Anders offered Fiona his hand, and helped her to her feet. But he didn’t meet her eye. His mind was occupied with someone else. Though she knew what he said next was right—“The fire’s too big to know where it will go, the wind’s too strong for it to die, and it’s moving faster than can be kept up with”—the old sorrow welled within her, and she was afraid that if he saw Emmeline, she’d be robbed of all that happened between her and Anders over the past hours.
“But,” Anders concluded, “we have to try.”
For a moment, Mr. Carter seemed not to hear Anders. Then he howled into his hands, a sound Fiona had never heard from him or any human being. Eventually he nodded, said, “All right,” and with a wince began moving to the door. “You’re right, you’re right. Check his pockets for a key—Georgie said he must have the key to the room where he locked up Emmeline.”
The alacrity with which Anders bent and rummaged through the pockets of Freddy’s formerly white jacket pained Fiona, though she tried not to show it when he stood, held the key aloft, and said: “Here, I found it.” And she had to be stern with herself not to feel forgotten when he added, “We must find her. We had better find her right away.”
Anders turned to Fiona then, and though his face was torn with worry his eyes were searching hers for what to do. He wanted to know what she thought they should do, just as he said he always had. She gave him a little nod of agreement—he was right, they must try to reach Emmeline—and he drew his hand along her jaw, and pressed his lips ardently into her cheek. Then he clasped her hand, to lead her out of the abandoned pawnshop. Everything he did suggested he loved her, but Fiona couldn’t help but remember what he’d said before. Once upon a time, so he said, she had insisted he be sweet on Emmeline until he was—and she couldn’t help but wonder if that sort of feeling can easily go away.
Thirty-One
Chicago shall stand forever, for she is the unbeatable city. But if she should fall, she will fall completely, for Chicago never does things by half-measures.
—Aphorism of Ochs Carter
Six hours after the fire began, what was once downtown had been ravaged, and the path of the flames had herded refugees into curious sanctuaries. The fire had sometimes leapt over buildings, over whole blocks, leaving safe patches in its wake. But they were not really safe—the fire was often blown back, thus consuming what it had missed the first time. The lobby of the Nevada Hotel was such a place, where the fine and the lowborn clustered together with frightened families in bedclothes and defeated firemen, telling stories of what they had seen. The room was lit with candelabras, for the gasworks had long ago ceased functioning, and those who remained there occupied its pretty corners with a reckless fatalism, as though it were the last place left in the whole world. Even this place, with its fancy furniture and rose-patterned wallpaper, might soon be gone.
The waterworks was out, and the firemen could no longer do what they had been trained to do on nights like tonight. Except—there had never been a night like tonight, a fact that everyone in the room knew, and felt no need to say. The Illinois Hook and Ladder Company’s last stand had been another hotel, the St. James on the corner of Washington and State—they had dragged the occupants from their rooms, while others scaled the mansard roof to try to put down the flames there. But there was no water, and they’d been reduced to stamping out embers with their feet. In a little while, they were forced to watch from the curb, among the shocked patrons and staff, as the place went up like a piece of paper put to a candle’s flame.
The Nevada took them in, serving coffee out of large silver urns. But the firemen wanted only whiskey, and darkly warned those who rested upon their trunks and salvaged possessions that they might soon have to move again. Among these was Gabriel, who had tried hard to exhaust himself by joining every battlefront against the fire that he could. Since that terrible moment when he misjudged the location of the West Side blaze, Gabriel had tried never to rest for a second, never to pause long enough to think, lest the terrible, inky guilt stain him.
Later, when the city was a charred ruin, as stark and barren of purpose as Pompeii, when causes were being determined and assessments made, it would become generally known that as many as seven companies had seen the burning barn from their own stations and arrived on the scene within twenty minutes. Those who had witnessed it on the street said that it had moved too fast to be contained, for that part of town was all sheds and dry wood. That there was no one person, really, to blame. Yet, for many years, whenever Gabriel paused to think long enough, he felt a stab of responsibility for having slept at the wrong time.
Though he was not the first of the firemen in the Nevada lobby to notice the odd trio demanding the use of a vehicle at the front desk, he was the first to recognize them. It was his cousin Anders, and Fiona Byrne (with whom Anders had been inseparable as a child), and Ochs Carter, who had once been a person of importance in the neighborhood, and was, like all people of importance there, an intimidating figure. His fortune, they said, originated in the backroom card games of the old neighborhood, but now included stockyard and railroad holdings.
“Anders!” Gabriel exclaimed. Even now—weary from whatever he had been through, his clothes burned and blackened—you could see the best of Anders’s parents in him. The determination of his father, the big, blue-eyed Swede, with those made-of-stone features; and the quickness of his mother, Gabriel’s mother’s sister, who had been delicate yet sharp of tongue. Gabriel’s aunt had died—it must have been more than five years ago. And afterward, old Magnuson just walked off.
