Heat. Thick enough to see. And, though he knew he was dreaming, he could not stop his body from producing sweat. He was not in the dream, but a disembodied observer of it. Desert. Barren desert. Captivated by the emptiness, he stared. His vision faced forward, unturning. Not a glance beside or behind him. From outside his dream he wondered what kept his attention rapt. Odd that he did not wake, he thought. The moisture on his sheets that first crept into his consciousness now demanded his attention. Beads of perspiration trailed from his face. His hands, anchored, could not provide relief from the tickling. Still, he stared.
Waves of heat rose off the sand, twisting the bright sun. His own shadow stretched out before him. He almost touched it. His familiar. Would he know it among others? Featureless shade. A John Doe of himself. But the feeling: he would know it anywhere.
He had not noticed the sky darkening. The imperceptible blurring of the shadow's edge. The sand kicked up, a tiny pock mark, and he puzzled. More marks. He bent his head down to investigate. He was unaware that the skin on his neck burned till the first drop of water cooled it. Aware, first of the pain, then of the soothing pleasure. He leaned back, but only for a moment, and let the water hit his face. It came so hard and quick that it stung. Smothered.
The sand drank the rain as fast as it could fall. Precious life's blood. He became aware of his feet in the wet sand. Digging in with his toes. Instinctive, like the roots of a tree.
The rain eased, replaced by an uncertain tension. Excitement.. Tingling, from the ground, through his toes, into his head--his body electric. He had entered the dream.
The desert exploded with life. Beautiful, vibrant color erupted from the ground. Flowers more spectacular than any he knew before. All from nothing. Life from nothing. He no longer felt the wet, clumpy sand between his toes. Cool, soft grass. He smiled and fell backwards surrounded by a kind of flower he had never seen before. Gabriel's Horn, he thought. How odd to know the name of a thing he'd never seen. He doubted his guess.
It was slow. Almost beyond his notice till it hit his nose. He sat upright, pinching, to stop its entrance. Rotting. As quickly as they had come, the flowers turned dark, withered, dripped. The smell of their demise overwhelmed him. Once again, he was aware of his dreaming. His body, back in bed, twitched as his nose remained behind. The smell of death. The rotten liquid covered the ground, flowing like a river. Moving beyond him. Covering everything.
He struggled to gain his bed. He had to wake up. Fear welled up inside him like a childhood nightmare. His son. He had to call his son. As the river faded into the dim light of his bedroom, he reached for the phone and hit the speed dial. The room was soft, not yet a waking reality, when he heard his son's voice. Tired. Groggy.
"Hello?"
He had no voice with which to warn. Impotent. Terrified. Mute. His heart pounding madly in his chest. His body shook from the stifled cries. He could do nothing. He returned the phone to the cradle.
"Jesus Christ!" exclaimed Jean. "We are glad you've finally made it!" He did an odd little dance and grabbed at his stomach, then his back.
"What's the matter, Jean?" I asked, dropping my bags, reaching out to him. He righted himself quickly and clenched a smile.
"I am fine," he said. "Just fine. We are lucky to have a woman like you here, Dr. Cairo." He gave a look of faith that unsettled me. "I know the truth is somewhere inside of you!"
More than likely, he'd have said the same to any new doctor coming to lend a hand. The outbreak was like nothing anyone had ever seen before and each new volunteer carried the promise of an avenue as of yet unseen. If anything, his faith lay in my father's reputation and not mine. Jean and I did share in that reverence. My father laid low many a new infection in short order, coming to the aid of the lowliest peoples on earth. But his age stopped him from such adventures many years ago. He sent me in his place.
Jean and I had met at a conference or two, but were nothing more than acquaintances. It was a sign of respect that he came to meet me at the airport rather than sending the driver alone.
"Get the doctor's bags!" Jean barked, with some impatience, at the driver.
"Yes, sir, Dr. Baptiste," he responded, dropping his gaze to the ground.
"No sir, Dr. Baptiste," I said, smiling. "I am quite able to get my own bags."
The driver paused with a look of uncertainty on his dark face. I picked up my bags again and smiled at the driver till he returned it, his teeth shining a brilliant white against his near-black skin. Jean looked hard at the man.
