Songs for the End of the World

by Saleema Nawaz

  He hoped not.

  Keelan supposed it was his own bias that had turned her into the person against whom he was most inclined to dig in his heels. But it was all pretty rich. Even though Dory was only lately a lesbian, she’d made herself into the homosexual acceptance police. She used to be married to a man, for God’s sake—the son of two of his colleagues, actually. He’d even met her before, at some departmental holiday party or other.

  The doorbell rang, and Keelan shuddered, startled. Somehow he had acquired the reflexes of the guilty—as though the very shame he rejected had taken up residence in his bones. And though it may not have been Dory’s fault, he blamed her anyway.

  He opened the door after a quick glance downwards to verify that he was fully dressed. Noticing a hole in one of his socks, he slipped his feet into the brown loafers on the mat.

  “Hello, Professor,” said Edith. She liked to be called Ed and he obliged her, but the mental modification was beyond him. Using her hip, she insinuated herself inside without waiting for him to open the door any wider, and consequently he felt rude, old, out of step with time.

  “Good morning, Ed,” he said. His voice, at least, wasn’t rough. There was one advantage in talking to oneself. He could feel himself smiling.

  “Where would you like me to leave these?”

  Keelan watched as the pile of books and photocopies Edith had cradled in her arms began to sag lower. “You can put the materials on the chair by the desk.” He regretted directing her so close to the letter, but though he saw her glance at it, she didn’t stop and stare.

  “That was heavy.” Edith wiped her hands on her jeans and adjusted the black baseball cap she was wearing in lieu of her usual Alice band. Her hair hung down on either side of her face, and the overall effect was so transformative as to nearly be a disguise. She was looking around the large foyer with frank curiosity—the desk, the staircase, the console table with its assorted collection of flashlights. “This is a beautiful house,” she said. She pointed to a large frame hanging on the opposite wall. “I like that picture.”

  “Thank you. It’s a Marc Chagall reproduction.” Annie’s taste, but there was no point in saying so. He kept it as a kind of amends, since he had exerted himself so strenuously against its prominent placement. He forced another smile until he could feel it becoming real. “Would you like some tea?”

  In the kitchen, Keelan opened the pantry with a grim expression. Initially with reluctance, and then with wholehearted acquisitive panic, he had joined a recent minor stampede at the local Walmart while trying to buy some of the last remaining flats of canned goods in stock. It was galling to remember, especially in light of his public statements against giving in to fear. He had been casually stockpiling for a few weeks and hadn’t expected to feel quite so invested. The whole thing was nonsensical given that the store was going to be restocked as usual with bulk food on Sunday. At least, that’s what three employees in blue vests were trying to tell the panicked customers who were almost in tears at the prospect of leaving empty-handed. But his age and natural politesse meant that he had missed out on the good cans of stew, managing only one flat of Alpha-Getti and one flat of Zoodles—foods he vaguely remembered from Julia’s childhood. She used to like them, of that he was certain. And it gave him some hope that they would end up laughing about this together: she would forgive him and they would weather this global calamity over bowls of Zoodles. He allowed the superstition in the idea with a kind of defiant guilt. He was an old man, after all. He was entitled to his private fantasies.

  “Full cupboard,” observed Edith, appearing at his elbow. “Have you been hoarding, too?” The question came out surprisingly judgment-free in tone. She seemed markedly more subdued than he remembered her from last semester.

  “I suppose you could call it that,” said Keelan. He made a note to do another local shopping run before driving into the city. He would show Julia how well he had prepared for all of them. “Hasn’t everyone?”

  Edith shrugged. “Everyone who can afford to, I guess? I saw some Oreos that were two-for-one and I got four packages.” Her eyes were wry below her cap.