Gabriel would never know the comfort he gave Anders when he called his name, and reminded him that he did have a relation in the city, and that that relation had so far come through the night alive. He only knew how grateful he himself was that the great Anders Mag responded by calling his name in happy surprise, and striding across the room to embrace him.
“Gabriel!” he said again. “Thank god.”
And Gabriel, thankful to be recognized and so warmly greeted, and perhaps to be of some good purpose, said, “I will help you get where you want to go. A few bridges are still open. It won’t be easy, but we’ll try.”
Outside the fire had become its own weather. A tornado of sparks and debris whirled overhead, hurtled through the canyons between the buildings, pulled Fiona’s braid apart and whipped her clothes against her skin. Despite the fury with which the elements beat her body, she could not escape the idea of Emmeline, holding that lantern in the barn that was no more, finally learning the secret Fiona had kept from her, and in the worst possible way.
I am the one who has been untrue, Fiona thought, and tried not to let herself imagine the danger her friend was in, nor the sense of betrayal she must have lived through on what might be her last night on earth.
Thirty-Two
She left the web, she left the loom
She made three paces thro’ the room
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look’d down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
‘The curse is come upon me,’ cried
The Lady of Shalott.
—Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott” (1842)
A listlessness came over Emmeline that she could not shake.
She had shouted herself hoarse trying to get the attention of the people on the street, but the wind had changed directions, and was now howling in her face, shouting her down. The world was in a kind of daze, every soul lost in its own horror and panic. Perhaps Emmeline was already a kind of shade, invisible to the living.
Below, on Michigan Avenue, the residents seemed to have comprehended that the conflagration would reach them, too. It was not—as was so often the case—a fire of the lower classes. Here, on Terrace Row, they were dragging their rosewood furniture down the stoop, their rolled oriental rugs, their vases and mirrors, their
portraits and statuary, and piling it all across the street, draping blankets over the treasure, as though that could save them. They sat upon their couches in the open air to watch the end. It was, Emmeline had to admit, something to behold. The awful spectacle she had witnessed from the roof was unlike anything she had ever seen—terrible and beautiful at once, like a glorious blaze set by some pagan goddess bent on destroying her worshippers for their insufficient ardor.
At times, she told herself that she was safe here, in this fortress of a house. It had solid stone walls, didn’t it? But she had indulged in a great deal of self-deception in the last days and months, and had lost her capacity for it. After she saw the courthouse succumb she knew that the destruction would, at last, come this way. That it was her fate. This room, this day, this fire. She had tried, in her way, to have a glamorous life, but she had lacked conviction when it mattered most. Perhaps it was a suitable end, to be locked in a tower, like the Lady of Shalott in the poem her tutor had insisted she memorize.
“You cannot sing, you cannot play piano,” Miss Anjou had admonished her. “The least you can do is have a poem or two to recite.”
Now Emmeline whispered the words to herself as she saw to her appearance.
“I am half sick of shadows,” she intoned as she took down her hair, and brushed it, plaited it, and arranged it around her head. She removed the dangling bows from her dress, and redid the buttons at her wrists. She painted her eyes and mouth, and put a little dab of perfume behind her ears. When she had first read the Tennyson poem, she had not understood why the Lady should be so lonesome, dwelling by herself as she did, occupied with her loom and her dreams. There was so much to do, and so much to see! And anyway, wasn’t the point of being a pretty girl to go into the world and be admired while you could? But now she saw that a girl doesn’t decide what kind of life she will have. That was a decision life made for you. And if you tried, as the Lady did, to be free, a tragic death would swallow you soon enough.
When she was suitably made up, Emmeline went to the polished oak escritoire and took out pen and paper. In her practiced hand, she wrote: I, Emmeline Carter Tree, do leave all my worldly possessions—dresses, shoes, furnishings, books, etc.—to my best friend, Fiona Byrne, as well as any currencies, investments, or properties held in my name. Then she signed it, and lay herself down on the bed. She knew of course that such a will would most likely be destroyed along with everything else, but it made her feel better to have provided for Fiona, or intended to, anyway.
Even now, when she thought of Fiona, her eyelids squeezed tight with the painful memory of what she witnessed in the barn. But she found that the pain was somewhat lessened when she wished Fiona good instead of harm.
So she clutched the hastily written will, closed her eyes, and waited for the worst. The crackle of flame and the sweat that pooled between her upper lip and the tip of her nose were frightening. But the piece of paper in her hand gave her courage, and as the minutes passed, a memory came to her of a clear, sunshiny day when they had climbed to the roof of Mr. Carter’s office, and looked out across the whole city, with its marble stores and limestone monuments and spires and clock towers. The city had looked clean and permanent at that time of day. Fiona and Anders and she had pointed out the big houses they particularly liked, and said that when they were grown they would live there, and they had been very happy in the belief that they really might.
“You shall always be welcome in my home, Miss Byrne,” Emmeline had said, in the fluty voice of fancy folks.
