Harvest (13 page)

"What people? I've never seen them."

"No one ever does."

"Then how do you know they're there?"

"Ask Lubi. He cooks for them. Someone's eating the food he sends up. Now are you going to move a piece or what?"

With great concentration, Yakov advanced another pawn. 'why don't you just leave the ship when we get there?" he asked.

'why would I?"

"To stay in America and get rich."

Koubichev grunted. "They pay me enough. I can't complain."

"How much do they pay you?"

"You're too nosy."

"Is it a lot?"

"It's more than I used to make. More than a lot of men make. And just to go back and forth, back and forth across this damned Atlantic ."

Yakov moved out his queen. "So it's a good job? To be a ship's engineer?"

"That's a stupid move, bringing out your queen. Why did you make it?"

"I'm trying new things out. Should I be a ship's engineer some day?"

"No."

"But you get paid a lot."

"It's only because I work for the Sigayev Company. They pay very well."

'why?"

"I keep my mouth shut."

"Why?"

"How the hell should I .know?" Koubichev reached across the board. "My knight takes your queen. See, I told you it was a stupid move."

"It was an experiment," saidYakov.

"Well, I hope you learned something from it."

A few days later, on the bridge Yakov asked the navigator: "What's the Sigayev Company?"

The navigator shot him a look of surprise. "How did you hear that name?"

"Koubichev told me."

"He shouldn't have."

"So you don't talk about it either," saidYakov.

"That's right."

For a moment, Yakov didn't say anything. He watched the navigator fuss with his electronics equipment. There was a small screen where little numbers kept flashing, and the navigator would write the numbers in a book, then look in his chart.

'where are we?" asked Yakov.

"Here."The navigator pointed to a tiny x on the chart. It was in the middle of the ocean.

"How do you know?"

"By the numbers. I read them on the screen. The latitude and longitude. See?"

"You have to be very clever to be a navigator, don't you?"

"Not so clever, really." The man was moving two plastic rulers across the chart now. They were connected by hinges, and he'd clack them together as he slid them to the compass rose at the edge of the chart.

"Are you doing something illegal?" askedYakov.

'what?"

"Is that why you're not supposed to talk about it?"

The navigator sighed. "My only responsibility is to guide this ship from Riga to Boston and back to Riga."

"Do you always carry orphans?"

"No. Usually we carry cargo. Crates. I don't ask what's in them. I don't ask questions, period."

"So you could be doing something illegal."

The navigator laughed. "You are a little devil, aren't you?" He began to write again in his notebook, recording numbers in neat columns.

The boy watched him for a while in silence. Then he said, "Do you think anyone will adopt me?"

"Of course someone will."

"Even with this?"Yakov raised his stump of an arm. The navigator looked at him, andYakov recognized the flicker of pity in the man's eyes. "I know for a fact someone will adopt you," he said.

"How do you know?"

"Someone's paid for your passage, haven't they? Arranged for your papers."

"I've never seen my papers. Have you?"

"It's none of my business. My only job is to get this ship to Boston." He waved Yakov aside. "Why don't you go back to the other boys? Go on."

"They're still not feeling well."

"Well, go play somewhere else."

Reluctantly Yakov left the bridge and went out on deck. He was the only one there. He stood by the rail and stared down at the water splintering before the bow. He thought of the fish swimming somewhere below in their grey and turbid world, and suddenly he found he couldn't breathe; the image of swirling water was suffocating. Yet he didn't move. He stayed at the rail gripping ,it with his one hand, letting the panicky thoughts of cold, deep water wash through him. Fear was something he had not felt in a very long time.

He was feeling it now.

CHAPTER EIGHT

She had had the same dream two nights in a row. The nurses told her it was because of all the medications she'd been taking. The methylprednisolone and the cyclosporine and the pain pills. The chemicals were scrambling her brain. And after weeks of hospitalization, of course she'd be having bad dreams. Everyone did. It was nothing to worry about. The dreams would, eventually, fade away.

But that morning, as Nina Voss lay in her ICU bed, the tears fresh in her eyes, she knew the dream would not go away, would never go away. It was part of her now. Just as this heart was part of her.

