"Blood? Oh, Faber, du muss nicht das tun. Es it gefahr!" She had switched to German now, so she could speak openly without Katy understanding them. Katy would leave them alone until they switched back to English. She always assumed they were either fighting or talking about chemistry when they spoke German.
"Ist's nicht gefahr," he replied. "It's not dangerous. You know Hep-C and AIDS aren't spread like that." Before she could continue her motherly scolding, he held both her hands, looked her straight in the eye and said, "What's going on? You smell of fear. Be straight with me."
"Yes, I'm afraid. I don't know why." She looked down at their hands. "Yes, something happened. Geena got stuck with a sharp today." A sharp was any kind of medical instrument that might be a bio-hazard, such as a hypodermic needle or disposible blade. Each room at the laboratory had a red box labelled "Biohazard" where sharps were to be disposed of.
"How did that happen?" He was beginning to regret tasting the blood. He wasn't worried about contamination, but the idea of tasting Geena's blood, of being in any way connected with her, made him uncomfortable.
"I guess that's what's upset me. She didn't know. I just saw her arm bleeding. She hadn't even noticed. Then we looked around and found a syringe on the floor, and we didn't know what was in it, or how it got there. We don't even know if that's what cut her."
"She was bleeding and she didn't know it? Where was she bleeding from?"
"Her back, over her left shoulder blade. I saw a spot of blood on her lab coat and asked her about it, and that was the first she noticed it."
"That's a pretty strange place to be bleeding from. And I wouldn't expect a hypo to cause a cut that would seep through her blouse and lab coat."
"Yes, it's strange. We're doing a wide-range test of the contents of the syringe and a test of the blood on her coat as well, we'll have the results in a couple days."
"Why don't you go and get some rest, Mom." I've got a job in the city this afternoon. When I get back, let's go to the lab together.
1 comment:
I want to show Faber speaking several language and sign. It was part of his language training to be multi-lingual. I want to show that. But, I don't want to bore people with another language that they don't speak, so I'm not sure how to handle this. I could write the German parts in italics (so they can be quickly skimmed over and ignored) and then follow with an English translation. Or, I could begin each phrase with a German word or whatever and continue it in English. Sort of the way dubbers do in movies, throw in a few words in the original language to remind the viewer of what the language is supposed to be. I dunno.
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