monitors. She was reading a book with a white cover, which she reached over and put in the nightstand drawer as soon as she saw Joanna.

  “I’m Joanna Lander,” Joanna said. “I—”

  “Vielle’s friend,” Mrs. Woollam said. “She told me about you.” She smiled. “Vielle’s a wonderful nurse. Any friend of hers is a friend of mine.” She dimpled again, a smile of incredible sweetness. “She tells me you’re studying near-death experiences.”

  “Yes,” Joanna said. She pulled a release form out of her pocket, explained it, and gave her a chance to look it over.

  “I don’t always experience the same thing,” Mrs. Woollam said, pen poised above the release form, “and I’ve never floated above my body or seen angels, so if that’s what you’re looking for—”

  “I’m not looking for anything,” Joanna said. “I’d just like you to tell me what you experienced.”

  “Good,” she said. She signed the release form in a spidery hand. “Maurice Mandrake was determined to have me see a tunnel and an Angel of Light the last time I was here. Dreadful man. You don’t work with him, do you?”

  “No,” Joanna said, “no matter what he might tell you.”

  “Good. Do you know what he told me?” Mrs. Woollam asked indignantly. “That near-death experiences are messages from the dead.”

  “You don’t think they are?”

  “Of course not. That’s not the sort of message the dead send to the living.”

  Oh, no, Joanna thought. “What kind of messages do they send?” she asked carefully.