Passage

  “Others?” Yates said, bewildered.

  “The other boats,” Greg insisted.

  “There aren’t any others,” one of the women said, and Joanna saw it was the woman who’d been out on deck in her nightgown. She was wearing her red coat and the fox fur stole.

  “Miss Edith Evans,” Mr. Briarley whispered to Joanna. “She gave up her place in the last lifeboat to a woman with two children.”

  “It can’t have been the last one!” Greg said. “There have to be others!” He whirled to face Yates again. “You were loading the boats. What did they say about them? There were some down in second class, weren’t there? Weren’t there?”

  Yates frowned. “I remember there was some mention of lowering the boats to the Promenade Deck and loading them from there,” he said.

  “But when they got there, the windows were shut,” Mr. Briarley said, “and they had to send everyone back up to the Boat Deck,” but Greg had already run out, pushing his way through the door to the Promenade Deck.

  “Greg!” Joanna called after him and turned to Mr. Briarley. “Shouldn’t we—?” but he was sitting down at the table, and Yates was pulling out a chair for her.

  She sat down and looked around the table. W. T. Stead sat on her left, intent on his cards, which he had laid out in front of him on the table like a tarot hand and was turning over one by one. “You know Mr. Stead,” Mr. Briarley said.

  Stead glanced impatiently at Joanna, nodded curtly, and went back to turning the cards. “And everyone else I think you know,” Mr. Briarley said, waving his hand around the table.

  No, I don’t, Joanna thought, but as Mr. Briarley introduced them, she realized they were NDE patients she had interviewed: Mr. Funderburk, who had been so upset that he had not had an out-of-body experience, and bald, emaciated Ms. Grant, who had been so afraid. “And finally,” Mr. Briarley said, indicating a frail, white-haired woman, “Mrs. Woollam.”

  Oh, no, Joanna thought, not Mrs. Woollam. She didn’t deserve to be here. She was supposed to be in a beautiful, beautiful garden with Jesus. But the garden’s the Verandah Café, Joanna thought. “Oh, Mrs. Woollam,” she said.

  “ ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’ ” Mrs. Woollam said, “ ‘I will fear no evil,’ ” but as she spoke, she pressed her Bible to her thin chest fearfully.

  “Is that what this is?” Ms. Grant said anxiously. “The valley of the shadow of death?”

  “No,” Mr. Funderburk said firmly. “That’s nothing like this. I’ve been there. There’s a tunnel, and at the end of it, there’s a light. And a Life Review.” He looked skeptically around the smoking room. “I don’t know what this is.”

  “It’s five-card draw,” Yates said. He swept up the cards Stead had been turning over and shuffled them into the deck. “Aces high,” he said, and began to deal the cards.

  Joanna picked hers up as he dealt them. A five. An eight. “If it isn’t the valley of the shadow of death,” Ms. Grant said, looking at Joanna, “what is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Joanna said.

  “Really?” Mr. Stead said, arching an eyebrow at her. “I was given to understand you were an expert on the phenomena of dying.”

  “No,” Joanna said. “I thought I was, but I didn’t know anything.” And neither do you, she thought. Nobody knows anything.

  “In that case,” Stead said, “I will explain. There is nothing to fear, Ms. Grant. Death is not an end, but a transition. We are but sailing to the Other Side, where wait the spirits of our dear departed. They will greet us on that farther shore, where all is peace and knowledge.”

  “And a Life Review,” Mr. Funderburk said.

  “And we shall understand all mysteries,” Stead said and picked up his cards.

  “Are they right?” Ms. Grant said. She was gazing hopefully at Joanna, and so was Mrs. Woollam. So was Yates.

  Joanna glanced at Mr. Briarley, but his face was carefully impassive, like it had been in English class, offering no clue to what the answer was, no help at all. “Are they?” Edith Evans said quietly, and Joanna thought suddenly of Maisie asking, “Will it hurt?” and of her saying, “People should tell the truth, even if it’s bad.”

