Passage

by Connie Willis

  “And that’s why I saw it,” Joanna said, “because it was the best match for the stimuli out of all the images in my long-term memory.”

  “Yes,” Richard said. “The pattern—”

  “What about Mercy General? Or Pompeii?”

  “Pompeii?” he said blankly.

  “Mercy General fits all the stimuli-long dark walkways, figures in white, buzzing code alarms-and so does Pompeii. The people wore white togas, the sky was pitch-black from ashfall,” she said, ticking the reasons off on her fingers, “it had long covered colonnades like tunnels, the volcano’s erupting made a loud, hard-to-describe sound, and Maisie talked to me about it not two hours before I went under.”

  “There may be more than one suitable image in long-term, and the one that happens to be accessed first is chosen,” Richard said. “That wouldn’t necessarily be the most recent memory. Remember, acetylcholine levels are elevated, which increases the brain’s ability to access memories and see associations. Or the brain may only be able to access memories in certain areas. Some areas may be blocked or shut down.”

  Like Mr. Briarley’s memory, Joanna thought. “That isn’t why I saw the Titanic,” she said. “I know where the memory came from.”

  “You do?” Richard said warily.

  He’s still afraid I’m going to turn into Bridey Murphy at any moment, she thought. “Yes. It came from my high school English teacher, Mr. Briarley.”

  “Your high school-when did you figure this out?”

  “This afternoon.” She told him about recording her account and remembering that the steward had said Mr. Briarley’s name. “And I remembered he’d talked about the Titanic in class.”

  Richard looked delighted. “That fits right in with the mind’s attempting to unify everything into a single scenario, including the source of the memory. Your mind did an L+R, searching for a unifying image that would explain the outline of figures in a light and an auditory-cortex stimulus, and—”

  She shook her head. “That isn’t why I saw it. There’s something else, something to do with something Mr. Briarley said in class.”

  “Which was?”

  “I don’t know,” she had to admit. “I can’t remember. But I know—”

  “—that it means something,” Richard finished. He was looking at her with that maddening superior expression.

  Joanna glared at him. “You think this is the temporal lobe again, but I told you I recognized the passage, and I did, and I told you I knew the memory wasn’t from the movie, and it wasn’t, and now—”

  “Now you know the Titanic wasn’t chosen for a unifying image because it fit the stimuli,” Richard said.

  “Exactly. I was right the other times, and—”

  “And when you discovered what the passage was, the feeling of almost knowing should have disappeared, but it didn’t, did it? It transferred to the source of the memory and now to Mr. Briarley’s words. And if you’re able to remember his words, the feeling will transfer to another object.”

  Was that true? Joanna wondered. If Kit called right now and said, “I asked Uncle Pat again, and he said what he said was . . . ” and told her, would she transfer the feeling to something else?

  “How the feeling of significance factors into the choice of scenario is one of the things I want to explore,” Richard said. “Also, does the scenario remain the same, or does it change depending on the stimuli, or the initial stimulus?”

  “The initial stimulus? I thought you said—”

  “That the unifying memory fit all the stimuli? I did, but the initial stimulus may be what determines the choice of one suitable image over another. That would explain why religious images are so prevalent. If the initial stimulus was a floating feeling, there would be very few suitable memories, except for angels.”

  “Or Peter Pan.”

  Richard ignored that. “You didn’t have an out-of-body experience. Your initial stimulus was auditory.”

  So I saw a ship that sank nearly a hundred years ago, Joanna thought.

  “If the initial stimulus changes, does the unifying image change? That’s one of the things I want to explore the next time you go under.”

  “Go under?” Joanna said. He wanted to send her under again. To the Titanic.

  “Yes, I’d like to schedule you as soon as possible.” He called up the schedule. “Mrs. Troudtheim’s scheduled for one. We could do yours at three, or would you rather switch with Mrs. Troudtheim and do yours at one?”

  One, Joanna thought. It’s already gone down by three.

  “Joanna?” Richard said. “Which one will work better for you? Or is morning better? Joanna?”

