Illustrated by Lee Kuruganti © 2008
London Nights
© by Kathleen J. Stowe
When the shaking chills began to subside, she tried to convince herself that the worst was over. That the whole thing was over. That maybe it had never even happened.
She hugged the coverlet tight across her shoulders. She was cold. A severe chill—that's all it was. As simple as that. After all, it was February and she was hunkered down in a drafty old London hotel room. Of course, it would be chilly. What else? Still . . . How many days and nights had she spent in rooms exactly like this one and never endured quite this same deep and pervasive cold?
Her jaw ached. She shook her head, as if that would be enough to make it all better. But the muscles in her torso still twitched ominously, on the edge of another violent round of shaking chills. She shrugged away the lingering contractions, tried to deny that they had really been all that bad. She tested her arms and legs against the strange sensations. Then she swallowed back the taste in her mouth—a foul, metallic taste that gagged her. And she couldn't control her own salivation. Over and over she gulped against the viscid secretions accumulating in the back of her throat. She reached out from under the bed covering and grabbed the bottle of water on the bed stand, swallowed a mouthful to wash away the annoying sensations.
It was all wrong. Something was wrong.
Of course, she was tired. Exhausted. Still this seemed somehow several degrees removed from simple exhaustion.
It had been years since she'd been this sick, since she'd experienced anything even similar. A case of Strep throat with a temperature of 104 degrees during her freshman year in college—a bout with the flu over ten years ago. Both times her body's overwhelming struggle to adjust its core temperature had resulted in violent, painful contractions of major muscle groups. Over and over, uncontrollable, exhausting and seemingly never-ending. Memories of those previous events were long in the past, each associated with a clearly defined illness. As she touched her forehead with the back of her hand, she shook her head again. It wasn't hot at all. Her cheeks were not flushed. She really couldn't believe that she was sick.
She tried to lie very still. Not to move. As if that could prevent a reoccurrence. Still she felt the need to do something. If— If, what?
If she was sick, shouldn't she call the hotel doctor? She knew there was one. There had to be one. All she needed to do was dial the operator, and say, “I'm sick. Could you please send a doctor up to room 2709?” It would be simple enough.
Yet she didn't want to appear a fool, a silly hypochondriac. A flight attendant alone in her room, hysterical and overreacting to the simple fact that she was cold. The room was inadequately heated—that was all there was to it. A complaint to the hotel desk was certainly in order, but anything else seemed a little over-the-top. She gritted her teeth, steeled her muscles against further contractions and threw back the covers. She struggled out of bed and the first thing she did was check the window. The curtains had been drawn when she entered the room and there was no noticeable draft, so she hadn't even considered the possibility that the window was open. Reaching around the curtain, she ran her fingers along the edge of the double-paned windows. The inner sliding window was half-open. The icy, twenty-degree February air leaking into the room. So obvious. She tensed against the beginning of another teeth-chattering episode, as she wiggled the window closed and pulled the curtains tight against any further draft.
Crossing the room, she stopped in front of the thermostat. Normally, she preferred to sleep in a room cooler rather than warmer, so she rarely turned on the heat. But now she felt the need. Her body craved heat. She pushed the ON button for the room's heating system, then adjusted the thermostat to 32 degrees centigrade. She couldn't concentrate enough to compute what that equaled in Fahrenheit, but she knew it was warm. That was all that mattered. Her numb lips and her awkward, swollen tongue formed the word: “Warm.” It tasted good. But something else tasted wrong. She swallowed again.
A cup of tea was what she needed. It would wash away the taste in her mouth and that would make it all right. An unsettling feeling still lurked at the edge of her consciousness, a sensation that there was more to come, that her body was still threatened by something unknown. It couldn't be anything more than the cold. She'd allowed herself to get profoundly chilled. That was it. That was all.
She filled the teapot and set it to boil. One thing about English hotels: No matter what the condition of the plumbing, the electricity, the heating, or the air conditioning, there was always a functioning teapot.
She had really wanted to sleep. The stimulation from the caffeine in a cup of tea was not what she normally considered at this hour of the morning. Still something about the thought of holding a porcelain cup full of steaming liquid was wildly appealing. The thought of massaging the cup against her wrists, encouraging the heat to soak through her skin and be carried away by her bloodstream to warm her depths took over her imagination. Surely that would make this all right. She'd sip the tea, too. Just a few sips.
