by Ken Follett
As they climbed out of their sweaty sports clothes Lisa said: “What about your father? You didn’t mention him.”
Jeannie sighed. It was the question she had learned to dread, even as a little girl; but it invariably came, sooner or later. For many years she had lied, saying Daddy was dead or disappeared or remarried and gone to work in Saudi Arabia. Lately, however, she had been telling the truth. “My father’s in jail,” she said.
“Oh, my God. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s okay. He’s been in jail most of my life. He’s a burglar. This is his third term.”
“How long is his sentence?”
“I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter. He’ll be no use when he comes out. He’s never looked after us and he’s not about to begin.”
“Did he never have a regular job?”
“Only when he wanted to case a joint. He would work as janitor, doorman, security guard for a week or two before robbing the place.”
Lisa looked at her shrewdly. “Is that why you’re so interested in the genetics of criminality?”
“Maybe.”
“Probably not.” Lisa made a tossing-aside gesture. “I hate amateur psychoanalysis anyway.”
They went to the showers. Jeannie took longer, washing her hair. She was grateful for Lisa’s friendship. Lisa had been at Jones Falls just over a year, and she had shown Jeannie around when she had arrived here at the beginning of the semester. Jeannie liked working with Lisa in the lab because she was completely reliable; and she liked hanging out with her after work because she felt she could say whatever came into her mind without fear of shocking her.
Jeannie was working conditioner into her hair when she heard strange noises. She stopped and listened. It sounded like squeals of fright. A chill of anxiety passed through her, making her shiver. Suddenly she felt very vulnerable: naked, wet, underground. She hesitated, then quickly rinsed her hair before stepping out of the shower to see what was going on.
She smelled burning as soon as she got out from under the water. She could not see a fire, but there were thick clouds of black and gray smoke close to the ceiling. It seemed to be coming through the ventilators.
She felt afraid. She had never been in a fire.
The more coolheaded women were snatching up their bags and heading for the door. Others were getting hysterical, shouting at one another in frightened voices and running here and there pointlessly. Some asshole of a security man, with a spotted handkerchief tied over his nose and mouth, was making them more scared by walking up and down shoving people and yelling orders.
Jeannie knew she should not stay to get dressed, but she could not bring herself to walk out of the building naked. There was fear running through her veins like ice water, but she made herself calm. She found her locker. Lisa was nowhere to be seen. She grabbed her clothes, stepped into her jeans, and pulled her T-shirt over her head.
It took only a few seconds, but in that time the room emptied of people and filled with fumes. She could no longer see the doorway, and she started to cough. The thought of not being able to breathe scared her. I know where the door is, and I just have to keep calm, she told herself. Her keys and money were in her jeans pockets. She picked up her tennis racket. Holding her breath, she walked quickly through the lockers to the exit.
The corridor was thick with smoke, and her eyes began to water so that she was almost blind. Now she wished to heaven that she had gone naked and gained a few precious seconds. Her jeans did not help her see or breathe in this fog of fumes. And it did not matter being naked if you were dead.
She kept one shaky hand on the wall to give her a sense of direction as she rushed along the passage, still holding her breath. She thought she might bump into other women, but they all seemed to have got out ahead of her. When there was no more wall, she knew she was in the small lobby, although she could not see anything but clouds of smoke. The stairs had to be straight ahead. She crossed the lobby and crashed into the Coke machine. Was the staircase to the left now or the right? The left, she thought. She moved that way, then came up against the door to the men’s locker room and realized she had made the wrong choice.
She could not hold her breath any longer. With a groan she sucked in air. It was mostly smoke, and it made her cough convulsively. She staggered back along the wall, racked with coughing, her nostrils burning, eyes streaming, barely able to see her own hands in front of her. With all her being she longed for one breath of the air she had been taking for granted for twenty-nine years. She followed the wall to the Coke machine and stepped around it. She knew she had found the staircase when she tripped over the bottom step. She dropped her racket and it slid out of sight. It was a special one—she had won the Mayfair Lites Challenge with it—but she left it behind and scrambled up the stairs on hands and knees.
