truth, again.
Clara decided if she’d made a mistake and accused the wrong man, she could not blame herself. It would be a perfectly reasonable error, stemming directly from Hal’s betrayal of her trust years ago, and his attempt to carry that treachery forward into the present as if she were still a defenseless resident, his adoring pupil. It was intolerable. Without changing from the khaki trousers and cashmere jacket she’d traveled home in, Clara tucked a clean handkerchief in her breast pocket, picked up her purse, and went to meet Harold in his office.
She heard his voice the moment she got off the elevator.
“I told you. I told you. You’re supposed to listen to me, and you didn’t listen. Why didn’t you listen to me? We could have avoided all these … people descending on us.”
Clara stopped to listen. Her footsteps clacking on the stone floor suddenly went silent.
“They’re going to know, and I’m not going to keep it a secret. You think this is a secret. Well, this is no secret. They know. They know all about us.”
Harold’s voice was both conspiratorial and threatening, but he was making no effort to keep it down. That was significant because people were careful there, even on Sundays. No one liked his paranoia to show. Clara approached like a hunter now, silent and wary.
The doctors’ academic offices were lined up, one after another, on the nineteenth floor. Up here there were no waiting rooms or secretarial areas. Just doors that opened into identical, unremarkable rooms all dominated by large institutional radiators that always seemed to work in opposition to the season. Today it was chilly in the building, but there was no sound of any of them clanking now. All the other doors on the hall were closed. For a second it was quiet. Clara picked up her pace.
“Clara, show yourself! I know you’re there.”
She pushed open the door.
“Aaahh.” Harold gave a little cry and lunged behind his desk. “Clara!”
“Hi,” she said softly, halting in the doorway. “What’s up?”
He raised his hands to protect his body, cowered behind his desk, gaping at her with wild eyes. “What are you doing here?” he cried.
“You called, Harold. What’s going on?”
She took in the room without turning her head. Harold was alone, surrounded by dozens of files. The files were scattered all over the desk and piled on the floor. His laptop computer was in the middle of his desk, half covered by files. The computer screen was blank, but the printer light was on.
“That’s right, I did. Clara,” he said sternly, suddenly moving out from behind his desk. His hand came up, finger pointed at her in a characteristic lecturing gesture. “The file has disappeared, but the answer is in here.” He pointed at the computer.
“In here,” he continued. “I told you not to ignore this, and you didn’t listen to me. Now they’re going to come down … on us.” He put his finger to his lips, looking toward the door fearfully. “They’re going to …” He came out from behind his desk, picking a path through the papers on the floor.
“Who?” Clara asked calmly.
Harold’s head jerked toward the door. “Were you followed?” he demanded shrilly.
“What?”
“Did someone follow you?”
She didn’t think so. Not today. “Why would someone follow me?” she asked.
“Did someone follow you here? Answer me. I’m asking a question.”
“No.” Coolly, she watched Harold slowly hang himself.
He was dressed as usual. He wore gray flannel slacks. His sports jacket hung on the back of his swivel chair. He wasn’t wearing a tie, and the collar of his blue dress shirt was open, the sleeves unevenly rolled on his arms. But his white fringe of hair stuck straight up and his eyes were wild.
Clara’s eyes moved back to his desk. On the wooden extension pulled out halfway sat a quart bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label with a nearly empty glass beside it. The top was off the bottle and only about half an inch of the rich golden-brown liquid remained. Harold must have been drinking all afternoon.
“Oh, God!” He started screaming. He stared at the wall, shuddering and gasping. “Ahhhhhh. Oh, God. Ahhhhhh. Bugs. Ooooh. Bugs … eeeeee. Running up and down the wall … Eeeeee. Clara!!!! You brought bugs in here,” he cried. “You brought the bugs.”
“What bugs?” She twisted around to look at the wall where he pointed. There were the usual diplomas, awards, museum poster. Harold lurched toward her accusingly.
Clara held out her hand to stop him. “There aren’t any bugs in here, Hal,” she said evenly. “No recording devices. No crawlies. No FBI, no CIA coming after us. It’s just us kids. Calm down, Hal. We’re going to be just fine.”
He stopped, stood still, and for a moment struggled to haul himself back into lucidity. “I’m … sorry, Clara … I don’t know what’s the matter with me.” He shook his head, as if to push the crawlies out. “It must … be the summer heat.”
“Hal, it’s November. It’s cool.”
“That’s right. August. Don’t worry. I’m all right now.” He raised his teaching finger, trembling all over, swaying on his feet. His face flushed cherry red.
“Hal—?”
The red in Harold’s face darkened to purple. His body hurled backward, hitting the corner of his desk, knocking over a pile of files, and sending their contents in all directions as he fell heavily by the feet of his analyst’s couch. He landed on his side, hitting his head with a sickening thud.
“Oh!” Surprised, Clara lunged toward him just as his back arched unnaturally and his legs started kicking out at the scattered papers. As he began writhing on the floor, she scrambled for the phone on his desk.
“This is Dr. Treadwell in 1917. I have an MI. Call the code. Nineteenth floor, room 17. Call the code!” she screamed. Then she slammed down the receiver and sank to her knees.
Hal’s sphincters had let go, releasing the contents of his bowel and bladder. Foul foam-flecked vomit trickled everywhere. On the rug, on the papers, on her pants.
“Life is wet,” Hal always used to say, laughing at how surprised, year after year, his students were to find out how messy every aspect of human existence was. “Love is wet. Life is wet. Death is, too.”
“Oh, God, Hal.” She began to work on him. He was still now, cyanotic.
She rolled him onto his back, opening his mouth and sticking her fingers in it to clear away the vomit and mucus. He was apneic, had stopped breathing. She struck his chest with both fists together, wiped his face and mouth with the handkerchief she’d snatched from her jacket pocket.
“Come on, get going.” It was all automatic. She struck him again, then put her mouth to his. Struck him again and again, breathed into his foul mouth.
Two pants to fill his lungs and one strike to the chest. She didn’t hear people running down the hall, rolling the gurney.
Guards tumbled into the room, trampling the files.
“Oh, shit, it’s Dr. Dickey.”
“Heart attack?”
Breathe. Breathe. Strike. Clara didn’t answer. She made a motion with her hand and one of the guards took over the chest massage as the other brought the gurney as far into the room as it would go. Together they lifted him, continued to administer CPR.
Within seconds, the gurney was out in the hall and three paramedics from the main hospital building down the street ran toward them, pushing the crash cart from the closet on the end of the floor. Wordlessly, a young man with a ponytail found a vein in Harold’s wrist and shoved the IV needle into him, so he could start a drip. Another opened Harold’s mouth and inserted a short oral airway attached to a breathing bag.
The third set the defibrillator machine. He looked to Clara. “Juice him?”
Clara nodded.
He ripped open Harold’s shirt, squirting contact jelly on the two steel paddles. He placed them under Harold’s left arm and on his chest, looked to Clara again. Again she nodded.
“Get back, everyone,” the paramedic said, and hit the buttons on the paddles.
Harold’s arms shot up, fell down, and suddenly they were all running to the elevator as his chest
