Robert Coover - Origin of the Brunists

Mrs. Collins, dry-eyed, stepped broad-shouldered into the room, put her hand on her daughter’s frail back, said she didn’t want any publicity.

“My reason for coming, Mrs. Collins, was only to bring you this.” He handed her the note. “It was found in your husband’s hand.”

Mrs. Collins accepted the note, faint tremor in her roughly reddened hand, studied it. “Child,” she said, “go get my glasses.” She shifted a stack of laundry — Miller noticed now it was tagged with people’s names — and sat on the couch, squinting at the note. She was gangly like her daughter, but large-boned, stouter. Same straw hair, even more freckles, but her skull was larger, her neck thicker, her body more massive, her hands tougher. She, too, wore a print dress, but unlike Elaine’s, it was dominated by her form. She had quick nervous eyes, wider set, more determined and aggressive than her daughter’s. And she spoke with the absolute authority of a longtime matriarch. “I cain’t understand it,” she said. “It don’t make sense that Ely should die.”

Elaine returned with the glasses, fragile rimless spectacles with thin gold bridge and earpieces. The woman hooked them on cautiously, unused to the feeble claws, and struggled with her husband‘s dying hand. Collins must have been very weak when he wrote it; the scrawl staggered almost illegibly and fell away at the end.

“‘Abide in Grace,’” the woman read. She looked up at Miller. “If they was any man alive a saint,” she told him firmly, though her eyes had misted and contracted behind the lenses, “it was that man! — He walked amongst the blessèd, Mr. Miller!”

Miller, on his feet still, found himself nodding in agreement. “Mrs. Collins, I wonder if you—”

“Ely Collins did not deserve to die like that, Mr. Miller!”

“No, I believe you. I’m truly sorry.” Miller ventured on, aware he might be trespassing family ground. “But can you tell me what you think he means about having disobeyed?”

“They was a bird in the mine.”

“A bird?”

“A white bird, like a dove. He seen it.” She paused, eyes testing his sincerity in asking. “He knowed he was maybe jist seein’ things, like you ofttimes do down there, but he was afeerd too as how God might be tryin’ to tell him somethin’. He was afeerd God was tellin’ him to git outa the mines and go preach.” Tears rolled down her broad cheeks and her voice quavered, but she held on.

“You mean he was afraid there would be a disaster?”

“No, I don’t think he thought of it like that. He only thought as how he might be sinnin’ agin the Lord, might be committin’ greed and avarice, to go on workin’ for money when the Lord was callin’ him to go do His work.” She swallowed. Her hands shook. “We wanted to git Elaine growed first,” she said, and now the tears were streaming. “He was a good man, Mr. Miller!” she cried in sudden protest. “He done no wrong! He didn’t deserve to git killt like that!” Swallowed sobs shook her. Miller felt her grief, but was helpless. “Ifn he died like that, they must be a reason! The Good Lord would not take Ely away ifn they weren’t no reason! Would he, Mr. Miller? Would he?” Her wide tortured bespectacled face seemed to be accusing him. “Why did Ely die and his partner live? What is God tryin’ to tell me, Mr. Miller?” Tears flowed; she didn’t even see him now. “Why?” she screamed.

Miller stammered something about being sorry. Elaine, weeping, begged, “Ma! please don’t cry! Ma!”

The woman, clutching her husband’s note, slumped from the couch to her knees on the floor. She wept so huskily, so brokenly, that Miller was certain that, though perhaps she prayed often, she wept seldom. “Oh God! help me! help me!” she cried. Her great body quaked with wailing, and her red hands clawed in the braided rug. Elaine wept hysterically, her face buried in her mother’s armpit. Miller took the moment to step over the two women and get to the door. He had already photographed the note, and he’d call later by phone to ask about publishing the damned thing.

It was after nine before he reached the hospital. Stopped short at the entrance: realized he was still running. Hadn’t slowed since the rescue. Paused to calm himself. Flicked his cigarette into the bushes, wiped the sweat off his upper lip: coarse growth of stubble scraped his hand. Pocketed his hands and shouldered through the door. He knew the girl at the desk. She told him: “Third floor. Dr. Lewis.”

On third, he was barred by the floor nurse, narrow-waisted girl with an award-winning hind end. Must be new. Dr. Lewis stepped out of the small lab nearby and his greeting cleared the way. Short even-tempered man in late middle-age, thick gray moustache, heavy brow, white jacket. Miller gave him and the nurse copies of the special, asked about Bruno.

“We’re not encouraged, Miller, but that’s not a quote. The man absorbed what should be a fatal quantity of carbon monoxide. It tends to accumulate, you know, doesn’t get passed off like most gases. Hemoglobin sponges up carbon monoxide two hundred and fifty times as fast as it does oxygen, so what happens, the CO prevents the blood from taking in the oxygen it needs, even if there is plenty present. The other six men in the same space with him obviously died earlier from just this cause.”

“Have you made autopsies, or is there—?”

“Blood samples have already told us the story.”

“How is it you think Bruno survived?”

“Frankly, I don’t know. Maybe your headline makes a … valid diagnosis.” Lewis smiled faintly: fellow skeptic’s gentle prod of hypocrisy. The nurse winked. “One thing, he was separated from the others, though no one knows why, and he may have received a much more gradual dosage. The others could have spread out more, there was room, but fright probably closed their circle. Important to stir the air, too, and they may not have moved around much, especially after their light gave out.”

“But if they knew the gas was there, couldn’t they—?”

The nurse stood, smoothed her white skirt down over the pubic knoll, and switched into the small lab nearby.

“Probably didn’t know. Hard to detect. They just dropped off to sleep as they normally would and didn’t wake up after. Or, if they did, they probably lacked the strength in their limbs to move or were too groggy to think things out.” The nurse lacked nothing in her limbs, which, beyond the door of the lab, she stretched for him to see. “Peculiar reversal of the dream process: meant to serve us by protecting our sleep, it more likely than not kept these men confused about reality, might well have convinced their vertiginous minds that the disaster was a dream.”

“Served them after all, then,” Miller said. The nurse was loading medicines on a tray.

Lewis smiled. “In a way. But if Bruno lived, then maybe they all could have.”

“Can I see him?”

“Nothing to see. He’s still in a coma.”

“Is that a bad sign?”

The nurse reached for medicines high on a shelf: made her skirt ruck up and her fanny bobble. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw him looking. He smiled.

“I’m afraid it is. His chances of recovery diminish the longer he remains in it. Usually they come around within the first couple hours, once they’ve got into fresh air or are fed oxygen, if they do at all. If he does come around, the delay increases the likelihood of pulmonary complications. He is still getting transfusions, respiratory stimulants.”

“Can he have any other troubles?”

“Asthenia.” Lewis paused. “Temporary stupor or maybe amnesia. This isn’t for print, of course.”

“No.”

“Carbon monoxide poisoning, Miller, amounts to oxygen lack. And oxygen is the one thing — it and glucose — that the brain cannot do without, even for short periods of time. So some damage is conceivable, and there have been cases of permanent mental illness, although almost always, I should say, in cases where there was a predisposition for it.”