  “One,” she said. “I might need to go see Maisie in the morning if I can’t get in to see her tonight.”

  “Which you’d better go do,” Richard said, glancing at the clock, which said eight-thirty. “Okay, I’ll call Mrs. Troudtheim and reschedule. I hope she doesn’t have a dental appointment. And if you have any time—tomorrow, not tonight—I’d like you to go through your interviews and see if there’s a correlation between initial stimulus and subsequent scenario.”

  There isn’t, she thought, going down to Maisie’s. That isn’t what the connection is. It’s something else. But the only way to prove that was to get hard evidence, which meant finding out what Mr. Briarley had said.

  But how? Even if Mr. Briarley didn’t have Alzheimer’s, he probably wouldn’t have remembered a stray remark he’d made in class over ten years ago, and his students were even less likely to. If she could find them. If she could even remember who they were. I need to call Kerri, she thought again. But first she needed to go see Maisie, who she hoped wasn’t asleep.

  She wasn’t. She was lying back against her phalanx of pillows, looking bored. Her mother sat in a chair next to the bed, reading aloud from a yellow-bound book: “ ‘Oh, don’t be such a gloomy-gus, Uncle Hiram,’ Dolly said. ‘Things will work out all right in the end. You just have to have faith,’ ”Mrs. Nellis read. “ ‘You’re right, Dolly,’ Uncle Hiram said, ‘even if you are a little slip of a girl. I shouldn’t give up. Where there’s a will—’ ”

  Maisie looked up. “I knew you’d come,” she said. She turned to her mother. “I told you she would.” She turned back to Joanna, her cheeks pink with excitement. “I told her you promised you’d come.”

  “You’re right, I did promise, and I’m sorry I’m so late,” Joanna said. “Something came up . . . ”

  “I told you something happened,” Maisie said to her mother, “or she’d have been here. You said she probably forgot.”

  I did forget, Joanna thought, and even worse, shut my pager off and was out of touch for hours, hours during which something could have happened to you.

  “I told Maisie you were very busy,” Mrs. Nellis said, “and that you would come and see her when you could. It was so nice of you to drop by with all the other things you have to do.”

  And dropping by was clearly all it could be with Maisie’s mother in the room. She said, “I was wondering if it would be all right if I came back tomorrow morning, Maisie?”

  “Yes,” Maisie said promptly. “If you stay a really long time.”

  “Maisie!” Mrs. Nellis said, shocked. “Dr. Lander is very busy. She has a great many patients to see. She can’t—”

  “I promise I’ll come and stay as long as you want,” Joanna said.

  “Good,” Maisie said, and added meaningfully, “’cause I have lots of stuff to tell you about.”

  “She certainly does,” Mrs. Nellis said. “Dr. Murrow’s got her on a new antiarrhythmia drug, and she’s doing much better. She’s completely stabilized, and her lungs are sounding better, too. Which reminds me, sweetie pie, you haven’t done your breathing exercises this evening.” She laid the book down on the bed and went over to the counter next to the sink to get the plastic inhalation tube.

  “I’ll be here first thing tomorrow morning,” Joanna said, looking at the book. Written in curly green le
tters was the title, Legends and Lessons.

  Legends and Lessons. Her English textbook had had a title like that, Something and Something. She had a sudden image of Mr. Briarley sitting on the corner of his desk, holding it up and reading from it. She could see the title in gold letters. Something and Something. Poems and Pleasures or Adventures and Allegories or Catastrophes and Calamities. No, that was Maisie’s disaster book.

  “When tomorrow morning?” Maisie was asking.

  “Ten o’clock,” Joanna said. Something about a trip. Journeys and Jottings. Tales and Travels.

  “That’s not first thing in the morning,” Maisie said.

  “Sugarplum, Dr. Lander is very, very busy—”

  V. It began with a V. Verses. No, not Verses, but something like that. Vases. Voices.

  “Dr. Murrow says he wants you to get the ball above eighty, that’s this line, five times,” Mrs. Nellis was saying, indicating a blue line on the plastic cylinder, “and I know you can do it.”

