Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons (13 page)

Ruby drifted into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee, and leaned against the counter to watch me cater to her grandfather’s grouchy mood. I had the dance down pat: eggs in a pan, a pirouette to the sink for water on the eggs, another to set the pan on the stove. Two slices of bread in the toaster, set the darkness indicator, do an arabesque to the cupboard for the cat food, a plié to sprinkle dry food in the cat’s bowl and set it on the floor. I felt so graceful and birdlike, it’s a wonder I didn’t break into canary song.

With Ruby and Mr. Stern as audience, I added Cheddar’s coddled egg to his food, got out a plate for Mr. Stern, fished his soft-cooked eggs from the pan, and buttered his toast. But as I set Mr. Stern’s breakfast on the bar, an uneasy awareness of something not right made me turn my head toward the bedroom wing. At the same moment, Ruby’s head rose like a dog sniffing the air.

In the next instant we both whirled and ran.

Behind us, Mr. Stern shouted, “What is it? What’s happening?”

I could smell it now, an acrid odor of smoke along with an oddly sweet scent.

I yelled, “Fire! Call nine-one-one!”

Down the hall, tongues of flame licked from under Ruby’s closed bedroom door, and I could feel waves of heat emanating from it. Even with my mind in chaotic panic, I knew the intensity of that heat made no sense. It was too strong, too forceful, too driven. Heat of that magnitude could only be generated by a blaze that had been raging for a long time.

Ruby screamed and pushed past me to open the bedroom door. But before her clawing hand reached the knob, the door blew toward us as if it had been hit by a bomb. In its place was an impenetrable wall of raging fire.

Howling with panic, Ruby clambered over the door toward the roaring flames. I would have done the same if my baby had been on the other side of that wall of fire, but I caught her around the waist and pulled her back.

She twisted against me and beat at my hands. “Opal is in there!”

“We can’t go through those flames! We’ll have to go through the outside door!”

If she heard me, the words didn’t register. Determined to go through fire to get to her baby, she clawed and kicked at me while I tried to drag her away from the doorway.

As if it had malevolent intelligence, the fire stood like a pillar from hell, its mighty force melting the paint on the door frame in cascading ripples that added a rubbery smell to the stench of smoldering wood.

Mr. Stern ran toward us, ineffectually yanking at his shoulder brace to try to free his injured arm.

I yelled, “Did you call nine-one-one?”

“Fire trucks are on their way!”

With one arm still immobile in its brace, he charged toward the flames with the same determination Ruby had.

I yelled, “You can’t go in there, Mr. Stern!”

He stopped, but his rigid back said he was trying to figure out how best to dash through the flames and rescue his great-grandbaby. His carriage said he was a military man, he’d encountered fires before, he could handle this.

Fiery fingers reached through the doorway to stroke the wallpaper in the hall, and still he stood poised to run forward. Wild with terror, Ruby struggled against me like a feral creature. I could barely keep my hold on her. I couldn’t fight them both. If Mr. Stern plunged into that furnace, I would not be able to stop him.

“Mr. Stern, please!”

With a shudder of broken acceptance, he turned toward me, reaching with his good arm to help me restrain Ruby. He meant to help, but the truth was that holding Ruby was definitely a two-handed job. Besides, I needed as much space as I could get, and he was in the way.

In my deputy voice, I shouted, “Stand aside, please!”

He looked shocked, then hurt, then nodded sad understanding. I had succeeded in reminding him that he was too old, too weak, and too useless to save either his great-grandbaby or his granddaughter. With a last sorrowful look at the inferno that had been Ruby’s bedroom, he ran down the hall toward the kitchen.

“Mr. Stern, we have to get out of here!”

He yelled, “Not without Cheddar!”

I didn’t have any breath left to argue with him. He had either forgotten that Cheddar had been in the bedroom with Opal, or he had slipped into denial.

My throat burned from the smoke, and my arms felt as if they were being pulled from their sockets. With my last shred of strength, I spun Ruby around so fast her feet left the floor. Kicking the air, she screamed and fought while I slogged her weight toward the front door. But I was no bigger or stronger than she, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep her from twisting away from me. If she did, she would die trying to save her baby.

