him on that motorcycle, that if they survived and somehow escaped, she would kiss him whether he wanted her to or not. Still, the actual act of placing her lips against his, briefly and tenderly, was as surprising to her as it was exciting. She drew away just far enough to read his eyes, and saw no doubt in them. Their second kiss was deeper, more prolonged, and more passionate. His muscular arms enfolded her as his lips and tongue explored hers. She set her hands against the sides of his face and ran her fingertips over his cheeks and jaw. When at last they broke apart, she could barely stand.
'I don't remember the last time I wanted to kiss a woman so much,' he said.
'In that case, I'm glad I came along when I did.'
'Very funny. Actually, that was very funny. You know, I have no recollection of the exact words, but doesn't kissing my patient violate some paragraph or other of that Hippocratic Oath we took?'
She kissed him again, this time playfully.
'Call it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,' she said. 'I think my HMO might even cover it.'
He looked over longingly at the bed, but made no move to lead her there.
'There'll be time,' she whispered gently. 'I promise you that. But right now we have work to do.'
'Work to do, pancakes to eat. God, but you kiss splendidly.'
'As do you. Tell you what, we'll practice every hundred miles or so, just in case we can perfect the art a little more.'
'That certainly would do wonders for my road rage. Oh,' he added, 'here.' He handed over the Yale sweatshirt. 'I actually bought this for you. It's a large, but that's the only size they had.'
'And why Yale?'
'Because that's the only one I could find that didn't have some silly foreign version of an English phrase on it, like Sport Tough or Big Run.'
'Well, you're much more West Virginia than Yale anyway, and coming from me that's a high compliment.'
'How so?'
She pulled on the sweatshirt, then kissed him on the cheek.
'Because,' she said, underscoring the four block letters with her palm, 'I graduated from here.'
Nattie and Eli Serwanga lived in a modest Cape in an integrated neighborhood of Evanston, just up the Lake Michigan coast from Chicago. Ellen sat at the dining room table, sipping tea with honey and trying to remember the last time she had felt this sad. There was the situation with Rudy, and the incredible guilt and humiliation she was feeling over having opened his letter. But that situation paled in light of what these two had been through. As they talked, she flashed over and over again to Dr. Suzanne O'Connor's incredible account of the horrors of her battle with Lassa fever.
In their early forties, Ellen guessed, the Serwangas were kind and generous toward her, and clearly in love with each other — the perfect couple to have and raise children. Only they had none and weren't ever again going to get the chance. Deepening their tragedy was irrefutable evidence that Nattie was responsible, albeit inadvertently, for the deaths of two eight-year-old children who attended the day-care center at the hospital where she worked. Nice stuff.
'Tell me again, Nattie,' Ellen asked, 'when did you know you were sick?'
Nattie pulled a tissue from a half-empty box and dabbed at some embryonic tears. She was a beautiful woman — large and expansive, with huge, expressive eyes, and ebony skin.
'It was nearly two weeks after we got back from Africa,' she said. 'We came back on a Tuesday, and I first felt the sore throat two Mondays after that. Ten days later I was in the operating room. They delivered the baby, but he was stillborn. Then they tried to save my womb, but there was just too much bleeding.'
Eli, who was still wearing his suit and tie from work, rose and moved behind her to comfort her. It was his relatives they had been visiting in Sierra Leone, and he expressed some guilt at having talked her into staying for an extra week while he straightened out some family business — the week in which the doctors believed she became infected. Ellen sipped at her tea and reflected on the impact of her own newly acquired guilt.
'If my questions upset you too much,' she said, 'you must tell me.'
'We're doing okay,' Eli replied. 'But it would be good if you could tell us where all this is leading.'
Ellen set the passenger manifest on the table. During the flight from D.C. to Chicago, she had managed to curtail the attempts at conversation by the recently divorced, totally self-absorbed appliance salesman seated next to her long enough to scan all the flights, searching for matches — passengers who had been on more than one flight with a soon-to-be-victim of Lassa fever. There were at least six.
'I have reason to be suspicious that Nattie may have gotten infected with the Lassa virus either just before or just after leaving Sierra Leone, or else on the plane ride home.'
'But how?' Nattie asked.
'I don't know.'
'Do you mean,' Eli said, 'that you think somebody deliberately infected her?'
'That's the possibility I'm looking into. Please, both of you, I beg you not to say anything to anyone about my suspicions until I can finish my search. It's a matter of life and death. Can you give me your word on that?'
'Yes,' they said in unison. 'Of course,' Nattie added.
'Thank you. I'm looking into the possibility that someone on the flight home transmitted the virus to you. Nattie, this is a list of the people who were on your flight from Freetown to Ghana, and then from Ghana to the States. Do any of these names ring any bells? As you can see, there were forty-six on the first leg, including the two of you, and thirty-seven of those among the hundred and sixty on the flight to Baltimore. Do any of these names stand out as someone you remember?'
Nattie shook her head.
'It's been three years,' she said. 'Plus I think I lost some of my memory when I was sick. I'm afraid I can't help you. I'm sorry.'
'Your memory is just fine,' Eli countered. 'These names mean nothing to me, either. Tell me, do you think this infection was random, or do you think my wife was singled out?'
Ellen considered the question for a while.
'You know, I never thought of that.'
She searched for the words to speak about the ten cases of Lassa fever that Nattie was believed to have caused through her job as a dietary worker — including two that died. Nattie saved her the trouble.
'If someone did want to spread the infection, someone with a job like mine would be perfect, provided they somehow knew what I did for a — '
'What is it?' Ellen asked, noting the odd expression on the woman's face.
'Eli, remember that man on the flight from Sierra Leone? The big man who talked to me outside the rest room. He was on the other plane, too.'
'The white man?'
'Exactly. He sold something. Insurance, I think. You mentioned how scary-looking he was.'
'I do remember him, yes.'
'He was a smiler and a talker, that one — asked me all sorts of questions about myself. Made it a game, like he was such an experienced insurance salesman that he could guess things about me.'
Ellen felt a little burst of adrenaline.
'Anyone else?' she asked just in case.
'No one that I can think of.'
She remembered the memory exercise Rudy had done with her.
'Okay,' she asked, 'can you bring me a paper and pen?'
'Certainly.'
Eli brought in several sheets of typing paper.
'Okay,' Ellen said, 'I'm going to go and sit in the living room. I'd like you to put your heads together and write down every descriptive word you can remember about this man — what he looked like, what he acted like, even the things you've already told me. Just relax your minds and free-associate. I know it's been a long while, but just do your best. Take as much time as you need, and if you disagree on something, write down both opinions.'
'We'll try our best,' Nattie said.
