The Sky Is Falling

by Caroline Adderson

An elderly couple got in with us. “Thirty-two,” said Carla and I pressed the button. The man, stooped and sporting bulbous hearing aids, asked for the sixteenth floor. We ascended in silence, my gaze flitting nervously from Sonia to the numbers illuminating in excruciatingly slow sequence above the door. I could hear the elderly couple breathing behind us, no doubt staring at the radiation symbols stencilled on our backs, putting two and two together. The elevator stopped—on the fifth floor, not the sixteenth—and in that eternal pause before the door retracted, we exchanged a look of panic. To be caught so soon, with the pockets of our radiation suits bulging with undistributed leaflets.

  It was Pete. Pete alone, staring off to the side, the mask under his chin like a huge white goitre. Until then I wasn’t aware his charm was something he could control, that it was more than the sum of his good looks and orthodontic work, but now he saw us in the elevator and turned on all his lights. (Radioactive sprang to mind.) When he beckoned, Belinda took a tranced step toward him. We all did. We shuffled obediently out. Behind us, the old woman said to her husband, “There’s another one! Is there something going on in this hotel?”

  “They have conferences!”

  “Oh!”

  The door closed on them, leaving us standing in the hall with Pete. “What are you doing?” Belinda asked. “Where’s Timo?”

  “I want to talk to you.” He made a sweeping motion to dismiss the rest of us and Sonia pressed the elevator button.

  “Are you crazy?” Belinda said. “We’re in the middle of an action!”

  When the elevator came, Sonia held the door for Carla. “Go,” Pete told her but Carla crossed her arms and wouldn’t budge. Sonia and I got in and travelled up alone, floor numbers lighting up all over the panel as though we were already being pursued. We got out on the thirty-second floor, according to the plan, and worked the long hall without incident, sliding a leaflet under each door, meeting no one, the only sound the friction of our suits. In the thrill of the work, we forgot about Pete being such a hot-head, finished, and went down two more floors, also as planned, stooping before each door again, sliding our warning through. I was taking action. As long as I was taking action, we were safe. Here and there a room-service tray bore the congealed remains of a midnight snack, pop stagnant in the bottom of a glass, wadded napkins—a still life of waste. I stepped right over it. I’d fallen into a rhythm: stoop, drop the leaflet. One sharp tap to send it under the door. Three paces to the next room: repeat. Tap. The leaflet shot through.

  “What’s this? Pizza?”

  I was still bent over, staring now at a pair of long bunioned feet with frosted nails. Slowly, I straightened, the way you would if you chanced upon a bear. Against the bright white of her robe her paper-bag cleavage seemed years older than her face, her raised eyebrows two thin lines in a child’s drawing. I turned to see where Sonia was. Way down at the end of the hall, staring back at me. Condensation formed inside my mask.

  The woman leaned out the door. “Oh. There’s two of you.” She beckoned to Sonia, kept moving her hand, winding her in. I searched Sonia’s eyes above the mask as she drew closer. We could easily bolt but Sonia showed no sign of wanting to. The woman, meanwhile, tried reading the leaflet from several distances before giving up and asking us in. She hummed a few bars of “London Bridge” as we shuffled under her arm. “You are girls?”

  Sonia pulled her mask down. “We’re women.”

  All the gold in her mouth showed when she laughed. “Fine. Little women. I’ll call you—can I see you?” We both took off our hoods and she scrutinized me. “I’ll call you Jo. And you,” she told Sonia, “you are surely Beth.”

  She walked over to the beds with their unmade floral spreads. Her glasses were on the side table next to some prescription bottles. She put them on and looked around for the leaflet, turning a complete circle before Sonia picked it off the floor and handed it to her.

  “Thank you. Sit down. There’s—there they are.” By the window, two armchairs no one made a move to sit in. Sonia and I watched her read. “Oh. You’re protesters.” She looked at us over the top of the glasses. “Sit down.”

  Sonia sat on one of the beds, so I did.

  “Can I offer you girls—excuse me. Jo. Beth. Can I offer you a drink?”

  “No, thank you,” Sonia said. “We’re working.”

