Southern Ruby

by Belinda Alexandra

  Someone poked me in the back and I turned to see a toothless woman staring up at me from her urine-soaked cot. ‘You’re an angel,’ she said, pointing at the wing tattoos on my shoulders. ‘I asked God for an angel and he’s sent one.’

  At first I thought I must be hearing things when violin music filled the air. I scanned the area to see where it was coming from and spotted a black man standing in the corner, playing Bach’s ‘Air on the G String’ in the midst of all this despair. The beautiful music entranced me and for one brief moment I was transported from the hell around me.

  ‘It’s like the bloody Titanic, isn’t it?’

  The music’s spell broke. I turned around and saw that it was Dave who had spoken to me. ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘You know,’ he said with a sardonic grin, ‘the part in the movie where the musicians keep playing while the ship sinks.’

  Leroy and I spent the rest of the afternoon and night working in the medical area. Each time I saw the doctor, I’d ask him how Grandma Ruby was. He would only say that she was stable and refused to tell me anything else. He looked so ill and delirious himself in his sweat-stained scrubs that I wasn’t sure he even knew who I was asking about.

  When I told Leroy what the doctor had said, he bowed his head. ‘I can’t lose her, Amandine. Not now. If she dies I can’t go on. When I returned to New Orleans, I made sure she’d never see me but I watched her from afar, always making sure she was all right. If she goes, I’ve got no reason to keep on living.’

  There was a sign on the emergency-area screen that read: Medical Staff Only Beyond This Point. No Volunteers. I moved close to the screen and peered through the gap that served as a doorway. A nurse was squeezing air into a man’s breathing tube using a self-inflating bag. A doctor approached them, felt the man’s pulse and shone a torch into his eyes. ‘He needs more oxygen than that,’ she told the nurse wearily. ‘And we’re all out of oxygen.’

  I stepped back and bumped into a National Guardsman. ‘Get away from here!’ he growled at me. ‘The medics have enough to deal with without having to worry about busybodies!’

  The following day, a guard announced to the medics and volunteers that the special needs patients were about to be evacuated. As the screens came down and the patients were carried or wheeled past, Leroy and I studied every face but Grandma Ruby wasn’t among them. Panic rose in my chest. Had Grandma Ruby died? I ran my hand through my hair and my legs turned to jelly. I glanced at Leroy whose face looked pinched. A sickening feeling gripped my insides. Was this nightmare about to get worse?

  I searched for the doctor who had treated her, but couldn’t find him. I asked another nurse if Grandma Ruby’s name had been on the list of patients to be evacuated.

  She stared at me, then laughed like a mad woman. ‘Girl, you think we’ve got a list? Where do you think you are? The Mayo Clinic?’

  We were then told that the volunteers were to be moved to the Hyatt Hotel, along with the health-care workers and remaining patients. We were informed that the Hyatt was one of the few hotels that hadn’t expelled guests during the hurricane, and Mayor Nagin was now using it as his command centre to inform the rest of the country how desperate things were in New Orleans.

  ‘I’m not leaving till we find out where Ruby is,’ said Leroy.

  I didn’t want to go until we found out what had happened to Grandma Ruby either, but I also suspected if we didn’t take the opportunity to get out now, when it was offered, it might be days before we were rescued — and the food and water here had already run out. Leroy wasn’t the strong looking septuagenarian he’d been a few days ago. He was unsteady on his feet and his eyes were dull. Whatever had happened to Grandma Ruby, I knew the she would want me to take good care of my grandfather.

  ‘I don’t think she’s here,’ I told him, doing my best to hide the tremble in my voice. ‘They must have moved her and we’ll have a better chance of finding out where if we go with the medical staff. One of them must know something.’

  Leroy sighed and after a moment’s hesitation agreed to my plan. We joined a group of volunteers being led to the lower level of the arena. There was a fruit and vegetable truck waiting for us there, and we climbed into the back. The water came to the rim of the truck’s wheels and stank worse than ever. I was sure I could feel the toxic chemicals burning my skin when we had to wade through it.

  Once Leroy was seated, I turned around and noticed an 18-wheel refrigerated truck parked some distance away. Had food and water finally arrived?

