Page 45 of Hell to Pay
He sucked his teeth, and then he nodded. He had streaks of white in his hair, I realized now that I could see him better, and his face was hollowed and drawn. Hunger, probably, and worry, and grief. He pulled at the star, tried to rip itoff, but it resisted as if it didn’t want to give up its hold on him.
“Take off your coat,” I urged. “Put it back in the tunnel.” It was a February day in a brutal winter, but the air was so warm, it was like opening an oven to slide a loaf of bread inside. So much must still be burning for the air to be as warm as this.
I waited, and in a minute or two, he was back with me. We ventured out with utmost caution, but there was nobody sheltering here anymore. I stopped in the aisle out of habit and crossed myself, and tried not to look at the fallen stone, the shattered windows, tried not to feel the crunch of the bits of glass under my feet or to notice the broken pipes of the huge organ from which the music had swelled so beautifully only a few weeks ago, on Christmas, the strains of Handel’sMessiahfilling air scented with incense. None of that mattered now.
To the enormous double doors, then, one of them torn off its hinges and lying on the ground. “We’ll go around the walls of the palace,” I said. “Maybe there will be a door open.”
Dr. Becker looked at me strangely. “The windows will be broken,” he said gently. “We’ll be able to get in.”
“Oh,” I said. “Of course.”
What does a soldier feel, the first time he sees combat? The first time he sees bodies lying sprawled on the earth and realizes he’s cheated death? It must be something like this.
Things were burning in the street. Lumps of things. People wandered here and there, and soldiers stacked the things into piles. A man scooped up a lump with a shovel and deposited it in a wheelbarrow.
“What is he doing?” I asked.
“I think,” Dr. Becker said, “that he’s gathering up the remains of his family.”
The lumps were people. People burned to the size of dolls.
I realized that the street was hot, the pavement sticky. Anauto stood askew in the road, abandoned. Its tires were melted.
“Their shoes would have melted, too, as they tried to run.” Dr. Becker sounded so tired. “What damnation can man wreak. What a Hell has been visited on the world.”
I tried to swallow. My eyes stung and burned, and so did my chest. I said, “We must find my parents. The others.”
“Yes,” Dr. Becker said.
We went on, and nobody paid us any attention. We were just two more lost, wandering souls.
It was like climbing a mountain, a mountain in the land of the dead. We scrambled up and down and around the debris, the bodies, climbed up piles of stone that nearly burned my palms, they were so hot still, and slid down the other side. I knew I would be bruised, that I would be in pain, but there was nobody else to do this for me, and nothing to do but move forward. So I scrambled on and tried not to look. Not at the things on the street, and not at the fires flickering everywhere, especially not those in the palace. I kept doggedly on around the perimeter of the palace until we got to the area, where the stairs to the kitchen led down. The wrought-iron palings lay on the ground now, twisted into unrecognizable shapes, and I still had space to wonder at the heat that could have caused that.
Down the stone steps, a matter of handholds and footholds amidst the debris, and to the door.
It was gone. Burned.
There was a hollowness in my chest, a pain in my throat. I stepped into the kitchen.
The ceiling was half gone, and I could see into the room above. The kitchen table was covered with debris, and so was the floor. Half the chairs lay smashed to splinters.
Once again, we scrambled and climbed. Out the other side of the room to the passage, which looked much as it had whenI’d come out of it with my father. It felt like days ago, but was only … twelve hours? Ten? Eight? I couldn’t remember. If it was the same, and no damage had been done, they would surely be safe.
The door was blocked by debris, though, much worse than my father had feared. I shouted, “Hello! We’re here! Hello! Do you hear me?”
No answer, but it was a heavy door, and another door down the steps on the other side, sealing off the cellar. Of course they couldn’t hear. I’d been foolish to hope for it.
Dr. Becker and I pulled, shoved, sweated, and finally cleared enough space to view the door. It had a hole in it where the wood had splintered. The axe! Father had used it to get out. Had the stone fallen afterwards, then? I wanted to run into the street again, to look for them there, but surely we should check here first.
Together, we managed to pull the door open and squeeze inside. The stairs were clear. I hurried down them lighting the way with my flashlight, calling again, “I’m here! It’s Daisy! Hello?” And didn’t wait for an answer.
The door at the bottom was open. I didn’t understand why, and then I remembered how I’d failed to lock the door when I’d hurried back from my abortive effort to get through the palace. They’d have been in a hurry. Of course they would!
My flashlight showed me nothing. So theyhadleft already. Why, then, hadn’t Father come to find me? I swept its light around the chairs, the table. All still here, and empty. Rucksacks, baskets of food, pillowcases stuffed with our belongings, buckets of water and sand, the stirrup pump, and nothing else.
I said, “Where have they gone?” My mind was oddly blank, smoothed out, as if this wasn’t me at all.
Dr. Becker said from somewhere ahead of me, “They’re here.”
