Her Name Will Be Faith

by Christopher Nicole

  The water rose over them and reached even the step on which Washington was standing… and there, spinning at his feet for a few moments, was a little round straw hat with a ribbon. Then it was drawn away into the main stream again, and disappeared.

  Long Island — 12.45 pm

  An enormous gust shook the Rolls Royce; it rose on two wheels, and then thudded back down again with a thump, which drove the breath from J. Calthrop White’s lungs. But he had already been breathless — for over an hour.

  He was on the floor by the back seat, kneeling, heart pounding. He had never experienced anything like this, had never expected to. He was J. Calthrop White. He owned things, from huge buildings down to this car, and he owned people’s opinions as well. Hell, he even owned people. He gave orders, and they were obeyed.

  Why was this happening to him?

  Another gust, and he nearly vomited. The rain was teeming down, now, pounding on the roof of the car; he could hear it gurgling in the ditch. My God, suppose it rose sufficiently to drown him? God, why hadn’t he stayed at home? If he could get home, he’d never leave again. “I mean that, God,” he whispered. “Sincerely.”

  Maybe God wasn’t listening.

  Another sound. Something against the car. My God, he thought, water, trying to push it over. “God,” he whispered. “Save me.”

  The leeward door was clawed open. J. Calthrop White stared in horror at the apparition which climbed into the back beside him. It was capless, uniform torn and filthy, face a bloody mask — there was blood on his feet and staining his breeches, as well.

  “God,” the apparition said. “Oh, God.” He slumped against the seat for several seconds then raised his head. “I’m sorry, Mr White. There isn’t any help.”

  “Where have you been?” J. Calthrop White demanded.

  “Not far,” Murray said with a deep sigh. “Maybe a hundred yards.”

  “You’ve been gone damn near three hours.”

  “Yes, sir,” Murray said. “I’ve spent all that time trying to get back. Mr White, it’s death to be out there.”

  “It’s damn near death in here too.”

  “Mr White,” Murray said, as the car seemed to lift into the air and then thump back down again. “I think we should pray.”

  “What the hell do you think I’ve been doing?” J. Calthrop White shouted. Then his voice lowered. “But you’re welcome to join in. And Murray, if we ever get out of here, you can have your job back.”

  Greenwich Village — 1.00 pm

  “Aaagh!” Marcia screamed. “Benny, I’m scared. I’ve never heard a noise like this. The whole house is shaking.”

  “Guess we’re getting the edge of Faith all right,” Benny agreed.

  They had slept late, very late, and brunched on tinned soup, cheese and fruit at twelve o’clock. Occasionally they had been disturbed by the wind and the thunder. Once they thought they heard a police siren close at hand, and a loudspeaker blaring, but the noise had been subdued by the pounding rain. Then someone had knocked on the street door, several times, and then rung the bell, but they had ignored whoever it had been; in weather like this, with hangovers, bed had seemed the best place to be.

  When they finally got dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen —they had chosen to keep the one in the basement apartment, which was actually below street level — the thunder and lightning and howling wind didn’t seem so ominous, but having come upstairs again, the upper part of the house appeared to be swaying, beams and joists creaking and groaning behind the plaster, and they had to shout to be heard above the noise.

  “Edge of nothing! This has to be the real thing. God!” Marcia cowered back against the door as a violent gust cracked a windowpane.

  “Jees! That whole window will go in a minute; the wood is rotten. We must nail something over it.” Desperately Benny looked around. “What? Quick, what can we use?”

  “Try the plywood back off that old bureau that fell off when we moved it.” Marcia tugged at the ancient piece that had served for years as a dressing table.

  “Yeah, that’ll do. Look, I’ll hold it over the window while you go down for a hammer and nails.”

  When the frail window was safely boarded up, they went round the other rooms, checking that everything was secured, and were halfway down the stairs when the lights went out.

  “Damn,” Benny said. “That means we can’t check the weather on TV.” They groped through the gloomy daylight filtering into the hallway. “Who’d believe it was one o’clock in the afternoon?”

  “Benny, do you think we’re safe here? Shouldn’t we be in a stronger, concrete building?” She peered out at the street. “Jees, it’s dead out there. Not a soul in sight.”

