Connie Willis - Passage

“Okay,” she said. “Well, the people had to jump out because everything was on fire. The girl jumped, but the little boys were too scared to, and one of them, his hair caught on fire, so his mother threw him out. The crew guy was on fire, too, his hands, but he didn’t let go.” She looked up innocently. “What do you think that would be like? Being on fire?”

“I don’t know,” Richard said, wondering if talking about such grisly things with such a sick little girl was a good idea. “Terrible, I’d think.”

Maisie nodded. “I think I’d let go. There was this other guy—”

Talk about letting go. “Maisie, I have to go find Dr. Lander. I don’t want to miss her.”

“Wait! When you see Dr. Lander, tell her I have something to tell her. About near-death experiences. Tell her I’m in Room 456.”

“I will,” he said and started out.

“It’s about the crew guy who was up inside the balloon part of the Hindenburg when it exploded. He—”

At this rate, he would be here all day. “I’ve got to go, Maisie,” he said and didn’t wait for her to protest. He hurried back down the hall, turned left, and immediately got lost. He had to stop and ask an orderly how to get to the walkway.

“You go back down this hall, turn right, and go clear to the end of the hall,” the orderly said. “Where are you trying to get?”

“Medicine,” Richard said.

“That’s in the main building. The fastest way is to go down this hall and turn left till you come to a door marked ‘Staff.’ Through there there’s a stairway. It’ll take you down to second. You take the walkway and then cut through Radiology to the service elevator, and take it back up to third.”

Richard did, practically running down the last hallway, afraid Dr. Lander would have come and gone. She wasn’t there yet. “Or at least I haven’t seen her,” the charge nurse said. “She might be in with Mrs. Davenport.”

He went down to Mrs. Davenport’s room, but she wasn’t there. “I wish she’d get here,” Mrs. Davenport said. “I have so much to tell her and Mr. Mandrake. While I was floating above my body, I heard the doctor say—”

“Mr. Mandrake?” Richard said.

“Maurice Mandrake,” she said. “He wrote The Light at the End of the Tunnel. He’s going to be so excited that I’ve remembered—”

“I thought Dr. Lander was interviewing you.”

“They both are. They work together, you know.”

“They work together?”

“Yes, I think so. They’ve both come in and interviewed me.”

That doesn’t mean they work together, Richard thought.

“—although I have to say, she’s not nearly as nice as Mr. Mandrake. He’s so interested in what you have to say.”

“Did she tell you they worked together?”

“Not exactly,” she said, looking confused. “I assumed… Mr. Mandrake’s writing a new book about messages from the Other Side.”

She didn’t know for certain that they worked together, but if that was even a possibility… Messages from the dead, for God’s sake.

“Excuse me,” he said abruptly and walked out of the room, straight into a tall, gray-haired man in a pin-striped suit. “Sorry,” Richard said, and started past, but the man held his arm.

“You’re Dr. Wright, aren’t you?” he said, gripping Richard’s hand in a confident handshake. “I was just on my way up to see you. I want to discuss your research.”

Richard wondered who this was. A fellow researcher? No, the suit was too expensive, the hair too slick. A hospital board member.

“I intended to come see you after I saw Mrs. Davenport, and here you are,” he said. “I assume you’ve been in listening to her account of her NDE, or, as I prefer to call them, her NAE, near-afterlife experience, because that’s what they are. A glimpse of the afterlife that awaits us, a message from beyond the grave.”

Maurice Mandrake, Richard thought. Shit. He should have recognized him from his book jacket photos. And paid more attention to where he was going.

“I’m delighted you’ve joined us here at Mercy General,” Mandrake said, “and that science is finally acknowledging the existence of the afterlife. The science and medical establishments so often have closed minds when it comes to immortality. I’m delighted that you don’t. Now, what exactly does your research entail?”

“I really can’t talk now. I have an appointment,” Richard said, but Mandrake had no intention of letting him go.

“The fact that people who have had near-death experiences consistently report seeing the same things proves that they are not mere hallucinations.”

“Dr. Wright?” the charge nurse called from her desk. “Are you still looking for Dr. Lander? We’ve located her.”

“Jo?” Mandrake said delightedly. “Is that who your appointment’s with? Lovely girl. She and I work together.”

Richard’s heart sank. “You work together?”

“Oh, yes. We’ve worked closely on a number of cases.”

I should have known, Richard thought.

“Of course, our emphasis is different,” Mandrake said. “I am currently interested in the message aspect of the NAEs. And we have different interview methods,” he added, frowning slightly. “Were you supposed to meet Dr. Lander here? She is often rather difficult to locate.”

“Dr. Lander’s not the person I have the appointment with,” Richard said. He turned to the charge nurse. “No. I don’t need to see her.”

Mandrake grabbed his hand again. “Delighted to have met you, Dr. Wright, and I’m looking forward to our working together.”

Over my dead body, Richard thought. And I won’t be sending you any messages from beyond the grave.

“I must go see Mrs. Davenport now,” Mandrake said, as if Richard were the one who had detained him, and left him standing there.

He should have known better. NDE researchers might collect data and do statistical samplings, might publish papers in The Psychology Quarterly Review, might even make a good impression on children, but it was all a blind. They were really latter-day spiritualists using pseudoscientific trappings to lend credibility to what was really religion. He started down the hall to the elevators.

“Dr. Wright!” Tish called after him.

He turned around.

Tish said, “Here she is,” and turned to hurry after a young woman in a skirt and cardigan sweater walking toward the nurses’ station. “Dr. Lander,” she said as she caught up to her. “Dr. Wright wants to talk to you.”

Dr. Lander said, “Tell him I’m—”

“He’s right here,” Tish said, waving him over. “Dr. Wright, I found her for you.”

Damn you, Tish, he thought, another minute and I would have been out of here. And now what am I supposed to tell Dr. Lander I wanted her for?

He walked over. She was not, as Tish had said, mousy, although she did wear glasses, wire-rimmed ones that gave her face a piquant look. She had hazel eyes and brown hair that was pulled back with silver barrettes.

“Dr. Lander,” he said. “I—”

“Look, Dr. Wright,” she said, putting her hand up to stop him. “I’m sure you’ve had a fascinating near-death experience, but right now’s not the time. I’ve had a very bad day, and I’m not the person you want to talk to anyway. You need to see Maurice Mandrake. I can give you his pager number.”

“He’s in with Mrs. Davenport,” Tish said helpfully.

“There, Tish will show you where he is. I’m sure he’ll want to know all the details. Tish, take him in to Mr. Mandrake.” She started past him.

“Don’t bother, Tish,” he said, angered by her rudeness. “I’m not interested in talking to Dr. Lander’s partner.”