Nirvana Effect (9 page)

“A promise is a promise,” he said nonchalantly.  He’d need to get a mechanic to look at his car in the morning, but it was worth it to impress her.  She had already impressed him.

She had the thin, chiseled elegance that he admired in Americans, but there was a posture and certainty in her that led him to believe she’d traveled.  “You’re an American from England, aren’t you?” he asked.

“You’re an Australian from
Melbourne
,” she countered.  It wasn’t a question.

“Actually,
from a little bit north of the city.  Born in Sydney, though.
How’
d you know?”  He was surprised.  She’d figured him
at least as well as
he’d managed to figure her.

She shrugged.  “Lucky guess.  I was born in New Jersey.  Left there by the time I was six for London.”  

“Does it show in my accent?” asked Seacrest
, still stuck on her deduction
.  “
I’ve spent a good deal of time abroad.  Wouldn’t think it was so obvious, my accent.  Is it obvious?
”

“It just shows. 
I knew a man from Melbourne.  My father worked at the American Embassy in London.  I practically grew up there.  Met all kinds of people from all sorts of places.”  She sipped her water.
   He sipped his wine.

“Have you travelled much?”

“Not as much as I’d like.  We stayed pretty rooted in England.  I even ended up going to school there.”

“
Well, h
ow do you like
th
is
island?” he asked.
  “Good change of pace?”

“Well, it’s what I asked for,” she said. 

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I was looking to do something like this.  For m
e it was a good opportunity,
strange as that m
ay
sound.  What about you?”

I hate it.  I can’t wait to get off this ridiculous rock.  I’d rather drown in my own piss than stay here another year. 
“Well, I’m here right now, so I may as well make the most of it.”
He sipped his wine again.  He needed to change the subject.  That was all he could tell her.  One more question and he’d
really
have to start lying.  He shifted in his seat and smiled.  “Anyway, tell me, why is it so hard to get a date with Dr. Knowles?”

She laughed.

“Are you married with five illegitimate children and three adopted Chinese babies?” he asked quite seriously.

She laughed again.  “No.”  She smiled.  “Is this a
date
, Dr. Seacrest?” she asked, matching his serious tone. 

He smiled. 
Can’t get anything past this one. 
“I’m paying, so it’s a date.  And your purse is locked in my ‘vette, so you can’t do anything about it.”  He
gauged her
response.  She
was making a decision.

“Well, I guess it’s official,” she said.
 
“
You’re on a date, and I’m a hostage.
”
  The waiter put the appetizer on their table. 

Toughie. 
“You’re lucky.  Usually I take my hostages to rundown bars.  You’re more in the ‘distinguished captive’ category.”

She looked at the candle in the middle of the table and watched the dance of the flame.  She didn’t look up at him as she spoke.  “You know, James, I appreciate you taking me out to dinner.”

He’d known this about her.  She hadn’t done this in a while. 
She’s got a long story.
  He had decided he wanted her anyway, even though he knew he’d be competing with a ghost.  The challenge suited him.  He’d just have to take things a lot slower with her than he was used to.

I guess I’ve got a thing for the good Dr. Knowles. 
“Well, Callista, I appreciate you joining me.  I hope maybe we can do it again.”

She looked up at him and smiled.  Whatever had shadowed her face a moment before was gone.  “Well, all you have to do is lock my purse in your Corvette and, rest assured, I’ll follow you to the end of my days.”

Edward could not sleep.

For one, he hurt to
o much.  He was exhausted by
pain past the point of rest.

But that’s not it. 
He was thinking.

Since he’d had the trance, he could not stop thinking.

He was thinking about the periodic table
in just that moment
.  He saw it projected in his mind’s eye on the dark ceiling of the temple.
 

Seconds before
that,
he was thinking about some other scientific possibility.  In a few minutes he would think of another.

For now he
was thinking about proteins.  There was a pattern with them.  He’d glimpsed them in trance while his life’s knowledge had flashed before his eyes.  It had come to him when he’d thought of Gadolinium.  There was something to a pattern with the proteins, some sort of periodic table of proteins.  He’d never seen a pattern before; he didn’t think anyone had seen it before.

For the first time in six years, one month, and seven days, he did not regret becoming a Jesuit missionary.

Then again, he wasn’t really a Jesuit missionary anymore.  He felt new and whole.

He’d just faked renouncing his God and declaring a boy his soul’s ruler, and yet he’d never felt more free.  He felt he was finally doing what God had meant him for.

He hoped Mahanta would trust him with the substance again.  He felt certain he would. 
He needs me for something.

And I need him.

He closed his e
yes and did not sleep.  Protein molecules
danced on his eyelids.  He almost had it, and yet it eluded him.

It was a date,
thought Callista as she got into her car behind the clinic.  It was around 10:00 p.m.

After three years in
Lisbaad
, she thought she would have gotten used to the nights.  It was no London.  Since her first day here, darkness had taken on new meanings and new depths.  She recalled the chilling night her headlights had both burned out, and she had to struggle home al
ong the pockmarked road with only
the diffused light of the cloud covered moon
to guide her.  She’d eventually driven back to the clinic and slept the night there.

