I

Commander Arcana's face sported an increasingly worried expression. Beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead as his gray eyes stared at the monitor. Warlord II Fighter Command --- packed with men, machines, and blinking computers --- had gone unnaturally quiet. Even the muffled rumble of the ionic drive suddenly seemed to fall silent, as if the soulless machine, deep in the bowels of the gigantic space ship, somehow sensed the danger that was fast approaching the ship . . .

Kim looked up from his novel at the sound of the front door closing. Marking his place with his forefinger, he clapped the book shut and headed over to his desk.

Notebooks, paper, and an eraser shaped like a miniature soccer ball were piled haphazardly on its polished surface. A pack of colorful plastic straws neatly covered a fresh burn mark --- the result of an experiment with a wad of cotton, a glass beaker, and a handful of matches.

Taking a loose sheet of paper, he roughly folded it and slipped it between the pages where his finger had been. Shrugging wistfully, he returned the book to the bookcase. The shelf was stuffed: a few comic books (the last of his onceextensive collection, now bound together with a rubber band and banished to the far end of the shelf), a somewhat larger number of paperbacks, an even larger number of what his father called "mass-market trash," and over a dozen expensive volumes bound in linen.

Most of these books seemed pretty worn out. A few hardcovers looked as if they'd never been open, let alone read. Those he had received as presents, and they held no interest for him. To be polite, he had put them in with his treasures, but he had no intention of ever reading them.

His mother's brisk footsteps echoed in the downstairs foyer. Kim sighed and headed for the door. Then he spun around and went back to his desk, feeling the need to rearrange things so that it looked as if he had been working all afternoon, instead of poring over the latest volume in the Starfighters series. He flipped open his math book to the folded page, turned on his calculator, and laid out a sheet of paper with small, cramped scribbles. He had already tried to solve the problem in math class without success.

Math --- or anything having to do with numbers --- was not his strong suit. He had been at war with the subject from the very first day of school, and in the seven and a half years since then nothing had changed. He hated crunching numbers. He owned a calculator, so what was the point of solving equations with two unknowns?

Surveying the arrangement with a critical eye, he added a freshly sharpened pencil and then, with a satisfied nod, turned back to the door. When it came to homework, his parents were uncompromising. After dinner, his father would surely ask to see his completed assignment, surveying everything with a frown, following the daily routine. Oh well. Later, he'd try to solve that idiotic problem. He could always copy the answer from one of his friends the next morning.

He turned the knob, pushed the door open, and took one last wistful look at his overstuffed bookshelf. Commander Arcana would have to wait until morning to lead Warlord II into the final battle with the monstrous telepathic plant.

 
Kim ran downstairs, skipping the last four steps with a final bound. Mom's overcoat hung in the armoire next to the tattered parka that Dad had worn ever since Kim could remember. The door to the living room was slightly ajar. In the ashtray on top of the armoire, a wisp of smoke curled up
from a freshly lit cigarette.

Puzzled, Kim frowned, wrinkling his nose. Five months before, Dad had decided to quit smoking. It was strange that he'd started again. But it was also weird that Dad was home at this hour. It was not yet four o'clock, and normally he never came home from the office before six.

His parents were in the living room. Kim could hear their voices but couldn't tell what they were saying. After another glance at the cigarette, he hooked his thumbs in his belt and walked in.

His father and mother were sitting next to each other on the couch. The television was on without any sound. A newly opened pack of cigarettes lay on the table next to an orange lighter and a clean ashtray. Kim noticed how quiet everything was. His parents had abruptly stopped talking when he came in, and the only discernible noise was the low tick-tock of the old-fashioned grandfather clock on the south wall of the room.

"Oh. Hello, Kim," Mom said in a subdued voice. Hastily, she sat upright, brushed strands of hair off her face, and folded her hands. "I, uh . . . I thought you were in your room, and . . ."

Kim blinked in surprise. His mother hardly ever stammered. She was a calm and collected woman, who always considered her words before speaking.