  Maisie obediently put the mouthpiece in her mouth. “I’ll see you tomorrow, kiddo,” Joanna said and hurried out of the room and down to her car. V. What else began with a V? Victorians. Vignettes. Voices and Vignettes. No, that didn’t sound right either, but it definitely began with a V.

  She got in her car and pulled out of the parking lot. The windshield immediately fogged up. She switched on the heater and slid the bar to “defrost,” peering through the foggy window at the traffic. Vantage. Mount Vesuvius. Visions. Voices and Visions. No, that sounded like one of Mr. Mandrake’s books.

  She stopped at a stoplight, waiting for it to turn green. What color had the book been? Red? No, blue. Blue with gold letters. Or purple. Purple and gold. You’re confabulating, she thought. It wasn’t purple. It was blue, with—

  The car behind her honked, and she looked up, startled. The light had turned green. She stepped on the gas, stalled the car, and fumbled to get it into gear. The car behind her honked again. You’re not only confabulating, you aren’t paying attention to what you’re doing, she thought, turning the key in the ignition. The car finally started, though not before the car behind her had roared around her, dangerously close, the driver shaking his fist. And not, Joanna hoped, a loaded gun.

  Stay alert to your surroundings, she thought, and tried to concentrate on her driving, but the picture of Mr. Briarley, sitting on the corner of his desk, kept intruding. He was holding the book up. It was blue, with gold letters, and there was a picture of a ship on the cover, its bow cutting sharply through the water, throwing up spray. She could see it clearly. And how did she know that wasn’t a confabulation? Or maybe it was the other way around, and she’d confabulated the Titanic from the ship on the cover of her textbook.

  But it wasn’t that kind of ship. It was a sailing ship, with billowing white sails. Mr. Briarley had shut the book with a clap, as if he’d finished reading something aloud. And if it was from a story or a poem, it wouldn’t matter that Mr. Briarley had no memory of it. She could simply find it in the book. If she could find the book.

  They wouldn’t still be teaching from it. It had been out of date when she’d had it, and, as Mr. Briarley said, they taught a whole new curriculum now, but Mr. Briarley might have a teacher’s edition. From the looks of those overflowing bookshelves, he hadn’t ever thrown a book away. But he wouldn’t remember where it was.

  Kit might, though, or might be able to look through the bookshelves and find it, if Joanna told her what it looked like. I know it had a sailing ship on a blue background, she thought, and it was called . . . She squinted, trying to see the gilt letters, and found herself sitting at another green light, staring at the 7-Eleven across the street. “Marlboros,” the sign read. “$19.58 a carton.”

  Luckily, there was no one behind her this time, or coming across, because she managed to stall the car again halfway through the intersection. This is a good way to get yourself killed, she told herself, starting it and pulling through the intersection, and then you won’t have to wonder what Greg Menotti was trying to tell you and why you saw the Titanic. You’ll be able to find out firsthand.

  She forced herself to focus on the road, the lights, the traffic, the rest of the way home. She turned onto her street, past the local Burger King. “X-Men Action Figures,” the marquee read. “Collect All 58.” Could he have been trying to tell her a page number? She could see Mr. Briarley, picking up the blue book, opening it. “All right, class, open your textbooks to page fifty-eight.”

  Stop it, Joanna told herself, pulling into her parking space and getting out of the car. Richard’s right. You are turning into Bridey Murphy. Or Mr. Mandrake. You need to go upstairs, take a bath, watch the news, and let your right temporal lobe cool down, because that’s what this obsession with Tales and Travels, or whatever it’s called, is, a symptom of temporal-lobe stimulation.

  She opened the door and flicked on the lights. And if you did call and get her to find Verses and Victorians, it wouldn’t solve anything. Because even if there were a story about the Titanic’s engines stopping on page fifty-eight, the feeling of significance would just transfer itself to something else.

  Besides, it’s too late to call. You’d upset Mr. Briarley, and Kit has enough to deal with already. And the person you need to call is Vielle. You need to thank her for letting you borrow her car and apologize for taking so long to bring it back and ask her what she wants you to rent for Dish Night on Friday. And not The Sixth Sense.

