The Judas Rose (56 page)

The elevator sighed and brought him to a gentle halt only a short distance from Philip's door, high in a tower away from the noise of ground traffic and sufficiently well insulated to keep the air traffic noise to a constant hum rather than a roar. He shook himself, not just mentally but physically as well, not caring who might see him, to break the chain of thought the public wards had wrapped round his mind, and decided that he was fit to share the air of a sickroom at least briefly. Here the walls of the corridors were a pleasant soft blue, and the carpets were American Orientals—imitations, of course, but a lovely path of flowers and colors under his feet all the same—and the fluorescent fixtures had either been taken down or covered up. There were handsome framed prints and textured hangings to look at, and a holo fountain played at the end of the hallway. It was almost like any large public building of a certain age. He could feel himself beginning to relax, and that was an improvement; he went through the door into Philip's room with what he was reasonably sure was a pleasant expression on his face and a pleasant set to his body.

“May I help you, sir?”

The voice startled him; it was an astonishing voice, and it came from a tall woman in heavy black garments that marked her as a nun. He should have realized that there would be a nun here; he was fortunate there wasn't a priest as well. It had slipped his mind.

“My name is Heykus Joshua Clete, Sister,” he said to her. “I'm a friend of Mr. Cendarianis—one of his oldest and closest friends. His doctor said I could visit him this morning.”

If he had been a Catholic male he would have then told her that she had permission to speak, but he was decently Protestant and proud of it and he said nothing of the kind. Until he realized, as the silence dragged on, that she had no way of knowing that and was waiting for the ridiculous, hopelessly un-American line to come from his lips.

“I'm not Catholic, Sister,” he told her, preferring that, hoping he didn't sound as repulsed as he felt; it wasn't the poor woman's fault that she was subject to a sociolinguistic constraint that made him queasy. “I'm Baptist . . . Protestant. You don't
have to wait for my permission before you can talk. Is it all right if I come in and see Philip?”

She looked directly at him then, abandoning the lowered eyelids that went with the submission to silence, and smiled. “Of course,” she said. “But please understand that you can't stay long—he's very weak. And I am ordered not to leave him; I'm sorry for the intrusion on your privacy.”

That wonderful voice again! Heykus was charmed. To find such a voice, in such a place, and from such a source; he wondered how it had happened. Perhaps she had been a choir nun once, trained to sing those horrendously difficult Catholic substitutes for the wholesome Protestant hymns.

“I understand, Sister,” he said, adding, “Please don't stand on my account.”

She smiled again, and thanked him courteously, and he saw that although she wasn't young she was beautiful; but she remained standing at the head of the medpod where Philip lay. He supposed she must have been given orders to do that, too, poor thing.

“May I?” he asked, motioning toward the pod.

“Yes . . . for a very short time, please.”

Heykus touched the small blue circle that made the pod transparent from the patient's waist to head, and braced himself for the worst, but it wasn't as bad as he had expected. Through the pod he could see that his friend was awake, and not in pain, and apparently not in emotional distress.

“Philip,” he said, “you look well!”

“And you, Heykus, look surprised. What were you expecting?”

The voice was a little odd, coming through the pod's speakers, but it was strong and cheerful and amused.

“I don't know exactly,” Heykus admitted. “I certainly wasn't expecting a man who looks and sounds ready to follow a plow.”

“I'm only dying, Heykus. Not plowing. Death doesn't take much strength when you're tucked into a medpod. Plowing, now—that might be more than I could manage.”

“I'm sorry this is happening, Philip,” Heykus said, meaning it. “I wish I knew something to say that would be appropriate.”

The man in the medpod chuckled softly. “Just don't pray over me,” he said. “Anything but that.”

“If—”

“I mean it, Heykus. No praying. You leave me to the pros.”

To the priests. And to their blackgarbed handmaidens
. Heykus glanced at the nun, but she had a nun's control of her face; she
might have been carved of wood for all the sign she gave that she was hearing anything they said.

“Is there anything you
do
want, Philip?” Heykus asked, his voice rough with the very real affection he felt for this man, who had shared with him so much of his life but was clearly not going to share any more of his death than he absolutely had to. “Anything that I could get for you? Do for you?”

“Nothing at all. It's all been done. The lawyers are hovering, with the angels and the undertakers. As for me, I'm taken care of here as if I were a priceless treasure—you needn't worry.”

“How about my keeping an eye on the hovering lawyers?”

“Why? I have three younger brothers. All sane; all capable.”

Heykus made a mental note to keep an eye on the brothers, but he said nothing, and the nun cleared her throat softly in the stillness.

“Sister? Did you want to speak to me?” he asked, not certain that she could address him if he didn't ask.

“Only a few more seconds, please, Director,” she answered, surprising him again. She knew who Heykus Joshua Clete was, then . . . that was odd. For all the power he had, his name was scarcely a household word.

“Philip?” He leaned over and touched the pod, near the sick man's shoulder. “The nurse says I must go now—I'm sorry. I'd hoped we could talk a while. But I'll be back tomorrow.”

“I won't be here tomorrow,” his friend said cheerfully. “I'll be in the arms of God or whatever. You stay in your office, where you can be of some use.”

“Nonsense. I'll see you again in the morning. And every morning, for so long as the Almighty lets us keep you with us, Philip.”

