were a distant alarm going off in a room beyond her reach. She struggled to wake up, but she was trapped somewhere in a world between sleep and wakefulness. She had to answer the phone; she knew her husband, Geoffrey, was calling.
All evening she’d waited to hear Geoffrey’s voice. It was Wednesday night, and on his monthly trips to London, Geoffrey always called home on Wednesday. Tonight, however, she’d crawled into bed early, sniffling and coughing, a victim of the latest flu virus to hit Washington. It was influenza A-63 from Hong Kong, a particularly miserable strain that she now shared with half her colleagues in the microbiology lab. For an hour she’d sat up reading in bed, fighting valiantly to stay awake. But the combination of a cold capsule plus the most recent Journal of Microbiology had worked faster than any sleeping pill. Within minutes she’d fallen back on the pillows with her glasses still perched on her nose. It would be just a short rest, she had promised herself, just a catnap…. In the end, sleep had crept up and ambushed her.
She woke with a start to find that the bedside lamp was on, Journal of Microbiology still draped across her chest. The room was slightly out of focus. Pushing her glasses back in place, Sarah glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Twelve-thirty. The telephone was dead silent. Had she been dreaming?
She jumped as the phone rang again. Eagerly she grabbed the receiver.
“Mrs. Sarah Fontaine?” asked a man’s voice.
It wasn’t Geoffrey. Sudden alarm shot through her like a jolt of electricity. Something was terribly wrong. She sat up at once, fully awake. “Yes. Speaking,” she said.
“Mrs. Fontaine, this is Nicholas O’Hara, U.S. State Department. I’m sorry to call you at this hour, but…” He paused. It was the silence that terrified her most, for it was too deliberate, too practiced, a strategically placed buffer to ready her for a blow. “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” he finished.
Her throat tightened. She felt like shouting, Just tell me! Tell me what’s happened! But all she could manage was a whisper. “Yes. I’m listening.”
“It’s about your husband, Geoffrey,” he said. “There’s been an accident.”
This isn’t real, she thought, closing her eyes. If Geoffrey were hurt, I would have felt it. Somehow I would have known....
“It happened about six hours ago,” he continued. “There was a fire in your husband’s hotel.” Another pause. Then, with concern in his voice, he asked, “Mrs. Fontaine? Are you still there?”
“Yes. Please go on.”
The man cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Mrs. Fontaine. Your husband…he didn’t make it.”
He allowed her a moment of silence, a moment in which she struggled to contain her grief. It was a stupid, irrational act of pride that made her press her hand over her mouth to stifle the sob. This pain was too private to share with any stranger.
“Mrs. Fontaine?” he asked gently. “Are you all right?”
At last she managed to take a shaky breath. “Yes,” she whispered.
“You don’t have to worry about the…arrangements. I’ll coordinate all the details with our consulate in Berlin. There’ll be a delay, of course, but once the German authorities clear the body’s release, there should be no—”
“Berlin?” she broke in.
“It’s in their jurisdiction, you see. There’ll be a full report as soon as the Berlin police—”
“But this isn’t possible!”
Nicholas O’Hara was struggling to be patient. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Fontaine. His identity’s been confirmed. Really, there’s no question about—”
“Geoffrey was in London,” she cried.
A long silence followed. “Mrs. Fontaine,” he said at last in an irritatingly calm voice, “the accident occurred in Berlin.”
“Then they’ve made a mistake. Geoffrey was in London. He couldn’t have been in Germany!”
Again there was a pause, longer this time. Now she could tell he was puzzled. The receiver was pressed so tightly to her ear that all she heard for a few seconds was the pounding of her heart. There had to be a mistake. Some crazy, stupid misunderstanding. Geoffrey had to be alive. She pictured him, laughing at the absurd reports of his own death. Yes, they would laugh about it together when he came home. If he came home.
“Mrs. Fontaine,” the man said at last, “which hotel was he staying at in London?”
“The—the Savoy. I have the phone number somewhere here—I have to look it up—”
“That’s all right, I’ll find it. Let me do some calling around. Perhaps I should see you in the morning.” His words were measured and cautious, spoken in the unemotional monotone of a bureaucrat who’d learned how to reveal nothing. “Can you come by my office?”
“How—how do I find it?”
“You’ll be driving?”
“No. I don’t have a car.”
“I’ll have one sent by.”
“It’s a mistake, isn’t it? I mean…you do make mistakes, don’t you?” A bit of hope, that was all she was asking him for. Some small thread to cling to. At least he could have given her that much. He could have shown her a little kindness.
But all he said was “I’ll see you in the morning, Mrs. Fontaine. Around eleven.”
“Wait, please! I’m sorry, I can’t even think. Your name—what was it again?”
“Nicholas O’Hara.”
“Where was your office?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “The driver will see you get here. Good night.”
“Mr. O’Hara?”
Sarah heard the dial tone and knew that he had already hung up. She immediately dialed the number of the Savoy Hotel in London. One phone call, and the matter would be settled. Please, she prayed as the phone connection went through, let me hear your voice....
“Savoy Hotel,” answered a woman from halfway around the world.
Sarah’s hand was shaking so hard she could barely hold the receiver. “Hello. Mr. Geoffrey Fontaine’s room, please,” she blurted out.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the voice said. “Mr. Fontaine checked out two days ago.”
“Checked out?” she cried. “But where did he go?”
“He gave us no destination. However, if you wish to send a message, we’d be happy to forward it to his permanent address….”
She never remembered saying goodbye. She found herself staring down at the telephone as if it were something alien, something she’d never seen before. Slowly her gaze wandered