The smoke thinned suddenly when she reached the spacious ground-floor lobby. She could see the building doors, which were open. A security guard stood just outside, beckoning her and yelling: “Come on!” Coughing and choking, she staggered across the lobby and out into the blessed fresh air.
She stood on the steps for two or three minutes, bent double, gulping air and coughing the smoke out of her lungs. As her breathing at last began to return to normal, she heard the whoop of an emergency vehicle in the distance. She looked around for Lisa but could not see her.
Surely she could not be inside? Still feeling shaky, Jeannie moved through the crowd, scanning the faces. Now that they were out of danger, there was a good deal of nervous laughter. Most of the students were more or less undressed, so there was a curiously intimate atmosphere. Those who had managed to save their bags were lending spare clothes to others less fortunate. Naked women were grateful for their friends’ soiled and sweaty T-shirts. Several people were dressed only in towels.
Lisa was not in the crowd. With mounting anxiety Jeannie returned to the security guard at the door. “I think my girlfriend may be in there,” she said, hearing the tremor of fear in her own voice.
“I ain’t going after her,” he said quickly.
“Brave man,” Jeannie snapped. She was not sure what she wanted him to do, but she had not expected him to be completely useless.
Resentment showed on his face. “That’s their job,” he said, and he pointed to a fire truck coming down the road.
Jeannie was beginning to fear for Lisa’s life, but she did not know what to do. She watched, impatient and helpless, as the firemen got out of the truck and put on breathing apparatus. They seemed to move so slowly that she wanted to shake them and scream: “Hurry, hurry!” Another fire truck arrived, then a white police cruiser with the blue-and-silver stripe of the Baltimore Police Department.
As the firemen dragged a hose into the building, an officer buttonholed the lobby guard and said: “Where do you think it started?”
“Women’s locker room,” the guard told him.
“And where is that, exactly?”
“Basement, at the back.”
“How many exits are there from the basement?”
“Only one, the staircase up to the main lobby, right here.”
A maintenance man standing nearby contradicted him. “There’s a ladder in the pool machine room that leads up to an access hatch at the back of the building.”
Jeannie caught the officer’s attention and said: “I think my friend may still be inside there.”
“Man or woman?”
“Woman of twenty-four, short, blond.”
“If she’s there, we’ll find her.”
For a moment Jeannie felt reassured. Then she realized he had not promised to find her alive.
The security man who had been in the locker room was nowhere to be seen. Jeannie said to the fire officer: “There was another guard down there, I don’t see him anywhere. Tall guy.”
The lobby guard said: “Ain’t no other security personnel in the building.”
“Well, he had a hat with “Security’ written on it, and he was t
elling people to evacuate the building.”
“I don’t care what he had on his hat—”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, stop arguing!” Jeannie snapped. “Maybe I imagined him, but if not his life could be in danger!”
Standing listening to them was a girl wearing a man’s khaki pants rolled up at the cuffs. “I saw that guy, he’s a real creep,” she said. “He felt me up.”
The fire officer said: “Keep calm, we’ll find everyone. Thank you for your cooperation.” He walked off.
Jeannie glared at the lobby guard for a moment. She felt the fire officer had dismissed her as a hysterical woman because she had yelled at the guard. She turned away in disgust. What was she going to do now? The firemen ran inside in their helmets and boots. She was barefoot and wearing a T-shirt. If she tried to go in with them they would throw her out. She clenched her fists, distraught. Think, think! Where else could Lisa be?
The gymnasium was next door to the Ruth W. Acorn Psychology Building, named after the wife of a benefactor but known, even to faculty, as Nut House. Could Lisa have gone in there? The doors would be locked on Sunday, but she probably had a key. She might have run inside to find a laboratory coat to cover herself or just to sit at her desk and recover. Jeannie decided to check. Anything was better than standing here doing nothing.
