“On the other floors, you mean? No. ’Bye. I’ve got six more laps to do.” He jogged off toward the stern, his white sweatshirt bobbing in and out of shadow.
What now? She was sure there was an entrance to the Grand Staircase from the Boat Deck. Heidi had said Kate Winslet’s mother and the creepy boyfriend had stood at the foot of its stairs waiting for their boat to be called, so all she had to do was find it. But the only doors left to try were those to the officers’ quarters.
She tried them anyway. They were all locked, too, except for the last one. It was a closet, with piles of blankets. Maybe they have the Titanic’s name on them, she thought, and shook one out, but it was a featureless gray, and when she put it back, she saw, high up on a shelf, the Morse lantern the sailor had propped on the bow.
The name would be on the bow, Joanna thought, and ran out onto the forecastle and over to the railing. She grasped the rail with both hands and leaned far out, trying to see the side of the ship below her, but it was too dark to see it. She looked out at the horizon, searching for the Californian’s light and then down at the blackness below. There’s nothing down there, she thought, nothing out there. Not just no light. Nothing. And if it goes down—
She began to run, past the bridge, past the officers’ quarters, past the lifeboats, thinking, Please let my shoe still be there, please let the door to the passage be open, and was all the way down the stairs past the A La Carte Restaurant before she was able to stop herself, grabbing on to the polished railing as if it were a lifeline, forcing herself to stand still, to think.
“You can’t go back yet,” she said aloud, her hands gripping the stair rail. “You have to find out for sure if it’s the Titanic.” And the deck’s not listing yet, the stairs are still dry. There’s plenty of time. And there has to be an entrance to the Grand Staircase from the Promenade Deck.
She forced herself to walk back up the stairs to the restaurant and along the passage. It ended in a door, and she opened it and went out on the Promenade Deck. It was dark, but there was light coming from windows farther along. Stained-glass windows. They shone in patterns of red and yellow, blue and green, on the wooden deck. She walked down to them and looked in the windows.
It was a bar of some sort. It was dimly lit and smoky, and over against one wall, she could see a mirrored mahogany bar with ranks of liquor bottles and glittering glasses. At one of the tables a man in evening dress with a dark mustache sat, dealing out a hand of cards. He dealt them one at a time, facedown, and then picked them up, stared at them, arranged his hand, stared at them again. After a while he shuffled his hand into the deck, and dealt another hand.
I could go ask him what the name of the ship is, Joanna thought. Unlike Greg Menotti, he looked like he had no illusions about where he was and what he was doing here, but something in his face made her drop her hand from the door and leave him there, dealing, shuffling, dealing again.
There was no one in the next room, which was even more elegant than the bar. The walls and the white pillars were decorated with gold filigree, and the chairs and sofas were upholstered in gold brocade. Yellow-silk-shaded lamps stood next to the chairs and on small tables, casting a golden light over the whole room. Books lay on the tables and stood in glassed-in bookcases lining both end walls.
The ship’s library, Joanna thought, or some sort of writing room. On the far wall, next to the deck windows, was a row of desks. They had lamps, too, and neatly arranged pens and envelopes and cream-colored writing paper. The name of the ship will be on the stationery, Joanna thought.
She pushed open the beveled-glass door and walked in and across to the nearest desk. Too late, she saw the room wasn’t deserted after all. A man sat at the last writing desk, bent earnestly over a letter. She could see his graying hair and the white sleeve of his shirt as he dipped his pen in the ink bottle, wrote, dipped it again.
She hesitated, but he hadn’t looked up as she came across the room. He dipped his pen in the ink again, poised it above the paper again. Joanna tiptoed to the nearest desk. The envelopes and writing paper lay in cubbyholes. She reached to pull out a sheet of the paper.
“Do you have a hall pass, Ms. Lander?” the man said sternly, and Joanna wheeled.
“Mr. Briarley!” she gasped.
