City of Golden Shadow (14 page)

That was small solace, though.

Renie finally got the ancient interface to stop on the "S"s and she punched in her visitor code. "Sulaweyo, Stephen" was listed as "unchanged," which meant that she could visit him, at least. But seeing Stephen these days was always heartbreakingly short of anything she would have called a "visit."

A nurse reading from a pad briefed her as she struggled into an Ensuit, although there was little he could tell Renie that she had not gleaned from the single word on the monitor in the waiting room. She had become so familiar with the litany she could have recited it herself, so she let the nurse go when he had finished, despite the urge to hang onto any symbol of officialdom and beg for answers. Renie knew by now that there were no answers. No detectable viruses-including, thank God, no signs of the fatal disease that had forced the hospital into such heavy-handed security. No blood clots or other blockages, no trauma to the brain. Nothing. Just a little brother who hadn't awakened for twenty-two days.

She shuffled along the passageway, holding her air hose to keep it from catching on things. Groups of doctors and nurses-and possibly other visitors as well, since everyone looked pretty much the same in an Ensuit-hurried past her, making the same crackling and hissing noises she made. It was a little like being in an old news video about manned space exploration; when she passed a large window, she almost expected to look out and see the star-flocked depths of space beyond, or perhaps the rings of Saturn. Instead, it was only another ward full of tented beds, another campground of the living dead.

Renie was stopped twice on her way to the fourth floor and asked to produce her visitor's pass. Although both functionaries spent a long time examining the faint lettering-the effects of a dying printer exacerbated by perspex faceshields on the Ensuits-she was not angered by the delay. In a way, she found it vaguely reassuring to know that the hospital really did care about the security of their quarantine. Stephen had been stricken so quickly and thoroughly . . . and so mysteriously . . . that it almost seemed like an act of malice. Renie was frightened for her baby brother, frightened of something she could not explain. She was relieved to see that people were on guard.

Renie desperately wanted her brother to get better, but she was even more afraid of a turn for the worse. When she found him lying in exactly the same position as the day before, and all the monitors still locked on readings that were now as familiar as her own address, she felt both unhappiness and relief.

Oh, God, my poor little man. . . . He was so small in that big bed. How could a little tearaway like Stephen be so quiet, so still? And how could she, who had fed him, protected him, tucked him in at night, had in all ways except biology been a mother to him, how could she be so maddeningly unable to do anything for him now? It was not possible. But it was true.

She sat beside his bed and put her own gloved hand into the larger glove built into the side of the tent. She carefully maneuvered her fingers past the tangle of sensor wires radiating from his scalp, then stroked his face, the familiar and beloved tine of his rounded forehead, his upturned nose. She was heartsick at being so completely separated from him. It was like trying to touch someone in VR-they might as well be meeting in the Inner District. . . .

A kindling of memory was interrupted by a movement at the doorway. Despite her own Ensuit, she jumped at the white apparition.

"Sorry to startle you, Ms. Sulaweyo."

"Oh, it's you. Any change?"

Doctor Chandhar leaned forward and surveyed the monitor dials, but even Renie knew there was no information to be had there.

"Much the same, it seems. I am sorry."

Renie shrugged, a resigned gesture belied by the heaviness in her gut, the warm imminence of tears. But crying was useless. All she would do was fog the faceplate. "Why can't anyone tell me what's wrong?"

The doctor shook her head, or at least moved the hood of her Ensuit from side to side. "You're an educated woman, Ms. Sulaweyo. Sometimes medical science does not have answers, only guesses. At the moment our guesses are not very good. But things may change. At least your brother's condition is stable."

"Stable! So is a potted plant!" Now the tears did come. She turned to face Stephen again, although at the moment she could see nothing.

A gloved, inhuman hand touched her shoulder. "I am sorry. We are doing all we can."

"What is that, exactly?" Renie struggled to keep her voice steady, but she could not help sniffling. How was a person supposed to blow her nose in one of these bloody suits? "Please tell me, what are you doing? Besides putting him in the sun and keeping him watered."

