Passage

by Connie Willis

  “The visual cortex is shutting down,” Joanna said, and lurched for the pillar. She wrapped the leash around her wrist, struggling to bind them to the pillar without letting go of the leash. A crash cart slid past them, picking up speed. A tiger, its striped fur red and black in the dimming light, loped by.

  Joanna passed the leash around her waist, the dog, the pillar, and tied it in a knot. “This way I won’t let go of you. Like ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus,’ ” she said and wished Mr. Briarley were here. “ ‘He cut a rope from a broken spar, and bound her to the mast,’ ” she recited, but when she said the next line, it didn’t come out right. “ ‘And when they were dead,’ ” she recited, “ ‘the robins so red, gathered strawberry leaves and over them spread.’ ”

  The ship was beginning to overbalance, like Ricky Inman going over in his chair. The bulldog, between her chest and the pillar, looked up at her with wild, frightened eyes. “Don’t be afraid,” she whispered. “It can’t last much longer.”

  Snow began to fall, large gray-white flakes drifting down onto the deck like apple blossoms, like ash. Joanna looked up, half-expecting to see Vesuvius above them. A sailor, all in white, ran past, dragging landing chocks behind him, shouting, “Zeroes at oh-nine hundred!” The band stopped, paused, began to play.

  “This is it,” Joanna whispered, “ ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’ ” But that wasn’t the tune. “Well, at least some good has come out of this,” she said to the dog, trying to smile. “We’ve solved the mystery of whether they were playing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee,’ or ‘Autumn.’ ” But it wasn’t “Autumn” either. It wasn’t a hymn at all. It was “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

  “Oh, Maisie,” she murmured.

  An Apache galloped past, brandishing a knife. Water began to pour from the lifeboat davits, from the railings, from the chest. “This is the worst of the worst catastrophes in the world!” a reporter on the roof of the officers’ quarters sobbed into a microphone. “It’s a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen, the smoke and the flames now! Oh, the humanity!” The code alarm began to scream.

  Joanna looked up. The stern of the ship reared above her, suspended against the blackness. She hugged the dog against her and tried to shield its head. The lights went out, blinked on dull red, went off, came on again. Like Morse code. Like Lavoisier.

  There was a horrible rending sound, and everything began to fall, deck chairs and the grand piano and the giant funnels, violins and Indian clubs and playing cards, postcards and pomegranates and dishes and Dish Night, transcripts and trellises and telegrams. Books toppled out of their shelves, Mirrors and Mazes and The Titanic ABC and The Light at the End of the Tunnel. The davits broke loose from their moorings, and the mechanical camel, and the weight machine, looking more than ever like a guillotine. The stanchions fell, and the engine room telegraph, set now on Stop, and scans and sleep masks and shortcuts, arteries, ancient mariners, minirecorders, metaphors, dog tags, heating vents, knives, neurons, night.

  They crashed down on Joanna and the little bulldog with a rending, deafening roar, and in the last moment before it reached them, she realized she had been wrong about the noise she had heard when she came through. It was not the sound of the engines stopping or of the code alarm buzzing, of the iceberg slashing into the ship’s side, but the sound of her whole life crashing, crashing, crashing down on her.

  “Stand by.”

  —WIRELESS MESSAGE FROM THE FRANKFURT TO THE TITANIC

  I’VE BEEN TRYING to call you since Wednesday,” Maisie said disgustedly to Richard. She reached for her remote and turned down the sound on The Sound of Music. “But they don’t let you have phones in your room in here, you have to tell the sector nurse and she makes the call for you, she dials it and everything, and they don’t allow cell phones either ’cause of people’s pacemakers, you might scramble their signals and they’d go into V-fib or something,” she said, a little like a runaway train herself, “so I asked Nurse Lucille to call you, and she said, ‘What for?’ and I couldn’t say the real reason ’cause I’m not supposed to know about Joanna. We need to have a code for next time.”

  “All right, we’ll work one out,” Richard said. “You found out who Joanna had been to see?”

