The Bobcat

by Katherine Forbes Riley

  Waters stopped pacing abruptly. His eyes were the brightest things in the room. “Now. Given this basic background, let us consider the particular case of your friend. He appeared to have largely recovered from his initial viral infection, but his lingering symptoms indicate there were complications. These may be reflective of a secondary condition, which can sometimes result from the process of viral elimination by the host body—collateral damage, if you will. For example, infection by the influenza virus will in rare cases result in Guillain-Barre syndrome, a paralytic condition resulting from the immune system’s own reaction, which damages the peripheral nervous system. I must emphasize here,” the doctor added, looking straight at Laurelie, “that such post-viral diseases are usually life-threatening, and thus the earlier they’re diagnosed, the better.”

  Now the virologist dropped his gaze to the floor. Frowning, he said, “This scenario is unlikely in your friend’s case, however. For although it would explain his continuing symptoms, such secondary conditions are rare in healthy young individuals. This fact makes a chronic or latent infection more likely. Chronic infections, such as Hepatitis C and HIV, are ones that even a strong immune system can’t fully eradicate, either because the viral replication process suppresses or evades the host’s immune system, or because it yields too many mutations for the host’s system to fight. While these continuous infections may not kill the host, they do drain its internal defenses and are associated with long-term damage or disease, including cancer.

  “Far more interesting from my point of view, however,” the doctor went on, resuming his pacing, “is the very rarest instance of chronic infection, that is, the latent one.” He smiled. “These viruses are the Einsteins of their kind, for they have learned to hide. The body cannot fight them unless they are active, and they’ve developed the ability to fall dormant for indefinite periods of time. We know the least about these viruses simply because they are the most rare. Herpes is probably the best-known example. It is an ancient virus that has been infecting humans since long before we could even call ourselves human. Like rabies, it infects neurons, but unlike rabies there is no deadly outcome, because long ago it learned both to evade the immune system and to avoid great collateral damage. In fact the herpes virus has adapted so well that more than thirty percent of the population carries it today.”

  The deep affection in the doctor’s voice made sharp contrast with the information it conveyed. “Of course, in order to survive, even latent viruses must eventually replicate and transfer, and to do so activation must occur. We believe activation of latent viruses is triggered by external stimuli, such as sunlight or stress. At that point the body will present symptoms and briefly become contagious, before the virus falls dormant again.”

  Now he turned and appraised Laurelie. He was quiet for some moments, holding her in his gaze. When he spoke again his voice was dry and clinical. “Unfortunately, as I said earlier, without a detailed examination, I can’t determine what type of virus your friend had, or may still have. I can, however, with a few drops of your own blood, determine whether you’ve already been infected.”

  At his words this same fluid attempted to flee, rushing back to her heart from her limbs and brain. “But my senses are normal,” she said dizzily.

  The virologist chuckled. “Yes, well, oddly enough, some viruses are remarkably difficult to catch. Still, you should be aware that there is a definite possibility of transmission eventually occurring, if it hasn’t already. Human fluids are very highly effective vectors.” His eyes grew brighter now. “And some viruses will go dormant for an interval following infection, an adaptation that helps increase transference, but also means that it may take some time for you to display symptoms. You’ve known your friend only a few months, I believe? In any event, if it is already hiding somewhere inside you, the best tests we’ve developed will detect its faint markers in your blood.”

  “No.” She was shaking her head. “His virus didn’t work like that. He got sick from it right away.”

  “How could he possibly know that?” the virologist shot back.

  “Because he got it from the dirt, on this old island where—”

  She closed her mouth with a snap, realizing too late how she’d been baited.

  “An interesting hypothesis.” The doctor smiled. “We can take samples from this island as well.”

  Across the varnished darkness of the office, the windows glowed like tiny dying suns. Laurelie imagined they’d once borne a light so hot and bright it had been impossible for life to survive it. She imagined the hiker’s cabin in the cool dark woods, with its small patch of garden in which the bob-kittens would play.

  “What about his children?” she said softly. “Will they have it too?”

  “Ah.” The doctor fairly purred, pure pleasure in his voice. “You’ve hit upon our philosopher’s stone. We’ve known for a long time that a few rare viruses can hide inside genes and thus alter the genetic makeup of individuals. But only recently have we found evidence that some can hide inside our chromosomes and so be passed into our progeny, potentially impacting genetics on a far larger scale than we ever believed possible.”

  He glanced back and forth between Laurelie and the landlord, a faint smile playing across his lips. “Can you imagine,” he said, “a sense-enhancing virus persistent enough to alter the evolution of our entire human species?”

  She stood on the steps of the administration building, feeling the late summer sun bake the skin of her shoulders even as the fall air sprouted goose bumps on her limbs. Just as the weather couldn’t commit to a single season, so was she now trapped in a modality in which nothing was known for certain, only possible or likely or believed. Frozen by indecision, only her eyes moved, traveling the route her feet would take down the gravel path and across the green to her bike. Which she’d then mount and somehow coerce into motion—

  And then?

