Passage
by Connie Willis
In loving memory of Erik Felice, the Tinman
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful thanks to my editor Anne Groell, to my agent Ralph Vicinanza, to Doris Myers, and to Phyllis Giroux and Elizabeth A. Bancroft, M.D., who helped me with the medical details.
Writing this book turned out to be a near-death experience in itself, and I wouldn’t have survived without the support of my daughter Cordelia, my long-suffering friends, the staff of Margie’s Java Joint, and the above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty help of my husband Courtney and my Indispensable Girl Friday Laura Norton.
I will remember it forever, the darkness and the cold.
“What is it like down there, Charides?”
“Very dark.”
“And what of return?”
“All lies.”
PART 1
“Shut up, shut up, I am working Cape Race.”
1
“More light!”
“I heard a noise,” Mrs. Davenport said, “and then I was moving through this tunnel.”
“Can you describe it?” Joanna asked, pushing the minitape recorder a little closer to her.
“The tunnel?” Mrs. Davenport said, looking around her hospital room, as if for inspiration. “Well, it was dark…”
Joanna waited. Any question, even “How dark was it?” could be a leading one when it came to interviewing people about their near-death experiences, and most people, when confronted with a silence, would talk to fill it, and all the interviewer had to do was wait. Not, however, Mrs. Davenport. She stared at her IV stand for a while, and then looked inquiringly at Joanna.