"Get in the car, Jean," I said softly, but firm.
It was worse than I expected. Scorched lots dotted the roadside amidst the shanty-style dwellings. Faces peered from behind curtains, but hardly a soul walked on the street. I began to think that the entire village had died, until I saw the throngs of the hopeful outside the clinic.
At first I was relieved to see the wave of humanity. The emptiness conjured fear deep inside of me, like walking amongst ghosts. Drawing closer, a deeper fear claimed me. Blood. From the eyes, the mouth and nearly visible beneath the skin. As if they were liquid-filled sacks, ready to burst. I wanted to cry out. To beg the driver to turn around and take me back to the airstrip. I think it was only the sheer horror of it--passing among the living dead--that kept me silent. Made me brave. I was not, of course. Brave. Walking from the car, I drew myself up tight, trying to avoid any contact. I had never seen a real outbreak zone before. I wanted to run.
The bustle inside kept me in place. I felt like I had to wait for a polite pause to run screaming. None came and I held my panic in deference to ingrained manners. I did not want to create a stir as I pleaded to God for deliverance.
Jean dressed me in a clean gown, rubber gloves and a breathing mask. He led me through the ward where 18 patients lay in what must have been only moments short of death. The weak groans struck me worse than any cry I'd ever heard. So helpless. So afraid. Jean talked, pointed, led. I heard and remembered nothing from him. I think it was then that I first entered the state of shock and, in many ways, I feel as if I have yet to recover. Nothing so horrible could be real, and, that I survived it, even less so.
I remember the name given to it by the locals. Issa. A local word meaning, "who delivers unto God." That's what Jean told me. Most people didn't call it anything at all. Not the uninfected. Like naming it might conjure it in their own bodies. It is hard not to be superstitious over something that is not just deadly, but brutally deadly.
Jean was not afraid. A lone voice, crying in the wilderness. His strength, or foolishness, got me through the first days.
It was not long before I settled into the routine of life in the hot zone. I didn't panic. I didn't even think. I just fell into the rhythm of the hospital and focused on my work.
The number of the afflicted escalated rapidly--more rapidly than our little outpost could handle--and Jean and I were the first sent out to try to halt the virus at its source. We assumed that unclean water, living conditions or social interaction lay at the root of the acceleration. Jean and I set out to stop the offending practice and to quarantine the villages most heavily afflicted. It would be impossible to attempt treatment for the numbers that we expected to find, especially in the more remote regions where no hospital or assistance was available.
It terrified me. Entering the first village beyond Nadro'j, we passed through a maze of freshly dug graves. They increased in frequency as we neared the first huts and the soil of the last was turned no later than the day before our arrival. If there were any survivors, they had fled before we arrived, possibly spreading the virus to previously unaffected areas. Just the sort of behavior we hoped to stop.
The scene was the same for the several villages surrounding Nadro'j and Jean insisted on burying the abandoned dead. He refused to let me help and our progress suffered considerably. Jean worked through the midday heat, stripped to the waist, but wearing his camel hair hat to keep the sun off of his head. Perspiration and dirt covered him, making him offensive to my nose in the confines of the jeep. I tolerated the smell.
For the first of the outer villages, we had to abandon our vehicle. Jean served as our beast of burden, insisting that he carry all of our supplies. At first I was offended at the way he treated me. As if I were some delicate child. But then I found myself amused watching him struggle, falter, sweat and curse under the strain of his burden. The burden of an unenlightened mind.
What we found surprised us both. At each village, men stood as sentries, preventing foreign traffic into each community. A short distance from the main stand of houses, we found 'sick colonies' where the afflicted were housed and cared for by village healers and survivors (something we had yet to encounter in Nadro'j or the immediate surroundings) of the disease. Far from being the hotbed of viral infection, the more remote villages had implemented time honored firewalls and put a stop to the illness' spread. The epicenter lay back in Nadro'j.
Jean insisted that the pain in his back came from all the digging (in which case he deserved it), but I could not remove the image of him and his awkward little dance when he met me at the airport. We'd been three days back in Nadro'j and his symptoms had only gotten worse. We both knew that he contracted the virus, but neither of us admitted it.