"Did you, uh, finish your homework?" she asked.

Kim first nodded and then quickly shook his head, muttering something that sounded like "yes," but might also be construed as "I guess."

 
His father sighed. The stiff leather of the couch creaked as he sat up and reached for the cigarettes and lighter. Embarrassed, Kim stayed where he was and pulled his thumbs out of his belt. In that instant, he realized why his parents were so nervous.

"You . . . you were at the hospital, weren't you?" he asked.

A shadow passed over his mother's face. Kim suddenly had the feeling that he had said something terribly wrong.

"Have a seat, Son," his father said.

Kim peered at his father through the blue haze of the cigarette smoke as he hesitantly sat down on the edge of his chair. Son, Dad had said. He only called Kim that when he was very angry, or in a very good mood . . . or nervous. His father hardly ever called him by his name. Normally, Dad called him Kid or Junior, or sometimes Buddy or Bud. Something was up.

"I . . ." His father hesitated a moment, and then started again. "Mom and I need to talk with you," he said seriously.

Kim grew uncomfortable with every passing second. He thought he knew what his father was going to say, but he didn't want to hear it. He looked at his mother's face and suddenly
felt even more miserable. She was very pale with dark circles under her eyes. Her gaze seemed to pass through him, to focus on something lost in the distance. She smiled a strange, sad smile, and he noticed that her fingers never stopped moving.

"You were visiting Becky, weren't you?"

Dad nodded. He stubbed his cigarette out and traced lines in the ashes with the smooshed filter.

"Yes, we were with your . . . your sister," he said after a while. He looked at Kim over the top of his thin gold-rimmed glasses, put his elbows on the table, folded his hands and rested his chin on them, the way he always did when he wanted to explain something difficult.

"Your sister, Rebecca," he started again, "is very sick, Kim."

Kim nodded. "I know," he said. "She had to --- "

Dad gently shook his head. "It's not because of her appendix."

"It's not? But you said --- "

"We told you that because, well, because we didn't want to worry you."

"You mean, it wasn't her appendix after all?"

"No, at first it was," his father interrupted. "It's just . . ." He lit up another cigarette. "I don't know. We don't know how to explain it to you," he then said brusquely. "You were with us when we took your sister to the hospital and, well, you also heard what Doctor Schreiber said. That an operation for appendicitis is not a huge crisis these days, that we needn't worry, and that Rebecca would be back home in a week."

Kim nodded. Three days before, Rebecca had suddenly complained of a stabbing pain in her side and started crying. At first they didn't take the matter too seriously. Rebecca had turned four in May, but whenever anything hurt --- or if she didn't get her way --- she would act like a two-year-old. But her symptoms worsened and finally, toward evening, she was in so much pain that she threw up. When that happened, Dad quickly decided to call for an ambulance. They went to the hospital with her, and it was well past midnight when they got back home. Mom sent Kim to bed, but he was not able to sleep, and in the big, quiet house he had heard his parents talking for a long time downstairs in the living room.

Of course, Dr. Schreiber had said there was no reason to get excited. Kim could still picture the thin gray-haired man with sad eyes peering behind his horn-rimmed glasses. But thinking back, something wasn't quite right. The telephone rang a lot, and his mother spoke in a very quiet voice, completely different than usual, and she hastily hung up whenever he walked into the room. A slight feeling of fear gnawed at his stomach, similar to the feeling he got whenever he came home with bad grades.

"There were complications," Dad continued solemnly. "These things happen, although not very often. Doctor Schreiber explained it, but . . ." Dad's voice wavered, and Kim thought he saw tears glistening in Dad's eyes. But then Dad blinked and puffed on his cigarette, and his face was hidden behind a thick cloud of smoke.

Dad jumped up and clenched his fists. He opened his mouth, then shook his head and abruptly turned away. "You tell him," he muttered. "I can't."

Kim's gaze moved back and forth between his father's back and his mother's face.

"What? What's wrong with Becky?" he asked anxiously.