  “Sweetheart, will you just look at the bricks and tiles scattered on the road? It’s dangerous outside, even if you were able to stay on your feet. I reckon we’re a whole lot safer inside, and obviously everybody else thinks so too. Let’s get on with the painting.”

  “How the hell can we paint in this light?” Marcia moaned.

  “I guess they’ll fix it soon,” Benny said, hopefully.

  “You’re an optimist. They took more than a day, last time we had an outage. Well, as there’s only that corner left to do, I guess we could hang the drapes and put the loose covers on the settee and chairs.” Anything to occupy her mind, fight off the pangs of fear which were paralyzing her movements.

  A sudden tremendous crash rocked the building, scattering crockery in the kitchen. It continued to boom and rattle for several minutes.

  “Oh, dear God! What was that?” Marcia was white as a sheet. She followed Benny to the window — then drew back in horror, tears starting to course down her cheeks. The old brown house across the street, loved, tended and preserved in all its traditional character by a young couple who had become good friends of theirs, was now only a heap of rubble. The roof had lifted and fallen back, breaking up as it did so, heavy tiles and supporting joists devastating the floors and walls below.

  “Christ, how did that happen? Could’ve been struck by a bomb. I must go see if I can help them.” Benny started for the door.

  “No, Benny, no! They’re not there. They went to Joyce’s mother for the weekend. Oh, Benny…” Marcia flung herself into his arms. “I’m so frightened. Could…” she gulped. “Could that happen to us?”

  “No way. I told Tom he should’ve had that building surveyed. We’ll be okay, baby.” He held her against him, patting her shoulders and displaying a confidence he was far from feeling. The only comfort was that the new joists they had put in on the second floor had to be a source of strength. Whatever happened upstairs, nothing could come through there. They’d just have to stay down here until this thing blew itself out, and worry about the roof afterwards.

  But he couldn’t avoid a terrible feeling that maybe that police siren and the banging on the door might have been some kind of warning. If only he had even a portable radio — but he’d never bothered; he had always preferred his collection of tapes and his own kind of music to the brainless chat which filled so much air time. And anyway, a hurricane… in Greenwich Village?

  Yet to think of the place opposite. To see a house just collapse…

  But he couldn’t communicate any of his fear to Marcia; she was sufficiently terrified as it was. He said, “Come on and stop worrying. We’ve got work to do. Where are the hooks for the drapes?”

  The young couple tried to concentrate, pushing the hooks into place with fumbling fingers, but they were shaken every few minutes by new bangs and crashes as lightning struck the taller buildings around them, and the ever increasing wind force carried chimney pots, tiles, and even sheets of plate glass slicing through the streets. Half an hour later, the curtains were all neatly in place — but it was hard to appreciate the full effect against the wallpaper and paint — the light was too bad.

  The downstairs windows had old casement shutters, most of which Benny had securely fastened except for the two center folds i
n the lounge. Now he closed these as well. “That last gust nearly took the house with it. We’ll just have to sit in the gloom unless you can find some candles. There’ll have to be…” He never finished the sentence. A deafening roaring, creaking, groaning, whirring, moaning sound thundered round their heads, and showers of ceiling plaster rained down on them.

  Marcia screamed. Benny grabbed her and drew her towards the outer wall, praying that the new joists would hold, but if not, that they would only give in the center. It was impossible to speak — but they both knew the roof had gone. Instinctively they went down the stairs to the comparative safety of the kitchen, closing and locking the door behind themselves. Marcia slid down the wall to sit on the floor, hands clasped over her abdomen in a gesture of protection for their baby. She must look after it. All this frightening experience was so bad for it; she and Benny would both be devastated if she miscarried.

  Suddenly she realized that the floor was wet. “Ugh!” She jumped up and grabbed Benny’s hand. “The rain’s coming through the ceiling,” she yelled in his ear.

  But Benny knew it wasn’t rainwater. It was already swirling round their ankles, and it smelt… of sea and salt. “Upstairs,” he yelled back, and started for the door, icy fingers of terror clawing at his chest, trying to drag Marcia with him.

