When we met in the lobby, Doug was in a suit and tie and freshly shaven. I had on the pants I’d worn for four days. He squeezed my shoulders, but I backed away; I didn’t want to start crying again. As we walked through the gate, followed by guards, we filled the air with just the streams of our breathing, no words.
In the train Doug gave me the window seat. I rested my head on the juddering glass. Watched all the vistas blur by, one into the next. A small cemetery where we crossed the Thames. Cows grazing in the shadow of a grocery chain. Lots of what I thought of as heather, some gray, some the russet color of ancient tractors left out in the rain. Trees. Horses. Brave souls practicing on a cold soccer pitch, white versus red.
I thought, You are not dead yet.
The press conference was being held at a former residence of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s, the building where he’d written most of his dictionary. We took a cab from Paddington to Fleet Street, then walked from Red Lion Court to Pemberton. Turned under an arch marked GOUGH SQUARE, and there was number 17. It was a beautiful brick building. A cream-and-wine-colored sign affixed to its side said, “Dr. Samuel Johnson / Author. / Lived Here.” On the cobbles by the side entrance was a large chalk X marked “Press.”
Doug had to prepare, but he told me to go inside and give myself a tour. The place was laced with history, from the worn brass on the curved casement latches to the steep slant of the stairs. The third floor felt haunted, thanks to a glyph.3 But I liked the top floor best. It was a low-ceilinged attic with small windows and objects under glass: Johnson’s gold-tipped cane; a porcelain mug that had once graced the lips of his famous biographer, Boswell; a white plate painted with blue lovebirds, facing off. There was also an electronic display of Dr. Johnson’s manuscript, illuminated not with gold leaf but an LED.
I spent a long time up there, watching the crowd form in the square below. There weren’t enough folding chairs, so a few people stood back by the cameras, their badges and coats flapping in the wind. As it got closer to the moment for Doug to speak, I started down the stairs again.
But I stopped on the second floor, arrested by a view not of space but of time. On shelves behind glass panes matching those that looked outside were Dr. Johnson’s books: portals to the past. A copy of his dictionary was also out on display, the two volumes open on a table glossy as a dark, fogged mirror. The book was enormous, paper thick as wedding stock. I turned to the L’s, for “lexicographer,” to see “harmless drudge” in tiny pica type. And I smiled, thinking how Bart would like that. I’d show him if he got out of quarantine. (When, I told myself.) Then I flipped more absently and landed in the G’s. Saw “gamecock” and “gamut” and “gargarism.” “Gasconade,” “gastriloquist.” Then, as I heard Doug’s tread squeak the stairs, my eye lingered on the word “gather,” and I read: “To collect; to bring into one place.” And I took that as a sign: that I should round up Doug’s notes and my own memories and thoughts since the start of the virus. That I should tell this story, which might otherwise be lost.
I met Doug’s eye, and we walked down to where everyone was waiting outside.
Standing behind the thick of the crowd, roughed by a biting wind, I looked around the square at all the green beribboned wreaths. A red scarf tied to the neck of a bronze sculpture of a cat. White strings of lights. Christmas had already slipped past. I glanced back to the tense faces watching Doug. He adjusted his tie. From that distance, only I knew the tiny yellow dots on navy silk were pineapples.
Or so I thought. Only later did I notice a few people I recognized: Susan, in her red glasses; Franz; Clara Strange; Tommy Keach, with his pale hair pulled away from his face. I looked around for Phineas and didn’t see him, which made the pleasure of seeing the others less complete. But being there with them still gave me the sense of being part of a long, bending, unbreakable chain.
Doug’s voice began to sound through the square. And soon he was explaining that while the numbers were impossible to verify, it was now believed that more than nineteen thousand deaths had been attributed directly or indirectly to the viruses. And the viruses were still spreading: so far they’d done relatively little damage in the U.K., but they’d made inroads in other Commonwealth countries, on U.S. military bases, and in territories from Guam to Puerto Rico.
