Mona

by Dan Sehlberg

  ‘Rough day?’

  She was crying. He stroked her hair gently.

  ‘Forget work. Just let it all fall away.’

  She was still, and leaned her head on his chest.

  ‘I just want to go to bed.’

  ‘Have you had anything to eat?’

  ‘I’m not hungry. I don’t feel well.’

  She pulled away, let her coat fall to the floor, and walked silently into the bathroom. After a moment, he heard the shower. He went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. She was gone for nearly half an hour. He was wondering whether he should refill the teacup with more hot water when she showed up in her bathrobe. He smiled.

  ‘You look better now. So what actually happened today?’

  She looked at him for a long time, apparently debating whether to answer. Then she sighed and pulled the robe tighter around herself.

  ‘Tel Aviv created a program, Tza’yad, Hunter — a search program that can find viruses which are impossible to find. We installed it in our system, and ran smack dab into a new supervirus called Mona. I had to shut down the whole mess. Kaput. Finito.’

  He stood up and took a few steps toward her.

  ‘I was actually thinking more about you. How are you feeling?’

  She put her hands in her pockets and straightened her back.

  ‘How the fuck do you think I feel? I feel useless, and I have all day. If you really cared, you would have torn yourself away from your hacking to give me a call.’

  He threw up his hands.

  ‘I did call. Several times.’

  She turned away.

  ‘Sure. Just go back to your dusty office. Don’t let me stop you. I just want to sleep.’

  She left him in the kitchen and went to the bedroom. He shook his head. They were on totally different wavelengths. He swallowed his pride, cleared the table, and took the cup of tea with him to the bedroom. He hesitated in the doorway. She was already deep asleep. She hadn’t even taken off her bathrobe. He turned back to the kitchen in frustration.

  ‘Do you know where we are?’ The girl looked at her with large brown eyes. The white ash was all over her hair.

  She nodded. ‘Yes, I know. We’re in a store.’

  The girl’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘But do you know when we are?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Do you know when we’re in the store?’

  Hanna squatted to get closer to the girl; her knees ached, but she didn’t want to get up.

  ‘No, I don’t. Do you?’

  The girl nodded.

  ‘We’re later.’

  ‘Later? How much?’

  The girl cocked her head, thinking.

  ‘I don’t really know. I’m only eight. But I think we’re a little bit later.’

  Hanna looked around in the darkness. ‘So all of this is the future?’

  The girl lit up. ‘That’s what it’s called. In the future!’

  He sat at the kitchen table, poking absent-mindedly at the saltshaker, tired but too agitated to sleep. Was her anger justified? The hell it was. He had called her several times. She must have tons of missed calls on her phone. He had sensed that something was wrong. She must have had a really rough day; she’d looked completely out of it, sitting there in the hall. She was totally stressed out. Eric pictured her before him as she stood in the doorway in her white robe. Find a virus that’s impossible to find. The sentence seemed to tickle something in his brain. He tasted a few grains of salt. They smelled like sea. It had been a long time since he’d gone swimming. A virus that’s impossible to find. He got up and ran into the hall. Hanna’s bag was on the floor. He took out her small white laptop and jogged through the apartment to his office. He knew her password, and he searched the programs on her computer while standing at the desk. He quickly found what he was looking for: Mona Tza’yad. He inserted a USB drive and copied the program to it. Then he knelt next to the Mind Surf computer and inserted the drive into the port. The icon popped up on the screen right away, and he sat down at the keyboard.

  The girl took a hesitant step closer to her. Their faces were nearly touching. A strange scent surrounded the girl. Acrid, like a solvent. Hanna wanted to put out a hand and stroke her cheek, but something held her back. She looked the girl in the eyes.

  ‘I want to ask you something. You said that all the people are gone. Do you know where they went?’

  The girl lowered her voice to a whisper.

  ‘They died.’

  Hanna wobbled. Her legs had fallen asleep.

