The Hope (17 page)

It is late. The surgery is empty and Dr Chamberlain sits in his clinically clean office. The furniture is simple: two chairs (one comfortable, one less so) divided by a formidable desk. There are books, mainly Dr Macaulay’s casebooks, lined up along a shelf on the wall behind him.

Dr Chamberlain takes out Macaulay’s last casebook and reads, for the twenty-ninth time, words written three years ago…

Tuesday, Week 1,783

One doctor for one million patients. It’s patently absurd. They didn’t intend for there to be any health care on the Hope, or if they did, they simply didn’t anticipate the scale of the problem. The statistics thus far:

Cholera 897 deaths

Typhoid 325 deaths

Yellow Fever 107 deaths

Cancer-related 142 deaths

Sexually transmitted 83 deaths

Respiratory 760 deaths

Old age 2689 deaths

Unnatural causes 951 deaths

TOTAL: 5954 deaths

Nearly six thousand, not counting those which I have not attended or attested to.

I have seen death in myriad forms – lungs coughing up black phlegm, faces so riddled with cancer they resemble a relief map of the Black Mountains, whole deck areas devastated by plague.

But to see a baby born choking blue on its own umbilicus and lack the necessary skills and equipment to save it!

And I am only one man.

What was going through their minds when they launched this ship?

Wednesday, Week 1,783

I have reread yesterday’s entry. It was an unforgivable lapse, but I will not erase it. Besides, I was forgetting Marcus, who is coming along excellently. He has a natural aptitude for medicine and has learned almost everything I have to teach him. He will make an excellent assistant and, in time, my replacement.

The usual cases today. Minor ailments, wounds from fights and accidents, one serious case of dysentery. Two deaths. I am dispensing as much sympathy as I can, but I am running perilously short of it. Luckily, I am not running short of drugs. I think people would rather have the pill than a doctor. Pills are uncomplicated, don’t need to apologise, won’t break the bad news to you (while trying to soften the blow), are always there when you need them, don’t tire of you.

I stare through the window at grey seas, and I wish I was small, white, smooth and round. That way I could be with every patient all of the time. The palatable doctor.

Thursday, Week 1,783

Among many, two patients today who could most politely be called eccentrics.

The first swore the
Hope
was about to explode and we should all man the lifeboats. Such paranoid delusions are not uncommon, particularly under these exceptionally claustrophobic circumstances. I have reassured him as best I can and prescribed a mild sedative, which will reassure him better.

The second is more singular, an involved and complex psychological disturbance which I have chosen to study in some detail. I have asked him to return tomorrow.

I feel certain that you, Marcus, and your successors will learn more to your benefit from this case, if it proves to be as interesting as I suspect, than the endless list of trivial complaints and large-scale tragedies with which these casebooks have hitherto been filled.

Friday, Week 1,783

The gentleman concerned is a Mr Alexei Antonov.

The conversation that passed between us on our only formal consultation is set below, a transcript of a tape-recording I have made. The transcript may be cross-referenced with the original, Tape No. 157D.

Alexei Antonov speaks excellent English with only a trace of Russian inflection. He is intelligent and forthright, in his fifties, with hollow, red-lidded eyes but generally in fine physical health. A great Russian bear of a man, if that is not too much of a cliché. I do not believe he can easily be deluded, and similarly I do not believe he has set out to deceive me. It is the very lucidity with which he treats his madness that I find so intriguing.

I must note his obsessive habit of running his hand through his hair, which became increasingly marked as the conversation progressed, so much so that a few strands had accumulated in between his fingers by the end. In consequence of this habit, the hair on the top of his head has thinned considerably.

“Sit down, please, Mr Antonov.”

“Alexei, call me Alexei, Doctor.”

“Very good, Alexei. You don’t mind if I tape-record our conversation?”

“No.”

“Now tell me again what you told me yesterday. What is the nature of your complaint?”

“It is not me, Doctor. It is my wife. The ship is trying to kill her.”

“The ship?”

“The
Hope
.”

“How are these … attempted murders taking place?”

