One Station Away

by Olaf Olafsson

  The truth is that for years I read every article he published, and followed his research with interest. Not only did he endeavor to explain which part of the brain perceived the various characteristics of sound, but also how music stimulates emotion and memory, and why some people like rock while others prefer jazz. He was very productive, and those working in his department complained of long hours and sleepless nights. He, on the other hand, showed no signs of fatigue.

  I had long since graduated and started working with Hofsinger when I heard that Stainier had given up medical research and opened a bicycle repair shop in a small town on the Hudson River. No one could explain the reasons for his disappearance, but I was told it was sudden. He was at the height of his career.

  I started thinking about Stainier after I called my parents this morning. Vincent didn’t take long to pick up, and far from detecting any hesitation or suspicion in his voice, I found him brimming with self-confidence.

  “Hello, Vincent.”

  “Magnus! I’m expecting a call from a journalist.”

  “Shall I ring back later?”

  “No, no. Are you in New York?”

  “No, I’m at the hospital.”

  “In Connecticut?”

  “Yes.”

  “By the sea?”

  “Yes. I just saw some of the online comments about the CD.”

  “Not only online. It’s everywhere.”

  “A colleague of mine showed me some forum,” I said, but Vincent’s attention seemed to be on my mother, whose voice I could hear in the background.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to me, then called out to Margaret, probably louder than necessary: “It’s Magnus Colin! He’s calling from the hospital!”

  He resumed talking to me.

  “Do you remember my speech at the birthday party?”

  I said I did.

  “Momentous. Isn’t that the word I used?”

  “Yes, I seem to remember you did.”

  “At last,” he said, “at last she is getting the recognition she deserves.”

  “Yes.”

  “We knew. But they’ve been working against us for years. For decades. You might learn something from scanning the brains of all those who ignored her.”

  I don’t know whether this was meant as a barbed comment, but the fact is, I felt ashamed. I had long since concluded that Margaret was essentially mediocre.

  “We’re waiting for a journalist from the Guardian to call. He wants to come to the house. Don’t you think we should say yes?”

  My mind was beginning to wander, but I managed to murmur that I saw no reason why not.

  “You caught your plane all right?”

  “Sorry?”

  “We haven’t heard from you since.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I did.”

  “Good, good. Right. Well, we mustn’t talk for too long—this fellow might be trying to call.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I only wanted to . . .”

  “This is just the beginning, Magnus. Just the beginning. We’re releasing two more CDs at the end of the month.”

  “Can you send them to me?” I blurted out.

  He called out to Margaret: “Magnus wants Schubert and Liszt!”

  “If it’s not too much trouble,” I added.

  “Perhaps this will enable you finally to start listening. We did our best at the time.”

  There was no trace of accusation in his voice; he spoke as if he were simply reiterating an established fact which we had often discussed. Even so, I was taken aback, lost for words until he brought up the journalist from the Guardian again. Then we said good-bye and I managed to tell him to send my regards to Margaret.

  “Yes, and send mine to your sweetheart. What’s her name again?”

  “Malena,” I said, in a voice so low as to be almost inaudible.

  “Give her my fond regards. And those of Margaret.”

  I had pushed my office door shut, and when I hung up I could feel the silence. I sat motionless at my desk, picked up a pencil and twirled it between my fingers. I felt uneasy, yet maintained my calm. Ought I perhaps to reconsider my attitude toward Vincent and Margaret? Was I the one who had been difficult, judged them too harshly all these years? I had certainly never believed that Margaret possessed the sort of talent which suddenly seemed so self-evident. Was it true that I had always dug my heels in, refused to take part in their lives, sulked whenever they tried to give me advice, and declared a silent war on them? I had never thought of it this way, but all at once I was beginning to question myself. Why hadn’t I the courage to tell them Malena was dead? Why hide it from them? Out of disrespect, or was I just no more capable of facing up to reality than before?

  So I sat for a while, dredging up events from the past, trying to see them differently. I was dazed, and, of course, failed to get to the bottom of anything, and yet the seeds of doubt were sown, and my pity—or was it contempt?—gave way to remorse.

  I should never have called them. For whatever reason, my conversations with Vincent invariably end in some kind of unpleasantness or upset. Perhaps I’m to blame, not he. Or maybe we both are. In any event, I always torment myself afterward, raking over what we said and interpreting his every word, possibly in the worst way.

  Was he belittling my work when he said I might learn something from scanning the brains of all those who mistreated Margaret? Was he implying that I was among them? That is what I was thinking when the image of Thomas Stainier and his motorcycle flashed into my mind. Why would he disappear like that when every door was open to him? What truth had he discovered that had prompted him to give up everything?

  I was about to google him when Anthony opened the door.

  “She’s here,” he said.

  Chapter 16

  She was lying where I had lain, in Mrs. Bentsen’s room. Two nurses were attending to her when Anthony and I entered, plumping up her pillows, tucking in her sheets, making sure the machines were functioning correctly. They looked up when they saw us but said nothing, and the silence was profound. The windows were open and the room felt cold, so I closed them before walking over to the bed.