  She was already over an hour late getting home. Checking her cell phone, she saw a missed call from the hiker. She thought of the bobcat, frightened, pacing in her crate, and finally forced her feet to move. But halfway across the green, she sank down onto a wooden bench again and pressed her fingers hard to the fresh hole in her arm. The sting from the blood the doctor had drawn focused her mind, and she imagined for a moment actually doing it—keeping the secret. For a day, a week, a month, maybe even years, as long as it took before the moment came when she grew feverish and her entire body became hyperaware. So that she no longer needed to tell him at all, because he’d already sense it. And she’d sense that he sensed it, and he’d sense that she sensed him sensing it. In her mind the perfect communion they could achieve spiraled down in recursing sequence, like an infinite strand of DNA.

  But the image shattered. For how could she keep a secret that might be life-threatening to him? Still, each time his cell phone rang she shuddered. Six times she nearly hung up before he answered, and when finally he did, and his voice slid deep inside her ear, her lips trembled and her heart clattered and tears started hot in her eyes.

  “Hi,” she said, “hi,” lifting her feet onto the bench and hugging her knees, wishing she could squeeze herself small enough to slip through the holes in the mouthpiece and pop out on the other side.

  “Where are you?” he said, and she heard a rustle and a thud, as if he’d jumped down from something.

  “Still at school.”

  He sounded so incredibly clear. Her own thoughts were so tangled, such an ugly snarl without order or coherency. She tried to find the starting thread. “I’m—I’m calling about my landlord,” she finally said.

  “I’ve been thinking about that too,” he said.

  “No, it’s worse! I mean—” she said, leaning forward so far she almost tumbled off the bench, “he called me into his office. Just now. That’s where I’ve been. There was a doctor there, a Dr. Waters, a scientist, a virologist, from the CDC.”

  Laurelie stopped then. But the hiker said nothing. There was only his bre
athing. And so she took a deep breath of her own and went on.

  “He wants to talk to you. He—he—he took my blood. He says you might still be sick. Infected. He says you could still have the virus inside you, or even if you don’t, you could get cancer from it, or be paralyzed, or—or worse.”

  Now there was no sound from the phone at all. There was only silence, and it roared, echoing and colliding with all the thoughts and emotions she imagined he was having.

  But when finally he did speak, he only sounded sad. “He thinks I might still be contagious? After all this time?”

  “He said it’s a possibility. He wants you to come in as soon as possible for tests.”

  “I could infect you—”

  She shook her head, shook away that terrible sadness welling beneath his words. “Nothing’s certain yet. Not until you get tested.”

  It seemed forever before he spoke again, and when he did his voice was so quiet she couldn’t hear anything in it but the words.

  “If I get tested, they’ll never leave me alone. I’ll be their lab rat.”

  “But they can help you, if you’re sick.” She wouldn’t even speak the other possibility.

  And then, horribly, she pictured it. The hiker trapped in a hospital ward with his body slowly wasting away, and not even from his virus but rather the suffocation, the asphyxiation, of being surrounded by so much pain.

  “Never mind then,” she whispered. “Let’s just forget it.”

  “It’s too late,” she heard him say, as if from a great distance.

  “We’ll go away. We’ll disappear. We can go anywhere. We can go to Africa, like you wanted.” For a moment she could see the rich red African dirt, feel it beneath her feet.

  “It’s not safe. Not for you. I have to go now, and you can’t come with me.”

  “But I have to!” she burst out, feeling everything important to her swell and distort until all of it was grotesque.

  “That’s not true,” he said. “You have to stay.”

  How could he know that? He couldn’t see or smell or touch her. Had he been within reach she would have struck him for his certainty. Instead it was her own body that crumbled as she listened to the last words he spoke, that drifted to the bench in soft little piles of dust and ashes as the last echoes of his voice faded away.

  18

  For a time, there was only dark and light.

  Dark.

  Light.

  Dark.

  Light.

  And then her phone rang. “Hello, Laurelie. This is Dr. Water’s secretary. He asked me to tell you that your tests came back negative. And that he would still like very much to talk with your friend. Thank you, and have a nice day!”

  It was a hellish awakening, not hearing the hiker’s voice. She tried not to listen, but understanding crept in. She got out of bed then. Weak as an old woman, she tottered downstairs and stood in the kitchen devouring things, a half-black banana, milk from the carton, granola poured straight into her hand.

  Back upstairs again she drew a bath so hot that any motion burned, and there sat in a fiery concert of recriminations, her body still but her anger active, fully engaging her heart and mind.

  The pain that followed was passive and far worse; she lay curled fetal at the bottom of the cooling tub while a root in the shape of the hiker was extracted, a million tiny tendrils tugged from her capillaries, arteries, veins.

  But afterward, once she rose chilled and shivering from the bath and tentatively flexed those conduits, she felt no weakness, no lingering pain. On the contrary she felt cauterized, cavernous. Thoughts whistled softly through her carved-out spaces and rivulets of emotion trickled down them, tinkling like chimes.

  Sometimes as those first days passed, she’d suddenly picture him, in one of the spaces he’d so often been. In her kitchen, her living room, getting out of his truck in her yard, walking toward her up the trail. She’d smell the forest scent of his skin and hear his fast mouth breaths. And then it would be back to the scalding bath again.

