Her Name Will Be Faith

by Christopher Nicole

  “I don’t think I could eat a burger as well, Mom.” Tamsin eyed the steaming plateful that Jo had hastily prepared while the electricity lasted.

  “Do try, sweetheart. It may be a long time before I’ll be able to cook again.” She could see that both the children were frightened; each determined not to reveal the fact to the other.

  “I wonder where Dad is now?” Owen Michael said.

  “Probably in sight of Newport,” Jo told him. “Having the time of his life.”

  “I wish I was with him.”

  “Well, I wish you and Tamsin were with Granpa and Granma.”

  “And you too, Mom,” Tamsin added.

  Jo wasn’t sure what to reply to that. She still wanted to be near Richard, even though in the bathroom the roar of the wind and the crashes of thunder were terrifying… as was the thought that he might try to reach her. Oh, no, my darling Richard, don’t do it, she prayed silently. Nobody can get through this.

  But all the same, she realized she was constantly straining to hear his voice calling his arrival above the din, imagining that each unidentifiable crash or bang was his knock on the door.

  Queen’s Midtown Tunnel — 11.30 am

  “Fucking hell,” Al Muldoon remarked. “Oh, fucking hell!”

  It had taken him two hours to drive from Kennedy to the entrance to Queen’s Midtown Tunnel — somebody had told him all the bridges were jammed, but nobody had said anything about the tunnels. If only he had a radio; when next he saw that asshole of a mechanic he was going to wring his neck.

  Two hours! It hadn’t mattered that the traffic was almost all going the other way… they were driving on both sides of every street. He’d kept having to pull off on to the sidewalk to avoid being rammed, and even so his cab had been hit several times. The first time he’d jumped out, despite the rain which promptly poured down his neck, and wanted to beat the hell out of the stupid moron who’d sideswiped him — it was clearly the other guy’s fault as he was on the wrong side of the street. But immediately he’d been grabbed by two soldiers. Fucking MPs! He could as well have been back in Vietnam.

  “Cool it, buddy boy,” they told him. “You’re going against the stream.”

  Muldoon had supposed he was about to have a heart attack. “Me? Against the stream?” He had pointed at the street signs in impotent anger. These guys had to be stupid or something, or the whole world had gone mad. And who the hell were they to tell him what to do? He was a civilian now. “Look,” he said, as reasonably as he could. “You guys get off my back. This ain’t the goddamned army.”

  “It is to you,” the first MP said. “Ain’t you heard this city is under martial law?”

  Muldoon was speechless for a moment. “On whose say so?” he demanded when he had got his breath back.

  “On the say so of the Governor and the President of the United States. Now, you all finished arguing?”

  Muldoon fell back on defense. “That guy was breaking the law. Driving the wrong way.”

  “No, you were driving the wrong way, buster,” said the second MP. “All roads lead out, right now. Where the hell are you going, anyway?”

  “I’m going home, that’s where I’m going,” Muldoon shouted, resisting with some effort the temptation to call them what he was thinking. “Where the fucking hell would I be going?”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Manhattan. Where the hell do you think it would be?”

  “Let me get this straight,” the MP said. “You’re out here in Queen’s, and you want to go in to Manhattan?”

  “Look, fella,” Muldoon said. “I don’t know what the shitting hell is going on, but I have a home, and I have a wife, just on the other side of that river, and if there’s something happening, I aim to be with them. You guys gonna try to stop me?”

  The MPs had looked at each other. One had shrugged. “We don’t have orders to stop nobody going into the city,” he said.

  The other had nodded. “Okay, buster. You can keep going. Just keep out of the way of any vehicles coming this way; you’re driving up a one-way street.”

  “Jesus Christ, the whole fucking world has gone mad,” Muldoon commented, and got back into his cab. He was sopping wet, and the inside was all misted up. And there seemed to be automobiles coming at him from all directions. And he hadn’t had any breakfast and was as hungry as hell. But he made progress, until he got to the tunnel entrance itself, having been side-swiped half a dozen times by other crazy drivers. And here, suddenly, there was a complete absence of traffic, although it continued to roar by on the next street.

  Instead, there was a roadblock.

  Muldoon braked, put his head out of the window. “This is the first sanity I’ve seen today. Now move that goddamned barrier.”

  ’Yeah?” This time he looked at policemen, bending against the wind. “No one’s allowed through that tunnel.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “It ain’t safe, that’s why not.”

  “Ah, for Christ’s sake. Look, I’ve been trying to get home for two fucking hours. I have a wife waiting for me over there. I can be through that tunnel in ten minutes.”

  “No one is allowed through this tunnel,” the policeman said again. “Oh, Jesus…”

  “Well, if it ain’t Muldoon,” the sergeant said, splashing towards him and holding on to the automobile to avoid being blown away; his cap was tightly strapped under his chin. “You crazy or what?”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Muldoon repeated. He’d been on the wrong side of this character before. “Listen, Mac, I gotta get home. The wife has a weak heart. You know that. I gotta get home.”

  The sergeant pulled his wet nose.

  “Nobody…” the policeman repeated.

