Revival (34 page)

“I'm looking forward to passing out for good,” Astrid told him, and smiled wanly.

“Now, now, none of that. I never make absolute guarantees, but I believe that in a short time, you're going to feel much better. Let's begin, Jamie. Open the box.”

I did so. Inside, each item nestled in its own velvet-lined depression, were two stubby steel rods tipped with black plastic, and a white control box with a slide switch on top. It looked exactly like the one Jacobs had used the day Claire and I had brought Con to him. It crossed my mind that, of the four people in the room, three were idiots and one was crazy.

Jacobs plucked the rods from their nesting places and touched the black plastic tips together. “Jamie, take the control and move that slide switch the tiniest bit. Just a nudge. You'll hear a click.”

When I did, he pulled the tips apart. There was a brilliant blue spark, and a brief but powerful
mmmm
sound. It didn't come from the rods but from the far side of the room, like some weird electrical ventriloquism.

“Excellent,” Jacobs said. “We're good to go. Jenny, you need to place your hands on Astrid's shoulders. She'll spasm, and we don't want her to come around on the floor, do we?”

“Where are your holy rings?” Jenny asked. She was looking and sounding more doubtful by the second.

“These are better than the rings. Much more powerful. More
holy
, if you like. Hands on her shoulders, please.”

“Don't you electrocute her!”

In her harsh jackdaw's voice, Astrid said, “The least of my worries, Jen.”

“Won't happen,” Jacobs said, adopting his lecture-hall voice. “
Can't
. In ECT therapy—shock treatments, to use the layman's term—doctors employ up to a hundred and fifty volts, thus provoking a grand mal seizure. But
these
 . . .” He tapped the rods together. “Even at full power, they would barely budge the needle of an electrician's ammeter. The energy I intend to tap—energy present in this room, all around us at this very moment—can't be measured by ordinary instruments. It is essentially unknowable.”

Unknowable
was not a word I wanted to hear.

“Please just do it,” Astrid said. “I'm very tired, and there's a rat in my chest. One that's on fire.”

Jacobs looked at Jenny. She hesitated. “It wasn't like this at the revival. Not at
all
.”

“Perhaps not,” Jacobs said, “but this
is
revival. You'll see. Put your hands on her shoulders, Jenny. Be prepared to press down hard. You won't hurt her.”

She did as she was told.

Jacobs turned his attention to me. “When I place the tips of the rods on Astrid's temples, slide the switch. Count the clicks as it advances. When you feel the fourth one, stop and wait for any further instructions. Ready? Here we go.”

He put the tips of the rods in the hollows at the sides of her head, where delicate blue veins pulsed. In a prim little voice, Astrid said, “So nice to see you again, Jamie.” Then she closed her eyes.

“She may be frisky, so be ready to bear down,” Jacobs told Jenny. Then: “All right, Jamie.”

I pushed the slide switch. Click . . . and click . . . and click . . . and
click
.

 • • •

Nothing happened.

All an old man's delusion
, I thought.
Whatever he might have done in the past, he can't do it any long—

“Advance two more clicks, if you please.” His voice was dry and confident.

I did so. Still nothing. With Jenny's hands on her shoulders, Astrid was more hunched over than ever. Her whistling respiration was painful to listen to.

“One more,” Jacobs said.

“Charlie, I'm almost at the end of the—”

“Did you not hear me?
One more!
”

I pushed the slide. There was another click, and this time the hum on the other side of the room was much louder, not
mmmm
but
MMMOWWW
. There was no flash of light that I saw (or that I remember, at least), but for a moment I was dazzled, anyway. It was as if a depth charge had gone off far down in my brain. I think Jenny Knowlton cried out. I dimly saw Astrid jerk in the wheelchair, a spasm so powerful that it flung Jenny—no lightweight—backward and almost off her feet. Astrid's wasted legs shot out, relaxed, then shot out again. A security alarm began to bray.

Rudy came running into the room, closely followed by Norma.

