Passage

All right, who here in the hospital? Maisie’s tape player was a pink plastic affair, probably worse than her minirecorder. Vielle? No, all they had in the lounge in the ER was an eight-track player, “because nobody’s been in here long enough to listen to any music since 1974,” Vielle had complained one hectic night.

She squinted at the minirecorder, trying to remember where she’d seen a tape recorder. In one of the offices, where they listened to music while they were working. Billing or Personnel. Records, she decided. She snapped the tape out of the minirecorder, jammed it in her pocket, and ran down to Records.

And her memory had been accurate. On the far wall, above the cubicles, was a bank of sophisticated-looking stereo equipment. But first she would have to get past the woman at the front desk, who looked solid and dedicated to following the rules. Almost before Joanna had gotten her name out, the woman had swiveled so she was facing a rack of printed papers and was holding her arm up in preparation for grabbing the appropriate form.

“I don’t think there’s a form for what I need… Zaneta,” Joanna said, reading the name off the sign on the woman’s desk. “I need a tape recorder that can play a tape at different speeds,” but Zaneta had already swiveled back to face her.

“This is Records,” Zaneta said. “You want Equipment next door.”

“No, I don’t want to requisition a tape recorder. I just want to borrow yours for a couple of minutes to listen to a tape,” she said, pulling the tape out of her pocket to illustrate. “My recorder doesn’t have a fast-forward that lets me control the speed, and I need—”

“Do you work here?” Zaneta said.

“Yes, my name’s Joanna Lander,” she said. “I work with Dr. Wright up in research,” and Zaneta swiveled to face her computer terminal. “All I want—”

“Lander?” Zaneta asked, typing. “L-a-n-d-e-r?”

“Yes,” Joanna said. “I need to transcribe this tape, but a section of it needs to be listened to at a faster speed, and I wondered if I could—”

Joanna’s beeper went off. No, she thought, and reached in her pocket to turn it off, but Zaneta was already pushing the phone toward her. “You’re being paged,” she said severely.

Joanna gave up. Please don’t let it be Mr. Mandrake, she prayed, and called the operator.

“Call the fourth floor nurses’ station, stat,” the operator said. “Extension 428.”

Fourth floor. Coma Carl, she thought, and realized she had known this call was coming.

Zaneta was pushing a memo pad and pencil toward her. Joanna ignored it and punched in the extension. Guadalupe answered. “What is it, Guadalupe?” Joanna said. “Is it Coma Carl?”

“Yes, I’ve been trying to reach you. You haven’t seen Mrs. Aspinall, have you? We can’t find her anywhere,” and her stunned and shaken voice told Joanna all she needed to know.

“When did he die?” she said, thinking of him, all alone out there in a lifeboat, humming.

“Die?” Guadalupe said in that same stunned voice. “He didn’t. He’s awake.”

38

“…Morse… Indian…”

—The only two distinct words in the last sentence Henry David Thoreau spoke

Guadalupe was at the nurses’ station, talking on the phone, when Joanna arrived. “Is he really awake?” Joanna asked, leaning over the counter.

Guadalupe put a hand up, signaling her to wait. “Yes. I’m trying to reach Dr. Cherikov,” she said into the receiver. “Well, can I speak to his nurse? It’s important.” She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. “Yes, he’s really awake,” she said to Joanna, “and wouldn’t you know it, we can’t find his doctor. Or his wife. You didn’t happen to see Mrs. Aspinall on your way up here, did you?”

“No,” Joanna said. “Have you tried the cafeteria?”

“I’ve got an aide checking,” Guadalupe said. “Mrs. Aspinall’s been here day and night for two weeks, and she always tells us when she’s leaving. Except today. How long does it take to call his nurse to the phone?” she said impatiently.

“Has Carl said anything?” Joanna asked.

“He asked to see his wife,” Guadalupe said. “And he said he was hungry, but we can’t give him anything to eat because we don’t have any orders, and we can’t find his doctor. He isn’t answering his page.”

“Has he said anything about the coma?”

She shook her head. “Most coma patients — yes,” she said into the phone. “This is Guadalupe Santos over at Mercy General. I need to talk to Dr. Cherikov. It’s urgent. It’s about his patient Carl Aspinall.” There was a pause. “No,” Guadalupe said, and her tone made Joanna think the nurse had asked if he’d died, like she had. “He’s conscious.”

She cupped her hand over the receiver again and said to Joanna, “Paula went in to check his vitals about half an hour ago. She opened the curtains, and he said, ‘It isn’t dark.’ Scared her half to death — I’ve been trying his pager,” she said into the phone. “Do you know where he went?”

She turned back to Joanna. “Most patients have very fuzzy memories of the time they spent in a semicomatose state, if that.”