Passage. Part 62

"A woman and a little girl were standing in the doorway, and I knew it must be my mother and my little sister who died when she was six, even though it didn't really look like them. The little girl took my hand and led me into a beautiful garden."

The garden again. Joanna did a global search. "I was in a sort of garden." "Elijah was standing in the Garden of Eden." "Beyond the doorway I could see a garden."

Gladys Meers had been the most specific. "There were trees all around, and white trellises with vines growing up them. 'Pray be seated,' the angel said, and I sat down in a white wicker chair, the kind they have on patios."

There couldn't possibly have been a garden on the t.i.tanic, Joanna thought, and wished she could believe that, but it had had a swimming pool, it had had a Turkish bath. Maybe it had had a garden, too.

She called Kit, but the line was busy. She printed out the list of garden references and then went to see Maisie. She was lying in bed, watching TV, but her shallow breathing and flaring nostrils gave her away. She just jumped into bed, Joanna thought, wondering what book she'd just hidden, and then saw that there were wires leading under her Barbie pajama top to the heart monitor."I didn't find out the wireless messages yet," Maisie said when she saw Joanna. She pointed her remote at the TV and turned it off. "I'm in A-fib again. I'm not supposed to read even. I found out two." She took a couple of panting breaths before she went on. "They're in the drawer," turning her head to indicate the nightstand. "I'll look up the others as soon as I feel better."

Joanna opened the drawer and took out Maisie's tablet. On the first page was written, "Sinking.

Cannot hear for noise of steam." And under it, "Come quick. Our engine-room flooded up to the boilers."

Like you, Joanna thought, and tried not to think of Maisie on the listing decks of the t.i.tanic, on the slanting steps of the Grand Staircase. But she saw fog, Joanna thought, and the night the t.i.tanic sank, it was clear. And if there wasn't a garden on the t.i.tanic, then Mr. Briarley's wrong.

"Maisie," she said. "Did the t.i.tanic have a garden?"

"A garden?" Maisie said, incredulous. "On a s.h.i.+p?"

"Or something that looked like a garden, with flowers and trees," but Maisie was shaking her head. And if there were one, Joanna thought, she would have known about it.

"I never heard of a garden," Maisie said. "I bet if there was, though, there'd be a picture of it in my t.i.tanic Picture Book." She pushed the covers off and sat up.

"No," Joanna said. "No looking things up till you're out of A-fib."

"But-"

"Promise me, or I'll fire you as my research a.s.sistant."

"Okay," Maisie said grudgingly. "I promise," and, at Joanna's skeptical look, "Cross my heart."

Which isn't worth a d.a.m.n, Joanna thought. "You get some rest, kiddo," she said, picking up the remote and switching it on, "and I'll come see you soon."

"You can't go yet," Maisie said. "I haven't told you this neat thing I found out about the Mackay-Bennett."

"Okay," she said. "Two minutes, and then you have to rest. What's the Mackay-Bennett?"

"It was this s.h.i.+p they sent out to pick up the bodies."

"I thought the bodies all sank," Joanna said.

"I did, too, but some of them were wearing lifejackets, so they floated." She laid her head back against the pillows, arms outstretched, mouth open in a grotesque imitation of a floating corpse. "And they were afraid people on other s.h.i.+ps would see them, so they sent the Mackay-Bennett out to get them. It had all these coffins and a minister. What's an embalmer?"

"It's a person who prepares bodies for burial. To keep them from spoiling.""Oh," Maisie said. "Well, they had an embalmer, and all this ice. That was to keep them from spoiling, too, right?"

"Yes," Joanna said. "Okay, your two minutes are up." She stood up.

"No," Maisie said. "I haven't told you the thing yet. One of the bodies was this little boy who n.o.body knew who he was, and n.o.body came to claim him, so the captain and the guys on the Mackay-Bennett had a funeral for him and a little white coffin and they put up a headstone to 'The Unknown Child Whose Remains were Recovered after the Disaster to the t.i.tanic.' "

"Just like Little Miss 1565," Joanna said.

"No," Maisie said, " 'cause this one they found out who he was." She wrapped her hand around her dog tags, as if it were a rosary. "Gosta Paulsson," she said. "That was his name. Gosta Paulsson."

Joanna ended up sitting with Maisie till her mother came in, bubbling with cheer.

"The nurses say you're doing much better," Joanna heard her say as she scooted out of the room. "I brought you a brand-new video. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm."