"She's . . . Well, they gave her anesthesia before they operated on her," Mom explained in a monotone. "Everything was completely normal. But she never woke up."

Kim's heart skipped a beat. His hands trembled, and there was a suffocating knot in his throat. "Is she . . . dead?" he asked.

Mom stared at him for a second, horrified. Then she buried her face in her hands and started crying.

"No, Son." His father sat down again. There really were tears welling up in his eyes now. "She's not dead, Kim. She just hasn't woken up again. They took her out of the operating room and put her in a bed, but . . . she's still asleep."

"And how long --- "

"It's been two days since her operation," murmured Dad. "We were hoping that everything would turn out all right. But I was on the phone with the hospital awhile ago and . . ." Kim sensed how hard it was for him to go on. "And it doesn't look as if her condition has changed."

"You mean, she's never going to wake up again?" asked Kim. The idea that someone could go to sleep and then never wake up was horrible. That kind of thing only happened in fairy tales. Suddenly he felt angry, far more angry than he was afraid. This fate was not something he would wish on anyone, and especially not his baby sister.

"Mom and I are going to the hospital now," Dad said after a while. "Doctor Schreiber wants to talk with us."

"I'm going with you," said Kim.

Dad shook his head, regretfully. "That's not possible, Kim," he said. "You know that kids under fourteen aren't allowed in there."

"Then I'll wait in the lobby," Kim insisted. "I want to know how Rebecca is doing. I want to see her."

His father was going to say something, but Mom put her hand on his arm. "Let him."

Without waiting for Dad's answer, Kim jumped up from the upholstered chair, ran out of the living room, and bounded up the stairs, taking three at a time. When his parents were ready to leave, he was back again, holding a tattered teddy bear that was missing its right ear and one of its shiny eyes. It was Rebecca's favorite toy. His mother's mouth puckered when she saw the bear. She turned away and wept again. It occurred to Kim how useless it was for him to bring the toy along. He twirled the stuffed animal around in his hands, looking for a place to set it down.

"No, Kim. That's all right," murmured his father. "Go ahead and take it along."

It was raining as they walked through the narrow front yard to the car. Low-lying rain clouds parted every now and again, letting rays of the sun pass through, but it had become cool. Fall was early this year. The flowers in front of the pretty little houses along their street were still in bloom, but the weather report on the radio warned of frost that night. The rain splashed down in large, heavy drops --- a sign of a dismal winter.

Dad turned up his collar and ran ahead to the car. He hopped inside and turned on the motor before leaning over to unlock the other two doors. "We need to hurry. Doctor Schreiber is expecting us at four-thirty. And with the traffic . . ."

Kim climbed into the back seat and slid the latch of his seatbelt in place. As they drove through the ever-thicker commuter traffic on their way to the highway heading east, the rain intensified. The streets transformed into dull-gray mirrors, and the cars left streaks of blurred red light. The pedestrians had opened up their umbrellas or had turned up their collars and fled into building entryways and retail shops. It was getting darker, and the cold, damp air found its way into the car. Dad turned on the heater. The fan hummed, spreading a pleasant warmth.

In spite of that, Kim felt chilly. He huddled against the broad back seat of the car, his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket. The warm air seemed to be blocked by an invisible force field right in front of his body. He held the battered teddy bear close. His gaze wandered to the rearview mirror. He noticed that Dad kept glancing in it, watching him. He felt ridiculous, sitting there, shivering, his hands in his pockets and a kiddy toy in his arms. Embarrassed, he set the stuffed animal down, turned sideways, and pressed his face against the rain-spattered window.

