He swung into a parking spot a few blocks from home as flakes began to fall. Slush on the ground whitening as he walked. Steam rising out of the sewer grates. A dusting of snow on the ledges and fire hydrants. A few pieces of windblown detritus skittering across the asphalt from one gutter to another. There were no bodies in the street, no smashed windows. No wrongdoers at all; only wayward litter flouting the city’s ordinances. A crushed packet of jaywalking Junior Mints. A jaywalking disposable razor. All the people he passed were traipsing where they needed to go, carrying groceries or backpacks or, in one case, a bright pink Hello Kitty umbrella. Scarves and mitts and hats combined with other protective gear in a way that looked almost normal, weather-appropriate. Everyone was carrying on, living their lives with a persistence that was at once extraordinary and completely typical. Elliot felt like an animal returned to its natural habitat, with an animal’s surer sense of rhythm and purpose. Relief flooded his limbs and he wanted to take off in a sprint, a doggy lap of joy. He was where he needed to be, his certainty born out of a hope he’d thought extinguished.
Elliot was so relieved that when his phone rang, he actually answered it.
“I’m a grown woman,” said Keisha in a dry voice, “and I realized I don’t have to wait for you to call me.”
“Very funny,” he said. He stopped walking. He was glad that he hadn’t checked the caller ID and that, whatever her news, it was coming to him this way, outside of any normal decision-making process. The knowledge, just like the result, was out of his hands. “What’s the prognosis?”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say you’re immune. Resistant, though. Antibodies are present. It’s extremely promising from a research point of view.”
“So I’m a medical marvel.”
“It’s a breakthrough, anyway. Some other researchers have discussed testing for resistance among hospital staff who haven’t become ill, but those tests are still underway.” Keisha’s voice was buoyant. “You’re the first real subject on the books, though there are also a few labs across the country doing DNA tests on people with multiple exposures, trying to pinpoint a common genetic marker.”
Elliot used his foot to kick the snow off a fire hydrant. “You’re trying to find more marvellous people?”
“Yes. It’s possible there was a similar outbreak, thousands of years ago.” The connection crackled. “In tandem with the vaccine, we’re looking to develop a genetic test for susceptibility. You know, manage prevention and medical resource allocation, blah blah.” Elliot could tell by the descent into slang that Keisha’s excitement was practically at frenzy level. “Next I’d like to test the DNA of your immediate family, too. Parents, sister. Okay?”
“I’ll talk to them.”
“Great. And in the meantime, don’t drop out of touch like that again.”
“I was with my parents in Lansdowne.” He was ashamed saying this, thinking of her working in the hospital. “But I just got back to the city.”
“Perfect. Come by the lab. I’m here now.”
* * *
—
At the hospital, there were no officers that he could see, only a new contingent of garbed personnel in white vests marked VOLUNTEER telling people where to go. In spite of himself, his eyes were drawn to the sign overhead pointing the way to Emergency, where Keelan had died while Elliot sat by helplessly and watched. His own breathing went shallow as it had that day, not only to avoid contagion, but as if in taking in less oxygen himself there would have been more for the professor’s struggling lungs. With an effort, Elliot forced himself to breathe deeply. He didn’t have to go back there today. The woman who directed him up to Keisha’s lab was friendly, energetic. Her nametag said ROSA. The bright lights gave her an incandescent glow, rather than the green, deadish cast they imparted to his own skin. He asked her how things were going.
“Better now. Best week since I started.” She stopped to direct someone else then turned back to him. “Still over capacity, but things have slowed down. They say infections are on the decline.”
He opted for the stairs, realizing he’d come to fear the city more from a distance, in the hypothetical, than he ever had up close. He’d listened to his parents, watched too much of the news, let his own exhaustion and paranoia do their worst. But in spite of this realization, he found his pace lagging as he mounted the steps. What had happened in the ARAMIS ward was not mere rumour or catastrophizing, but death itself: ravenous, indiscriminate, dehumanizing. Without mercy. He ought to be running in the other direction instead of returning to the place where he had witnessed more blood, rage, and blind grief than at any crime scene. But once his feet brought him to the right doors and he pushed his way through, he found that the ward, too, was not as he had left it. There were more of the white-vest volunteers; many were sitting and talking with people in the waiting area. At the nursing station, he asked for Keisha.
“She’s doing rounds on another floor, but she’ll be up soon.” The nurse pointed him towards a smaller waiting room. Inside, there was a young woman sitting alone. Narrow shoulders, glossy black hair curtaining her cheeks. Dressed all in black, right down to her face mask, she sat rigidly at the end of the row of chairs. She was wholly given over to waiting: no phone, no magazine. A defiant chin, wary eyes, small graceful hands folded in her lap. He recognized first the familiar, overwhelming urge to impress her.
“I think I know you,” he said.
“You and the rest of the planet,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ears. Her forehead was pinched, eyes shadowed. The slightly diminished face of the ARAMIS survivor. “Sorry, I don’t do selfies.”
“No, from the restaurant,” said Elliot, as the recollection turned and clicked. This was ARAMIS Girl.
