Margaret's Ark (9 page)

Route 128 was pleasantly un-congested as she pulled onto Winn Street from the off-ramp. She'd called her husband before leaving. He’d sounded normal enough, no talk of dreams. With these few days behind them, he'd come to the realization that it was only a dream and nothing more.

She'd never known Suresh to take to such fancies, and the fact that he was so shaken by the nightmare made Neha uneasy. Then, a snippet on a talk radio show on WBZ this morning, a half-caught conversation as she passed the break room. She had let these fragments swirl about her mind, then quickly discarded them, was only hearing these things for her husband's sake. Today’s ravings from the lunatic preacher almost made her believe there might be something more to this. But that wasn't possible. To have classified Suresh with that vagrant, or some crazy person on a talk show, was a sin she could never forgive herself for.

Not to mention the risk it posed to her career, a tightrope as it was. To the ignorant, being both a minority and a woman would appear to be an asset. Neha knew better, saw past the veil of Equal Opportunity to the stark reality of her need for networking, building a reputation and, most of all, staying far from controversy.

The lights were on in the house. He'd waited up for her. That was good. Unless Neha was working graveyard, she felt the two of them should go to bed together. It was Friday and Suresh didn't have to get up for work tomorrow. He was sitting at the kitchen table in his pajamas when she entered, a cup of tea in his hands. Neha smiled. He was a handsome man, skin a consistent chocolate brown, nose straight and slightly flaring at the nostrils, hair thick (his mother's father had a full mane of hair until his death at seventy-four - Neha had inquired on that fact early on in their marital discussions), and odd blue eyes rare in their people, perhaps a trace of Slavic lost in his lineage.

Sure enough, there was a second cup of tea waiting beside him. Suresh's way of making sure his wife took no side trips. Do anything but head straight home and her tea would be cold.

She kissed her husband on the cheek and put her briefcase beside the telephone stand. Suresh yawned.

“Do my kisses bore you, my love?”

Suresh smiled. “I'm sorry, Nee. I dozed off on the couch earlier and you know what that does to me.”

She did, and began devising a number of ways to wake him up. Going to sleep after coming off-shift wasn't an immediate event for her. She needed to unwind.

Suresh sipped his tea as she went into the hall to hang her coat. “I had…” he said, then paused. “How were things at the hospital today?”

Neha froze halfway through hanging her coat. She'd heard the sudden change in the direction of his words. Her heart beat a little too fast.
Please
, she thought.
Let this just be my wild imaginings
. She feared she already knew what he would have said had he not changed the subject.

She was more tired than she'd realized. Neha forced a grimace before coming around the corner to the kitchen. “Fine,” she said, sitting across from him and taking a sip of tea. It was still warm, but the edge of heat had faded. “A busy day, not too bad. At least it didn’t snow like they predicted.”

“Mmm. Too late for that now, I think. Still...” His voice trailed off. There
was
something.

“We had a vagrant come in,” she said, “banged up, but not too badly. He ran in front of a cab.”
No, don't go there
. “All in all, a quiet night.”

Suresh was silent, nursing his cup. His silence spoke volumes to his wife. Neha didn't want to, but she asked, “What's wrong?”

“When I fell asleep on the couch tonight -”

No! It is not real!

“- I had that dream again.”

53

Neha sat in the small study off the living room, swirling the ice in her empty glass and glaring at the clock beside the bookcase. Two-Thirty in the morning. She reflexively wiped the corner of her eye, reassured by the lack of tears. She chided herself for having such an emotional reaction earlier, even to the point of crying. Just a few tears, but as soon as she'd realized they were there, she'd struck out against Suresh. A slap, to stop him from saying any more, knocking whatever was happening back into the
Twilight Zone
where it belonged.

Her husband had stared at her, dumbfounded, before stalking off alone to their bedroom. Even then, even in his rage, Suresh took a moment to mumble over his shoulder, “I know you didn't mean that, but I'd hoped for some understanding.”