“Not murder.”

“Can you qualify that statement?”

“No.”

“What, then, is happening, Alexei?”

“This ship is alive, Doctor. She breathes, she thinks, her iron heart beats. Of course, we humans believe we are running her. We have a captain, a tidy man who steers our course and keeps law and order. He runs the ship, does he not? And we have a crew of stout sailors well-versed in the modern techniques of sailing. They act also as an unofficial police force. There are officers and petty officers and entertainment officers and engineers and janitors and chefs and the greenhouse-keepers and the food-store guards. They all run the ship, do they not? And the rest of us, the passengers, we live our days and scrabble to earn a living, to keep our heads above water, so to speak.

“But I truly do not think that the Captain or any of the crew run anything except the lives of thousands of humans.

“Imagine the ship as a dog with an infestation of fleas, and you will have some idea of my vision of the
Hope
.”

“I can see that. But it presupposes that the
Hope
is sentient, as you believe, and that we humans are parasites.”

“Correct. It is an apt metaphor, no?”

“No. The ship was built to carry humans. That was its sole purpose.”

“Is not a dog created in part to carry fleas? It provides them with a source of food and life, just as the meat of other animals provides the dog with a source of food and life. It is nature’s way.”

“How is this relevant to your wife?”

“Pray, let me continue. Finally, the dog decides it wishes to shake off the fleas. It has been irritated too long. Naturally the fleas are dying anyway but new ones are hatched to replace them. There are diseases, accidents, murders, which kill off some of the fleas, but they are replaced. An exponential increase. The numbers are swelling. The dog must take direct action. The dog must scratch.”

“Your wife?”

“Ah. About three weeks ago, we were promenading along the outer rim, watching a marvellous sunset, when the section of walkway upon which Pushka was standing collapsed, taking the railing with it. If we had not been walking arm in arm in our old-fashioned way, she would have plummeted straight down into the sea. As it was, we both nearly fell, but I managed to catch hold of the end of the railing. My wife was clutching my arm, hanging on for dear life. She did not scream.

“‘Pull me up, Alyosha,’ was all she said. And I did. I would rather both of us had fallen than let go of my Pushka. I hauled her over the edge of the broken walkway and held her in my arms. I think I had been more scared than she had.

“I took her home and went back to the spot. I knelt down and examined that walkway, and I saw no sign of rust, decay, any sort of corruption. The break was clean and straight, as if it had been cut neatly in half.

“I have not told my wife about these findings. At the time, I can tell you, I was considerably shaken. Half a bottle of vodka put an end to that, however. Ha, ha.

“Then, last week, the porthole in our cabin shattered as Pushka was going to open it for some air. Exploded inward into her face for no apparent reason. The noise nearly turned my beard grey.
Crack!
Like a gunshot. By a miracle, she only received a small cut on her chin. It might have been graver, Doctor, grave enough to require your attention, but God willed otherwise.

“‘My goodness!’ she said. And that was it. She has nerves of steel. Me, I finished off the rest of that vodka then and there.

“And now, strangest of all was what happened the evening before last. It decided me that I should seek help, your help, Doctor, as one of the few sane men left on board. You have an excellent reputation, Doctor, did you know that?”

“I only do my job. I hope I do it well.”

“Ha, ha, so modest. ‘I hope I do it well.’ Ha, ha. Well, then. Let me tell you.

“The evening before last, Doctor, the cabin came alive.

“At dinner, Pushka and I were enjoying a quiet meal when I saw something move on the wall behind her. I believed it was a shadow cast through the porthole by the service light outside. We have had to cover the porthole with a sheet of polythene. It is unlikely it will ever be fixed by a janitor, eh? Perhaps, thought I, the sheet is flapping slightly and casting unusual shadows.

“I went over to fix it. The polythene was firmly in place. I looked at the spot on the wall. There were no shadows.

“My wife asked what was the matter. I replied that I thought I had felt a draught. Whether I had or I hadn’t, I certainly felt a chill of some sort. I took my seat again.