The siren grew louder. Grimly holding on to Ruby, I floundered down the hall. At the front door, I shouted to Mr. Stern again, but got no answer. With one last burst of effort, I managed to hold Ruby with one arm and grab the doorknob and wrench it open with the other. Blessed fresh air hit my face, along with the sight of a fire truck pulling to the curb with uniformed firefighters spilling from it.

Michael was at the forefront, and as he ran up the driveway he looked so much like our father that I felt an out-of-time sense of history repeating itself. But our father had died saving a child’s life, and I was sure the child in this house was already dead. No living being could survive the cauldron of fire that Ruby’s bedroom had become.

Seeing me struggle with Ruby, he took her from me as if she were a rag doll and stood her on her feet. “Stay out of the house!”

Ruby’s hair was wild, her face smudged with soot and smoke, her eyes all pupil, black and insane. “My baby’s in there!”

Putting his face close to hers, Michael shouted, “Then don’t get in the way while we put out the fire!”

She recoiled as if she’d been slapped, but her eyes focused and she didn’t try to run back inside.

I said, “The fire’s in a bedroom with an outside sliding door. There’s a baby in the bedroom. Also a cat. And an elderly man in the kitchen. He’s looking for the cat. He doesn’t want to leave without him.”

Other firefighters surged forward, and Michael barked information to them. “Outside slider to the bedroom where the fire is. Baby and cat in the bedroom, elderly man in the kitchen, irrational.”

Within seconds, a fireman had gone in and brought Mr. Stern out the door, with orders to all of us to get as far away as possible. We huddled in a clump at the end of the driveway, staring wordlessly at the house. Ruby shook so violently that I put both arms around her and held her tightly, like swaddling an infant. Mr. Stern was pale as white marble, his eyes dry and staring as if he’d suffered a shock that left him unable to blink.

More sirens approached, more fire trucks jerked to a stop in front of the house, more firefighters appeared in their helmets and boots and uniforms. Two ambulances with EMTs came, along with a department car driven by a deputy fire chief. Across the street, neighbors had come outside to watch, clotted together as if to protect one another.

A woman ran across the street and put an arm around Ruby.

The woman said, “You shouldn’t be this close, come across the street.”

She and I half-carried Ruby while Mr. Stern followed like an obedient child. Other neighbors had spread quilts and pillows on the grass for people to sit on. My rational self was grateful for their kindness. My cynical self resented the way they seemed to prepare for an outdoor concert. My cynical self had misunderstood their intent. Instead of watching as if it were an entertaining event, the neighbors observed a solemn hush as if they were in church.

Ruby stared mutely for a while and then with an anguished howl toppled to the ground facedown. Wordlessly, women gathered beside her and stroked her back, their eyes meeting in silent pity above her devastated form. None of us could imagine a grief so shattering as Ruby felt. None of us could offer any solace or hope or comfort. All we could do was surround her with compassion. Mr. Stern sat alone, sending out waves of resistance that kept the neighbors away. I didn’t approach him either. Every person grieves in his own way, and I respected Mr. Stern’s right to suffer in solitude. He knew what had happened. He knew that there was no hope for either Opal or Cheddar.

I don’t know how long we sat there. Time seemed to both speed up and slow to a crawl. I took it all in as if I were watching from a disincarnate distance.

After what seemed eons, Michael stepped from the front door cradling a small blanket-wrapped form in his arms.

16

A woman in the group said, “What’s that fireman carrying? Is that a baby?”

Ruby scrambled to her feet. “Opal!”

Michael hurried to one of the ambulances where an EMT opened the back door.

With me close behind her, Ruby ran across the street and clutched Michael’s sleeve. “My baby?”

He shook his head. “It’s the cat.”

He turned a corner of the blanket back to reveal Cheddar’s limp form. He was not burned, but his eyes were closed and his mouth open, and I couldn’t see any sign of breath.

Michael said, “I found him when I felt under the bed. At first I thought it was a stuffed toy.”

Ruby turned to me with hope lighting her eyes. I knew what she was thinking: if Cheddar had escaped the flames, Opal might have too. But a cat can crawl under a bed when a room is afire. A four-month-old baby cannot.

Michael handed Cheddar to the EMT and ran back to the house. The EMT climbed into the ambulance where a second EMT already had the pet oxygen mask ready to put over Cheddar’s snout. When it was in place, Cheddar lay on the EMT’s lap with a hose attached to an oxygen tank snaking over his limp body.

