Passage

by Connie Willis

  And he, Richard, couldn’t figure it out. It was time to admit that. Time to face facts, pack it in, put on evening clothes and admit defeat.

  Joanna would surely understand. She had watched the crash team trying CPR, norepinephrine, saline, paddles, one after the other. And she had been on the Titanic, which was all about trying and failing. The lookout hadn’t seen the iceberg in time, the Californian hadn’t heard the SOSs, hadn’t seen the Morse lamp’s signal, hadn’t understood the rockets. Assistant Engineer Harvey and the man he’d gone back to save had both drowned.

  If there was any lesson to be learned from the Titanic, it was that attempts failed, rescue arrived too late, messages didn’t get through, and he knew, even as he thought it, that it wasn’t true.

  The lesson of the Titanic was that people kept on trying even when they knew it was hopeless—tapping out SOSs, cutting the collapsibles free, going belowdecks and bringing the mail up, letting the dogs loose—all of them determined to save something, someone, even though they knew they couldn’t save themselves.

  You can’t give up, Richard thought. Jack Phillips didn’t. Joanna didn’t.

  “All right,” he said, and though he didn’t know it, his voice sounded just like Joanna’s on the answering machine.

  He stood up. All right. Get Mrs. Hobbs’s number from Personnel. Find out who else was a patient on five-east that day. Find out who visited them. Go over the scans again, and the transcripts. Talk to Vielle. Talk to Bob Yancey. Go down trying.

  He switched his pager back on and walked up the stairs, put out his hand to push the door open, and then ran back down to the landing. He tore the yellow tape free, ripping the trailing ends off the railing.

  He carried the tangle of tape upstairs and out to the nurses’ station. A nurse was on the phone, her back to him. “The stairway down to second’s open. The paint’s dry,” he said, dumping the mass of tape on the counter. “Is Maurice Mandrake still in with Mrs. Davenport?”

  “Hang on,” the nurse said into the phone. She half-turned and nodded at Richard.

  “Thanks,” he said, and started down the hall toward the elevator.

  “No, wait, Dr. Wright—” the nurse called, her hand over the mouthpiece, “—I didn’t realize it was you—” He came back to the nurses’ station. “Someone from the ER called looking for you. I didn’t realize you were on the floor or I would have come looking for you. It was just a few minutes ago—”

  “Was it Vielle Howard?” he cut in.

  “Yes, I think so. I asked the other nurses, but they didn’t think you’d been—”

  “Did she say she wanted me to call her or come down to the ER?”

  “She said there was someone waiting for you in your lab.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Man,” the nurse said.

  Carl Aspinall, he thought, and sprinted for the elevator. He changed his mind. He must have thought about what Kit said.

  But when he got up to sixth, it wasn’t Carl standing outside the lab door.

  It was Mr. Pearsall.

  “A little while and I will be gone from among

  you, whither I cannot tell. From nowhere we came, into nowhere we go. What is life? It is a flash of a firefly in the night.”

  —LAST WORDS OF CROWFOOT, A BLACKFOOT INDIAN CHIEF

  THERE WERE FIREFLIES. They winked on and off in the darkness around her. I’m in Kansas, Joanna thought. This must be part of the Life Review. And she must be getting near the end of it if she was remembering her childhood, visiting her relatives in Kansas, running around in the dark with her cousins, a Mason jar in one hand to catch the fireflies in, and the brass lid in the other, ready to clap it on when you’d caught one, the grass wet against her ankles, the rich, sweet scent of peonies filling the evening air.

  But it wasn’t evening-it was night. And no matter how late they had been allowed to stay up, it had never gotten completely dark like this. There had always been a bluish-purple cast to the sky, and even after the stars came out, you could still see the outlines of the houses, of the arching cotton-woods, against it. You could still see the grownups on the dark porch, and each other.

  She could not see the grass that she was sitting on, or the house, or her own hand, which she held up in front of her face. It was utterly black, in spite of the fireflies. “The moon did not shine,” she said out loud, “and the stars gave no light.”