As she waited for the murmuring of the boiling pot, she lifted the coverlet off the bed, wrapped it around her shoulders and walked back into the bathroom to run hot water from the faucet and splash it on her face and neck. That might help.
Yet, still there was something peculiar—because she really didn't feel cold. Could she be so tired that all her sensory mechanisms were askew? So numb that she couldn't accurately gauge the room's temperature? So cold that only her unconscious brain knew what was wrong and was reacting without communicating to her conscious brain? It all seemed too improbable. She couldn't believe she hadn't realized how cold she really was. Cold enough to be wracked by violently shaking. That much was clear.
She shook her head against the confusion. If she could just warm herself up, everything would be all right. She swallowed back another mouthful of foul secretions, gulped down a handful of warm water from the faucet and thought back over the last several hours.
She had only arrived in London three hours before. An all night flight from New York's JFK International Airport. Nothing out of the ordinary, except perhaps the Captain's briefing. And even that was not so unusual in the terror-ridden months since September 11 th . The Captain said, “I know you've all heard the reports of surface-to-air missiles that may have been smuggled into Great Britain, of the terrorist arrests near Heathrow. I know you're all a little on edge.” Being on the very edge of the abyss with only the unknown darkness below had become a way of life for a flight attendant.
The Captain addressed them. “I just want to let you know that these are heat-seeking missiles that they're reported to have.” The Captain nodded encouragingly and the flight attendants stared without comprehension as he continued. “The engines on a Boeing 777 have a very low heat signature. We wouldn't be a very good target.” He really was trying to be reassuring. His lopsided smile showed that. But the argument that a particular airplane's engines probably weren't quite hot enough to attract a missile, seemed less than consoling. What that specific argument left unsaid was that there was the possibility that someone was shooting missiles toward planes landing at Heathrow. Their plane just wasn't one of the better targets. Great.
The flight took little more than six hours. That was before the forty-five minutes of holding. An eerie, full moon, bright as a search light, illuminated the circling planes for all below to see. The too-large moon glided back and forth outside the windows as the plane made its figure-eight loops, awaiting clearance to land.
She glanced out the porthole at the chain of diamond-bright lights, the countless other planes also holding west of Heathrow. Lights and more lights. Targets? Were they all targets for those missiles? Some better targets than others? A missile's reported range: three miles. Fifteen thousand feet plus. She studied the monitor at the front of the cabin. Was the plane still above fifteen thousand feet? It really wasn't very much fun to be a flight attendant anymore.
The landing was successful, in fact, very smooth. They had all survived. No missiles launched. No one shot down. Perhaps hysteria had flared out of control. The tension drained out of her body as the passengers trickled off the airplane and flight attendants gathered their luggage.
It was Sunday morning. The drive into the city was rapid and without delay. The crews waited only long enough to make plans for the evening before receiving room assignments. She mentioned to a friend that she planned to make a quick trip up to Harrod's in the early afternoon to buy a stuffed bear for her niece's birthday.
She parked her bags inside the room, and after removing anything that would obviously identify her as a crew member—a U. S. flag lapel pin, a ribbon that memorialized September 11 th , a pair of airline wings—she left the room. The grocery store where she usually shopped was closed until noon on Sunday. It was only eight in the morning. So she buttoned up her uniform raincoat and headed down the street to a twenty-four hour store across from the subway station—the English equivalent of a 7-Eleven.
She purchased the basics. Bread, cheese, salad greens, a couple of pieces of fruit, and of course, a bottle of water. The distance to the store and back was less than two blocks. The day was pewter-gray, chilly and drear. She hurried along, lugging the plastic bags full of supplies for the next twenty-four hours. The streets were empty and she had only one encounter along the way. Across the street, a dark man called out. As she looked up toward him, he held up his hand in an obscene gesture. His smile threatened. She turned away and hurried on.
