Then there had been twenty-four hours in Hard Truth with Doc Carla—triage and treatment, including an awful irrigation of the “wound site.” No one else had been allowed to speak with her. There had been one time when Sal—it was Sal, Cooper knew, because he’d touched her bare arm as she lay there, and she’d remembered the feel of his hand from that night in her room—sat next to the bed and read to her after Doc Carla had kindly slipped her a Vicodin when the expired Tylenol with codeine had failed. She couldn’t remember what book it was now—it was the sound of his voice that had penetrated, not the words.
Doc Carla told her there had been an accident, that a finger on her right hand—the “pointer,” the CEO of the hand—was gone, that they’d been unable to save it. Because Cooper couldn’t visualize the injury, and because Doc Carla refused to let her see the wound until it had healed, it didn’t seem real. None of it seemed real. And because it didn’t seem real, Cooper appeared to be taking it well.
Unfamiliar people showed up at Hard Truth. Men and women dressed in Pole gear who weren’t Polies. They were from the National Science Foundation, they were from VIDS. Doc Carla sat in a folding chair while the admins interrogated Cooper—it was like a deranged version of Inherit the Wind. Again and again, Cooper went over every detail of her visit to the Divide. Her inability to be specific frustrated the admins, and when she mentioned Pavano’s name, they became agitated. No one would tell her what had happened to him or where he was.
On their next visit to Hard Truth, the admin guys leveled with her. The media already knew what had happened, and this had opened the door to scrutiny. Pavano’s congressional sponsors were claiming harassment and discrimination. There was talk that the two congressmen who had lobbied to get him on the ice wanted a federal investigation. This would mean subpoenaing every grantee who had had contact with Pavano—including Cooper, Sal, Sri, and entire climate research teams at the Divide. They would be expected to leave the ice to meet with investigators. The effect this could have on the ongoing experiments at Pole would be catastrophic. In an effort to stave this off, Alexandra Scaletta, head of the NSF, had invited the congressmen to Pole to assess the situation for themselves, as “a gesture of goodwill.”
“So, am I being sent home?” Cooper asked the latest NSF admin to interrogate her, a stout, genial man named Warren.
“I know it seems like we’ve been asking you the same questions a hundred different ways, but we’re just trying to figure out how this happened. Why you were there, why Dr. Pavano was working with equipment checked out under another team’s grant number. Is there anything else you can tell us that will help us out here?”
“How is he?” Cooper replied.
“Dr. Pavano?”
“Is he still here or did they send him back?”
“I’m afraid we’re not allowed to say,” Warren said. His look turned pleading. “That’s why we’re asking you these questions. The sooner we can create a timeline of events, the sooner we can put this all to rest.” Cooper smiled to herself. Good luck with that.
*
When she awoke in her own room, she found her desk piled with homemade gifts wrapped in fax paper. There was even a bottle of Crown Royal in a purple sack with a note signed by Dwight. Pearl had left a basket filled with knitted items and various baked goods. Hanging from the coat hook on the back of the door was a small wooden birdhouse from Bozer, accompanied by a little sign that said Glacier Sparrows Only.
She glanced up at her tiny window, as if the constant sunlight could indicate the time. She peed in her pee can, holding herself steady by gripping the desk chair with one hand, so she could skip the bathroom—even though she couldn’t remember the last time she’d brushed her teeth. She noticed now that Sal had left a note on the desk. Radio when you get up and I’ll come get you. Do not walk to the station alone. Sal.
As she struggled into her balaclava, she saw Pavano’s Scotch on her desk. She grabbed it by the neck and shoved it into the deepest pocket of her parka, along with her painkillers. Doc Carla had been careful: there were only three in the bottle, but at least they weren’t expired.
Cooper was halfway to the Jamesway door when she turned around and went back to her room. Next to her compass was the vial containing David’s ashes. She placed them both in her other pocket.
Outside the Jamesway, Floyd sat astride a snowmobile arguing with a fuel tech about glycol levels. When he saw Cooper walking toward the station, he cut the argument short and offered her a ride, which she accepted. As the snowmobile careened across the ice, Cooper tried to sort out exactly how she was supposed to feel about this finger thing. The whole experience so far had been like living inside Picasso’s Guernica. She wasn’t dead. She hadn’t lost an arm. This wasn’t cancer or a stroke. It was a finger. And yet Doc Carla had called it a catastrophic injury. Cooper felt as if she had been anesthetized. Where was her fear? Her outrage? Why did she feel nothing about this, besides the pain and the constant throbbing? She was disfigured—a painter, with hyperrealist tendencies, who’d lost a finger on her dominant hand. Was she an abstract painter by default now? Was she a painter at all? She didn’t know. And right now, she hardly cared. All that mattered was that she get back to the station. Floyd drove the snowmobile up the entrance ramp and idled in front of Annex B.
“Please don’t be nice because you feel bad for me,” Cooper said as Floyd helped her off. “I don’t want pity.”
Floyd gave her a wry look. “You’ve been around long enough to know there’s no such thing as pity here.”
Inside her studio, Cooper found her easel where she’d left it and the blank canvas with the roughly outlined polar landscape. It seemed to have come from another era. She pulled the compass out of her pocket and set them on her desk. Then she shook off the mitten on her left hand—the bandage on her right was so thick it functioned as a mitten. After a couple of attempts, Cooper gave up on removing her parka. That would require help, and she didn’t want any more help.
She slowly lowered herself to her knees and unfurled a measure of drawing paper from her roll. Doc Carla had cut away the top of the bandage so her thumb and remaining fingers were exposed, which would, theoretically, allow her to pick up her pencils and her brushes. Cooper seized a charcoal nib between her thumb, middle, and ring fingers, which, when squeezed together, functioned as a single digit. It felt awkward, and it hurt like hell, and when she set the nib to the paper, it moved as if following remote instructions from someone else, skittering all over the page and leaving a greasy black trail across the paper. After a few more tries, Cooper sat back on her haunches. There would be no more detailed studies of vending machine charms, no more hyperrealistic portraits of landscapes or roadside cafés. What about faces?