Call After Midnight

She woke with a start to find that the bedside lamp was on, Journal of Microbiology still draped across her chest. The room was slightly out of focus. Pushing her glasses back in place, Sarah glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Twelve-thirty. The telephone was dead silent. Had she been dreaming?

She jumped as the phone rang again. Eagerly she grabbed the receiver.

“Mrs. Sarah Fontaine?” asked a man’s voice.

It wasn’t Geoffrey. Sudden alarm shot through her like a jolt of electricity. Something was terribly wrong. She sat up at once, fully awake. “Yes. Speaking,” she said.

“Mrs. Fontaine, this is Nicholas O’Hara, U.S. State Department. I’m sorry to call you at this hour, but…” He paused. It was the silence that terrified her most, for it was too deliberate, too practiced, a strategically placed buffer to ready her for a blow. “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” he finished.

Her throat tightened. She felt like shouting, Just tell me! Tell me what’s happened! But all she could manage was a whisper. “Yes. I’m listening.”

“It’s about your husband, Geoffrey,” he said. “There’s been an accident.”

This isn’t real, she thought, closing her eyes. If Geoffrey were hurt, I would have felt it. Somehow I would have known....

“It happened about six hours ago,” he continued. “There was a fire in your husband’s hotel.” Another pause. Then, with concern in his voice, he asked, “Mrs. Fontaine? Are you still there?”

“Yes. Please go on.”

The man cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Mrs. Fontaine. Your husband…he didn’t make it.”

He allowed her a moment of silence, a moment in which she struggled to contain her grief. It was a stupid, irrational act of pride that made her press her hand over her mouth to stifle the sob. This pain was too private to share with any stranger.

“Mrs. Fontaine?” he asked gently. “Are you all right?”

At last she managed to take a shaky breath. “Yes,” she whispered.

“You don’t have to worry about the…arrangements. I’ll coordinate all the details with our consulate in Berlin. There’ll be a delay, of course, but once the German authorities clear the body’s release, there should be no—”

“Berlin?” she broke in.

“It’s in their jurisdiction, you see. There’ll be a full report as soon as the Berlin police—”

“But this isn’t possible!”

Nicholas O’Hara was struggling to be patient. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Fontaine. His identity’s been confirmed. Really, there’s no question about—”

“Geoffrey was in London,” she cried.

A long silence followed. “Mrs. Fontaine,” he said at last in an irritatingly calm voice, “the accident occurred in Berlin.”

“Then they’ve made a mistake. Geoffrey was in London. He couldn’t have been in Germany!”

Again there was a pause, longer this time. Now she could tell he was puzzled. The receiver was pressed so tightly to her ear that all she heard for a few seconds was the pounding of her heart. There had to be a mistake. Some crazy, stupid misunderstanding. Geoffrey had to be alive. She pictured him, laughing at the absurd reports of his own death. Yes, they would laugh about it together when he came home. If he came home.

“Mrs. Fontaine,” the man said at last, “which hotel was he staying at in London?”

“The—the Savoy. I have the phone number somewhere here—I have to look it up—”

“That’s all right, I’ll find it. Let me do some calling around. Perhaps I should see you in the morning.” His words were measured and cautious, spoken in the unemotional monotone of a bureaucrat who’d learned how to reveal nothing. “Can you come by my office?”

“How—how do I find it?”

“You’ll be driving?”

“No. I don’t have a car.”

“I’ll have one sent by.”

“It’s a mistake, isn’t it? I mean…you do make mistakes, don’t you?” A bit of hope, that was all she was asking him for. Some small thread to cling to. At least he could have given her that much. He could have shown her a little kindness.

But all he said was “I’ll see you in the morning, Mrs. Fontaine. Around eleven.”

“Wait, please! I’m sorry, I can’t even think. Your name—what was it again?”

“Nicholas O’Hara.”

“Where was your office?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “The driver will see you get here. Good night.”

“Mr. O’Hara?”

Sarah heard the dial tone and knew that he had already hung up. She immediately dialed the number of the Savoy Hotel in London. One phone call, and the matter would be settled. Please, she prayed as the phone connection went through, let me hear your voice....

“Savoy Hotel,” answered a woman from halfway around the world.

Sarah’s hand was shaking so hard she could barely hold the receiver. “Hello. Mr. Geoffrey Fontaine’s room, please,” she blurted out.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the voice said. “Mr. Fontaine checked out two days ago.”

“Checked out?” she cried. “But where did he go?”

“He gave us no destination. However, if you wish to send a message, we’d be happy to forward it to his permanent address….”

She never remembered saying goodbye. She found herself staring down at the telephone as if it were something alien, something she’d never seen before. Slowly her gaze wandered to Geoffrey’s pillow. The king-sized bed seemed to stretch forever. Sarah had always curled herself into one small part of it. Even when Geoffrey was away from home and she had the bed to herself, she still never moved from her spot.

Now Geoffrey might never come home.

Sarah was left alone in a bed that was too large, in an apartment that was too quiet. She shuddered as a silent wave of pain rose and caught in her throat. She wanted desperately to cry, but the tears refused to fall.

She collapsed onto the bed with her face against the pillows. They smelled of Geoffrey. They smelled of his skin and his hair and his laughter. She clutched one of the pillows in her arms and curled up in the very center of the bed, in the spot where Geoffrey always lay. The sheets were ice-cold.

Geoffrey might never come home. They had been married only two months.

* * *

NICK O’HARA DRAINED his third cup of coffee and jerked his tie loose. After a two-week vacation wearing nothing but bathing trunks, his tie felt like a hangman’s noose. He’d been back in Washington only three days, and already he was edgy. Vacations were supposed to recharge the old batteries. That’s why he’d gone to the Bahamas. He’d spent two glorious weeks doing absolutely nothing except lie around half-naked in the sun. He’d needed the time to be alone, to ask himself some hard questions and come to some conclusions.