"Your brother's case is rare, but not unique." Doctor Chandhar's voice was pitched in the telltale dealing with difficult family members mode. "There have been-and are-other children who have fallen into this sort of comatose state without apparent cause. Some of them have spontaneously recovered, just woke up one day and asked for something to drink or eat."

"And the others? The ones who didn't just sit up and demand icecream?"

The doctor removed her hand from Renie's shoulder. "We are doing our best, Ms. Sulaweyo. And there is nothing you can do except what you are doing-coming here so that Stephen can feel your touch and hear your familiar voice."

"I know, you told me. Which means I should be talking to Stephen instead of haranguing you." Renie took a shaky breath. The tears had stopped flowing, but her faceplate was still steamy. "I don't mean to take it out on you. Doctor. I know you've got a lot to worry about"

"This has not been a particularly good time, these past few months. I wonder sometimes why I picked a career with so much sadness in it." Doctor Chandhar turned at the doorway. "But it is good to make a difference, and sometimes I do. And sometimes, Ms. Sulaweyo, there are wonderful moments of happiness. I hope you and I can share one of those when Stephen comes back to us."

Renie watched the dim white form shuffle out into the corridor. The door slid closed again. The maddening thing was, although she was aching for someone to fight with, for someone to accuse, there was no one. The doctors were doing their best. The hospital, despite its limitations, had given Stephen almost every test that might help explain what had struck him down. None had. There were no answers. There was truly no one to blame.

Except God, she thought. Perhaps. But that had never done anyone much good. And perhaps Long Joseph Sulaweyo was not entirely without responsibility in the matter either.

Renie touched Stephen's face again. She hoped that somewhere deep inside that unresponsive body he could feel and hear her, even through two layers of quarantine.

"I have a book, Stephen. Not one of my favorites this time, but one of yours." She smiled sadly. She was always trying to get him to read African things-stories, history, folktales from the mixed tribal legacy of their family. She wanted him to be proud of his heritage in a world where such holdovers were fast disappearing, crushed in the inexorable, glacial flow of First World culture. But Stephen's tastes had never run that way.

She thumbed on her pad, then increased the size of the text so she could see it through brimming eyes. She blanked the pictures. She didn't want to see them, and Stephen couldn't "It's Netsurfer Detectives," she said, and began to read.

" 'Malibu Hyperblock is completely sealed,' shouted Masker as he crashed through the door, letting his skim-board zoom off into the other room with none of his usual care. The Zingray 220 knocked several other boards loose as it tried to fit itself back into the rack. Masker ignored the clatter, more concerned with his news. 'They've got bigmama Recognizers on every flowpoint.'

" 'That's some vicious-bad wanton!' said Scoop. He left his holo-striped pad floating in midair as he turned to his excited friend, 'I mean, there must be major trouble-double-sampled!'. . . ."

If you would just go and see him!"

Long Joseph put his hands to his head as though to shut out the noise. "I did go, didn't I?"

"Twice! You've been twice-the day after I took him there and when the doctor made you come down for a conference,"

"What more you want? He's sick. You think I should go down every day like you do, look at him? He's still sick. Visit him all you want, it don't make him better."

Renie seethed. How could anyone be so impossible? "He's your son, Papa. He's just a kid. He's all by himself in that hospital."

"And he don't know nothing! I went and talk to him, be don't know nothing. What good is all your talking, talking. . . ? You even read him books!"

"Because a familiar voice might help him find his way back." She paused and prayed for strength to the God of her trusting childhood-a kinder God than any she could summon belief for these days. "And maybe it's your voice he needs to hear most, Papa. The doctor said so."

His look became vulpine, his eyes darting to the side as though seeking escape. "What's that nonsense mean?"

"He had a fight with you. You were angry with him-told him not to come back. Now something has happened to him and maybe, somewhere down deep like a dream, he's scared to come back. Maybe he thinks you're mad at him and so he's staying away."

Long Joseph pushed himself up off the couch, frightened but trying to cover it with bluster. "That's . . . you can't talk to me like that, girl, and no doctor talks to me like that about my business either." He stamped his way into the kitchen and began to open cupboards. "A lot of craziness. Scared of me! I just set him straight. Didn't even lay no hand to him."