As she pushed back into her room, the DO NOT DISTURB placard fluttered to the floor. Burdened down with her purchases, she kicked it aside. After dropping her shopping bags on the desk, she shucked her raincoat and stripped off her uniform. Briefly she considered re-dressing and heading out to attend a Sunday religious service. She knew she should. With everything going on in the world, there was no doubt she needed to pray for God's protection. Everyone did. She glanced at her watch. An hour before the next service. And then another hour. The incense, the prayers, the chanting—a little too much. And then the thought of the dark man across the street came back to her. She whispered, “Oh God, I'm sorry. Not today. I just can't. Forgive me.”
Dressed in a T-shirt and baggy sweat pants, she scrubbed the makeup off her face. As she exited the bathroom, she reached over and flipped the security lock on the door to the hallway, then crawled into bed and without really thinking began to stuff pieces of bread and chunks of cheese into her mouth. Exhaustion mingled with hunger and the two became indistinguishable. She flipped on the television set, tuned into Sky News and waited for some report of significance. After three stories about the latest cricket tournament, complete with incomprehensible scores, then two about rugby, the reporter announced that after the commercial break, Sky News would announce the latest soccer news. Of course, they called it football. She clicked off the television. She was too tired to try to comprehend what cricket was all about. And she certainly didn't care whether or not Manchester Union won.
After re-wrapping the remaining cheese and bread, she shoved it into the small refrigerator under the desk, then unscrewed the cap from the water bottle and chugged down as much as she could. That was all. She was too tired for anything else.
She closed her eyes and slept fitfully until the chills began. And then the need to gulp back the gagging mucous in the back of her throat. And the fear.
By the time she had closed the window, turned on the heat, and splashed her face and neck with warm water, the teapot was bubbling urgently. She dabbled the tea bag in the boiling water until it took on the color of dark caramel and then put the cup to her lips and finished the whole thing in four quick swallows—despite her plans, she gulped the whole thing, hungry for the warmth it promised—and by then, the room was warmer. Still she hugged the coverlet up under her chin and wondered whether she needed more hot tea or something else to eat. It was disconcerting that she really couldn't decide what it was her body needed. Food, water, sleep—or just more warmth? She was better, she told herself. She was not convulsively shivering. That was better.
Deciding against any movement, she found the better alternative to stay huddled under the coverlet. Time to think. That's what she needed. The thought of more food or water seemed vaguely unappealing, maybe even threatening.
There had to be a reason for all this. It was more than simply the temperature of the room or her own state of exhaustion. She had spent long nights in ancient English hotels with malfunctioning heating systems, with no heat at all. And exhaustion was a way of life for all flight attendants, especially those who flew international routes. Neither of those seemed an adequate explanation. She thought about the threat of surface-to-air missiles. Could this be a physiological response to her own deeply suppressed fears? Was it all just a nightmare reaction to real world threats?
She was warmer. Much warmer. The room was warmer. Still her muscles twitched and jumped. And she swallowed again. Water had to be the answer. Hydration seemed the answer to most problems: headaches, constipation, premature wrinkles. The word came to her as she snaked an arm out from under the covers to grab at the bottle of water. As her fingers closed on the neck of the plastic bottle, her inner voice whispered: Poison. The voice repeated its conclusion insistently. You've been poisoned.
Poison? What were the symptoms of poisoning? Of course, it was a stupid and simplistic question. The symptoms depended on the poison.
She did an inventory. Chills, violent shaking chills with the continuing twitching of the muscles in her arms and legs. Excessive salivation. Even though chills seemed more than insignificant, she searched for some other detail. Something else that she might be able to list as a symptom. Something more specific to describe when she finally broke down and summoned the hotel doctor.
Food poisoning was the most obvious problem. She knew at least one pilot on an international flight who had become profoundly ill after indulging in the ubiquitous shrimp cocktail. But she always avoided airline food herself. That was why the trip to the convenience store had been necessary. She considered the food she had bought and what she had eaten since returning to the room. True, the store had seemed a little dirtier than the last time she visited, the refrigerated compartments not quite as chilly as normal. But all she'd eaten had been bread—and, okay, a little cheese—and some bottled water. Surely none of that could have been spoiled—spoiled enough to make her sick.