“
I told you to turn that blasted thing off before we started!
” Jacobs shouted at Rudy.

Astrid pistoned her arms up, one right in front of Jenny's face as she came back to put her hands on Astrid's shoulders again.

“Sorry, Mr. Jacobs—”

“
Shut it OFF, you idiot!
”

Charlie snatched the control box out of my hands and slid the switch back to the off position. Now Astrid was making a series of gagging sounds.

“
Pastor Danny, she's choking!
” Jenny cried.

“Don't be stupid!” Jacobs snapped. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright. He looked twenty years younger. “Norma! Call the gate! Tell them the alarm was an accident!”

“Should I—”

“Go!
Go!
Goddammit,
GO!
”

She went.

Astrid's eyes opened, only there
were
no eyes, just bulging whites. She gave another of those myoclonic jerks, then slid forward, legs kicking and jerking. Her arms flailed like those of a drowning swimmer. The alarm brayed and brayed. I grabbed her by the hips and shoved her back in her chair before she could land on the floor. The crotch of her slacks was dark, and I could smell strong urine. When I looked up, I saw foam drizzling from one side of her mouth. It fell from her chin to the collar of her blouse, darkening that, too.

The alarm quit.

“Thank God for small favors,” Jacobs said. He was bent forward, hands on his thighs, observing Astrid's convulsions with interest but no concern.

“
We need a doctor!
” Jenny cried. “
I can't hold her!
”

“Bosh,” Jacobs said. There was a half-smile—the only kind he could manage—on his face. “Did you expect it to be easy? It's
cancer
, for God's sake. Give her a minute and she'll be—”

“There's a door in the wall,” Astrid said.

The hoarseness had left her voice. Her eyes rolled back down in their sockets . . . but not together; they came one at a time. When they were back in place, it was Jacobs they were looking at.

“You can't see it. It's small and covered with ivy. The ivy is dead. She waits on the other side, above the broken city. Above the paper sky.”

Blood can't turn cold, not really, but mine seemed to.
Something happened
, I thought.
Something happened, and Mother will be here soon
.

“Who?” Jacobs asked. He took one of her hands. The half-smile was gone. “Who waits?”

“Yes.” Her eyes stared into his. “
She
.”

“Who? Astrid,
who
?”

She said nothing at first. Then her lips stretched in a terrible grin that showed every tooth in her head. “Not the one
you
want.”

He slapped her. Astrid's head jerked to the side. Spittle flew. I shouted in surprise and grabbed his wrist when he raised his hand to do it again. I stopped him, but only with an effort. He was stronger than he had any right to be. It was the kind of strength that comes from hysteria. Or pent-up fury.

“
You can't hit her!
” Jenny shouted, letting go of Astrid's shoulders and coming around the wheelchair to confront him. “
You lunatic, you can't hit h
—”

“Stop,” Astrid said. Her voice was weak but lucid. “Stop it, Jenny.”

Jenny looked around. Her eyes widened at what she saw: a delicate pink wash of color beginning to rise in Astrid's pale cheeks.

“Why are you yelling at him? Did something happen?”

Yes
, I thought.
Something happened. Something most surely did
.

Astrid turned to Jacobs. “When are you going to do it? You better hurry, because the pain is very . . . very . . .”

The three of us stared at her. No, it was the five of us. Rudy and Norma had crept back into the East Room doorway, and they were staring, too.

“Wait,” Astrid said. “Wait just a darn minute.”

She touched her chest. She cupped the wasted remains of her breasts. She pressed her stomach.

“You did it already, didn't you? I know you did, because there
is
no pain!” She pulled in a breath and let it out in an incredulous laugh. “And I can breathe!
Jenny, I can breathe again!
”

Jenny Knowlton went to her knees, raised her hands to the sides of her head, and began to recite the Lord's Prayer so fast she sounded like a 45 rpm record on 78. Another voice joined her: Norma's. She was also on her knees.

Jacobs gave me a bemused look that was easy to read:
You see, Jamie? I do all the work and the Big G gets all the credit
.

