Elixir (16 page)

“I guess not.” Sean glances up at him. “What are you doing here so late?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

Sean takes in the Pantheon, the pillars, the roof, the cavernous inside. “I like it here.” He pats the dusty floor. “Right in this spot.”

“I like it here too.”

“I’m not sure why. But I always come when I’m...you know...”

“Having a bad day?”

“Something like that.” Neither of them talks for a while, the soft drone of other conversations in the distance.

Resting his palm on the rotunda, Sean recollects the hooded crow he saw last month, less than a foot from where he is now. He remembers his envy for it, how the creature wasn’t able to understand the pain in the world. Like the kind he’s feeling now. The elderly fellow’s easy demeanor urges Sean to open up about it. “You ever want to be something else?” he asks. “You know, something simple. Like an animal.”

He snickers. “Now why would I want a thing like that?”

He swivels his left foot back and forth. “I realize it sounds weird. But sometimes I think about it. Easier that way. Have to deal with less.”

The old man folds his arms. “What type of animal would you be?”

“I don’t know. Bird I guess.”

“A bird. I see.” He nods. “You think a bird doesn’t feel anything negative?”

A few moments pass. “It does. But not...the same as us.”

“It has many rules it lives by to avoid negative things. Just like us. For instance, if there was a fire in a room, I guarantee neither you nor the bird would willfully go into it.”

Sean pushes a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Okay. But that’s just a basic need to survive. Instinct. I’m talking...” He points at the side of his head. “More advanced thinking. Where human intelligence comes into play.”

“Ah,” he says with a smirk. “Advanced thinking. Well, I wouldn’t rush to any conclusions. I believe you’re underestimating our friend the bird. Nature has given it some impressive abilities. Quite impressive in many cases I would say.” He sways back and forth in his shiny wingtip shoes a couple times. “Have you ever heard of the breed Manx Shearwaters?”

“Once or twice.”

“Well, do me a favor. I want you to read about an experiment conducted with them involving Venice. The one here in Italy, not California. Can you do that for me?”

“Yeah,” Sean says without paying it much attention, dragging himself to his feet. “I can do that.” Now standing, he recognizes how much his hip was hurt from the toss to the cobblestones, whole side of his body throbbing.

“You have somewhere to be, don’t you?”

“Why would you say that?”

“Just a guess. It is Christmas after all.”

Sean studies his face for a few moments, a grin still on it. “I’m gonna get going now.” He waves at the old man, receiving a nod in return, and veers toward the glow of the main road, hands in his jacket pockets, mind on Switzerland. Stopping a few dozen feet ahead, he turns, gazing back at the Pantheon, wanting to thank him for waking him up. But he’s gone, nowhere to be seen in any direction.

The next morning the seatbelt buckle on Sean’s lap rattles as his plane hits a patch of turbulence. Head bobbing, he stares out the window at grayness, yesterday’s outfit still on, sunglasses Natasha gave him wobbling on his collar, hangover pounding.

“Sir,” a pleasant female voice says. “Sir?” Turning left, he notices a stewardess, early twenties, hands clutching the shaky drink cart. “Would you care for a beverage?” she asks in Swiss-influenced English similar to his girlfriend’s. He fixates on a stack of plastic cups in front of her, near toppling with the jerky movements of the aircraft. “Sir. A beverage?” He shakes his head.

The conversation he had with the hazel-eyed nurse in Rome is playing over and over in his mind. He hangs on the words, trying to spin them into the most positive light possible. But deep down he realizes he’s just lying to himself. He couldn’t sleep last night, recalling Natasha’s face in spasms descending the church stairs. As much as he tries to convince himself otherwise, he expects she’s dealing with something serious.

He overhears the middle-aged man next to him yapping with the perky attendant, his tone pathetic as he attempts to impress her with some fake-sounding story about a famous chef in Switzerland naming a menu item after him. Sean drowns him out, reflecting on his parents. Every time he’s on a plane he can’t help but think of them. He pictures his mom cleaning out their closet in Shipville, boots on the floor, a pile of scarves, a cardboard box labeled “Jenny – Winter.” He visualizes his dad watching the Pittsburgh Steelers, black team sweatshirt, a Miller Lite, a yell at the TV each bad call.

