Out of the Ashes

by Lori Dillon

  Only then did relief wash over him.

  Somewhere in the distance, he heard the wail of an ambulance siren. Someone must have finally called for help.

  He tore his eyes from Sera’s face and looked up to see Heberto kneeling across from him, his dirt-covered hands clasped tightly in front of his chest as if in prayer. The old man’s lower lip quivered, and his glistening eyes met David’s as a single tear trailed down his dirty, weathered cheek.

  *

  Marsha dodged through the crowd of people, fear making her clutch at the coat she held draped over her head to protect her hair from the rain. Finally, spying Hershel standing among the other workers, she plowed toward him, grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him to the side.

  “I heard there was an accident at the site. What on Earth happened?”

  Hershel leaned against the outer wall of the ruins and mopped at his dirty neck with his handkerchief. He breathed heavily, looking like he’d just run a marathon.

  “Dump truck… dirt everywhere… little Antonio… Serafina… buried…”

  Marsha rested her hands on Hershel’s shoulders and tried to calm his nerves.

  “Slow down, and tell me what happened.”

  He finally managed to tell Marsha the story in short, choppy sentences, leading up to the moment they pulled a lifeless Serafina from the pile of dirt.

  Marsha felt her stomach plummet to the ground at the thought.

  “Oh, dear. Are they all right? What did you do?”

  “I prayed, Marsha. I prayed like I’ve never prayed before. I even had to use the Emergency Hotline.” Hershel straightened and looked at her with wide, owl eyes. “Did you know that it’s a direct line to Him?”

  “What? You mean you didn’t get Smithers?”

  “No, I was put straight through to the Big Guy.”

  “No! Really? Oh, Hershel, you know Smithers isn’t going to like you going over his head.”

  “Well, I had to. There was no other way.”

  Marsha turned to watch as Serafina was lifted onto a stretcher.

  “Still, he’s not going to be happy about it.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not the only thing he won’t be happy about.”

  “What?” Marsha turned back to him and caught his worried expression. “Hershel, what did you do?”

  “She wasn’t breathing, Marsha. I had to do something.”

  Placing her hands on her hips, she glared at him. “What did you do?”

  He avoided her penetrating gaze, preferring to fold his dirty handkerchief into a tiny square.

  “I told David how to do CPR.”

  “Hershel! Cardiopulmonary resuscitation won’t come into use until 1961. How could you? What if someone saw you two doing it?”

  Hershel’s head fell back against the stone wall with a clunk.

  “I know. But it was either that or Serafina dies, and we’re back to where we started.”

  “This is not going to look good on our final report.”

  Hershel shook his head, looking older than his twenty-five hundred years.

  “That’s not all. While we were trying to get her out, David cursed under his breath in English.”

  “Oh, no.” She glanced around at the large crowd that had gathered at the main gate to the ruins. “Did anyone hear him?”

  “I don’t think so. I added a little bit to the prayer while I was at it, to cover the CPR and David’s English. I think because it went straight to the top, it worked. No one seems to recall either.”

  Marsha breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

  “That’s good. It could be all over for us if anyone finds out about him. He’ll be shot before we can do anything to save him.”

  “I know.” Hershel raked his hand down over his face. “You know, I don’t even think he realized he was doing it.”

  The slamming door of the ambulance brought Marsha’s attention back to Serafina.

  “I’ll go to the hospital to make sure she’s all right.”

  She looked over to where David stood alone, his hands covered with mud to the elbows, watching as the ambulance carried Serafina away.

  “Look at him.” Marsha reached down and squeezed Hershel’s equally dirty hand. “He loves her already, and he doesn’t even know it.”

  *

  She couldn’t breathe. The air was so hot, it scorched her lungs. The mud’s weight felt as if it was going to crush her.

  Sera fought to break free of the earth, but she couldn’t move. She felt arms around her, comforting her at the same time they imprisoned her. She experienced an odd sense of relief that at least she wasn’t going to die alone.

  Prying her eyes open, she couldn’t see anything in the black world surrounding her. Then, slowly, the black turned to gray, and she could make out a form beside her. It was David, not little Antonio, in the ground with her.

  “David?”

  He didn’t answer her. Slowly, her vision grew accustomed to the dark. She stared in horror at his handsome face, his eyes frozen open, still, lifeless.

  David was dead.

  She screamed, but the earthen grave smothered any sound.

  Sera’s eyes flew open, and she stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling. She felt shaky, disoriented. The room wasn’t hers. White curtains were pulled back on both sides of the narrow bed. Similar beds lined both walls, some with people sleeping in them or the curtains drawn, while others appeared flat and freshly made.

  Her throat hurt, as if it had been scraped from the inside out.

  She heard a noise and glanced to the side of her bed. David sat slumped in a chair, his features softened in sleep.

  What was he doing here? Confused, it took a moment for her to remember what had happened. Antonio. The dump truck. She must be in the hospital.

  Feeling a weight on her hand, she looked down. David’s hand covered hers where it lay on the bed. His long, tan fingers were in stark contrast to the crisp, white sheet. How long had she been there? Had he been with her the whole time?