The fevers, low-grade, set in on the fourth day and his skin developed a permanent sheen of perspiration. His back pains grew worse and stomach cramps gave rise to complaints he'd rather have kept silent. By the seventh day after our trip, Jean lay in bed. The doctors, afraid now that the virus had broken the line and attacked one of their own, assured him, and themselves, that his infection wasn't Issa. He'd be back on rounds in no time.
By the ninth day, no one said anything. His eyes were rimmed with blood and small eruptions appeared across his body. Black marks appeared beneath his skin from internal bleeding. His fever soared and Jean, mercifully, lost touch with the world around him.
I sat by his side every free minute that I had. It was selfish. I was afraid of being alone if my time came and so I paid my karmic price. I held his hand and caressed his brow, cleaning the sweat from his eyes. With the help of a nurse, I applied oil to his skin, hoping to heal the cracking from which blood started to come freely. He was dying.
In his waking moments, the light hurt his eyes. I lit candles and charged a nurse with refreshing them. He was quiet, mostly, until very near the end. His eyes snapped open suddenly, but seemed to focus on nothing. He reached and grabbed my face.
"Can you hear me?" he pleaded, smearing the blood from his hands across my face. He called out for my father and then, as his hands moved over my eyes, realized it was me. "Oh Christ!" he managed. "Can you see me?" The pressure of his grip on my face opened his skin and the blood came freely. "I'm dying," he said, running his hands through my hair. "I am a living ghost."
A sob escaped him and I, too, began to cry. His eyes closed and his hands collapsed back to his side. He did not live an hour longer. I held his body to my chest and cried. For the love of one living creature to another, I cried, never thinking of what might have been done to me. My world forever changed.
I could hear him. His breathing. His groaning. The fragile coughs, as nervous as my own. When they first brought him in, I am not certain. I was hardly aware of myself, let alone him. I lost touch for a while. My eyes wouldn't open and the fever made the dreams more vivid than waking.
I remember, as a child, my father coming to my sick bed. He wasn't gentle like my mother, but his gruff confidence put me at ease as much as her soft words. We'd fight the sickness together, he'd say, a menacing look on his face. Sickness was like a lion in the darkest jungle and we, adventurers off to stalk it. It gave power to my young mind. A belief that illness was mine to conquer. I don't know about the pills, whether they were real or not, but father always brought them to me. A new miracle drug made in his laboratory. Somehow, my illnesses always coincided with his latest research.
I felt safe with my father there. My mother never seemed to understand. When she took ill, she'd lay in bed and take no pills. She let her fevers run without aspirin. She never took any of the miracle cures. I asked father about it once. Why he never gave any of his pills to mother. She wouldn't have them, he told me.
I knew she didn't approve of the way father took care of me. I'd hear her disapproving 'clucks' from the doorway as he told me about the latest cure. When I got older, my mother tried to teach me about natural remedies and that all sickness should not be fought, but sometimes allowed to run its course. I didn't understand then, but I think that I do now. It is strange, how clarity comes.
I am not sure if I asked for him or not. My professional pride hoped that I had not, but I know it is silly to let such things affect my thinking. I wanted him there. I wanted his cures, real or imagined. I wanted his bravado and the faith in miracles that only my father can bring.
Whether I'd asked or not, he didn't come. Or, at least, he was not there when my fevers began to subside. When the fevers first started I had visions of him. Imagined that I saw his empty shoes at the foot of my bed. A strange, but thoughtful gift. He came to my bedside, held my hand and cooled my forehead. And, every visit, he brought water. You need water, he'd say. You need water.
That, I know I said aloud. I demanded water. Hydration, constant and abundant. I think that is what saved James and I. I don't know his real name, but James was what the doctors dubbed him, failing to pronounce his proper name.
I never spoke a word to him. I was only an occasional visitor to the world when they brought him into my room and hooked the pair of us up with fast drip I.V.s to replenish our fluid and electrolyte levels. An experiment. James had been sick longer than me, but seemed to hold on better than anyone before him.
In my disembodied view of the world, I thought my groans of anguish to have doubled and did not realize I had a roommate until the nurses called him by name during one of my more lucid moments.
James.
