Connie Willis - Passage

“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.

Mr. Briarley remembered who Kit had been named for, he had been able to quote “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

He’s dead, she thought, and a current of fear ran through her. He died. That’s why I saw him on board. The stories Mr. Mandrake told me about seeing someone in an NDE and then finding out they’d died are true.

No, they aren’t, Joanna thought, glaring at the recorder in her hand. You know perfectly well that none of those cases were documented, that the subjects never even mentioned having seen the person until after they’d had outside confirmation of the death, like those mediums who claimed they’d “seen” W. T. Stead at two-twenty on the night the Titanic went down. Not a single one had come forward with their claim until after they’d seen Stead’s name listed among the lost. Those stories aren’t true. Mr. Briarley’s not dead. You saw him because you were thinking about him, because you were worrying about him. Then why didn’t I see Vielle? Or Maisie? And why did I see Greg Menotti?

Because he’s dead, she thought, the dead are who’s on board, and felt the shiver of fear again. I have to find out. I have to call Kit.

But if she called, and something had happened to Mr. Briarley, she’d be in exactly the same situation as Mr. Mandrake’s NDEers. She’d have no proof she hadn’t had advance knowledge of his death, that she hadn’t talked to Kit first and then confabulated Mr. Briarley’s presence in the library.

I have to tell Richard about my NDE first, before I call Kit, she thought, but there was no telling when he’d be back. She could try to find him, but even if she did, he hadn’t been with her the whole time. For all he knew, she might have received a call from Kit while he was out of the lab.

Tish could attest to the fact that she hadn’t left the lab, or received or made any calls, but Richard didn’t want her to know about the Titanic. He’s right, Joanna thought. If Mr. Mandrake were to find out about this… she could see the Star headlines already: “I See Dead People! Scientist Receives Message from Afterlife.”

But there was no one else who could prove she hadn’t known about Mr. Briarley’s death. And if I don’t hurry, I won’t have Tish either, she thought, looking over at where Tish was setting up for Mr. Sage’s session. In another five minutes, she’d be ready to leave.

Joanna bit her lip, trying to decide what to do, and then switched on the recorder and began speaking quickly, describing everything she could remember about how Mr. Briarley had looked and what he’d said. “There is always less time than we imagine,” he’d said, and “ ‘whatsoever noise ye hear, come not unto me, for nothing can rescue me.’ ”

He was trying to tell you he was dead, she thought, and had to force herself not to stand up and go over to the phone, to finish recording the account. “All this time Mr. Briarley’s being there seemed perfectly normal,” she said into the recorder, “but when—”

“Did you say something?” Tish asked from over by the examining table.

“No, I’m just recording my account,” Joanna said.

“Oh. Is there anything else you need me to do, or can I go to lunch now?”

“No, I need you to do something for me,” Joanna said.

“Oh,” Tish said, disappointed. “What is it? Because it’s already one and the cafeteria—”

Probably closed at twelve forty-five, Joanna thought, and if you leave, there goes my documentation. “I need you to witness something,” she said.

“Witness something? You mean, like a will?”

“No, not a will,” Joanna said. “A statement of fact. But before you do, I need to finish recording my account of my NDE, so it’ll be a few minutes.”

“Can’t I go and come back?”

“No,” Joanna said. “I need you here. I’m going to want you to witness the fact that I didn’t leave the room or make or receive any phone calls.”

She switched the recorder back on and began to talk rapidly into it. “—but when I came out of the NDE-state and began recording my account, I experienced an overpowering feeling that his being there meant that he was dead,” she said, trying not to be distracted by the sight of Tish standing in the middle of the lab, tapping her foot and looking at her watch every few seconds. “As far as I am aware, Mr. Briarley—Tish, you don’t have to watch me.” Tish shrugged, went over to the dressing room door, and began applying lipstick in the mirror on the inside of the door.

“As far as I am aware, Mr. Briarley is alive,” Joanna said. “I saw him five days ago and spoke with him on the phone yesterday, and, so far as I know, he was in good health, with the exception of his Alzheimer’s, and uninjured. I have had no communication with him or regarding him since then. End of Joanna Lander’s account. Completed at 1:08 p.m.”

She popped the tape out of the recorder. “Okay,” she said to Tish, who was applying mascara, and went over to Richard’s desk. She reached to switch on the computer and then thought better of it—there shouldn’t be any possibility of outside input, including e-mail—and grabbed a piece of paper. Tish came over to the desk, her bag already over her arm, obviously in a hurry to leave. Which is good, Joanna thought. She won’t ask a lot of questions.

Joanna wrote, “I was in the presence of J. Lander from the beginning of the procedure to the completion of the recording of her account. At no time did J. Lander leave the laboratory or have any communication with anyone outside it,” and pushed the paper across the desk to Tish. “I need you to sign and date this, and put the time,” she said, handing her a pen.