Shrouded In Silence

Part Three

Midnight Approaches





32





The fall afternoon had slowly begun to slip away and the traffic on the street had picked up. After 4:00, all the stores opened again from their two-to-four nap break that many took every day. A few more customers had come in, and Mad Jack's had started the usual upward climb toward its nighttime peak, but Michelle remained unconcerned with the crowd strolling by. She leaned over the table to talk more privately and cupped her hand over her mouth. Other patrons in Mad Jack's Irish Pub walked by without paying much attention to her intense conversation with Guido Valentino.

"OK, Guido. What's this name you have hidden away that's suppose to scramble my mind? Some magic incantation you dug up from beneath the Roman streets?"

Her cell phone rang.

"Just a minute," Michelle said and picked up the phone. "Ciao."

"This is the hospital," a female voice said. "We need you to come here at once. It is urgent."

"I'll be there as quickly as I can grab a taxi," Michelle said. "I'm on my way."

"What's happened?" Guido said.

"I don't know, but I've got to get to the hospital. I'll catch you later."

Michelle ran into the street and started hailing a taxi. Within moments she was on her way across the city. "There's an extra ten euros in this trip if you hurry."

"Presto!" The driver started swerving erratically in and out of the crowded lane. Like a teenage stock-car driver, he maneuvered wildly down the streets.

Michelle settled back in the seat and worried over what she had not heard. Whatever it was that Guido had to tell her, it couldn't compare with the urgency of making sure Jack hadn't taken a turn for the worse. Within record time, the cab swung in front of the hospital and Michelle jumped out.

Running down the long halls toward Jack's room, she realized that blood was pounding in her head and remembered the doctors had warned her to take it easy. She slowed to a quick gait. As she reached the room, a nurse was coming out.

"Is Jack OK?" Michelle grabbed the woman's arm.

"Look and see." The nurse pushed the door open.

To Michelle's astonishment, Jack was sitting up in bed with his eyes closed, leaning against a pillow propped up behind his head. It was the first time in weeks he had been out of bed.

"Jack!"

Jack slowly opened his eyes and looked at her.

"Jack?"

He blinked several times as if he was trying to bring her into focus.

"It's me. Michelle!"

"Michelle?"

"I'm your wife."

"Wife? I'm not sure that . . ."

The nurse stepped in behind her. "He's having trouble putting things into perspective. After all, he's been unconscious for a long time."

Michelle pushed the chair up next to the bed. "Jack, I'm your wife. Remember we work together, do research together, do everything together. You've been through a terrible experience. Remember?"

Jack kept looking at her as if he should know her. "Y-yes," he said slowly. "I do remember you. Remember . . . from . . . somewhere." He leaned back on the pillow and closed his eyes.

Her heart was pounding. This wasn't what she had expected at all.

"Jack? Jack, are you with me?"

"We've had a definite breakthrough today," the nurse said. "The doctor will be excited when he comes tonight. The fact that your husband has regained consciousness is a major step forward."

"But he doesn't know me," Michelle protested in a pleading voice.

"Sometimes it takes a while for memory to kick in. Don't worry. He'll be more alert tomorrow. It was important for him to see you today."

Michelle searched the woman's face. She wanted much more of an answer than she'd heard so far, but the professional distance she saw in the woman's eyes made it clear that the nurse wouldn't tell her more.

"It would be best for us to let him rest now," the nurse said. "You'll be able to come back later." She gently tugged on Michelle's arm and kept the trained smile in place.

Michelle walked out of the room and down the hall at a slow, unsteady pace. Many times, she had heard Jack explain to groups that through redemptive suffering, healing could come to the brokenness of the world. He had passionately believed that undeserved pain resulting from the pursuit of good released the power to change the destructive potential of evil situations. Certainly, they had been in just such a violent predicament. Michelle could only hope Jack's ideas were true and good would come out of this horrid mess they were in. Without question, Jack had been plunged into dire straits for no reason other than he was trying to make something positive happen.

But whatever she had hoped for today hadn't happened yet. Jack had come out of the coma and that was important, but if he didn't remember her, he certainly wouldn't remember anything about their work. If his memory did return fully, it would take considerable time before he was fully functional. As the realization sunk in, it seemed as if the autumn had suddenly turned to winter. She had to make him remember her.



Klaus Burchel stood in the shadows across the street from the hospital, watching the front door. During the days that had passed since he first watched the Townsend's office on Via Vittoria Veneto, enough of his hair had grown back that he no longer had a bald-headed appearance, but the scar on his cheek remained. If Michelle Townsend had caught a glimpse of him earlier, he might look somewhat different now.

The Townsend woman came out of the hospital and walked to the street curb where she hailed a cab. Burchel watched her and wondered if anything had improved with her old man. She sped away in a battered clunker with taxi painted on the door. Burchel hurried across the street and into the hospital. By this time, he knew exactly where Jack Townsend's room would be found. Stein would want an update, and the best way to get it was to look in the room. He slowed as he came closer to the door. A nurse stood outside making a notation on a metal covered chart.

"Excuse me," Burchel said. "I'm a friend of Dr. Townsend. How's he doing?"

"Oh, much better," the nurse said. "He's awake for the first time. We're making progress."

"Wonderful!" Burchel said. "Glad to hear it."

Klaus kept walking. Not good news at all. Stein would want to know about this turn of events immediately.