Caitlin O’Hara, MD, PhD, two weeks shy of her forties and three sips into a cup of coffee, toggled keys on her tablet.
“We can’t give them the moon, Dr. O’Hara.”
“I didn’t ask for the moon,” she said to the voice coming from her tablet. “I asked for money, Ms. Tanaka, for twenty-five test shelters. You can do that.”
On-screen, a 3-D blueprint of a small house revolved and a wall disappeared so that Caitlin could zoom inside and view the interior. The house would accommodate twenty souls who had been sweltering or freezing in decaying tents for months. This new snap-together unit was created by a modular furniture manufacturer under contract to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. It was an update to a previous model that, among other concerns, had lacked a lock inside the front door. It had that now. All it needed was funding.
Tanaka’s boss, Director Qanooni, weighed in. “We simply do not have the hundred thousand dollars this project requires.”
“Which circles back to where we started this discussion,” O’Hara said. “Crowdfunding. I know it won’t deliver the windfalls you get from donor nations and it requires valuable person-hours to oversee. But lives are worth the effort.”
The conference call with the development officers of the World Health Organization was about to run over its scheduled half hour. But the need for the refugee shelters was absolute. That, and the clock ticking before Caitlin’s next client arrived, made her bold.
There was a short silence, after which Tanaka murmured to Qanooni and the director said, “I will take it to the board.”
“Please don’t,” Caitlin urged. “You know what ‘board’ stands for?” She answered her own question: “Bunch of Argumentative—”
“Thank you, doctor,” Qanooni interrupted hastily. “We are on the board, need I remind you?”
“You needn’t, and I’m sorry if you were offended.” Caitlin grinned. “But I cannot abide red tape. It never strangles bad ideas, only good ones. So please, just go to the nearest high school in Geneva, put some students to work for extra credit, and they’ll throw a funding website together in a couple of hours.”
“If only it were that simple.” Tanaka sighed. “There are liability issues.”
“I sympathize,” Caitlin replied. “I do. I pay more for insurance than I do for rent and office space combined, and that’s saying something in Manhattan. But health issues trump insurance. They must. Otherwise, why are we in this business?”
“Fair point,” Qanooni said as Tanaka made a thoughtful “hmm” sound.
“I’m not wrong about this,” Caitlin prodded.
“But of course,” Qanooni chided. “When was the last time you were wrong?”
“Cameroon, 2010,” she answered. “It was twilight and I mistook a spotted hyena for a dog. I invented the backward broad jump and set a record for it, all in one.”
Caitlin’s phone buzzed, buzzed again. It was a call from Benjamin Moss.
“Director Qanooni, Ms. Tanaka, I do have to go now but I’ll follow up by e-mail. Thank you for your time . . .”
The director thanked her—and reprised the issue of liability instead of saying good-bye. Caitlin’s phone stopped buzzing, then started again. Ben was calling a second time instead of leaving a voice mail.
Caitlin ended the online meeting, sat back in her chair, and let her eyes rest momentarily on her office walls, full of landscape photos from Thailand, Cuba, the Philippines, her framed degrees and awards—certificates that made her career in adolescent psychiatry easier but didn’t matter, not fundamentally.
She called Ben back—he picked up on the first ring.
“Ben, I have a session in one minute, so this has to be—”
“Can you cancel it?”
“What? No—”
“Cai, I’m serious,” he said. “I need you at the United Nations as soon as you can get here.”
“I’m serious too, Ben, I’ve got—” There was a knock on her door. “One minute!” she called, knowing it was her assistant, probably announcing her client. “Ben, my eleven o’clock is here.”
“Please cancel the appointment,” Ben implored. “You know I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”
Caitlin frowned. “This is important too. At least tell me what it’s about.”
“I can’t tell you over the phone. This area gets electronically swept by every government on the planet. Please, Cai.”
“It’s that serious?”
“That serious.”
Caitlin rose and started toward the door. “Give me five minutes here and I’ll come over.”
“Thanks. I’ll text you where to meet.”
Caitlin ended the call, opened the door, and explained the situation. After rescheduling with her client, she caught a cab and headed for the United Nations.
