Passage

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get anything out of him about what he was feeling, if he was feeling,” Joanna said. “I don’t think he had any negative feelings. He didn’t respond when I asked him if he’d felt worried or afraid.”

“He didn’t respond at all,” Richard said, going over to the console, “but at least we’ve got another set of scans to look at.” He began typing in numbers. “I want to compare his endorphin levels with Amelia Tanaka’s.”

And so much for Happy Hour at the Rio Grande, Joanna thought, but it was just as well. She had Mr. Sage’s account, such as it was, to type up, and all the other tapes she hadn’t transcribed yet. She went back to her office.

Her answering machine was blinking. Don’t let it be Mr. Mandrake, she thought, and hit “play.” “This is Maurice Mandrake,” the machine said. “I just wanted to tell you how delighted I am you’re working with Dr. Wright. I’m sure you will be an excellent influence. When can you meet with me to plan strategies?”

There were messages from Mrs. Haighton and Ann Collins, the nurse who had assisted at Mr. Wojakowski’s session, asking Joanna to call them. And play another round of telephone tag, Joanna thought wearily, but she called them both back. Neither one was there. She left a message on both answering machines, and then sat down at her computer and transcribed Mr. Sage’s account.

It only took five minutes. She popped out the tape and stuck another one in. “It was…,” an interminable pause, “…dark…,” another one, “…I think…” Mrs. Davenport. “I was in…,” very long pause, “…a kind of…” very, very long pause, and then her voice rising questioningly, “…tunnel?” This was ridiculous. She could put the tape on fast-forward and still type faster than Mrs. Davenport was speaking. And why not? she thought, reaching for the recorder. Even if she had to rewind to get it all, it would be an improvement on this.

It didn’t work. When she hit “fast-forward,” it produced a high-pitched squeal. She tried hitting “fast-forward” and “play” at the same time. The “fast-forward” button clicked off and there was a deafening whine. A man’s voice said, “Turn off that damned alarm.”

A sudden silence, then the same voice saying, “Let me see a rhythm strip.”

Greg Menotti coding, Joanna thought, I must have left the recorder on; she reached to hit “rewind.”

“She’s too far away,” Greg said, his voice distant and despairing, and Joanna took her finger off the “rewind” button and listened. “She’ll never get here in time.”

Joanna grabbed the shoe box of untranscribed tapes and rummaged through them as the tape played, looking at the dates. February twenty-fifth, December ninth.

“She’ll be here in just a few minutes,” Vielle’s voice said from the tape, and the cardiologist’s, “What’s the BP?” January twenty-third, March — here it was. “Eighty over sixty,” the nurse said, and Joanna hit “rewind,” let it run, hit “play.” “Fifty-eight,” Greg said, and Joanna stopped the tape. She popped it out of the recorder, stuck the other one in, fast-forwarded to the middle.

“It was beautiful,” Amelia Tanaka said. Too far. Joanna rewound, listened, rewound again, hit “play.”

“She’s coming out of it,” Richard’s voice said. Joanna leaned forward. “Oh, no,” Amelia said, “oh, no, oh, no, oh, no.”

Joanna played it twice, then popped the tape out and the other one back in, even though she already knew what it would sound like, already knew why Amelia’s voice had been so troubled. She had heard it before. “Too far for her to come,” Greg had said, and his voice had held the same terror, the same despair.

She hit “rewind” and played it again, but she was already certain. She had heard the identical tone twice today, the first time reading the Bible, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned.”

And if she had gotten Mrs. Woollam’s voice on tape, all three voices would have sounded exactly the same. Just like Maisie’s, saying, “Do you think it hurts?”

12

“Why, man, they couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist—”

— American Civil War general John Sedgwick’s last words, at the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse

Mr. Wojakowski was right on time the next morning. “That’s one thing they teach you in the navy, being on time,” he told Richard and launched into a story about GeeGaw Rawlins, a perennially tardy gunner’s mate. “Killed at Iwo. Tracer bullet right through the eye,” he finished cheerfully and trotted off into the dressing room to put on his hospital gown.