  ‘That truck is for the bodies,’ one of the health-care workers whispered to a colleague. ‘I heard that two of them arrived a few hours after the storm passed. Isn’t it strange that the Federal Emergency Management Agency got those mobile morgues here quickly but haven’t done anything for the thousands of living people at the Dome and Convention Centre?’

  I turned away. I couldn’t even allow myself the possibility that Grandma Ruby might be lying in one of those trucks.

  When we entered the Hyatt’s lobby it seemed to be functioning as usual, apart from the plywood-lined walls. Some of the patients from the basketball arena were sitting in chairs around the lobby. A reservations clerk was handing them bottles of water. One of the patients got up to help her. My heart leapt ten feet into the air when I realised it was Grandma Ruby! She must have been transferred to the hotel along with some of the other less critical patients before the special needs patients were evacuated. Leroy recognised her at the same time and we ran towards her.

  Tears brimmed in her eyes when she saw us. ‘Thank God!’ she cried, hugging us both. ‘I was terrified we were going be separated.’

  I clutched her in another fierce embrace. She still looked pale but much better than she had been when we’d arrived at the arena.

  ‘I wasn’t having a stroke,’ she informed us. ‘It was dehydration. The doctor told me to get a thorough check-up when I get out of here before going back on the warfarin.’

  Flambeau wriggled in his box at the sound of Grandma Ruby’s voice, but I couldn’t risk taking him out in the lobby in case we got thrown out of the hotel. We went down a corridor and found an empty meeting room. ‘Go to your henny,’ I told him, taking him out of the box and placing him on the floor. ‘Stretch your legs.’

  Flambeau ran to Grandma Ruby who swept him up into her arms. ‘You’re a good boy,’ she told him, nuzzling her face into his neck. ‘But we aren’t out of the woods yet.’

  Someone coughed and I realised we weren’t alone. I gasped as a man in a hotel uniform appeared from behind a chair. I opened my mouth, trying to think of some convincing reason why we had brought a rooster into the hotel but before I could say anything he lifted a ginger kitten that he’d been playing with on the floor. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said with a conspiratorial smile. ‘Your secret is safe with me. Reggie here has been hiding in my bag and I’ve been bringing him in here for exercise.’

  The hotel staff were as helpful as they could be under the circumstances — finding water for us from their dwindling supply and even serving toast and cereal for breakfast the following day but the toilets were backed up and we had to use bottles and bags for our waste. I realised that I would never take civilised life for granted again.

  Finally, the National Guard announced there was a convoy of buses waiting to transport us out of New Orleans.

  ‘You will be protected by armed guards on your journey,’ one of the soldiers informed us.

  ‘Is that really necessary?’ I asked him.

  ‘There are snipers shooting at volunteers and police all around the city,’ he replied. ‘Law and order have broken down, and there’s a possibility that the buses could be hijacked.’

  Snipers were shooting at volunteers? I thought of Elliot and was sick to my stomach. What if some nutcase with a gun killed him for his boat? Or even just for the hell of it?

  We were directed onto one of the buses. I sat in the seat behind Grandma Ruby and Leroy and took Flambeau out of his box a
nd put him on my lap, covered by one of Grandma Ruby’s scarves. The bus was air-conditioned and I turned the vent to my face and let it blow soothing cool air over me.

  As we drove through the city, I tried to fathom the destruction I saw all around. It looked like someone had dropped a bomb on New Orleans. Fires were burning unchecked. The windows of many high-rise buildings had been blown out and glass, sheets of paper and computer parts littered the streets. Street signals were strewn across the roads and cars lay upside down. I saw dozens of people wading through the foul water with their belongings on their heads, like they had no idea where to go.

  The driver told us over the PA: ‘Mid-City, New Orleans East, Gentilly, Lakeview and the Lower Ninth Ward were all badly hit. St Bernard Parish was totally wiped out. It’s hard to get accurate reports on all the areas but it appears eighty per cent of the city has flooded.’