Ben’s text read 48th and 2nd. As Caitlin’s cab pulled along the curb, she spotted him pacing in front of an apartment tower. He was wearing a tailored suit and a grim expression. She watched her old friend as the cabbie processed her card. A long, dim portico with square arches stretching behind him made his taut stride seem even more restless, as if the arches were boxing him in. He was carefully eyeing every cab that passed. When he eventually registered hers he brightened slightly and hurried over.
She had only noticed fear in Benjamin Moss twice since she met him as an undergrad at New York University: on September 11, 2001, watching the Twin Towers burn from the foot of Washington Square Park, and in Thailand after the tsunami of 2004 as bodies began to wash up onto the shore. But he seemed fearful now.
They hugged. The air felt unusually chilly, even though the sun was shining directly on them.
“I owe you big-time,” he said.
“Time and a half,” she said. “Why am I here?”
With a gentle hand Ben steered Caitlin back to the portico. He stopped there and glanced surreptitiously at the doorman. Caitlin suddenly felt trapped with Ben in his imaginary cage.
“Ben, what’s going on?”
“How’s Jacob?” he asked quietly. “Still ten?”
“He’s fine. Taking cooking classes. He wants to take Tai Chi now like the people in the park.”
“I know a good teacher,” he said. “From China.”
“Ben? Where’s the graveyard and why are you whistling?”
He took a breath. Ben was a translator at the United Nations. She had seen him at work: there was always the briefest delay between what he heard and what he said as he processed exactly how to say it. He was doing that now.
“Early this morning the Indian ambassador to the UN was walking his daughter to school,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “You may have heard about it—”
“Attempted assassination,” she said.
“Right. The police commissioner put the Counterterrorism Bureau on it and all they’ve turned up is a nameless guy and a fuzzy surveillance video showing two men on their motorcycle racing down York Avenue.”
“No one’s claimed responsibility?”
Ben shook his head. “The NYPD thinks the men were lone wolves but both India and Pakistan are pointing fingers.”
“So no one even knows why this happened?”
Ben shook his head. “Lots of people have reasons for wanting him dead, or at least sidelined. He’s a pacifist who’s too high-profile to simply recall. More importantly, peace talks started a week ago and most of the United Nations delegates and the Security Council requested that he attend them, over the misgivings of India and Pakistan.”
“And you’re his interpreter,” Caitlin said.
“With Hindi, Urdu, Uighur, Shina, and occasionally a tribal language.” He grinned for the first time. “My brain’s kind of spinning.”
“How’s his brain?” Caitlin asked.
“Pretty good,” he replied. “It takes a lot to rattle that man.”
Clearly if he was fine, the ambassador wasn’t the reason she was here. Caitlin waited for Ben to resume.
Ben’s voice got even softer and he leaned forward conspiratorially. “Everything has been proceeding slowly and cautiously—until today. Ambassador Pawar got a phone call about his daughter and left, canceling the rest of the session. It took about a second for the Pakistani delegates to get annoyed, and we don’t know how long they’re going to stay accommodating. A half hour later the deputy ambassador of India—who was also pretty concerned—pulled me aside and asked me to come to the ambassador’s condo and get him. Which is right here.” He nodded up at the skyscraper above their heads.
“The man was shot at,” Caitlin said. “Can’t they give him a couple hours off?”
“It’s not about him, Cai. It’s about using events as platforms. The ambassador was already late and his absence gives everyone time, and an excuse, to get back on a partisan soapbox.”
“I understand,” Caitlin said. “But the ambassador isn’t why I’m here.”
“No,” Ben said solemnly.
What would pull a diplomat out of a crisis session but a crisis at home? Caitlin felt a twinge as she remembered her own father’s careful, loving attention. “The daughter?” She had heard about the shooting on the news.
Ben nodded, stared down the street, then back at the doorman.
“What’s happening with her?” Caitlin asked.
“It’s . . .” Ben’s mouth tightened, then he exhaled. “It’s disturbing. Cai, you’ll have to see for yourself.”
Taking her by the elbow, he walked her into the building. The concierge at the desk did not bother calling up, obviously familiar with Ben.
“They brought her in through the service elevator,” Ben said.
There were security cameras in the lobby and one in the corner of the elevator. Loose lips sink ships, Caitlin thought as they rode up to the penthouse. Ben had not spoken another word. She could not imagine what was so dire that it could not be spoken about . . . and had unsettled him so much that he still had not released her elbow.
The elevator door opened on a corridor that was eerily silent. There was a vacuum cleaner running in an apartment but the hallway’s thick carpet muted the sound.