  Sera shifted and winced as an agonizing pain shot through her side. Pulling the sheet up to her chin, she stared up at the ceiling, gulping in shallow breaths of air. Deep breaths weren’t possible. They caused too much pain, as if her lungs had been compressed to half their size.

  Her breathing slowed. She was safe. She wasn’t buried with David deep beneath the ground.

  It had been a dream. Nothing more than a horrible dream.

  Turning her hand slowly so she wouldn’t wake him, she entwined their fingers, needing to hold onto him in the enclosing darkness.

  For some reason, even though she knew it hadn’t been real, even though David was beside her with his hand warm in hers proving he was alive, she couldn’t shake the heart-wrenching feeling that he was dead.

  Or going to die.

  *

  David arrived at the ruins just before dawn. The ancient streets were empty. The archeologists, laborers, and tourists wouldn’t be arriving for another hour or so. As he reached the dig site, the sun crept over the walls of the city to kiss the crumbling stones of the buildings with a warm, golden glow.

  At times like this, when the shadows were long and the streets were quiet, he felt most at peace with the ruins. He no longer was unnerved by the tragedy, but, instead, embraced the serenity of the city preserved in its final hour. When he stood alone among the stones, he could almost understand Sera’s love for the place, her need to uncover its mysteries.

  Sera. Christ, a shiver still ran up his spine every time he thought about how close she’d come to dying in his arms. He’d never been so afraid in his whole life, not even when he’d faced enemy fire as his unit helped push the Germans out of Tunisia.

  Three days had passed since the accident, and the site seemed so empty without her here. He’d better get used to it. Heberto told him it might be two weeks before she made it back to work. She was still suffering the effects of aspirating the dirt and mud, combined with several bruised ribs from where the
rear door had slammed into her. Neither was conducive to digging in the dirt.

  In no hurry to start digging himself, David climbed the crumbling stone tower and sat on his usual perch overlooking the German encampment. Even this early, the Nazis were up and active, preparing themselves to dominate the rest of the world, one country at a time.

  Sitting back to watch their movements, David wondered how Sera was doing.

  The morning after the accident, he’d left the hospital before she woke up, not sure if she would want him there. Afterwards, he had started to go see her a thousand times, but always stopped himself before he made it out the door. She hadn’t wanted to speak to him before the accident. Why would she want to see him now?

  Instead, he’d kept close tabs on her through Heberto, who was working the site with David while Sera was gone. The old guy told him that since she inhaled dirt into her lungs, the hospital had kept her under observation for pneumonia. But that danger had passed, and she had been released, with Maria watching over her like a mother hen.

  David banged his head on the side of the stone tower. It hurt, but he felt he deserved the pain. Hell, he deserved a big, swift kick in the ass. If he hadn’t kissed her and then turned around and told her that stupid lie about there being someone else, he could go to see her now. But according to Heberto, she hadn’t asked for him, hadn’t even mentioned his name. Obviously, she didn’t want to see him.

  Damn, but he hated lying to her. Not that their whole relationship hadn’t started out with one big lie about who he really was. But at least they had become friends. She’d opened up, started joking with him, maybe even flirted with him a bit, if he wasn’t mistaken. And now they were right back to how they were in the beginning. Her walls were back up, keeping him out, and he was peeking over another one to spy on the Germans every chance he got.

  A flash of sunlight off metal caught his attention. A familiar dark head was moving among the Germans in the camp below. He grabbed the binoculars he kept stashed among the rocks and took a closer look.

  Giovanni Ragusa. Realization hit David right between the eyes. When he first saw Giovanni in the ruins, he knew that he’d seen him somewhere before, but had never been able to place where. All along, Giovanni had been right under his nose in the Nazi camp.

  What the hell was he doing down there?

  Chapter 16

  David pulled out a ration ticket and handed it to the vendor in the baker’s stall. In return, he received two small loaves of hard day-old bread. It wasn’t much, but it would be lunch for the day and maybe dinner, too.

  Passing a shop window, he stopped to look at the merchandise on display. A new pair of shoes, a record player, and a silver-plated shaving kit were among the items offered—not that many, including himself, could afford such luxuries.

  Taking the main road out of town, he turned onto a dirt road leading to one of the vineyards that littered the countryside. He was always amazed at how high the vines grew, a good fifty feet in some places. He’d learned that it was so the farmer could then plant vegetables beneath them, using every available speck of ground.

  David sat under one of the many vines, beating Frank to the rendezvous spot, but not by much. Breaking one of the loaves in two, he offered Frank one half before the usual cigarettes could be lit. If David wasn’t careful, he might get hooked on the damn things.

  Frank took a big bite and scrunched up his face. His Adam’s apple bobbed in an effort to swallow it.

  “Man, this tastes like shit.”

  David bit off his own chunk. The bread was hard and dry, its texture like cooked sawdust in his mouth.

  “Yeah, with the war rations the way they are, even the bakers can’t get good flour to make a decent loaf of bread.”

  “I know what you mean,” Frank continued, chewing around his mouthful. “It’s the same all over Italy.”

