All Stories Are Love Stories (24 page)

“No!” Tia cried out, the word strangled with weeping.

“No,” the priest insisted, holding Willie back. Her makeup had run overnight, making her look as though she'd been smeared with paint.

“Let me go, Jon.”

No
, the priest thought to her back,
no, I can't, don't go, you're weak, you're tired, it's been a long couple of hours, days, a long life.
But Willie was already moving things aside, her great height and strength enabling her to lift from the top where Phil had tunneled through.

“What's his name?” she asked without breaking stride.

“Phil,” Tia answered, swallowing tears.

“Phil? Philip?” No answer, the shuffling of things moved aside.

“Phil?” Tia called.

Nothing.

“Please, please,” the girl started. The priest had her in his arms.
Please, please
, he begged silently. Tia was now crying into his chest. Ally watched, dumbfounded, from the floor. How could someone who had just been so asleep be suddenly so awake? Maybe Ally was sleeping. Maybe she was asleep and awake at the same time, or they all were, and this—everything that pained and scared her—was just a nightmare.

Like a great, giant doll, Willie lifted first the things over Phil—a seat back, a heavy iron strut, miscellaneous crumbling remnants of the building—then found Phil himself and lifted him, too, bodily, by the armpits, up and over the things that had crushed him. As they watched, Willie's long, elegant arms and her face awash in color and dirt and sweat made her seem like a massive puppet pulling a smaller one out by its strings, or a matryoshka doll finding its smaller mate, collecting him with the intention of fitting him back into place. With one more mighty heave, she lifted all of Phil free. Once in her arms, his body looked much lighter.

“Stand back, sweetheart,” Willie instructed Tia gruffly, laying Phil down by Ally as carefully as she could. He was blue from cold or not breathing or both. Tia wanted to touch him, but she also wanted to be as far away as possible.

“Is he dead, Tia?” Ally asked.

“Shh,” she demanded.

The nun bent her still-pink lips down to the boy's face as she pinched his cheeks to open his mouth. He lay there looking like a strange thing without a soul. Tia hadn't realized how thin he was, how much hair he had. She crept forward, finally summoning her courage to get close. Willie's mouth on his looked as if she were sucking the air from him. She leaned back to press on his chest, then returned to his mouth, and then to his chest once more. She sat back on her huge heels, staring into Tia's baleful expression.

“Is he a friend of yours?” Willie asked quietly.

No
, Tia wanted to say, but her voice didn't come out. She scuttled forward a bit more, taking his hand.
No.
She looked
up at the nun, not ready. Dutifully and hopelessly, Willie followed Tia's silent request, leaning forward and breathing again into Phil's mouth, knowing one more press on that rib cage could break it, that there were some lives too small or short to respond to rescue, that a graceful death was better than one broken by desperation.

But Phil wasn't dead. He was returning from the nether regions of his mind, envisioning things he knew were there but had never seen before. A dog with a girl's heart. A bird with eyelashes for feet and a snake so gray, it was silver. No, that was light. His eyes flew open, and the silvery thing was gone. How disappointing. He looked up at Tia. She'd never believe him. Never believe what he knew he'd seen.

Gene convinced the Sea Captain to leave the SS
Sacramento
and come with him as he headed west toward the safety of the Presidio. He tried not to think of how difficult it would be for him and Franklin to track each other down in this mess, now that home was no longer an option. As they were making their way back up Taylor, Gene saw the policeman who'd stopped him earlier, talking into the receiver on his shoulder. He spotted Gene and scowled at him before calling out.

“You done being an idiot?” He took in the pair of them before addressing Gene again. “I could use an extra set of hands. There's a fireman and some kids stuck under a shitload of debris in the Masonic Center. They need manpower, fast.” He was already turning on his heel, looking over his shoulder scornfully. “You got it in you?”

Gene opened his mouth to shout back, but the Sea Captain stopped him. “Go help the little prick,” he urged gently. He put out a hand to keep Gene from speaking. “You can't leave people to die. Whoever it is you're trying to find is either dead or alive, and whether you start wandering around the city searching for him now or in an hour isn't going to change that. You think he wouldn't want you to save a life? You think I wouldn't leap at the chance, if I could?”

Gene opened his mouth to object again, then clamped it shut, already running after the policeman, who had a few seconds' lead. The heat at the top of Nob Hill was searing and awful, but there was no time to think. There was just the compulsion to help, insecurely and clumsily, with a truer purpose than anything Gene might have found if he'd had the good fortune to keep searching according to his best, most thoughtful plans.

He'd been angry, hadn't he? She had made him angry. About something. But what had she done? Perhaps his mother would know. She never forgot a slight. But now they were together and warm. Finally! He felt as he'd always imagined he would, distantly amazed that it had finally happened, incredulously grateful.

