Call After Midnight

Kronen laughed as he turned to leave. “Tot ziens, meneer.”

The old man nodded. “Till then.”

* * *

THE LAB WHERE Sarah worked was spotless. The microscopes were polished, the counters and sinks were repeatedly disinfected, the incubation chambers were wiped clean twice daily. Sarah’s job required strict attention to asepsis; by habit she insisted on cleanliness. But as she sat at her lab bench, flipping through the last box of microscope slides, it seemed to Sarah that the sterility of the room had somehow extended to the rest of her life.

She took off her glasses and blinked tiredly. Everywhere she looked, stainless steel seemed to gleam back at her. The lights were harsh and fluorescent. There were no windows, and therefore, no sunshine. It could be noon or midnight outside; in here she’d never know the difference. Except for the hum of the refrigerator, the lab was silent.

She put her glasses on again and began to stack the slides back into the box. From the hallway came the clip of a woman’s heels on the floor. The door swung open.

“Sarah? What’re you doing here?”

Sarah glanced around at her good friend, Abby Hicks. In her size forty lab coat, Abby filled most of the doorway.

“I’m just catching up on a few things,” said Sarah. “So much work’s piled up since I’ve been gone….”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Sarah! The lab can manage without you for a few weeks. It’s already eight o’clock. I’ll check the cultures. Go on home.”

Sarah closed the box of slides. “I’m not sure I want to go home,” she murmured. “It’s too quiet there. I’d almost rather be here.”

“Well, this place isn’t exactly jumping. It’s about as lively as a tomb—” At once Abby bit her lip and reddened. Even at age fifty-five, Abby could blush as deeply as a schoolgirl. “Bad choice of words,” she mumbled.

Sarah smiled. “It’s all right, Abby.”

For a moment the two women said nothing. Sarah rose and opened the incubator to deposit the specimen plate she’d been working on. The foul smell of agar drifted out from the warm petri dishes and permeated the room.

“How are you doing, Sarah?” Abby asked gently.

Sarah shut the incubator after setting the plate inside. With a sigh she turned and looked at her friend. “I’m managing, I guess.”

“We’ve all missed you. Even old Grubb says it’s not the same without you and your silly bottle of disinfectant. I think everyone’s just a little afraid to call you. None of them really knows what to do with grief, I suppose. But we do care, Sarah.”

Sarah nodded gratefully. “Oh, Abby, I know you care. And I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. All the casseroles and cards and flowers. Now I just have to get back on my feet.” She gazed sadly around the room. “I thought that coming back to work was what I needed.”

“Some people need the old routine. Others need to get away for a while.”

“Maybe that’s what I should do. Get away from Washington for a while. Away from all the places that remind me of him….” She swallowed back the familiar ache in her throat and tried to smile. “My sister has asked me to visit her in Oregon. You know, I haven’t seen my nephew and nieces in years. They must be getting huge.”

“Then go. Sarah, it hasn’t even been two weeks! You need to give it some time. Go see your sister. Have yourself a few more cries.”

“I’ve spent too many days crying. I’ve been sitting at home, wondering how to get through this. I still can’t bear to see his clothes hanging in the closet.” Sarah shook her head. “It’s not just losing him that hurts so much. It’s the rest….”

“You mean the part about Berlin.”

Sarah nodded. “I’ll go crazy if I think about it much longer. That’s why I came in tonight—to get my mind off the whole thing. I thought it was time to get back to work.” She stared at the stack of lab books by her microscope. “But it’s strange, Abby. I used to love this place. Now I wonder how I’ve stood it these past six years. All these cold cabinets and steel sinks. Everything so closed in. I feel as if I can’t breathe.”

“It’s got to be more than the lab. You’ve always liked this job, Sarah. You’re the one who stands humming by the centrifuge.”

“I can’t picture myself working here the rest of my life. Geoffrey and I had so little time together! Three days for a honeymoon. That’s all. Then I had to rush back to finish that damned grant proposal. We were always so busy, no time for vacations. Now we’ll never have another chance.” Sighing, she went back to her bench and flicked off the microscope lamp. Softly she added, “And I’ll never really know why he…” She sat down without finishing the sentence.