“And you shall always be welcome in mine,” Fiona had replied, and they laughed, because they’d known it would be true no matter whether they lived in one of those grand places, or in a garret somewhere. The memory made Emmeline’s heart placid, and she thought that if she could only stay in the sweetness of that memory, death would not be so terrible after all. Perhaps, if she concentrated very hard, her soul, released from her body, would travel through the air and rest eternally in that happy day with Fiona.
Thirty-Three
My dear one,
When you are gone, my heart is poisoned thinking you will leave me for another. Promise me you will return and not forget me.
Yours,
Bunny
—Family letters found scattered on Twelfth Street, October 9, 1871
At last the sun came up, and she knew their buggy was moving east once again. In the course of a long night their little band had stopped remarking on the sights, but it was alive in her memory, more real than her own slack limbs and weary eyes. She kept trying to catch a glance from Anders, but he had remained stoic all the while, fixated on the road ahead.
Upon first leaving the Nevada Hotel, they had lost a quarter hour in securing the buggy. The price had been a hundred dollars, and the previous owner was a man who seemed likely to have acquired it by force. At first they’d traveled east, hoping to take the most direct route to Terrace Row, but they had been dissuaded from continuing on by a policeman who occupied a corner of Wells. Mr. Carter was determined, and argued with the officer, and might even have ignored his command, had they not glimpsed the sea of flame that filled the street beyond. They were warned that all the bridges of the main branch had been destroyed, so they could not go around by a northerly route, either. Fiona had always known Mr. Carter to be fastidious in the maintenance of his property, but when they began to hear rumors that the fire was raging on the North Side, that it was spreading voraciously through the genteel blocks and had already destroyed Lill’s Brewery—which was situated near the shore, beyond the Carter residence—he did not seem to consider that this might have anything to do with him.
He spoke only of Emmeline, and how to reach her.
The streets were no less thronged than before, although the faces they saw now were dark with ash, and everyone had singed clothes or hair. The rumors were wild, but consistent enough to be believed: the courthouse, the post office, the Palmer, Field & Leiter, the First National Bank, and the Opera House had all been swallowed in flame. As they reached the south branch of the river, they learned that the Madison Street Bridge was impassable, and they had to travel north again to Randolph Street, the span of which was filled with hundreds, pushing and shouting as they made their way across.
The river below them was full of tugs and skiffs, as busy as high noon. When they reached the far side, they glanced back and saw the Nevada, where they had rested, go up like a book of matches that has been ignited all at once. In a matter of minutes, the facade caved in. A tower of flame shot up in its place, hundreds of feet into the air, and the wind caught it, and carried its furious heat to another high roof.
In the end, they’d had to go south all the way to Twelfth Street to cross the river again.
Now, with the new day rising, they had finally turned north. They were approaching Harrison Street when they heard the first explosion. Fiona instinctively put her hand over her ears, although loud sounds no longer surprised her.
“General Sheridan,” Gabriel said, his face fearful and impressed.
“That must have been damn close,” Mr. Carter said, and urged the horses on. “Wabash, probably. Maybe the Methodist church. What else would make such a bang?”
By then they could see Terrace Row, the impressive stone facade of those eleven contiguous town houses, as well as the smoke that rose from the back buildings, the flames that licked the rear walls. Across Michigan Avenue, the lagoon was full of debris, scattered there by the wind and waves. The residents of that part of town had not been careless with their things—they had carried down dining tables and sofas, pianos and china sets, and now sat among them, as though they were waiting to board an ocean liner.
“That’s the one!” Mr. Carter said, and jumped down from the buggy.
But as soon as his feet met the ground, his legs failed him. He cried out in anguish and pain. Gabriel followed, lifting him from the street, and Anders bent to assist from the other side.
“Which one?” Anders asked.
Mr. Carter pointed an accusing finger at the house that had once belonged to Freddy Tree. Another explosion shook the earth, south of where they stood.
“Please, Fiona,” Mr. Carter said. “Please help my Emmeline.”
Fiona had not imagined she would be the one who would be called upon to free Emmeline. A long while ago, on a warm October night, in a barn in a dusty and unimportant part of town, Emmeline had seen something that made her drop her lantern and run away. That thing, Fiona had believed, would break their friendship apart forever. But it hadn’t, somehow.
“Yes, of course.” Fiona’s body felt cold and clear, as though her fate were already sealed, and there was no sense in fighting it anymore. She climbed down from the carriage, and tied her hair back from her face. When she had set out that morning, her skirt had been black and her shirt had been white, but now they were more or less the same color. She was all smudged with the dirty snow that continued to drift from above.
“Wait!” Anders called after her, but Fiona knew she would lose her resolve if she looked at him. If she let herself remember his easy smile or the sweetness of his touch. She was halfway up the limestone steps, and had resolved not to stop until she found Emmeline. “You can’t go in there.”
“I have to,” she said at the door. “It has to be me. I can’t abandon her now.”
His fingers wrapped around her elbow, and for the first time in some hours Fiona felt her shock and terror thaw. Felt a little glow of hope that, at the end of this, Anders might still be there, that they might resume what they started in the barn. “Please let me be the one,” he said.
When We Caught Fire Page 23