Thomas Hoover - Life blood

I grabbed the bag carrying the Betacam, tested my flashlight against the floorboard, and then headed up the snowy driveway. I marched straight through the open arch that was the front door, and I was again in the drafty hallway where I'd met Ramala Saturday morning. It was empty and dark now, no lights anywhere, not even out in the courtyard beyond. The stony quiet-no music, no chants-felt unnatural, but it also suggested that Alex Goddard's adoring acolytes were safely tucked away. Early to bed… you know the rest. So maybe I really had come at the right time.

A chilly wind was blowing in from the far end of the hallway, and I felt like I'd just entered a dank tomb, but I tightened my coat and pressed on. When I got to the end and looked out, the snowy courtyard was like a picture postcard. And completely empty.

All right, I thought, move on to what you came for.

But when I turned and headed back down the hallway, toward the entry arch, I caught a glimpse of a furtive form, dark and shadowy, lurking just outside. Shit! I froze in my tracks, but then the figure stepped inside, wearing something that made me think of Little Red Riding Hood, like a tiny ghost in a cowl.

It was Tara, Alex Goddard's spacey waif, who was moving so oddly, I thought for a moment she might be sleepwalking.

She wasn't, of course. She'd just been out strolling around the driveway in the snow. I soon realized she lived her life in something resembling a trance, as though she were a permanent denizen of the spirit world. For her it was a natural condition.

"It's so beautiful like this," she mumbled dreamily, as though we'd been in the middle of a lifelong conversation. "I just love it." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but in the silence it seemed to ricochet off the stone walls. "I want to take them out, show them God's paintbrush. Will you help me?"

"Take who out?" I asked, immediately deciding to go with the moment.

Finally she looked directly at me and realized whom she'd been talking to.

"You were here before. I tried to give you herbs to help you, but then he came and…" Her voice trailed off as she walked back through the portico and out again into the drifting snow. Then she held up her hands, as though attempting to capture the flakes as keepsakes. "I so want to show them. They've never seen it before." She glanced back at me. "Come on. Let's do it."

As I followed her out into the drifting white and across the parking lot, the accumulation of snow was growing denser, enough now to start covering the cars, but still, something told me the flurry was going to be short-lived. I took a long, misty breath of the moist air and clicked open the case holding the Betacam, readying myself to take it out the minute we got inside.

Well, I thought, maybe I've gotten lucky. She was headed for the new clinic, which was exactly where I wanted to go. It was nestled in the trees, up a winding pathway, and as I slogged along I could feel the snow melting through my sneakers.

When we got to the front door, large and made of glass, she just pushed it open.

"We never lock anything," she declared, glancing back. "It's one of our rules."

The hallway was dark, silent, and empty except for the two of us. Still, I felt a tinge of caution as we entered. At some level this was trespassing.

"Come on," she said, casually flipping a switch on the right-hand wall and causing the overhead fluorescents to blink on. "He's away now, and everybody's in bed. But I'll bet they're still awake in here. It's a perfect time."

I didn't feel anything was perfect, but I did know I wanted to learn what was behind the door I'd seen when I was leaving. It was at the end of the hallway, wide and steel and painted hospital white. And, sure enough, that was exactly where Tara was heading.

She just kept talking nonstop, in her dreamy, little-girl voice. "We've got to try and make them understand it's okay. That it'll be just for a minute."

She shoved open the door without knocking, and my ears were greeted by the faint strains of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," one of my favorites. For an instant I was caught up in the music, a poignant moment drawing me in.

The room itself was spacious, with a row of white bassinets along one side and subdued lighting provided by small fluorescent bulbs along the walls. It was, I immediately realized, a no-frills nursery. Alongside the bassinets were tables with formula and boxes of Pampers and Handi-Wipes. Two short women of indefinable nationality-they looked vaguely Asian-were in attendance, and at the moment one was facing away and bouncing a baby on her shoulder. Her infant looked like a boy-or was that just my imagination?-and I felt my heart go out. The light was dim, but I could tell he was a gorgeous sandy-haired kid plump and peachy, so sublime in his tender vulnerability as he gazed around with eyes full of trust. He was staring directly back at me and before I could stop myself, I gave him a little wave and wrinkled my nose. He stared at me a second then responded with a tiny smile. Hey, I thought, I've got the touch.

"Come on," Tara said ignoring the women, "let me show you. They're all so beautiful."

By then my eyes were adjusting to the subdued light, and as we walked down the middle of the long room, I confirmed my assumption that the bassinets next to the tables all contained infants. I'm no expert on babies, but I'd guess they were all around six weeks old maybe a couple of months at most.

This is the nest, I thought. Ground zero. Kevin and Rachel were both probably in this room at one time too…

"Aren't they wonderful?" Tara was saying, still in her squeaky, spaced-out voice.

I was opening the Betacam bag when the first woman, the one holding and lightly bouncing her little boy, absently put her hand under his quilt, then spoke to the other in deeply accented English.

"He's wet again."

It was the first words either of them had uttered. Then she turned to me in exasperation, assuming, I suppose, that I was one of Alex Goddard's flock. "And I just changed him." Again the accent, but I still couldn't identify it. She made a face, then carried him over to a plywood changing table in the center of the room.

I felt a great baby-yearning as I moved over beside her, but she was behaving like a typical hourly wage-earner, glumly going about her job, and I just stood there a moment, vainly wanting to hold him, then turned back to Tara.

"Where do all these children come from?"

"Ramala says they're orphans or abandoned or something. From overseas or wherever." She sighed. "They're so perfect."

She was completely zombied-out. It felt like talking to a marshmallow on downers.

"But how, exactly, do-?"

"People bring them here." She seemed uninterested in the question, just plunging on as she wandered on down the line of bassinets.

I'd finally come to my senses enough to take out the Betacam, though the light wasn't actually enough to really work with, certainly not broadcast quality.

She stopped and picked up one of the infants out of its bassinet, then turned back to me, her eyes turning soft as she hugged it the way she might a small puppy. "Isn't this one cute? I'd so love to have him."

Was she on some kind of drug that suppressed curiosity? I found myself wondering as I panned the camera around the room. There must have been at least twenty bassinets, all just alike, wicker with a white lace hood. A couple of the babies were sniffling, and the one Tara had picked up now began crying outright, much to her annoyance. The room itself smelled like baby powder.

"And then what happens?" I asked finally, zooming in on one of the women.

"What happens when?" Now Tara was twirling in a circle, humming futilely to the shrieking child. "You mean, after they come here?"