  ‘Do you know why they died?’

  The girl looked unhappy. She didn’t answer.

  ‘You can tell me.’

  The girl shook her head slowly.

  ‘You’ll be angry. Super angry.’

  Hanna overcame her fear, and took the girl’s small hands in hers. They were cold as ice.

  ‘I won’t be mad.’

  The girl looked at her, ashamed.

  ‘They got sick.’

  Hanna squeezed her cold hands.

  ‘Dear child … Do you know what made them sick?’

  The girl lowered her eyes. The answer came after a long hesitation.

  ‘I infected them.’

  Eric double-clicked on the Mona Tza’yad icon and went through the installation. The program started its search right away. He leaned back.

  SEARCHING FOR INFECTION

  Suddenly, he heard something from the living room. Footsteps? Clicks on the parquet. Each apartment has its own unique profile of sounds: the fridge, neighbours, traffic, movements on the floor. After several years, a person can feel the atmosphere in his body. Someone was in the living room. He held his breath.

  SEARCHING FOR INFECTION

  Something fell with a crash. He flew out of his chair.

  ‘Darling, is that you?’

  The computer gave a ding. He turned toward the screen.

  ALERT

  MONA VIRUS FOUND

  PROTECTION PROTOCOL INITIATED

  SHUTTING DOWN NETWORK CONNECTIONS TO CONTAIN INFECTION

  STAND BY

  Something moved. A silhouette was reflected in the screen. He spun around and saw Hanna in the doorway, soaked with fever, a pale ghost in the dim light. She looked at him, eyes wide open. Terrified.

  ‘… Oh God … help me …’

  PART II

  SALAH AD-DIN

  Stockholm, Sweden

  He took the digital thermometer from her mouth and studied the display. Forty-point-one degrees. She was wet with sweat. Eric pulled up the blanket and stroked her forehead.

  ‘Darling, you have quite a fever.’ Hanna’s eyes were fixed on the ceiling. She was breathing hard. He got up.

  ‘I think you should take a big drink.’ He handed her the glass of water from the nightstand. She took it with a mechanical motion, vacant.

  ‘I’m going to get a damp towel for your forehead.’

  In the kitchen, he let the water run until it was cold, and then soaked a towel and folded it carefully. But when he heard a crash from the bedroom, he dropped the towel and ran back. She was sitting up in bed. The glass of water was on the floor, broken. She was shaking and breathing violently.

  ‘What happened?’

  She looked up into his face; her eyes were glassy with fever.

  ‘The girl infected me.’

  He brushed away the hair that was sticking to her face, and tried to get her to lie down.

  ‘What girl?’

  She resisted him.

  ‘Mona! She’s going to infect us all.’

  ‘Darling, you’re delirious. Try to lie down.’

  She gripped his wrist hard; her nails dug int
o his skin.

  ‘You have to listen! We’re going to die!’

  She looked crazy. Had her fever gotten higher? He started to worry.

  ‘I’ll drive you to the hospital.’

  She fell back down on the bed and curled up in a foetal position.

  ‘I … can’t remember my own phone number. I can’t remember my middle name. Or when your birthday is.’

  She sobbed. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’

  ‘Come on. I’ll help you up.’

  He placed a jacket across her shoulders and got her bare feet into a pair of rain boots. Then he helped her out of the apartment and into the elevator. She felt fragile under the thin anorak, and he kept his hand on her back to steady her. When they came to the street, she stopped and threw up. Eric tried to pull back her hair as well as he could. Then they staggered across the street to the car.

  There was almost no traffic, but he still drove in the bus lane, keeping his speed above one hundred. She was no longer speaking. She was just mumbling to herself, wet and snuffling. He put out his hand and touched her face. Her forehead was burning up. Birger Jarlsgatan flew by, and he veered into the Roslagstull roundabout. He nearly lost control, but then he straightened the car and floored the accelerator again.

