The Word Exchange (55 page)

Doug had been forced to call Max’s mother in Boston. “That was a terrible conversation,” he said, shivering. Max had died on Christmas Eve, two days earlier, while I’d been in quarantine. Doug had gone to Heathrow with the body.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, in the strangest voice I’d ever heard. A distant echo, from the bottom of a well. And for a moment I think I lost consciousness. I’m not sure. The world was there, and then it wasn’t. When it came back, it was very loud. So loud I covered my ears. But it didn’t help, because my thoughts were louder. Thunderous. One was that I’d already known he was dead. Had known it would happen since the last night I’d seen him. But just as strong was the conviction that Max was still alive, and that my father was lying.

He was saying something else. But it took the words a long time to get through. Finally I heard, “You know, he really loved you.”

And for just the sliver of a moment, I was confused. I saw Bart’s wide-set green eyes. His pointy incisors. But then the smile changed: there was a dark gap between the front teeth. And Doug was saying, “Maybe that’s why he ended things. He thought it would be safer for you.” I turned then and tried to look at Doug, but his face was indistinct, smudged with my tears. “I don’t know if that’s the right thing to say,” he said as I stood and left the room.

The attack of sadness I suffered then was so violent that I thought my mind might be going. I could barely breathe. Almost couldn’t see. I was afraid to go to my room—I didn’t want Bart to hear my sobs through the wall. I went outside even though I had no hat or gloves or scarf. I didn’t feel the cold. I sank to the ground—on the same spot, I imagined, where
Max had begged to be let inside. I wept until my stomach hurt and I thought I would throw up. My throat was raw. My eyes giant in my head. Because Doug was right: I still loved Max. I always will.

But as I cried I felt a twisting guilt, like a wet sheet whipping in the wind. Because I wasn’t just crying for Max. I was crying because I was worried about my mother, on the other side of the world. And all the rest of my family, and my friends. Because I missed Coco, and I hadn’t spoken to either Audrey or Ramona in weeks and I didn’t know if they were all right. I was crying for Phineas. And for Victoria. And for people I’d never met, all those who’d gotten sick or fallen silent or died, and the ones who loved them. But most of all I was crying for Bart, because I knew I’d lose him, too.

When I finally went back in, my hands were crimson. After they’d thawed enough to feel, they burned like they were being boiled. I tried Bart’s door, right next to mine, but it was locked. Pressed my ear to the wood and heard nothing.

In my room there was a glass of cloudy water on the desk. A pair of oblong pink pills. And a note in Doug’s hand read: “Take these.” I couldn’t help but think of Alice, finding the vial:
Drink Me
. Shrinking. Drowning in the pool of tears.

I climbed into bed. And while I waited for the pills to work, I started seeing things: screaming babies large as dogs, people’s heads rolling off. I thought I heard knocking through the wall. I knocked back three times, sure that Bart would understand.
²
Then I slept a few dreamless hours and woke to louder knocking. More exhausted than I’d ever been.

A note slid under my door. “Sorry,” it began. “But if you want to make the press conference, your train leaves at eight.” After I read it, I went back to sleep. Ten minutes later, though, I forced myself to get up again.

Before I left the room, I pressed my hand to the wall, and I whispered, “Please come back.”

When we met in the lobby, Doug was in a suit and tie and freshly shaven. I had on the pants I’d worn for four days. He squeezed my shoulders, but
I backed away; I didn’t want to start crying again. As we walked through the gate, followed by guards, we filled the air with just the streams of our breathing, no words.

In the train Doug gave me the window seat. I rested my head on the juddering glass. Watched all the vistas blur by, one into the next. A small cemetery where we crossed the Thames. Cows grazing in the shadow of a grocery chain. Lots of what I thought of as heather, some gray, some the russet color of ancient tractors left out in the rain. Trees. Horses. Brave souls practicing on a cold soccer pitch, white versus red.

I thought,
You are not dead yet
.

The press conference was being held at a former residence of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s, the building where he’d written most of his dictionary. We took a cab from Paddington to Fleet Street, then walked from Red Lion Court to Pemberton. Turned under an arch marked
GOUGH SQUARE
, and there was number 17. It was a beautiful brick building. A cream-and-wine-colored sign affixed to its side said, “Dr. Samuel Johnson / Author. / Lived Here.” On the cobbles by the side entrance was a large chalk
X
marked “Press.”

Doug had to prepare, but he told me to go inside and give myself a tour. The place was laced with history, from the worn brass on the curved casement latches to the steep slant of the stairs. The third floor felt haunted, thanks to a glyph.
³
But I liked the top floor best. It was a low-ceilinged attic with small windows and objects under glass: Johnson’s gold-tipped cane; a porcelain mug that had once graced the lips of his famous biographer, Boswell; a white plate painted with blue lovebirds, facing off. There was also an electronic display of Dr. Johnson’s manuscript, illuminated not with gold leaf but an LED.

I spent a long time up there, watching the crowd form in the square below. There weren’t enough folding chairs, so a few people stood back by the cameras, their badges and coats flapping in the wind. As it got closer to the moment for Doug to speak, I started down the stairs again.

But I stopped on the second floor, arrested by a view not of space but of time. On shelves behind glass panes matching those that looked
outside were Dr. Johnson’s books: portals to the past. A copy of his dictionary was also out on display, the two volumes open on a table glossy as a dark, fogged mirror. The book was enormous, paper thick as wedding stock. I turned to the L’s, for “lexicographer,” to see “harmless drudge” in tiny pica type. And I smiled, thinking how Bart would like that. I’d show him if he got out of quarantine. (
When
, I told myself.) Then I flipped more absently and landed in the
G
’s. Saw “gamecock” and “gamut” and “gargarism.” “Gasconade,” “gastriloquist.” Then, as I heard Doug’s tread squeak the stairs, my eye lingered on the word “gather,” and I read: “To collect; to bring into one place.” And I took that as a sign: that I should round up Doug’s notes and my own memories and thoughts since the start of the virus. That I should tell this story, which might otherwise be lost.

