Hall of Small Mammals (21 page)

SUBJECT: R

TIBETANS SAY BODY IS EMPTY AFTER THREE DAYS. (MY AUNT IS A PRACTICING BUDDHIST!)—MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: OCTOBER 31, 2014 11:44:08 EST

TO: [email protected]

SUBJECT: R

CONTAINER SHIP FOUND!!! MORE SOON.—MO

Bert hadn't realized that the ship had ever been lost, but he was glad to know that Mrs. Oliver had located it again. When he told Delia this bit of news, she only nodded. They hadn't been talking about Rob as much lately.

“Is this ever going to end?” she asked him. “I never would have guessed it was possible, but your brother's turned out to be more of a pain dead than alive.”

“I think that's going a bit far,” he said.

“I'm going to tell you something I've never told you,” she said. “Six years ago, the Christmas after your dad died, your brother walked in on me as I was stepping out of the shower.”

Bert waited for her to continue. “And?”

“
And,
” she said, “
and
he didn't leave right away.”

“How long?”

“I don't know. I can't remember. It felt too long. Nothing happened, other than that, but he just stood there, looking at me. Like a little reptile. And I could just . . . tell.”

“Tell?”

“Tell what he wanted.”

“Did you cover up?” Bert asked.

“Of course, yes,” she said. “What kind of a question is that?”

But he couldn't help but wonder at the speed of that covering-up. Delia was a good-looking woman, and Rob had been an attractive younger man.

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because,” she said, almost pleading, “Rob is not worth . . . all this energy.”

But Bert wasn't sure. He'd read once in a magazine that even the Neanderthals, more than a hundred thousand years ago, had buried their dead, arms folded, panther bones and stone points scattered around the body. That this practice had been going on for so long, Bert figured, was significant. It was important to treat
the body, no matter how irritating its former occupant, with a little respect.

Maybe, Delia joked once, instead of his having a tombstone as a memorial, the scientists studying him could simply name the disease after Rob. Bert relayed this to Mrs. Oliver, explaining that Delia had never been his brother's biggest fan, that she'd been troubled by the way Rob treated people, specifically women. (And incidentally, he asked, surely they'd already ruled out the possibility of a sexually transmitted disease?
Ha ha ha,
Mrs. Oliver wrote back to that.)

His exchanges with Mrs. Oliver were an escape from the frozen-yogurt deliveries and the management trainings and the accounting, a little bit of international intrigue delivered right into his otherwise lackluster in-box. Perhaps it would continue this way forever, these reports on his brother's never-ending itinerary, updates that conjured up an image of Rob standing at the bow of a ship, its prow slicing forward through a sea of churning gray waves on its journey to the end of the earth.

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: NOVEMBER 2, 2014 10:16:12 EST

TO: [email protected]

SUBJECT: R

R MOVED ONTO A NEW SHIP. CDC VISIT PLANNED.—MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: NOVEMBER 4, 2014 09:52:40 EST

TO: [email protected]

SUBJECT: R

CDC ON SHIP WITH R TODAY. HOW YOU HOLDING UP?—MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: NOVEMBER 4, 2014 16:16:28 EST

TO: [email protected]

SUBJECT: R

R CAN'T BE CREMATED OR LIQUEFIED OR ANYTHING ELSE. TOO DANGEROUS, THEY SAY. NEW OPTIONS BEING DISCUSSED. MORE AS I HAVE IT.—MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: NOVEMBER 19, 2014 12:02:14 EST

TO: [email protected]

SUBJECT: R

TWO MORE PEOPLE ON SHIP CREW DEAD!!! MUCH REVIVED TALK OF WHAT TO DO WITH R.—MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: NOVEMBER 20, 2014 21:40:04 EST

TO: [email protected]

SUBJECT: R

MOST RELIGIONS SAY ZERO PERCENT OF SOUL REMAINS IN BODY AFTER DEATH. COMFORTING, YES? R WILL NEVER NEED THIS VESSEL AGAIN, I DON'T THINK.—MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: NOVEMBER 25, 2014 23:01:21 EST

TO: [email protected]

SUBJECT: R

R HAS BEEN DECLARED A BIOLOGICAL WEAPON. WILL CALL WITH MORE AFTER THANKSGIVING.—MO

•   •   •

Bert was checking in on one of his Pop-Yop
franchises (his busiest location, at the outlet mall) when he got the call. He took his cup of lemon tart soft-serve outside to an empty stretch of parking lot to walk the white parking space lines like tightropes as he snacked and listened.