  All of Keelan’s provisions had been acquired with belated, if effective, haste. He was pleased that he’d never sold the Winnebago, and he’d been loading it with the bulk of his purchases. Rob Richards, an assistant professor with a love for camping, had made some suggestions at the end of a departmental meeting regarding camp stoves, fuel canisters, and hand-crank radios. Most of those present had laughed at the direness of the situation Rob evoked. Keelan himself had smiled as if humouring him, all the while taking detailed notes. Maybe they’d all been doing the same thing. This was at one of the last meetings, when they were making arrangements for offering distance-learning options after the suspension of classes on campus.

  He took three orange pekoe teabags from the super-box of two hundred, and passed them back to Edith before filling the kettle. She plopped the teabags into the pot-bellied green stoneware, then sank into the closest kitchen chair. She drew her knees up to her chest, and from this small huddled pose she filled the time while the kettle boiled by asking him about his work. He obliged until a certain absent expression on her face made him wonder just how long he’d been talking. He switched tack abruptly.

  “Ed, I never asked you about your summer course in New York.”

  “Oh, I told you about that?” She looked flustered. “Actually, I didn’t go in the end. Just spent the summer in Boston with my parents.” A high colour had come into her cheeks, and she changed the subject to some friends of hers who were talking about going to stay in the country.

  “It’s not a bad idea,” said Keelan. “Isolation is a good strategy for avoiding disease. If not for preserving the fabric of society.”

  He found himself discussing some of the things he’d been considering in terms of worst-case scenarios: scarcity, police crackdowns, rioting, buying a gun. Even though he was the very person, the so-called expert, warning the public against this type of thinking. He was sure Edith would find his confession of hypocrisy provocative and shocking.

  Edith did not look shocked. “Milk and sugar?”

  “What? Oh, I’m sorry.” He blinked, trying to switch gears. He followed her gaze to the two cups full of strong, dark tea. When had he stopped drinking tea with milk? It struck him now as a bit uncivilized. “Creature of habit.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll take care of it. Just point.” She stood up, teacup in hand, already moving to the fridge with inquiring eyes.

  “Yes, milk there. Sugar in the pantry.”

  She found the cutlery on the second try. The silverware jangled in its tray as she slammed the drawer shut with her hip. Then she stood at the fridge to pour in the milk, extracting and replacing the carton in one rushed motion as though its very appearance might be misconstrued as a reproach. Her spoon clinked as she swirled it in her cup and clattered as she dropped it in the sink.

  There was a time when other people’s sounds had oppressed him. When he and Annie were first married, they had lived in half of a cheap rented duplex in Baltimore, and he used to rage at the neighbours for their heavy footfalls, their guitar rock, their meandering late-night conversations about SCTV or the advisability of keeping large land lizards as household pets. He began to despise them. They were ignorant, they were inconsiderate, they were one evolutionary step away from swinging through the trees. He hated them, and he hated the thin segment of drywall that formed the almost fictional separation between their apartments. Keelan was working on his dissertation at the time, and any uncontrolled sounds would perforate his concentration as easily as a finger in a soap bubble.

  Now, the sounds of Edith in his kitchen brought him a vague comfort. He had underestimated the silence of the house without Julia, though she had been, in her own way, as quiet as he was.

  “I saw you on TV last night.” With
a hot cup of tea in her hands, Edith was curious and content, more like the young woman he remembered from last semester. “Do you think it’s true? Are we all done for unless we cooperate?”

  “Yes,” he said, and she flinched. He wondered if she was also feeling the strain of trying to remain normal. “Well, who can say? But I hope you haven’t suffered any unfortunate after-effects of the whole ARAMIS Girl thing.”

  Edith froze, then slowly placed her cup on the table. “What ARAMIS Girl thing?” He was taken aback by the blankness of her expression.

  “All the terrible things that have been happening to people like you…” Keelan hoped he wasn’t making some sort of racist blunder while trying to express sympathy. “The hate crimes, I mean. It was abominable to release that photo.”

