“Joanna,” she said, shaking it.
He sat down across the landing facing her. “Tell me about your bad day, Joanna.”
She leaned her head back against the wall. “A man died.”
“Somebody you were close to?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t even know him. I was interviewing him in the ER… he…” He was there one minute, she thought, and the next he was gone. And that wasn’t just a figure of speech, a euphemism for death like “passed away.” It was how it had felt. Looking at him lying there in the ER, the monitor wailing, the cardiologist and nurses frantically working over him, it hadn’t felt like Greg Menotti had shut down or ceased to exist. It was as if he’d vanished.
“He’d had an NDE?” Richard asked.
“No. I don’t know. He’d had a heart attack and coded in the ambulance, and he said he didn’t remember anything, but while the doctor was examining him, he coded again, and he said, ‘Too far for her to come.’ ” She looked up at Richard. “The nurses thought he was talking about his girlfriend, but he wasn’t, she was already there.” And he was somewhere else, Joanna thought. Like Coma Carl. Somewhere too far for her to come.
“How old was he?” Richard asked.
“Thirty-four.”
“And probably no prior damage,” he said angrily. “If he’d survived another five minutes, they could have gotten him up to surgery, done a bypass, and given him ten, twenty, even fifty more years.” He leaned forward eagerly. “That’s why this research is so important. If we can figure out what happens in the brain when it’s dying, then we can devise strategies for preventing unnecessary deaths like the one that happened this afternoon. And I believe the NDE’s the key, that it’s a survival mechanism—”
“Then you don’t agree with Noyes and Linden that the NDE’s a result of the human mind’s inability to comprehend its own death?”
“No, and I don’t agree with Dr. Roth’s theory that it’s psychological detachment from fear. There’s no evolutionary advantage to making dying easier or more pleasant. When the body’s injured, the brain initiates a series of survival strategies. It shuts down blood to every part of the body that can do without it, it increases respiration rate to produce more oxygen, it concentrates blood where it’s most needed—”
“And you think the NDE is one of those strategies?” Joanna asked.
He nodded. “Most patients who’ve had NDEs were revived by paddles or norepinephrine, but some began breathing again on their own.”
“And you think the NDE was what revived them?”
“I think the neurochemical events causing the NDE revived them, and the NDE is a side effect of those events. And a clue to what they are and how they work. And if I can find that out, that knowledge could eventually be used to revive patients who’ve coded. Are you familiar with the new RIPT scan?”
Joanna shook her head. “Is it similar to a PET scan?”
He nodded. “They both measure brain activity, but the RIPT scan is exponentially faster and more detailed. Plus, it uses chemical tracers, not radioactive ones, so the number of scans per subject doesn’t have to be limited. It simultaneously photographs the electrochemical activity in different subsections of the brain for a 3-D picture of neural activity in the working brain. Or the dying brain.”
“You mean you could theoretically take a picture of an NDE?”
“Not theoretically,” Richard said. “I’ve—”
The door above them opened.
They both froze.
Above them a man’s voice said, “—very productive session. Mrs. Davenport has remembered experiencing the Command to Return and the Life Review while she was dead.”
“Oh, God,” Joanna whispered, “It’s Mr. Mandrake.”
Richard craned his neck carefully around the corner.
“You’re right,” he whispered back. “He’s holding the door partway open.”
“Can he see us from there?”
He shook his head.
“Then it’s true?” a young woman’s voice said from the door.
“That’s Tish,” Joanna whispered.
Richard nodded, and they both sat there perfectly still, their heads turned toward the stairs and the door, listening alertly.
“Your whole life really does flash before you when you die?” Tish asked.
“Yes, the events of your life are shown to you in a panorama of images called the Life Review,” Mr. Mandrake said. “The Angel of Light leads the soul in its examination of its life and of the meaning of those events. I’ve just been with Mrs. Davenport. The Angel showed her the events of her life and said, ‘See and understand.’ ” Mandrake must have leaned against the door and opened it wider because his voice was suddenly louder. “See and understand we shall,” he said. “Not only shall we understand our own lives but life itself, the vast ocean of understanding and love that shall be ours when we reach eternity.”
Richard looked at Joanna. “How long is he likely to go on like that?” he whispered.
“Eternally,” she whispered back.
“So you really believe there’s an afterlife?” Tish asked.
Doesn’t she have any patients to attend to? Joanna thought, exasperated. But this was Tish, to whom flirting was as natural as breathing. She couldn’t help sending out spinnerets over any male, even Mr. Mandrake. And Richard had obviously met her. Joanna wondered how he’d managed to get away.
“I don’t think there’s an afterlife,” Mr. Mandrake said. “I know it. I have scientific evidence it exists.”
“Really?” Tish said.
“I have
There was a pause. Maybe he’s leaving, Joanna thought hopefully.
The door opened still farther, and someone started down the stairs. Richard shot to his feet and was across the landing in an instant, pulling Joanna to her feet, pressing them both flat against the wall, his arm across her, holding her against the wall. They waited, not breathing.
The door clicked shut, and footsteps clattered down the cement stairs toward them. He’d be down to the landing in another minute, and how were they going to explain their huddling here like a couple of children playing hide-and-seek? Joanna looked questioningly at Richard. He put his finger to his lips. The footsteps came closer.
“Mr. Mandrake!” Tish’s distant voice called, and they could hear the door open again. “Mr. Mandrake! You can’t go down that way. It’s wet.”
“Wet?” Mr. Mandrake said.
“They’ve been painting all the stairwells.”
There was a pause. Richard’s arm tightened against Joanna, and then there was a sound of footsteps going back up.
“Where were you going, Mr. Mandrake?” Tish asked.
“Down to the ER.”
“Oh, then, you need to go over to Orthopedics and take the elevator. Here, let me show you the way.”
Another long pause, and the door clicked shut.
Richard leaned past Joanna to look up the stairs. “He’s gone.”
He took his arm away and turned to face Joanna. “I was afraid he was going to insist on seeing for himself if the stairs were wet.”
“Are you kidding?” Joanna said. “He’s based his entire career on taking things on faith.”
Richard laughed and started up the stairs toward the door. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she said. “He’s still out there.”
Richard stopped and looked down at her questioningly. “He said he was going down to the ER.”
She shook her head. “Not while he’s got an audience.”
Richard opened the door cautiously and eased it shut again. “You’re right. He’s telling Tish how the Angel of Light explained the mysteries of the universe to Mrs. Davenport.”