They got on the freeway; Dad stepped on the gas. The speedometer rose to just over sixty-five miles per hour. Dad always said people should not go over fifty when the road was wet, but . . . the car lurched into the passing lane, trailed by spraying water, and passed a column of trucks.
Mag

A rainbow shimmered over the Rhine as they entered the on-ramp to the South Bridge. Beneath them, a freight barge headed downriver. Kim watched it until it disappeared under the bridge, and then he looked at the rainbow again. It was not a particularly large or brilliant rainbow. Kim wondered if there was kind a of ranking, a hierarchy of rainbows, which started with small, insignificant bows like this one here, and then progressed to arches shimmering in brilliant colors, stretching across the entire sky and up to the stars. Maybe there was even a king of the rainbows. Kim couldn't imagine what he might look like, but the universe was so large and full of wonders that somewhere --- maybe on some tiny, insignificant planet, galaxies away --- there might well be a king of the rainbows.

Black clouds gathered over the city, and the windshield wipers could barely combat the heavy rain --- torrents pounding on the roof of the car sounded like faraway rolls of thunder.

They drove down South Boulevard and turned right, onto Mohren Road. Kim knew the area well. A few years before, he'd been in the hospital, also for an appendectomy. He'd almost had to repeat third grade because the doctor had advised a rest-cure in the country, which made him miss six weeks of school. That had been a bad year. Dad had hired a college student to tutor him, and while his friends were playing soccer in the street outside, or terrorizing the town, Kim had been forced to sit with his textbooks and cram. Appendicitis was like a family illness or something. Dad's case of appendicitis had caused him to break off an important business trip, and Mom also got her appendix taken out before Kim was born.

Dad stopped, leaned back, and opened the door. "Go ahead and get out," he said. "I'll park and be right there."

Kim jumped out of the car, scrunched his head down, and ran to the arched gateway of the medical complex. At least a dozen people whom had sought refuge from the sudden downpour now crowded under the stone overhang. There were two dark-haired men in white smocks, obviously part of the hospital staff, engaged in some kind of errand when surprised by the rain.

A woman smiled at the sight of the battered teddy bear in Kim's arms. He jammed his clenched fists deeper into his pockets, looking sullen as he leaned back against the damp wall next to his mother. Lightning flashed, and a few seconds later the faint echo of thunder rolled over the street.

Kim shivered. His shoes were soaked, and he finally noticed that he was standing in the middle of a puddle. He took a step sideways and looked up at his mother, not quite sure what to do. In the gray twilight of the stone archway, she looked old to him. It was very unsettling. He had never worried about his mother before. Of course he loved her. She was always there for them, but he had never seriously considered what her inner life might be like. She was someone he could always go to with his problems. Kim had taken that for granted. Now, as he studied her pinched face, marked by shadows and sharp lines, a face he had never seen so clearly before, he suddenly realized how much strength and energy it took for his mother simply to be there. He took hold of her hand, squeezed it, and tried to smile. She looked down at him and smiled back, but the smile never reached her eyes.

The cars on the streets were moving at a snail's pace, and there was hardly anyone on the sidewalks. An ambulance peeled around the corner, its siren wailing. Then Dad came running through the downpour. Once under the shelter of the entryway, he shook the water off of his clothes and put his arm around Mom's shoulders. Kim expected his father to tell them to wait out the storm, but instead, without saying a word, he simply continued on to the other side of the gateway, back into the rain.

Kim ducked his head and, shaking in the cold, ran after his parents. They were drenched by the time they got inside the large boxy building of the surgical center. Back when Kim had stayed here, everything had seemed friendly and bright to him. Now the building behind the slanting veil of rain seemed like a sinister fortress, an enchanted black castle, in which demons and witches and telepathic swamp monsters lurked.

As they ran toward the glass doors, his gaze fell upon the large brass sign next to the entryway.

SURGICAL FACILITY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF DÜSSELDORF
MEDICAL CENTER

Kim shuddered. He did not care for the word hospital and liked facility even less. He had once asked Dad why people had to call a hospital a facility, but Dad did not have an answer. The word made him feel uncomfortable. It made him think of prisons and insane asylums and musty damp cellars, full of rats and insects and mold. But now, as he approached the towering concrete building with its opaque windows, the term facility seemed appropriate.