I met Doug’s eye, and we walked down to where everyone was waiting outside.

Standing behind the thick of the crowd, roughed by a biting wind, I looked around the square at all the green beribboned wreaths. A red scarf tied to the neck of a bronze sculpture of a cat. White strings of lights. Christmas had already slipped past. I glanced back to the tense faces watching Doug. He adjusted his tie. From that distance, only I knew the tiny yellow dots on navy silk were pineapples.

Or so I thought. Only later did I notice a few people I recognized: Susan, in her red glasses; Franz; Clara Strange; Tommy Keach, with his pale hair pulled away from his face. I looked around for Phineas and didn’t see him, which made the pleasure of seeing the others less complete. But being there with them still gave me the sense of being part of a long, bending, unbreakable chain.

Doug’s voice began to sound through the square. And soon he was explaining that while the numbers were impossible to verify, it was now believed that more than nineteen thousand deaths had been attributed directly or indirectly to the viruses. And the viruses were still spreading: so far they’d done relatively little damage in the U.K., but they’d made inroads in other Commonwealth countries, on U.S. military bases, and in territories from Guam to Puerto Rico.

“Elsewhere now, too,” said Doug. And he delivered the bad news that aphasia had leapt from English to at least twelve other languages. I heard quickly stifled murmuring. Saw hands flutter in the crowd. On
the faces of those nearby, I noticed lines flower on foreheads. Someone shouted out a question about the best precautionary measures, and I saw the muscles in Doug’s jaw jump.

“Please hold your questions to the end,” called a small blond woman to Doug’s left.

“The best measure is not to be exposed,” Doug said grimly. But he did then list several techniques that had proven useful for reversing damage in controlled environments. The list was later passed to the crowd. I have it here:

On the train ride back, Doug and I didn’t talk until after Slough, when I finally asked about Franz and the other Society members I’d seen.

Doug nodded, looking tired. He explained that they’d come to help set up an archival center at the Glass that would probably serve as a model for other institutions, and to lend a hand with final edits on the
NADEL
’s recovered files before the third edition went to print. He was hoping more Society members would arrive as they could.

Looking past me out the window, he said softly, “Have you given my request from last night any more thought?”

I didn’t answer right away. I pressed my hand to the window, then put it back in my lap. Watched its white ghost quickly fade from the glass.

Mistaking my silence for diffidence, Doug said, “You know, you’re capable of far more than you give yourself credit for. It’s very frustrating.” When I still didn’t speak, he chewed his lips in remorse. “Sorry,” he murmured. “But you know it’s true.”

I shrugged. But it wasn’t really true anymore. I was starting to believe I could do it. “Wood and glue?” I said.

Doug’s eyes brightened. “If you decide to go ahead,” he said, smiling, “you’ll also have help from Bart.”

I sat up. “What do you mean? Does that … Alistair said Bart won’t be out for at least a week.”

Doug cleared his throat. Loosened the noose of his tie. “He might be in for closer to a month, Anana. He’s in an experimental treatment.”

“A month?” I tried to say. But I had barely any air. “I thought—no one’s been in longer than seven days. I thought you said that was the limit of what’s safe.”

Doug’s face put on its mask of tragedy. He only took it from its hook when someone died. But it was fresh in my mind: he’d used it just the day before. “Anana,” he said, his mouth a sad, soft crescent, “I want you to know we’re working with an excellent team of doctors.” He took my hand. “And Bart has a very good chance—”

“He has a good chance?” I said, feeling sick, gently taking back my hand.

Doug let out a sigh. Rubbed his forehead. “We don’t really have another choice,” he said, helpless. Then, more quietly, “You know, he’s one of my closest friends, too.”

And I looked away, back out the window. Blinking quickly.

“How could he even help me, then?” I said softly to the hills and fields. “Should I wait until he’s out of quarantine?”

“No, you shouldn’t wait,” Doug said, too quickly. And the awful, silent sentence I heard hiding beneath it was,
Bart may never speak again
. “You’d use his journals,” Doug explained. “And if you start soon,” he went on, trying to sound encouraging, “then when he’s out, you’ll be done, and you can share it with him.” He pressed my knee.

But by then I was only half listening. Doug had used a word that
derailed me. A word almost as old as typewriter, or gramophone. “Journals?” I said, amazed and vaguely disturbed. Keeping a journal seemed like such a waste. Why write something only you would ever see? It bordered on conceit, which wasn’t Bart to me. But at the same time I was a little sad that he’d never told me. “Why?” I asked, trying to imagine what dark secrets Bart was keeping. Why else write in private?

Doug was studying me quizzically. “Reflection can be its own reward,” he said. I thought about that. Later I thought of it a lot. But Doug had more to say. “The truth is,” he admitted, “Bart’s always wanted to be a writer. Or at least he did.”

We both fell silent. I saw Bart curled on his cot in the room next to mine. Forehead dewed with sweat, like a glass of water. I tried not to picture him sick like that. But I couldn’t help it.

Soon, though, Doug started speaking again. “Bart wanted you to have them,” he said. “His journals. That was his last request.”

“He did?” I said, flushing a little, not looking at Doug. Not thinking of that phrase, “last request.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Doug nod. “He wrote me a note when he was still relatively lucid. And if I’m not mistaken, he left you a letter, too. My hypothesis is that he held out so well for so long, even given what seems to be a very serious case of word flu, because he was writing—and it wasn’t just a solipsistic exercise. It was meant to be a dialogue. With you,” he said gently. “You were helping him without even knowing it.”