by Scott Sibary
Or she would dream of one she had loved, had yearned to be with and stay with, would have given her own life to save. In her dreams she sits wringing her hands, not knowing this was another grave in its inception.
Early on, before she was allowed to visit the sick, there had been her own episode. She’d lain there looking at her long, powerful legs outstretched and fatigued, and she’d wondered, because she could not help wondering, if she should treat this moment as her last—until she knew she had to. She let her tired neck relax her head back into the pillow of plucked and bundled feathers. She breathed slowly, counting and feeling the breaths, feeling the air enter her lungs, feeling all of her torso and her body maybe for the last time. She was hot and restless and too exhausted to move. She yearned for the strength to spring out of bed, and by the springing to prove her recovery and escape from Death, nimble Death.
And yes, she acknowledged to herself, she did recover, physically. But in her nightmares she would lie petrified, sensing the Reaper lurking outside her room, and dreading that any movement might draw Its attention and cause Its passage through the wall, to stand over her with a smile like a scythe, ready to lower the blade.
Solveig groaned, her shortness of breath keeping her from screaming out loud. She opened her eyes to see drips falling from her chin. She read the panel. Heart rate: 176 bpm. Her feet began to slow, as did her heart rate: numbers, shrinking numbers.
“Yes!” she exclaimed in a gasping breath, and several nearby heads turned towards her. She lowered her voice. “That’s why I’m here!”
Chapter Five
Long, swift strides widened the gap between Deng AnDe and his parents. He entered the park, and as he passed by the temple with its multi-tiered red tower, he gave a nod. Approaching the second in a series of staircases that offered access to the upper park, he noticed two young women posing for photos. He assisted by taking a picture of the two together. They thanked him, and he bounded up the stairs, taking three, then two, steps at a time.
At the top he caught his breath and turned around for his first view. The heavy mist of the morning had cleared, replaced by a thick haze.
A queasiness rose in his stomach. Maybe it’s just the midday meal, he told himself, then shook his head.
As he gazed at the urban expanse, he saw the type of place where human problems arose, and solutions, like the one he was working on, were employed. Yet finding the key, generating the seed of a solution, he thought, or even stumbling on the one needed, that happens in a manner unarranged, and unexpected.
He took a familiar trail, heading to higher terrain. Eventually it would circle around and lead him back. In the space of a few bends of the trail he could move from recollections of the epidemic to pondering scenarios for the future. His friends who worked in forecasting did not give favorable odds for greater global harmony. Uncertainty, he would reply, gives one room to wedge in a little hope.
On a rare day he could escape by refusing to contemplate the past or the future. He would broaden his perception to a point of liberating presence, where only the immediate existed in vibrant detail. That happened only when he walked alone, and today thoughts accompanied him like a crowd.
The ground passed quickly under his feet. At lunch, he had felt himself the college student living with his parents. This new feeling, that drove his legs up the steep initial slope must be unfulfilled success itself. He told himself it was not pride, but the anticipation of playing a giant’s role in moving the world to a safer place. He was proving he was not just a fringe idealist in a pragmatist’s world. Had not Kung Fu-Tze himself been an idealist, a Taoist who developed a pragmatic philosophy in a desperate effort to prevent wars?
The queasiness returned, and explanations for it whirled in his head. He chose one, and his mind became clear. He muttered out loud, “Yes, Mother, maybe I should have said, ‘yes.’ ”
He’d met Yingna at a clinic during the plague. They were both volunteers whose immediate families had been through the epidemic, and who were responding to the public call for help at clinics set up for the overwhelming flood of victims. They’d not been introduced; he just couldn’t help looking over at her across the forty-five-bed ward. He noted her steady, determined posture. Her broad, well-balanced face looked intent and focused, except when she greeted a patient with a cheerful smile. He kept glancing in her direction, trying to catch each greeting. At the end of the shift, after draping his lab coat on a hook and heading for the door, he found the woman, who was a head shorter than him, blocking his way. She looked straight at him, seeming to expect him to speak first.
As he stood stumbling over his thoughts, wondering whether he’d been “caught” peeping over at her, she stuck out her hand and announced, “Bao Yingna.”
He smiled while offering his name. She said no more but simply pivoted and walked away. Yes, caught, he thought, in more ways than one.
His parents expressed delight when the two began living together. They said his patient searching had paid off: he’d found Ms. Right.
How different Yingna was from Tara, he thought. Yingna was no dreaming idealist set on a mission to create a new world. She was a hardworking pragmatist who sought through her own abilities to make better the things around her.
“You are my Warrior,” he’d announced one evening.
“What?” she asked, incredulity covering her face.
“I mean, a warrior against the epidemic, protecting people against its onslaught.”
“You do that too. Do you think of yourself as a warrior?”
“No, I only do the simple and obvious tasks. Like trying to keep patients calm. But you see what’s needed before anyone else. You find transportation to the clinic for those needing it. You locate supplies when they’re getting low. And you’ve taken over coordinating the schedule of all the volunteers. It’s great to watch you do it all so well.”