Softly, she touched her hand to the bandages on her chest. It had been two days since the operation, and though the soreness was just starting to ease, it still awakened her at night, a reminder of the gift she'd received. It was a good, strong heart. She had known that within a day of the surgery. During the long months of her illness, she'd forgotten what it was like to have a strong heart. To walk without gasping for air. To feel the blood pump, warm and vital, to her muscles. To look down at her own fingers and marvel at the rosy flush of her capillaries. She had lived so long waiting for death, accepting death, that life itself had become foreign to her. But now she could see it in her own hands. Could feel it in her fingertips.

And in the beating of this new heart.

It did not yet feel as if it belonged to her. Perhaps it never would. As a child, she would often inherit her older sister's clothing, Caroline's good wool sweaters, her scarcely-worn party dresses. Although the garments had unquestionably passed to Nina's ownership, she had never stopped thinking of them as her sister's. In her mind, they would always be Caroline's dresses, Caroline's skirts.

And whose heart are you? she thought, her hand gently touching her chest.

At noon, Victor came to sit by her bed.

"I had the dream again," she told him. "The one about the boy. It was so clear to me this time! When I woke up, I couldn't stop crying."

"It's the steroids, darling," said Victor. "They warned you about that side effect."

"I think it means something. Don't you see? I have this part of him inside me. A part that's still alive. I can feel him..."

"That nurse should never have told you it was a boy's."

"I asked her."

"Still, she shouldn't have told you. It does no one any good to release that information. "Not you. Not the boy."

"No," she said softly. "Not the boy. But the family - if there's a family--'

"I'm sure they don't wish to be reminded. Think about it, Nina. It's a strictly confidential process. There's a reason for it."

"Would it be so bad? To send the family a thank-you letter? It would be completely anonymous. Just a simple--'

"No, Nina. Absolutely not."

Nina sank back quietly on the pillows. She was being foolish again. Victor was right. Victor was always right.

"You're looking wonderful today, darling," he said. "Have you been up in a chair yet?"

"Twice," said Nina. Suddenly the room seemed very, very cold to her. She looked away and shivered.

Pete was sitting in a chair by Abby's bed, looking at her. He wore his blue Cub Scout uniform, the one with all the little patches sewn on the sleeves and the plastic beads dangling from his breast pocket, one bead for each achievement. He was not wearing his cap. Where is his cap? she wondered. And then she remembered that it was lost, that she and her sisters had searched and searched the roadside but had not found it anywhere near the mangled remains of his bicycle.

He had not visited in a long time, not since the night she'd left for college. When he did visit, it was always the same. He would sit looking at her, not speaking.

She said, "Where have you been, Pete? Why did you come if you're not going to say anything?"

He just sat watching her, his eyes silent, his lips unmoving. The collar of his blue shirt was starched and stiff, just the way their mother had pressed it for the burial. He turned and looked towards another room. A musical note seemed to be calling to him; he was starting to shimmer, like water that has been stirred.

She said, "What did you come to tell me?"

The waters were churning now, beaten to a froth by all those musical notes. Another bell-like jangle led to total disintegration. There was only darkness.

And the ringing telephone.

Abby reached for the receiver. "DiMatteo," she said.

"This is the SICU. I think maybe you'd better come down."

"What's happening?"

"It's Mrs ross in Bed 15. The transplant. She's running a fever, 38.6?

"What about her other vitals?"

"BP's a hundred over seventy. Pulse is ninety-six."

"I'll be there." Abby hung up and switched on the lamp. It was 2 a.m. The chair by her bed was empty. No Pete. Groaning, she climbed out of bed and stumbled across the room to the sink, where she splashed cold water on her face. Its temperature didn't even register. She felt the water as though through anaesthesia. Wake up, wake up, she told herself. You have to know what the hell you're doing. A post-op fever. A three-day-old transplant. First step, check the wound. Examine the lungs, the abdomen. Order a chest x-ray and cultures.

And keep your cool She couldn't afford to make any mistakes. Not now, and certainly not with this patient.