Al ways ready to shoulder his wife's anger. Always the loving husband. Neha didn't
want
to see Suresh as weak, but standing in the kitchen after he'd left, shocked by the violence welling inside her, she knew that’s what he was. Another reason, perhaps, that she'd married him. Someone who would never overshadow her.

She sat now in the leather highback, a twin of the empty chair facing her opposite the small chess table. Suresh hadn't emerged from the bedroom. He'd likely fallen asleep by now. Neha knew she should have joined him, muttered soft apologies, offered an excuse for her reaction. She hadn't gone. Her anger, or fear, pulsed through her and denied any sleep or want of companionship. Maybe she feared the argument would continue. Perhaps in the morning she wouldn't treat her husband's concerns as trivial.

No, that was exactly what she
had
to do. These dreams affected Suresh in a deep, personal way. He was no recluse. He'd heard something on the news. A blurb at the top of the hour this morning on the way to work. Meant as a humorous outtake. It had frightened him.

And it frightened her.

Neha though about the bum lying comfortably in one of Forest Grove's beds. It was
his
fault. She would never have reacted so poorly if that man hadn't been brought in this afternoon and uttered his nonsense. He mentioned a flood, just like her precious Suresh. Dragging her husband down to his own pathetic level. An insect calling itself a hawk.

Her husband’s dream had  been so vivid to him. Spiritual beings claiming to be
devas
of heaven, speaking as if they might be Krishna himself, or Vishnu excitedly plotting the doom of the world. Suresh had called them angels of God. Too long in this culture, he was forgetting his heritage and faith.

Suresh looked so pathetic, a child afraid of shadows in the corner of the bedroom, wanting reassurances from his mother. She wasn't his mother. She was his wife.

Like seeing heavy clouds on the horizon, Neha felt the inevitable downturn of tonight’s conversation as soon as it had begun. She'd moved close to him, rested her long fingers on his face. Such a handsome face. “Suresh, please, when you talk about that dream, it frightens me. Your eyes...” She stopped, caressed one cheek with the back of her hand. “It was only a dream. I don't understand why it's eating at you like this.”

Suresh closed his eyes, held her wrists, but made no effort to pull away from her comfort. “I'm just trying to understand how others could be having the same dream. Always the message is the same. I must build a boat. An
ark
was the word. Something terrible is going to happen. It feels so true.”

Too many things came to her mind then, too many angry words needing to be wiped away before being spoken. Anger at herself. Her husband was terrified by images of the world being devoured in some god’s hungry mouth, and in her mind, she saw herself, walking along the hospital corridors, smiling at the doctors, giving direction with authority and confidence, the gray-haired director of emergency services Bernard Meyers finally acknowledging her existence, even to the point of pronouncing her name correctly for the first time. No room for the storm coming over the horizon. No time.

She'd suggested Suresh see a therapist. When he seemed to consider this, she imagined her husband locked away in an asylum, sprouting biblical nonsense while the looks from her co-workers turned to ice and pity. In her memory, the kitchen had begun to spin out of control.

Then Suresh said, “I think these are more than dreams. I have been chosen, like the other people we've heard about. I must
not
ignore it.”

And Neha had screamed, “Just shut up! You
will
ignore it if you love me! If you care for me at all you'll... just... shut up!” The slap was hard, though Suresh's head barely moved at the contact. She'd felt a tingle of fear and excitement, having never raised a hand to him before and not knowing how he would respond. A fear of reprisal, a desire for one.

When he simply walked from the kitchen, muttering his weakness in the hallway, it felt as if she'd lost part of him forever. As well, she saw clearly longer-term implications. 

Maybe she was reading too much into everything, but the hours of running between patients as they stumbled or were wheeled into the emergency room, one crisis after another, it was all she could do to keep a finger on the pulse of her own career.

And her husband would eventually play his role. No talk of dreams. No flights of fancy. If she said she wanted, he would give. If she said no, he did not. Uncomplicated.

Until now.

Hopefully, tonight's small but significant violence would end the situation before it became too much. She couldn’t help feeling an added layer to these events, a darker twist in her beliefs. Something large and massive looming behind the storm clouds in her mind. It was too much to comprehend, so she did not try.