Joanna went back to her office, feeling relieved. There wasn't a garden on the t.i.tanic, and no fog, and Maisie wasn't the only NDEer to have seen fog. It was listed as a separate NDE category in one of the books, Entranced by the Light. She read the section. "A number of patients describe being in an open, undefined, foggy s.p.a.ce. Some say it is dark, like fog at night, others that it is light.

Nearly all describe it as being a cold and frightening place. This is clearly Purgatory, and those who see it can be described as nonreligious or unsaved."

Joanna closed the book with a slap and did a global search of "fog," and scrolled down through the references. "It was cold," Paul Smetzer had said, "and there was so much fog I couldn't see my hand in front of my face."

Paul Smetzer. That name rang a bell. She called up his file and read the full account. Oh, yes, Paul. "...I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Of course, if I was dead, I guess I wouldn't have had a hand, would I? Or a face, for that matter."

Paul Smetzer, the Ricky Inman of NDEers. He had also told her he'd seen an angel, "almost as cute as you," and asked her if it was true there wasn't any s.e.x in heaven, "because if it is, I told her, I want to go to the other place."

His remarks could be discounted, but he wasn't the only one who had mentioned fog: "There were people standing there, but I couldn't see who they were because of the fog." "No, it was dark"

(this in response to Joanna's asking Ray Gomez to describe the tunnel), "and all blurry, like fog or something." "I was floating in a kind of fog."

And there definitely hadn't been any fog that night. Just to make sure, Joanna called Kit, but her number was still busy. She printed out the list of fog references to take home and began gathering up her things.

The phone rang. "Hi, it's Richard," he said to the answering machine. "I just wanted to tell you Mrs. Troudtheim's coming in at four tomorrow if that will-"She picked up the phone. "Hi, I'm here."

"Oh, I thought you'd gone home," he said. "I came by earlier and didn't see any light under your door."

"Nope, I'm still here. I've been working on the backlog of transcripts," she said, which was at least partly true. "I thought you weren't going to send Mrs. Troudtheim under again until you'd figured out why she keeps kicking out."

"I wasn't, but when I told Dr. Jamison about the DABA, she suggested I go talk to Dr.

Friedman over at St. Anthony's. He's worked extensively with DABA and artificial DABA surrogates. He said DABA alone couldn't inhibit endorphins, but combined with cortisol, it definitely could."

"And inhibiting the endorphins would kick her out?"

"I don't know yet. I asked him about theta-asparcine, too, but it's not an inhibitor. His specialty's inhibitors, so he didn't know much about it. He said he thought it had a regulatory function and that an artificial surrogate's been produced. I need to do some more research, but not till I've checked Mrs.

Troudtheim's NDEs to see if cortisol's been present in all of them. If it has, there are a number of ways to counteract the cortisol and keep her under. So I'll see you tomorrow at four o'clock."

Four o'clock. And by that time, she should know one way or the other. Or maybe sooner, if she could reach Kit. She called her again, and as soon as she got home, slightly worried, and at fifteen-minute intervals till she finally got through.

"Oh, I'm so glad you called," Kit said. "I wanted to apologize for leaving the book where Uncle Pat could find it. I don't blame you for walking out like that."

"That wasn't the reason-" Joanna said, but Kit wasn't listening.

"It was an unbelievably stupid thing to do," she said. "I mean, he'd hidden it once. He'd obviously try to hide it again. I don't blame you for being mad."

"I'm not mad-" Joanna said.

"Well, you should be," Kit said. "I still haven't found it, and I've looked absolutely everywhere.

Down behind the radiators, inside-"

"Actually, I didn't call about the textbook," Joanna said.

"Oh, of course, you want to know about the questions you asked. There was no library as such, but there was a Reading and Writing Room on the Promenade Deck that had bookshelves and writing tables, and it was right next to the First-Cla.s.s Lounge, which did have a bar. And, yes, Scotland Road was a crew pa.s.sage on E Deck that ran nearly the whole length of the s.h.i.+p. It-"

"I need to know something else. Do you know if it was foggy that night?"

"No," Kit said promptly. "It was perfectly clear. And very still. One of the survivors describedthe water as being like a lake. That's why they didn't see the waves. .h.i.tting the iceberg."

"And there couldn't have been fog later on? After they hit?"

"I don't think so," she said just as promptly. "All the survivors said it was the clearest night they'd ever seen. It was so clear the stars came right down to the horizon. Do you want me to find out?"

"No, that's okay. Thanks," Joanna said. "You told me what I wanted to know." What I already knew, she thought after she hung up, and that, combined with the frequent image of the garden, meant that Mr. Briarley was wrong.

No, not wrong about why she'd seen the t.i.tanic. He was right, it was the mirror image of death.