  The stars. They were stars, shining clearly, steadily, in the black sky, and why had she thought they were fireflies? They were obviously stars, and they came down all the way, sharp and sparkling, to the horizon. The survivors of the Titanic had all remarked on that, how the stars hadn’t dimmed near the horizon, but had shone all the way down to the water.

  The water. I have survived the sinking, she thought. I am floating on something from the Titanic, a deck chair. But deck chairs were slatted. The surface below her was wide and smooth. A piano. The grand piano in the A La Carte Restaurant.

  But pianos didn’t float. In the movie The Piano, it had sunk like a stone, dragging her down with it into the cold, disintegrating water. Maybe it’s the aluminum piano on the Hindenburg, she thought. That only weighed 397 pounds.

  It would still sink, she thought. And maybe it was sinking. “All ships sink sooner or later,” Mr. Wojakowski had said, and maybe this was sinking very slowly, because the ocean was so still. The survivors had all said the water was as smooth as glass that night, so still the stars’ reflections had been scarcely distorted at all.

  Joanna reached her hand down over the edge of the piano, feeling for the keyboard and then for the water below it, and as she did, she realized she was holding onto something with her other hand, holding it tight against her in the crook of her arm.

  The little French bulldog, she thought, I must have held onto it when I fell, though she remembered letting go of everything, everything in the water, though she remembered her open hands drifting emptily in the darkness.

  The lifejacket, she thought, and felt for its dangling ties but could not find them. She bent over the little dog, trying to see it. It was too dark, but she could feel its silky head, feel its small body against her side. It did not move. “Are you all right, little dog?” she asked, bending closer to hear the sound of its panting, the beating of its little heart, but she could not hear anything.

  Maybe it drowned, she thought anxiously, but as she thought that, it pressed itself closer against her side. “You’re all right,” she said. “Maisie will be so glad.”

  Maisie, she thought, and remembered struggling up through the obliterating darkness, struggling to keep from forgetting until the message was sent. “As soon as we’re rescued,” she said to the little bulldog, “I have to send Richard a message.”

  She looked out at the darkness. The Carpathia would be here in two hours. She scanned the horizon, looking for its lights, but there were only stars. She looked up at them, trying to find the Big Dipper. The Carpathia had come up from the southwest. If she could find the Big Dipper, she could follow the handle to the North Star and tell which direction it would come from.

  They had looked for the Big Dipper, those summer nights in Kansas. They had run around in the cool grass, trying to catch fireflies in their cupped hands, and when a car turned down the street, they had called out, “Automobile!” and flopped down flat on their backs in the grass, motionless in the sweep of its headlights. Playing dead. And even after the car had passed, they had lain there, looking up at the stars, pointing out the constellations. “There’s the Big Dipper,” they had said, pointing. “There’s the Milky Way. There’s the Dog Star.”

  There were no constellations. Joanna craned her neck, trying to find the pattern of the Archer, the long spilled splash of the Milky Way down the center of the sky. But there were only stars. And they sparkled brightly, clearly, all the way down to the water, which was so still she couldn’t hear it lapping against the sides of the piano, so still the stars’ reflections were not distorted
at all. They sparkled steadily, clearly, as if they were not reflections at all, as if there were sky below her instead of water.

  She hugged the dog to her. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto,” she said, and pulled her feet up under her, away from the edge.

  They were not in the Atlantic, and the thing they huddled on was not a piano. It was something else, an examining table, or a drawer in the morgue. Or a metaphor for the shipwrecked survivors of her consciousness, floating on the wreckage of her body, for her final synapses flickering out like stars, like fireflies.

  And the Atlantic was a metaphor for someplace else. The River Styx or the River Jordan or Mr. Mandrake’s Other Side. No, not an Other Side, Joanna thought. It’s someplace else altogether, with no connection to the world.

