Seven Days of Us
Francesca Hornak
Prologue
November 17, 2016
Olivia
CAPE BEACH, MONROVIA, LIBERIA, 1:03 A.M.
? ? ?
Olivia knows what they are doing is stupid. If seen, they will be sent home—possibly to a tribunal. Never mind that to touch him could be life-threatening. But who will see them? The beach is deserted and so dark she can just see a few feet into the inky sea. The only sound is the swooshing drag of the waves. She is acutely aware of the tiny gap between their elbows, as they walk down to the surf. She wants to say, “We shouldn’t do this,” except they haven’t done anything. They still haven’t broken the No-Touch rule.
The evening had begun in the beach bar, with bottled beers and then heady rum and Cokes. They had sat under its corrugated iron roof for hours, a sputtering hurricane lamp between them, as the sky flared bronze. They had talked about going home for Christmas in five weeks, and how they both wanted to come back to Liberia. She told him about Abu, the little boy she had treated and then sobbed for on this beach the day he died. And then they’d talked about where they’d grown up, and gone to medical school, and their families. His home in Ireland sounded so unlike hers. He was the first to go to university, and to travel. She tried to explain how medicine represented a rebellion of sorts to her parents, and his eyes widened—as they had when she confessed to volunteering at Christmas, to avoid her family. She had noticed his eyes when they first met at the treatment center—they were all you could see, after all, behind the visor. They were gray green, like the sea in Norfolk, with such dark lashes he might have been wearing makeup. She kept looking at his hands as he picked at the label on his beer. Like hers, they were rough from being dunked in chlorine. She wanted to take one and turn it over in her palm. By the time the bar closed, the stars were out, spilled sugar across the sky. The night air was weightless against her bare arms. “Will we walk?” said Sean, standing up. Usually she stood eye to eye with men, but he was a head taller than her. And then there was a second, lit by the hurricane lamp, when they looked straight at each other, and something swooped in her insides.
Now, ankle deep in the surf, their sides are nearly touching. Phosphorescence glimmers in the foam. She loses her footing as a wave breaks over their calves, and he turns so that she half falls into him. His hands reach to steady her and then circle around her waist. She turns in his arms to face him, feeling his palms on the small of her back. The inches between his mouth and hers ache to be crossed. And as he lowers his head, and she feels his lips graze hers, she knows this is the stupidest thing she has ever done.
THE BUFFALO HOTEL, MONROVIA, LIBERIA, 2:50 P.M.
Sipping bottled water to quell her stomach (why did she have that last drink?), Olivia waits to Skype her family. It is strange to be in a hotel lobby, a little bastion of plumbing and Wi-Fi—though there is no air-conditioner, just a fan to dispel the clingy heat. And even here there is a sense of danger, and caution. In the bathrooms are posters headed “Signs and Symptoms of Haag Virus” above little cartoons of people vomiting. The barman dropped her change into her palm without contact—guessing, rightly, that most white faces in Monrovia are here for the epidemic, to help with “dis Haag bisniss.” Another aid worker paces the lobby, talking loudly on an iPhone about “the crisis” and “supplies” and then hammering his MacBook Air with undue industry. He’s wearing a “Haag Response” T-shirt and expensive-looking sunglasses, and has a deep tan. He’s probably with one of the big NGOs, thinks Olivia. He doesn’t look like he’d ever actually brave the Haag treatment center or a PPE suit—not like Sean. Last night keeps replaying in her mind. She can’t wait to see Sean on shift later, to savor the tension of No-Touch, of their nascent secret. Anticipation drowns out the voice telling her to stop, now, before it goes further. It’s too late to go back anyway.
Olivia realizes she is daydreaming—it’s five past three and her family will be waiting. She puts the call through and suddenly, magically, there they are crammed onto her screen. She can see that they’re in the kitchen at Gloucester Terrace, and that they have propped a laptop up on the island. Perhaps it’s her hangover, but this little window onto Camden seems so unlikely as to be laughable. She looks past their faces to the duck egg cupboards and gleaming coffee machine. It all looks absurdly clean and cozy. Her mother, Emma, cranes toward the screen like a besotted fan, touching the glass as if Olivia herself might be just behind it. Perhaps she, too, can’t fathom how a little rectangle of Africa has appeared in her kitchen. Olivia’s father, Andrew, offers an awkward wave-salute, a brief smile replaced by narrowed eyes as he listens without speaking. He keeps pushing his silver mane back from his face (Olivia’s own face, in male form), frowning and nodding—but he is looking past her, at the Buffalo Hotel. Her mother’s large hazel eyes look slightly wild, as she fires off chirpy inquiries. She wants to know about the food, the weather, the showers, anything—it seems—to avoid hearing about Haag. There is a lag between her voice and lips, so that Olivia’s answers keep tripping over Emma’s next question. Her sister, Phoebe, hovers behind their parents, holding Cocoa the cat like a shield. She is wearing layered vests that Olivia guesses are her gym look, showing off neat little biceps. At one point, she glances at her watch. Olivia tries to tell them about the cockerel that got into the most infectious ward and had to be stoned to death, but her mother is gabbling: “Have a word with Phoebs!” and pushing Phoebe center stage. “Hi,” says Phoebe sweetly, smiling her wide, photogenic smile and making Cocoa wave his paw. Olivia can’t think of anything to say—she is too aware that she and her sister rarely speak on the phone. Then she remembers that Phoebe has just had her birthday (is she now twenty-eight or nine? She must be twenty-nine because Olivia is thirty-two), but before she can apologize for not getting in touch, Phoebe’s face stretches into a grotesque swirl, like Munch’s Scream. “Olivia? Wivvy? Wiv?” she hears her mother say, before the call cuts off completely. She tries to redial, but the connection is lost.