  “Oh.” She shook her head as if to dismiss any notion of concern on her own account. “I’m fine. But…do you think the ARAMIS Girl ought to have come forward?”

  “Well, I imagine it would be extraordinarily difficult at this point,” he said. “Still, it would seem to be her responsibility. It’s possible these hate crimes would be reined in if she were to make herself known. Though it’s equally appalling what has happened to her reputation. We’ve utterly failed her as a society. But I assume the poor girl is dead by now.”

  Edith nodded. She crossed her skinny arms and hugged them to her chest.

  “Is there something else bothering you, my dear?”

  She blinked, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “Just, I was following the posts on my friend’s website, and then he stopped updating it. I’m worried he’s sick. Or worse.”

  “That’s concerning. Have you tried writing to him?”

  Edith nodded again. “I’ll give it another try.” She stood up, arching her back in a deep stretch that sent her black shirt slipping down off one slim shoulder. “I hope you have enough to keep you busy.” She pushed in her chair. “I’m going back to Boston for a while, but I can still order books for you online.”

  “Sure, sure,” he said, following her to the door. “Actually, I’m getting ready to leave soon, too. I’m going to go get my daughter and her family from New York. The city doesn’t seem safe anymore.”

  “Oh,” said Edith. “I can vouch for that. I mean, I’ve heard.” A dark look passed over her face. Then she cocked her head slightly. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

  “She was angry at me for a long time,” said Keelan, surprising himself as the words came out. “Maybe she still is.”

  Edith stopped in the doorway. “Oh. Why?” When Keelan only shook his head, a defence against the sudden, terrifying conviction that he might begin weeping, she added, “Just…are you sure she’ll want to leave with you?”

  He was relieved to return to practicalities. “No.” He ran a hand over his beard where it left his chin. “But maybe she’ll humour me.”

  “Maybe.” Edith pulled her cap down lower on her forehead. “I used to be mad at my parents for not understanding me.” She stepped outside after a brief glance up and down the deserted street. “They still don’t get it, but they try to be accommodating.” She gave him a quick wave before turning to leave. “Good luck, Professor.”

  “Thank you, Ed.” He closed the door, reflecting upon her words and wondering if he could have been more accommodating to Julia—agreed to go to the family counselling session when she had asked the first time. But it had all seemed so unnecessary, so Dory. He’d resented her. After all, he and Julia had had no issues until Dory arrived on the scene. Ergo, Dory was the problem, not him. Moreover, everything he’d apparently done wrong had been so long ago.

  He’d recounted his supposed misdeeds to the therapist when he’d finally been dragged along. In his own memory, those years were good ones, filled with productivity—since his books, the best ones, the ones that had made his reputation, were written then. Yes, they were speculative, those early titles—Ethics for End Times and The Survivalist’s Code—but they were also bestsellers compared to any average philosophy textbook. And bound to get a bump with the current crisis and this spate of interviews.

  It was true that he didn’t remember much about Julia from her teenage years. There were her friends, whom he didn’t much care for. There was the dreadful tuba she began playing and practising with an unfortunate regularity. But her grades never faltered. She never pierced anything on her face. Unlike her peers, she was capable of uttering a sentence without the constant interjection of the word like. According to every measure he was capable of assessing, he had been a good parent.

  In hindsight, the real trouble began the evening of her high school graduation. Julia had come into his office, tiptoeing around the stacks of paper on the floor until she reached the clearing near his desk. She was worrying the little fringe on the bottom of her jacket as she stammered, with eyes lowered, through what she had to say. Her secret. Then she looked up at him, and her gaze was like an ignition setting off a bomb in the bottom of his heart.

  Something reverberated, deep in the pit of his Ukrainian-peasant stomach or maybe his Irish-barrel chest, and all he remembered saying—his sin of sins—was “Oh dear. Are you sure you want to be doing that?”