Wrong only in that everyone, thank G.o.d, was not doomed to see it, and maybe Kit was right, and Greg Menotti had been talking about something completely different from the Carpathia.

I hope so, she thought, going up to her office the next morning. I hope so.

Her answering machine was blinking hysterically. She took off her coat and hit "play." Richard, saying, "Tish had a conflict at four. I've moved Mrs. Troudtheim up to two. Call me if that won't work."

Leonard Fanshawe. Mr. Mandrake. "I've just heard from a very reliable source that you are now a subject in Dr. Wright's project."

Oh, no, Joanna thought. That's all I need.

"I am eager to discuss your experience with you to determine whether in fact it is an authentic NDE. I doubt whether it is."

I hope you're right, Joanna thought, deleting the rest of his message. The phone rang. And if you think I'm going to pick it up, Mr. Mandrake, you're crazy, she thought.

The answering machine clicked on. "You need to come right away," Maisie's breathless voice said. "I need you to see something."

Joanna picked up the phone. "I'm here, Maisie. What do you need me to come see?"

"I looked in the... t.i.tanic Picture Book," she said and paused to take another breath, "and-"

"Are you still in A-fib?" Joanna demanded.

"Yes, but... I'm feeling lots better," she said.

"I told you you weren't supposed to look anything up till you were out of A-fib."

"I only looked in one book," she protested, "but I don't know if it's really... a garden, so you need to come."

"If what isn't a garden?""The Verandah Cafe," Maisie said. "It's got flowers and trees and vines on... these things I don't know the name of, they're white and they crisscross-"

Trellises, Joanna thought. "Tell me what the chairs look like," she said, calling up Gladys Meers's file.

"They're white and made of little tiny... I don't know," Maisie said, frustrated. "You need to come look."

"I can't come right now," Joanna said. "Little tiny what?"

"Long, round things. Like a basket."

Wicker. The word was right there on the screen. "There were trees all around, and white trellises with vines growing up on them. I sat down in a white wicker chair, the kind they have on patios."

"Are there trees?" Joanna asked, calling up Mrs. Woollam's file.

"Yes," Maisie said, and Joanna already knew what she was going to say. "Palm trees, but you need to come see it."

Not a heavenly garden. The Verandah Cafe. On the t.i.tanic.

"Can you come this morning?" Maisie was asking.

No, Mrs. Troudtheim's coming at two. I have to find out for sure there wasn't any fog. "I'm too busy to come this morning," she said.

"You have to come right after lunch then. I found out all the wireless messages. You said to tell you when I had the whole list done, and you'd come."

"I'll come this afternoon."

"Right after lunch?"

"Right after lunch."

"You promise? Cross your heart?"

"Cross my heart," Joanna said and hung up. She called up the list of fog references again, looking for clues. "I was up on the ceiling, looking down at the operating table, and I saw the doctor put these flat things on my chest, like Ping-Pong paddles, and then I couldn't see more, because it got foggy," Mr. James had reported, and Mrs. Katzenbaum had said, "The tunnel was dark, but at the end of it was this golden light, all fuzzy like there was smoke or fog or something in the way."

Smoke. Coma Carl had said something about smoke, too. What if it wasn't fog, but smoke? Or steam? The t.i.tanic had been a steams.h.i.+p. "Sinking. Cannot hear for noise of steam," the telegram Maisie had written down said.But that steam would have gone up out of the funnels. It wouldn't have been on the decks. What about smoke? Could fires have broken out on board as the s.h.i.+p tilted? Burning coal from the boilers sliding out onto the floor of the boiler room, or a candle toppling over onto a tablecloth in the First-Cla.s.s Dining Saloon?

She called Kit, but the line was still busy. Maisie would know if there'd been a fire, especially in light of her interest in the Hartford circus fire, and it wasn't as if she were asking about fog. Who are you kidding? Joanna thought. She'll see the connection instantly.

She tried Kit again. Mr. Briarley answered. "Mr. Briarley, I need to speak to Kit," Joanna told him.

"She's not here," he said. "She's at the church. They're all over at the church. Except for Kevin. I don't know where he is."

This is what Kit meant when she said he said terrible things, Joanna thought. I thought she was talking about obscenities.

" 'All alone, so Heav'n has willed, we die,' " he said. "Kevin went to pick up film. Kit sent him. I don't know why she didn't think of it earlier."

They are obscenities, Joanna thought, and then, Kit can't hear this. "Tell her I called. Good-bye,"

she said and started to hang up, but it was too late. Kit was already on the line.

"Hi. Who is this?" she said in her cheerful voice. "Oh, hi, Joanna, did you forget something?"