“Joanna Lander,” Mr. Briarley said, smiling broadly. “I had no idea you were here!” He stood up and started toward her, knocking against the desk as he did. The ink bottle wobbled, and the pen rolled off onto the gold carpet. He steadied the ink bottle and then clasped her hand in both of his. “How delightful! Sit down, sit down,” he said, pulling a chair over from one of the other desks. “I had no idea you were on board.”
“You remember me?” Joanna said.
“I remember all my students,” he said, “even though there were hordes of them, gleaming in purple and gold. You were in second period. You were fond of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ as I recall. ‘Alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide, wide sea.’ And you never asked, ‘Will this be on the final?’ ”
“That was because I knew what you’d say,” Joanna smiled. “You always said, ‘It will all be on the final.’ ”
“And so it will,” Mr. Briarley said. “Knowing that did not stop Ricky Inman from asking, however. Tell me, does he still rock back in his chair and overbalance?”
“I don’t know,” Joanna said, laughing. “He’s a stockbroker these days.”
“And you?” Mr. Brairley asked. “Let me see, as I recall, you intended to major in psychology.”
“I did,” Joanna said, thinking joyfully, He remembers. This is the old Mr. Briarley, the way he ought to be, funny and acerbic and smart, and this is the conversation we ought to have had that day at the house. “I’m at Mercy General now. I’m working on a research project involving near-death experiences.”
“Which would explain why you were not on the passenger list,” he said. “I was certain I hadn’t seen your name. Near-death experiences. Accounts of those who have returned to tell the tale. ‘The times have been that, when the brains were out, the man would die, and there an end, but now they rise again.’ And what have you learned from these voyages to ‘the country from whose bourn no traveler returns’?”
“I—” Joanna said, and, across the library, the door opened, and the steward came in.
He walked quickly up to them. “I beg your pardon, miss,” he said to Joanna and turned to Mr. Briarley. “If I might speak to you a moment, sir.”
“Of course,” Mr. Briarley said. The two men went over by the bookcases, and the steward began speaking in a low, urgent voice. Joanna caught the words “requested me to ask you” and “know what happened.”
“Tell them . . . ” Mr. Briarley said, and Joanna stepped forward, trying to hear. As she did, her hand brushed against the desk and knocked the ink bottle over. Ink splashed onto the floor, soaking darkly into the carpet. Joanna bent to right the bottle, reaching in her pocket for a Kleenex.
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” the steward said. “I’ll tell them. They will be much relieved.”
The steward went out, and Mr. Briarley came back over to the desk where Joanna knelt, blotting up the spilled ink.
“Never mind,” he said, taking her arm to raise her gently to standing. “It doesn’t matter. Come, sit down, and in a moment we’ll go have tea,” he said, sitting down at the desk again. “I must just finish writing a note first.” He picked up the pen and began to write.
Joanna had forgotten that she’d come in here to look for the Titanic’s name on the stationery. She looked down at the note he was writing, hoping the letter would be faceup so she could see the letterhead, but it wasn’t a letter. It was a postcard.
“I was writing a message to my niece,” Mr. Briarley said. There was no printed letterhead on the postcard, only three lines for the address and the words “Dear Kit.”
“Have you met my niece?” he asked and, before she could answer, said, “You’d like her. She was named afte
r Kit Marlowe. ‘Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?’ Though I doubt he meant this one. And, ‘Honour is purchased by the deeds we do. It is not won until some honourable deed is done.’ Did he manage to win it? I wonder. There is always less time than we imagine. Time that in his case ended abruptly in an inn in Deptford.”
“I know,” Joanna said.
Mr. Briarley looked pleased. “You remember that from class?”
“No, I saw the movie. Shakespeare in Love,” she said. “With Gwyneth Paltrow.” I can’t believe we’re having this conversation, she thought. “Vielle and I rented it.”
“Stabbed to death,” Mr. Briarley said. “A quick way to die, though not as quick perhaps as he imagined. Or as serene, though he may have had some idea. ‘Pray for me!’ Faust says, ‘and what noise soever ye hear, come not unto me, for nothing can rescue me.’ Though that’s not always true. And, at any rate, there is still time for tea, though it is a pity I didn’t know of your being on board sooner. We would have had time to talk of many things, ‘of shoes and ships—’ ” He stood up and took his coat off the back of the chair and put it on. “And time to solve the mysteries of the universe. Well, it can’t be helped, and there should still be time for tea, at least.”
