Elixir (17 page)

The father takes some time to process this, then stands and steps to the window. Running a hand through his thinning sandy-blond hair, he stares at the snowy landscape, his own reflection blurry and partial in the glass. “Assuming it is the case, what can we expect? Don’t sugarcoat it. Be honest with me.”

“We’ve already observed fever and muscle aches in her. And the onset of internal bleeding. In addition to the sporadic seizures.” He adjusts his glasses. “But that’s just the beginning. Next is typically breathing trouble, then...failure of bodily functions. Finally, blood will stop clotting. Once this happens, the organs essentially liquefy. And then after that...well. I’m sure you can imagine there’s not much that can be done then.”

A long pause. “How long? Until...that stage.”

Arms folded, Dr. Obrecht leans back, a pensive, almost scholarly, air to him. “As for timing the major factor to consider would be potential blood loss. Since she just started showing signs, it would be difficult to pinpoint—”

“Just tell me how long dammit.”

A few moments pass. “Two weeks. If she’s fortunate. Very fortunate.”

He’s still for a while. “I know people recover from this. What can we give her? There must be something.”

“The survival rate with the strain she has...the Zaire variety...is the lowest of the Ebola types. Ten percent at best. We’ll provide anticoagulants and continue to hawk over her fluid levels and electrolytes twenty-four hours a day, but...as for a curing serum...it...it doesn’t exist. In rare circumstances the body can fight it off, but the vast majority of the time it just can’t.”

About a half-minute of silence goes by, then he asks, “What about an experimental treatment for Christ’s sake?” His expression is frenzied now. He bangs his fist on the desk, shaking it, knocking a framed photograph of the physician, his wife, and two sons on its side. “There has to be something we can try,” the parent says, drops of saliva spurting from his mouth onto the leather desk mat, bottom lip quivering.

Dr. Obrecht picks up the toppled picture and puts it in place. “There are people out there charging ahead on theories every day. In hospitals, labs, universities. All over the world. But they’re works in progress. At best.” He slips into that pensive look again for a moment or so. “I was at a conference in Paris about six months ago. There were some gentlemen there from a firm in the States working on a solution aimed at altering the way viruses, like Ebola, replicate their genetic material. Very experimental. Extremely. Colzyne Systems, I’m assuming you’ve heard of them. The vision was fascinating. But it was only that. Fascinating. Not a reality. They weren’t able to figure out how to actually implement it.”

“Why don’t I fly to the States tonight and write the CEO of Colzyne a check for ten million dollars. He can fill a room with the best engineers on the planet until it gets done.”

“I wish it were only that easy,” Dr. Obrecht says with a reflexive chuckle, one he regrets right away. To compensate for the brief moment of lightheartedness, he takes on a mechanical pace with his speech and says, “A company like Colzyne probably does close to thirty billion dollars annually in revenue. Billion with a B. They have plenty of resources. Not to mention, each year worldwide the amount of funds raised for disease research is in the hundreds of billions. Money isn’t the issue.”

“I thought you were the best?” he asks, animosity building for this silver-haired man across from him with all these textbooks and no answers. “Nothing you can do but let her die?”

“With many infections there are things that can be done. But with ones like Ebola...unfortunately...there just aren’t.”

“Is that what you want me to tell my wife?” He points at the door. “And her brother? That there’s nothing that can be done? As simple as that?”

Atmosphere tensing, Dr. Obrecht cuts eye contact, shifting to a remote control on his mat used to change the office’s temperature. “I regret I don’t have a different outlook. But the nature of the virus is...well. It stands out from others. It’s quite frankly the deadliest known to man. The manner it builds and spreads inside the body is highly erratic. As a medical community we’ve made tremendous strides with research. But finding a methodology to isolate and eliminate it...we’re not there. Not even close in fact.” He raises his focus back to the father. “Tapping the underlying root of the disease, it’s...it’s just too complex. It’s impossible to wrap the mind around all the facets of its behavior.”

It’s quiet for a while. Sean is still looking at the area rug, following the thousands of little white circles as they spill into each other. His body is frozen, but his eyes are alive.