The increased complaint was not me after all. Another voice in the wilderness. I knew where he lay. I knew when he slept. When he woke. I could have been him, or he, me. Nearly bursting with blood, scorched with fever, and the pressure of fluids forced in by the hour, every inch of my skin came alive with pain. I felt everything. Insects landing, like bombs, on my bare skin. The pierce of a mosquito's bite, hotwired to my nerves. The rush of air when a nurse entered brusquely to change the drip bags. The settling of dust when the room emptied. The tense relief in those quiet moments. And he felt it, too. I know he did. Born of the same father, we might have lived under each other's skin.
James began to recover. I felt him less. Heard myself more. His sleep, peaceful, and unbroken. I don't know whether it sprang from hope or empathy, but I felt better, too. My skin, taut with his suffering, needed increasingly to respond only to my own pain. I was sorry, knowing that I must have hurt him, too.
The activity increased. Nurses checked him more and more frequently and doctors speculated over him with wonder. The ease left, though I continued to recover. With blurred flashes of light, I realized that my eyes were open for the first time since the fevers increased. I could see the movement around me. I would recover.
Three specialists were sent by Dr. Herrod from the CDC. Brilliant doctors who, by all manner of reason, should have been called in before me. Nevertheless, they came now to eradicate this fledgling disease. They poked and prodded James. Took blood. Analyzed it and took it again. He was the first known survivor. The first legitimate lead toward a cure.
His skin was still tender and he cried out. They sedated him, I heard them say, for the greater good. He talked, nervously, constantly, as the specialists picked him apart. No one understood. No one spoke his tongue. He was not from here and no translator was delivered. How strange, I thought. To skirt death. To recover and have no one there. No voice to soothe or comfort. He could simply disappear amid strangers.
And disappear he did. I heard him slip from his bed. His muffled grunt as he pulled the needle from his arm. His breathing came fast, a mix of weakness and fear. It was loud and I thought that the whole hospital would hear. He eased quietly out the door and James disappeared into the foreign land. Foreign to me.
After the uproar, the specialists turned toward me. I recognized the voice of Dr. Paul Macaw. who headed the team. He was older and had worked under my father for many years. Dad said that Dr. Macaw was an enthusiastic student, but frequently confused which parts of his lessons were crucial and which were just detail. Still, Dr. Macaw's reputation as a disciple of my father, combined with his love of bureaucracy led him to the top of his field. I found no comfort in his presence.
With him came Dr. Chris Ostom. I'd never met him, but I knew his name. An entrenched member of the eastern medical establishment out of Boston. Not a brilliant man, but deliberate in his work. His methods, though very orthodox, did often bring results. I studied his work on the Gaimus virus in school and it gave me more than a little respect for his work.
"This is what happens when women try to do the work of men." The first words I heard him speak. "They are tempted into medicine for reasons I cannot hope to understand and then this is how they end up. Risking other people's lives so that they can play doctor!" He did not endear himself to me and, in my weakened state, I lay silent through many such diatribes. How, by example, I led other women astray. I have to say, that observation gave me a little tinge of pride, even then.
When I first saw Dr. Simon Fisher, I thought I'd lost my mind. I woke staring out the window and surprised myself as the leaves of a palm tree came into focus. For the first time since I took ill, I could see clearly. I took it as a sign that my body had won out against the virus until I noticed a pair of feet, upside down, next to the window. Following the legs, into the body and down to the head at the floor, I recognized an inverted Simon looking back at me.
"I think better this way," he said. I held my breath expecting an Alice in Wonderland moment, but he flipped onto his feet and the world seemed normal enough. I knew him. He was just two years behind me in med school and I'd watched him follow my same path, step by step. I trusted Simon.
The nightmares had not yet subsided when they called me to fly into Cana. I'd been following the outbreak in the news and was surprised to hear that Dr. Macaw headed up the team there.
Dr. Macaw played no small part in my bad dreams. He showed me the same mercy he had James, picking me apart to get at the origins of the virus. Unlike James, I didn't know where to run. Their scrutiny was long and thorough, but, as far as I knew, yielded little in the way of results.