“Pushka was telling me once again about her childhood in the Ukraine. I love the stories of her childhood, which was so innocent and uncomplicated compared with mine. My parents were Jewish, you see, and it has never been easy for us.

“Mid-sentence, Pushka stopped.

“‘Alyosha, what is it?’ she asked. I was staring behind her. I believe I dropped my knife. I don’t remember. ‘Alyosha?’

“What I saw had to be real. My mind could not invent such a thing. The steel of the wall was running as if it were melting and reforming into a shape. It flowed and grew solid. It made an arm with a fist the size of your head, and it was poised to descend on my poor Pushka to crush her.

“I made some sort of inarticulate cry – I think ‘grunt’ was the word Pushka used to describe it afterward – and I leaned over the table and pulled her towards me with little regard for her person or my own. The table tumbled over, scraping my shins, and with it Pushka fell into my chest. At the same moment that fist came down and smashed into the chair in which she had been sitting only a second before. The chair was left in ruins. I clutched Pushka to me and held her face away from that terrible, incomprehensible sight, not wishing her to share it. Luckily, before she could look round, the arm withdrew into the wall, leaving no mark of where it had been.

“‘Alyosha, what happened?’ she asked.

“I did not know. I could not explain.

“And there you are, Doctor. I cannot stay much longer, as I must get back to my wife and protect her as much as I am able. I do not think I will be able to save her in the event, but I do not like to leave her alone.”

“What do you think
I
can do?” I asked.

“Tell if I am going mad.”

“I can’t say. To be honest, I think you would agree with me that your story is somewhat … improbable. The accident on the walkway I can believe, the porthole shattering too. This is an old ship and things tend to go wrong now and again. But the fist… Well, it’s improbable.”

“Improbable. Ha, ha. It is impossible! But I am not lying.”

“No, I don’t think you are.”

“Then I am going mad.”

“The only help I can give you for that is to prescribe a course of tranquillisers. It’s all I’m qualified to do. That, and advise you to stop worrying.”

“No, no, no tranquillisers. I can get my own tranquilliser, if I need it, in liquid form. Ha, ha.”

“Then … there is nothing I can do.”

“I know. But come and see my wife. Assure her all is well, it is just her poor, mad fool of a husband who sees things that should not be there.”

“You told her about the fist?”

“How could I not? And she insists the chair simply broke when I grabbed hold of her. Fell over and broke. Ha, ha. It was made of metal and plastic, Doctor, and it was mangled beyond recognition. Broke!”

“Very well. Let’s go and see your wife.”

He took me down to a lower deck. Every time I go downstairs I am appalled by the conditions in which these people are expected to live. Every available surface is covered in soot and filth. The graffiti of desperate youths trying to make a name for themselves, however insignificant, is scrawled over certain areas. Stoppers line the walkways at regular intervals, asking for money or the time, or your time if they simply want to talk. The air is unclean and turgid and reeking of despair. Every time, I wish there was something I could do. Every time, I feel inadequate, as a physician, as a human being.

Meeting someone like Pushka Antonov, however, I have a small lift of the heart. To endure such degrading misery and come through with such alertness in your eyes, such grace in your bearing, such dignity, is nothing short of miraculous. She was in her late fifties and still handsome, and had a manner that suggested ingenuity and resourcefulness. She certainly didn’t appear terrified or victimised.

The Antonovs have made the best of their cabin. Richly coloured Armenian rugs hang over two of the walls and a photograph of a former President is dutifully pinned on the door to their bedroom.

I thought it would be intrusive to bring along my tape-recorder and so did not record any of the conversation that took place in the Antonovs’ cabin, but I will attempt to supply the gist of it as far as I can remember. The precise details are immaterial.

Pushka Antonov offered us tea. We both accepted, and in the meantime I examined the hollow porthole. It would take an expert on these things, but I could discern no obvious structural damage around it. The wall was neither warped nor buckled. The same held true for the patch of wall which Alexei was convinced had come to life.

When the tea came, it was bitter and dark brown.

“Thank you for coming, Doctor,” Pushka said. “I know you are a busy man.”