"There isn't any."

The cupboard-rifling noises stopped. "What?"

"There isn't any, I didn't buy you any wine."

"Don't tell me what I'm looking for!"

"Fine. Do what you like." Renie's head hurt, and she was so tired she didn't want to get out of her chair until the arrival of tomorrow morning forced her. Between working, commuting, and visiting Stephen, she was spending at least fourteen hours a day out of the house. So much for the Information Century-every time you turned around, you had to go somewhere, see someone, usually on aching feet because the bloody trains weren't running. The Cyber Age. What shit.

Long Joseph reappeared in the living room. "I'm going out. A man deserves some peace."

Renie decided to make one last try. "Listen, Papa, whatever you think, it would do Stephen good to hear your voice. Come with me to visit him."

He raised his hand as if to swing at something, then pressed it over his eyes for a long moment. When he took it away, his face was full of despair. "Go there," he said hoarsely. "So I should go there and watch my son die."

Renie was shocked. "He's not dying!"

"Oh? He jumping and running? He playing football?" Long Joseph stretched his arms wide; his jaw worked furiously. "No, he is lying in hospital just like his mama. You were with your grandmother, girl. You weren't there. I sat there for three weeks and watched your mama all burned up in that bed. Tried to give her water when she cried. Watched her die slowly." He blinked several times, then abruptly turned his back on her, his shoulders hunched as though against the blow of a sjambok. His voice, when it came, was almost a different person's. "I spent . . . plenty of time in that damn hospital."

Stunned, her own eyes abruptly welling, Renie could not speak for a moment. "Papa?"

He would not turn to face her. "Enough, girl. I'll go see him. I'm his father-you don't need to tell me my job."

"You will? Will you come with me tomorrow?"

He made an angry sound in his throat. "I've got things to do. I'll let you know when I'm coming."

She tried to be gentle. "Please make it soon, Papa. He needs you."

"I'll see him, damn you-put on that foolish suit again. But don't tell me when to go." Still unwilling or unable to meet her eyes, he thumbed the door open and went lurching out.

Drained of energy, full of confusion, Renie sat for a long time staring at the closed door. Something had just happened, but she wasn't quite sure what it had been or what it had meant. For a moment she had felt something like a connection with the father she had known-the man who had labored so hard to keep the family together after his wife died, who had worked extra jobs and encouraged her studies and even tried to help Renie and her grandmother, Uma' Bongela, with little Stephen. But after her Uma' had died and Renie had become a grown woman, he had just given up. The Long Joseph she had known seemed completely lost.

Renie sighed. Whether that was true or not, she just didn't have the strength to deal with it right now.

She slumped deeper in the chair, squinting against the throb of her headache. She had forgotten to buy more painblockers, of course, and if she didn't take care of something, no one else was going to. She turned on the wallscreen and let the first thing she had cued up-a travelogue about holidays in Tasmania-wash over her, deadening her thoughts. For a brief moment she wished she had one of those expensive full sensory wraparounds, so she could go to that beach, smell the apple blossoms, feel the sand beneath her feet and the air of holiday freedom so expensively encoded into the program.

Anything to avoid the recursive memory of her father's hunched shoulders and of Stephen's sightless eyes.

When the beeping awoke her, Renie grabbed at her pad. Eight in the morning, but that wasn't her wake-up alarm. Was it the hospital?

"Answer!" she shouted. Nothing happened.

As she struggled into a sitting position, Renie finally realized that the noise was coming not from the phone but from the front door speaker. She pulled on a bathrobe and made her way groggily across the living room. Her chair was lying on its side like the dessicated corpse of some strange animal, victim of Long Joseph's late and drunken return. She leaned on the switch.

"Hello?"

"Ms. Sulaweyo? It is !Xabbu speaking. I am sorry to disturb you."

"!Xabbu? What are you doing here?"

"I will explain-it is nothing bad or frightening."

She looked around at the apartment, messy at the best of times, but now showing the effects of her cumulative absences. Her father's snores rumbled from his bedroom. "I'll be down. Wait for me."