  “The far country,” she thought, but that was not right either. It was not a country. It was a place so far away it was not even a place. A place so far away the Carpathia could not ever come, so far away there was no possibility of being rescued, of getting back. And from which nothing was ever heard, in spite of what Maurice Mandrake said, in spite of the messages he claimed he had had from the dead.

  And even the last words of the dying were not messages at all, but only useless echoes of the living. Useless lies. “I will never leave you,” they said, and left forever. “I won’t forget you,” they said, and then forgot everything in the dark, disintegrating water. “We will be together again,” and that was the biggest lie of all. There were no fathers waiting on the shining shore. No prophets, no elders, no Angels of Light. No light at all. And they would never be together. She would never see them again, or be able to tell them where she had gone.

  I left without saying good-bye, she thought, and felt a stab of pain, like a knife in the ribs. “Good-bye!” she shouted, but her voice didn’t carry across the water. “Good-bye, Vielle!” she shouted, “Good-bye, Kit! Good-bye, Richard!” trying to make them out, but they were too far away. Too far even for her to remember Richard’s face, or Maisie’s—

  Maisie, she thought, and knew why she had thought the stars were fireflies. Morse-code bugs, they had called them back in Kansas. Winking on, winking off, sending coded messages in the dark. “I have to get the message to Richard,” she said, and stood up on the piano, setting it rocking wildly. “Richard!” she called, cupping her hands to her mouth like a megaphone, “the NDE’s the brain’s way of signaling for help!”

  It was too far. It would never reach him. Houdini, calling out, “Rosabelle, answer, tell, pray!” to his wife across the void, could not make himself heard. And neither could she. “It’s an SOS!” Joanna called, but softly. “An SOS.”

  The little French bulldog was whimpering at her feet, frightened at being left alone. Joanna sat back down and reached for it, unable to find it at first in the dark, putting both arms around it, pulling it close. “It’s no use,” she said, stroking the silky head she could not see. “It will never reach them.”

  The little dog whimpered, heartbroken, a sound like a child’s crying. “It’s all right,” Joanna said, even though it wasn’t. “Don’t cry, I’m here. I’m here.”

  I am here. Where are you? The fireflies, trapped in a Mason jar, caught in cupped hands from which no light could escape, went on sending messages, on and off, on and off, even though it was no use. And Jack Phillips, even though the Carpathia was too far away, even though there were no other ships to hear, had kept on sending, tapping out SOS, SOS, till the very end.

  “SOS,” she called, willing her thoughts to Richard and Kit and Vielle like wireless messages, through the nothingness, through the vast, dark distances of death. “Good-bye. It’s all right. Don’t grieve.” The little bulldog quieted and slept, curled against her, but she continued to stroke its soft head. “Don’t cry,” she said, willing Maisie to hear, willing Richard to listen. “It’s an SOS.”

  It will never reach them, she thought, but she sat on in the dark, holding tight to the little dog, surrounded by stars, sending out signals of love and pity and hope. The messages of the dead.

  “Coming hard.”

  —WIRELESS MESSAGE FROM THE CARPATHIA TO THE TITANIC

  MR. PEARSALL,” Richard said, unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wondered if you still needed me for your project,” he said. “I just got back from Ohio. I had to stay a lot longer than I thought I was going to. My father died,” he had to clear his throat before he went on, “and I had to settle his estate. I just got back yesterday.” He cleared his throat again. “I heard about Dr. Lander. I’m really sorry.”

  That’s what Carl Aspinall said, Richard thought bitterly.

  “It’s hard to believe,” Mr Pearsall said, clutching his hat in both hands. “One minute they’re there, and the next . . . I always thought near-death experiences were some kind of hallucination, but now I don’t know. Right before my dad went, he said-he’d had a stroke and had trouble talking, he just sort of mumbled, but he said this as plain as day—‘Well, what do you know!’ ”

  Richard straightened alertly. “Did he say anything else?”

  Mr. Pearsall shook his head. Of course, Richard thought.

  “He said it like he’d just figured something important out,” Mr. Pearsall said, shaking his head again. “I’d like to know what it was.”