  Some of the passengers burst into tears, while others sat like mute zombies, too dazed to take in the destruction of the city. One man hugged himself and wept over and over again, ‘I don’t know where my wife is, I don’t know where my kids are, I don’t know where my dog is . . .’

  I leaned forward and pressed my head against the back of Grandma Ruby’s seat. We were the lucky ones but could life ever be normal again after going through what we had?

  ‘Where are you taking us?’ Leroy asked the driver.

  ‘I’ve got instructions to take you to Dallas,’ he replied.

  ‘Dallas, Texas?’ Leroy said. ‘How long is that going to take?’

  ‘Dallas, Texas,’ repeated the driver. ‘We’ll be there in about fifteen hours.’

  We arrived at the Dallas convention centre, which had been turned into a shelter, in the early hours of the morning. The first people I saw were a group waiting outside holding signs that read: God has destroyed the City of Sodom and Gomorrah! New Orleans: Repent and Be Saved! Grandma Ruby shook her head. ‘People have lost their homes, their families and their lives and all those stupid people can do is judge and hate,’ she said. ‘They are like those women who screamed at the children outside William Frantz Elementary School during integration. Hate and judgement turn human beings into idiots, but they never seem to be able to learn that and behave differently.’

  The volunteers inside the convention centre were much more welcoming. Despite our dishevelled and filthy state, they hugged each one of us and expressed their sympathy before directing us where to go next.

  Grandma Ruby’s condition was of immediate concern. Two volunteers helped her into a wheelchair. ‘We’ll take you straight to the medical command centre,’ they told her.

  ‘No!’ she said firmly. ‘You help the people who have no means. We’ll go to a hotel and I’ll get the staff there to call me a doctor.’

  ‘The Westin has rooms,’ one of the volunteers informed us. ‘Let me go get you a cab.’

  When the driver dropped us off, he refused to let us pay. ‘God will pay me back, don’t you worry. You look after yourselves now.’

  It was humiliating to stand in the stylish foyer of the hotel in my filthy clothes and with my hair a rat’s nest, while the immaculately dressed clerk checked us in.

  She asked if we had any luggage and her gaze fell to Flambeau in my arms, wriggling and clucking under the scarf, but she said nothing.

  ‘Let me send you up some room service,’ she whispered. ‘It will be on me.’

  While Grandma Ruby took a shower and Leroy stretched out on the floor — he refused to lie on the bed until he’d cleaned up — I called Aunt Louise.

  ‘Amandine!’ she sobbed when she heard my voice. ‘Oh my God! Where are you? Where’s Momma? Is she all right?’

  ‘We’re fine,’ I told her, nearly dropping the receiver as my hands began to shake. I burst into tears. The shock was wearing off and the trauma was setting in.

  Aunt Louise was too overcome to talk, so Uncle Jonathan came on the line. ‘A journalist acquaintance of mine got us through the National Guard on Wednesday. We found your note that you were evacuating to your friend’s sister’s place,’ he said. ‘But when we rang the number you’d left, Elliot’s sister said none of you had arrived. She’s beside herself with worry. I’ll call her right away.’

  ‘Elliot’s not with us,’ I told him, my voice trembling. ‘I don’t know where he is. When I last saw him he was rescuing people with a rowboat.’

  Uncle Jonathan paused, then said, ‘The house in the Garden District is undamaged, but the power is out and the city has turned off the water. Lake Terrace flooded in some areas, but according to one of our neighbours the water didn’t reach our house. Our office building is a wreck though. We’ve rented a house in Baton Rouge until we figure out what to do. We’ll book flights for you and Ruby to join us here tomorrow. Flambeau can come by pet transport. I can’t see real estate being a booming business in New Orleans for a while.’

  I glanced at Leroy; he’d fallen asleep on the floor. There was going to be a lot of explaining to do when we met Aunt Louise and Uncle Jonathan, but I’d think about that later.

  ‘A good friend of Grandma Ruby’s is with us,’ I told Uncle Jonathan. ‘He’s lost everything in the storm. Can he stay too?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said without hesitation. ‘Give me his name and I’ll get a ticket for him as well. I’ll call you back once we’ve booked the flights.’