Surprise softened her brow. “You’re the cop.”
“You remember me.” It was his turn to be surprised.
The young woman didn’t sound quite as friendly. “I assumed you were dead.”
“Not yet,” he said. “I’m Elliot.”
“Xiaolan.” Then, inexplicably, “But you can call me Ed.”
Outside in the hallway, there was a passing clatter of rolling carts and raised voices. Elliot flinched, and reached for conversation to cover it. “So where were you all that time? You must have known people were looking for you.”
From the way Ed’s face darkened, he knew it was the wrong question. “More like stalking me. And I wasn’t even sick then.” She almost spat it out. “Not till way later. It was all a fabrication, a media sideshow.”
“You decided to come forward, though.”
“No. That was my parents.” Her voice was flat. “They’re so privileged they still believe that the truth will set you free.”
“You don’t agree?” He kept his comment light, put a smile into it. “I’ve found it to be fairly freeing of late.”
She wasn’t impressed. “I guess authority makes sense to them because it’s always been on their side.” Her brow furrowed a little more.
“Parents have an unfortunate habit of being opinionated, don’t they?” he said. Then quickly added, “Mine certainly are.” He wanted to commiserate, not condescend, but he worried he’d left room for doubt. There might be fifteen years between them, maybe more.
Her chin jutted up and then down, appraising. At last she seemed to take his efforts for what they were, a sincere attempt to put her at ease. “I woke up from a coma, and the life that used to be mine was gone.” She crossed her arms, hugging her chest. “After that, I basically had to own it since it’s the only one I have.”
Elliot could hear the defensiveness in her words, sensing the kind of restless energy that sought out opposition. If it wasn’t a law of physics, it ought to be: pain required an outlet. He knew it both from the streets and from his colleagues.
“That sounds like a terrible thing to have gone through.” He meant it.
&
nbsp; Ed exhaled, shrugging. “There are worse things, I imagine.” The gaze she returned to him was suggestive, perhaps questioning what exactly he had seen in the line of duty. When he didn’t say anything, she pushed her hair back again, touching two fingers to her face mask where her lips were hidden. “So why are you here?”
“More tests.” He wasn’t sure exactly what Keisha had in mind. “Apparently, I’m resistant.”
“Dr. Delille thinks I might be resistant, too. Since I didn’t get sick immediately after that night at the restaurant.”
“But you caught it later.” Elliot remembered Keisha saying resistant wasn’t the same as immune, but he couldn’t sidestep his dismay. “Don’t all survivors test positive for antibodies of the virus?” It was a hopeful fact that the media had seized upon.
“That’s why Dr. Delille thinks it could be interesting.” All animus had gone out of her voice, leaving only a gentle intimacy to the way she pronounced Keisha’s name. “They have my hospital intake sample from Boston that she can compare to the samples we take today.”
“Ah.”
“That’s the new global research policy,” said Keisha, coming into the room. “If an ARAMIS patient survives, the hospital is supposed to keep their sample for testing.” Her head tilted towards him in a friendly nod. “Elliot, you got here faster than I thought.”
Ed stood up. “Dr. Delille.”
Keisha looked at Ed for a long moment. “I’m glad you came.” She went to the young woman and, extending her gloved hands, took Ed’s in her own in a sterile version of a once-normal greeting, now so scarce as to seem strange.
Elliot watched, a bit bewildered. He wondered if Ed knew that Keisha was the one who had released the photo and unintentionally created ARAMIS Girl in the first place.
As if reading his mind, Ed said, “Dr. Delille wrote to me and invited me here.” When Keisha let go of her hands, she retrieved a shoulder bag that had been stowed under her chair. “I don’t blame her for what happened.”
Keisha said, “We’re making the best of it.”
Elliot nodded. He didn’t need to understand everything.
“Any questions before we get started?” asked Keisha.
Ed raised a hand, but when they turned to her, she stayed silent. Finally, she blurted out, “I’m sorry for not coming forward sooner. People got hurt because of me. Maybe even sick.”
Keisha shook her head and with a slow, deliberate movement cupped a hand on the young woman’s shoulder. Like Elliot, she seemed to realize that Ed was as skittish as something hunted. “You did your best with the information you had once you had it.” Her voice was gentle. “There are a lot of people who used ARAMIS Girl as an excuse for the bad things they wanted to do anyway.”
The talk between the two women flowed on as they walked into Keisha’s office, and as Elliot lingered at the threshold he heard Keisha say something about sequencing their DNA. Ed was attentive, earnest, helpful. Keisha, through whatever pangs of her own conscience, had made things right there.
Keisha. Baffling to realize he’d first met her when she was around Ed’s age. They’d been boyfriend and girlfriend, nearly inseparable for a few months, which until recently seemed even more incomprehensible than the confounding progression of bodies through time—that once he had been just twenty years old, and before that eleven, and before that, five, but now he was not. His life had always made sense moving forward, but for a long time he thought looking back would be a runner’s mistake, the skewed over-the-shoulder glance that would set him stumbling off pace. But now he felt he understood that not all change was failure. The past couldn’t always be dragged into the present, but it was never really over, not while there was someone to remember it. And people did not belong to one another in the particular, only in the general. They were always being called upon in different ways and to other people. They were being called into the future.