But then the word came back to her. Poison. Not spoiled, not just run-of- the-mill food poisoning, but something else. She sat quietly in the center of the bed with the coverlet tugged close around her shoulders. She took inventory of her body and all its sensations. Twitching muscles around her mouth, tingling in her fingertips, and that compulsion to swallow again and again. But nothing else. No nausea, no crampy feeling in her gut. If she had been poisoned, wouldn't she be sick to her stomach? Vomiting? Diarrhea? There had to be more.
The newspaper stories from earlier in the month about the discovery of traces of ricin in a London flat came back to her. Ricin. The word was vaguely familiar to her, but she couldn't remember if she had ever known its symptoms. “Deadly. No antidote”—she remembered all that. A story from years before of a British agent poisoned by a dart tipped with ricin. But had she ever heard the details of how he died. No—only that his death had been a certainty.
She thought about the dark man across the street who had raised his hand to her. Could his purpose have been something other than a simple threat? She ran her hand over her face and around her neck searching for a pinprick, some sign that she had been hit by a poisoned dart. She studied her arms and then pulled back the covers over her legs, looking for splotches, signs of bleeding or hemorrhage. Nothing more than an old faded, green and purple bruise—just one of the normal battle scars of a flight attendant. She started to giggle and then to cry. It was all crazy. Why was she acting so positively crazy?
A sound outside the window attracted her attention. She struggled out of bed and huddled behind the curtains, inching them open only enough to see a sliver of the sky. Above the high-rise hotel, the whop—whop—whop , steady and rhythmic, the watching and protecting of helicopter blades. Three police choppers circled endlessly in a radius of four blocks around the hotel. She peered out her window from the twenty-seventh floor to the narrow street below, but there were no fire trucks, no other emergency vehicles. No way she would have missed a fire alarm. The smoke detector above her bed silently blinked its insistent red light. She squinted back out the window at the helicopters.
The hotel where the airline crews stayed was one of the tallest buildings in that part of London. A twenty-eight floor building in a residential neighborhood of three-story townhouses. Not just the hundreds of crewmembers from her own airline, but other airline crews and many American and Japanese tourists stayed there as well. The hotel was a target and the helicopters circled to discourage any attack. She shuddered against her imagination. She was just one crazy, paranoid flight attendant. Sensing the iciness of the window against which she pressed, she pulled away and stumbled back to the bed. As she wrapped herself again in the blankets and tried to suppress the beginning of more shaking chills, she fumbled with the remote control and searched again for Sky News. Clearly if there was a significant threat to the hotel the news station would report it. A truck bomb? Could that be what the helicopters were on the alert for? Or something else? Did they even know what they watched for?
Her mind drifted back to the word: poison. Some sort of nerve gas in the ventilation system. That might explain her symptoms. The twitching, the tingling, the salivation. But surely if something was wrong, there would have been an alarm. She wouldn't be the only one to experience these sensations. Someone else would have complained. The television station droned on about the odds of Bangladesh advancing in the cricket championship. No “Breaking News.” Only the baffling scores of another cricket game.
It had been eight hours since she first checked into her hotel room. She couldn't remember how long she had slept before the first episode of chills. It had seemed like no time at all but perhaps it had been longer. Now she was deeply tired. And she had to admit she was no worse. If she was really honest with herself, she was better. She was not shaking, even though the muscles in her legs ached and her fingers still tingled. She was better. Better—she repeated the thought. But she glanced at the clock and realized she'd slept too long to make a trip to Harrod's. She felt guilty about her niece. Perhaps there would be something she could buy tomorrow at the airport in duty-free. And the friend she'd promised to meet for dinner—well, that wasn't going to happen either, even if she did feel slightly better at the moment. But flight attendants understood—they were accustomed to being stood up—jet lag was always an acceptable excuse.
She glanced again at the bottle of water by the side of the bed, trying to decide whether to gulp down another mouthful. Would the advantage of keeping herself hydrated and washing away the sour taste in her mouth be worth the risk of ingesting further poison? She shook her head and with a trembling hand picked up the bottle and gulped. She needed to keep drinking. No matter what.
She was very tired, but afraid to sleep.
With the television sound muted, she stared at the images on the screen, struggling to keep her eyes focused. She blinked, rubbed her eyes. Was she just tired? Or was this something else? This inability to . . . this inability to . . .