  Grandma Ruby came out of the bathroom after I’d hung up with Uncle Jonathan. She kissed Leroy on the cheek to wake him up. The natural closeness between them made them seem like an old married couple. It hard to believe that they hadn’t been together all their lives.

  Leroy offered me the bathroom next, but I told him I was waiting for Uncle Jonathan to call me back. I reclined in the armchair and thought about all the people in New Orleans, like Aunt Louise and Uncle Jonathan, whose livelihoods were gone: the tour guides; entertainers; hoteliers, restaurateurs and waiters; doctors and nurses; construction and council workers; teachers; hairdressers; cleaners and gardeners; accountants; lawyers; shop assistants; plant operators; and oil refinery and shipping workers. As the list grew in my mind, the full significance of what had happened and what the after effects would be hit me. Was New Orleans even going to be able to come back from this? Perhaps I had been witness to the last days of the city. Exhaustion overcame me and my eyes drooped. Despite my intention to wait for Uncle Jonathan’s call, I surrendered into a deep sleep.

  I woke a few hours later to see a good-looking elderly couple staring at me.

  The man was wearing a golf shirt, khaki shorts and loafers. The woman was decked out in a Hawaiian-print pantsuit with a white beach hat.

  ‘Well, you were lights out to the world, weren’t you?’ said the woman. ‘We couldn’t wake you for anything! Not even when Johnny called back, or room service arrived.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said, struggling to sit up. ‘Where did you get those clothes? You look like a couple of escapees from a Florida retirement village!’

  ‘The spare clothes we brought with us smell like the Superdome and resort wear was all we could find in the mall,’ Grandma Ruby replied. ‘We got some things for you too.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ I said, rubbing my face and discovering it was gritty with dirt. ‘I’ll take them into the bathroom with me. Did you see a doctor?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, she checked me over and filled the script for the warfarin. I feel fine, Amandine. You’ve got to stop worrying. You’re the one who looks like a wreck now.’

  In the bathroom, I peeled off my skirt, top and underwear, dropped them in the bin and tied off the plastic bag. They stank like week-old garbage and there was no point trying to salvage them.

  I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. I was burned, peeling and filthy. Nan’s pendant was still around my neck, and I took it off and rinsed it under the tap. Then I turned to get in the shower and saw the angel wings on my back.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, brushing my hands over them. ‘Thank you.’

  I
wasn’t exactly sure who I was thanking. My mother for being my guardian angel? Or Nan? All I knew was that I was alive and that was something to be very grateful for.

  When I stepped out of the shower, I smothered myself in the hotel’s lavender-scented moisturiser, even though it stung my skin, then put on the clean underwear Grandma Ruby had bought me. She’d also acquired a floral shirt-dress, a pair of ankle boots and some aviator sunglasses.

  ‘Not too bad,’ she said with a giggle when I modelled them for her.

  I put my mobile phone on charge and checked to see if there were any messages from Elliot. There weren’t. But there was a frantic one from Tamara and I realised I’d never called her back.

  ‘Oh, God!’ she cried when she heard my voice. ‘We’ve seen the pictures on TV! We were so worried when we didn’t hear back from you. Come home, Amanda! You can’t stay there.’

  I rested my head against the back of the chair. ‘I’ll call you as soon as things settle down,’ I promised her.

  Hearing Tamara’s voice was like being called back to another life, to safe Sydney with no guns, no hurricanes, and nice sane people. But those couple of weeks in New Orleans before the storm had shown me another life, another way of being. Crazy maybe, but also . . . expanded, richer, full of possibilities. I’d seen the best of New Orleans and now it was gone, blown away before my eyes.

  ‘Let’s get something to eat,’ said Grandma Ruby, touching my shoulder.

  She’d rolled up a blanket so Flambeau could sit comfortably in an armchair with a bowl of oats she’d found in the mini-bar. Leroy put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door so the maids wouldn’t discover our feathered companion.

  When the three of us got in the elevator to go downstairs, we looked at our reflections in the mirror. ‘I feel like I’m going to a Halloween party with my wife and granddaughter,’ Leroy said. We all laughed so hard I thought my sides would split. I’d never imagined I could ever laugh like that again.