  “Yes. So, anyway, I told her to tell you I needed to see you, and I said you weren’t a visitor, you were a doctor, but she still wouldn’t call you.”

  She paused to get her breath, wheezing a little, and then started up again. “So I asked her to call Ms. Sutterly to bring me my books, because she’s not a visitor, I have to have my books so I can do my homework. I thought when she came I could secretly hand her this note with your phone number on it, but Nurse Lucille said ‘Family members only.’ It’s like a prison.”

  “So you told your mother I’d discovered a cure for coding?” Richard said.

  She nodded. “I got the idea watching The Parent Trap, the part where they fool the mom. I couldn’t think of anything else,” she said defensively. “I figured she’d make you come see me if she thought you’d figured out a way to bring people back after they coded. And she did.” She sobered. “I know you don’t really know how to do that. Are you mad?”

  “No. I should have come to see you earlier when you didn’t call. I came a couple of days ago, but you were out having tests.”

  She nodded. “An echocardiogram. Again. I tried the whole time I was down there to get somebody to page you, but nobody would. They said pages were for hospital business only.”

  “But you got the message to me,” Richard said. “That’s the important thing. And you found out where Joanna was and who she talked to.”

  She nodded emphatically. “That was even harder than getting the message to you ’cause I couldn’t go anywhere or call anybody, and I knew if I asked the nurses, they’d ask me what I wanted to know for, so I asked Eugene. He’s the guy who brings the menu things. When I was down in Peds, Eugene brought the menu things down there, too, so I figured he did all the floors and saw lots of people.”

  “And he saw Joanna?” Richard said, trying to get Maisie to the point.

  “No,” Maisie said. “I had to talk really hard to get Eugene to ask them if they saw Joanna. He didn’t want to. He said patients were always trying to get him to do stuff he wasn’t supposed to, like extra cookies on their tray and sneak in pizza and stuff, and he could lose his job if he did it, and I told him I wasn’t asking him to bring me anything, just ask some questions, and I was really sick, I had to have a heart transplant and everything, and if he wouldn’t do it, I’d have to ask them myself, and I’d probably code.”

  Maisie Machiavelli. “So he said he’d ask them.”

  “Yes, and one of the tray people saw her in the west wing, going up the stairs to the fifth floor really in a hurry.”

  The fifth floor. What was on five?

  “I made Eugene talk to all the orderlies and stuff who worked on the fifth floor, but nobody else had seen her. And then I got to thinking about there being a walkway on the fifth floor and maybe she was going up to it.”

  “How did you know there was a walkway on the fifth floor?”

  “Oh, you know,” Maisie said evasively, her eyes straying to the TV screen, where the von Trapp children were sticking a frog in Maria’s pocket. “They sometimes take me for tests and stuff. Anyway, I thought she might have been going over to the east wing, so I told Eugene to ask all the tray people who worked over there, but nobody’d seen her, so I tried to think who else besides nurses and tray people are usually out in the halls, like the guys who mop and run the vacuum thing.”

  “Is that who told you who Joanna talked to?”

  “No,” Maisie said, “So, anyway, Eugene told me one of the orderlies saw Joanna going down to the ER, but that wasn’t any good, you already knew she did that, but I wrote his name down anyway in case you wanted to talk to him.” She reached over to the bedstand, pulled out a folded sheet of paper like the one she’d written the wireless messages on, and unfolded it
. He could see two names written on it. “Bob Yancey,” Maisie said.

  “Is the name of the person Joanna talked to on there?” Richard asked, leaning forward to see the other name.

  Maisie snatched the paper out of his reach. “I’m getting to that part,” she said, folding it up. “So, anyway, then this lady in the CICU went into V-fib, she had a quadruple bypass, and the chaplain came, and I thought, I’ll bet he goes to see all the really sick people, he came to see me one time when I coded, so if the person Joanna went to see had had an NDE, he might have seen her.”

  The chaplain. Of course. Richard hadn’t even thought of him. “The chaplain saw her?”

  “I’m getting to that part.” And it was obvious he was going to have to hear the whole story of how she’d found out before she told him what he wanted to know.