Around an hour later the plane touches down, wind roaring as it barrels along the landing strip, Sean’s stare on the snowy Zurich sky, first time ever here. He gets up in a bit, leaving in the seat pouch a thick book he bought in the airport called
Learning German
. Knowing it’s the primary language in this city, he figured he should teach himself on the flight. He did. The whole thing.

In a short while he funnels out of the terminal with a mass of others. About thirty degrees outside, he folds his arms and presses them against his chest, weather a piercing cold, the chill working its way under his clothing. He decides to put on a heavier coat, but remembers he didn’t pack anything other than his passport last night in the preoccupied condition he was in.

Spotting a taxi sign, he trots to the back of a nearby line. Loud noises circle him, car horns, an argument between a husband and wife, a 747 taking off. When the wind gusts it picks up specks of ice from the ground and thrusts them through the air, the little crystals striking his cheek as he waits for a ride.

In about fifteen minutes he’s the next up, watching a blue-and-white van cab lurch forward. Teeth chattering, he tugs the heavy sliding door and lunges in. The driver twists to him and asks in German, “Where to?”

Blowing in his left hand, Sean digs his right in the pocket of his leather jacket, pulling out the paper with the address. “It’s on here,” he says in the local language, fluent as of the last hour. Glancing at the sheet, the cabbie nods and flips on the meter. He veers onto a main road. Reaching to his console, he pokes some buttons on his stereo, “Barbara Ann” by the Beach Boys erupting from the speakers. Sean’s head is slumped to the right, Zurich’s skyline lopsided to him through the icy window as the song booms.

His focus on the buildings whizzing by, he contemplates Natasha’s life here before time brought her to him in Italy. He imagines her as a little girl, doing things in all these places while he was a little boy in Pennsylvania a world away.

They advance for about forty-five minutes, the Beach Boys’ greatest-hits album the only sound in the vehicle. They park in front of a five-story black building with bronze trim. Sean peels some cash from his wallet and holds it up. “Thanks,” the driver says, snagging it. “Enjoy Zurich, yeah?” Sean exits without responding and heaves the bulky door shut.

Viewing the renowned Luffen Medical Clinic, he endures the harsher wind cutting into him off Lake Zurich, only a few blocks away. Angling his face down, he crosses the sludgy sidewalk to the entrance. He steps into the lobby, the trickle of water the only noise, a glass fountain in the center spilling into a basin of black and gray pebbles. A few feet away an old lady in a hospital gown sleeps straight up on a white couch, no other patients around.

He walks to the reception desk. A light-complexioned woman glances up and says, “
Guten Tag
.”

“I’m looking for a patient,” he says in German.

Tapping her keys, she asks in the same language, “Their name?”

“Vonlanden. Natasha Vonlanden.”

“Is that V-O-N-L-A-N-T-E-N?”

“D. Instead of T.”

More typing, her fast clicks contrast the slow hum of the cascading water. “Eighteen years old, female?”

“Yeah.”

She scrolls, then peeks up at him with a different expression than she had before, pity mixed with urgency. “And you are sir?”

“James. Crates.”

“Yes. They submitted you. Wait right here sir.” She gets up, disappearing through a doorway. His palms patting the desk, he wonders what she just saw. He’s alone with the murmur of the fountain for a while, his mind again replaying the talk he had with the nurse in Italy.

In about five minutes she returns with a white-and-yellow badge saying “Special Visitor – Zone R” in five different languages. “Take the elevator up to four and show them this. They’ll let you know what to do from there.”

It’s the thickest guest badge he’s ever seen. “Thanks.” He grasps the rectangular piece of plastic and clips it on his jeans.

“Do you need anything else?”

“No.”

“I’ll be down here if you do.” He keeps his eyes on her for a few moments, then wanders toward the elevator. He hits the button and goes in the empty cart, floor-to-ceiling mirrors on the walls, one flat light slab overhead as wide as the space. He hits level four and begins lifting, gears in the shaft grating. He takes in his reflection, chafed skin on his cheek from lying on the Pantheon, puffy bags under his eyes, thicker beard stubble than usual.

The elevator stops, doors separating, a shine pouring in, Sean squinting. Once his foot hits the polished white tiles, he freezes, anxiety holding him back, fear of the truth. He retreats inside, his image streaking across the glass, his heart bouncing. He takes a bunch of deep breaths. His flesh turns hot, producing an odd prickly sensation mixed with the hint of frost from outside still lingering on his skin. Crouching in the corner, he presses two fingers into the side of his throat, checking his pulse. It’s fast, more than two beats a second. He doesn’t move for about a minute, trying to talk himself out of this state.