After me, their nets had been cast into the community at large, hiring local men to gather plants, animals and water for testing. Unable to find a safe harbor for the virus in the environment and having little to no luck tracing their way to patient zero, the specialists had concluded the outbreak to be of "spontaneous origin." I suspected that, more than having run out of avenues, they wanted out of the hot zone.
Dr. Macaw did not strike me as the kind of man who would go into an outbreak zone before he knew that the problem could be dealt with, or the virus began to subside. Because of his presence, I assumed that some advance had been made in the form of a vaccine or cure. He appeared to have neither as the outbreak raged on, unabated.
It was because of him that I was called in. Following the initial outbreak, Dr. Macaw continued his research and thought that he had made significant advances in the study of Issa. He had gone to Cana to field test his solutions. For all the success he had, Dr. Macaw might as well have put water into the veins of his patients. When Dr. Macaw came down with the virus more immediate solutions were sought.
Jean had probably been right that the truth was inside of me. At least it was now. He wasn't the only one who thought so. Dr. Macaw and his team were banking on the fact.
The government had an armored troop transport waiting to deliver me to the clinic in Cana when I arrived at the airport. Local tempers flared, because Macaw ordered the bodies of Issa victims burned upon their deaths. Cremation was not accepted locally as a proper funerary rite and protests were lodged after the first body was burned. Macaw continued the practice in spite of the reaction. The number of patients coming to the clinic declined sharply which could have signified the end of the outbreak, but, more than likely, represented the refusal of the local population to have their customs violated.
Those already in the hospital continued to be burned and, when I arrived, crowds of people had gathered outside the clinic, seeking retribution, not knowing that Issa had already delivered it. The transport had been stopped nearly a mile from the clinic, unable to push through the mass of angry people.
Dr. Macaw insisted that the transport drape a medical cross of his own design from all sides of the vehicle in order to ensure its safe passage. The awkward red cross looked more like the letter "T" than the intended cross, but was close enough to draw the attention, and anger, of the enraged crowd. First, only harsh words and an occasional stray rock came to us, but then the attention started to grow. The driver began to panic as many of the protesters appeared afflicted with Issa. He suggested that we might try again the following day, his unease in evidence. I assured him that I could make the remaining distance on my own and left him to return to his home.
A lone white face in a sea of black, I must have stood out. But I made my way across the ocean of humanity without incident. It was different this time. Though I could see the blood pushing under the skin of many in the crowd; or oozing from the gums and eyes; I was not afraid. Here, among all this death, I felt safe. The coughs, the touching, the sweat of the tight crowd offered me no threat and I was acutely aware of the fortune in my veins. I couldn't understand why I was chosen. Nor could I change the fact. I wanted to reach out. To offer help and the notion that I could do such a thing caused an elation in me amidst all the sickness. I held out my hands and let the flow of crowd take me. The current delivered me to the doors of the clinic safely, completely unmolested.
Inside, it was obvious that I arrived too late to help Dr. Macaw. His eyes dim with fever and his teeth loosening as his gums collapsed, he no longer shone with the arrogance of the physician I had met months earlier. He was small, weak, and dying. I couldn't help the nagging regret that it was not Dr. Ostom in his place.
Simon Fisher drove the needle into my vein like a harpoon. His face looked tired as it furrowed in concentration. He needed rest more than he need to be drawing my blood. It was not likely to save Macaw's life. Too little, too late. The virus had been inside him too long. His internal organs would be ravaged by now.
"Are you alright, Simon?" I asked. "You aren't getting sick yourself?"
"No!" he snapped, jabbing the needle a little. "I mean, no," he said, his voice softening, "I'm just tired. We are all tired."
He undid the turnicate on my arm and the blood gushed into the receptacle. I watched with minor fascination, imagining the secret it contained. The vial filled quickly and Simon withdrew the needle.
"Stephen," he called. A moment later a small, dark man entered the room.
"Yes, Dr. Fisher?" he offered softly.
"The blood is ready to be taken to the lab."
"Yes, Dr. Fisher."
Stephen turned to go, but then stopped at the door.
"Dr. Fisher?" he asked.
"Yes?" said Simon.
"Will this save Dr. Macaw?"
"Not if it doesn't get to the lab," Simon teased. Stephen smiled and turned to his errand.