  They never reached it. With a series of massive, rapid cracks, like a barrage of artillery fire, the door was burst open, and a cascade of water, carrying nameless, stinking flotsam, converged on them in the gloom.

  “Oh, my new drapes!” Marcia cried, a split second before she was swept off her feet. She struggled, lungs bursting, seeking to surface — but she didn’t know which way was up. She thought she felt Benny brush by her and made a grab for him, but it was only a chair.

  “Marcia!” Benny plunged this way and that, surfaced, drew breath… and realized his feet were not touching; the water pouring down from the street was over his height. “Marcia!” he screamed.

  There was no reply.

  He dived, swam desperately, reaching out in all directions, until his lungs were exploding, then he kicked for the surface again.

  But this time there was no surface — his head struck the ceiling.

  East Houston Street — 1.30 pm

  Every few seconds Tootsie shuddered and gazed anxiously at the lounge window. Not that she could see out of it, as heavy rain was hitting it almost like waves, streaming across it horizontally, instead of pouring down on to the sill.

  “You’d think that having called four no trumps she’d have finessed the…” Lila Vail stared at the back of her sister’s head and clicked her tongue. “You’re not listening.”

  I am listening, but not to you, Tootsie thought. Her mind was nearly paralyzed with fear that the window might blow in and her new rug be ruined. Complaints about the inadequacies of members of their Ladies’ Bridge Club was not a stimulating topic in these circumstances. But she supposed she must try to keep Lila happy; her older sister could get quite nasty when irritated. “Of course I’m listening, sweetie. Go on. What did she play?”

  Before Lila could answer there was a deafening crash from above them and even she was distracted. “Shit!” she exclaimed. “That cow upstairs must’ve dropped the piano. Now, as I was saying…”

  The lights flickered and faded off, leaving them sitting in semi-darkness. “Jees! That’s the power gone. We’d better drink that coffee while it’s still hot.” Tootsie groped over to the coffee maker.

  “To hell with coffee. Let’s have some light. Flashlight? Candles? Where do you keep them?”

  “I don’t have either.”

  “Oh, shit! Are you telling me we’re stuck with sitting here in darkness tonight? Sister, if you’d ever had to live in Florida you’d be better prepared than this. How’ll we see to cook our dinner?”

  Lila was getting tetchy, which in turn irritated Tootsie. What right had Lila to complain? They were only here because she had insisted on staying. Left to herself, Tootsie would have preferred to have gone with Dai Evans. That might have been fun, even with his miserable wife along. “Cooking dinner won’t be a problem.” She giggled. “No power, no dinner.” Let old bossy boots put that in her pipe and smoke it.

  “That’s not funny,” Lila snapped. “What are we supposed to eat?”

  “Cheese, and fruit and crisp bread — oh, and we have a tin of sardines I bought for the cat…”

  “Catfish? For dinner! That’s crazy…”

  “Pussikins!” Tootsie called. “Where is she? Hiding under my bed, I’ll bet. Scared stiff ”

  “Damn the cat.”

  “Lila! Will you stop that. Pussikins has been my little pal for years, ever since Edgar passed away…”

  “Okay, okay. Just stop whining…”

  “I’m not the one who’s whining. You were fussing about your dinner…”

  “Shut up!”

  “No, you shut up!”

  Another deafening crash interrupted the quarrel and the two women sat watching in alarm as a hail of bricks and debris fell past the window until a sudden extra gust of wind spun through the street and hurled the missiles through several windows — including theirs.

  Both sisters screamed as drapes and all moveable objects in the room were hurled into a corner. The table cloth carried cups, saucers, sugar and milk bowls with it, pictures flew off the walls, and Tootsie half ran, half fell, about the room trying to rescue her treasures, wailing and moaning.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Lila yelled. But the noise was too great and Tootsie couldn’t hear her. So the older woman grabbed her arm and tried to drag her to the door. Tootsie got the message and with a last agonized glance around her room turned to help Lila, who was tugging at the door handle.

  But the door wouldn’t move, held solid by the pressure on its frame: Neither of them noticed the crack in the wall above their heads.