A wave of hot, stuffy air washed over them as they entered the lobby. Kim slipped through the swinging glass door and hurried to catch up with his parents. Their steps echoed on the tile floor as they passed through a long lobby furnished with high-backed benches. Finally, they walked through another glass door into the pediatric wing's waiting room. A low table and several uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs were arranged in one corner, next to a limp indoor plant and a battered ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts and trash.

"Wait here," Dad said. "I'll see if Doctor Schreiber is ready." He pointed at the chairs, smiled encouragingly at Mom, and disappeared behind the swinging door to the surgical department.

Kim carefully laid the teddy bear on the table and sat down. His mother, who was still standing, stared at the closed elevator doors at the end of the lobby. The light over one of the elevators came on, ping, and the doors slid apart. Kim turned around in his chair, curious. Two doctors and a nurse, dressed in dark green scrubs, hairnets, and blue plastic slippers, pushed a white hospital bed out of the elevator. A man lay in the bed. At least, Kim thought it was a man, although he could only see a dark shock of dirty hair and part of a bare shoulder. The nurse walked alongside the bed with small, quick steps, holding in her upraised hand a bottle filled with yellow liquid.

Kim looked up at his mother --- she'd started crying again. Her gaze was fixed on the covered figure on the bed, almost as if she was hypnotized, and she stared long after the medical team had disappeared behind the milky glass door.

An eternity seemed to pass before Dad swung the door open. "You can come," he said. "Doctor Schreiber is expecting us."

They entered a long hallway, which was painted pale yellow. Kim ignored the metal sign next to the door, which said that children under the age of fourteen were not allowed in this part of the hospital. Since he had been a patient in the same ward, it seemed as if nothing had changed, even in the slightest. The pictures on the walls were just as uninteresting . . . the pungent smell of antiseptic . . . everything stagnant, almost as if someone considered it essential not to change anything.

Dad hurried over to the small glass cubicle and exchanged a few words with the nurse inside. Then he moved on to the second door from the end of the hall. Dad knocked, waited a second, and then turned the doorknob.

Kim's heart started to pound as they entered the room. It was dark; the blinds allowed merely a few stripes of weak light to penetrate. In one corner, a small lamp was on, draped by a piece of cloth. Two of the three beds were empty, and above Rebecca's headboard was a whole battery of blinking devices. On a palm-sized monitor, a green light moved up and down steadily, trailing tiny sparkling stars in its wake. Next to that, three different digital indicators ticked.

Mom stifled a sob and rushed over to the bedside. Her shoulders were shaking. She cried silently.

Kim noticed the other person in the room with them and Rebecca. Up until now, Dr. Schreiber had been standing so quietly beside the bed that his slender white-smocked figure had almost merged with the shadows. He sighed, walked slowly around the bed, and touched Mom lightly on her arm.

"I . . . I'm sorry, ma'am," he said quietly. His voice had a high, somewhat unpleasant pitch, but it sounded sincere. "I thought it would be better to tell you the truth, though."

Mom nodded almost imperceptibly. "It's all right," she replied, her fingers gliding lightly over the covers. "Quite all right. Thank you for taking so much trouble."

Dr. Schreiber looked inquiringly at Kim.

"The boy knows," said Dad. "I've told him everything."

Dr. Schreiber nodded and stuck his hands in the pockets of his white doctor's smock. "Sure. It's probably better that way."

"Please go ahead," said Mom, without turning her head.

"There's not much to say," Dr. Schreiber said hesitantly. "We've tried everything we know. Obviously without success, I'm sorry to say. Of course, it's still too early to . . ." He shook his head and took his hands out his pockets. "There's no point in trying to sugarcoat it," he continued with a firm voice. "In the next few days, of course I am going to call in some more colleagues . . . but the case doesn't look good. At least at the current time," he added. "I've never experienced a case like this in my own practice, so I can only refer to the medical literature. This kind of thing does happen. Not often, but it does occur. There are no convincing explanations for why a person doesn't wake from the anesthesia. Everything proceeds as planned, the body comes through the surgery well, and the anesthesia wears off. But the patient simply doesn't wake up."