  “So I was going to ask Eugene to ask him to come and see me, but when the meal thing came, it wasn’t him, it was this other guy, and when I asked him where Eugene was, he said, ‘He be taking a few days off,’ really madlike, so I said, ‘He didn’t get fired, did he?’ and he said, ‘No, and he don’t plan on it and I don’t neither, so don’t go askin’ me to play detective,’ and he wouldn’t even listen when I said all I wanted was to talk to the chaplain, he just put down the meal thing and left. So then I tried to think of a way to get the chaplain to come see me. I thought about telling the sector nurse I was worried about heaven and stuff, but I figured she’d tell my mom and my mom would get all upset. I figured I could pretend to be in A-fib if I couldn’t think of anything else—”

  A-fib! I’ve created a monster, he thought.

  “—but while I was trying to decide, the guy came in to draw blood, and he fastens the rubber tube thing around my arm and goes, ‘Are you the one who’s asking around about Joanna Lander?’ and I go, ‘Yes, did you see her?’ and he says he saw her in the room with this patient and he knows the name and his room and everything, because of them having to write it on those little tube things.” She handed over the paper triumphantly.

  Richard unfolded it. “Room 508,” it read. “Carl Aspinall.”

  “He said he was in a coma,” Maisie said.

  Richard’s heart sank.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He looked at her eager, expectant face. She’d tried so hard and succeeded where the rest of them had failed. It seemed cruel to disappoint her, no matter what Joanna had said about always telling her the truth. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Isn’t he the one?”

  “No,” Richard said. “I already know about Carl. Joanna had the nurses write down words he said while he was unconscious. Joanna was probably there to talk to the nurses.”

  “Hunh-unh,” Maisie said. “Carl was talking to her. The blood guy said so. He said he was really surprised he was awake, and the nurses told him he just came out of his coma that morning all of a sudden, and everybody said it was a miracle.”

  Came out of his coma. And told Joanna what he’d seen, told her something that gave her the key—Room 508. Richard reached for his cell phone, remembered he’d left it at the desk outside. “Thanks,” he said, starting for the door. “I need to go talk to him.”

  “He’s not here,” Maisie said. “He went home, the blood guy said. Last week.”

  He’d have to call Records, see if he could talk them into giving him an address, and if not, talk to his nurses. “I’ve gotta go, Maisie,” he said. “I need to find out where he lives.”

  “3348 South Jackson Way,” Maisie said promptly, “but he’s not there. He went up to his cabin in the mountains.”

  “Did the blood guy tell you that?”

  “No. Eugene.” She reached over to the bedstand and extracted another sheet of paper. “Here’s how to get there.”

  He read the instructions. The cabin was just outside of Timberline. “You’re a miracle worker, Maisie,” he said, sticking the paper in his pocket. “I owe you one.” He started out the door.

  “You can’t go yet,” Maisie said. “You haven’t told me if you want me to keep on looking for people who saw Joanna.”

  No, Richard thought. This is the one. It made perfect sense. Carl Aspinall had come out of his coma and told Joanna something about what he’d seen that had clicked with Joanna’s own experiences, something that had made her realize what the NDE was, how it worked.

  Maisie was waiting expectantly. “You’ve already found the person I was looking for,” he said. “And you’re supposed to be resting. You rest and watch your video.”

  “I hate The Sound of Music.” She flounced back against the pillow. “It’s so sweet. The only good part is where the nuns play that trick on the Nazi guys so they can escape.”

  “Maisie—”

  “And what if he isn’t the guy you’re looking for?” she said. “Or he goes into a coma again? Or dies?”

  He gave in. “All right, you can keep looking, but no asking Eugene to do anything that will get him fired. And no faking A-fib. I’ll come see you as soon as I get back from seeing him.”

  “Are you going to take Kit with you?” she asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “She’s nice,” Maisie said, looking up at the TV, where Captain von Trapp was singing to Maria. “I just think she’d be good at asking questions. You have to come and tell me what he said right away.”