“Have you heard anything else from the State Department?”

“That man called again yesterday. The police in Berlin have finally released the—the body. It’s coming home tomorrow.” Her eyes suddenly filmed with tears. She gazed down, struggling not to cry. “The service will be Friday. You’ll be there?”

“Of course I’ll be there. We’ll all be there. I’ll drive you, okay?” Abby came over and laid a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “It’s still so recent, Sarah. You’ve got every right to cry.”

“There’s so much I’ll never understand about his death, Abby. That man in the State Department—he kept hounding me for answers, and I couldn’t give him a single one! Oh, I know it was just his job, but he brought up these… possibilities that have bothered me ever since. I’ve started wondering about Geoffrey. More and more.”

“You weren’t married that long, Sarah. Heck, my husband and I were married thirty years before we split up, and I never did figure out the jerk. It’s not surprising you didn’t know everything there was to know about Geoffrey.”

“But he was my husband!”

Abby fell silent for a moment. Then, with some hesitation, she said, “You know, Sarah, there was always something about him…. I mean, I never felt I could get to know him very well.”

“He was shy, Abby.”

“No, it wasn’t just shyness. It was as if—as if he didn’t want to give anything away. As if—” She looked at Sarah. “Oh, it’s not important.”

But Sarah was already thinking about what Abby had said. There was some truth to her observation. Geoffrey had been an aloof man, not given to lengthy or revealing conversations. He’d never talked much about himself. He had always seemed more interested in her—her work, her friends. When they first met, that interest had been flattering; of all the men she’d known, he was the only one who’d ever really listened.

Then for some reason, another face sprang to mind. Nick O’Hara. Yes, that was his name. She had a sudden, vivid memory of the way Nick O’Hara had studied her, the way his gray eyes had focused on her every expression. Yes, he’d listened, too; but then, it had been his job. Had it also been his job to torment new widows? She didn’t want to think about him. She never wanted to speak to the man again.

Sarah put the plastic cover over the microscope. She thought about taking her data book home. But as she scanned the open page, it occurred to her that the column of entries symbolized the way she was living her life. Neatly, carefully and precisely within the printed boundaries.

She closed the book and put it back on the shelf.

“I think I’m going home,” she said.

Abby nodded her approval. “Good. No sense burying yourself in here. Forget about work for a while.”

“Are you sure you can handle the extra load?”

“Of course.”

Sarah took off her lab coat and hung it by the door. Like everything else in the room, her coat looked too neat, too clean. “Maybe I will take some time off, after the funeral. Another week. Maybe a month.”

“Don’t stay away too long,” said Abby. “We do want you back.”

Sarah glanced around one last time to make sure things were tidy. They were. “I’ll be back,” she said. “I just don’t know when.”

* * *

THE COFFIN SLID down the ramp and landed with a soft thud on the platform. The sound made Nick shudder. Years of packing off dead Americans hadn’t dulled his sense of horror. But like everyone else in the consular corps, he’d found his own way to handle the pain. Later today he’d take a long walk, go home and pour himself a drink. Then he’d sit in his old leather chair, turn on the radio and read the newspaper; find out how many earthquakes there’d been, how many plane and train and bus crashes, how many bombs had been dropped. The big picture. It would make this one death seem insignificant. Almost.

“Mr. O’Hara? Sign here, please.”

A man in an airline uniform held out a clipboard with the shipment papers. Nick glanced over the documents, quickly noting the deceased’s name: Geoffrey Fontaine. He scrawled his signature and handed back the clipboard. Then he turned and watched as the coffin was loaded into a waiting hearse. He didn’t want to think about its contents, but all at once an image rose up in his mind, something he’d seen in a magazine, a picture of dead Vietnamese villagers after a bombing. They had all burned to death. Is that what lay inside Geoffrey Fontaine’s coffin? A man charred beyond recognition?