He watched Keisha roll out a desk chair as Ed took a seat nearby. The last time he’d visited Keisha, he’d thought the key to the future might be right there in that laboratory. Before the drug trial mishap—mishap, what a word—he’d imagined witnessing some discovery that would change the course of history. Something in the blood, the chemicals, the test tube. Something that could be seen under a microscope and put to use. But he saw now that what would save them was already there, turning like a windmill in their hearts, in every attempt to repair, cooperate, persevere. Communicate. Connect.
“Elliot,” said Keisha, calling him out of his reverie. “Are we going to do this?”
“Yes,” said Ed.
Elliot paused for just a moment before he stepped forward into the laboratory and everything that was about to come next. “Let’s try,” he said.
Buona Fortuna Dispatch #18 ~ The Exumas, Bahamas
Posted in owengrantwriter.com/blog on December 22, 2020 by Owen
When you’re at the mercy of the wind, you begin to understand sacrifice. The contract of Agamemnon: what you would give up in order to get the thing you really need. Except in this case it would be a fleet of ships, the outcome of a whole war that we’d cast aside, for the life of one little boy.
Sometimes a certain kind of man requires a certain set of circumstances to learn some fundamental truths. I think I finally understand that all we really have is each other.
There are signs of life. Splashes of fish. The slosh of mammals in the water–dolphins, whales. The sound of their breathing when they swim close to the boat.
Calm water is best for a burial at sea, but we are hoping for rain. We are praying for a squall. If it rains, if it pours, there might be a measure of relief.
Instead, we look to the stars. From the deck, there’s a constellation that looks like a bicycle. Two faulty tires connected by a brighter frame. And with a squint and a tilt, the lesser stars coalesce into spokes and wheels of light, a pattern that emerges and fades back into the infinite.
Excerpt from “A Song for the End of the World”
Lyrics by Dove Suite
Word is this one is the last,
The very last great extinction
My only thought is at least…
at least we have that distinction
And what is the time of arrival?
The truth is before you came
I was getting ready to leave
So this is just another love song
For all the love songs
Still unwritten
For all the lovers
Still to grieve
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to the Canada Council for the Arts for financial support during the writing of this manuscript.
Thank you to my agent, Martha Webb, for her perception and encouragement, and to everyone at CookeMcDermid.
Thank you to my editor, Anita Chong, for her vision, sensitivity, and precision. This novel owes a great deal to her.
Thank you to Jared Bland, Lisa Jager, and everyone at McClelland & Stewart who brought their insight and expertise to this book, as well as to Gemma Wain and Erin Kern.
Sections of this novel have been around for a long time and I am grateful to the few people who read them and offered suggestions. Thank you to Linda Besner, for reading an early draft and providing helpful feedback one chilly night on the patio of Casa del Popolo. Thank you to dANDelion Magazine, where a version of Edith’s chapter first appeared as the short story “No Word for It.” Thank you also to everyone who ever expressed a willingness to read part of this manuscript, even if it never came to pass.
I am grateful for writing pals across all genres and disciplines. Writing is an utterly humbling endeavour at every turn, but thankfully it is one where you never stop learning. For ongoing friendship and support, writerly and otherwise, thanks especially to Jonathan Ball, Linda Besner, Diane Dechief, Mylissa Falkner, Kat Kitching, Leigh
Kotsilidis, Erin Laing, Jessica Lim, Vivienne Macy, Ian McGillis, Maya Toussaint, Kathleen Winter, and Alice Zorn. Thank you to the knitting club, and to Dina Cindrić and the Monday Night Choir. Thank you to my community in Montreal. Thank you to all my dear friends and correspondents, near and far, past and present. I don’t know what I would do without you.
Thank you to Garderie Fairmount and Paquebot Mont-Royal.
Thank you to McGill University, especially to members of the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and the Yan P. Lin Centre for the Study of Freedom and Global Orders in the Ancient and Modern Worlds. All errors are my own.
I am grateful to Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell, which provided me with strong evidence to support my instincts about disasters. I learned about the notion of “elite panic” from her remarkable book.
Thank you to all the book clubs, libraries, literary festivals, producers, booksellers, and professors who have extended invitations over the years and have offered the opportunity to connect with readers and other writers. I am immensely grateful.
Profound love and thanks to my family, especially to my mother Joan Ainsworth, Pat and Norman Webster, and Vivienne and Larkin Webster. Much love and gratitude to all my Ainsworth and Webster family.
Wondrous thanks to Derek Webster. Words are everything, but sometimes they’re not enough.
AN INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR SALEEMA NAWAZ
This interview with author Saleema Nawaz was conducted on March 18, 2020. One week earlier, on March 11, the World Health Organization announced that the outbreak of COVID-19 could be characterized as a pandemic, and on March 13, the United States declared a national emergency, following similar announcements throughout Asia and Europe. Subsequently, several Canadian provinces also declared a state of emergency.
Songs for the End of the World Page 40