  Karolinska Hospital popped up to their left. His thoughts went round and round in his head, and he had to fight to concentrate on driving. The area around the hospital was deserted, and the greenish-white light from the neon signs drew shimmering spots on the wet asphalt. He stopped abruptly in front of the emergency entrance and ran around the car. The evening was warm, with a faint scent of rain. She fell out as he opened the passenger door, and it was sheer luck that he managed to catch her. He didn’t bother to close the car door, and he half-carried, half-dragged her into the hospital. When they came in through the sliding doors, he got help from two young ambulance drivers who were on their way out. They shouted something to a nurse and placed Hanna on a stretcher. Then they took off with her, and Eric ran after them. One of the ambulance guys threw a glance over his shoulder.

  ‘What happened to her?’

  Eric answered breathlessly.

  ‘I don’t know. She got sick yesterday. She got worse a few hours ago.’

  They ran through swinging doors, and passed several people on stretchers in a long corridor. They turned a corner and were met by one of the nurses and an older man in a white coat and glasses. The man pointed.

  ‘Twelve.’

  The ambulance drivers went a few metres farther and then turned into one of the rooms. The older man turned to Eric.

  ‘Are you her husband?’

  Eric nodded.

  ‘Thomas Wethje, attending physician. What seems to be the problem?’

  ‘I don’t know. She got sick really fast. High fever, throwing up.’

  ‘Is she generally in good health? Any allergies? Does she take any medications? Has she recently been abroad?’

  Eric shook his head. ‘She is … was … perfectly healthy.’ The man nodded.

  ‘Has she eaten anything unusual? Something that might be poisonous?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  The doctor adjusted his glasses. ‘I’d like you to wait here, if that’s okay.’ He pointed at two yellow plastic chairs that stood some way down the corridor. Then he followed the nurse into the room where they’d left Hanna. Eric walked off and sat down heavily in one of the chairs. It was too soft, and the back wobbled as he leaned against it. After a while, the ambulance drivers came out. One of them, a short Asian man, patted him on the shoulder as he walked by.

  ‘It’ll be okay. She looked like a strong gal.’

  He didn’t answer, able only to stare vacantly at the wall across from him. There was a work schedule next to a sign that encouraged good hand-hygiene. Someone moaned in one of the rooms farther off. He thought of the question the doctor had asked — about whether she had eaten something poisonous. He had instinctively answered no. But was it possible that she had? He thought back through the previous day. No, it had to be something else. He remembered her panic-stricken words in the bedroom. She had said she’d been infected by a girl. There was no point in speculating. He could only wait. He studied the work schedule on the wall again.

  He had to wait for a long time. Several nurses came and went, but there was no sign of the doctor. Eric tried to remain calm, and not to worry. They were at the hospital now, and everything would be fine. Finally, Dr Thomas Wethje stepped into the corridor and closed the door gently behind him. He sat down next to Eric.

  ‘I quit smoking. I put out my last cigarette a week ago. I tell you, it’s not easy.’

  Eric looked at him without saying anything. The doctor dug in his breast pocket and pulled out a pack of gum.

  ‘Nicotine. Sort of works, I think.’

  He popped a piece of gum in his mouth and then met Eric’s gaze. ‘She’s sleeping. Her fever was forty-two degrees when she came in. That’s very high, and it can be life-threatening. It’s lucky you came in. We’ve given her an IV and something for the fever.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘It’s too early to say. The first tests showed a very high white blood-cell count. Her body is arming itself so it can protect her. Her CRP test, which measures protein in the blood, is under fifty, so it’s not a bacterial infection. That would seem to indicate a virus. I’ve done several tests. We’ll have an answer in an hour or two.’

  Thomas cleaned his glasses on his white coat.

  ‘To be perfectly honest, I don’t like what I’m seeing.’

  Eric went cold. ‘What do you mean?’

  Thomas shook his head. ‘Her body is rebelling. Her pulse is too high. Her fever, too. And she’s having trouble breathing. If it gets worse, we’ll have to put her on a machine.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A respirator. She might need help breathing.’

