Remembering the Titanic

by Diane Hoh

  She dropped to her hands and knees, thinking to get her bearings by crawling along the floor and using touch to locate various pieces of Mary’s furniture … the couch along the front wall, the parlor piano, the telephone stand decorated with seashells positioned along the wall just below the stairs … if she could find that stand, she could find the stairs. If it was the piano she found first, she would know she had moved in the wrong direction.

  She found the seashell stand. She was already coughing so hard, the crawl from doorway to stairs took ten times longer than it should have. And crawling with one hand holding the skirt and petticoat over her mouth was very difficult. But she had no choice. She had intended to call for Bridget as she went, but the first time she opened her mouth to do so, the only sound that emerged was a harsh croak. Smoke rushed in, gagging her, and she shut her mouth quickly, only to have it forced open again by a wracking cough.

  The realization that Flo had been right, that the smoke had already damaged her voice, making it impossible to call for Bridget, was frightening. Finding the child would take so much more precious time now that she couldn’t summon her by voice. Katie almost turned around then and went back outside. But she had heard no sirens arriving at the house, no sound that help was at hand. She couldn’t desert the child. That would be too cruel.

  Brian hadn’t deserted the steerage passengers on the Titanic, even when he knew there was no hope of rescue, knew he would not be saved. Still he had stayed.

  I’ll stay, too, Katie vowed, until I find Bridget.

  She still saw no flames. That was a blessing. Perhaps there was no real fire, perhaps something in the house … the old coal stove in the basement, maybe, was spitting out the smoke. Katie had no idea if that was even possible, but the thought was comforting so she clung to it as she slowly, painfully, made her way up the stairs, crawling on her stomach, tears pouring from her red and swollen eyes.

  Why, Katie thought in a flash of anger as, exhausted, she reached the top step, had Mary gone outside without her small daughter?

  If anything terrible happened to their only child, Tom would never forgive his wife.

  A small orange flame, like a curious kitten peeking around a corner to see who was there, darted straight at Katie from the corridor. It shocked her. It wrecked her notion that the house held only smoke. She heard, then, a new sound. Like feet tramping on small, dry twigs, snapping them in two, or on dry autumn leaves. She and Paddy made sounds like that when they walked in Central Park in the fall.

  But no one needed to tell her these were not the sounds of feet in the park. This snapping and crackling was the sound of furniture and framed photographs and the pages of books and the soles of shoes and the glass of mirrors being consumed by flames. She pictured the very walls themselves being devoured by the fire, leaving nothing behind of Agnes Murphy’s house but smoke and ashes.

  Katie didn’t care about the house or anything in it. All she cared about was finding Bridget, toting her safely from the house to give her back to her mother.

  Her eyes burned so furiously, she had to keep them closed. It made no difference, since she could see nothing. She was surrounded by a thick, gray wool cape. And it wasn’t her eyes that worried her, it was the constant coughing. How long before the thick, cloying smoke pulled every last breath out of her and stopped her heart forever?

  Only once in her life had Katie Hanrahan been as frightened. In the belly of the great Titanic, wandering panic-stricken along its silent, narrow corridors, desperate to find a way up, to light and air and safety, she had been terrified that she and the two children left in her care would die down there. Paddy had saved her then. But Paddy was far away now, in the city, probably somewhere with Belle, not knowing Katie needed him again.

  I was mean to him, she thought dazedly as, gasping and choking, she pulled herself up into the hall. A second shoot of flame reared its nasty head, darting around the corner to tease, I dare you, I dare you to keep coming! Katie ignored it, and began sliding along the corridor floor on her stomach. I should have told Paddy why I was being so sour with him, it wasn’t fair of me to turn him a cold shoulder without sayin’ why. ’Twas cowardly, if nothin’ else. If I could just see him again, for a minute….

  The agonizing climb up the staircase had left her drained, her chest aflame like the building itself, and there was an ominous roaring sound in her ears. Comin’ from my brain, she told herself. It’s mad it’s not gettin’ enough oxygen and it’s roarin’ in anger.