  New York Harbor — 2.00 pm

  As the center of the hurricane swept in towards the land, it pushed more and more water in front of it. The seas climbed, higher and higher. Fifteen miles from the Narrows, the Ambrose Lightship parted her moorings and was swept towards the beach; nearer at hand the Sandy Hook Light Tower was overwhelmed by sixty-foot waves. In Lower New York Bay, the buoys and lights were scattered, Rockaway Beach, Jones Beach and Coney Island were obliterated. Some of the surging water found its way into Jamaica Bay, and the Wildlife Sanctuary was destroyed; waves broke across the runways at Kennedy and smashed through the glass doors to batter the luggage carousels to pieces. But by far the greater volume of water was funneled into the Narrows, from which it exploded in a mountainous fifty feet of surging sea, bursting across an already turbulent harbor to engulf the Statue of Liberty. For some minutes the recently rebuilt structure defied the waves, even as they struck at the finely chiseled face; the hand holding the torch continued to thrust itself above the water. Then the tremendous force of the storm proved too much for the foundations, and the great statue dissolved, the noise of its fall lost in the howl of the wind.

  The storm surge continued on its way to smash into an already half-submerged Lower Manhattan. Staten Island disappeared beneath flying waves as part of the wave found its way down Kill van Kull into Newark Bay; the main force tore up the East and Hudson Rivers with the force of a gigantic express train.

  The Hudson River — 2.30 pm

  Ernie turned the motorboat in alongside a pier in Yonkers. “This is far enough.”

  “You reckon?” Bill asked uncertainly.

  “Sure. We’re 15 miles from the harbor. All the experts say the danger is in the five miles nearest the sea, right? Besides, I’m starving. Hey, you guys,” he bawled at some men who had just finished mooring their own boat. “Take a line.”

  Nancy raised her head, slowly and sadly, unable to believe that they had really come to rest at last. It had taken them more than five hours to make the journey from Lower Manhattan — fifteen miles. She, and the children, had been violently sick for most of
the time, the wind had been howling, the rain had been pouring, and the waves on the river had been high enough to make her feel she was in a storm at sea. The boat had leaked like a sieve through her decks, and had been leaking through her hull as well — Ernie had had to keep the bilge pump working all the time — and the roughness had been accentuated by the myriad wakes carved back and forth, as it seemed everyone who owned a boat in New York was trying to take it to safety at the same time. Added to which, in the Upper Harbor, and alongside the docks on Hoboken, Weehawken, and on the West Street side, the big ships had their engines going as they had been swinging and heaving at their mooring warps; many had apparently already left the harbor that morning, before the full force of the storm had actually arrived, preferring to risk themselves at sea, where they could use their immense turbines at full power, to remaining trussed up like ducks for the table, with ropes and hawsers which were already beginning to part.

  Nancy wished them joy. She only wanted to get ashore, and several times on the voyage she had consigned her soul to God, as boats had come perilously close, several even colliding, with much grinding of fenders and shouting and swearing from irate skippers and terrified passengers. If Ernie thought that Yonkers was safe, that was good enough for her.

  Her sister-in-law, Marge, obviously felt the same way. “Just let Nance and the kids and me ashore,” she begged. “You can do what you like after.”

  “In one minute, darling,” Ernie promised. “Secure that bow warp, Bill; make it good and fast.”

  The pier was crowded with boats already moored or mooring up, and with their crews. There were a couple of restaurants across the street with their awnings destroyed by the wind, but their interiors could be seen to be packed with people, either having a late lunch or drowning their sorrows. The wind was powerful up here, but not half as strong as it had been down in the harbor.

  As soon as the boat was secured alongside, Marge and Nancy grabbed the children, one by each hand, and staggered up the pier and on to the land. Nancy felt like kneeling down and kissing it, even in the pouring rain. The two women got the four children across the street and into the warmth and forced jollity of the bar, where there appeared to be a huge, if somewhat hysterical, party in progress; they were welcomed as if they were the two special guests for whom everyone had been waiting. A jukebox was blaring, and someone bought each of the women a beer. The children were lifted up to sit on the bar counter and given sodas — there was apparently no question of paying.