Cold Silence

by James Abel

  It was so quiet here that I heard my footsteps on snow, heard the distant organ start up in the cathedral, and the muffled swell of voices came through the revolving door as someone else went in or out. It was the daily 5:30 P.M. evensong. Men and women, books open, voices raised. A pair of headlights came on down the block.

  The choristers, singing.

  I thought, Two locations. Africa and Nevada. Two pairs of strangers. Two outbreaks. One song.

  As I left Woodley Road and walked onto the small side street where I’d parked the 4Runner, my phone rang. I saw it was the number I’d just telephoned. My spirits rose. I hoped it was Chris, calling back. I was wrong. It was Aya.

  “Joe, I heard what you asked. I want to help. Mom went out. I’m alone in our room now. They put us in a student dorm. I can keep a secret if you can.”

  Go for it, I thought.

  I asked her to get from Eddie the names of the two grad students in Somalia who had been singing about the Sixth Prophet. “Try to find background on those guys. They’re from the State University of New York at Albany, they said. Maybe you can access the school website. Try to find any phone numbers. Home addresses, family. Departments. Maybe we can call one of the faculty members at home.”

  “Duh! I know how to look up things. It’s not like I’m five years old, Joe.”

  “Don’t personally contact anyone. Stay on the computer. If nothing comes up, just stop. Move on to the next guy.”

  “Sure.”

  “This all stays between you and me.”

  “Of course. If I tell Mom, she’ll kill me.”

  “She’ll kill me more than you. Also, look up the Sixth Prophet. I don’t know who it is, or if it even means anything. The Sixth Prophet. Check links with disease. Or religions. Any references over the last five years at all. Song lyrics. Online sermons. Prophecies. Try Galilee. Cults. Collect it all.”

  “Thanks! I’m going crazy without something to do!”

  “And, Aya, don’t forget what I said about—”

  She cut me off, her disdain making her sound exactly like her mom. “You don’t have to tell me twice. Don’t tell anyone. You know what Mom said? She said if she was a man, a dad instead of a mom, you wouldn’t have gone against her wishes. Joe? Is that true? You don’t respect women as much?”

  “Maybe we should forget this,” I said, but I also wondered uncomfortably if Chris had had a point.

  “No!” Long pause. “Um, I, I better tell you that, uh . . .”

  “Tell me what?” I asked, a drumbeat of alarm beating in my head.

  She blurted out, “Burke knows you’re not here, at the hospital. He knows you left.”

  “How?”

  There was silence. Then, in a smaller voice, almost a child’s, she said miserably, “Someone told them.”

  I was vaguely aware of the kiss of snow on my face. I asked who told them and she didn’t answer. I heard jagged breathing. She was learning about choice. I think understanding the consequences of choice is what distinguishes childhood from adults. Suddenly I understood that her tortured breathing was her answer.

  “Your mom told them?” I whispered into the phone.

  Aya started babbling. “She was afraid for me! She got jailed last time you did something! She was scared we’d be separated, Joe, and she argued with Mr. Burke that you were right. She took your side! You should have heard her! Fighting for you, Joe!”

  “Fighting for me. I see that.”

  Christ, I thought. Burke knows I left. There might be soldiers on the way here right now. Judging from what happened in Nevada, I might never get to see Burke if they take me in. I might never get to tell anyone except a prison guard anything.

  “Joe, she was shouting and she never does that. Don’t be mad at her. I shouldn’t have told you. But I think they’re after you. I can’t believe I said it. I’m such an idiot. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “You did right,” I soothed. “I’m not mad at your mom, or you. Your mom was right. Absolutely right,” I said, thinking, Fucking asshole fucking you didn’t even tell me . . . I said, “I understand. Thanks for the heads-up. Aya, why don’t we just forget that you and I ever talked.”

  “No! I’m going to help you!” the poor girl said. She clicked off.