“First,” Mrs. Oliver said, “I'd like to retract part of my previous message. The part about your brother being a biological weapon.”

“So he's not, then?”

“Let's just pretend I never said it. Can you do that for me?”

“Okay,” Bert said, and raised the little pink spoon to his mouth.

“But here's the good news. In a few days his ship will come within a hundred miles of Norfolk. Any chance you could get to Norfolk?”

Bert stopped walking. Norfolk was a six-hour drive. “Maybe. Why?”

He could almost hear her smiling as she detailed the bureaucratic magic she'd performed on his behalf. She'd appealed to the right people, she said, and made them see how cruel it was to deny Rob's family the right to properly grieve. So, when the ship passed close to Norfolk—that is, if Bert was up for it—they were going to put him on a helicopter.

“So I'll get to see my brother then?”

“See your—” she said. “Oh, no. Bert, you can't step foot on that ship. But they're going to fly you over it. It's the best I could do. Under the circumstances, I thought you'd be happy.”

He
was
happy, he assured her. She was very kind to have made the arrangements. She'd gone above and beyond what was required of her, he had to acknowledge that, but still, he'd need the night to consider. He drove straight home to talk it over with Delia, who was elated at the prospect. “Of course you're doing it,” she said. “It's not even a question. You'll do this and we'll be finished. Goodbye, Rob.”

•   •   •

They left the house a day early, before dawn, with fresh coffee in the thermos and turkey sandwiches in Ziploc bags. They had reservations at an inn in Colonial Williamsburg and arrived before check-in time. While Delia shopped, Bert strolled up and down the cobblestone streets, stopping to watch women in bonnets churn butter and make candles. That night Delia and Bert had dinner at a tavern and talked about their kids, about Pop-Yop—about anything but Rob.

The next morning they were up early again. The radio news station crackled and died in the tunnel under the Chesapeake, and when they emerged again on the bridge, the sky was a dazzling blue pocked with flapping gulls.

Bert switched off the radio so Delia could read the directions to the base. Once there, a man at the front gate checked a clipboard before waving them through, and then, as instructed, they parked in front of a beige brick building not far from the entrance.

“You ready for this?” Delia asked, pulling her purse over her shoulder.

Inside the building was a small waiting room with white plastic chairs and a low table full of magazines with old fashions. The uniformed man at the front desk scanned Bert's and Delia's driver's licenses and passports and then printed them both sticker badges. He pointed them toward the empty chairs, saying it wouldn't be more than fifteen minutes or so before departure.

“So,” Delia said, “when do we meet the mysterious Mrs. Oliver?”

“I don't think she's coming,” Bert said. “At least that was my impression.”

“Shame,” Delia said, digging a book out of her purse.

They had been in a helicopter once before together, many years ago on their honeymoon in Hawaii. The helicopter ride was an expensive excursion that had taken them over an active volcano. Rob had been thirteen years old at the time of the wedding, but, at the insistence of their mother, he'd acted as Bert's best man, his cummerbund so loose that it smiled below his waist. “Please tell me you already tested the goods,” Rob had said before the ceremony with a dumb teenager's grin, braces shiny and sharp. (His brother, the biological weapon.)

Armed men arrived to escort them to the landing pad. Together they hustled outside and crouched low to pass beneath the giant whooshing blades of the aircraft. Delia struggled to contain the swirling mess of her hair. The pilot, an older expressionless man with aviator sunglasses over his eyes, twisted around in his seat and gave them a thumbs-up. Bert helped Delia with her buckle before working on his own. They were both given headphones that clapped over their ears and muffled the noise. The
helicopter was about to lift off when another woman came galloping toward the craft. She was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and flat yellow shoes. Her hair was slick, short, and red.