  “I’ll have one if you don’t mind. Jo?”

  I shook my head.

  She crouched before the miniature fridge so her legs jutted through the robe’s opening, all the way to the tops of her veined thighs. I averted my eyes. When I looked next, her backside was swaying before us, huge and white. She had dropped onto one knee and was gripping the shelf of the mini bar, trying to get back on her feet. As soon as she was steady again, she disappeared into the bathroom. Though there were clean glasses right there on the bar, she came back with one that had a toothbrush in it, adding a few shards of nearly melted ice from the bucket, then the clear contents of the bottle she uncapped with her teeth. She crossed the room and sank into one of the armchairs. “Now,” she said, stirring with the toothbrush, tossing it aside. “Tell me all about this awful missile.”

  Sonia told her. She opened one of the leaflets and referred to the grainy pictures and graphs as she talked. “It’s a first-strike weapon. They think—”

  “Who?”

  “The Americans. They think that nuclear war is inevitable and that they can win by launching a pre-emptive strike. But they’re insane if they think you can win a nuclear war. It’s suicide. Back in September? After the Soviets shot down that Korean airliner? Do you remember? We were this close. And Trudeau is allowing the Americans to test the cruise missile in Alberta. So we’re implicated as much as they are.”

  She talked about how many weapons the Americans and the Soviets had amassed, how many times over we would all be killed. She mentioned the Doomsday clock. “That’s awful,” the woman said. “Just awful. They really are a bunch of bastards,” and she drained the glass and slammed it on the table. “I see you have more of those flyers.”

  “Yes,” we said.

  “Because, Jo, Beth, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to go early to dinner tonight and I’m going to put them under everybody’s plate.” She thrust her chin in the air the way I’d seen Belinda do. “Everybody’s. What do you think of that?”

  Sonia stared. “Are you with the conference?”

  “Not really. I get dragged around.” She sniffed and waved a hand toward the window behind her. “I do like this Robson Street.” Then, as though reminded of the world outside, she turned, showing us the sleep-matted back of her head.

  Sonia and I got up and went over to the window and the three of us looked down. The West End high-rises looked so tiny. We saw Stanley Park, a miniature Lion’s Gate Bridge, water water everywhere giving off a silvery sheen. Sonia tapped the pane. “We live over there. In Kitsilano.”

  With my eye I followed the beaches—Jericho, Locarno, Spanish Banks. Around the end of Point Grey was Wreck Beach, the nudist beach at UBC. I couldn’t see it from here, but the Buchanan Towers, where Kopanyev had his office, were perfectly visible. He was probably sitting there right now, puzzling over my absence.

  “What’s that big island?” the woman asked.

  “Vancouver Island.”

  “I thought we were on Vancouver Island.”

  Sonia leaned against the glass, prepared, it seemed, to fall right into the city. Her mouth left a foggy circle, like the translucent shadow of the radiation mask.

  “It’s very beautiful here,” the woman said, yawning.

  “Yes. Can you imagine it destroyed?”

  “Unfortunately, I can. I’m from Detroit.”

  Sonia turned to her with clasped hands. “Would you really put leaflets under the plates?”

  “Oh, Beth. It would give me tremendous pleasure. You have no idea.”

  Sonia went over to the bed and counted out twenty leaflets and placed them on the table.
“Will that be enough?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Thank you so much. Now we have to finish handing these out.”

  The woman was still gazing out the window, her eyes half shut, glasses cocked, but she came to enough to wave to us. “Farewell, little women!”

  In the hall outside, Sonia bounced on her toes. “Jane, I’m so happy. See how easy it is? No one wants to die. We just have to explain the situation like we did with her.”

  I wasn’t so sure the woman would even remember the leaflets by dinner though I didn’t say this. I let Sonia bounce. I let her be a rabbit. After all, who knew what effect our words would have? Maybe we would be her provenance. We continued leafleting and soon came to a door propped open with a cleaning trolley. The maid was standing in the middle of the room, a rag in her hand, hypnotized by something on the television. Sonia had her in her sights, but I wanted to try now. I tapped on the door. The maid snapped the TV off and swung around to face us. “Sorry to bother you,” I began. “We’re wondering if we might talk to you about something that’s going on in this hotel.”