Astrid tried to get out of the wheelchair, but her wasted legs wouldn't hold her. I got her before she could do a face-plant, and put my arms around her.

“Not yet, honey,” I said. “You're too weak.”

She goggled at me as I eased her back onto the seat. The oxygen mask had gotten twisted around and now hung on the left side of her neck, forgotten.

“Jamie? Is that you? What are you doing here?”

I looked at Jacobs.

“Short-term memory loss after treatment is common,” he said. “Astrid, can you tell me who the president is?”

She looked bewildered at the question but answered with no hesitation. “Obama. And Biden's the vice president. Am I really better? Will it last?”

“You are and it will, but never mind that now. Tell me—”

“Jamie? Is it really you? Your hair is so white!”

“Yes,” I said, “it's certainly getting there. Listen to Charlie.”

“I was crazy about you,” she said, “but even though you could play, you could never dance very well unless you were high. We had dinner at Starland after the prom and you ordered . . .” She stopped and licked her lips. “Jamie?”

“Right here.”

“I can breathe. I can actually
breathe
again.” She was crying.

Jacobs snapped his fingers in front of her eyes like a stage hypnotist. “Focus, Astrid. Who brought you here?”

“J-Jenny.”

“What did you have for supper last night?”

“Sloop. Sloop and salad.”

He snapped his fingers in front of her swimming eyes again. It made her blink and recoil. The muscles beneath her skin seemed to be tightening and firming even as I watched. It was wonderful and awful.

“
Soup
. Soup and salad.”

“Very good. What is the door in the wall?”

“Door? I don't—”

“You said it was covered with ivy. You said there was a broken city on the other side.”

“I . . . don't remember that.”

“You said she waits. You said . . .” He peered into her uncomprehending face and sighed. “Never mind. You need to rest, my dear.”

“I suppose so,” Astrid said, “but what I'd really like to do is dance. Dance for joy.”

“In time you will.” He patted her hand. He was smiling as he did it, but I had an idea he was deeply disappointed at her failure to remember the door and the city. I was not. I didn't want to know what she had seen when Charlie's secret electricity stormed through the deepest recesses of her brain. I didn't want to know what was waiting behind the hidden door she had spoken of, yet I was afraid I did.

Mother.

Above the paper sky.

 • • •

Astrid slept all morning
and well into the afternoon. When she woke, she declared herself ravenous. This pleased Jacobs, who told Norma Goldstone to bring “our patient” a toasted cheese sandwich and a small piece of cake with the frosting scraped off. Frosting, he felt, might be too rich for her wasted stomach. Jacobs, Jenny, and I watched her put away the entire sandwich and half the cake before setting her fork down.

“I want the rest,” she said, “but I'm full.”

“Give yourself time,” Jenny said. She'd spread a napkin in her lap and kept plucking at it. She wouldn't look at Astrid for long, and at Jacobs not at all. Coming to him had been her idea, and I have no doubt she was happy about the sudden change for the better in her friend, but it was clear that what she'd seen in the East Room had shaken her deeply.

“I want to go home,” Astrid said.

“Oh, honey, I don't know . . .”

“I feel well enough. I really do.” Astrid cast an apologetic look at Jacobs. “It's not that I'm not grateful—I'll bless you in my prayers for the rest of my life—but I want to be in my own place. Unless you feel . . . ?”

“No, no,” Jacobs said. I suspected that, with the job done, he was anxious to be rid of her. “I can't think of better medicine than sleeping in your own bed, and if you leave soon, you can be back not long after dark.”

Jenny made no further objection, just went back to plucking at her napkin. But before she bent her head, I saw a look of relief on her face. She wanted out as much as Astrid, although perhaps not for quite the same reasons.

Astrid's returning color was only part of the remarkable change in her. She was sitting upright in her wheelchair; her eyes were clear and engaged. “I don't know how I can ever thank you, Mr. Jacobs, and I certainly can't repay you, but if there's ever anything you need from me that's mine to give, you only have to ask.”