irsten had given him one of the two Dr. Eleven comics. He could see that it pained her to part with it, but the Symphony was passing into unknown territory and she wanted to ensure that at least one of the comics would be safe in case of trouble on the road.
“As far as I know, the direction you’re going is perfectly safe,” Clark told her. He’d assured the conductor of the same thing a few days earlier. “Traders come up from there sometimes.”
“But it’s not our usual territory,” Kirsten said, and if Clark hadn’t come to know her a little, over the weeks when the Symphony had lived in Concourse A and performed music or Shakespeare every night, he might not have caught the excitement in her voice. She was beside herself with impatience to see the far southern town with the electrical grid. “When we come back through, I’ll take this one back and leave you with the other one. That way, at least one book will always be safe.”
In the early evening, Clark finishes dusting his beloved objects in the Museum of Civilization and settles into his favorite armchair to read through the adventures of Dr. Eleven by candlelight.
He pauses over a scene of a dinner party on Station Eleven. There’s something familiar about it. A woman with square-framed glasses is reminiscing about life on Earth: “I traveled the world before the war,” she says. “I spent some time in the Czech Republic, you know, in Praha …,” and tears come to his eyes because all at once he recognizes the dinner party, he was there, he remembers the Praha woman, her glasses and her pretension. The man sitting beside her bears a passing resemblance to Clark. The blond woman at the far end of the comic-book table is unmistakably Elizabeth Colton, and the man beyond her in the shadows looks a little like Arthur. Once Clark sat with all of them in Los Angeles, at a table under electric light. On the page, only Miranda is missing, her chair taken by Dr. Eleven.
In the comic-book version Dr. Eleven sits with his arms crossed, not listening to the conversation, lost in thought. In Clark’s memory the caterers are pouring wine, and he feels such affection for them, for all of them: the caterers, the hosts, the guests, even Arthur who is behaving disgracefully, even Arthur’s orange-tanned lawyer, the woman who said “Praha” instead of “Prague,” the dog peering in through the glass. At the far end of the table, Elizabeth is gazing into her wine. In memory, Miranda excuses herself and rises, and he watches her slip out into the night. He’s curious about her and wants to know her better, so he tells the others he needs a cigarette and follows her. What became of Miranda? He hasn’t thought of her in so long. All these ghosts. She went into shipping, he remembers.
Clark looks up at the evening activity on the tarmac, at the planes that have been grounded for twenty years, the reflection of his candle flickering in the glass. He has no expectation of seeing an airplane rise again in his lifetime, but is it possible that somewhere there are ships setting out? If there are again towns with streetlights, if there are symphonies and newspapers, then what else might this awakening world contain? Perhaps vessels are setting out even now, traveling toward or away from him, steered by sailors armed with maps and knowledge of the stars, driven by need or perhaps simply by curiosity: whatever became of the countries on the other side? If nothing else, it’s pleasant to consider the possibility. He likes the thought of ships moving over the water, toward another world just out of sight.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
The book referenced in passing in Chapter 43 (vampires, North America placed under quarantine, etc.) is The Passage, by Justin Cronin.
The line painted on the lead caravan and tattooed on Kirsten’s arm, “Survival is insufficient,” is from Star Trek: Voyager, episode 122, which aired for the first time in September 1999 and was written by Ronald D. Moore.
I owe a debt of inspiration to Simon Parry, whose September 28, 2009, Daily Mail article “Revealed: The Ghost Fleet of the Recession Anchored Just East of Singapore” inspired the chapters of the book set in Malaysia.
The Toronto staging of King Lear described in this book is partially based on James Lapine’s exquisite 2007 production of the play at the Public Theater in New York City, in that Lapine’s production featured the unusual addition of three little girls who performed nonspeaking parts as child versions of Lear’s daughters.
WITH THANKS
To my wonderful agent, Katherine Fausset, and her colleagues at Curtis Brown;
To Anna Webber and her colleagues at United Agents;
To my editors, whose tireless work made this a far better book than it would otherwise have been. In alphabetical order: Jenny Jackson at Knopf, Sophie Jonathan at Picador UK, and Jennifer Lambert at HarperCollins Canada;
To everyone who acquired and/or worked on this book at Knopf, Picador, HarperCollins, and abroad;
To Sohail Tavazoie, for so graciously accommodating my book tour schedule;
To Greg Michalson, Fred Ramey, and their colleagues at Unbridled, for their support and generosity;
To Michele Filgate and Peter Geye, for reading and commenting on early versions of the manuscript;
To Pamela Murray, Sarah MacLachlan, Nancy Miller, Christine Kopprasch, Kathy Pories, Maggie Riggs, Laura Perciaseppe, and Andrea Schulz, for their enthusiasm for the work and for their extremely helpful editorial comments;
To Richard Fausset, for anthropological assistance;
To Jon Rosten, for intel on the Mackinac Bridge;
To Kevin Mandel, always, for everything.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Emily St. John Mandel was born in British Columbia, Canada. She is the author of three previous novels—Last Night in Montreal, The Singer’s Gun, and The Lola Quartet—all of which were Indie Next picks. She is a staff writer for The Millions, and her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Best American Mystery Stories 2013 and Venice Noir. She lives in New York City with her husband.