  A wave of futility hit me. I was dragging people I cared for into things again. Chris was right. What’s wrong with you, Joe! I called back but Aya didn’t answer. The truth was, Chris had done the sensible thing if she wanted to make sure she stayed with Aya. Burke might wait for me to return before lowering the boom. He wasn’t stupid. He just hated me. It would be stupid to waste manpower by sending troops after a doctor who’d temporarily absented himself from a hospital.

  What had I learned anyway?

  Nothing really.

  Go back and throw yourself on his mercy. Damnit, Chris. All you had to do was shut up and I would have come back.

  Either way, no good.

  I rounded the corner and turned onto the small side street where I’d left Galli’s 4Runner. It was darker here as a streetlight was out. Who was I kidding anyway? I’d gone from depending on trained researchers to begging a fifteen-year-old kid for help. And the fifteen-year-old, almost instantly, had started questioning everything I asked her. I could no longer see the cathedral. I was almost at the car.

  I saw, in my mind’s eye, exactly how far I’d sunk.

  I’d fallen victim to the delusion of feeling essential, Washington’s principal disease. I was tired. I needed to get to the hospital and ride out Burke’s anger and see patients, be useful, instead of imagining I had answers that everyone else had missed.

  Still, I thought, maybe I can convince them. Maybe when I tell them about the Sixth Prophet, they’ll at least check it out. But what will I say? I don’t even know whether it means anything, or if it is a dead end.

  Where the hell had I put the car keys?

  Then I saw the vandalism. Four cars in a row were tilted sideways, toward the middle of the street. Someone had gone down the line and punctured tires, two on each car. Two flat tires meant my spare would be of no use.

  Of all the times for this to happen, I thought.

  Then the stranger appeared up the block.

  —

  “Goddamn kids. They got you, too? I chased them away on Woodley Road. They were slashing tires there, too.”

  The man had walked up to me as I was trying to call the admiral’s road service 800 number. The admiral’s GEICO help sticker was on the window, but when I punched in the number, a recorded voice told me that service was “temporarily suspended” due to the national emergency.

  I clicked off. The man and I stood ten feet apart, slightly farther than the usual distance for polite conversation, but with sickness spreading in the city, that was, at best, the probable new norm.

  “Kids,” I said.

  “Yeah. Teens. Just going car to car, laughing. I hope they didn’t get my car, too. I’m at the end of the block. I’d offer to help you with the spare, but,” the guy said, as if embarrassed, “everyone’s nervous about infection.”

  “I understand. Anyway, I’ve got two flats. The spare won’t help.”

  “All the gas stations are closed.”

  “I know.”

  “You live near here?”

  “I was heading over to Georgetown Hospital.”

  “My father is there,” the man said, taking one step closer. “He got sick at the stadium. They won’t let me see him. They won’t tell me how he is. Are you sick, too?”

  “No, I’m a doctor. I work there. I’m sure the staff is doing their best for your dad,” I said.

  “Hey, I recognize you,” he said. “You were in the cathedral, praying.”

  I squinted in the dark and realized that the man might be the same guy who’d come in while I was talking to Nad
ine, and who had kneeled in the Miracle Chapel. I saw a bland face below a stocking cap. The snow-dusted jacket covered an average-sized man, maybe thirty years old. No accent to speak of, except helpfulness. A man who, like any normal stranger, showed a combination of courtesy and wariness that was understandable on this particular night.

  “My dad phoned me two nights ago and said his lips were tingling, then he said he had sores on his nose. He said he thought he had the Bible Virus. I told him to go to the hospital, like the TV says.”

  “That was the right thing to say.”

  The stranger started to walk away. Then he turned back.

  “Oh hell,” he said. “Nobody helps anyone out here. They’re all scared. I guess I could drive you to the hospital. It’s only a couple of miles. You’re not sick, are you? If you’re a doctor, they wouldn’t have let you out of the hospital if you had symptoms. Don’t lie to me. Are you sick?”

  “I’m not. I can walk it. Don’t worry.”

  The man continued to stand there awkwardly, torn between the Good Samaritan instinct and survival. He made up his mind. He even took a half step forward. His left hand stayed in his jacket pocket, rummaging for keys, I guessed.

