Connie Willis - Passage

There hadn’t been all that much noise, but maybe Nina had had patient confidentiality drilled into her, too. “Who assisted Dr. Carroll in bandaging Mr. Briarley’s cut thumb?” Joanna asked.

“Nobody,” Nina said. “It wasn’t a bad enough cut for stitches. Dr. Carroll just butterflied it and then put a bandage on it because his niece said otherwise he’d forget what the butterfly was for and pull it off.”

Mr. Briarley cut his thumb. He was here in the ER having it bandaged while I was seeing him on the Titanic, and the feeling that he was dead came from the temporal lobe, not the Other Side. And if the feeling, no, the conviction, that Mr. Briarley was dead was false, what about the conviction that the Titanic was somehow the key to NDEs?

“…funny old guy,” Nina was saying. “He kept saying, ‘Who would have thought the old man would have had so much blood in him?’ and something about the ocean.”

“ ‘Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?’ ” Joanna said.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Nina said. “Is that from something?”

“Macbeth,” Joanna said. She could remember him acting out scenes for them, with a ruler for a sword. “ ‘Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.’ ”

Horrible imaginings. What an appropriate quotation to remember. That was exactly what she’d been indulging in. “Lady Macbeth suffers from a lack of imagination,” he’d said in class, “and Macbeth from too much, hearing voices and seeing ghosts.”

“Is there a phone in the waiting room?” she asked Nina abruptly.

“Sure,” Nina said, “but I can bring you one.”

She went out. Joanna could hear a woman’s voice saying plaintively, “You don’t understand, the British are com—” before Nina shut the door behind her.

She was back immediately with a cordless phone. “There’ll be phones in here if they ever get this thing done,” she said, handing it to Joanna.

“Thanks,” Joanna said and didn’t wait for Nina to leave to punch in the number. The line was busy. Joanna hit “end” and then “redial.”

“I have to warn them!” the same woman’s voice said, loud even through the door, and rising ominously. “One if by land, two if by sea!”

“Uh-oh,” Nina said, leaning out the door to look. “It sounds like another nutcase just came in. I hope it’s just a schizo and not somebody on rogue. After what happened—” She stopped, looking nervous. “What I mean is, they’re so out of it, they don’t even know what they’re doing. They look at you, and they don’t even see you. It’s like they’re in this whole other place.”

Joanna wasn’t listening. The phone was ringing.

“Nina!” a man’s voice called. “John! I need some assistance here. Stat.”

“I gotta go,” Nina said, looking out the door. Three rings. Four.

“I’m fine!” the woman shrieked. “You don’t understand, I saw the signal! It was real!”

“Nina! Get out here! Guard!”

“Just leave the phone on the station desk when you’re done.” Nina went out, shutting the door behind her. Six rings. Seven.

“Hello,” Mr. Briarley said.

Relief flooded over Joanna. “Mr. Briarley?”

“Yes. Who’s calling?”

“I… it’s Joanna Lander,” she stammered. “I—”

“Oh, yes, Ms. Lander. Did you wish to speak to Kit?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll get her. Kit!” she heard him call, “it’s Joanna Lander,” and Kit came on the line.

“Oh, hi, Joanna. Look, I’m afraid I haven’t had time to look for the book or find out the things you asked about. Uncle Pat cut his thumb, and—”

“I know,” Joanna said. “Is he all right?”

“He’s fine, though I was really scared when I saw all that blood. I didn’t know a cut thumb could bleed like that.”

“ ‘Their hands and faces were all badg’d with blood,’ ” Mr. Briarley’s voice said in the background.

“Luckily, Mrs. Gray was here,” Kit said. “She bandaged it up till I could get him to the ER.”

“How did he do it?”

“A juice glass broke, and he was trying to pick up the pieces,” Kit said, and Joanna wondered if that was the whole story, or if he had been dismantling the kitchen again.

“But he’s okay?”

“He’s fine,” Kit said. “I was worried the emergency room might upset him, but it’s one of his good days.” She laughed. “He kept quoting Macbeth to the staff.”

“ ‘So were their daggers, which unwip’d we found,’ ” Mr. Briarley said, “ ‘unmannerly breech’d with blood.’ ”

He was fine. Not only fine, but having a good day.

“Who’s that on the phone?” Mr. Briarley said. “Is it Kevin?”

“I’d better go,” Kit said.

“If it’s Kevin, tell him the assignment is ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus.’ Pages 169 to 180. Tell him it will be on the final.”

“I’m glad he’s all right,” Joanna said.

“ ‘Oh, father! I see a gleaming light,’ ” Mr. Briarley said. “ ‘Oh, say, what may it be?’ ”

And so much for the good day, Joanna thought.

“I’ll call you as soon as I find the book,” Kit said and hung up.

He wasn’t dead. She had outside confirmation. Then why did she still have the feeling? It persisted, in spite of the relief she’d felt hearing Mr. Briarley’s voice, in spite of the fact that people didn’t die of cut thumbs. Maybe it’s a message of some kind, a premonition.

There was a sudden shriek from outside in the ER, and a clattering crash. “Mrs. Rosen,” Nina said, exasperated, “the British aren’t coming!”

“They are!” the woman said, her voice rising ominously. “I saw the light!”

The feeling’s a message, all right, Joanna thought, a message that you’re starting to sound just as crazy as that woman out there. Richard was right. You are turning into Bridey Murphy.

It wasn’t a premonition, or precognition, or proof that Mr. Briarley was dead. It was a contentless feeling, brought on by temporal-lobe stimulation. And what about the feeling that the Titanic is the key to the NDE? Doesn’t this prove it’s purely chemical, too?

“No,” she said stubbornly to the radio control board and the dangling wires. “It means something, and I’m going to find out what.” Which meant calling Betty Peterson back and going over the NDE accounts line by line, looking for clues.

Nina had asked her to take the phone back to the station desk. She picked it up and opened the door. The British are coming! woman had stopped screaming. Joanna leaned out the door to see if she was still out there.

She wasn’t, and Joanna couldn’t see Nina anywhere. The security guard was still lounging against the wall, and scrubs-clad nurses were moving routinely between the trauma rooms. Halfway down the row a young man in a lab coat and running shoes—Dr. Carroll?—stood, earnestly reading a chart.

But there was no telling when the next rogue-raver or gun-waving gangbanger might show up. Joanna started for the side door, keeping a sharp eye out for anyone who looked dangerous. At least Vielle isn’t here, she thought, walking between two heart monitors. And maybe a few days away from the ER had given her a new perspective. Joanna went over to the station desk and set the phone down. The door of Trauma Room 2 opened, and an orderly came out, talking to a black nurse in a surgical cap and dark blue—

“Vielle!” Joanna said. She started across the crowded space toward them. “What are you doing here?”

Vielle had turned at the sound of her name. As she caught sight of Joanna, she grabbed compulsively at her right arm and cradled it close to her body as if protecting it.