  She gestured vigorously. “No Ingleesh!”

  In the elevator I still felt charged. It was what kept the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses going despite how many doors are slammed in their faces. If one soul could be saved, even one. Sonia said, “Now I don’t know what to do. I feel like we should keep talking to people. But someone has to get arrested.”

  “Pete will, I bet.”

  “I hope so,” she said as the elevator opened and we stepped right out into the waiting arms of a crimson-faced security guard. “Stop,” he said. It was a plea, rather than a command. I was momentarily horrified, but Sonia could not believe our luck. She smiled and put her hands up like in a Western.

  “Thank you,” he told us, breathlessly. “I’ve just been chasing your friend around.”

  “Who?” Sonia asked.

  The guard took a handkerchief from his breast pocket, the one appliquéd with the Hyatt crest, and wiped his face. Now that he had us, he switched to sarcasm. “Sorry. I didn’t catch his name.” A staticky ejaculation sounded from deep inside the jacket and he whipped a walkie-talkie out, clearly deriving a childish pleasure from handling it. We got a brief glimpse then of the other thing in the jacket—the belly straining against the belt. “Interception on twenty-eight. Two more coming down.” He reholstered his toy. “You have to come with me. Not that way. We gotta take the stairs. Here.” He seized Sonia’s arm, then mine. This was when we were supposed to go limp. I waited for Sonia to go first. She pulled her mask off. “We won’t run away.”

  “Sure you won’t.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “The big guy?”

  “Timo,” Sonia said to me. “If he was alone, that’s not good. Where’s Pete?”

  When we got to the stairwell door, the guard nodded for Sonia to open it since both his hands were full. It shut heavily behind us and we found ourselves in a concrete shaft much like a bomb shelter. A vertical bomb shelter with thirty-some floors of Escher handrails. Our steps echoed as we started down, the suits swished, and the guard’s breath came in nasal spurts. “Are you going to call the police?” Sonia asked him.

  “That depends on how much trouble you are.”

  “Oh, we won’t be any trouble.”

  “Then you should be fine.”

  “It’s the people at this conference who are making trouble,” I said, with a glance at Sonia. She nodded, adding, “But you can call the police if you want. We’ll go peacefully.”

  We reached the next landing. She pulled her hood down and shook out her hair, which I took as a signal. “You probably wonder why we’re here,” I began.

  “Nope.”

  “There’s a conference in this hotel. One of the companies involved is making the guidance system for the cruise missile. Do you know anything about the cruise missile?”

  “Sure. I read your leaflet.”

  “Then you understand,” I said.

  “No, I don’t. I don’t understand at all. You look pretty young. You should be in school, shouldn’t you?”

  “That’s true. We should be, right, Sonia? If we felt safe, we would be in school, but we don’t. We feel—imperilled.”

  Sonia liked this word. She smiled. By this point the guard’s hold on us was procedural rather than restraining. The more laboured his breathing, the more symbolic his touch, which alarmed me for we were only going down. He wasn’t old. Aftershave emanated from him, stronger as he heated up.

  “Are you married?” Sonia asked.

  “I don’t have to answer your questions.”

  She raised the arm he was holding and looked at his wedding band.

  On every second landing, we passed a heavy metal door like the one we’d entered through, with the number of the floor painted on it. The guard was perspiring copiously now and, worried for him, I asked to take a break. He looked relieved as he shepherded us into the corner of the stairwell, spreading his legs wide to block us in, yanking out his handkerchief. “Sorry about the trouble,” Sonia said.

  “Sure you are.”

  “We are. We really are.”

  He swabbed the back of his neck and face, then meticulously refolded and restored the soggy cloth. I sensed he was stalling. His chest heaved. Sonia asked, “Do you have kids?” just as the walkie-talkie woke up with what might have been “Jack?”

  “Yeah. We’re on our way down,” he answered. We heard the word situation in the reply. “So I should just leave these ones here?” he asked.