But it’s more than the silence, she realized as they headed toward an apartment at the far end. There was the kind of stillness one felt at sunset in the wild, when all decent things went into their huts, tents, or burrows, and predators woke to feed. It was a strange and surprising sensation here.
On their first knock an anxious-looking woman in a red-orange sari opened the door.
“Thank you, Benjamin,” she said, but was looking at Caitlin, studying her with experienced eyes.
“Dr. O’Hara, this is Hansa Pawar, wife of the ambassador.”
“Hello,” Caitlin said as a young beagle tried to slip through the door into the hall.
“Jack London!” Mrs. Pawar snapped, and the beagle slunk back inside. The dog was low to the ground and subdued as he turned to sniffing Caitlin’s ankles. His attentions were brief, perfunctory.
Caitlin ran her hand down the dog’s back as she reached down to take her shoes off; she had spent enough time in Mumbai to know that removing shoes was the cultural norm.
Mrs. Pawar stopped her. “Don’t worry about that. Please just come with me.”
Caitlin felt another chill as the woman hurried them through a spacious room. It was filled with light from a wall of windows facing the UN building and the East River. There was a pleasant hint of jasmine tea in the air. The apartment was overflowing with artifacts—Caitlin recognized not just Hindi sculptures and Muslim painted texts, but a Sikh helmet, a Christian cross, a Georgia O’Keeffe landscape.
Ben noticed Caitlin’s wandering eyes. “Ganak calls interculturalism ‘the peace of many choices,’ ” he murmured to her. “He’s trying to embody it and teach it.”
Caitlin didn’t have much more time to look around before they were ushered into a bedroom, the second off a long corridor.
Though the drapes were drawn, enough sunlight filtered through for Caitlin to see that each wall was painted a different jewel color, amethyst, sapphire, emerald, and cherry opal. On a desk in the corner, an electronic photo frame flashed groups of friends laughing, smiling, hugging—in sad contrast to the girl who was unconscious in her father’s arms across the room. Urged by Mrs. Pawar’s outstretched hand, Caitlin moved slowly past her to the girl’s four-poster bed. The beagle followed and sat on the floor beside her. Ben stayed by the door.
The man looked up. “I am Ganak Pawar.”
“I’m Caitlin O’Hara,” she said gently.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, his voice cracking. “This—this is our daughter, Maanik.”
Caitlin smiled reassuringly but her attention was on the girl’s forearms, which were wrapped in gauze that was heavily spotted with blood. She sat on the bed and gently moved the girl’s arms to look under the bandages. The teenager showed no response, the limbs dead weight. The bloodstains were smeared and unusual. Cut marks were typically linear; these were S-shaped and they were fresh. Even in the subdued light, Caitlin could see blood on the girl’s fingernails.
“Maanik insisted on going to class,” the ambassador said. “She was only there an hour when she began shrieking, doing this to herself.”
“Nothing before that? No hyperventilating, faintness?”
“Her second-period teacher said she was staring, but otherwise normal,” Ganak said. “This happened in her third class. When she came home she fell asleep but awoke screaming. For a while now she has been falling asleep, waking up screaming, speaking in gibberish, then sleeping again. Our doctor said it is post-traumatic stress from the shooting.”
“Symptoms in cycles don’t fit with PTSD,” Caitlin mused, more to herself. “Did your doctor leave a prescription?”
“Yes. Kamala, our housekeeper, just picked these up.” He nodded toward pills on the night table.
There was a paper pharmacy bag, still stapled at the top. Caitlin noted the physician’s name, Deshpande, and the recipient’s name, fabricated most likely, which did not include “Maanik” or “Pawar.”
Caitlin opened the bag and retrieved a pair of amber containers. “Vasoflex. This is for insomnia and recurrent nightmares.” She looked at the other, surprised. “Risperdal. This is a potent antipsychotic.”
“That is a correct medication, yes?” Hansa asked.
“If you’re bipolar and haven’t slept for a few days,” Caitlin replied. “We don’t use it as a prophylactic, ‘just in case’ medicine. Mrs. Pawar, your doctor did come by and see her, yes?”
There was silence. He hadn’t. That was illegal in New York State. Caitlin glanced over at Ben, who gave her a cautioning look. Rules were obviously being bent here.