"He's been here for years," Simon explained. "When the nuns first started a hospital here, Stephen applied to be a handyman. He's a nurse now."
Simon looked at the door.
"And may be gunning for my job," he added with a smile.
"Dr. Fisher," asked Stephen as we walked to Dr. Macaw's room, "are you feeling all right?"
Simon raised his eyebrows.
"You look sick," Stephen observed. "Maybe you should..."
"I do not have the virus!" Simon shouted. We walked the rest of the hall in silence.
Dr. Ostom waited for us outside Dr. Macaw's room at the end of the hall. He looked up from his notes just as we came upon him. He looked at me with unguarded contempt and then spoke directly to Simon.
"I administered the antigen late last night," he explained, "but there has been no change at all in his condition. I thought you might give him another dose this morning and see if that has any effect. It appears that there is nothing to lose at this point."
He started to hand the chart to Simon, but then paused.
"Perhaps, Dr. Fisher, you should leave this task to Dr. Cairo and get some rest," suggested Dr. Ostom. "I think it is a simple enough task that we can trust it to her."
I wondered, briefly, if Dr. Ostom did not embarrass himself sometimes. If I should not take pity on him in his ignorance. But the smug look on his face removed any hope of forgiveness.
"Is there something the matter?" Simon asked.
"Perhaps," said Dr. Ostom, eyeing Simon carefully. "How are you feeling?"
"I don't have the virus!" snapped Simon. "I feel just fine!"
"Good morning!" crowed Dr. Macaw from his room. "I hear you!"
John Calvin arrived with his retinue of physicians the following morning. Ostensibly, he came to head up the research team until Dr. Macaw regained his health. We all knew the change to be permanent. Dr. Macaw had gone blind two days before and, with his sight, lost all faith in his recovery.
Dr. Calvin mustered the troops just after lunch. We scrubbed thoroughly, donning protective gloves and facial masks. Dr. Calvin then led myself, Dr. Ostom and Dr. Fisher, along with the new recruits, doctors Juliano, Milton and Oliver, into Dr. Macaw's room.
"I see you!" crooned Dr. Macaw, wagging a bony finger at us.
"You can't see, you old coot!" huffed Dr. Ostom. He was right. Macaw's eyes were glazed and unfocused. His head adjusted to sound, not motion.
"I can see!" insisted Dr. Macaw, a smile taking over his face. "Like the scales have fallen from my eyes." He laughed. "Da mask is lifted!" He practically howled.
"Is this sort of mania typical of the infection?" asked Dr. Calvin.
"I've yet to see anything like it," observed Dr. Fisher. "It appears to be the result of Dr. Cairo's antibodies."
"Most especially the womanly madness," snipped Dr. Ostom. "He was listless and quiet until this morning," he noted. "Obviously the antigen has had some effect, though not necessarily a positive one."
"It would be nice," said Dr. Juliano, "to think that something could afford us protection amidst all this death."
"Well," said Dr. Calvin, "let's have a look." Dr. Calvin's hat slipped forward onto the bridge of his nose. He reached for it and then thought better.
"Boy," he said to Stephen. "If you would..."
"Boy?" Simon raised his eyebrow high. "How about a little respect, doctor?"
"Sir," Dr. Calvin said, his voice thick with contempt. "Come size this damnable hat." He wrinkled his forehead. "It just isn't fitting!"
"Size it yourself," laughed Simon.
"I can't," he pushed through gritted teeth. "I'm scrubbed. I don't know if the damn thing is clean, so I'd have to scrub again!"
"You'll never be clean," snipped Simon. "All for that silly hat!"
"Oh, just shut up and have someone take it off of me!" roared Calvin. Simon turned red with amusement.
"Do you think its any better to have these young men playing around with your hat?" asked Dr. Macaw. "Its worse! Unclean!" A slight drool collected on his chin.
"But I just can't..."
"Leave it," ordered Dr. Macaw. "Its fine, its clean, it fits. Who cares?"
Dr. Calvin glared at Dr. Fisher for a moment. He pushed the hat back from his eyes with his forearm and moved, in a huff, to Dr. Macaw's bed. He would remain acutely aware of the hat through the entire examination.
