Hidden Empire (Empire 2)

Now she faced the wall, leaning her forehead on it, sobbing again with all her heart, there were more tears in her after all, as they took her son's sweet hurt body out of the room. She could not watch them put him into a body bag and hoist him into a helicopter. It would be unbearable.

But even more unbearable was to stay in that room now that he was gone. So she got control of herself again, and ran after them, caught up with them. She watched every bit of it. Putting him into the bag, zipping it closed over his body, over his face. Attaching the documentation, which she checked, making sure that everything was right, that there would be no mistaking who this was and where his body should be sent.

She followed them to the helicopter, and she knew they took extra care to be gentle because she was watching. These sailors and Marines knew that these bodies all deserved respect and they gave it, but they were even more careful so that they didn't do anything that would cause her any more hurt than she already had. She loved them for their carefulness, she hated them for the terrible thing they were doing, taking her little boy away in a bag that was much too big for him, a man-sized bag.

She watched them close up the helicopter, watched it rise into the air, continued watching until it was out of sight, and then looked around, surprised that there was still air, still ground, still sunlight beating through the haze of this land where it was always summer. It would rain this afternoon. It was the rainy season. It would rain almost every day. They were all used to it. It was just a fact of Nigerian life in the spring and summer. It would rain this afternoon.

Again the hand on her shoulder. "Will you come inside with me, Mrs. Malich?"

But why should I? she wondered. What's the point? What is there for me to do?

"There are some soldiers who want to see you," he said. "If you'd rather be alone, then of course they'll respect that."

"I would rather be alone," she said.

"I'll tell them. But would you come inside? It's going to rain."

She let him lead her inside. And as they went, she sneezed.

She stopped when she sneezed. Not one sneeze, but two, three, four in rapid succession.

She wanted to explain to him that it wasn't the nictovirus, it was just the crying, it got mucus moving in her head, and now she was sneezing because of that, that plus the hot, muggy air outside, and the dust churned up by the wind the helicopter made. It's not the nictovirus, but I wish it were.

She was wrong, however. It was the nictovirus. They had made one miscalculation in all their attempts at keeping the caregivers from getting infected. They wore masks and gloves and never breathed unfiltered air in the presence of the sick. But the nictovirus was hardy, and clung to their clothing, and when they took off their clothes and shook them out or folded them, it stirred the virus back into the air. It was only in small concentrations, and it took time before any particular person might get the virus that happened to thrive inside the lungs, but it would happen to them all. It had happened to her among the first, though she was not the least careful. It had happened to her only a few hours later than it happened to her son.

She went back into the building, back to Cole's quarters, and without asking permission of anyone, she placed the most terrible telephone call of her life. She called Aunt Margaret and had her bring the children to the telephone and put it on speakerphone so they would all hear it at once, and she told them how Mark died. She got through it with her voice reasonably clear, though she could not hide her grief. Then she told them that she had to stay in Africa for now, because of the quarantine, and they shouldn't worry about her. When they were notified that Mark's body was ready for burial, they should go ahead. "I don't want him waiting for me, Aunt Margaret," she said. "Find a good place for him, please, and hold a service so his brothers and sisters and his friends and my friends can all say good-bye to him."

Margaret said, "I understand, honey, I do. I'll keep things going here."

And there was something in the way she said it that let Cecily know that Margaret understood the thing she hadn't said: that she had the nictovirus herself, and she didn't know if she would ever come home.

The children were all crying and Cecily listened to all of their questions and whatever any of them wanted to say, and when there was no more talking, she said, "Please write to me, even if my own letters to you get held up. Write to me on paper, and send it through the military mail. I won't have much computer time for the next while."

Then the phone call ended, and Cecily knew that the children would be all right, the ones who were left alive, they would be safe for now, as safe as children could be in this world. She was here and could not go to them, but they would be all right.

She could not go out and care for the sick anymore. Not because she was sick herself, because for the first days, before the fever came, she was physically capable of doing the work. No, she simply couldn't talk to a mother whose child was dying or might die or had just died, she couldn't offer her any comfort, could say no words of Christian solace. It wasn't in her. Not because she had lost her faith—she hadn't, she knew that Mark was with Reuben now, she felt that with fierce intensity. She simply couldn't talk to them or see them with their grieving faces, because now she had such a face of her own. There was nothing in her to give to them.

So she stayed in a room in the university hospital, among Nigerian women patients, middle-aged and elderly, and helped them as long as she could. Then the fever came, and she took to her bed the way they had, and someone else came and mopped her brow and gave her water and made her drink and take medications. It was all so familiar, yet all so strange.

She knew she was going to die, and it was fine with her. She was finished with being a mother, she had been released from that responsibility with Mark's death, and so it was all right to go ahead and die from this virus, she would be only a week or two behind Mark. The other children would be orphans but she knew that they would grow up surrounded by love. G

od would take care of them, because she had let go. When the helicopter rose into the air, she had let go in her heart.

Not my purpose in life anymore. And therefore I have no purpose, and therefore no life, and the nictovirus comes to me now as a gift.

Deep into her week with the fever, her head constantly throbbing with pain despite the ibuprofen, her bowels tormented with dysentery trying to void food she hadn't eaten, water she had barely sipped, someone started shouting at her. Wake up and start fighting this thing! he shouted, and he sounded angry. Nobody told you you could quit this job, you signed on for the duration and it's not over. Start cooperating with your treatment! Start caring whether you live or die!

Go away, she thought. Whoever you are, stop yelling at me.

But he didn't stop. He came back and talked to her again, sternly, like a father talking to his daughter. He talked about the children who remained, reminded her of little stories about them, what they looked like, how they argued, things they had done and said. They're waiting for you. When you come out of this you'll be immune. No quarantine. You can go home.

It's not my job anymore, she thought.

Then she realized that he was talking to her like a soldier. He was an officer, commanding a soldier who had lost her courage. He was Reuben. He was telling her that their partnership had not been dissolved. Just because one of their children was gone didn't mean she had any right to abandon the others. They had five children together, and there were still four. And even if another died, and another—for it was possible, when the nictovirus made it to America, as it surely would—she was still the mother of however many children were left.

She answered him in her mind, for her lips could not speak. It's easy for you to say that I need to go back to work, you're safely dead, nobody can tell you that your work isn't finished. Why is it always me? My chores are never done. I'm so tired. My head hurts. My mouth is so dry. It's so hot. So cold. So hot. Let me be finished with this.

"Cecily," said the soldier's voice. "Your fever is falling. You're going to make it."