  Dizzy, so dizzy … sleep would be just the thing. If she just took a tiny little nap, just the smallest forty winks, maybe when she woke up the nasty old fire would be gone, the smoke cleared. Then she would find Bridget and they would go outside together into the clean, fresh air.

  That seemed to Katie’s oxygen-deprived brain a fine idea. She might have followed it had she not, as she stretched an arm out over her head in preparation to lay her head on it, encountered with her fingers a small, human hand. The hand was limp, lifeless, but…

  Gasping in shock, she clutched at the hand. She tried to call out Bridget’s name. Impossible. Her vocal cords, seared by heat and smoke, no longer functioned. Flo would be so angry.

  Katie’s head cleared suddenly. She had found Bridget. She had done half of what she came to do. Now she had to get the other half done. She had to get both of them out of this deathtrap of a house and into fresh air and safety if they were to live.

  She had no idea how she was going to do that.

  Chapter 21

  YANKING HER SKIRT UP over her face again, Katie crawled over to the small figure. She knew to feel the tiny wrist for a pulse. It was faint … very faint … but it was there. Bridget was still alive. But she needed to be taken from the smoke-filled house.

  How? Katie would have shouted aloud if she’d had a voice. How? She was so weak herself, she could barely crawl on her own, let alone carry even as small a child as this one.

  Why had no one come to help them?

  Anger pulled her up onto her hands and knees. I did not survive the worst sea tragedy in history, she told herself grimly, when so many others did not, only to perish in a fire in a Brooklyn roominghouse!

  The voice that Katie heard next was not her own. It was her ma’s. “Well, if you’re goin’ to do what you came in here to do,” her ma’s voice said, “you’d best be about it.”

  Katie lifted her head. “Ma?”

  No answer. Sheila Hanrahan had said all she meant to say. Now it was up to Katie to heed or ignore her mother’s advice.

  Didn’t seem like she’d have heard it in the first place if she was meant to ignore it.

  There were no new flames taunting her, and the smoke seemed to have lessened just a bit. Could be her ma had scared it away. Reaching out tentatively with both hands, Katie clasped her hands around Bridget’s small wrists. She could still feel a pulse, which seemed a great wonder to her. Bridget’s spirit must be very strong, then. That thought renewed her own strength, and holding tightly to the two delicate wrists, Katie began inching her way backward, still on her stomach on the floor. She had no free hand now to keep the green skirt and petticoat over her face. But her head had cleared, as if her mother had somehow filled it with life-giving oxygen.

  If she could drag Bridget to the top of the staircase, staying flat to avoid the thickest smoke, they could slide or even tumble down the stairs to safety.

  If she could find the stairs.

  She couldn’t.

  She wasn’t sure exactly how she’d got turned around. Perhaps when she’d crawled to Bridget. Though she crawled the length of the corridor, pulling the little girl along with her, she never came upon any stairs. Perhaps they’d collapsed. Or perhaps they were there and she couldn’t see them in all the smoke.

  This, Katie thought despairingly, must have been what it was like for Brian when he was thrown into the Atlantic Ocean. It would have been as dark and murky down there as it is in this hall. Like me, he wouldn’t have been able
to see, or get his bearings, or think what to do. The difference was, Brian would have frozen to death almost immediately in that below-freezing water, and so he hadn’t been able to save himself. It was not cold in the hall of Agnes Murphy’s roominghouse. Katie felt she had no excuse for not saving herself and Bridget. Brian would expect her to, considering how much more fortunate she was than he.

  Without a staircase, they would have to leave the house some other way.

  Katie slid her body around on the hot floor to kick out behind her, seeking a door, any door, that would allow them to escape the smoke-filled hall. If she could find a room that wasn’t being consumed by fire, there would be a window in it. She could open the window and let in blessed fresh air.