Across the street, Mr. Stern had managed to push himself up from the ground—not an easy feat with one arm in a sling. He moved toward us in jerky steps like a marionette whose strings needed adjusting. When he reached Ruby, he put his good arm around her shoulders. At his touch, Ruby sagged against his thin chest while he awkwardly patted her back.

One of the neighbor women ran to help Ruby back to her spot across the street.

Mr. Stern watched them go, then turned his attention to Cheddar. Only a fine tremor in his shoulders betrayed his despair.

I said, “Mr. Stern, the EMTs have a special oxygen mask for animals. They’re using it on Cheddar.”

“What about Opal?”

I had never heard him say the baby’s name before.

“We don’t know yet.”

“So much
tzuris,
” he muttered. “Such
tzuris
!”

I didn’t know Yiddish, but the sound reflected the suffering and trouble around us.

Across the street, Ruby had folded to her knees and buried her face in her hands while neighbor women tried to comfort her. Watching them, I thought of the way Myra Kreigle had once mothered Ruby. I wondered if Myra was watching Ruby now from her second-story window.

After what seemed like an eon, the EMTs gave each other tentative smiles. I hadn’t seen a change in Cheddar, but the EMTs must have seen a twitch of his tail or a blink of his eye. Mr. Stern made a thin noise in his throat that told me he’d seen their smiles too. But that was all we had, that hint of possible success.

In a few minutes, we both saw the tip of Cheddar’s tail lift, saw him paw at the oxygen mask, saw his eyes open. Mr. Stern’s face crumpled into unashamed tears of joy.

A few more minutes, and they removed the oxygen mask and gently lifted Cheddar to his feet. He stood, stretched his tongue in a wide-mouthed yawn, then curled into a ball on the EMT’s lap.

The second EMT stood up and spoke to Mr. Stern. “Sir, I think your cat’s going to make it. He’s breathing on his own, and he’s able to stand up. We’re going to take him to an animal clinic. You can ride with us, if you’d like.”

Humbly, Mr. Stern said, “Thank you, young man.” I’d never heard him be humble before.

I said, “I’ll follow you in my car.”

“No, you stay here with Ruby.”

I didn’t argue. Technically, my job was to help Mr. Stern take care of Cheddar, but I knew I would not be needed at the animal hospital. Ruby, on the other hand, needed all the help she could get.

I helped Mr. Stern into the ambulance and waited until it had driven away before I crossed the street to sit with Ruby.

Nobody spoke. We waited silently, staring fixedly at the house. One woman had her arm around Ruby’s shoulders and I held Ruby’s hand, but I doubted Ruby was aware of us.

A growling sound of an approaching muscle car intruded into the silence, the kind of sound you usually notice in the middle of the night and wonder who would be driving that fast at that hour. The sound made Ruby raise her head, and when the car sped to a stop in front of her, she got to her feet. The car was a sleek, black, low-slung foreign convertible that I didn’t recognize. Two men were in it, one of them about as skinny and thin-skinned and blond as a Caucasian can get, with eyebrows and lashes so white they were almost invisible. He was young, mid-twenties, and looked like the kind of kid that hadn’t dated much in high school because he’d been more interested in physics or math.

The other guy was the exact opposite, as broad and black and tall as an African-American man can get. About the same age as the white guy, his head was shaved, his muscles bulged in all directions, and he had a face that would frighten criminals on death row. He and the white guy looked like mismatched peas in a shiny foreign pod.

Ruby made a soft bleating sound and stretched her hand forward, while the white guy looked at her with so much pain and anguish that it hurt to watch.

17

With neighbors looking on in rapt silence, the narrow white guy got out of the car and looked across its hood at Ruby, his face a cage holding in roiling emotions. The black guy heaved an impatient sigh, threw open his door, lumbered to Ruby, and enveloped her in his arms. He looked even bigger standing up. Having a brother as big as Michael has made me accustomed to wide shoulders and chests, but this guy was twice as big as Michael.

A spasm of envy crossed the white guy’s face, but he seemed more envious of the other guy’s ability to show feelings than jealous that Ruby was holding on to him as if he were a savior.