He picked up the postcard and slid it inside his jacket, too quickly for Joanna to get more than a glimpse of a hand-colored photo of a ship and pale blue ocean, pale blue sky, on the other side. “I have an errand to run first,” he said, “and then we’ll go to the A La Carte Restaurant. No, perhaps it had better be the Palm Court. It’s farther aft.” He looked at his watch. “Yes, definitely the Palm Court, but I must take this to the post office first.”
“The post office?” Joanna said, thinking of the mail clerk, dragging the wet canvas bag up the stairs. “No, wait, Mr. Briarley,” but he was already out the door of the library.
She ran after him out onto the deck. “Mr. Briarley!” she called, but he was disappearing through another door. “You can’t go down to the mail room,” she shouted, opening it and running down the curving marble steps to the bronze statue at its foot. “It’s already underwater,” she said, and stopped, staring at the statue.
It was a cherub, with wings and curly hair, holding aloft a golden torch. I knew there was an entrance on the Promenade Deck, Joanna thought. Because there was no mistaking this was the Grand Staircase. And no mistaking what ship she was on.
She turned and looked back up at the head of the stairs, and there was the bronze clock flanked by two angels with long robes and wings. Honour and Glory Crowning Time. Joanna craned her neck to look up at the skylight. The curved glass was the same milky-gold color as in the one above the aft staircase, but this one was much larger, and in the center hung a crystal chandelier, light radiating from it like glittering diamond prisms. “It is the Titanic,” Joanna said, and turned back to Mr. Briarley.
He wasn’t there. While she’d been looking at the skylight, he’d vanished. Which way had he gone? She ran down to the bottom of the stairs to look over the railing at the decks below. “Mr. Briarley!” she shouted, but he wasn’t on the stairs, and as she leaned forward, trying to see into the darkness, she heard a door off to the left slam. She ran in the direction of the sound, down a long, brightly lit corridor carpeted in red toward the door that was just closing.
“Mr. Briarley!” she called, opening the door. Beyond it, the corridor widened and made a turn, and there was another stairway, and on the deck below, the sound of another door closing. Joanna pattered down the stairs. Next to the stairway was a small room with a red-and-white-striped pole. The barber shop, and next to it, on the corner, a teller’s window with a gold-lettered sign above it: “Purser’s Office.” The post office must be somewhere nearby.
Between the barber shop and the purser’s was a door. There was no sign on it, but when Joanna put her hand on it, it opened easily. Inside, red-and-black cloth-covered wires crossed and recrossed on a large wooden board, and coming from somewhere-the headphones, lying in front of the board-was an insistent ringing.
The ship’s switchboard, Joanna thought, hurrying past the purser’s and around the corner. This passage wasn’t lit, and after the bright lights of the stairway, she couldn’t see anything. She took a few tentative steps in. “Why, this is my passage,” she said.
“What did she say?” Richard asked sharply.
“ ‘Passed away,’ ” Tish said. “I think she’s awake.”
“She can’t be,” Richard said, and Joanna felt her sleep mask being removed.
She opened her eyes. “I am,” she said, “but I didn’t say ‘passed away.’ I said ‘passageway.’ I went in by mistake. I didn’t realize it was my passage.” She tried to sit up. “It was the other end of it. I was—”
“Lie still,” Tish said, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around Joanna’s arm. “I haven’t even taken your vitals yet.”
“I wouldn’t have gone in it if I’d realized—”
“Lie still,” Tish said. Joanna obeyed, waiting for Tish to finish monitoring her and begin unhooking the electrodes and the IV.
“Do you think it was because of the lowered dosage?” Tish asked, untaping the IV needle and sliding it out.
“I don’t know,” Richard said. “It was well above the threshold level.”
“What happened?” Joanna asked, twisting her head around to see Richard.