She saw James’s hand wave out of the Corvette’s window as he pulled onto the road.  She started her car. 

A dark body flickered past her headlights.  Dark skin and a loincloth.  A woman with something in her arms.

The woman was gibbering loudly.  She pounded on Callista’s window.  The doctor didn’t understand a word the woman was saying.

Callista looked for Seacrest, but he’d already left. 
She screamed for him on reflex
.  She realized with a touch of panic that the woman had probably waited for the Corvette to leave.

She checked the door’s lock.  Fortunately it was secure.

The woman kept pounding the windshield and shouting.  She was frantic. 

Callista shouted to her, “Get away!” through the window.  The woman did not stop.  Callista tried the five dialects she knew besides Tamil.  She got no response. 

Callista put the car in drive.  She decided to try to make a break for it.

The woman screamed
even more loudly
.  She ran in front of the car’s headlights.  Callista
finally
saw her clearly.  She had a limp body in her arms.  She looked no older than 25, her long black hair framing her face.  She looked half Indian, half Chinese, with dark skin
, nearly black
.  Now wonder Callista hadn’t seen her.

Callista had her hand over the horn, planning to force her way past this native, but stopped when she saw the body.

The woman was crying hysterically.  She gripped the hood of Callista’s car to steady herself. 

She was holding a little boy, younger than the native who she’d treated earlier. 
Must be her son,
thought Callista.  He had the same complexion as his mother.

For Callista, there was little choice at this point.  The woman had stopped shouting.  She was leaning against the car hood with one arm around her son as she took gulping, arrhythmic breaths.  He tears sparkled down her dark face.

Oh, God.
  Callista wrestled with the door lock and stepped out of the car.  She approached the woman carefully.  The woman looked at Dr. Knowles, but did not show any signs of relief.  She showed the doctor the boy.

He was limp, and some saliva had foamed out of his mouth.  He was dead or close to it. 

Callista moved with all the efficiency of an ER doctor, grabbing the woman’s arm and escorting her through the back door of the clinic.  “Come this way,” she said in Tamil.  She knew the woman probably didn’t understand her, but the voice tone was important.   Callista left the car running; there wasn’t time.

Once in the exam room, Knowles touched the woman’s shoulder and made eye contact.  She breathed deeply, in and out.  She got the native to do the same. 
Callista
needed
her
to calm down. 

“Do you understand me?” asked Callista in Tamil.  “What language do you speak?”  The woman looked at her blankly, moving her lips as though trying to work out the words.  No comprehension. 

Callista
gently
too
k the child’s limp form into her arms and
laid him on the exam table.  He was dressed in a loincloth and wrapped in an off-white
homespun
. 
Callista
watch
ed the slight rise and fall
of his chest.  She
checked
his pulse.  It was far too low.

All the while Callista made her exam, the boy’s mother hovered. 
The mother
could not look at him for more than a second; she could not look away from him for more than a second.  She was perpetually touching him and
releasing him, gulping back her tears only to let them loose again.

Callista opened the boy’s eyelids
and
flashed a light in his pupils.  He was out
cold
.

On a hunch, Callista pulled out a needle from the cabinet in the room.  The woman reacted violently to the glint of steel, throwing her body between her and the child. 

Callista held out her hand, refusing to react.  She
demonstrated breathing
deeply again
.
  The mother calmed herself
, and Callista edged past her to the boy
. 
She
pricked his finger and tested the blood.  The results were conclusive almost instantly.

He’s in a diabetic coma.

Callista pointed at the child, then made a sleeping motion, then pointed at her wristwatch with an upturned eyebrow and a shrug.  The woman didn’t understand. 
Callista
needed to know how long he’d been out. 
She
sighed.  It was irrelevant, anyway.  The treatment would be the same.

Callista made a “stay here” motion.  The mother nodded.  Callista sprinted down the hall to the medicine closet.  She pulled out the IV equipment and hauled everything
back to
the room. 

The woman was stroking
her son’s hair
.  Her tears splashed his face.  She was still trying to choke back her sobs.

Callista hooked up the IV.  The woman restrained herself from another reaction to protect her son. 
She
was terrified, though,
whimpering and
moaning. 

Knowles checked the boy’s vitals every half hour.

It was an exhausting night.  The three never left the room.  Knowles sat in her swivel stool, watching the boy breathe and the mother hover.  At any moment, with his blood sugar that low, he could go into cardiac arrest.  She had to be ready to resuscitate him the instant she didn’t see those little lungs rise and fall. 

The woman caressed his face and brushed his hair.  She kept muttering to herself in a foreign dialect.

Callista felt an empty edge as the adrenaline drained from her body.  It would be easy to fall asleep now, were there not a little native boy
half-dead on her exam table
.  Tonight would not be a question of what would be nice or comfortable, but rather a question of what is necessary.

The doctor had no one to relieve her.  She would stay with the boy until he was no longer critical.  Time was not a factor.  In the little exam room, with the door closed and the mother pacing
,
the world seemed timeless.