  “I will,” he said and went back to the lab to call Carl Aspinall, but there was no number listed for the mountain cabin. They must have a cell phone, Richard thought, they surely wouldn’t have taken off for the mountains a week after being released from the hospital without any way to get in touch, but the cell phone number was unlisted.

  He would have to go there, which was just as well. If he called, he ran the risk of being told Aspinall was too ill to see him, of having Mrs. Aspinall say, “How would next week be?” He couldn’t wait till next week or even till tomorrow, not when he was this close. He called Kit. He doubted if she’d be able to find someone to watch her uncle on such short notice so she could go with him, but he could at least get Carl’s transcripts from her. He wanted to look at them before he interviewed Carl.

  Kit’s line was busy. He looked at his watch. It was after two, and Timberline was a good hour and a half into the mountains. He tried Kit’s number again. Still busy. He’d have to go without the transcripts.

  He grabbed his keys and started out the door and then stopped. He was doing just what Joanna had done, taking off without telling anyone where he was going. He called the ER and asked to speak to Vielle. “She can’t come to the phone,” the intern or whoever it was said. “We’ve got a real mess down here. Twenty-car pileup on I-70. Fog.”

  You had to take I-70 west to get to Timberline. “Where?” Richard asked.

  “Out east by Bennett,” the intern said. “Can I give her a message?”

  “Yes,” Richard said. “Tell her I’m on my way to interview Carl Aspinall. Carl,” Richard said. He spelled it and then Aspinall slowly. “Tell her I’ll call her as soon as I get back.”

  “Sure thing,” the intern said. “Drive carefully.”

  Richard hung up and tried Kit one more time. Mr. Briarley answered the phone. “Who’s calling?” he demanded.

  “Richard Wright,” he said. “May I speak to Kit?”

  “He’s dead. He was stabbed to death in a tavern in Deptford.”

  “It’s for me, Uncle Pat,” Kit’s voice said, and a woman’s voice said, “I’m sorry. He asked me for a cup of tea, and—”

  He didn’t hear the rest of it. Kit came on the line and, amazingly, already had someone there to watch her uncle. “I was going to go to the library to see what I could find on a fire on the Titanic,” she said.

  “What else would they see?” Richard could hear Mr. Briarley say in the background. “It is the very mirror image.”

  “How long can the caregiver stay?” Richard asked.

  “Till six,” Kit said. “You found the person Joanna went to see, didn’t you?”

&nbs
p; “Yes. I want you to go with me to see him. Can you?”

  “Yes!”

  “Good. Bring the Coma Carl transcripts.”

  “Metaphors are not just figures of speech,” Mr. Briarley said.

  “I’d better go,” Kit said and told him her address. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  Mr. Briarley said, “They are the essence and pattern of our mind.”

  Richard hung up, stuck the cell phone in his pocket, and started for the parking lot. Almost to the elevators a young man in a suit intercepted him. “Dr. Wright?” he said, sticking out his hand. “I’m glad I caught you. I’m Hughes Dutton of Daniels, Dutton, and Walsh, Mrs. Nellis’s lawyer.”

  I should have taken the stairs, Richard thought. “I really can’t talk now,” he said. “I’m going—”

  “This will only take a minute,” Mr. Dutton said, opening his jacket and pulling out a Palm Pilot. “I’m negotiating approval of this coding treatment you’ve developed and I just need to clarify a few details. Is it classified as a medical procedure or a drug?”

  “Neither,” Richard said. “There is no treatment. I tried to explain that to Mrs. Nellis but she wouldn’t listen. My research into the near-death experience is in the very preliminary stages. It’s purely theoretical.”

  The lawyer scribbled on his Palm Pilot. “Treatment in pre-development phase.”

  He’s as bad as Maisie’s mother, Richard thought. “It’s not in the predevelopment phase. There is no treatment, and even if there were, it would never be approved for experimental use on a child—”

  “In ordinary circumstances, I’d agree with you, but where the treatment involved would be utilized in a postcode situation, there are several options, the least problematical of which is to classify the treatment as a postmortem experimental procedure.”