Chang-Rae Lee - On Such A Full Sea

The two waited. But nothing happened. Nothing happened during the afternoon or when they were cleaning up the dishes or while they played their nightly game of hearts. They’d served everyone else instant ramen. After the cards, everyone got ready for bed, each taking a turn at the toilet and then the basins to floss and brush her teeth and wash and lotion her face and hands and brush each other’s hair. It went exactly as it did every night, an orderly march through the stations. Nothing went wrong through the night.

Instead, the trouble began the next morning, when Five suddenly lost her balance and had to prop herself on the counter of the vanity. She kept insisting she was fine, she just felt light-headed, taking a drink from the faucet with her cupped palm, when Four leaned over the very same basin and retched so forcefully that the spew splashed up and flecked the mirror. They told the rest what they’d done. Five had to lie down, but Four felt better and the rest of them decided they would get on with the day and their work at the wall. But within an hour both girls had to get up and run to the bathroom to vomit, each looking heavy-lidded and talking in a funny way, like they had a little square of cloth stuck on their tongues. Five was unable to keep her eyes open, even though she wasn’t sleepy at all. Her shoulders felt stiff and tingly. She was very thirsty but had no fever. And while she seemed sound of mind, she said she was seeing two of everything. Or maybe three.

Two of the girls went to the suite door and urgently knocked for Miss Cathy. When the door finally opened, it was not Miss Cathy but Mala, which surprised and pleased them, as they saw her only every other month, when she was allowed to come up and visit for a while. At the moment Miss Cathy was out in the garden with Mister Leo, and the frantic raps on the door had compelled Mala to open up, despite how angry Miss Cathy would surely be were she to find out. Mala asked what was happening and they told her, saying Four and Five needed a doctor.

When she came inside, she gave Fan and the others a quick embrace. Then she examined the stricken ones, checking them, Fan thought, with the same care she would her very own daughters. She tested each girl’s forehead with her lips, took a sniff of their breath, then gently pinched their arms to see how dehydrated they were. Four clung to her, moaning her name pitiably as if from underwater; Five was too weak to do anything. Mala gently assured them that they would be all right. To the rest of them, however, Mala did not say anything afterward, simply telling them to wait. It was not quite an hour later that she returned. This time it was with a man, a lean, fit, tall young doctor from the medical center.

The fellow — stitched into the breast pocket of his scrubs was V. Upendra, M.D. — seemed put out at first for having to make this outcall, and then by who the patients turned out to be, his chin stiffening at the strangeness of the large, open bunk room. But once he began examining Five, who could now hardly raise her chest to inhale, he camped beside her on both knees, his eyes narrowing as he took her pulse and temperature and listened to her heart. He asked what exactly they’d ingested and when. He processed the information with full attention and gravity. Then he asked Mala to have the owner of the house come up right away, and she went down to fetch Miss Cathy.

While they waited, he looked about the room, Fan getting some water for the sickened girls. The five other girls — two of whom were older than he was — had retreated to one arc of the circular sofa, bunching together. They had not encountered any outsiders since Three’s appendicitis, and perhaps no one else for years before that, and so they were thoroughly unsettled by the presence of this man, who was unshaven and looking like he was at the end of a double shift in his wrinkled scrubs, though still certainly handsome. In fact, they could hardly look at him, keeping their gazes lowered, all except for Six, who snuck long looks at him.

Fan couldn’t help but think he was similar to Reg, at least in frame, bony-shouldered and bony-elbowed, though, of course, he had commanded the room when he had first come in, merely by the ease and authority of his posture, something Reg — or most any other B-Mor — couldn’t do if he tried. Or perhaps it was simply a Charter thing.

What’s that? he asked Fan. He was looking at the wall.

Fan told him it was what the others were doing, not sure now how else to describe it.

Not you?

Fan said she was only helping a little. He walked to the wall and surveyed it, instinctively beginning at the corner and following its progression around to the second wall. The Girls nervously tittered as he viewed it, for they suddenly realized that a stranger was perusing their innermost thoughts and dreams. Two covered her face entirely and then all the others did the same. The young doctor was not paying any attention to them, however, despite the fact that he could have easily matched a scene to a girl. He was clearly fascinated by the wall, its many shapes and colors, and when he reached the panels in which Fan first appeared, he seemed to pause, checking back for her in the previous images. He stood for a while before the largest scene of her being pushed upward.

What’s your name? he asked Fan, and she told him.

You’re not one of them, are you?

Our Fan offered neither expression nor word.

I figured, he said, regarding her intently. Did she feel a thrum in her chest when confronted so? Was it his light brown skin? His blue eyes, almost like Reg’s, as deep as a sparkling island sky? His lips full but defined, the head of densely dark wavy hair? Yet there was something about him, not at all superficial, that spoke to her of Reg. Perhaps it was a core of sanguine innocence beneath all the Charter self-assurance, a node of vulnerability that had not been trained away, dissolved.

You don’t move like the others, he said, glancing over at the Girls. They were peeking now at him again. They go around like they’re following something. Little heeding steps. You’re not a Charter, though. That’s obvious. But then you’re no counties person, either. You’re from a facility, aren’t you? Which one?

But before she could answer, or not answer, Mala and Miss Cathy appeared. The Girls instantly rose and schooled about Miss Cathy, and for some reason they began to cry, shaken perhaps by the sudden and unprecedented fullness of the gathering. Miss Cathy, who didn’t appear put out or perturbed at all, spanned them with her arms, her manner that of an all-loving school headmistress, patting each girl on the head to try to calm her. Once done, she broke from their ranks and in her willowy dressing gown fluttered to the beds of Four and Five, practically ignoring the young doctor until the moment she spoke to him.

So why can’t you help my girls? she said.

They can’t be treated here, he replied, clearly annoyed by her tone. But this didn’t deter him from explaining the situation to her fully; their lack of fever was a clue, and that while only lab tests at the medical center could confirm it, he suspected it was botulism, which was something that occurred rarely, and then only out in the counties. They were breathing poorly as well, and if it was indeed botulism, they might eventually require a ventilator.

A ventilator? Miss Cathy said.

Yes, the doctor told her. They could lose the ability to breathe. They could die.

Miss Cathy nodded. Then she asked him to arrange to have ventilators delivered, and have the testing done here, as she didn’t want the Girls to be separated. But he said that was not possible.

Then please ask your superior.

I’m the superior, he told her. Apparently he was the ER chief, and had only come because the outcalls resident had suddenly taken ill. It was a simple choice; she could have them transported, or they would remain here.