There was no God. No angels. No Krishna or Vishnu or Hunuman. They were old, stale characters. Children’s tales. No visions. No end-of-the-world. The universe simply was what it was. Judeo-Christians could have their constant doomsday views. She had her own life, and a few crackpots would not make her feel it was all for naught, especially her husband.

Neha sat in her chair, and thought about the derelict at Forest Grove, imagined him preaching in the halls, Suresh dancing behind him banging on a tambourine. She remembered the form she'd signed, just in case, in the man's folder. One slip of paper to tuck the Word of God away, lest Suresh happen upon him in the city one day and find an ally in his delusions.

Her finger swirled the ice, around and around.

She picked up the phone.

*     *     *

“Wake up, my friend.”

Jack opened his eyes. The angel Michael stood in the hospital room at the foot of the bed. The lights from the parking lot shone though the blinds, cutting his scarred features into parallel shades of light and dark.

“You!”

“Shhh.” Michael moved to the side of the bed and offered his hand. He whispered, “You have to leave now.”

Jack sat up and took the angel's hand. His body quivered with excitement and terror in this being's presence. “Why?” he whispered back, knowing his voice was too loud.

“Personally, Jack, I’ve started wondering that myself.” The angel wasn't smiling this time. “But it's not my call. Just get up and get dressed.”

Jack did. The pants were too big, but there was a belt and he cuffed the pant legs. The act of dressing was made difficult by the cast on his right wrist. More than once he had to stop as his arm twitched with blades of pain. Michael helped him finish. When he'd completely dressed, including shoes which felt
almost
new, he pulled something from the flannel shirt's pocket. It was a ten-dollar bill. He stuffed it back in and buttoned the pocket closed with his good hand.

“Let's go,” Michael said, “and don’t talk. We don’t want to scare the nurses.”

The bed across from him was empty. Jack paused, seeing the sheets tucked neatly over and under the vacant mattress. Had there been someone there? If so, they must have taken him away while he was sleeping. He tried to remember, could not. Michael touched his arm and led him forward.

Jack risked a glance at the bed beside his own. The kid was still propped upright, but he was asleep. His features were lost in shadow as he was turned away from the window, but Jack could see his mouth open, hear the barest traces of snoring. With his mouth open like that, the skinny kid seemed more like a skeleton. The bandage on his chest poked up from under the sheets. Dark stains on the gauze, as if the nurses had decided to keep their distance and let this one heal on his own.

They stepped into the bright, silent hospital corridor. The room’s door closed behind them. As they approached the nurses' station, Jack wondered what excuse Michael would offer for their departure.

He offered none. They walked past the desk, and the bleach-blonde nurse looked up for a moment then back down as if she'd never seen them. The doors to the elevators a dozen yards ahead opened.

Michael laid a firm hand on Jack's shoulder and guided him to one side, holding one finger to his lips as the stood against the wall and waited.

Two large men in white hospital scrubs pushed a gurney along the floor. Jack stared at the straps laid carefully atop it. These had some meaning but, like everything else in his life, that meaning was too vague to grasp.

His heart beat in fear. The men passed by. The hallway took on the feel of a prison, and he and the angel were trying to escape. Men and gurney stopped outside Jack’s room.

He understood now.

“Praise God,” he whispered.

One of the goons looked back, stared directly at him.

Michael's hand squeezed so hard Jack expected the bones of his shoulder to crack. The man in the hospital scrubs stared a moment longer, then moved with his partner into the room.

Michael moved quickly, guiding him through the double doors. Jack wondered if anyone saw them swing open and closed. They headed towards the window at the far end of the hall. A surge of elation tore through him with the prospect of flying away like Peter Pan.

They stopped at the elevator and the angel pressed the “down” button. Jack couldn't hide his disappointment. He sighed.

As Michael waited for the doors to open, he muttered, “You've got a problem with something?”

They stepped in. When the doors closed and the elevator dropped, Jack said, “How... how come we're taking the elevator? Why not just blink us to safety?”