  He said, “No! You’re risking yourself to help people like Dad, and I won’t just leave you here like a hypocrite who goes to church and then ignores the needy.” The man laughed wryly. “I’m Robert Morton. I was just asking God to help my father. I swore if he did that, I’d be a better person. Maybe you’re a test,” Morton said. “From God.”

  “I doubt it. But thanks for the ride.”

  “Well, only if my tires still work. Let’s check.”

  —

  “I thought you said your car was on this block.”

  “It’s just around the corner.”

  We walked in the opposite direction from the cathedral. We reached a section where three streetlights were out. We stayed six feet away from each other, proper plague distance, in the middle of the street. The wind seemed stronger on this block and piled snow in irregular mounds on front lawns.

  “Have you doctors figured out how to cure the Bible Virus?”

  “I wish.”

  “Still no idea where it came from? Fox News says terrorists spread it, but nobody knows if it came from a lab or not. Wikileaks says the White House blames Al Qaeda or ISIS.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” I said. “By the way, it’s not a virus. It’s a bacteria.”

  “There! My car! Hope my tires are okay. Ah! All good!”

  I wondered if I’d be arrested when I got back to the hospital. I considered not going back but then where would I go? I hoped that Secretary Burke would understand what I’d done, but I wasn’t particularly comfortable with throwing myself on his mercy. Maybe I should phone the admiral or Ray Havlicek, tell them what I was thinking, tell them about the singing and the Sixth Prophet and afterward try to approach Burke.

  “Why were you in the cathedral?” Robert Morton asked as he unlocked the passenger door on his car. “Is someone in your family sick, too?”

  “No. I was just . . . curious about something.”

  “You must be pretty religious,” said Robert Morton.

  “Not really.”

  “I’m going to put on a surgical mask while I drive. I don’t mean to be rude. I hope you don’t mind. I mean, we’ll be sitting close together. I don’t have an extra. Sorry.”

  “No problem. It’s smart for you to do that.”

  His Honda smelled of wet wool and air freshener, strong chocolate, and surprisingly and pungently, I detected the long-familiar mint/banana/gasoline tinge of Hoppe’s Number 9 gun bore cleaning solvent. Robert was probably a sports shooter. Or he kept a firearm for self-protection. Considering the emergency, it was probably a good idea. In fact, I wished Burke had not ordered my own sidearm taken. The Hoppe’s smell was strong, which told me that Morton had either spilled some recently, or that a freshly cleaned firearm was in the car right now.

  “You law enforcement or a sports shooter?” I said.

  His head swung toward me. His eyes, above the mask, looked surprised. I tapped my nose. “Hoppe’s.”

  He laughed, his eyes merry.

  “My wife says it’s her favorite cologne,” he said. “I’m a sports shooter.”

  “What model?”

  “Glock 9.”

  I waited for him to volunteer more. He glanced at the glove compartment and sighed.

  “It would be dumb to drive around without it, but I don’t have a concealed carry permit. I’m not supposed to have it outside the house. Hey, Doc, don’t turn me in when we get to the hospital, okay?”

  “No problem.” I relaxed a bit. Still, there was something about being in a car with an armed stranger. He turned the ignition key and we half jerked, half slid from the parking space, swerved on slush, and made the corner as the car slippery-climbed Woodley Road toward Wisconsin. I saw more people exiting the cathedral. The radio was on and played a show tune, from Annie, so softly that it was almost part of the engine hum. Annie sang, “Tomorrow!”

  The dashboard was dirty and the heater threw more dust into my face. The right-hand windshield wiper moved faster than the left, scratching against the glass. Robert Morton drove with his gloved right hand—closest to me—cupping the wheel. The left hand lay on his lap, by his door. The ride should take seven to ten minutes, even going slowly due to storm and road conditions. There were no plows or salters out. Other than an occasional police car or Humvee, we were it.

  “My neighbor says this disease is the apocalypse,” said Robert Morton. “Punishment from God.”

  I snorted.