  So would I, Richard thought.

  “That’s why I thought if you still needed volunteers, I could—”

  “The project’s been suspended.”

  Mr. Pearsall nodded as if that was the answer he’d expected. “If you start it up again, I’d be glad to—”

  “I’ll give you a call,” Richard said, showing him out. He shut the door and went over to his desk and the tapes, but he’d scarcely gotten started when someone knocked. And this won’t be Carl Aspinall either, he thought.

  It was Amelia Tanaka. “Amelia,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  She stopped just inside the door and stood there, her coat and backpack on. Like the day she’d come to tell them she was quitting. “I came . . . ” Amelia said, and took a deep breath. “Dr. Lander came to see me at the university.”

  That’s where she went in the taxi, Richard thought, and wanted to ask her what day that was, but Amelia was having enough difficulty. He didn’t want to throw her off.

  “I didn’t tell the truth about why I quit,” Amelia said. “Dr. Lander asked me if it was because I experienced something upsetting, and I told her no, but that wasn’t true. I did, and I was so scared I couldn’t face going under again, but then I heard she died, and I got to thinking about it happening to her, only she didn’t have a choice, she couldn’t back out.”

  The words tumbled helplessly out of her, like tears. “I got to thinking about what a coward I’d been. She was always so nice to me. Once, when I asked her to do something for me, she did, and I—” She broke off, blushing. “She said it was important, my telling her what I saw. I shouldn’t have lied. I should have told her. How can I be a doctor, if I let my fear—?” She looked up at Richard. “It’s too late to tell her, but she said it was important, and you’re her partner—”

  “It is important,” Richard said. “Here, take your coat off and sit down.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t stay. I’ve got an anatomy makeup lab.” She laughed shakily. “I shouldn’t even have taken the time to come over here, but I had to tell you—”

  “Okay,” Richard said, “you don’t have to take your coat off, but at least sit down,” but she shook her head.

  And she’ll bolt if you push her, Richard thought. “What did you see that frightened you, Amelia?”

  “The . . . ” She bit her lip. “Have you ever had a scary dream that, when you tried to explain it, there wasn’t anything scary in it, like a slasher or—” She stopped, looking appalled. “I didn’t mean to say that. Honest, I—”

  “You didn’t see any murderers or monsters,” Richard prompted, “but yo
u were frightened anyway—”

  “Yes,” Amelia said. “I was in the tunnel, like I had been the times before, only this time I realized it wasn’t a tunnel, it was . . . ” She glanced longingly at the door.

  Richard stepped sideways, easing himself between her and the door. “What was it?” he asked, even though he already knew what it was. And she was right, there was nothing inherently frightening in the sight of people in old-fashioned clothes standing outside a door, in the sound of engines shutting down. “What’s happened?” Lawrence Beesley had asked his steward, and the steward had said, “I don’t suppose it’s much,” and Beesley had gone back to bed, not frightened at all.

  “What was it, Amelia?” Richard said.

  “I . . . it sounds so crazy, you’ll think . . . ”

  That you’re Bridey Murphy? he thought, like I did Joanna. He said, “Whatever it is, I’ll believe you.”

  “I know,” she said. “All right.” She took a deep breath. “I have biochem this semester. The class is in the daytime, but the lab’s at night, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in this old room. It’s long and narrow, with these dark wooden cabinets along the walls that they keep the chemicals in, so it looks like a tunnel.”

  A long, narrow room with tall cupboards on either side. He wondered what it really was. The dispensary? He’d have to ask Kit where the dispensary on the Titanic was.

  “It was the lab final,” Amelia said. “We were supposed to do this enzyme reaction, but I couldn’t get it to work, and it was really late. They’d already turned the lights off and were waiting for me to finish.”

  “Who was?” Richard asked, thinking, lab final? Enzyme reaction?

  “My professors,” Amelia said, and he could hear fear in her voice. “They were standing out in the hall, waiting. I could see them standing outside the door in their white lab coats, waiting to see if I passed the final.”