He was silent for a brief time, searching for the right words. "It's as if the patient's spirit is refusing to return to consciousness. Or as if something were holding it back."

Dad smiled sadly. "And this is one of those cases?"

Dr. Schreiber nodded. "I am afraid so. We don't know how long it will last. Sometimes the patients wake up by themselves after a while, and in very rare cases we are even able to bring them back to normal, so to speak."

Kim wondered if that were even possible. He was sure that Dr. Schreiber was thinking the same thing. The doctor continued speaking, but Kim no longer listened. All he could do was peer at the motionless figure in the oversized white bed.

Against the freshly plumped pillow, Rebecca's face looked unbelievably small and lost. Thin, brightly colored wires snaked from under the covers up to the blinking wall panel. An IV bottle hung from a shiny chrome hook next to the bed, with a yellow plastic tube leading to Becky's arm. Her face was hidden behind a translucent oxygen mask so that she looked like a fighter pilot. Only her closed eyes were uncovered.

Kim gulped. That bitter lump lodged in his throat again, and a dull, heavy feeling spread in his stomach. He put the stuffed teddy bear on the bed where Rebecca's right arm lay under the covers, and then he backed away quickly. He closed his eyes, but could not shut out the image of his little sister lost in the vast white desert of the bed.

He did not realize he was crying until a hand gently wiped away the tears. He looked up at his mother. Her eyes were dry, but the expression in them made him shudder.

Dr. Schreiber patiently answered all of Dad's questions, emphasizing his words with gestures. Kim noticed that the doctor had unusually slender hands with veins that stood out, blue-green and distinct, like thin roots. Hands that moved rapidly, almost like two independent beings.

They left the room and walked back out into the yellow hallway. An old man in a blue hospital gown walked toward them, stopped a moment to look at Kim, and smiled in a friendly manner.

He was a very unusual man, Kim thought. He was old --- very old --- and he looked exactly how Kim had always imagined a really old man would look. He hunched over, his right hand stretched out in front of him as if he were used to holding onto a cane. Although he was shorter than Dad, he had very broad shoulders. Formerly, he must have been very large and powerful. His long white hair fell to his shoulders, and he had a white, carefully trimmed beard that reached to the top button of his smock. Countless wrinkles formed a dense network of fine lines around his eyes, and three deep vertical folds of skin engraved an "M" on his forehead.

The old man shuffled past them, wagging his head. Kim resisted the temptation to turn around and stare. His grandparents had died when he was still very young, and he had never known what it was like to have a grandpa. But if he did have one, he would want him to look just like that old man.

Dr. Schreiber accompanied them through the glass door and walked with them for a short distance down the hallway. Then, with a brief handshake, he disappeared behind one of the identical-looking doors.

It was no longer raining when they left the hospital. Silently, they walked on the winding pathway, past flowerbeds and stretches of lawn, back to the main entrance, where the white archway was now deserted. Oily puddles shimmered on the worn asphalt and the stucco had peeled away in large irregular patches. There by the exit, a thin line that meandered diagonally across the wall turned into a bizarre, many-fingered hand, crooked inward, with long, sharp fingernails.

Dad stopped, fished the car keys from his pocket, and then tucked them away again. "Let's get a cup of coffee," he said. "I'm thirsty."

Without saying a word, Mom hooked her arm in his. They walked onto the zebra-striped crosswalk.

Kim breathed a sigh of relief as they left the hospital behind them. He felt as if he had suddenly escaped from a prison with invisible, insurmountable walls. He stopped in the middle of the crosswalk, turned around, and studied the entrance gate. In the humid gray air, it looked like the open maw of a voracious, lurking monster, or the entrance to a deep, bottomless pit --- a dungeon without an exit, without light, air, or hope for the people held captive within.

Kim shuddered. He turned away and hurried to catch up with his parents.