  “No,” Joanna said, and a sigh went around the table, though of relief or despair she couldn’t tell. “This isn’t real. It’s all a hallucination. The dying mind—”

  “A hallucination?” Mr. Stead said, arching an eyebrow at her. “Are you saying that this fire, this table, these cards—” he said, plucking two from his hand and pushing them across the table toward Yates. “Two,” he said, and Yates dealt him a pair. He picked them up, arranged them in his hand, “—that these cards—” he fanned them out, face up, “are not real, and we only imagine that we see them?” He stood up and went over to the fire. “We only imagine we feel this fire’s warmth?” he said, spreading his hands out to the flames. “Or are we part of the hallucination as well?”

  I don’t know, Joanna thought.

  “ ‘All alone, so Heav’n has will’d, we die,’ ” Mr. Briarley murmured beside her. She looked at him, wondering what he was, what they all were. Confabulations? Snatches of memory and sound and color, flickering randomly? Or metaphors? Symbols of her fear and faith and denial?

  “The mind tries to make sense of whatever it experiences,” she said, trying to explain. To whom? To Edith Evans and Jay Yates, who had died ninety years ago? Or to herself? “The mind can’t help it. It keeps doing it even when what it’s experiencing is a systems failure. The brain’s shutting down and synapses are firing randomly as the cells die, but the mind keeps trying to make sense of it, even though it can’t.”

  Mrs. Woollam was praying, her lips moving silently. Edith Evans had her chin up proudly, bravely. “It looks for associations from long-term memory, for metaphors to explain what’s happening,” Joanna said, “and since the body’s damaged and its systems are slowly going under, it confabulates the Titanic.”

  “The very image and mirror of Death,” Mr. Briarley said.

  “But it isn’t real,” Joanna said. “It only seems real.”

  “The sinking,” Ms. Grant said fearfully. “Will that seem real?”

  “The soul cannot sink,” Stead said sternly. “It is immortal, and if this,” he waved his arm to include the cards, the fireplace, the entire room, “is, as Miss Lander says, a symbol, what else can it symbolize but the ship of the soul, eternal, indestructible?” He smiled at Ms. Grant. “Such a ship shall never sink.”

  Joanna thought of Mr. Wojakowski saying earnestly, “All ships sink sooner or later.”

  “Will we confabulate the sinking?” Ms. Grant repeated, and it was Joanna she was looking at.

  Yes, Joanna thought, afraid. “I don’t know,” she said. “This is all just a metaphor for what the mind’s experiencing, and as the experience changes, as the brain shuts down and the synapses start firing more and more erratically, and—” She thought of what had happened to her on the way down here, memories flaring up like a match and then going out.

  “And what?” Ms. Grant said frightenedly. “What will happen?”

  “Nothing,” Joanna said. “As the cells die, there’ll no longer be enough to hold the unifying image together, and the Titanic will fade, or come apart. It’s already happening. This table is a table from Mercy General, and you—” She broke off and began again, “—and just now, on the stairs, I wasn’t on the Titanic. I was in the hallway of my apartment the night my father died. And before, on the Boat Deck, I saw two cheerleaders from my high school. That will happen more and more, till the image of the Titanic breaks up completely.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” Ms. Grant said.

  “What happened on the Titanic?” Edith asked. “After the boats were gone?”

  Joanna looked at Mr. Briarley, but he was busy sorting the cards in his hand. “Her bow went under and she began to list to port,” she said. “The water came up over the forward well deck and the A Deck companionway. The
lights . . . ” she faltered.

  “The lights went out,” Edith Evans said.

  “Do you think that will be part of the metaphor?” Ms. Grant said fearfully. “The lights going out?”

  How can it not be? Joanna thought. This is the lights going out, one by one, memory by memory, sensation by sensation, telephone calls and birthday presents and Dish Night, peanut M&M’s and snow and sitting perched on Maisie’s bed, looking at pictures of the Johnstown flood.

  “What happens then?” Edith asked. “After the lights go out?”

  The stern rises into the sky, Joanna thought, rearing up like a drowning swimmer, like a dying soul, and we go down into darkness.

  “Death is only an illusion,” Stead said. He poked at the fire. “A snare of science and unbelief.” He flung the poker into the fire, sending up sprays of ash and sparks. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Ms. Lander, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” he said, and stalked out of the room.

  “What happens then?” Ms. Grant asked fearfully.