She tilted her head and looked off to the side. Her words stuttered. “It’s because I find those things easier than what you’re always doing.”
After the epidemic had run its course, the clinic remained open for those who’d been disabled by strokes and lost their caregivers to the disease. AnDe and Yingna continued to volunteer one late shift per week. One night, towards morning, he was with a patient who had a panic attack, then a stroke. AnDe motioned to Yingna, who called in a doctor, but the damage was too massive and abrupt.
Afterwards, Yingna walked away from the bed to an east-facing window. She stood hunched and looking out angrily. The horizon was brightening. Eventually she straightened, lifting her chin with her jaw set. AnDe walked over and put his arm around her back.
“Too much death,” she said. “I want to make life.”
He looked at her blankly, as though he didn’t understand.
“I want to get married and start a family. I don’t want to wait any longer.” Then she put her arms around his waist, her cheek against his chest, her ear over his heart.
“I,” he began, his words choking in his throat, “I can’t deal with that at this moment. Not right here, in this place.”
They remained for a while, silently embracing beside the cold window as the sunlight slowly replaced the grey dawn.
The following evening, he forced himself to reply. He’d spent much of the night and day on the idea. He told her he wasn’t ready, he wasn’t prepared, he wasn’t even sure, at just that time . . . not with his career beginning to involve sensitive research. And it was a big decision; it was something one should do only when sure, not when there are doubts or issues. More time was needed.
Silence was her only reply. She said little for the remainder of the week. He did not return to the topic. On the weekend, she packed her possessions and moved out.
AnDe found himself stopped, hands on hips, staring at the last stretch of trail leading back to the entrance of Badachu Park.
As he resumed walking, he asked himself silently, So what have I learned from all that? Does it help me now?
Her phone flashed and rang.
“Identify,” she said.
“Erik,” the phone responded.
“Take a message.” But no message was left. It rolled through her mind: an insecure relationship, rooms not secure, a world searching for security and hoping to communicate better. And I’ll have to talk to him, not knowing how to say it.
Her other qualms shadowed her into the shower. There was no guarantee that the Indian Proposal would be fully implemented with a functioning World Council. If it wasn’t, control of the Electronic Analyst would be left to China. But then, what was the alternative? To not try, and allow the next chaotic event in world politics to give many governments a chance to oppress their people or make war on others?
Slippery issues, she felt, as the warm water flowing over her skin drew her mind back to her personal life.
Occupations, preoccupations, excuses. The increasing demands and secretive nature of her work had eaten away at her contact with family and friends. When she’d accepted the Beijing assignment, it was the final straw for her relationship with Erik.
The memory of him came into sharp focus. They’d been together for four years, but had kept separate one-bedroom flats in Bergen. His was across the bay on an east-facing slope, lovely to wake up in on a crisp, clear morning with the sunshine caressing them.
She recalled the morning after she had accepted the position as leader of the mission to China. As she’d sat up in bed, yawning and stretching her arms in the rays of the September sun, she’d let herself be lifted out of her self-image as a staff research scientist at an academic institution in a quaint city. She’d imagined herself floating, rising high to a post where she’d direct parts of a history-making project. She would be a puppet master, a magician in a traveling troupe, or, better yet, a conductor leading her orchestra in her own composition from a place in the heavens above.
She hadn’t foreseen how unrealistic her images were. But in bed that morning, she’d seen what her choice meant for him. The reddish glow on the skin of the lithesome figure beside her was appropriate to a setting sun. Brighter light would only make their separation more clear.
As she swung her legs decisively out of bed, she’d confronted an obstacle course of the symbols of his attachments: the clutter of sporting goods and music equipment invading his bedroom. He always hid the anguish he retained from the plague, or maybe from before; she was never sure which. He escaped with skiing, lacrosse, canyoneering, rafting, paragliding, and loud music. He fortified his refuge by purchasing as much new equipment as he could afford. It became his identity. How different from her.
She joined him in some of those activities, but they gave her no refuge. Her own anguish required going beyond a fortification, to reach out and work for a future better than the past. As her research project grew more demanding, she withdrew from his diversions.
Yet they had had fun together. The joy of their pleasures could pretend to be an entirety. At the end of a day’s recreation or an evening’s intimacy, the elixir of completeness could fill them. Sensual pleasures and humor had taken them a long way, but it would not take him to Beijing.
Under his puerile facade, he was perceptive and clever, and he provided the reassurance she needed. She supposed she wouldn’t have stayed with him for so long if it had been otherwise. But in their relationship, repetition had not led to progress.
How clear it had seemed to her that morning as she made coffee, the rising aroma awakening her anticipation. She’d stepped back to peer into the bedroom. Guarding the bed was the army of paraphernalia for his lifestyle, shielding his body while he slept, enclosing his mind while awake. The still-sleeping naked figure, half-covered with ruffled duvet, was bathed in bright light.