  “Forget it,” the sergeant said. “Look here, Muldoon, I have to tell you that tunnel ain’t safe.”

  “It’s caving in or something?”

  “Nope. Not yet. But there’s flooding on lower Manhattan, getting worse all the time. It’ll come down that tunnel any moment now. And the electrics are out; you’ll have only your headlights to see by. If you want to go through that bad I’ll let you, but it has to be at your own risk.”

  “Sure it’ll be at my own risk,” Muldoon agreed. “You think I’m afraid of the dark? Or of a little flood water?”

  “Okay.” The sergeant stepped back, and saluted. “Good luck, fella.”

  He signaled his men, and the boom was raised. Muldoon put the cab into drive and dipped into the tunnel. As the sergeant had prophesied, it was pitch dark in there, but he turned his headlights up to full beam and they provided adequate illumination. Yet he drove slowly, determined not to have an accident — there was no way of telling when he might come upon abandoned vehicles. Above him he could hear the roar of the river, and he cast one or two anxious glances at the walls to see if they were standing up okay. They looked as safe as ever, and he realized that down here the turbulence up there could have little effect. His confidence began to grow.

  He was half way through when he heard the other noise. He had realized only slowly that he was actually driving through water, several inches deep — the Chevrolet was sliding about, but this was something else. Muldoon instinctively braked, staring ahead to the limit of his lights, and beyond, at a foaming mass of white coming out of the darkness. “Holy fucking hell!” he shouted, and swung to the left to make a U-turn. Immediately he skidded and struck the wall of the tunnel. The taxi slewed half way round and he had not regained control when the rushing flood water smashed into the vehicle, sweeping it up towards the York side of the river as if it had been a cork.

  SATURDAY 29 JULY: Afternoon

  Herald Square — 12.00 Noon

  Alloan half ran, half fell, dragging Garcia behind him, the two men carried along on the wind from alleyway to recessed doorway, from the lee of abandoned cars and through the shattered glass doors of lobbies, falling against each other in the scant shelter as they tried to catch their breaths. It was difficult to find p
rotection anywhere, even in the cavern-like New York streets, now the wind was funneling between the high buildings, increasing its strength. It was almost impossible to see, identify individual noise or even to think; apart from the driving rain and continuous thunder the air was full of dirt and flying debris. The young man knew it was a miracle they had survived this long, not been cut to ribbons by hurtling glass or crushed by automobiles which were being picked up and thrown through the air. They had sidestepped a number of casualties, some clawing at them for help, mouthing inaudible pleas which they ignored. They had crawled through giant tangles of fallen trees and torn power lines — if the electrics hadn’t been out they’d have fried to a chip. Garcia was a helluva burden, lying wherever he fell, pleading exhaustion and having to be hauled each time to his feet. If he hadn’t known that Garcia was an expert locksmith he would have abandoned him long ago; but to achieve his goal he might well need the man. He was not only driven by fear of the rising water behind them, but by anger — and an all-consuming desire…

  Garcia had no idea why they were still together. In a way he wished they weren’t, that he could be left in a doorway to rest his aching limbs and chest. But as the kid had got them out of the cells, fighting a way up the stairs through cascades of water and people screaming, gasping and being trampled underfoot to drown, subconsciously he felt obliged to force himself to keep going. He didn’t know where but the kid had some place in mind. Come to think of it, he didn’t even know the boy’s name.

  Alloan looked at Garcia, at the heaving chest and tinge of blue round his mouth. Might be wiser to show a bit more patience, he didn’t want this character passing out on him. It was fairly sheltered just here and the storm would continue for hours yet; plenty time to do what he wanted.

  His eyes narrowed. That weatherman he’d seen on the station box had spoken of ‘an eye’, a patch of calm weather in the center of the storm. They could wait on that ‘eye’, then they’d get there in a fraction of the time. “Okay, Domingo. We’ll rest up here a while. That’s it,” he nodded as Garcia slid gratefully down the wall and leaned his head back, “you have yourself a rest.”

  The Subway — 12.30 pm

  There was still electricity at Penn Station, where they were using emergency generators. Washington Jones was told there were no more trains running north, but that he could take the cross line, under the East River, to Lorimer. He held Celestine’s hand, carrying two suitcases in the other, and Patsy ran behind him, the baby in her arms; they had become part of a terrified mob of people trying to get away, driven by reports that rising flood water was within a few blocks.

  Washington knew that he had indeed left it too late — but the fault was not entirely his. It had taken him more than an hour to regain his house, and then he discovered that Celestine had done nothing, that she didn’t really want to go. She had neither packed nor called the boy. He had convinced her that it was urgent, and she had got to work, slowly and resentfully. He had tried calling the boy’s work place, over and over again, and never got through. He shouldn’t have had to get through; the boy should have come home by nine. But he hadn’t. So they had waited, and waited, because Patsy wouldn’t leave without him, while the wind had grown stronger and the house had trembled and the phone and the electricity had gone dead. And at last they had realized the boy wasn’t coming, for whatever reason, and Washington had been able to persuade the women to leave.

