The elevator doors slid open, and he was back in hell. The corridors were crowded with moaning, crying people. There were people lying white-faced and shuddering against the walls; people coughing and weeping; people hunched silently on the floor.
The plague had taken both the rich and the poor. There were elderly widows, tanned by years of Florida sun, dying in their diamonds and their pearls, There were waitresses and mechanics, shop assistants and chauffeurs, hotel managers and wealthy executives. Anyone who had swum in the polluted ocean was dying; and anyone who had talked to them or touched them was dying, too.
Dr. Petrie, grim-faced, stepped carefully through the plague victims, and pushed open the door of the emergency ward. Sister Maloney, wearing a big white surgical gown and a surgical mask, was waiting for him. 'Where is she? Is she still alive?'
'Only just, doctor, I'm afraid. It won't be many minutes now.'
Dr. Petrie put on his gown and mask, and followed Sister Maloney into the crowded ward. He had to squeeze his way past the bedside of a 24-year-old policeman called Herb Stone, who was now in the final stages of sickness. His face was gray, and he was muttering incoherently.
Sister Maloney, forging through the patients like a great white ship, brought Dr. Petrie at last to a bed in the corner. A woman was lying on it with dark circles under her eyes, clutching a soiled blanket and shaking with uncontrollable spasms.
Dr. Petrie leaned forward and looked at her closely. He felt a long, slow, dropping feeling in his stomach. The woman opened her eyes and blinked at him through the glare of the ward's fluorescent light. 'Leonard,' she whispered. 'I knew you'd come.'
'Hallo, Margaret,' he said quietly. 'Are you feeling bad?'
She nodded, and tried to swallow. 'I'd sure like a drink of water.'
'Sister? Could you get me one please?' Dr. Petrie asked.
Sister Maloney steamed off for him, and Dr. Petrie turned back to his former wife.
'Where's Prickles?' he asked. 'Is she safe?'
Margaret nodded again. 'I left her with Mrs. Henschel, next door. She's all right, Leonard. She didn't catch anything.'
'You can't be sure.'
Margaret looked at him for a while. 'No,' she whispered. 'I can't be sure.'
'Is there anything you want me to do? Are you comfortable?'
'It hurts a little. Not much.'
He reached out and took her hand. He could hardly believe that, less than two years ago, he had lain side by side in bed with this same woman, that he had kissed her and argued with her, and that he had actually given her a child. He remembered her in court, in her severe black suit. He remembered her on the day that he had walked out, red-eyed and crying by the front door. He remembered how she had looked on the day they were married.
'Leonard.' she said, stroking the back of his hand.
'Yes, Margaret?'
'Did you ever love me?'
Dr. Petrie turned away and stared for a long time at the wall.
'You can't ask me that, Margaret. Not now.'
'Why?'
'Because I would probably lie. Or worse than that, I might even tell you the truth.'
'That you did love me, or that you didn't?'
He felt her pulse. She was fading fast. She was being taken away from him like a Polaroid photo in reverse, each detail gradually melting back to blank, unexposed, featureless film.
'How do you feel now?' he asked her.
You're changing the subject.'
'No, I'm not. I'm trying to treat a patient.'
'Leonard, didn't you ever love me? I mean — really, really love me?'
He didn't answer. He looked at her dying, and held her hand, but he didn't answer. He didn't know at that moment what the true answer was.
'Leonard,' she said, 'kiss me.'
'What?'
'Kiss me, Leonard.'
He saw that she was almost dead. Her eyes were glazing, and she could barely summon the breath to speak. Her head was slowly sinking towards the rough blanket trying to treat you like a doctor on which she lay, and even the shudders of plague had subsided in her muscles.
There was no time to decide whether to kiss her. Instead, he pulled the blanket over her face.
Sister Maloney, busy with a sick boy, said, 'Has she gone, Dr. Petrie?'
Dr. Petrie nodded. 'Yes, sister. She's gone.'
As he passed by, Sister Maloney laid a hand on his sleeve. Her sympathetic green eyes showed above her surgical mask.
'Was she someone you knew rather well, Dr. Petrie?'
Dr. Petrie took a deep breath, and looked around him. 'No, sister, she wasn't. I didn't know her well at all.' It was not a callous denial, it was the truth. There were parts of Margaret he had understood thoroughly, and hated — but there was so much, he realized now, that he had not known at all.
Afterwards, as he walked back down the crowded corridor towards the elevators, he felt oddly calm and numb. He didn't feel happy; he had never, in his bitterest moments, wished Margaret dead. But now the problem had been taken out of his hands by chance, and by Pasteurella pestis. He was free at last.
A nurse came up to him and touched his arm. She was a small, pretty colored girl. He had seen her around the emergency wards before, and even toyed with the idea of asking her out for a drink.
'Doctor Petrie?' she said.
He looked at her. 'Yes, nurse?'
She lowered her eyes. 'I don't know how to say this. It sounds ridiculous.'
He looked at her steadily. Like every nurse in the hospital, she had been working for hours without a break, and all around her, she had seen doctors and interns and sisters dying on their feet. She was tired, and her black face was glossy with perspiration.
'Why not try me?' he asked huskily.
'Well,' she said, 'I heard a rumor.'
'What kind of a rumor?'
'My brother's friend works for the Miami Fire Department. It seems like he told my brother they've been given special orders. The firemen, I mean. They've been told to get ready for some big blazes.'
Dr. Petrie felt a cold sensation sliding down his spine.
'Some big blazes?' he said. 'What did he mean by that?'
'I don't know, doctor,' said the nurse. She still didn't look up, and her voice was barely audible. 'I guess they mean to burn the city.'
Dr. Petrie let the words sink in. I guess they mean to burn the city. It was a medieval way of dealing with an epidemic, but then, all things considered, they were faced with a medieval situation. For the first time in a hundred years, they had a raging disease on their hands that modern medical treatments could neither suppress nor deflect.
He reached out and gently lifted the nurse's chin. 'I'm not going to pretend I don't believe you,' said, 'because I've seen enough of this administration's tactics to believe it could be true. You might as well know that Miami has been thrown to the wolves. The city is surrounded by National Guardsmen, and there's no way out.'
She held his hand for a moment, and then nodded. 'I guessed they would do that,' she said simply.
They stepped back for a moment while a medical trolley was pushed between them, carrying a shivering middle-aged woman in a soiled white summer coat.
'Well,' said the colored nurse. 'I suppose I'd better get back to work.'
Dr. Petrie said, as she turned, 'You could try to escape, you know. You could run away.'
She looked back. 'Run away? You mean, right out of Miami?'