  David thought of the meager meals he was eating lately. Combined with the hard work at the ruins, he’d lost a good deal of weight in the month he’d been there. His clothes hung on his lean frame, and his suspenders were the only thing keeping up his pants. If he hadn’t blended in with the starving Italians before, he did now.

  “I’ll tell you, the pasta here is grey, the cheese tastes like rubber, and it’s been so long since I had anything with meat in it, I think I’ve turned vegetarian.” David eyed Frank’s well-fed physique. “It doesn’t look like you’ve been starving.”

  “The army feeds me pretty well,” he said with a chuckle. “Hey, I could probably sneak you some rations. It’ll be the army issue stuff, but at least there’s meat, or what used to be meat, in it.”

  “That’s right. You get to go back to camp every week and eat goodies from home, while I’m stuck playing the starving Italian day in and day out.”

  “Speaking of playing Italian, you haven’t run into any more ‘problems’ have you?”

  David knew he was referring to Sera.

  “No, she doesn’t suspect a thing. I’ve made sure to keep my distance.” And I had to hurt her to do it. “She’s not around right now, anyway. She got hurt at the site and will be out of commission for at least two weeks.”

  “Lucky for you.”

  “Yeah, real lucky.” But not in the way Frank thought. Luck was that Sera was still alive.

  He gave Frank his report on the German camp’s movements. They appeared to be bringing in fresh troops, probably in anticipation of an Allied invasion from the south. He even told Frank about seeing Giovanni in the camp. He still hadn’t figured out what he was doing there, but the possibility that he was helping the Germans hide munitions in the ruins had certainly crossed his mind.

  David couldn’t help thinking about Sera and the way Giovanni treated her. Worse, the way she let him treat her. The guy had sleaze written all over him. Of course, after kissing her and then telling her there was another woman, she probably thought David was just as much of a snake as Giovanni.

  Who was he kidding? At least with Giovanni she knew what was coming. David, on the other hand, was lying to her face, and she had no idea, no notion, that it was all an act to protect her, or that the charade was eating him up inside.

  As ridiculous as it was, he felt like he needed to make it up to her somehow. As much as he knew he should keep his distance, he wanted to see the smile back on her face and to hear her laughter. He wanted things to go back to how they were before he screwed things up with that kiss.

  Frank’s offer of rations planted a seed of an idea.

  “I think I just might take you up on your offer.”

  Frank looked momentarily confused. “What offer?”

  “I need you to get something for me.”

  *

  “Merda.” Shit.

  The soft thud of Sera’s hairbrush landing on the rug in front of her dresser sounded almost mocking as she dropped it for the third time. Dropping it wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t taken her a month to pick it up each time.

  Gripping the dresser for balance, she grasped the brush’s wooden handle between her toes, raising the brush half way up to meet her outstretched hand. At this point, the maneuver became painful. She winced as a sharp twinge shot through her ribs.

  Snatching the offending hair apparatus before it could tumble to the floor again, she straightened slowly and tried to catch her breath.

  Under a minute. Not bad. She was getting faster every day at retrieving dropped items with her toes.

  She hated feeling this helpless. After three days in the hospital, she was trapped in her apartment, barely able to walk across the room, much less venture outside. She desperately wanted to go back to work, but with her bruised ribs, she was just getting to the point where she could dress herself without Maria’s help.

  She missed the ruins. She missed the feel of the dirt running through her fingers. She missed the smell of the ashes mixed with the fertile earth as she dug deeper and deeper in the pit. She missed the excitement that came with each layer she removed, won
dering if something priceless might lie just underneath.

  She missed David.

  It hurt that he hadn’t come to see her even once. Didn’t he care?

  He must, her heart told her. Otherwise, why would he have stayed by your bedside throughout the first night?

  Yes, her head reminded her, but then he vanished in the morning, and you haven’t seen him since. Maybe he doesn’t care that much after all.

  Heberto had told her how David had saved her, digging her out of the dirt like one of her archeological finds. And of how she’d stopped breathing, and he’d forced life back into her.

  Looking at her reflection in the mirror, Sera reached up and touched her lips. She didn’t remember him doing it, but somehow she could still feel it—the pressure of his mouth on hers, his breath in her lungs. She closed her eyes and licked her lips, almost able to taste him.

  A sudden knock at the door startled her out of her fantasy, making her flinch and knock the hairbrush off the dresser and onto the floor again. Not bothering to pick it up this time, she shuffled to the door.

  “I’m coming. I’m coming,” she grumbled as the pounding continued. She jerked the door open with as much force as her injuries allowed. “What?”

  Her irritation was quickly replaced by surprise. David stood in the hall, looking better than a good steak dinner, which she hadn’t had in nearly three years. For a moment, she wondered if her wayward thoughts had conjured him to her door.

  “So, how’s the wounded bone-digger?” he asked, his cocky grin making him look devilishly handsome.

  Closing her gaping mouth, she clutched at the neck of her old bathrobe. Damn, she wasn’t even dressed, and it was two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. Most people would expect any decent person to be dressed by now.

  David raised his dark brows in question. “Are you going to let me in, or should I just continue this one-sided conversation with myself out here in the hallway?”