  They take you to the morgue, Joanna thought, and cut your chest open in a Y to measure the knife wound, to determine the cause of death. And then they take you to the mortuary and inject embalming fluid into your veins and mastic compounds into your cheeks and brush your teeth with Ajax. And bury you in the ground.

  “What happens then?” Edith said. “After the lights go out?”

  They were all looking at her, waiting for her answer. “She sinks,” Joanna said.

  There was a silence, and then Mrs. Woollam said, “ ‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, for I am the Lord your God.’ ” She took a quavering breath. “The important thing is to trust in Jesus.”

  “And behave well,” Edith said, her chin up.

  “And play the hand you’re dealt,” Yates said.

  “Yes, so we should,” Joanna said, and picked up the rest of her cards. A two. A six. An ace.

  “How many cards do you want?” Yates asked her.

  “Two,” she said, and pushed two of her cards at Yates. He dealt her two more, and she knew what they were before she even picked them up.

  “I’ll open for a hundred,” Mr. Funderburk said.

  “I’ll see your hundred and raise you a hundred,” Edith said. The others, even Mr. Stead, even Mrs. Woollam, made their bets.

  “I’ll see you,” Joanna said to them all, “and raise you everything I’ve got.” She pushed her stack of red chips to the center.

  “When the end comes,” Edith said, reaching over to take Yates’s hand. “When it comes, what should we do?”

  You’ve already done it, Joanna thought, looking enviously at them, all those mothers, all those children, you gave up your place and your life and saved them.

  “The end can’t come yet,” Mr. Funderburk said. “There is supposed to be a Life Review first.”

  And this is it, Joanna thought, looking at Edith, at Yates, this is the Life Review, knowing you failed where others succeeded. Being tried in the balance and found wanting. Maisie, she thought despairingly. Maisie is the important thing. And I didn’t do it.

  “I call,” Yates said, and Joanna laid down her hand. “Two pair,” she said. “Aces and eights.” The dead man’s hand.

  The doors banged open and Greg stormed in. “Half of C Deck’s underwater,” he announced, “and the whole First-Class Dining Saloon.”

  Ms. Grant stood up, wringing her hands. “How long before the end, do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” Joanna said. “Irreversible brain death occurs in four to six minutes, but synapses continue to fire for several minutes after that—”

  “It’s been longer than that,” Ms. Grant said hopefully. “Maybe—”

  Joanna shook her head. “Time doesn’t—”

  “The last regular lifeboat was launched at 1:55 A.M.,” Mr. Briarley said. “The lights went out at 2:15, and five minutes later the ship went down. That means there was approximately twenty minutes betwee—”

  “Regular lifeboats?” Greg Menotti said. “What do you mean, regular lifeboats?”

  “Time doesn’t what?” Ms. Grant asked.

  “There were also four collapsible boats with canvas sides,” Mr. Briarley said, “but only two of them were launched. Collapsible A was washed off the deck and swamped, and Collapsible B capsized. The men who managed to climb aboard her bottom had to—”

  “Where are they?” Greg said to Joanna.

  “Greg—” Joanna said.

  “Time doesn’t what?”

  Greg grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet, knocking cards and poker chips onto the floor. “Where did they keep the collapsibles?”

  “On the roof of the officers’ quarters,” Mr. Briarley said.

  “Where are the officers’ quarters?” Greg demanded.

  “You don’t understand,” Joanna said. “This isn’t the Titanic. It’s a metaphor. We—”

  Greg’s grip tightened viciously on her arm. “Where are the officers’ quarters? Which deck?”

  “Even if they are there,” Joanna said, “it’s too late. You had a heart attack. You d—”

  “Which deck?”

  “The Boat Deck,” Joanna said.

  “Where on the Boat Deck?”

  “On the starboard side,” Joanna said. “Between the wheel-house and the wire—” The wireless shack. Where Jack Phillips had kept sending out SOSs long after the boats were gone. Where he had kept sending out signals to the very end.

  “Between the wheelhouse and the what?” Greg demanded, but she had already wrenched free of his arm, was already running.

  “HOLD TIGHT!”