Cendarianis tried to smile, obviously very tired, and his eyes closed; Heykus stood a moment looking at him, memorizing the serene look of him, and then pressed the circle on the pod again to make it opaque and allow him privacy and rest. When it once again looked like the snow-white egg of a giant bird, and he was sure that Philip could not see him, he beckoned discreetly to the nun with one finger, hoping it was not too rude a gesture in these circumstances, asking her with his eyes to follow him to the door.

She nodded, and pressed a stud on her wrist computer, the long black sleeve falling away to show only more black fabric underneath; he supposed the stud must set the medpod's alarm system to signal her if anything at all changed while she was away from her post. She looked at him again, directly, and her
eyes held him, somehow; he felt taller, and stronger, and wiser. He gestured to show that he would follow
her
from the room, but she shook her head to indicate that he must go first, and he turned his back on her and led the way, uneasy with this Catholic concept of manners. He could feel her behind him, even when he could not see her; he thought that if a man had to die, he could do worse than die in the presence of this woman. What was she doing here, a woman like this? In a place like this?

She let the door to the room iris shut behind her when they were in the corridor, but she did not move one step farther, and Heykus respected her vigilance.

“Thank you, Sister,” he said. “I didn't want to speak in front of him.”

“Yes, Director Clete,” she said. “Quickly, then—what may I do for you?”

“I just wanted to know. . . . Are you allowed to talk about his condition?”

“You are not just a casual visitor, Director. What may I tell you?”

“Philip says he won't be here tomorrow. Is he right?”

“Oh, yes.”

“He doesn't look that sick. He doesn't look that weak.”

“The wonders of modern medicine,” she observed.

“But it's only a heart attack, Sister.”

“Nevertheless. There is multiple system failure, Director.”

“And nothing can be done. He really will die, before tomorrow morning.”

“Sometime during the night, yes,” she said. “When the soul is most willing to leave and seek a respite.”

“I beg your pardon, Sister?”

“Please forgive a foolish woman her maunderings,” she said promptly, “for your friend's sake. And now I must go to him.”

“He
will die
tonight?” Heykus knew how stupid he must sound, asking again, but it was so hard for him to believe. He was keeping her from her duties, perhaps obliging her to violate orders that she had been given; he would have to send her a note of thanks when he got back to the office.

“He will die,” she stated firmly. “In peace, and without pain. Surrounded by love.”

“I'll come back then, this evening,” Heykus began, but she stopped him, almost touching his arm just at the wrist, a nurse's gesture and without offense.

“The ambulance will be flying him home in just a few hours,” she said. “He chooses to be with his family.”

“Oh. . . . I see.” Heykus stood there struggling, not knowing what to say but unable to leave without saying it; he had the feeling that he must be opening and closing his mouth like a fish, but he didn't know what the words he needed were.

She
knew, however, and she answered the questions he could not ask. “The pod will go along with him in the ambulance, Director. He won't have to be disturbed in any way—he'll hardly know that he's being moved, and there'll be no discomfort at all, I promise you. And I will go, also.”

That caught Heykus' attention, and freed him from his temporary speech impediment. “Is that customary, Sister?” he asked. “For you to go with him, when he goes home to die?”

“He has asked me to go, and I am pleased to be of service to him. I won't disturb the family—they'll find me a corner of the house where I can wait, and pray. They won't even know I'm there.”

“They
will
know,” he heard himself objecting, “even if they leave you out in the street in front of the house.”

Her lips twitched, the least fraction, and he felt privileged; he knew that she need not have let her control slip even that much, and that it was a compliment paid to him. And then she was gone, with a soft murmur about having to return to her patient, and he was staring at the closed door of the room and feeling like a fool.

A contented fool, he realized. A serene, contented fool.

Something . . . there was something here he didn't understand. Even through the closed door, through the solid wall, he was aware of her. Not as he was sometimes aware of women who for one reason or another brought lust stirring in his loins, annoying him mightily—at his age, and with great-grandchildren, and him a devout servant of the Lord, to still have that twitch of the devil about him!—but in quite a different way.
If I were dying
, he thought,
and she stood beside me, I would feel that a strong hand sheltered me. I would feel safe. Even standing here outside this door, in this hateful place, I feel. . . . What do I feel? Welcome? Comforted?
Both those things were part of it, but they were not all. There was something more, something that eluded him, that he couldn't put a name to. He closed his eyes, to shut out the visual data that might be interfering with his perceptions . . . what was that
feel
ing?

He recognized it then, suddenly, for what it was, and he backed away from the door as if it might blast him where he stood. What he felt, the warmth that was all around him like
velvet against some unknown surface of his spirit, was the sensation of being
blessed
. He felt
blessed.

By a woman. A Catholic, and a woman.

Heykus almost, not quite but almost,
ran
down the corridor to the elevator. Not even daring to look back.

His efforts to convince Philip's doctors that the nurse must be dismissed were useless, as he had suspected they would be. He had known that before he tried, but he had felt compelled to try nonetheless. It wasn't that he didn't have sufficient power to get her removed—he did, and he surely would—but this was not the way to go about it, and the ways that were adequate would not be quick enough.

“Sister Miriam Rose is one of our finest nurses,” the med-Sammy said coldly. “The very idea of removing her is ridiculous.”

“She should be removed at once,”
Heykus said back, far more coldly. He had forty years more practice speaking coldly than the arrogant young doctor. But he had no sensible reason to offer as support for his advice, and they wouldn't listen to him. As for the family, they were shocked and annoyed. They loved Sister Miriam, Philip loved Sister Miriam, in the few days they'd known her she had become one of the family, and was Heykus completely out of his mind, or what?