  Eric leaned forward in his chair and blew the air from his lungs.

  ‘Oh, God.’

  The doctor placed a hand on his arm.

  ‘Try not to worry. We’ll wait for the test results. To be on the safe side, we’ll keep her isolated, in case it turns out to be something infectious.’

  They sat in silence for a moment. The moaning down the hall continued. Thomas’s pager buzzed, and he stood up.

  ‘I have to go. There’s a coffee machine near the entrance. You look like you could use a cup.’

  Ahvaz, Iran

  Nadim had just woken up, and all she had on was a long baseball T-shirt. Samir drank in her bare legs and the contours under her shirt. Her hair was beautifully tousled. She was standing in the kitchen, making sandwiches for their impatient daughter. The sun shone in through the window and flashed on her wristwatch. Mona tugged at her shirt.

  ‘I’m hungry, Mama. When will you be done?’

  She laughed and shook her head.

  ‘You’re just as impatient as your mama. How will Papa manage with two identical women? He’ll go crazy.’

  Mona giggled in delight and threw a glance at him. He held to this image of her as long as he could, but then it faded and disappeared, like a photograph that’s overexposed until all that is left is a meaningless white space.

  Samir opened his eyes, feeling disoriented for several seconds. His surroundings were enchanted, as if he were still asleep. He lay naked in an enormous, round bed. At the other end of the room, the tall balcony doors were ajar, and the thin curtains moved gently in the breeze. Yesterday slowly came back to him. He was in Prince Abdullah bin Aziz’s palace on the outskirts of Ahvaz. Outside the window, the river Karun flowed, edged by date palms and mimosa trees. The prince was a close friend of Enes al-Twaijri, the Saudi oil tycoon whom Samir had met at the meeting with Arie al-Fattal and Ahmad Waizy
in Tabriz, and who was now the financial patron of the project.

  They had gathered at Fajr Hotel near the Ahvaz airport. All of them had flown in from different parts of the world, with Ahmad arriving last. They had been picked up by the prince’s private chauffeur, and then the prince had treated them to a grand dinner. This place was in complete contrast to Somaliland, but Samir preferred the solitude and simplicity there to all of this excess. The overflowing meze table and the stiffly smiling prostitutes were off-putting. He had lain awake in the large bed until the morning light trickled through the shutters and crept slowly across the floor. He must have finally fallen asleep.

  There was a faint knock at the door. He pulled up the blanket and called out, ‘Aiwa, tfaddal! Come in!’ A young woman with a green veil and bare feet stepped into the room. She was carrying a large silver chalice.

  ‘Sabah alkhair, good morning.’

  She crouched next to the bed.

  ‘I brought you some mint tea. Fotoor is being served one floor up, on the balcony. Your friends are already there.’

  He ran his hands over his face and collected himself. She placed her hand on his bare leg, which was sticking out from under the blanket.

  ‘Can I do anything for you before I go?’ Her expression erased all doubt about what her question encompassed. He took the chalice and shook his head.

  ‘Tell the others I’m coming. I’m just going to get dressed.’

  She smiled, her hand still on his leg.

  ‘Would you like my help?’

  ‘No. Leave me alone.’

  She bowed and backed out of the room, leaving the door ajar. He lay still. It was quiet, except for the bright sound of birdsong from the window. The sun was warm — a drowsy warmth and a surreal backdrop. While he slept, reality would loosen its grip and allow him to remember. But when he woke, reality waited restlessly for him with sharp claws and a wide sneer. During the night, he was part of the family once again. In the morning, he was always alone. The constant goodbyes turned his life into a vicious circle.

  The breeze from the windows caressed him gently. The minutes ticked by. He wanted to stay in this in-between place. He longed to fall asleep again, but at last stretched his hand toward the chalice, took a large gulp of tea, and conquered his weariness.