“You’re going to have to tell me something,” the father says to the doctor, coming to the realization his daughter is going to die, hoping the physician utters any hint at an alternative.

“Mr. Vonlanden, if I may,” he says, observing the calmness of the Lake Zurich water out the window. “You strike me as the type of man who likes being in control of his surroundings. Who seizes solutions to his problems. That instinct has likely played a major role in your professional success. I too regard myself as a man inclined to proactively resolve his problems. However, in a situation such as this...I would recommend you spend this time not thinking about ways to fix things.” A pause. “Instead, spend it enjoying each and every one of its moments with your daughter.”

The father holds his attention on the bookcase for a few seconds, the raw truth settling in. He gazes around with his icy blue irises, a plant in the corner, the crown molding on the ceiling, a black-and-white photo on the wall of a violin. He notices Sean in the back. He decides to take everything out on this kid he’s heard has been dating his daughter. Consumed with rage, he asks him in Swiss-accented English, “What are you still even doing here?”

Sean straightens up on the couch, surprised he’s being addressed, and says with a stutter, “I was just sitting.”

“This is for family. You’re not family. You’re not anyone. You’re a low-class nobody. Nothing like us. Nothing like my daughter. We want to be alone. So leave us alone dammit.” He storms out, slamming the door.

Sean looks at the leather armrest for a while, then Dr. Obrecht. They survey each other’s faces for a moment, the physician contemplating to engage him in conversation and field his medical questions. He reasons however, by the kid’s youth and lack of manners with the hospital staff earlier, that he’s not the type who would desire or grasp a scientific explanation anyway, so he decides against it. He pivots his stare from the boy to the window, Sean returning his to the little white circles on the floor.

Around six o’clock that night Sean sits on the edge of a stone bridge, feet dangling over Lake Zurich as snowflakes fall, streetlamps glimmering across the shadowy water, sun just set. The rumble of passing cars behind him, he sticks his hand in a bag of airline pretzels he had in his jacket, pulls one out, and flings it. His eyes follow it in the shine for a bit, but the wind carries it into the darkness, out of sight.

He gazes at the lake for a half-minute or so, then up at the stars. Some are so old he figures the light he’s seeing now was traveling for billions of years before reaching him. He ponders how some of the atoms in the world from the beginning of time got recycled generation after generation and came together eighteen years ago to create him. He thinks about all he is and all he isn’t for a while. Checking his watch, he realizes he’s allowed to see her in just over forty minutes.

In a bit he’s in the hospital elevator viewing himself in the mirrored walls as the gears crank. He checks out his bruised chin, then the rest of his face. Living in Rome and Southern California for the better part of a decade, he hasn’t been in snow for a while. He recalls his reflection as a young boy in Pennsylvania after a day of playing in the snow with the other kids on the block. Red blotches, dry skin, colorless lips. Sean Malone feels he looks like that now, how he did on those days as a boy.

The cart stops and he walks onto the fourth floor, quiet except the thump of his boots. He crosses the enclosed bridge, Zurich’s city lights twinkling outside the tunnel, and comes to a man in front of the steel door, different than the one who punched him. “Name of the patient you’re seeing?” the employee asks in German.

“Vonlanden. Natasha.”

“Badge?” He shows him the plastic card on his waist. “Pod two.” The staffer hits the red button and the heavy metal slab rushes to the right without a noise. Sean steps through the opening. It closes right away behind him, soft shimmer of the glass tunnel vanishing. He notices a long, dark staircase and goes down it to a ground-level hallway, spotting an arrowed sign engraved with “1-4” and another “5-8.” He follows the first toward pod two.

As he veers down the dead-silent corridor, the tile surface changes to cement, dome-shaped overhead bulbs in aluminum cages lighting the way. Once he reaches an alley marked “2,” he makes out a door labeled “Observation.” Beside it is a second called “Interaction,” a yellow-and-black biomedical-hazard imprint on it. The sight of this universal symbol for contamination nauseates him, the thought someone as good and pure as his girlfriend now associated with it.

