Connie Willis - Passage

“I was in a dark place. Not a tunnel. Outside, in a dark, open…” she looked past Joanna, “there was nothing around for miles on any side…”

“You were in this dark place all the other times?” Joanna asked.

“Yes. No, once I was in a garden.”

Maisie never told me why she wanted to know what a Victory garden was, Joanna thought suddenly.

“I was sitting in a white chair in a beautiful, beautiful garden,” Mrs. Woollam said longingly.

Gardens were a common NDE experience. “Can you describe it?”

“There were vines,” Mrs. Woollam said, looking around at the walls of her room, “and trees.”

“What kind of trees?” Joanna prompted.

“Palm trees,” Mrs. Woollam said.

Vineyards and palm trees. Standard religious imagery. “Do you remember anything else about the garden?”

“No, only sitting there,” she said, “waiting for something.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her white head. “That was the first time my heart stopped. That was nearly two years ago. I don’t remember it very well.”

“What about this last time?” Joanna asked.

“I was standing at the foot of a beautiful staircase, looking up at it.”

“Can you describe it?”

“It looked like this,” Mrs. Woollam said, reaching into her nightstand for her book. Joanna saw to her dismay that it was a Bible. Mrs. Woollam leafed through the tissue-thin pages to a colored plate and held it out for Joanna to see. It was a picture of a broad golden staircase, with angels standing on each step and at the top a rayed light in which could be seen the outline of a figure with outstretched arms.

I should have known it was too good to be true, Joanna thought. “The staircase looked just like this?” she said.

“Yes, except it curved up,” she said. “And the light at the top of the stairs was sparkling, like diamonds.”

And sapphires and rubies, Joanna thought.

“But there weren’t any angels, no matter what Mr. Mandrake said. He kept trying to convince me that what I was seeing was heaven.”

“And you don’t think it was?” Joanna said.

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Woollam said. “They might all be heaven—the tunnel and the garden and the dark open place.” She took back the Bible and turned to another page. “John 14, verse 2, ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions.’ Or they might be something else.”

“Sorry to interrupt, ladies,” Luann said, “but it’s time to take you,” she nodded at Mrs. Woollam, “downstairs.”

“Heart cath?” Mrs. Woollam said, closing her Bible.

“Uh-huh,” Luann said. Her beeper went off. “Sorry,” she said, pulling it out of her pocket and glaring at it. “I’ll be right back.” She went out.

“You said what you saw in your NDEs might be something else,” Joanna said. “What did you mean? What do you think they might be?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes…” Her voice trailed off. “But I know that whatever it is, Jesus will be there with me.” She opened her Bible again. “Isaiah 43, verse 2, ‘When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned.’ ”

Luann came back in, looking frazzled.

“I’d like to come talk with you again,” Joanna told Mrs. Woollam. “May I?”

“If I’m still here,” Mrs. Woollam said, and twinkled. “The HMO keeps cutting the amount of time the hospital can keep me. I’d like to talk to you, too. I’d like to know what you think these experiences are and what you think about death.”

I think the more I find out the less I know, Joanna thought, heading back upstairs. She wished she didn’t still have two or more hours of transcribing tapes ahead of her. She couldn’t leave them till tomorrow, not with a full schedule of sessions, and she was already a week behind. She went into her office, took a tape out of the shoe box she kept her untranscribed tapes in, and turned on the computer.

“Oh, good, you’re back,” Richard said, sticking his head in the door. “I had to reschedule Mr. Sage’s first session to this afternoon. This shouldn’t take long. Tish has already got him prepped.”

Richard was wrong. It took forever. Not because Mr. Sage had lots to relate, however. Getting him to say anything at all was like pulling teeth. “You say it was dark,” Joanna asked after fifteen minutes of questioning. “Could you see anything?”

“When?”

“When you were in the dark.”

“No. I told you, it was dark.”

“Was it dark the whole time?”

“No,” followed by an interminable pause while Joanna waited for him to add something.

“After it was dark, what happened?” she asked.

“Happened?”

“Yes. You said it wasn’t dark the whole time…”

“It wasn’t.”

“Was it light part of the time?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you describe the light?”

He shrugged. “A light.”

She didn’t do any better when she asked him what feelings he’d had during the NDE. “Feelings?” he repeated as if he had never heard the word before.

“Did you feel happy, sad, worried, excited, calm, warm, cold?”

The shrug again. “Would you say you felt good or bad?” she asked.

“When?”

“In the dark,” Joanna said, gritting her teeth.

“Good or bad about what?” And so on, for over an hour.

“Boy,” Richard said when Mr. Sage had taken his silent leave, “when you said people vary in their descriptive powers, you weren’t kidding.”

“Well, at least we established that it was dark, and then light,” Joanna said, shaking her head.

They were alone in the lab. Tish had stayed till halfway through the interrogation and then left, saying to Richard, “I’m going over to Happy Hour at the Rio Grande with a bunch of people, if you’re interested. Either of you,” she’d added as an afterthought.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get anything out of him about what he was feeling, if he was feeling,” Joanna said. “I don’t think he had any negative feelings. He didn’t respond when I asked him if he’d felt worried or afraid.”

“He didn’t respond at all,” Richard said, going over to the console, “but at least we’ve got another set of scans to look at.” He began typing in numbers. “I want to compare his endorphin levels with Amelia Tanaka’s.”

And so much for Happy Hour at the Rio Grande, Joanna thought, but it was just as well. She had Mr. Sage’s account, such as it was, to type up, and all the other tapes she hadn’t transcribed yet. She went back to her office.

Her answering machine was blinking. Don’t let it be Mr. Mandrake, she thought, and hit “play.” “This is Maurice Mandrake,” the machine said. “I just wanted to tell you how delighted I am you’re working with Dr. Wright. I’m sure you will be an excellent influence. When can you meet with me to plan strategies?”

There were messages from Mrs. Haighton and Ann Collins, the nurse who had assisted at Mr. Wojakowski’s session, asking Joanna to call them. And play another round of telephone tag, Joanna thought wearily, but she called them both back. Neither one was there. She left a message on both answering machines, and then sat down at her computer and transcribed Mr. Sage’s account.

It only took five minutes. She popped out the tape and stuck another one in. “It was…,” an interminable pause, “…dark…,” another one, “…I think…” Mrs. Davenport. “I was in…,” very long pause, “…a kind of…” very, very long pause, and then her voice rising questioningly, “…tunnel?” This was ridiculous. She could put the tape on fast-forward and still type faster than Mrs. Davenport was speaking. And why not? she thought, reaching for the recorder. Even if she had to rewind to get it all, it would be an improvement on this.