  I sensed it the moment I saw her face. This wasn’t a suspicion or a hunch—it was an absolute certainty. The woman was conscious: she could hear me walking toward the bed, she could feel my presence. I was expecting her to open her eyes at any moment and speak to me. I imagined her voice echoing in my head, her accent when she asked where she was. I even saw her raise her hand and brush away the lock of hair that had fallen across her brow, before turning to me and smiling.

  Who knows how long I might have stood there, motionless, had Anthony not cleared his throat and handed me the patient’s notes.

  I looked at the most recent entry. No surprises: the journey from New Mexico had been without incident.

  As a rule, we speak to our patients as if they are fully conscious, and we keep doing so until we discover otherwise. And, of course, we are careful not to talk about them in their presence as if they can’t hear us. Before coming to fetch me, Anthony had explained to the woman where she was and what tests she would be undergoing. So far he hadn’t detected any sign of a response.

  Written in the margin of the lined yellow paper was the name Adela. Anthony had discovered that the young doctor had called her that when it became clear her identity remained unknown. When I asked him whether he knew why the doctor had chosen that name, he simply shrugged.

  “Possibly he just started with the letter A.”

  I didn’t think the name suited her, but I felt I had no choice but to carry on with it. Even so, I avoided using it when addressing her.

  “My name is Magnus Conyngham,” I said. “I’m one of the doctors who will be taking care of you here, and I’d like to welcome you.”

  I repeated some of what Anthony had already told her, then asked if she could open her eyes; I said we had seen in the report we had received from New Mexico that she was capable of that.


  “Only if you feel up to it,” I said. “There’s no pressure.”

  We drew closer to the bed, stood motionless, and scrutinized her eyelids. For a moment, I thought I saw a slight tremor in the upper part of her right eyelid, but I was probably imagining it, because neither the nurses nor Anthony noticed anything.

  After a while, we looked at one another and decided to call it a day.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We know you can hear us.”

  We always talk that way to our patients, yet perhaps there was something in my tone that made both Anthony and the two nurses pause. I only realized it myself when I saw their response, and even then it took me a moment to catch hold of myself. I thought I ought to say something, but waited until we were out in the corridor.

  “She’s conscious,” I said.

  I am cautious by nature and so they were all the more surprised at my announcement.

  “At least everything would seem to point in that direction,” I said, backpedaling a little. “She was able to blink relatively recently. And we know what that means.”

  “You don’t think that might just have been a nerve spasm?” asked Anthony.

  “No, not from the way it was described. I think the muscle in her upper eyelid is simply tired. The journey must have taken its toll on her.”

  After they left, I sat down at the computer. The page was still open to the forum Anthony had shown me, and I closed it and searched on Google for news about a car accident in New Mexico. I found two articles from Las Cruces Sun News, both brief. The first was purely factual, while the second speculated that the driver of the motorcycle had gotten in the car he had collided with and left his passenger behind, perhaps believing she was dead. Witnesses were asked to come forward, as well as anyone who might be able to identify the woman who was said to be in a coma. There was a photograph of her, taken at the hospital. It was grainy.

  I found a story in the Las Cruces Bulletin and on some websites, all short and showing certain apathy. The same photograph followed all the articles, and the more I saw it, the less I thought it resembled our patient.

  I kept thinking about her during the departmental meeting later that day, discreetly looking at her photograph on my phone. When I tried comparing it to the image in my memory, my mind played tricks on me, recalling Malena’s face instead. I felt uneasy, but I didn’t put the phone away.

  It was dark when the meeting ended. Most people had finished work for the day, and there was a line of cars from the hospital down to the main road. I dropped some papers off at my office before heading down the corridor to the west wing, toward Mrs. Bentsen’s room.

  There were three nurses on night duty, the others had gone home. I greeted them as they sat over their coffee cups at the nurses’ station in the center of the corridor. It was quiet on the ward at that time, only five patients, four of them in comas.

  “I looked in on her,” one of the female nurses said. “Nothing to report.”

  It was gloomy in the room; the overhead light was switched off, the only illumination coming from the equipment beside the bed. I stood still for a moment by the door before walking over to the bed and turning on the small table lamp. It cast a soft light on her face and neck, the cables attached to her, her dark hair.

  “It’s Dr. Conyngham,” I said at last. “It’s evening now, and dark outside. You are alone in the room, the windows face east, out to sea . . .”

  I described the room, spoke about the accident, told her that no one had been able to identify her. Whenever I paused I had the impression that she was waiting anxiously for me to carry on. And so I did: I told her what we had in mind with our research and warned her it would take time and that we all needed to be patient.

  I spoke to her no differently than I would to any other person in her situation, not on that first evening. Obviously, I spoke simply and honestly.