He opens the one without the warning, “Observation,” and enters a dim area about eight feet by five with nothing in it but two metal folding chairs. At the front is a six-inch-thick sheet of glass, behind it a bright hospital room that looks just like any other, a bed, machines, equipment cabinet, among related things.

Closing the door, he notices Natasha through the window. She’s on the foot of the mattress staring up at a small skylight on the ceiling. He knocks on the bulky glass, trying to get her attention. She doesn’t turn to him.

He spots an intercom at waist level and says into it, “Hey.” He waits for her to acknowledge him, but she doesn’t, her gaze still on the square skylight above her, the three-quarter moon over Zurich framed inside.

“When I was a little girl I went to school not far from here, maybe five blocks,” she says, her words grainy but audible through the speaker. “We had a guest come to science class one day. He was from the SSO. Swiss Space Office. He wore this pin on his shirt of a red-and-white rocket. He told us a whole bunch of facts. About the ships. And how the astronauts train. Stuff like that. I forgot most of it.” Her voice gets soft, a notch above a whisper, and she says, “But he said this one thing I always remembered.”

She twirls some hospital-gown material around her index finger and says, “He told us scientists were planning to create these colonies on the moon where people would be able to visit. Like a vacation. I thought that was just about the coolest thing ever. To go on a trip to the moon. He was about fifty then. He doubted in his lifetime the colonies would be ready. But all us girls were six or seven. And he said he was certain within our lives it would be a common thing. Vacations on the moon. For regular people.”

She unravels the gown fabric on her finger and says, “I couldn’t get it out of my head. I thought about it the whole rest of the day. The rest of the week. I just felt it was wild that this was gonna be possible. For me.” A sadness consumes her. For the first time since he’s been down here she doesn’t seem herself. The energy in her face is gone, replaced by something empty and sterile. “It’s not around yet, but I figured it would be in the next twenty years or so. I wouldn’t even be forty then.”

She’s still for a while. He thinks about saying something, but before he can, she throws herself onto the bed and says with panic, “I’m scared. I’m scared. I’m so scared.” She screams. She screams again. He has an urge to break through the barrier and hold her, but knows he couldn’t if he tried. “Baby. Baby.” She cries for a while, the curves of her little body expanding and contracting among the ruffled sheets.

She appears so helpless, alone in the small room behind the thick glass under the hot lights. Enraged, he punches the brick wall. His fist throbs, but he doesn’t perceive the actual pain, the disturbing view has put his senses in a state of numbness.

Leaning over, he catches his breath while her gravelly whimpers flow through the speaker to his side. Around ten seconds pass, then he steps to the intercom and says, “Sweetheart, come over here.” Her back to him, she doesn’t pay attention, her bare calves and feet the only parts of her he can see. The toes of her right foot curl all the way down, then up, then down, then up. “Honey.” He taps the window.

About a minute passes, then she rolls over and stands on the shiny floor. She goes to him with slow, weak steps. She tilts her head up, blond strands falling in front of her tear-soaked cheeks. Up close he notices her skin is red, a fever burning below he assumes. Her eyes too, a crimson hue surrounds her radiant blue centers. It’s apparent something’s in her.

He presses his left hand on the barrier. She touches her right on top of it. They look at each other for a while, then she starts crying again. He kisses the surface and says, “Shh. Shh.”

“I can’t do it baby,” she says, voice quivering. “I can’t.”

“Shh. Shh.” He doesn’t make a noise for some time. With his attention on the floor he says, “I need you to do something for me.”

She peers into his eyes through the wetness on hers. “What?”

He pats the glass twice. “Be strong for a few days. Maybe a little more.”

“I don’t know,” she says with hopelessness. How she nuzzles toward him reminds him of the way she lies with him on his couch back in Rome. All the days and nights they held each other there, talking about this thing and that, having sex, then talking about this thing and that some more.

“Do it for me,” he says. “I might...please just trust me.”

“What’s the point?”

“There isn’t a lot of time.” He kisses the window by her face. “I have to go.”

“Go where?”

“I just...I have to go.”

“No,” she says with a high-pitched squeal, yanking her palm away.

“I have to go.”

“No.” She whacks the glass in anger, a rumble blaring through the entire area. “James. No.”