That was four weeks ago. He’d turned cold and irritable when she told him about the mission. He might have realized that she’d made both decisions: to go to China, and to leave him. She knew it might be as brief as a six-month absence, but for her that was enough to leave a path going in circles.
She saw him only twice after that morning. Once was when he came to get his things out of her flat, which she was vacating. The second was when he took her and her mother to the airport. He’d barely managed to remove his hand from his grey overcoat and wave back to her after she’d passed through airport security. Her mother, standing beside him, waved proudly.
Solveig stepped from the shower and wrapped herself in a fresh terrycloth bathrobe. She sucked in her abdomen and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. In her fit and young-looking figure, she saw a lone woman in a hotel room surrounded by thirty million people. She subdued another shiver.
She left the bathroom and walked to the window. As she faced the view of the nearly incomprehensible city, her phone on the table beside her rang again. Her arm flinched and sent an empty celadon cup flying from the table. The cup struck the wall and shattered.
“Damnation!”
She glanced at the name displayed on the screen: Erik.
“Damnation.” She took a deep breath and picked up the phone. “Hello, Erik?”
“Solveig, at last. I’ve been trying to reach you. We need to talk, to work this out. I miss you.”
She stood frozen, saying nothing, taking slow breaths.
He spoke rapidly. “I’m sorry. It’s really my fault for going silent when you told me you were going to China. I was so shocked. And you acted like it was all settled. But what about us? You didn’t want to discuss your move. I really should’ve insisted, but I didn’t know the details—still don’t. You only said it was sensitive, . . . but I’m sensitive too.”
“I know that. You’re right; it’s all true. I never meant to be insensitive.”
“We need to talk, in person. We can’t keep apart for a year, or even six months. I’ll come to Beijing. I’m arranging things here so I can be gone for a while . . .”
“Erik . . .”
“. . . I know it’s complicated. They told me you’ll need to request that I stay with you in your apartment, and I have to pass a security check or else I can only get a tourist visa.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not going to do that. I . . . It’s—”
“What? Terje stayed with you in India, and you were fine with it.”
“Terje! No, that wasn’t the same, and I was not going to be fine with it for long. I can’t have the distraction. This mission is my focus.”
“Distraction? I’m a distraction?!”
“I don’t mean it that way. You know that. It shows what’s wrong, that you, you need too much attention. This project requires every bit of my energy.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that. You know I’m really supportive. I won’t make demands. I’ll come to Beijing, stay in a hotel. Then you’ll see. I can move in when it works for you.”
“Erik!” She began to pant. “I will not now or later have you in the apartment. And I won’t have evenings free to spend with you.”
“If we just meet face-to-face, you’ll feel differently. We can arrange something. I’m flexible.”
“I know you are. And you’ll have to be flexible enough to accept that we won’t be together.”
“For how long?”
“I’m sorry, Erik.” She ended the call and laid the phone gently on the table. She stared at the screen until it went dark. Then she slapped the table top.
“How dare he bring up Terje!”
Terje was different. He was even better looking than Erik; he had been irresistible. He’d drawn her out from the prudish shell she wore to contrast with her mother’s promiscuous past, and he’d unleashed in Solveig a liberating passion—for a while. He’d also been sweet, helpful, optimistic, and otherwise ordinary. The excitement wore off before the relationship was a year old. But another year later, he followed her when she left for India for a post-doctoral program on the hypothesis of artificial awareness. The splendor
, squalor, color, and grime of her new environment made his companionship seem as dull as his mind.
Two weeks after his arrival in Bangalore, and despite staying with her, eating her cooking, and listening (she assumed) to all her admonitions, he became bedridden—almost totally—with dysentery. She shook her head at the memory. His plague nightmares had come on in full force. Terje had not been one to have many, but with this unrelated illness he became frantically certain he would die of an influenza. She spent a week home from work to reassure him, soothe him, and get him to slow his breathing. It had been an absurd ordeal, but it was something you had to do now and then, for others having the nightmares. As soon as he recovered, he admitted sadly that the relationship would have to end, and he returned to Norway.
Her gaze drifted to the scattered pieces of broken celadon: no longer part of something with a purpose. They seemed arranged in a new little world, with a few large pieces towards the center and a population of small ones as nearby and farther away satellites.
“No puzzle to solve now,” she mumbled as she looked down at them. “Your history is over.”
She fetched a hand towel and used it to sweep the pieces into a pile. She placed the towel as a barrier around the small mess and was done with it.
The sound of squeaking wheels and rattling dishes came from the hallway. She went to look through the peephole, and opened the door before the hand could knock.
After the maid had left, Solveig sat back in the sofa chair beside the table. The broken ceramic had been cleaned away.
Her glass of reputable wine stood in front of the food. She was reaching for the goblet when the phone rang again.
Uff, this can only be work, she thought. Probably unimportant, or they wouldn’t use the hotel phone.
“Hello, Senior Project Manager Kleiveland?” came the unfamiliar voice. “This is Senior Project Manager Deng. How are you?”
“I’m OK, thanks. And you?”