  Joanna picked up the phone and punched in the number. “Hello, Kit, this is Joanna Lander,” she said when Kit answered. “Does your uncle still have the textbooks he used when he taught?”

  “Nothing in the world can endure forever.”

  —WORDS FOUND SCRATCHED ON A WALL AT POMPEII

  JOANNA CALLED KERRI JAKES and then went straight to see Maisie as soon as she got to the hospital the next morning. She’d told her ten, but she didn’t want to get sidetracked and forget again, and she also wanted to get there before Maisie’s mother did.

  And Kit said she’d call as soon as she found the textbook, Joanna thought, crossing the walkway and taking the stairs up to Peds, and I might have to go get it. Or go see someone who had English second period. She’d had to leave a message for Kerri-mornings were outpatient surgery’s busiest times-and she hadn’t wanted to play telephone tag, so she’d asked her about second period and the book, hoping she remembered the title. She hoped that when she got back from seeing Maisie, Kerri or Kit would have called. Although I don’t know how Kit could be expected to find it with the pathetic description I gave her, Joanna thought.

  But Kit had acted like her calling was the most normal thing in the world (and maybe it was, considering what she must be living with) and had immediately asked what year Joanna had been a senior, how big the book was, how thick. “And you think the title is Something and Something,” she’d said. “Beginning with a V.”

  “I think so,” Joanna had said. “I’m sorry I’m giving you so little to go on.”

  “Are you kidding?” Kit had said. “I’m an expert at figuring out things people can’t remember. This may take a while. Uncle Pat’s got a lot of books. They used to be organized, but—”

  “You’re sure you don’t mind doing this?” Joanna had asked.

  “I’m delighted I can help,” Kit had said and actually sounded like she was.

  “Is that Kevin on the phone?” Mr. Briarley’s voice said in the background. “Tell him I’m delighted. And congratulations.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” Kit said.

  Joanna wasn’t sure it would be that soon, considering how many books were in that house and how many of them were blue. If it was blue. This morning she wasn’t so sure. It seemed like the book Candy “Rapunzel” Simons had propped her hair-combing mirror against had been red. You’re confabulating, she told herself sternly, and ran up the stairs to Peds. The breakfast cart was still in the hall, and a skinny black orderly was loading empty trays onto it. Joanna waved
at him and went in to see Maisie.

  Her breakfast tray of scrambled eggs and toast and a glass of juice was still on the bed table pulled across her lap. “Hi, kiddo,” Joanna said, coming in. “What’s up?”

  “I’m eating breakfast,” Maisie said, which was an exaggeration. Two mouselike bites had been nibbled out of the piece of toast she was holding, and the eggs and juice looked untouched.

  “I see,” Joanna said, pulling a chair over to the bed and sitting down. “So, tell me all about Pompeii.”

  “Well,” Maisie said, putting down her toast, “the people tried to run away from the volcano, and some of them almost made it. There was this one mother who had two little girls and a baby that made it almost all the way to the gate. It’s in my big blue book.”

  Joanna obediently went over to the closet and got Catastrophes and Calamities out of the Barbie duffel bag. She handed it to Maisie, who pushed the bed table away and opened the book. “Here it is,” she said, turning to a page with a garish painting of a volcano spewing red and black on one page and a black-and-white photo on the other. Maisie put her finger on the photo and pushed it over toward Joanna.

  It wasn’t a black-and-white photo. It only looked that way because it was a group of plaster casts that looked as though they were made out of the gray ash themselves. They lay where they had fallen, the mother still clutching the baby in her arms, the two girls still clutching her hem.

  “This is the servant,” Maisie said, pointing to a curled-up figure lying near them. “He was trying to help them get out.” She took the book back. “Lots of little kids got trampled,” she said, flipping through the pages. “There was this one—” She looked up sharply, clapped the book shut, and shoved it under the covers. She was just pulling the bed table toward her when Barbara came in.