  “Ah?”

  “I’ll be there when I get there. Over.” And he sighed.

  “Is your name Jack?” Sonia asked.

  “He called me Jock.”

  “It’s Jock?”

  He looked at her sidelong. “It’s a joke. No more chit-chat. Let’s get going.”

  “I’m Sonia. This is Jane.”

  He smirked as we started down again. I could hear that his breath sounded more normal now for a too-fat man. I kept glancing at Sonia, who was making tartar of her bottom lip. She was, I guessed, thinking of another plan. Sure enough, as we neared the next landing, her eyes slid sideways, slyly, to meet mine the second before she slipped. Her bum hit the concrete stair and, with the guard still holding us, she almost brought me and him down on top of her. “Ow! Ow! Ow!” Her howls reverberated in the shaft. “My ankle!” she cried, rubbing her tailbone.

  “I’ll get some ice,” I said.

  “Wait!” Jock shouted as I bounded back up the stairs and burst into the hotel proper. I was gone less than three minutes, jogging the halls in search of an ice machine, but when I returned, Jock was sitting on the stairs with Sonia, showing her a photograph, apparently to distract her from her pain. She beamed over her shoulder at me. “See? I told you she’d come back. Look, Jane! Aren’t they cute?”

  I exchanged the ice I’d carried in the bowl of my mask for the photograph. Two little girls posing on a fur rug. One was missing a tooth. “How old are they?” I asked.

  “Seven now. They were five when that was taken.”

  Sonia rolled her sock down and delicately painted her anklebone with an ice cube. When the walkie-talkie sounded off again, she told him, “Just don’t answer it. Is it fun, having twins?” “It’s fun now, but in the beginning—oh, my God. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”

  “Jock? Jock?”

  “Can you put any weight on it?”

  “I’ll try. Ow! Ow! Just a sec.” She sank back on the stair and filled the sock with ice. It actually looked sore then. Using the railing, she hoisted herself to her feet. The grimace was real. “This should be interesting,” she said, hopping down a step.

  “I think we can use the elevator.”

  “No,” said Sonia. “I don’t want to get you in trouble. I can do it.” She hopped down another step. I tried to look as blank as possible. There was a kind of bird that did this very thing, I remembered. It would feign a broken wing
to save its offspring.

  “That’s the way,” said Jock. “You’re doing great.”

  When we had made it down to the twelfth floor, Sonia said, “I can’t believe you don’t worry about them.”

  “Who?”

  “Sara and Michelle.”

  She knew their names!

  “Who says I don’t?” Jock said.

  “I mean that you wouldn’t do absolutely everything in your power to keep them safe. You seem so nice.” He pulled his head back, insulted, and a few extra chins appeared. Sonia said, “I’d do anything for my child. Except that I don’t have one and I never will.”

  “Why not, if you’re so keen on them?”

  “I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring a baby into the world knowing what’s going to happen.” She gripped the railing. Hop.

  He stopped. “It’s just a job, okay? A person has to have a job.”

  I jumped in again. “That’s what everyone says. The people at the conference who make the weapons. Reagan. Andropov. They’re just doing their jobs.”

  “We live in a free country,” said Jock. “I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Me too,” Sonia said. “I hate politics. But this isn’t about politics. It’s about life.”

  “I get your point. I even agree with you—somewhat. But I still can’t let you run around in here dressed up like that. I’ll get fired. Then how am I going to feed my girls?”

  “Would you call the police?” Sonia asked.

  “Why? I’m here so the police don’t have to be. I’m going to escort you out. Peacefully, right?”

  “Of course,” Sonia said.

  I thought of something then. “We still have leaflets. You could put them with the tourist brochures later. No one would ever know it was you.”

  To see a person change his mind. It seemed more beautiful and moving than any sunset or spring flower. Here was a man who had believed one thing twenty minutes ago, who, before our very eyes, became convinced of something else. I gave Sonia all the credit. How had she done it? Not so much with words, though pleading was part of her success. It was mostly that you took one look at her and saw she embodied the fears of every child. You wanted to save her from any harm.