“Sorry,” she shouted to no one in particular, then tried to smile at Bert and Delia. She was pretty but pretty like a model: flat-chested and vaguely androgynous. She strapped into a seat across from them. Soon they were in the air and headed for the coast, the city sliding away beneath them.

Their headphones crackled. “This won't take too long,” a gravelly voice said. It was the pilot. Bert realized that they could talk to each other, thanks to the headset intercom system. The new passenger stared down at her cell phone and a wad of mascara-stained tissue. Presumably she was out here for the same reason, to say goodbye to someone, to another one of the infected victims. She looked up and caught Bert studying her.

“Kind of an odd way to meet, isn't it?” she asked him.

Bert nodded.

“You don't look much like him,” she said. “Just a little bit, around the mouth maybe. Chin, too.”

Bert didn't say anything.

“I'm Cecilia,” she said.

“Have we met?” Delia asked.

“No, but I just assumed—” She looked at her hands, then back at Delia. “I guess it makes sense. You weren't that close, were you?”

“Did he tell you that?” Bert asked. “That we weren't close?”

Cecilia made a face like she might cry. She fidgeted in her seat. “No, sorry,” she said. “It was just my impression. What do I know, you know? I didn't mean to—”

The helicopter banked left, and Bert felt his stomach drop. The sky was cloudless. Below he could see whitecaps spitting and foaming.

“Almost there,” the pilot said.

A long gray metal ship was coming into view. It was a tremendous boat, the size of a football field and stacked high with containers of all colors: blue, red, purple, orange. As the helicopter descended and spun around the ship, Bert spotted another, smaller boat, tethered to the container ship by bulky cables that dropped beneath the water. The big ship was towing the smaller one.

“That's it,” the pilot said. “The little boat. That's where the bodies are.”

“Bodies?” Cecilia asked. “As in, plural? As in, more than one?”

“That's correct. I think we're at five now.”

“Shit,” she said, appealing to Delia and Bert. “Fuck, can you believe any of this? It's unreal.” She dabbed the corners of her eyes with the tissue. “I'm not sure if this trip was a good idea or not.”

“I'm sorry,” Delia said, “but I have to ask. Were you . . .
with
Rob?”

She nodded. “Off and on. Mostly on. Before he left for his last trip, on.”

The helicopter circled the smaller boat a few times.

“I don't see any people on deck,” Delia said.

“They're keeping the bodies isolated,” the pilot said. “No one living is allowed on board.”

Bert had a clear view down to the boat. He could see a metal ladder leading up to a small, empty captain's deck. He could see a metal door with a crusty porthole. The sunlight glinted off the metal and the water with the same blinding sparkle that made it
difficult to look down for very long without his eyes watering. The pilot advised them to say their goodbyes if they hadn't already because they were about to head back to the base. In truth, Bert felt no closer to his brother's death out here than he had back on land. But he needed to let go. His brother's story would have to end here at sea in the belly of an unmanned boat. The helicopter pulled away from the ship and the water, and Cecilia craned her neck to keep sight of it. “That's it?” she asked, frustrated. “What happens next?”

“Nothing,” the pilot said. “Nothing happens next.”

“I thought we'd get a little closer,” she said. “I don't understand. It's not like they can keep him out here forever.”

The pilot nodded. “This is only a temporary solution. Until they figure out a better one.”

Cecilia closed her eyes. “It's almost like I can feel him,” she said. “It's, like, this terrible feeling that he's trapped out here.”

Delia reached for the woman's hand, but the straps constrained her to the chair. Bert wondered if Cecilia really did feel Rob's presence, if there was something closed inside of him that prevented him from feeling it too. He twisted for a final view of the two ships, memorizing all the details he could, the rust and corrosion and salt stains, the antennas, the arrangement of the containers. He was constructing a reliable image that he could refer to months from now, when this helicopter ride would no doubt begin to seem more like a dream than a memory.

“Goodbye, Rob,” Cecilia said, and tossed a piece of paper out the window.

“What was that?” Bert asked her.

Cecilia was looking out the window, watching the paper twirl and disappear. “I've met someone else.” She turned to them and grimaced. “Is that awful of me?”

“Well, it's been half a year,” Delia said but didn't say whether she thought that a long or short amount of time.