  When I was about to switch off the light on the bedside table and say good night, I thought I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I quickly turned around and asked her whether she had blinked. I tried to sound calm but my voice quavered.

  “Can you do that again?”

  That’s when I saw it. A slight movement in her upper right eyelid, a mere tremor that attested to an enormous effort.

  “I see it,” I said. “I see it. I know you are trying. I know you understand everything I say. We will make contact with you. We won’t give up until we have made contact with you.”

  I was too overcome to go on. I said good night a second time, fetched my jacket from my office, and hurried to the train station.

  I slept little that night and was up before dawn. I ground some coffee beans in the kitchen and tried to clear my mind. On the way up to Connecticut, I gazed out the train windows as the houses emerged one by one out of the early morning gloom.

  Chapter 17

  I dreamt about Malena last night. I dream about her often. Only this time it was different. Instead of seeing her from a distance as I usually do, we were together in Iceland. We were in a car, like the one we had rented when we went there, but bigger and a different color. I think this one was green. The one we had rented was red. I remember laughing at her when the man at the Hertz counter showed us what was available.

  “You decide,” she said. “I’d just like it to be red.”

  The car in my dream was green and we were driving in places I didn’t recognize. I have forgotten them now, apart from the fishing village where we had stopped when I woke up. There were boats moored in the harbor, an island out in the fjord, shaped like a snail or a cat curled up, and the sea was a mirror. We were standing beside a small house down by the harbor, and she said: “I want to live here.” She said words to that effect quite a few times when we were in Iceland, so it wasn’t strange that they should be repeated in my dream, and yet there was a gravity about them that surprised me.

  Malena’s interest in Iceland didn’t dwindle after Madame Roullard and Monsieur Chaumont returned from the poetry festival in Reykjavík. According to her husband, Madame had been appreciated and admired by the audience; the festival had been well attended and organized; the hotel room, clean if rather rudimentary. They spoke about the landscape, the immensity, and Madame said she had been so moved by it that while she was there she had composed three poems. Two short and one long. Malena told me this, because as before I had little to do with the couple myself. Their conversations took place mainly in the stairway or when Malena bumped into them in the neighborhood, and always in French.

  The trip came sooner than expected. After Florence we had intended to keep going south, perhaps to the Greek islands. Even so, we hadn’t booked a flight or a hotel, preferring to leave it to chance. I mentioned Crete or Corfu, and Malena said something about Icaria, which I had never heard of. It was only later that I understood what she was thinking.

  And so I was astonished when all of a sudden she changed her mind and proposed we go to Iceland. That was the morning after I woke up and saw her standing in the moonlight by the window overlooking the river. I was thinking about her movements, those slow, gentle dance steps during the night, her face when I walked over to her and put my arms around her. She had started weeping and I didn’t understand why. When she told me they were tears of joy, I wanted to believe her.

  Her suggestion came out of the blue. We had been discussing our plans for the day, a trip to Lucca or Pisa, dinner on the way home. I was still in bed and she had just climbed out of the shower.

  “Let’s go to Iceland,” she said, all of a sudden.

  I tried to talk her out of it. We can go next summer, I said, organize the trip in advance, we don’t even have the right clothes with us now.

  “And what about the itinerary, the flights, and the hotel?” I said.

  She shrugged and twisted her hair up in a towel—we could buy the clothes we needed in Iceland, and book everything online.

  Our round-trip tickets to Rome had been cheap, but we couldn’t change them. It
had taken me some time to find them and I was about to calculate how much we stood to lose, when I saw the expression on her face and paused. When we first met, I had described her to Simone as someone with a thirst for adventure, adding that this was just as well because I was probably too set in my ways. I don’t remember the context, nor does it matter. But as Malena and I stood there by the hotel room window, in almost exactly the same place as the night before when I had taken her in my arms in the moonlight, I glimpsed in her face not a thirst for adventure but rather a look of despair. It was there just for an instant before she caught hold of herself.

  “Forgive me,” she said. “I know I should have mentioned it before.”

  She said she wanted to see the soil I had grown from. She had said this before, and I had pointed out that my Icelandic roots didn’t go very deep, apart from those preserved in our genes, invisible to all, including me. But this time I didn’t speak along these lines, didn’t say a word about my roots or my genes. Instead, I got dressed and went down with her to the dining room. We sat at the computer by the window overlooking a tiny square where farmers were selling their produce, and the morning sun shone onto the table between us.

  She wasn’t herself for the first few minutes, silent and distant. I told her I had nothing against going to Iceland if she was so set on it, and tried to lighten up the conversation. But it was as if she knew she had let her mask slip and realized I had glimpsed the anguish on her face.

  She slowly collected herself, and the smile returned to her face. We switched on the computer, bought plane tickets to Iceland from Milan, rented a car at Keflavík Airport, and booked our first night at Hotel Borg. We had five days at our disposal. She said she wanted to see the countryside and already seemed to know exactly where we were going. I was amazed by how well-informed she was, and said so.