  Just in time, he thought. Oh, just in time, as he tried to keep his family together in the midst of the huge crowd of people, hurrying down the corridors, jamming the stairs, filling the elevators, screaming and shouting. They had left home with three suitcases, but the one Celestine had carried caught in an elevator door and Washington made her abandon it.

  They reached the platform and piled into the train, which immediately started to move off, attendants shouting at people who were trying to push their way into the compartments, and then being crammed in by those behind them. “There ain’t gonna be no more trains after this one,” a man said to Washington. “They say Greenwich Village is almost under water. Did you hear that, man? These electrics can’t last too much longer.”

  Obstructing bodies prevented the door from closing until the attendants started shouting that another train would be along in a minute. “Wanna bet?” the man asked.

  The train moved off very slowly, gathered speed, slowed, stopped and started again. “Holy Mother of God, we’re going to be here until the middle of next week,” a woman yelled. She had a little girl on her knee, who wore a straw hat with a ribbon and carried a plastic doll with long hair.

  Washington saw they were all alone and took pity on them. “Don’t fret. We’ll all stick together. Can’t be much further now.” He could feel them begin the gradual ascent on the east side of the river.

  Suddenly the train stopped; at the same moment the lights went out. There was a chorus of screams and shrieks, and Washington abandoned the suitcases and put both arms around Celestine and held her close. The din was tremendous as more than a thousand people all shouted together and pushed against each other and the doors, which remained firmly closed.

  “We’re going to die,” Celestine gasped. “We’re going to die.”

  Patsy wept, and the baby wailed, and the woman with the little girl kept shouting, “Holy Mary Mother of God, save us,” over and over again.

  They heard, faintly, an attendant out in the tunnel shouting for calm, but nobody was paying any attention to him, and the press was growing greater and greater. Washington felt all the air being crushed out of his body, that he was indeed going to die, when suddenly the doors against which he was being flattened opened and he almost fell out. Celestine went with him, and Patsy and the baby. And then the crowd followed, screaming and yelling, trampling over each other. He heard people shrieking in fear and agony as they were thrust into the water… because he realized that he was ankle deep in water. But they had been first out and could move along the track.

  “The electric line,” Celestine gasped.

  “If that line was live, the train would be moving,” Washington gasped back at her. “And if it comes live again we’re all going to die anyway. Just hold on to my jacket with one hand and Patsy with the other. Careful now, mind your step. I’ll lead the way.”

  He was worried by the water; it was rising quite quickly. They must get out, but people didn’t seem to be moving in any particular direction, just floundering. Thanks to God they had been in the front carriage. He suddenly felt compelled to do something — help these terrified, braying sheep to get out in time. In his youth he had been a good baritone in the church choir. Now he stood tall and called, his voice resounding down the tunnel behind them. “Just make a line, folks, and follow behind us. We’ll soon be out of here. Just keep calm, and sing to the Lord.” He drew a deep breath and began: “Oh, God, our help in ages past, our hope in years to come… ”

  Celestine smiled into the darkness, and her soprano joined him. “Our shelter from the stormy blast…” and Patsy and the man who held her coat and the woman who held his hand all began to follow the strong baritone who was attempting to lead them away from impending peril.

  Washington could feel his way because of the train, and when the train ended there was the wall of the tunnel. His fingers groped and his feet stumbled and splashed. He was aware that there were a lot of people behind him not singing, just shouting and sobbing, moaning and cursing, falling and being pushed over. His breath became short and his throat dry. The hymn ended, and he swallowed and started again. How long was it to the next station? And the water was rising every minute. It was past his knees, and his legs were feeling like lead. Once Celestine fell, and he had to drag her up again, soaking wet. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep going, when he saw flashing lights ahead of him.

  Several MPs were peering down from a platform, waving their powerful flashlights. “We heard there were people in here. Listen, you guys, you gotta get out, quick. This tunnel
is gonna flood any moment now.”

  Washington helped Celestine up as one of the young men held her hand. “Son,” he said, “you just show us the way.”

  Patsy passed the baby to another soldier and was heaved up out of the water. People stopped singing and began to clap and cheer as they realized they’d all but reached safety. By the dim glow of the flashlights, several stopped to shake the big black man’s hand, and thank him as he handed them up to the platform. But that only embarrassed him. He couldn’t see that he had done anything except walk, and sing.

  “Washington, come on, or we’ll get separated,” Celestine begged.

  “She’s right, mister,” an MP said. “It’s time you were with your family. You’ve done your bit.” He offered his hand while another MP held the other to heave together; Washington Jones was a heavy man… and very tired.

  More MPs appeared with hand-held floodlights, linked to a portable generator, illuminating the stream of frightened humanity, flowing up the stairs ahead, along the crowded platform, and beyond them the swirling black water.

  Washington, Celestine, and Patsy with the baby, were half way up the stairs to the street when frantic screaming exploded from the platform below them. They turned, and, above the heads of the crowd pressing urgently behind them, saw a great wall of water gush out of the tunnel they had just left, engulfing everyone on the platform, sweeping those on the outer edge away with it. Those nearest the wall clung together, clutching at rails, seats, anything that might keep them on their feet in the surge swirling around their chests.