“You kicked out,” Tish said. “Just like Mrs. Troudtheim.”
“Kicked out?” Joanna said, bewildered. “But I couldn’t have. I was all over the—” She looked at Tish. “I was all over. I was there a long time.”
Richard helped her to a sitting position. “How long?”
“I don’t know,” Joanna said, trying to think. She’d gone up to the Boat Deck and talked to Greg Menotti and then had the conversation with Mr. Briarley. How long had that taken? And then they’d walked down to the Grand Staircase—
“Oh, I have something to tell you,” she said. “About what I saw. It’s definitely the . . . what we discussed before.”
“How long?” he repeated as if he hadn’t heard her.
“An hour at least.”
“An hour?” Tish blurted.
“You have a continuous memory of events?” Richard asked. “Not fragmented flashes?”
“No. It was just like the other times. Everything happened in sequence.”
“What about time dilation?”
She shook her head. “Nothing was speeded up or slowed down. It all happened in real time.” Only obviously it hadn’t. “How long was I under?”
“Eight seconds,” Richard said. “How long was it compared to the other times?”
“Longer,” she said promptly.
“Then that and Mr. Sage’s NDE confirm there’s no correlation between subjective time and elapsed time,” he said, and Joanna thought suddenly of Lavoisier. How long had he really been conscious? And how much time had elapsed for him between each blink?
“Was it a complete NDE or did it cut off in the middle?” Richard was asking.
“Both,” Joanna said, wishing Tish would finish unhooking her so she could explain. “I was trying to find Mr. Briarley. He was going to the post office, and I was trying to catch up with him, and I started down this passage—”
“Post office?” Tish said. “I thought you were supposed to see heaven.”
“—and I didn’t realize till I was already in it that it was the same one, and then it was too late. I was already back in the lab.”
“So the ending was different?” Richard said eagerly.
“Yes and no. I came back through the same passage, but it was more sudden than the other times. There was more of an abrupt cutoff.”
Richard went over to the console and typed rapidly, and then looked up at the screen. “Just what I thought. Your last scan is a dead-on match for Mrs. Troudtheim’s.” He began typing again. “I need you to get your account recorded and transcribed as soon as possible.”
“I
will,” Joanna said, “and I want to talk to you about what I saw.”
He nodded absently, staring at the screens. Joanna gave up and went into the dressing room, pulled on her blouse and jacket and put on her shoes, and then came back out. Richard was still typing. Tish was winding up the monitor cords. She was nearly done putting things away. I’ll wait till she’s gone and then tell him about the Grand Staircase, Joanna thought, and pulled a chair over to the far corner of the lab, sat down, and switched the recorder on.
Of course he’ll probably say I confabulated it from the conversation we had, she thought, and began recording. “Joanna Lander, session six, March 2. I heard a noise, and I was in the passage,” she said softly into it. She described her attempts to find the Grand Staircase, her fruitless conversation with Greg Menotti, her going out onto the Promenade Deck. “I walked along the deck to where the light from the bar—” she said, and thought of something.
She had said an hour, and it had definitely seemed that long, but an hour after the collision the ship would have had a definite list. Maybe there had been time dilation, after all, or maybe that was another discrepancy that meant something.
I need to tell Richard that, she thought, and looked over at the console. He was taking papers out of the printer. “Joanna,” he said, “I want to show these readouts to Dr. Jamison and see what she thinks,” and walked out before she could turn off her recorder.
She had half stood up. She sat down again, frustrated, and began recording where she’d left off, describing the man dealing out cards, the library, seeing the man at the writing desk. “And when he looked up, I saw it was Mr. Briarley, my high school English teacher, but it wasn’t the Mr. Briarley I’d seen five days ago. He remembered my name and which class I was in, and he looked well and happy—”
Well and happy. “My mother looked well and happy,” Ms. Isakson had said, “not like the last time I’d seen her. She got so thin there at the end, and so yellow,” and Joanna had thought, That’s how NDEers always describe their dead relatives, with their limbs and their faculties restored.
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