“Elsewhere now, too,” said Doug. And he delivered the bad news that aphasia had leapt from English to at least twelve other languages. I heard quickly stifled murmuring. Saw hands flutter in the crowd. On the faces of those nearby, I noticed lines flower on foreheads. Someone shouted out a question about the best precautionary measures, and I saw the muscles in Doug’s jaw jump.
“Please hold your questions to the end,” called a small blond woman to Doug’s left.
“The best measure is not to be exposed,” Doug said grimly. But he did then list several techniques that had proven useful for reversing damage in controlled environments. The list was later passed to the crowd. I have it here:
1. Quarantine of contaminated individuals.
2. Mandated language fasts. We recommend between two and three days for less severe cases, up to a week for serious infections. We’re looking into the viability of longer courses of treatment—several weeks or more. But it should be noted that we haven’t yet tested the safety or efficacy of extended silence therapy. It may be quite dangerous, resulting in permanently silenced patients or possible death.
3. Cessation of contact with meaningless data. I.e., “content” that’s actually devoid of content.
4. Reading. Books are especially effective, but magazines have shown some promising results. Even limns, on approved devices, have been useful in some emergencies.
5. Conversation with uninfected people, informally or in language labs. Preferably in multiple languages. This recommendation also applies to both reading and comp. treatments (see below).
6. Composition therapy. Some studies suggest that more discursive writing styles, e.g., heavily annotated documents, may offer marginally statistically significant benefits.
On the train ride back, Doug and I didn’t talk until after Slough, when I finally asked about Franz and the other Society members I’d seen.
Doug nodded, looking tired. He explained that they’d come to help set up an archival center at the Glass that would probably serve as a model for other institutions, and to lend a hand with final edits on the NADEL’s recovered files before the third edition went to print. He was hoping more Society members would arrive as they could.
Looking past me out the window, he said softly, “Have you given my request from last night any more thought?”
I didn’t answer right away. I pressed my hand to the window, then put it back in my lap. Watched its white ghost quickly fade from the glass.
Mistaking my silence for diffidence, Doug said, “You know, you’re capable of far more than you give yourself credit for. It’s very frustrating.” When I still didn’t speak, he chewed his lips in remorse. “Sorry,” he murmured. “But you know it’s true.”
I shrugged. But it wasn’t really true anymore. I was starting to believe I could do it. “Wood and glue?” I said.
Doug’s eyes brightened. “If you decide to go ahead,” he said, smiling, “you’ll also have help from Bart.”
I sat up. “What do you mean? Does that … Alistair said Bart won’t be out for at least a week.”
Doug cleared his throat. Loosened the noose of his tie. “He might be in for closer to a month, Anana. He’s in an experimental treatment.”
“A month?” I tried to say. But I had barely any air. “I thought—no one’s been in longer than seven days. I thought you said that was the limit of what’s safe.”
Doug’s face put on its mask of tragedy. He only took it from its hook when someone died. But it was fresh in my mind: he’d used it just the day before. “Anana,” he said, his mouth a sad, soft crescent, “I want you to know we’re working with an excellent team of doctors.” He took my hand. “And Bart has a very good chance�
�”
“He has a good chance?” I said, feeling sick, gently taking back my hand.
Doug let out a sigh. Rubbed his forehead. “We don’t really have another choice,” he said, helpless. Then, more quietly, “You know, he’s one of my closest friends, too.”
And I looked away, back out the window. Blinking quickly.
“How could he even help me, then?” I said softly to the hills and fields. “Should I wait until he’s out of quarantine?”
“No, you shouldn’t wait,” Doug said, too quickly. And the awful, silent sentence I heard hiding beneath it was, Bart may never speak again. “You’d use his journals,” Doug explained. “And if you start soon,” he went on, trying to sound encouraging, “then when he’s out, you’ll be done, and you can share it with him.” He pressed my knee.
