Dooms Day Book

There was no way to explain it all to Colin, no way to tell him Kivrin could not possibly have survived influenza in a century where the standard treatment was blood-letting. “It won’t work, Colin,” he’d said, suddenly too tired to explain anything. “I’m sorry.”

“So you’re just going to leave her there? Whether she’s dead or not? You’re not even going to talk to Badri?”

“Colin—”

“Aunt Mary did everything for you. She didn’t give up!”

“What is going on in here?” the sister had demanded, creaking in. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave if you persist in upsetting the patient.”

“I was leaving anyway,” Colin had said and flung himself out.

He hadn’t come back that afternoon or all evening or the next morning.

“Am I being allowed visitors?” Dunworthy asked William’s nurse when she came on duty.

“Yes,” she said, looking at the screens. “There’s someone waiting to see you now.”

It was Mrs. Gaddson. She already had her Bible open.

“Luke Chapter 23:23,” she said, glaring pestilentially at him. “Since you’re so interested in the Crucifixion. ‘And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him.’”

If God had known where His Son was, He would never have let them do that to him, Dunworthy thought. He would have pulled him out, He would have come and rescued him.

During the Black Death, the contemps believed God had abandoned them. “Why do you turn your face from us?” they had written. “Why do you ignore our cries?” But perhaps He hadn’t heard them. Perhaps He had been unconscious, lying ill in heaven, helpless Himself and unable to come.

“‘And there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour,’” Mrs. Gaddson read, “‘and the sun was darkened…’”

The contemps had believed it was the end of the world, that Armageddon had come, that Satan had triumphed at last. He had, Dunworthy thought. He had closed the net. He had lost the fix.

He thought about Gilchrist. He wondered if he had realized what he had done before he died or if he had lain unconscious and oblivious, unaware that he had murdered Kivrin.

“‘And Jesus led them out as far as to Bethany,’” Mrs. Gaddson read, “‘and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and was carried up into heaven.’”

He was parted from them, and was carried up into heaven. God did come to get him, Dunworthy thought. But too late. Too late.

She went on reading until William’s nurse came on duty. “Naptime,” she said briskly, shoving Mrs. Gaddson out. She came over to the bed, snatched his pillow from under his head, and gave it several sharp whacks.

“Has Colin come?” he asked.

“I haven’t seen him since yesterday,” she said, pushing the pillow back under his head. “I want you to try to go to sleep now.”

“Ms. Montoya hasn’t been here?”

“Not since yesterday.” She handed him a capsule and a paper cup.

“Have there been any messages?”

“No messages,” she said. She took the empty cup from him. “Try to sleep.”

No messages. “I’ll try to be buried in the churchyard,” Kivrin had told Montoya, but they’d run out of room in the churchyards. They had buried the plague victims in trenches, in ditches. They had thrown them in the river. Towards the end they hadn’t buried them at all. They had piled them in heaps and set fire to them.

Montoya would never find the corder. And if she did, what would the message be? “I went to the drop, but it didn’t open. What happened?” Kivrin’s voice rising in panic, in reproach, crying, “Eloi, eloi, why hast thou forsaken me?”

William’s nurse made him sit up in a chair to eat his lunch. While he was finishing his stewed prunes, Finch came in.

“We’re nearly out of tinned fruit,” he said, pointing at Dunworthy’s tray. “And lavatory paper. I have no idea how they expect us to start term.” He sat down on the end of the bed. “The university’s set the start of term for the twenty-fifth, but we simply can’t be ready by them. We still have fifteen patients in Salvin, the mass immunizations have scarcely started, and I’m not at all convinced we’ve seen the last of the flu cases.”

“What about Colin?” Dunworthy said. “Is he all right.”

“Yes, sir. He was a bit melancholy after Dr. Ahrens passed away, but he’s cheered up a good deal since you’ve been on the mend.”

“I want to thank you for helping him,” Dunworthy said. “Colin told me you’d arranged for the funeral.”