As he slept, his dreaming mind made short work of the sounds drifting in from the distant outside: the howling wind was the sound of ambulances, the flapping of the roof overhead a searching helicopter, the pop and rush of fire vehicles making their first successful attempts up the road. For a while, this trick led him to sleep in comfort, his mind willing to be soothed into oblivion.

The priest lay with his head in Willie's lap, looking up at the haze around them, the sunlight that was coming in now; dusty, lit particles. He could hear noises outside, of things moving, men's voices, a lot of yelling, and that made him happy. But mostly he was happy because although he couldn't breathe very well, he was still comfortable—and help had begun to come, even if it might be too late; it didn't seem to matter. It had come. Ally's head was on her sister's lap, at rest, and Tia leaned against the stage, something
slipping from her fingers. Phil looked to be sleeping peacefully in front of them.

Gene took a quick step backward, looking up as the construction crane dug into the partially collapsed side of the building. It was the first real rescue effort he'd seen, and it felt as if he'd stepped into a revision of a nightmare, one equally terrifying but threaded with hope.

“Careful!” a man shouted at the crane operator as Gene jogged toward him.

“How did they get that up here?” Gene wondered aloud.

“Already here. Construction at Huntington Hotel. I'm Rafael.” A man stuck his hand out for Gene to shake, a displaced gesture. “I work here,” he indicated with a tilt of his head at the massive building. “There's kids in there. People stuck inside.” His face was grim with purpose.

Gene's stomach lurched.

“They'll never make it,” Rafael spoke aloud what they were both thinking. “If anyone's even alive in there.” He turned and looked over his shoulder, at the fire making inroads on the other hotels and the cathedral, the buildings and the park.

The priest heard the crane first, opened his eyes in time to turn his head in the direction of the noise and see its open, iron-toothed mouth breaking through the debris. He sat up, almost falling over, Willie already sitting up beside him.

Ally woke and raised her head as she saw a man come through the rubble. “Tia!” she shouted. She might have been
sleeping, but finally, a good dream. “Tia,” Phil said, close by. “They're here. They came.” He smiled at her, and she was distracted from her own rescue, realizing she'd never come so close to kissing a stranger.

Gene thought of the woman in blue falling to her death so beautifully, the others who called up to those who remained, begging them to linger for just a few, indefinite minutes more. He thought of Franklin, wondering if he'd get to tell this story, as one of the building's sides was successfully ripped open. He and the others who had collected to help stood watching, their hearts in their throats, as several agonizing moments passed while the rescuers sifted delicately through indelicate materials, looking for life. The fire behind them was a dull, ear-buzzing roar. Still they watched, standing in the middle of the street, as if their own lives depended on what might emerge from the wreckage.

Gene was certainly no ascetic, but for much of his life he'd been a man with a partially hidden, tightly wound heart. He did not really know this about himself, but he was surprised to feel his own expansiveness when that first person emerged whole and limping from the rubble, like a lid lifting off a music box.

Together, the evacuees made their way out and over the path the rescuers had carved from ingenuity and sheer willfulness. “You're lucky,” the smaller of the two firemen sent in there to pull them out said grimly, “you had a fireman call in trapped children on a radio that still transmitted. We lost him.” Unconsciously, he put a hand near his heart. “But we
could hear you in there. Not well, but we didn't have to, did we? And thanks to the city's official bird”—he gestured toward the crane that had helped them dig—“we got to you.” He shook his head, as if he didn't quite believe it himself. Ally wrapped her arms around the other fireman, who held her against his chest while shepherding her sister, Willie, Phil, and the priest out. They were almost at the door when Ally let out a shriek, freezing everyone in their tracks.

“Max!”

The smaller fireman turned, startled. The girl was pointing at nothing.

“He's still in there!” she cried frantically. “They have to find Max, too!” she pleaded with the priest.

“What is she talking about?” the fireman demanded.

The priest followed the line of her outstretched arm, pointed, trembling, toward the balcony rubble. The fireman tried to collect her in his arms again, but she squirmed and cried, refusing to be soothed.

“Ally,” her sister said, stepping forward, her body rigid with determination. “He's dead.”

Ally met her gaze with a steely one of her own. “No,” she insisted, matching her sister's calm. “Tia. He's not dead.”

The two locked eyes for a long moment while everyone held their breath. There was no other sound of movement nearby, only the eloquence of the dark cave they'd just emerged from, wide and waiting.

“Can you just check?” Phil asked unexpectedly, breaking the spell. The priest shot him a warning glance. He met it without flinching, “I can do it if you won't,” he said, not
daring to look in Tia's direction, though the whole of his attention was trained on her.

“Jesus,” the smaller fireman swore, the one in an oversize jacket instead of a full uniform—a volunteer by the looks of it, though he was so torn up and frazzled that it was hard to tell how he'd wound up where he was. “Someone's gonna have to give me a hand.”

“Sir.” There was a man's hand on Max's shoulder. He could feel the meaty, warm weight of it and opened his eye. “Sir, can you tell me your name? Can you tell me where you are?”

