that could undo everything that had been achieved in the resuscitation
room. Helga had smoothed Harrison’s hair with a comb that she was now
tucking away in the nightstand drawer. Gina was delicately applying a
lubricant to his eyelids to prevent them from sticking together, a
danger with comatose patients who spent long periods of time without
opening their eyes or even blinking and who sometimes suffered from
diminished lachrymal-gland secretion.
“Heart’s still steady as a metronome,” Gina said when she saw Jonas.
“I have a hunch, before the end of the week, this one’s going to be out
playing golf, dancing, doing whatever he wants.” She brushed at her
bangs, which were an inch too long and hanging in her eyes. “He’s a
lucky man.”
“One hour at a time,” Jonas cautioned, knowing too well how Death liked
to tease them by pretending to retreat, then returning in a rush to
snatch away their victory.
When Gina and Helga left for the night, Jonas turned off all the lights.
Illuminated only by the faint fluorescent wash from the corridor and the
green glow of the cardiac monitor, room 518 was replete with shadows.
It was silent, too. The audio signal on the EKG had been turned off,
leaving only the rhythmically bouncing light endlessly making its way
across the screen. The only sounds were the soft moans of the wind at
the window and the occasional faint tapping of rain against the glass.
Jonas stood at the foot of the bed, looking at Harrison for a moment.
Though he had saved the man’s life, he knew little about him.
Thirty–eight years old. Five-ten, a hundred and sixty pounds. Brown
hair, brown eyes.
Excellent physical condition.
But what of the inner person? Was Hatchford Benjamin Harrison a good
man? Honest? Trustworthy? Faithful to his wife? Was he reasonably
free of envy and greed, capable of mercy, aware of the difference
between right and wrong?
Did he have a kind heart?
Did he love?
In the heat of a resuscitation procedure, when seconds counted and there
was too much to be done in too short a time, Jonas never dared to think
about the central ethical dilemma facing any doctor who assumed the role
of reanimator, for to think of it then might have inhibited him to the
patient’s disadvantage. Afterward, there was time to doubt, to wonder.
Although a physician was morally committed and professionally obligated
to saving lives wherever he could, were all lives worth saving?
When Death took an evil man, wasn’t it wiser and more ethically
correct-to let him stay dead?
If Harrison was a bad man, the evil that he committed upon resuming his
life after leaving the hospital would in part be the responsibility of
Jonas Nyebern. The pain Harrison caused others would to some extent
stain Jonas’s soul, as well.
Fortunately, this time the dilemma seemed moot. Harrison appeared to be
an upstanding citizen-a respected antique dealer, they said-married to
an artist of some reputation, whose name Jonas recognized. A good
artist had to be sensitive, perceptive, able to see the world more
clearly than most people saw it. Didn’t she? If she was married to a
bad man, she would know it, and she wouldn’t remain married to him.
This time there was every reason to believe that a life had been saved
that should have been saved.
Jonas only wished his actions had always been so correct.
He turned away from the bed and took two steps to the window. Five
stories below, the nearly deserted parking lot lay under hooded pole
lamps. The falling rain churned the puddles, so they appeared to be
boiling, as if a subterranean fire consumed the blacktop from
underneath.
He could pick out the spot where Kari Dovell’s car had been parked, and
he stared at it for a long time. He admired Kari enormously. He also
found her attractive. Sometimes he dreamed of being with her, and it
was a surprisingly comforting dream. He could admit to wanting her at
times, as well, and to being pleased by the thought that she might also
want him.
But he did not need her. He needed nothing but his work, the