But by then I was only half listening. Doug had used a word that derailed me. A word almost as old as typewriter, or gramophone. “Journals?” I said, amazed and vaguely disturbed. Keeping a journal seemed like such a waste. Why write something only you would ever see? It bordered on conceit, which wasn’t Bart to me. But at the same time I was a little sad that he’d never told me. “Why?” I asked, trying to imagine what dark secrets Bart was keeping. Why else write in private?
Doug was studying me quizzically. “Reflection can be its own reward,” he said. I thought about that. Later I thought of it a lot. But Doug had more to say. “The truth is,” he admitted, “Bart’s always wanted to be a writer. Or at least he did.”
We both fell silent. I saw Bart curled on his cot in the room next to mine. Forehead dewed with sweat, like a glass of water. I tried not to picture him sick like that. But I couldn’t help it.
Soon, though, Doug started speaking again. “Bart wanted you to have them,” he said. “His journals. That was his last request.”
“He did?” I said, flushing a little, not looking at Doug. Not thinking of that phrase, “last request.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Doug nod. “He wrote me a note when he was still relatively lucid. And if I’m not mistaken, he left you a letter, too. My hypothesis is that he held out so well for so long, even given what seems to be a very serious case of word flu, because he was writing—and it wasn’t just a solipsistic exercise. It was meant to be a dialogue. With you,” he said gently. “You were helping him without even knowing it.”
Sometimes talking is an act of kindness. Sometimes silence is. Doug patted his shoulder, and I laid my heavy head on it. We were quiet for as long as it took to pass fields, more auburn heather, the soccer pitch, now empty.
In Doug’s office he handed me a pair of speckled black-and-white notebooks. Tapped the cover of the one on top. “You’ll find the letter in there, at the back,” he said, and I riffled to the end. There was no mistaking Bart’s scrabbled hand: letters like dead mosquitoes, the words smoky where things had been erased and rewritten.
I took the notebooks to my room, where I meant to leave them before going up to dinner. But a bouquet of roses rested on my bed, its damp stems staining the pillowcase. There was no note. But the roses were purple. And in my coat pocket I found the crumbled rosebud Bart had left for me the morning after Doug disappeared. Squeezed it in my hand.
Then, no longer hungry, I lay down on my bed to read Bart’s letter. The pillowcase was still wet and cool on my cheek, which made it easy to weep, like the false tears from an onion stirring real feeling.
When I finished reading, something leapt in me, like a tiger at its cage. Those three words I’d knocked out on Bart’s wall.
* * *
1. Doug claims that Koenig was sent to intercept Max; I was just collateral.
2. Something like I hear you, or I miss you, or I am here. A conflation that was just as clear to me then as the way the heads I watched roll from necks would turn to flowers, then flames, then rain.
3. It was a blue man in a flowing blouse. He flickered over the fireplace and northwest corner of a room larded with props. It wasn’t clear who he was. He was much too thin to be Johnson.
Y
you ′yü, yƏ n 1 : another subjectivity 2 : my reason for writing 3 : synthesis; my other half < ~ complete me>
December 26 (evening)
Dear A,
I’m sorry this is so short. It’s not because I have nothing to say. If I could, I’d never stop writing this letter to you. But they tell me I’m very sick. Bookhot I need to go in the hole. (They gow there’s a chance I may never write, or talk, again. Actually, what they jenz was, “There’s a strong possibility.”)
But there’s not much I need to say. Just that I’m very glad I found you. I really can’t believe you’re jase, right in the next room. I thought of tapping on the wall, but didn’t want to disturb you. (Also, they kazh not to. They’ve asht a lot of things. Like that you saved my life, shongot me those pills. And that it’s the last night of your quarantine. That makes me very, vesmen happy. And chay their information-sharing goes both ways (i.e., that they talk to you about me): please don’t worry. I mean, not that you would. But stas in case.)