  The thought spurred her on, and she slid and kicked out at the wall behind her, slid and kicked, never letting go of Bridget’s wrists for a second. She didn’t realize she’d come to a door until it burst open after several sharp smacks with Katie’s booted foot. Still pulling the unconscious child, she used her knees and feet to propel them both backward. Her left arm was beginning to pain her fiercely, and she realized that it had been burned. She wasn’t sure how, hadn’t been aware of a flame touching her. But one must have, because she knew a burn when she felt it, and when she turned her head to look, she saw that the sleeve of her green dress was blackened just above the elbow.

  Flo wouldn’t like that, either.

  The room was not as thick with smoke as the hall had been. And when Katie lifted her head and with tremendous effort opened her swollen eyes, she saw no sign of flames. She stood up and lifted the little girl, then hurried to the window. But once there, she had to lay Bridget down on the floor. She needed both hands to open the window.

  Out of a deep need to let the child know she hadn’t been abandoned, Katie planted one heeled boot firmly on the skirt of Bridget’s smoke-grimed, flowered dress. Maybe the little girl wouldn’t know someone was there … but maybe she would. Then, too, it was Katie’s way of keeping track of the child, should the smoke thicken again.

  Suddenly there were flames, small ones, dancing in and out of a tall bookcase standing against the wall opposite her, near the door. Like children playing hide-and-go-seek, Katie thought, even as the sense of urgency within her mushroomed. How long would it be before the infant flames, fed by the pages of the shelved books, grew up?

  If she could get some air into her lungs, the constant coughing would stop, the sharp knives carving into her chest might go away, and then perhaps she could think straight.

  Keeping her right heel firmly planted on Bridget’s dress, Katie examined the window. The glass was smoke-grimed, but when she looked down, she could see the scene below. There in the street were two fire engines, parked helter-skelter. The crowd of neighbors and spectators had thickened to a deep, wide, puddle of people. Katie saw her uncle Malachy, still in his iron-gray work clothes. He was standing with his arm around Lottie. She must have telephoned him, summoning him home. Had Tom come, too? Katie didn’t see him. Her aunt was openly crying and twisting in agitation the flowered apron tied around her waist. Behind her stood Flo, an anxious look on her face.

  Someone saw her then, an elderly woman Katie didn’t recognize. The woman opened her mouth in a shout, and pointed. The firemen looked up, along with everyone else.

  Spots were appearing in front of her eyes, blue, yellow, purple, dancing like the flames near the door. And the room had begun slowly spinning around her, like the wonderful carousel at Coney Island. But this kind of spinning was not so wonderful. Katie guessed that the spots meant she was close to passing out. She had never fainted in her life, not even when she broke her elbow. She dare not do it now. They would both perish for certain.

  She reached out and undid the latch. It took every ounce of strength she had to raise the window. But it was worth the effort, as cold air smelling of smoke rushed into the room. Katie gulped it in gratefully, and at the same time, reached down to scoop up the unconscious child and lay her head on the windowsill, as close to the air as possible.

  It took her only a second to realize the price she would pay for the fresh air. The incoming oxygen had fueled the baby flames, transforming them from playful little creatures to full-blown, adult flames, grasping like tentacles for everything in their path.

  They had already, in just seconds, swallowed up the door.

  There was no way out of the room.

  Chapter 22

  BRIDGET HUNG FROM THE windowsill, limp as a rag doll. From below came shouting. It was Katie’s name they were shouting. And something else… “Jump! Jump, Katie!”

  Jump? From the second story?

  Then Mary’s voice, surprisingly strong. “Did you find her, Katie? Did you find my Bridget? Is she all right, then?”

  Other voices shouted, “Jump! You’ve got to jump!”

  Katie looked down. There were five, no six firemen in black coats and helmets. Their extended arms supported a black cloth or canvas, round as pie. From where Katie stood, it looked no more substantial than a child’s blanket. They weren’t thinking, were they, that she was to jump into that? Or fling poor Bridget down upon it? Did they think the smoke had driven her daft? She turned away from the window, sagging against the windowframe. “Oh, Paddy, damn you,” she whispered, “where are you? Why are you not here, as you were on the ship? Are you not goin’ to save me this time, then?”

  She knew he wasn’t. He didn’t even know she was in trouble. Such terrible trouble. And not just her. Bridget, too. Paddy liked Bridget. He would be sore distressed to see the child in such a state.