"It's not good, Paul," confided Dr. Calvin from across the room. He had not touched Dr. Macaw for fear of the virus, but directed us to perform his examination. In truth, Dr. Macaw was somewhat better. His fever had declined and his blood loss seemed to have slowed a little. It didn't matter. His internal organs were mush. I could feel them during the examination. They gave under the slightest touch. Whatever the fate of the virus, Paul Macaw was dead.
"Nonsense," insisted Dr. Macaw. "You just don't understand the virus!" His manner belied a fervent confidence.
"And you do?" smiled Dr. Calvin.
"I do," whispered Dr. Macaw, "yes. Ever since the blindness, I understand the virus." He paused. "No," he said. "I am the virus. And don't worry, gents--I'll save us all!"
"Thank God for that,"Dr. Calvin patronized. "Let's get something in Dr. Macaw's stomach."
"Yes," agreed Dr. Macaw, "I want a steak, very rare. Bloody."
Everyone smiled in amusement.
"And wine," he added. "I need a glass of red wine."
"I don't think wine goes well with dehydration," I said.
"Poppycock!" snapped Dr. Macaw. "The harmful effects of wine are pure bull. I can't believe how this myth rassled its way into sound, medical minds!"
"Now, doctor..." started Dr. Oliver.
"And bacon!" squealed Dr. Macaw.
"You know you can't have these things in your state," began Dr. Calvin.
"I'm in charge," answered Dr. Macaw in a stern voice, "and I may eat whatever I like!"
"You know full well," scolded Dr. Calvin, "that bacon and steak are out of the question. I don't know where you get such ideas..."
Dr. Macaw looked crestfallen.
"Dr. Fisher said I could have whatever I wanted," he said meekly. Simon blushed and looked helpless, shaking his head.
"Stephen," said Dr. Calvin. "Some jell-o for Dr. Macaw. Whatever flavor he likes."
Dr. Macaw was nearly dead. Dr. Calvin had infused him regularly with antigen from my body which kept Macaw mentally alert, but his body had all but collapsed. Tensions among the doctors ran high as their sense of aloof security withered. Simon and Stephen both took sick and Macaw's imminent demise signalled real risk. It was different than the death of Jean Baptiste. That is, the reaction was different. I think, somewhere deep inside, we all believed that Dr. Macaw's time-earned respect as a physician granted him immunity from disease and maybe, by association, that immunity spread to us. With the revocation of Macaw's immunity went ours as well. We were very afraid. All but me. I knew that my immunity had been granted.
Discussions, or arguments, about me were commonplace during Dr. Macaw's last days. The fate of my antigen was a hot topic of debate. All efforts to isolate the virus in the lab failed leaving me as the only font of life. No protection could be synthesized. Dr. Juliano begrudged every drop that went to Dr. Macaw, arguing that the cure should be kept for the living, but Dr. Calvin seemed unable to let Dr. Macaw go and it was his call.
Blood was drawn from me at such a rate that I grew accustomed to the light headedness that accompanied it. I didn't mind so much, pleased at the notion that I could provide a stop-gap to the outbreak. But it didn't happen that way. My blood collected, but only made its way to Dr. Macaw's veins. Rumors grew and tempers flared till Dr. Calvin called the medical staff to Dr. Macaw's room to clear the air.
"When are we going to start using the stockpiled antigen," I asked.
"To what end?" asked Dr. Calvin. "We are using it on Dr. Macaw right now and I have made up my mind to start treating Dr. Fisher as well."
"What about Stephen?" I asked. "Did you know he'd taken sick?"
Dr. Oliver gave a grunt of amusement and met a glare from Dr. Calvin.
"Stephen," said Dr. Calvin deliberately, "is non-essential staff. We can't spare the antigen."
I was stunned.
"I don't understand," I managed.
"At this point," Dr. Calvin explained, "we are limited in our supply of antigen by the supply we can extract from your body. We simply have to reserve it for those who are essential to the success of the mission."
My face went hot with anger and I opened my mouth to speak.
"Besides," Dr. Calvin added quickly, "we aren't even sure it is safe or effective. We can't go giving it out without knowing what effect it will have."
"You seem certain enough to give it to Macaw and Fisher!" I shot back.