  And what was so wrong with a little dismay? It was a different time back then, and the path he had seen for her was strenuous and obscure, littered with obstructions thrown up by prejudice. She had stood there, tremulous and determined and heartbreakingly brave, and as he listened to her and the aftershocks of the bomb began to rattle him, he was shot through with fear. He could see that her way in life would be harder.

  “No parent wants that for a child,” he said aloud now. It was an echo of what he’d said in the first place, when Julia had revolted, pleaded, insisted, and ultimately stood firm in the wake of her revelation. His crime had been nothing more than that. Maybe it was the unclear referent that had caused the problem. That. A hard life was all he had meant.

  “Bullshit,” is what Dory had said, years later, in therapy. “Clichéd bullshit.”

  And Julia recalled, in the same session, that he had seemed embarrassed and disgusted when she’d come out to him.

  “You couldn’t look at me, Dad,” she said, and her tone was just as bitter, as ravaged, as Dory’s. And apparently it was this way of his, this nervousness she’d taken for repulsion, which had hurt her even more than the thoughtless words that had come out of his mouth.

  She wasn’t wrong about the discomfort, though he’d had no idea it had been so transparent. But there was no way he could confess the source of his unease.

  “Admit it,” Dory had said, rounding on him with the air of one who thought she had turned the corner in a debate. “We disgust you.”

  “No,” said Keelan. He would insist upon this until the end of time. For the shame was his, not Julia’s. He was not repulsed by lesbians. It was the opposite. Quite the opposite, though his only evidence was a lifetime of harmless daydreams, and the videos stored even now on his computer.

  Annie knew his secret, and if she had still been alive, Keelan was sure that she would have laughed off any misplaced guilt or worry of his in that regard. They’d shared their fantasies, though it had taken almost ten years of marriage to get to that point. Theirs was a more prudish generation, no question. But these little places in the mind were so intimate, so fragile. And it was hardly priggish—only decent—to keep them from one’s children.

  But it was also possible that even if Julia and Dory knew the truth, it would furnish no defence. They could deem his fondness for lesbians as nothing more than fetishization, and he wondered if they would be right. If he couldn’t reliably probe the bias of his own thoughts, all he had was a feeling of innocence. That and the freedom of his own actions.

  Keelan wandered over to the desk and took up his pen.

  In some ways, my dear, I’ve been waiting for the world to change. Not just because of my books, since I
never expected events to vindicate me within my lifetime, but because I need the world to be more or less than we all suspected. I need surprise. The history of knowledge is built on leaps and reversals, and more than anything I have wanted to live through enough change to feel as though I am witnessing history. That is the consolation to the grand majority of us who can never feel as though we are a part of making it.

  I’m proud of you for always standing up to me. And I’m happy you’re becoming a mother. And I’m grateful that history is on our side this time.

  Keelan made his final arrangements with the silent speed of someone who has stopped worrying. The garage, when he unlocked it, felt silent and strange and somehow immune to everything that had been going on. He threw a bag of snacks in the front seat of the car and swung a suitcase into the back, still unpacked from his last conference in Denver. He found a map in the glove compartment, and he thought, again, about a gun, the government, a sick baby coughing. The way out of town was empty, but where it joined up to the main highway, the road was jammed.

  ARAMIS Girl Located in Boston

  Nov. 17, 2020

  BREAKING NEWS—The so-called ARAMIS Girl has been located in critical condition in an ARAMIS ward in Boston, Massachusetts.

  The 21-year-old Asian-American woman was identified to hospital staff as ARAMIS Girl by her parents upon admission on November 16. However, they denied reports that she was a super-spreader of the virus, claiming that she only developed symptoms the day before she was admitted to hospital.

  Though the patient has not yet been independently verified as the restaurant server who was present at the first infection cluster in New York City, anonymous sources within the hospital have confirmed she matches the physical description of the unknown third woman in the infamous ARAMIS Girl photograph released by Dr. Keisha Delille of Methodist Morningside Hospital on September 2.