No matter how she struggled against the fear of it, the fear that she would never awaken from a poisoned sleep, her ability to fight it began to flag. Propped up against three pillows, with all the lights on in the room and the television again switched onto full volume, using every stimulus she could to stay awake and keep track of her condition, she finally surrendered to sleep.
It was dark outside when she woke, but her room was still brightly lit. The television blared. Everything the same—and yet not.
She gagged against the thick mucous in her throat and wiped away the drool at the side of her mouth. Her eyes were matted shut and as she pushed herself to a sitting position, her head swam. The room was icy cold again. She rubbed her eyes and tried to focus on the thermostat on the wall across the room. Surely the heat was still on.
There was noise in the hallway—the sounds of doors banging, voices shouting. She glanced toward the window. Were the helicopters still circling? Her fingers searched in the folds of the blankets trying to find the remote control so that she could mute the sound of another slapstick English commercial. She needed to listen to the sounds in the hallway, to the sounds outside her window. As she swung her legs over the side of the bed, the room seesawed in front of her. Focus, she told herself. What exactly did she need to do? She needed to check the thermostat. What else? Tea. She'd heat some more water for another cup of tea. That would make it all better.
More noise in the hallway and she considered calling out, maybe the time had come to summon help. She pulled at the T-shirt sticking to her chest, glanced down at her bare feet, ran her hand through her tousled hair. She was a mess. She really didn't know who was in the hall. Why they were there? If only she could wash her face first, brush away the foul taste in her mouth . . .
.
One step and then another. The room was tiny. First the thermostat on the opposite wall then the bathroom. Then—then she'd decide. Maybe she'd just call the front desk. So much to decide.
But even one step was too much. She wavered and as her knees crumpled she grabbed for the desk. Her arms flailed through the air—and then she hit. Her jaw struck first, then she bounced, turned and the sharp corner of the desk sliced along the side of her eye. She rolled away and slumped to the floor with her hands cradling her face against the blinding ache spreading from her forehead up across her scalp. She struggled to suck in the next breath. No reason not to cry and so she ceased to gulp back the sobs. Something was very wrong and now she was clearly injured. The sharp spike of pain swelled into the throbbing of seriously traumatized tissue. Warm, sticky fluid pulsed into her palms.
Voices, again voices. “Get this one out. Now. Now.” Someone outside who could help.
Call for them, she told herself,—cry out for help. But her throat closed. She felt the whistling of her own breath against the constricted airways. She couldn't make a sound, not even one word. She struggled onto her hands and knees. No physical effort had ever required so much concentration. She had to crawl. Certainly she could do that. Just crawl to the door.
“We'd best get out now. There's no one else. We can't waste time. Can't stay.” The muffled voice was harsh and strident, barking out orders that seemed clearly urgent to her. “Go, go, get out.” She wanted to agree. They couldn't stay any longer. None of them. Not them, not her. They had to leave. All of them. But she couldn't cry out her agreement. She gasped with each breath. Nothing left to cry out with. Breathe, breathe, she told herself. That was all that was important. She would figure out how to communicate later. How to attract the attention of those right beyond the door. When she reached the door. When . . .
She collapsed and her bruised jaw hit the floor and she gasped at the sudden jolt of pain. Lying on the rough carpet, each breath required an additional effort. She tried one more time to push herself up. It was her only chance. She realized that above all else.
Her arms buckled; she couldn't even support herself to crawl the few feet to the door. She slumped to her belly and the edge of the DO NOT DISTURB sign lying on the floor inside the door tickled the side of her face. She turned away and dug her fingernails into the carpet trying to pull herself toward the door. If she could only make it to the door. She paused to suck in one more breath. She raised her eyes and studied the height of the handle above her body. Her focus shifted to the security lock. And she knew.
Even if she could drag herself the last few feet to the doorway, she would not have the strength to reach the handle or the lock. The voices in the hallway floated away, ever fainter.
“Out. We need to clear this floor immediately.”
“Get out. Now.”
“There's no time to check unoccupied rooms. N o time to check the list of registered guests. I t's too dangerous.”
“Clear this floor now. Everybody out.”
They were right. She knew. She knew they were right to get out.