Climbing to his feet, he shakes his arms and forces himself to confront reality. He exits, the smell of cleaning chemicals in the atmosphere. He notices an enclosed bridge stretching to a separate building about a hundred feet away, a steel door at the end closing off access, “Zone R” on it in block letters. A thirty-something man, suit, blond buzz cut, sits on a leather-and-chrome stool in front of the entrance.

Sean crosses the connecting path, snowflakes dotting the cylindrical glass tunnel around him, Lake Zurich to his left, green hills to his right. “They told me in the lobby to come up here,” Sean says in German, inching his badge up.

The worker glimpses it and asks in the same language, “Visiting a patient?”

“Yeah. Vonlanden. Natasha.”

He nods. “Her parents and brother were just cleared. Dr. Obrecht will be speaking with them...” He checks his watch. “In around two hours. His office is a floor up. I suggest you meet with the rest of them then.”

Sean peeks through a thin pane on the door, trying to make out what’s on the other side. No visibility, just shadows. “Is she back there?”

“Dr. Obrecht isn’t permitting Ms. Vonlanden anyone back yet. Until he has a chance to talk with the family. I’m sorry. Again, you’re free to join them for the discussion shortly.”

He steps toward the entrance anyway, reaching for the big red button that opens it. “I want to see her now.”

The employee springs from his seat and restrains him. “No visitors sir.” Sean gropes again, missing by an inch or so. “Security,” the guy says with alarm into a walkie-talkie.

“Just let me see her for a second, all right?” Sean shoves him. The man regains his footing, then slugs him in the face, the thump of bone hitting bone echoing.

Bending, Sean dabs his lips with his fingers, red all over them, his head pulsating. A couple brawny security guards rush over in white collared shirts with the Swiss flag on the shoulder. “Everything okay?” one of them asks his fellow employee in German.

“Fine,” he says, shaking his punching fist.

Wiping his bloody chin with the arm of his leather jacket, Sean staggers off, the three hospital staffers scowling at him in front of the sealed passageway.

A couple hours later Sean is on a low black couch against the rear wall of an office on the fifth floor. Their backs to him, the three other members of Natasha’s family are sitting a few feet in front in chairs, twenty-one-year-old brother, mother, and father. Facing them all is Dr. Obrecht, a sixtyish man in a white lab coat, mane of silver hair, square jaw. He’s seated at a large oak desk, window to his right overlooking the snow-dusted city, bookcase behind him packed with about a hundred medical texts, pen spinning between his fingers in slow half-turns.

He tries not to make eye contact with any of the three Vonlandens. The mom, in between the two men, wails, the makeup she wore to Christmas Mass yesterday streaking across her skin in blue and black clumps, tip of her right shoe grinding into the hardwood. Every ten seconds or so she yells at the ceiling. This goes on for a while.

The dad catches his son’s attention and motions toward his sobbing wife, then the door. Grabbing her hand, the kid rises and says in German, “Come on mom.” He gives her a light tug on her arm. She doesn’t seem to even notice him, lost in her own mind. “Let’s get you some water.” He grips her shoulder and side and starts lifting. She goes along with it, not even checking to see who’s moving her.

As he walks her toward the exit, her knees go weak, the crying possessing her whole body, the young man straining to stabilize her. Sean watches him escort her past him, then out into the hall.

Room now dead silent, Dr. Obrecht continues rotating his pen, Natasha’s father upright and stiff in his chair across, Sean about ten feet back on the sofa with a bruised chin and spots of blood on his shirt from the tussle before. Elbow on the armrest, he leans his head against his right knuckles, his gaze on the blue area rug, pattern composed of thousands of little interlocking white circles jumbled about.

“How can you be positive it’s something as drastic as Ebola?” the father asks the physician in the local language, breaking the room’s hush.

“Filoviruses such as Ebola are rather straightforward to detect,” Dr. Obrecht says back in German. “After analyzing the blood samples from all four of you with our electron microscope, the reason we’re so confident she has it is the same reason we’re so confident the rest of you don’t. The virions we evaluated in Natasha’s sample had a characteristic shape.” He holds up his index finger and curls the top. “A hook, which indicates Ebola with certainty. We found nothing of the sort in the submissions from you, your wife, or son.”