  Sometimes, as days turned to weeks, she’d imagine calling him. Savoring the delicious shock of it, the sudden rush and thrum of ardor at hearing him say her name. Except always there followed the sinking surety that he wouldn’t answer the phone. That he was gone, lost to her. Lost to the world. For all practical purposes he existed now only in her imagination, and there was some small comfort to be had in the fact that there at least he would remain, immutable, preserved forever in the black soil of her mind.

  Then, as weeks turned to months, there came times when it was enough to know he was safe, hidden away with his dog and bobcat in his cabin in the woods. And that for as long as he lived he would always be safe, because no one could find him there, not without her. No one even knew his name.

  19

  Then, of course, came graduate school. From the start it looked a lot like college, albeit the surfaces were a little slicker, a little shinier. It felt like a stage and all the actors looked like amateurs, trying too hard at the parts they played. But after a while it began to feel, in a strange way, real, and she began to notice how much had changed. Unlike college, there was no longer the anonymity of a lecture hall; now the same dozen students surrounded her every day, and all of them sought to stand out in some way. In college the professors had been distant bodies, some godlike and others alien, but now they were indolent alphas lying close among the pack, and their only significant motion some days was a cuff to end the worst infighting.

  Following patterns established after her assault, in the beginning Laurelie sought exit routes. But it was as if she’d lost the talent for it. She no longer knew how to flourish completely apart from the world. Her dreams were porous and her solitude was even more so. Like a cat burglar the hiker crept into all her private spaces, his body, his motions, his most minute interactions with the world, and the joy she took from reincarnating him was intense. She’d draw him back into the world, hundreds of fast charcoal sketches, imagining him in every possible reconfiguration, as a tracker locating the lost, a chef creating innovative meals, a doctor discovering impossible cures, a spy protecting his country from terrorists, a detective with an infallible eye for guilt and innocence. But although these sessions were cathartic, the returning tide of loss was always stronger than the release had been. And slowly then it came to pass that the more of him she tried to evoke, the less actually emerged. She had rubbed her memories of him so raw that they began to twist and fray, and she imagined they were actually turning against her, seeking to strangle whatever life remained in her like some bitter, dying vine.

  After that it became necessary to resist him. And so each time he came to mind she’d put down her work and stroke her cats until they were sprawled on their backs with their chins outstretched and cricket chirps sounding in their purrs. Or she’d go up the hill and play with Rowan and Dark. She no longer babysat the boy because he’d started preschool and her stipend now paid her rent, but his mother was always happy for her to take him for free. They’d go outside bundled in layers of cotton and fleece and play fetch on the hill, stripping down to their T-shirts for the rare jewel hours when the sun gained its height, hours that became less and less until eventually it hardly crept above the trees at all. But although both boy and dog would beg her, she never took them down to the river, and not only because she’d promised. She never went herself either; it was hard enough just passing by the trail each day and willing away the image that came unbidden of Ophelia floating down cold black water.

  Idle hands, she reminded herself often. But nature was never idle. And as autumn progressed it grew into a red carpet affair. Colors she’d never noticed before shimmied in the valleys and dazzled up and down the broad sides of mountains. She’d stay outside drawing all day, fashioning her deciduous trees like fairy queens and giving them glamorous names like Salomie and Amaranth, Sunglow and Chartreuse, while her tall austere evergreens bent down to stare, whispering in awe. She drew the wallflowers too, all those
plain green bushes of summer that had burst into the limelight now, their leaves lit up like bonfires in the yards all over town.

  By November everything was dead, everything some shade of brown. The mornings dawned frigid and frost lingered in the shadows all day. But roots still beat like hearts beneath the ground, and so she drew gold in the brown, and silver in the green, and stayed out each day until the encroaching darkness forced her inside.

  Now there were many waking hours spent in overheated rooms, and she could no longer avoid an awareness of what was going on inside of them. She even developed a favorite class, a seminar on graphic novels. The other students in it often had interesting things to say, referencing Spiegelman and Otomo, Warhol and Lichtenstein; even Whedon and Watterson had been raised. The professor let them all have play. She permitted no biases, said it didn’t matter if someone was alive or dead, canonized or disregarded, all that mattered was what you said. And as time went by Laurelie found she had things she wanted to add to the conversation. Sometimes the perfect remark would form in her brain and her body would still be throbbing with it long after the topic had moved on. As if sensing her inner turmoil, the professor sometimes asked her to speak, and displays of idiocy on these occasions brought the entire pack baying joyfully. The first time it happened Laurelie had produced a half-coherent response while experiencing the embarrassment of her body as if it were happening to someone else, and then spent the rest of the day formulating what she should have said instead. After that she followed the discussion closely and always maintained a careful argument in her head, so that when she was called upon at least her remarks emerged well-manicured, and while they weren’t often taken up for further debate, they were never again openly ridiculed.

  Never, that was, until one Friday shortly after Thanksgiving when she was accosted after class by a short guy in thick black glasses. His name was Scottie and he was a Londoner and she regarded him approaching with some trepidation, not only because he was shaking his head but also because his opinions were usually caustic enough that the rest of the pack gave him a wide berth.