"We have to give them every chance we can," offered Dr. Oliver. "They risked their lives to come in here. They don't deserve to die."
"And Stephen does?" My voice trembled with rage. I couldn't believe that no one else spoke up. I felt like the whole room had gone mad. I wanted Simon to be there. I knew he would understand. Help. And I needed help.
"It is fair I see," said Dr. Macaw from his bed. "Stephen is sacrificed for the greater good. I am not fit to hold his coat!"
"I suppose you would like to treat everyone who comes with the antigen," laughed Dr. Juliano.
I nearly lost the ability to speak. I pushed sharply through gritted teeth.
"We are here to find a cure and stop the outbreak," I reasoned. "We have a cure. I suggest we use it."
A look of surprise went around the room as it sunk in that I did propose administering the antigen to all the sick. My faith in humanity crumbled. How could they think otherwise?
"But," started Dr. Juliano, the reasoning process visible on his face, "what if we exhausted our supply of antigen and one of us took sick?"
"That is..." I started.
"If," interrupted Dr. Ostom, "Dr. Cairo would kindly allow men to discuss men's work, I'm sure we could work this out."
He won out, simply because I could not respond. I shook. I flushed. I wanted to scream, but not a sound escaped my lips.
"We choose to take life and death risks," explained Dr. Ostom brusquely, "so that we might save lives. All lives and we must trust that providence will deliver us for our good works."
For the first time, I questioned my convictions. If Dr. Ostom argued with, and not against, me, then maybe I was wrong. My doubt was brief and I concluded that it must be such a simple principle that any misogynistic moron could figure it out.
"Yes," said Dr. Calvin in a very patronizing tone, "I think we all took on the medical profession to help our fellow man. But, in this circumstance, the most practical thing we can do is to help ourselves."
Dr. Ostom flushed. At first crestfallen and then indignant that his point should be so easily dismissed. I gave up speaking. It is sad, you see, to watch a back of humanity turn.
"No fear, friends," crowed Dr. Macaw. "I am your salvation." The light in his eyes went out.
For three days, I descended into darkness, wandering the cavernous recesses of my own mind. I was aware of them sometimes, as they carefully extracted a little more blood from my body, afraid that they took too much. I didn't mind. I told them that. One in exchange for so many, and the many could, in turn, save many more. That belief, for those three days, kept me at peace. Happy. When I ascended from my darkness, the people we treated already stirred with new life.
Stephen's death was the catalyst. Peter recovered with the help of my antibodies while Stephen went quickly. I don't know what prompted me to stand idly by and let it happen, but his death taught me that I couldn't watch another. Simon, Dr. Ostom and most of the local staff offered their help and we quietly stole the blood from my body, giving it to all that we could.
Doctor Calvin threatened my career at the CDC, and followed through, but he and the doctors that stayed loyal to him, Juliano, Oliver and Milton, could not stop the distribution of the antigen. The epidemic slowed to manageable proportions and the shared immunity soon had it under control. Simon donated his blood as well.
I understood my mother for the first time. Her attitudes toward medicine. The world is not made whole by the heroics of a single person. No genius in a lab could bring forth a magic elixir to protect us from sickness. It was the effort of a community that would save a community. I survived Issa and shared the secret of my survival with others. And they, in turn, will share the secret again.
More than that, I caught a glimpse of my community. That it included Issa as much as myself. Issa did more than attack my body, it also taught me that very secret that saved my life.
A small group of my colleagues, led by Simon, traced the origin of the virus to the village of Yosef. Its birth was not so spontaneous after all. Mercury, released into the water by a mining operation up river from Yosef, ravaged the immune systems of the fish and allowed the virus, which had always been there to some degree, to suddenly flourish in the weakened population. The balance was tipped. The villagers of Yosef had no way to know the danger they drew from the water. The fish had sustained them for all of living memory.
Had that first villager not come to the hospital in Nadro'j for help, then it would have all ended as it began: A mystery in the remote village of Yosef, passed on in tales to generations to come. But it spread through the hospital in Nadro'j and went home with visitors to reach populations Issa had not ever imagined. And now it is endemic. A fact of life. A part of the community, just like the fish and people of Yosef. |