Connie Willis - Passage

“She’s about five foot six,” he said. “Brown hair, glasses. She was wearing a cardigan sweater and—” He stopped. He didn’t know what else. A skirt? Pants? He tried to envision the heap of clothes at the end of the table, but he couldn’t tell what they were for the blood, the blood. “I have to find her immediately.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, and continued to walk slowly, sedately down the corridor.

“You don’t understand!” he said. “It’s urgent! She—”

“I understand that you’re upset, sir,” she said, but didn’t quicken her pace.

“She’s in danger!”

The woman nodded and walked him slowly down the hall and around a corner.

Bong! He looked up, alarmed. It was a clock, a large wooden wall clock with Roman numerals and a pendulum. A quarter to two. And the Titanic had gone down at 2:20.

“You don’t understand!” he said, clutching the woman’s arms and shaking her. “There’s no time! I have to find her and get her off. Just tell me how to get to C Deck!”

Her eyes widened and filled with tears. “If you’ll just come this way, sir,” she said pleadingly. “ Please, sir.”

“There’s no time!” he said. “I’ll find her myself!” and ran down the passage and through the door at the end of it. And into a mass of jostling, gesturing people.

The Boat Deck, he thought, but this was an inside room, too, with large double doors along one side. Everyone was pushing toward those doors. The Boat Deck must lie beyond them, and they were waiting here for their chance to board. He stretched his neck, trying to see over the top hats of the men, the feathered hats of the women, looking for Joanna’s bare head. He couldn’t see her.

Joanna had said the passengers out on the deck had had no idea what was happening, but these people obviously did. They looked frightened, the men’s faces strained and worried, the women’s eyes rimmed with red. A young girl clung to an elderly man, sobbing helplessly into a black-edged handkerchief. “There, there,” the old man said. “We must not give up hope.” Did that mean all the boats were already gone? When had they launched the last one? Not until the very end, Joanna had said, but it couldn’t be the very end. The deck wasn’t slanting at all.

If he could get through the crowd. He pushed forward, looking for Joanna, craning his neck, trying to see over the sea of hats, trying to move forward, but the crowd was packed in tightly, and as he tried to push in, they blocked his way.

“Excuse me,” he said, shoving past a young man in a brown coat and hat. He had a newspaper under his arm. At a time like this, Richard thought. “I have to get through. I’m looking for someone.”

“What was her name?” the young man asked, taking a leather notebook out of his pocket. “Was she traveling first class?”

“She’s on C Deck.”

“C Deck,” the young man said, jotting it down. “Traveling alone?”

“Yes,” Richard said. “Traveling alone.”

“Name?” he asked, taking more notes.

“Joanna Lander,” he said. “Please. I have to get through. I have to find her.”

“She may very well have gotten into one of the boats,” the young man said.

“No,” Richard said. “She can’t get out that way. She has to go back down to C Deck to the passage,” but the young man wasn’t listening. He had looked up toward the double doors. So had everyone else. The double doors opened, and someone must have come through because everyone looked at the doors expectantly. A hush fell, and the young girl who had been sobbing straightened up and clutched the elderly man’s hand.

Richard pushed forward, elbowing his way past a middle-aged couple, a young woman with a baby, two teenaged boys, till he could see the man who’d emerged from the doors. He wore spectacles and was wearing a black frock coat and a black vest. He was carrying a sheaf of papers. He stepped up onto something—a dais?—and raised his hands to quiet the already quiet crowd. Who was this? The captain? One of the officers? Then why wasn’t he in uniform?

“I know you are all anxious for news,” the man said, putting on the pince-nez. “We do not as yet have a full list of survivors.”

What?

“We are currently in wireless contact with the Carpathia, and as soon as we have a complete list—”

“No!” Richard said.

“Get hold of yourself,” the young man said, grasping his shoulder. “She may have been in one of the boats.”

“No!” Richard yelled. He wrenched the newspaper out from under the young man’s arm and yanked it open. “ Titanic Lost,” it said. “A thousand souls feared drowned.”

He pushed forward to the spectacled man in the black frock coat. “What day is this?” he asked furiously. The gray-haired woman was headed toward him, a man with a medical bag behind her. Richard grabbed the spectacled man’s black lapels. “What day is this?”

“April eighteenth,” the man said nervously. “I can assure you the White Star Line deeply regrets—”

“Sir,” the gray-haired woman said, and the man with the medical bag took his arm. “You’re distraught. I think perhaps you’d better lie down.”

“No!” he shouted, and it was a roar, a scream. “ No!”

The doctor reached for his arm, and he leaped away through the crowd, shoving at their shoulders, pushing them out of his way. He thrust his way toward the door and through it and took off running down the corridor. Four minutes. And how much time, how much time had he wasted already, he thought as he ran, his heart pounding, too stupid to know where he was, to see that this was the White Star Line offices?

The clock at the foot of the stairs was striking the hour. Richard ran past it and started up the stairs, and an alarm went off somewhere, like a fire bell or a code alarm, clanging, buzzing, over the clock, still striking the hour.

He raced up the rest of the stairs, past the room where the wireless operator sat, taking down the incoming taps of the key. From the Carpathia, not the Titanic. He should have seen that, should have known the Titanic would be sending, not receiving, and that the Marconi room was on the wrong deck. Should have seen instantly that this was a building, not a ship, and gone back, made Tish send him under again.

He rounded the corner, panting, and raced for the door, grabbed the doorknob, twisted it. It was locked. He rattled the doorknob, kicked at the door, hit at it with his fist.

It opened, and he burst through it into the dark corridor. And into the lab.

“Tish!” he called, yanking to get the headphones off, but there weren’t any headphones. And no sleep mask, because he could see the light. It was killingly bright. I should have covered it with thicker black paper, he thought, and tried to sit up. He couldn’t. He was bound with ropes. “Tish!”

“Oh, Dr. Wright!” Tish said, coming between him and the light. She was haloed in it and rays of dazzling light seemed to come from her. “Thank God you’re all right!”

“You have to send me under again,” he said. “It was the wrong place, and the wrong time. She wasn’t there.”

“Just lie still,” Tish said.

“You don’t understand,” he said, and tried to sit up again. “She’s on the Titanic! I have to go get her before it goes down!”

“There, there,” Tish said, pushing him back down. “You’re still under the influence of the drug. You need to lie still until it wears off.”

“There’s no time,” he said. “Irreversible brain death occurs in four to six minutes. You have to send me back right now. And up the dosage of dithetamine.”

Tish just stood there, haloed in light.