“That’s a potent mix to put in her body without an examination and after just a few hours,” Caitlin said.
“I am sorry,” Mrs. Pawar said, more to her daughter than to Caitlin. “We did not know what else to do.”
“It’s not your fault,” Caitlin lied, not wanting to make a bad situation worse. “But until we know the trigger, we’re not going to give her these.”
“Dr. O’Hara, we are watched,” the ambassador said unapologetically. “Our doctor is also with the United Nations. He keeps a log. Confidentiality means nothing in diplomacy; word would spread. I’m afraid the delegations will see my distraction as a potential weakness and press for advantage, or worse. There is still a stigma against mental illness in both India and Pakistan. If anyone were to find out she was receiving psychiatric treatments—”
“Sir, there is no illness if a situation is treated.”
“That is a technical distinction,” the ambassador said. “I know it is difficult for Americans to understand the concept of family shame, and though Hansa and I do not subscribe to the idea, many still do.”
“I do understand and there is no need to explain or apologize—”
“But there is,” he interrupted. “I am in a delicate position. Accusations of evil spirits are still a quite common response to mental illness in both countries. If her condition is known—in fact, when her condition is known, as I am sure we have only a week, two at most, before discovery—I could be removed from the negotiations, Dr. O’Hara, or either side could use it as an excuse to leave the negotiating table and turn this matter over to their military forces. A doctor’s visit to my home could be used to prove not just that I am incapable of mediating, but that the entire negotiation process is forfeit.”
“We needed a caregiver no one knows,” Ben said. “That’s why I called you.”
Caitlin didn’t like it but she understood. The good of the many outweighed the needs of a few.
Ganak went on. “I know this is a terrible imposition, but Ben gives you a glowing report. Will you help?”
“Of course.”
Ganak and his wife shared a relieved look, then smiled gratefully at Caitlin.
“If you will excuse me, doctor, I must get back,” the ambassador said. He gently moved the girl out of his arms so that she was lying against her pillows. She still did not stir.
Caitlin moved closer to the young woman. “Ben, will you call my office and tell them I’m tied up in an emergency? This is going to take longer than I thought.”
“Naturally.”
“Mrs. Pawar, we’re going to have to impose on your housekeeper again,” Caitlin said. “Please ask her to pick up several boxes of cotton pads, six-ply bandage rolls as wide as they make them, and oregano oil. That won’t sting your daughter awake; we want her to sleep.”
Mrs. Pawar nodded. The ambassador rose and cupped his wife’s face briefly as he passed her. She followed him out of the room. Ben nodded to Caitlin and smiled briefly in gratitude, then left the room, closing the door behind him.
Alone with the girl, Caitlin experienced another chill. The isolation and dread she had felt in the hallway seemed magnified here. There were no street sounds, no hovering air traffic anywhere near the United Nations, no sense of the time of day, no fresh air. She realized, though, that she might be responding to more than the environment and the girl’s condition. Politically, what happened here would radiate in all directions, affect countless lives. There was no room for mistakes.
Good thing you never make any, she needled herself, thinking back to her conversation with Director Qanooni.
Maanik continued to sleep, her breathing shallow, her pulse at the low end of normal but not a cause for alarm. Her skin was cool but not cold. Caitlin asked for a thermometer; her temperature was normal. She checked for bruises on her neck, felt her scalp for abrasions or any sign of concussion.
When the housekeeper returned, Caitlin removed Maanik’s bandages, then soaked several cotton pads with the oregano oil and gave them to Mrs. Pawar to hold ready. She picked up the girl’s right arm with a gentle hand, held a soaked pad over one of the wounds, then wiped down gently but firmly to the wrist.
There was no reaction from Maanik. Her forearm twitched, but the girl’s eyes did not even move behind her eyelids.
“My poor girl,” Mrs. Pawar said.
Caitlin was concerned, not by the cuts, which were fairly superficial, but by the near-complete lack of response. This was not a normal slumber or the common numbness and disconnection that arose from an unexpected emotional event. She dropped the cotton pad and, taking Maanik’s hand, applied sharp pressure to the nail bed of Maanik’s pinky, trying to gauge her level of consciousness. The girl did not react. Caitlin pulled up the girl’s left eyelid and the pupil immediately began to dilate.
That’s strange, Caitlin thought. There’s no light here—
“Help!” The girl screamed and bolted upright.