“In a white room,” Victoria said.
“Could you see out the windows?”
“There weren’t any,” she answered.
“Okay. Did the Gray Man or the Gray Woman tell you where you were?” Marcus asked.
They both nodded vigorously.
“Where?”
“On a spaceship,” Elizabeth said earnestly.
Out of the corner of his eye, Marcus saw that Mickey was about to erupt. “Easy,” he said to him. “Be cool.”
“Yes, yes,” Mickey muttered.
“Did the spaceship land anywhere?”
“I don’t think it landed,” Elizabeth said.
Marcus tried a bit of logic. “But it must have landed, because here you are. You came home.”
The girls looked at each other and then something happened.
A single drop of blood fell from one of Elizabeth’s nostrils. She noticed it when it slid onto her top lip and she began to cry. That’s when blood began to briskly flow from both nostrils, making a fresh red streak on her white shirt. As Marcus rose to fish a handkerchief from his pocket, Victoria’s nose also started to bleed and she too began to cry.
“My God!” Mickey said. “They’re bleeding!”
“Lean forward and pinch your noses,” Marcus said, rushing into the bathroom for wads of tissues. “Mickey, go downstairs and get someone to call an ambulance. Now!”
7
Major Lumaga was too impatient to wait for the slow elevator to take him to the pediatric floor of the Morelli Hospital in Reggio Calabria. He bounded up six flights and was well out of breath when he came upon Marcus outside the girls’ room.
“Is it true?” he panted.
“It’s true.”
“How can it be?”
“Damned good question, Roberto.”
“Can I see them?”
“The doctor’s in with them. I think she’s going to be a while.”
Lumaga smiled. “Hello, by the way. Let’s have a smoke for the sake of old times. You still have the filthy habit?”
“Is the Pope still Catholic?”
It was a sweltering early-September day. It had drizzled earlier, and the narrow, car-lined streets surrounding the hospital were wet and steaming.
Lumaga took a deep drag and said, “When you were fired four years ago, you left without saying goodbye.”
“I didn’t know we were a couple.”
Lumaga laughed. “Don’t worry, I didn’t suffer. And now, here you are.”
“Seeing is believing.”
“You’ve been re-hired?”
“I’d say my status is unclear. It’s not the most pressing issue on the table.”
“Indeed not.”
“You’re still a major, I see.”
He performed the gesture that Marcus had come to call, the Lumaga shrug, a deep, sustained shoulder elevation accompanied by a sour pucker. “Well, if not for this case and its unsatisfying lack of resolution, I’m quite certain I would be a lieutenant colonel by now. At least I wasn’t demoted.”
A RAI satellite truck slowly drove past them on Via Giuseppe Melacrino, looking for a place to park.
“And so, it begins again,” Lumaga said.
“Didn’t take long. I wonder who leaked?”
Another Lumaga shrug. “Ambulance drivers, admissions’ clerks, nurses, blood technicians, who knows? If this was the case of the century before, now it’s the case of the millennium. We should be prepared. Tell me, Marcus, are you certain it’s them?”
“Ninety-nine percent. Different haircuts, thinner, paler, but they look the same. Mickey and the Cutrìs know the kids a lot better than me. They’re certain. We’re going to need to get fingerprints and DNA.”
“How does someone not age?”
“Do I look like someone whose answer you’d take to the bank?”
“Well, maybe not, but you’ve had slightly longer than me to think about it. Where do they say they were?”
“On a spaceship.”
Lumaga didn’t bother to look at him. “A spaceship. Of course. Were the parents in space too?”
“Nope. They’re lost in space.”
“Sorry?”
“There was a TV show. Forget it.”
“You must tell me everything they said, because I’m the one who’s going to be on the hot seat very soon. It’s a pity, really.”
“What is?”
“I quite liked my job.”
*
The head of the pediatric hematology department, an unsmiling middle-aged woman, briefed the grandparents inside an empty patient room. Marcus stood near the door, feeling like an interloper. Had Mickey not insisted he be present, he would have preferred waiting in the hall with Lumaga.
“My diagnosis is preliminary,” she said, “and is based on only a cursory review of their blood smears. We have many specific blood tests pending and we will have to perform a needle biopsy of their bone marrows. However, I don’t think the diagnosis will change. It appears they both have the same disorder called CML. Chronic myeloid leukemia.”
“Oh, my God,” Leonora gasped, reaching for her husband’s hand.
“They both have leukemia?” Mickey said. “How can they both have it?”
The doctor looked over her half-glasses. “This is hardly the most surprising aspect of their case.”
Armando said, “Tell us, Dottoressa, can this type of leukemia be cured?”
“CML is not a common leukemia. In children it is extremely rare. So, what I would say is that there are no good statistics on outcomes for children. Certainly, they will require immediate transfusions. They have profound anemias, requiring red blood cells. Their platelets are low, hence their nosebleeds, and they will need platelet transfusions. Once we have confirmed the diagnosis and done a variety of genetic tests, we can discuss treatments. But in general, they will need chemotherapy, and perhaps, eventually, bone marrow transplantation. We should test the three of you to see if you are good matches. I understand that there has been a request to validate that they are who you think they are, so we will want to take swabs from you for DNA testing as well.”
“Of course,” Mickey said, “but I certainly don’t want them treated here. I’m taking them to America. I’m going to get them the top people in the field.”
“Signor Andreason,” the doctor said, acidly, “I don’t care where you take them. We are perfectly qualified to treat them here. I, myself, did part of my specialty training at Johns Hopkins. I have thirty scientific publications in leukemia. But it is for you to decide. However, they should not be moved before they are stabilized. Their blood counts are dangerously low. Now, please excuse