Every morning for the past three days, she'd walked into Bayside not knowing if she still had a job. And every afternoon at five o'clock she'd heaved a sigh of relief that she'd survived another twenty-four hours. With each day that passed, the crisis seemed a little dimmer and Parr's threats more remote. She knew she had Wettig on her side, and Mark as well. With their help, maybe - just maybe - she'd keep her job. She didn't want to give Parr any reason to question her performance as a doctor, so she'd been especially meticulous at work, had checked and re-checked every lab result, every physical finding. And she'd been careful to steer clear of Nina Voss's hospital room. Another angry encounter with Victor Voss was the last thing she needed.

But now NinaVoss was running a fever andAbby was the resident on the spot. She couldn't avoid this: she had a job to do.

She pulled on her tennis shoes and left the on-call room.

Late at night, a hospital is a surreal place. Hallways stretch empty, the lights are too bright, and through tired eyes, all those white walls seem to curve and sway like moving tunnels. She was weaving through one of those tunnels now, her body still numb, her brain still struggling to function. Only her heart had fully responded to the crisis: it was pounding.

She turned a corner, into the SICU.

The lights were dimmed for the night - modern technology's concession to the diurnal needs of human patients. In the gloom of the nurses' station, the electrical patterns of sixteen patients' hearts traced across sixteen screens. A glance at Screen 15 confirmed that Mrs Voss's pulse was running fast. A rate of 100.

The monitor nurse picked up the ringing telephone, then said: "Dr. Levi's on the line. He wants to talk to the on-call resident."

"I'll take it," said Abby, reaching for the receiver. "Hello, Dr. Levi? This is Abby DiMatteo."

There was a silence. "You're on call tonight?" he said, and she heard a distinct note of dismay in his voice. She understood at once the reason for it. Abby was the last person he wanted to lay hands on Nina Voss. But tonight there was no alternative; she was the senior resident on call.

She said: "I was just about to examine MrsVoss. She's running a fever."

"Yes, they told me about it." Again there was a pause.

She plunged into that void, determined to keep their conversation purely professional. I'll do the usual fever workup," she said. "I'll examine her. Order a CBC and cultures, urine, and chest x-ray. As soon as I have the results I'll call you back."

"All right," he finally said. I'll be waiting for your call."

Abby donned an isolation gown and stepped into Nina Voss's cubicle. A single lamp had been left on, and it shone dimly above the bed. Under that soft cone of light, NinaVoss's hair was a silvery streak across the pillow. Her eyelids were shut, her hands crossed over her body in a strange semblance of holy repose. The princess in the sepulchre, thought Abby.

She moved to the side of the bed and said softly: "Mrs Voss?" Nina opened her eyes. Slowly her gaze focused on Abby. "Yes?" Tm Dr. DiMatteo," said Abby. "I'm one of the surgical residents." She saw the flicker of recognition in the other woman's eyes. She knows my name, thoughtAbby. She knows who I am. The graverobber. The body thief.

Nina Voss said nothing, merely looked at her with those fathomless eyes.

"You have a fever," explained Abby. "We need to find out why. How are you feeling, Mrs Voss?"

"I'm... tired. That's all," whispered Nina. "Just tired."

"I'll have to check your incision." Abby turned up the lights and gently peeled the bandages off the chest wound. The incision looked clean, no redness, no swelling. She pulled out her stethoscope and moved on to the rest of the fever workup. She heard the normal rush of air in and out of the lungs. Felt the abdomen. Peered into the ears, nose, and throat. She found nothing alarming, nothing that would cause a fever. Through it all, Nina remained silent, her gaze following Abby's every move.

At last Abby straightened and said: "Everything seems to be fine, But there must be a reason for the fever. We'll be getting a chest x-ray and collecting three different blood samples for cultures." She smiled apologetically. "I'm afraid you're not going to get much sleep tonight."

Nina shook her head. "I don't sleep much, anyway. All the dreams.

So many dreams..."

"Bad dreams?"

Nina took in a breath, slowly let it out. "About the boy."

"Which boy, Mrs Voss?"

"This boy." Softly she touched her hand to her chest. "They told me it was a boy's. I don't even know his name. Or how he died. All I know is, this was a boy's." She looked at Abby. "It was. Wasn't it?" Abby nodded. "That's what I heard in the operating room."