  The flames had swallowed up a full quarter of the room. They consumed flowered wallpaper, a wall sconce, a wooden valet supporting a blue serge man’s jacket, an inexpensive fake leather jewelry box and its contents, a floor lamp with a pink fringed shade, a pile of clean white pillowslips neatly folded on a brown wooden chair. Then they ate the chair. Katie watched in horror.

  There was no more time.

  “Jump!” came from below. “You must jump!”

  She knew the voices were right. She felt again for Bridget’s pulse. Still there … but oh, so faint. If there was any chance at all … Mary must have her child. She would never forgive herself if her baby died.

  “Oh, Lord,” Katie whispered, “you ask too much of me, and that’s the truth of it. But I guess I got no choice. I’ll do it then, if I must.” Then she muttered grimly, “But I’m sayin’ right now I won’t like it!”

  Turning back to the window, she hoisted Bridget up over the sill. When Mary glimpsed the red curls, she cried out in joy and shouted, “Bless you, Katie, bless you!”

  Even with a voice, Katie wouldn’t have had the heart to shout, “Don’t bless me yet, Mary. You haven’t seen the state your child is in.” The only blessing was, as far as she could tell, Bridget wasn’t burned. It was the smoke that had done her in, poisoning her little lungs. Looking at her pinched, gray-blue face and her limp body, it was impossible to believe that Mary’s Bridget would ever walk, run, play, breathe normally again.

  “I cannot toss this child out the window,” Katie whispered to the gluttonous flames. “I cannot!”

  But she did. Dropping the little girl out into space was the hardest thing Kathleen Hanrahan had ever had to do. Worse even than stepping off the great ship Titanic into a lifeboat. But now, as then, she had no choice.

  The child landed softly, gently, just as Katie had hoped. One of the firemen scooped her up, cradling her in his arms, and rushed with her to a waiting ambulance. Mary and Agnes Murphy raced along behind him. Both climbed into the back of the ambulance before it pulled away, siren wailing.

  Katie, her breath coming in agonizing, ragged gasps, fell to her knees. She knew she had only been inside the house ten minutes or less. It seemed days.

  “Jump, Katie, jump!” her uncle Malachy shouted from below. “Hurry! Jump now!”

  If only there were a lifeboat hanging on davits right outside the window, like the one sh
e’d stepped into from the Titanic. She would step into it then and someone above her would slowly, safely, lower it down to the ground. She wouldn’t even mind if it lurched like a drunken donkey, as the lifeboat had. As long as it got her out of this inferno and safely to the ground.

  But there was no lifeboat here. The only way to the ground was a dive, a leap out into empty space. What if she missed the canvas? She would escape death by fire only to die of a broken neck or smashed skull.

  If I’m ever goin’ to see Paddy again, Katie thought as another wave of coughing overtook her, if I’m ever goin’ to see Ireland again and me sisters and brother, me ma and da, I’m goin’ to have to take a leap out this window and I’m goin’ to have to be quick about it. She did so want to see Ireland again. Even if it meant boarding a ship.

  Closing her red and swollen eyes, she pulled herself to her feet and climbed over the wooden sill until she was perched on it. Heat from the flames gobbling their way toward her seared the back of her neck. Terror made her oxygen-deprived heart skip, slow, skip again, as if it were trying to decide whether or not to go on with the struggle. Afraid it would give up before she could jump, Katie stared down at the black canvas circle just long enough to take aim. Then she leaned forward, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she whispered, “I give you my heart and my soul.”

  Then she jumped.

  Chapter 23

  ELIZABETH HAD BEEN STAYING with Anne, in her shockingly messy and postage stamp-sized apartment under the el, for only two days when there was a commanding knock at the door. Anne had gone out to hear her idol, Emma Goldman, a fiery, free-thinking speaker, give a speech in the Village. “You should come, too, Elizabeth, you’d be inspired,” she had urged. But Elizabeth, desperately needing to be alone with her thoughts after two days and nights of Anne, declined.