There’s only one other thing I want to do. I can’t help but think you’re holding my notebook right now. At this moment. They loker, unbelievably, that it might help you in some way. So I need to offer an exegesis, in the form of an apology. There are a few things you’ll see if you salto through the pages that I wish I had time to erase. But I don’t. I barely have time to skim some of the skole from this letter before they come back to lock me down for God knows how long. So here goes:
I’m sorry for all the boring stuff about Hegel. You can skip it mingchev, along with any discursions on language. I want to apologize, too, for blavvo dox about Max. And I’m so, hobe sorry for vesyeda things I should’ve told you through the years and didn’t. I’m sorry for yoll getting mixed up for a while with Hermes and Synchronic. Kyfen not doing more (i.e., neeben) to help you find Doug. And veetch for going to your apartment when you vanished and triffit through your things. I’m sorry for not denying it when that cabbie ven if I was your boyfriend. And that you appear in my dreams. Sorry for so often shung a man more of words than of actions—and for not always being great at words. Anyway, flane. I’m sorry for lots of things.
And I have just one zway, embarrassing apology. I guess it may be clear by now that I anzee hoped to “write” someday. (I wish it had been clearer to me; if I’d censored myself more, I’d have less to lodelensen.) Of course now it looks like there’s a good chance—a strong possibility—that I may never write again. But you still can. And I hope you will. You could be the voice for both of us. (Is that ridiculous?)
Your friend, & faithful servant,
Bart/Horace Tate
P.S. Did Alistair give you the flowers? Nwabets he would.
P.P.S. Just one last thing. Max is a good guy. Or—well, he tries. And he versen loves you. (I haven’t seen him yet. They said he went somewhere, but they wouldn’t beed. Maybe you know. I hope you got to see him before he disappeared.) But also (and I think it’s safe to veets you know what I’m going to write next; I’m going to write it anyway, though) because I love you, too. And I wanted that to be the last thing.
Z
0 ′zē(,)-rō, ′zir-(,)ō,′xed n 1 : something shaped like a seed 2 : the aleph from which everything springs : AUFHEBUNG 3 : the end 4 : the beginning
The morning after I read Bart’s letter, I sat down to write this. That was five weeks ago.
On our daily walks Doug and I cross back and forth over the Isis, sipping hot coffee from paper cups. Sometimes Vernon comes along. Sometimes Alistair and Chris—but they usually linger behind us, letting us talk. Keeping watch. Doug remains more worried about the damage being done by the viruses, though, than any other threat. There were a series of special-forces raids in the days after New Year’s, and several suspects have been apprehended, including Rhys Koenig, the man sent here to find Max.
The virus has continued moving through cyberspace, infecting more than thirt
y languages; there have been human victims in nearly every country. Most nations that initially accepted so-called endangered language refugees—Germany, England, Canada, Japan, Italy, Venezuela, South Africa, Switzerland, Sweden, Brazil—have stopped letting them in. Sick bays and quarantines have continued filling. Per the guidelines delineated by the Society’s commission, they’ve set up language labs, reading rooms, evening debate sessions.
But the virus still seems to be spreading, which no one expected. After every model of Meme was recalled, we all thought infections would stop. Thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands—of microchips have been removed. Millions of antivirals prescribed. And fatalities seem to be slowing. People are still dying, though, and we don’t yet know why. But we’re trying to stay optimistic about new experimental recovery treatments.
Among these are extended language fasts of up to forty days. Doug is hoping that they’ll be more effective than shorter quarantines have been. Bart, of course, was among the first test cases, and we’ve been monitoring him closely. He was released three days ago. But so far he hasn’t been able to write or speak.
U.N. peacekeepers were deployed several weeks ago to the U.S., and the situation appears to have stabilized. NGOs and international aid workers have stepped in to help with rationing and quarantines. U.S. reporting is now more or less restored. But for a while Americans got accounts from outside, a weird new news-world of global perspective. And when domestic coverage resumed, it seemed infused with a new germ of truth-telling. Of course it didn’t last. But the secretary of education recently unveiled an initiative for curriculums to place more emphasis on history and language. Within the decade, proficiency in at least three languages will be required of all American schoolchildren by graduation. And along with its other recommendations, the CDC has issued a promulgation that every U.S. citizen “unplug” for at least two hours each day.
The Word Exchange Page 43