  —KARL WALLENDA’S LAST WORDS

  MRS. DAVENPORT TOLD RICHARD she had spoken to Joanna only yesterday. “She has a message for you,” Mrs. Davenport said. “She said to tell you she is happy and doesn’t want you to mourn her, because Death is not the end. It is only a passage to the Other Side.”

  “I need to know when the last time you saw her on this side was,” Richard insisted. “Did you see her on the day she was killed?”

  “She was not killed,” Mrs. Davenport said. “Only her body. Her spirit lives eternally.”

  I’m wasting my time here. Mrs. Davenport doesn’t know anything, Richard thought. But too much was at stake to turn on his heel and walk out. “Did you see her on the day her body was killed?” Richard asked.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Davenport said. “I saw her walking toward a bright light, and in the light was an angel, extending his hand to her, leading her to the light, and I knew then that she had crossed over, and I was glad, for there is no fear or sorrow or loneliness on the Other Side, only happiness.”

  “Mrs. Davenport,” Richard said, and her psychic powers must have told her his patience was at an end.

  “I did not see her in her earthly body that day,” she said. “I hadn’t seen her for several weeks, even though I’d paged her a number of times.” She smiled beatifically. “Now I speak with her nearly every day. She said to tell you that you cannot find the truth of death, or life, through science. Instead, you must seek the light.”

  “Did she also say, ‘Rosabelle, believe’?” Richard asked.

  “Yes, now that you mention it, I do remember her saying that,” Mrs. Davenport said eagerly. “She said, ‘Tell Richard, “Rosabelle, believe.” ’ What does it mean?”

  That you’re just as in touch with the Other Side as all those bogus spiritualists Houdini’s wife consulted, Richard thought. “I have to go,” he said.

  “Oh, but you can’t,” Mrs. Davenport said. “You have to tell me what ‘Rosabelle, believe’ means. Is it some kind of secret code? What does it mean?”

  “It means it isn’t Joanna you’ve been getting messages from, it’s Houdini,” he said.

  “Really?” Mrs. Davenport said, thrilled. “You know, I had a feeling it was. Oh, I must tell Mr. Mandrake.”

  Richard escaped while she was reaching for the phone, and went back up to
the lab and science. He called up Amelia Tanaka’s scans, and then, after a moment, deleted the command. The secret, if there was one, lay in something Joanna had experienced, something Joanna had seen. He called up Joanna’s.

  Her scan appeared on the screen, a pattern of purple and green and blue. Telling him something. “Is it some kind of secret code?” Mrs. Davenport had asked. It was, and like Houdini’s mind-reading code, it had to be deciphered a little at a time. He began going through her scans, analyzing the patterns grid by grid, mapping the areas of activity, the receptors, the neurotransmitters.

  The last time he’d talked to Joanna, he’d told her about the presence of DABA in her and Mrs. Troudtheim’s scans. Could she have discovered something about—? But she didn’t know anything about inhibitors, and DABA was present in other NDEs.

  Still, it was a place to start. He checked for its presence in each of Joanna’s sessions. It was present in high levels in her last three sessions and at trace levels in her first one. He went through Mr. Sage’s scans. No DABA at all, but high levels in all but one of Amelia Tanaka’s, and trace levels in the template scan. Wonderful.

  He started through each session’s data, graphing the neurotransmitters. Cortisol in 60 percent, beta-endorphins in 80 percent, enkephalin in 30 percent. And a long list of neurotransmitters present in only one blood panel: taurine, neurotensin, tryptamine, AMP, glycine, adenosine, and every endorphin and peptide in the book.

  All right, combinations of neurotransmitters, he thought, and started looking for endorphins in tandem, but there weren’t any. It’s totally random, he thought at ten-thirty, grabbed a stack of transcripts to read through, and went home.

  But the answer wasn’t in Ms. Kobald’s “The angel touched my brow, and I knew Death was only the beginning,” or in Mr. Stockhausen’s “Brigham Young was standing in the light, surrounded by the elders.” It lay in the Titanic.

  He looked at his watch. Eleven-thirty. The Tattered Cover and Barnes and Noble would both be closed. Who would have books on the Titanic? Kit. She had said Joanna had asked her to find out about fires and fog, and Mr. Briarley had been an expert on the Titanic.