  “He says it’s like the ten plagues of Egypt. He says we’ve lost sight of who we are,” Morton said.

  “Everyone’s got a theory.”

  Morton nodded. “Me, I agree with Fox News. This is an attack by ISIS or Al Qaeda. Fox says the President may order air strikes. Do it. Go get ’em, I say.”

  “That’s a little premature.”

  “How can you say that?” He seemed agitated. “The President knows the whole picture, knows the things we don’t. Shit, if Franklin Roosevelt would have attacked Tokyo before Pearl Harbor, we never would have had World War Two, that’s what I say. But Roosevelt did nothing. Ever think of that?”

  “I hadn’t,” I said.

  “I’m serious,” Morton said, nodding. “First the Bible Virus hits us in Africa. Then the air base. Then, suddenly, it’s in all these cities. No-brainer. Attack the fuckers.”

  “It’s not a virus,” I repeated.

  “Whatever. They hate America. They want to destroy our way of life. What are we supposed to do while they slaughter our wives and kids? Nothing?”

  “Trying to figure out what’s happened isn’t nothing.”

  He looked offended. Our argument, I thought, was probably going on all over America at this very moment—in homes, on street corners, even deep beneath the earth at the continuation of government campus in Virginia. Robert Morton snapped, “Well, who the hell else attacked us if not them?”

  “I’m just saying, if you hit the wrong people, you can cause your apocalypse, start a whole religious war. Drive a few more thousand people to jihad.”

  I looked down at the seat divider and saw a couple of plastic cassette holders lying with some change. The tapes were labeled. HARLAN AT CHRISTMAS. HARLAN, SUMMER SOLSTICE. Robert Morton pumped down on the accelerator in agitation and the car lurched and settled down. His eyes in the mirror were hard. “What are we supposed to do then? Stand around and watch our families die? I’d think that a doctor who sees such suffering wouldn’t be so liberal. Liberals! Always a reason to do nothing! They make me sick.”

  “I’m not saying do nothing. Just get proof first.”

  “What were you talking to Dean Huxley about?”

 
We were in Glover Park, the high ground abutting Georgetown, a historic neighborhood where the Army Signal Corps was founded during the Civil War. He made a right turn off Wisconsin onto 39th and a quick left onto Tunlaw, a narrow graded street that seemed more suburban than urban. We passed a row of stores, the back side, that is; rear of a liquor store, barbecue joint, sushi place. We skidded in silence down an incline and into a residential area of small homes and townhouses, and descended toward flatter, row-house-lined 37th Street.

  A Humvee filled with Marines passed, the helmeted faces gazing out at us sternly. Extra patrols had been instituted around the hospital complex. Lights in most homes were on. I glanced at Morton and for an instant our eyes met. There was something off in the car. His friendliness on the street had become something harder.

  “The dean and I were discussing leprosy,” I said, answering his question in a mild tone.

  “You mean, like, where it comes from?”

  “Leprosy. The Bible. Religion and the disease.”

  “Is she an expert on that?”

  I saw a third plastic cassette sticking out from under the two others. I picked it up. It had a label scrawled on white tape on the side. The label said, HARLAN, EASTER.

  “Yes. Who’s Harlan?” I picked up the tape.

  “A really great singer.”

  His eyes flickered and watched me put the cassette down. We came up on a two-car accident that must have happened since I’d passed here before. The wreckage normally would have been cleared away, except with city services interrupted, the smashed-in van and pickup remained where they’d collided, half up on the curb, jutting into the road. No people around. Falling snow coated the cold hoods. We veered around wreckage. It reminded me of Baghdad again. Baghdad in D.C.

  Robert Morton doesn’t seem too concerned about catching the disease from me.

  “Did you know that in the Old Testament, leprosy was a punishment?” I asked, pushing.

  “The Old Testament? Punishment? Really?” Morton said.

  Once the first thought in a chain appears, the next one rolls out. A row of tires gets punctured. A Good Samaritan appears out of the blue and asks questions. But how would he have known I was at the cathedral to start with? He wouldn’t. I’m being paranoid.