“But you’re not wearing protection?”
“Earlier in the week, I did. But no one is coming in sick anymore. We think the virus is dead or dying, but it’s too soon to be certain. There is a theory that it was accelerated by carbon monoxide—no people, no cars, less carbon monoxide, so it died, see?—but everyone”—he waved his arms about to indicate that everyone was crazy—“very scared.”
“And the UN? NATO? Why aren’t there peacekeeping forces?”
“The world does not want your epidemic. That is the only matter on which they all agree. And NATO—the terrorists were homegrown, an attack by British nationals on British soil. So people are saying it is not NATO’s problem. NATO should use their resources to stop it spreading, so yes, they are patrolling borders, securing ports, this kind of thing, but—” He shrugged.
Inside my head, a flickering spool of images from the past ten days. Frightened eyes. Flames. Remote stars. Billy lying in my arms like a baby. A swell of anger murmured deep down. No one came to help! What had we done to deserve that? And then I looked at Dr. Larsen’s hands, a scar across one knuckle from some other disaster—one I had probably read about in the newspaper and immediately forgotten—and I wondered how many times he’d sat in a tent while a woman composed herself. Maybe a woman who’d lost more than I had—lost her children—and waited for the outside world to care. Maybe these women were there now, in Nepal or Syria or Somalia, listening to the coverage of the English Plague on the radio and thinking, “Now you know how it feels, now you know.” Maybe the African version of Marlene Greene was holding a charity auction, just as I had once. (Was it for Darfur? Or Haiti? Or maybe Aceh?) Maybe the Indian Marlene Greene was clearing unfashionable clothes from her wardrobe into black bin liners that she would deposit outside a secondhand shop in the rain. Maybe it would make them feel better, pretending they were doing something, just as it had done for me. Dr. Larsen wiped a cold swab across my arm and followed it with a needle.
“Tetanus,” he said.
“So why aren’t the mercenaries attacking us?”
He picked up his iPhone and showed me my face on the screen. “Say ‘cheese’—I’m recording. Live streaming, actually. If they come, we would have the evidence to expose them. And there would be questions about whoever is paying. In the meantime, we send eyewitness accounts to the UN. And they put them in a bottom drawer.”
“Surely it’s a crime against humanity?”
“Oh, there will be an inquiry. In about ten years. A tribunal.”
“What about the other survivors?”
“There are no survivors. Not officially.”
I waggled my fingers in the air and gave a sarcastic little “hello.”
He shrugged. “If the people in the camps around Folkestone and Calais continue to kill each other, it will be true soon enough.”
Don’t go south.
He turned my hand palm up, squeezed the end of one finger, and jabbed it with a needle. We both watched a pearl of blood surface.
“So who are you?” I said. “Red Cross? UN Refugee Agency?”
Dr. Larsen drew the blood into a tiny tube and stood it in a tray behind him.
“A blood test. If there’s nothing unusual, you can board the hospital ship. You’ll be the last. We’re full.”
“Médecins Sans Frontières?” I said.
“Just a concerned neighbor. I came out of retirement. It’s okay, I was bored.” He asked if my arm was hurting, did I want painkillers? I looked at my kids, ripping open packet after packet of medical supplies until fat white cotton wool balls plumped the floor around their feet. They were safe, so nothing hurt anymore.
“What happens to us now?” I said.
“We take you to Norway, and then the world is your oyster. Or Norway is your oyster.”
“So I’m a refugee?”
“Asylum seeker, actually. Until your application for refugee status is processed. But most countries in Europe are refusing applications, and France has the camps, so—”
“Fuckers.”
“Fear brings out the worst in people, especially groups of people. Anyway, you’ll be quite comfortable in Oslo.” He said it “Ahzz-lo.” Will I ever feel comfortable saying Ahzz-lo? I thought. Will the children? “Apart from the military police and the heat scanners and the curfew and the rumors. The hysteria. But it’s better in Norway than most of Europe. You might want to seek asylum further afield. Australia has agreed to take British refugees, but it is difficult to go because Singapore and Dubai have closed their borders. The U.S. and Canada are taking refugees also.”
“The U.S. is okay? We have family there. Her husband and mother.” I nodded my chin toward Joni, who was talking intently to another doctor, perhaps having the same conversation.
“It’s okay. The virus hit so fast here that the U.S. had time to quarantine aircraft from your airports. Some were turned back, some rerouted to remote isolation zones. There are rumors that one plane was shot down when the pilot tried to land because he was short of fuel, but who knows if that’s true. Human rights groups are complaining, but no one cares because the measures worked; they contained the virus. There’ve been some protests and unrest in a few cities, but nothing out of control. Her husband is likely fine.”
The children came over, followed by the young doctor who’d been talking to Joni. The doctor was improbably pretty and clean, an angel to supervise this sterile place. Her white teeth matched the tent, which felt like a decompression chamber outside heaven’s gate. She gave Dr. Larsen an update on the kids’ condition. All good, blood count normal, minor injuries—ready to board. She waved Joni into a chair and started her tests.
Dr. Larsen called the children over. “So who do we have here?” He turned to a fresh sheet on the clipboard and wrote the names of my children. Charles Luff-Greene. Margaret Luff-Greene. William Luff-Greene. Dr. Larsen reached the Lost Boy, who returned his gaze through huge, dark pupils. “And what is your name?” When the boy said nothing, Dr. Larsen turned to me.
“What will happen to all the other children?” I pointed to the Wild Things who were sitting in little clumps on the slipway.
“It is a matter for the authorities. Your children stay with you, of course, but these boys will go to care families. What do you call this?”
“Foster homes.”
“Yes.”
The Lost Boy stood next to Maggie, their contrasting fingers entwined.
“His name is Peter Luff-Greene,” I said.
“He is your child?” Dr. Larsen’s eyes flicked up to mine from the clipboard. “You are saying this boy is also your son?”
“Absolutely, his name is Peter Luff-Greene.” I put my hand on the back of the Lost Boy’s head. “Isn’t that right?”
He looked up at me and opened his mouth.
“Yes,” he said.
The doctor held my eye for a moment and then gave a single nod and wrote down the details.