The man had an arm around his back and was lifting him and helping him, though his body and mind lingered in pain. Like a miracle, a section of the southeast-facing aisle had been cleared. Max felt like he was looking into the Red Sea, but the waters were dense and still with dark materials, piled higher than Max himself. Up ahead, he saw the priest and the nun and the children, the little girl waving.

“How did you—”

“No time for that,” the man advised, examining his leg. “Looks like your right leg got sliced up pretty good”—he gestured silently to his companion—“we'll have to form some kind of tourniquet.” He went on. “You're one lucky shit, you know. One of those kids remembered you were here. We were sure you'd be dead.”

“Vashti,” Max looked back at where they'd been.

“Quiet, now, this might hurt.”

Max looked down as the smaller of the two tied something tightly around his throbbing leg, watching the whole procedure as if they might have been doing it on someone else.
“What about Vashti,” he asked, as they tried to get him to move and the pain in his collarbone jolted him back to his senses. “Where is she?”

The first man's face pulled in quietly on itself. “I've got to help carry those kids, OK? Let's get you out quickly. The fire's on its way. Thank God we got to you in time. With some help, I think we can get you to safety.”

“Where is she?” Max demanded.

The man didn't answer.

Max's heart leapt into his throat. “The woman beside me. Her name is Vashti. You got her out already?” He hadn't even noticed them come get her. Why hadn't he woken? With his good arm, he tried to push past the other fireman, standing in front of a view he meant to block. As Max struggled he saw her, lying right next to where he'd been.

“I can wait,” he declared, gripping the man's shoulders, begging. “You can't see in here to help her. You'll have to go in after her.”

The man dropped his gaze. “We can't retrieve any more bodies now, sir. I'm afraid we have to gather them only after we've dealt with all the living victims. I'm sorry. There are only so many of us.”

“But,” Max said, dizzy, wondering why this man spoke like his father, “she's fine. I was just talking to her.” Max shoved at his immovable chest. “You didn't even check on her, you idiot!” he shouted.

“I did,” the fireman said steadily and not unkindly. “She probably died sometime last night, I'd assume, given the state
she's in,” he added gently. “It was a bad injury, probably left her with an internal hemorrhage.” He searched Max's face, trying to find the right words. “She would have gone pretty quickly,” he said. “I doubt she suffered very much.”

“You're wrong,” Max argued, his voice building in his eagerness to explain. “Just check again! For Christ's sake,” he cried out, the urge to run to her greater than his awareness of pain, “how can you just leave her there?”

“Hello.” Max opened his eyes to a man crouching quietly beside him on the street outside the building. It was lighter outside, but the light was wrong. The man put a hand to his chest to introduce himself. “I'm Gene.” Max looked into his face, which felt familiar. “I'm going to help you get to the emergency shelter. But I'm afraid it's quite a few blocks away. Can you lean against me with your good arm? Give me the weight you can't carry?”

Max was sure he couldn't move, but still Gene managed to hold him up and coax him forward and down the street before helping him to descend into the shifting, blinking city, coming alive under the rising sun. All around them was a purgatory of souls shifting in and out of fear and fighting. Gene felt Max pulling toward them, because he also knew the horrible limbo of anguish instead of finality, that sickening state that felt nearly like drowning if you were unable to give in and go under. Two children ran by them, followed by a third, the first with light sticks, the second without. There was squabbling and screaming. Were they hurt or angry or
lost? It was impossible to know. Max had always thought of hopelessness as a great emptiness, but it wasn't, it was a steel core running through the chest, cold even though blood pumped in from the heart surrounding it.

“Tell me,” Gene said after they'd negotiated a rhythm of Max leaning against Gene with his right arm, his right leg dragging along beside them, his left arm useless beneath the collarbone and his mouth busy spurting its nonsensical grief. “Tell me what she said to you in there,” because he did not doubt that she'd said many things. Just as he no longer doubted that if he found Franklin again, the nearness of death would no longer be a matter worth discussing.

And so they joined other grief-stricken creatures stumbling through empty streets and parks and past partial buildings, hollering, stealing, accompanying each other home. Everywhere, the normal boundaries between things blurred indeterminably. Birds soared and called excitedly, a cornucopia of seafood and fresh meat suddenly at their disposal, the air confusing with foreign smells. The only sameness was on the faces of strangers, crowds of people and their pets confused or bullish, desperate to reattach. Deep among them, the city's rescuers worked where they could, mute with understanding. The hospitals that stood from the grace of generators were filled beyond comfort, and the caretakers within prayed for the dying to die, if only to create some space, if only to not have so much impossible healing crowding in on them. High on the windiest hills, the firefighters battled each blaze as it came, knowing as they did that they had their backs to ten more, that without relief from the outside world,
they would be like ants fighting to support a slipping hill, each grain of sand they pushed back up making no difference whatsoever to the whole. And while the police kept what order they could, they were overwhelmed in the confusion of disorder. Who can name a villain when nature is to blame?