She dashed across the lawn to the main entrance of Nut House and looked through the glass doors. There was no one in the lobby. She took from her pocket the plastic card that served as a key and swiped it through the card reader. The door opened. She ran up the stairs, calling: “Lisa! Are you there?” The laboratory was deserted. Lisa’s chair was tucked neatly under her desk, and her computer screen was a gray blank. Jeannie tried the women’s rest room at the end of the corridor. Nothing. “Damn!” she said frantically. “Where the hell are you?”
Panting, she hurried back outside. She decided to make a tour of the gymnasium building, in case Lisa was just sitting on the ground somewhere catching her breath. She ran around the side of the building, passing through a yard full of giant garbage cans. At the back was a small parking lot. She saw a figure jogging along the footpath, heading away. It was too tall to be Lisa, and she was pretty sure it was a man. She thought it might be the missing security guard, but he disappeared around the corner of the Student Union before she could be sure.
She continued around the building. At the far side was the running track, deserted now. Coming full circle, she arrived at the front of the gym.
The crowd was bigger, and there were more fire engines and police cars, but she still could not see Lisa. It seemed almost certain that she was still in the burning building. A sense of doom crept over Jeannie, and she fought it. You can’t just let this happen!
She spotted the fire officer she had spoken to earlier. She grabbed his arm. “I’m almost certain Lisa Hoxton is in there,” she said urgently. “I’ve looked everywhere for her.”
He gave her a hard look and seemed to decide she was reliable. Without answering her, he put a two-way radio to his mouth. “Look out for a young white female believed to be inside the building, named Lisa, repeat Lisa.”
“Thank you,” Jeannie said.
He nodded curtly and strode away.
Jeannie was glad he had listened to her, but still she could not rest. Lisa might be stuck in there, locked in a toilet or trapped by flames, screaming for help unheard; or she might have fallen and struck her head and knocked herself out or succumbed to the fumes and be lying unconscious with the fire creeping closer by the second.
Jeannie remembered the maintenance man saying there was another entrance to the basement. She had not seen it as she ran around the outside of the gym. She decided to look again. She returned to the back of the building.
She saw it immediately. The hatch was set into the ground close to the building, partly hidden by a gray Chrysler New Yorker. The steel trapdoor was open, leaning against the building wall. Jeannie knelt by the square hole and leaned down to look inside.
A ladder led down to a dirty room lit by fluorescent tubes. She could see machinery and lots of pipes. There were wisps of smoke in the air, but not thick clouds: it must be closed off from the rest of the basement. Nevertheless the smell of the smoke reminded her of how she had coughed and choked as she had searched blindly for the staircase, and she felt her heart beat faster at the memory.
“Is anybody there?” she called.
She thought she heard a sound but she could not be sure. She shouted louder. “Hello?” There was no reply.
She hesitated. The sensible thing to do would be to return to the front of the building and grab a fireman, but that could take too long, especially if the fireman decided to question her. The alternative was to go down the ladder and take a look.
The thought of reentering the building made her legs weak. Her chest still hurt from the violent spasms of coughing caused by the smoke. But Lisa might be down there, hurt and unable to move, or trapped by a fallen timber, or just passed out. She had to look.
She steeled her nerve and put a foot on the ladder. Her knees felt weak and she almost fell. She hesitated. After a moment she felt stronger, and she took a step down. Then a breath of smoke caught in her throat, making her cough, and she climbed out again.
When she had stopped coughing, she tried again.
She went down one rung, then two. If the smoke makes me cough, I’ll just come right out again, she told herself. The third step was easier, and after that she went down quickly, jumping off the last rung onto the concrete floor.
She found herself in a big room full of pumps and filters, presumably for the swimming pool. The smell of smoke was strong, but she could breathe normally.
She saw Lisa right away, and the sight made her gasp.
She was lying on her side, curled up in the fetal position, naked. There was a smear of what looked like blood on her thigh. She was not moving.
For a moment Jeannie was rigid with fear.
She tried to get hold of herself. “Lisa!” she shouted. She heard the shrill overtone of hysteria in her own voice and took a breath to keep calm. Please, God, let her be all right. She made her way across the room, through the tangle of pipework, and knelt beside her friend. “Lisa?”
Lisa opened her eyes.
“Thank God,” Jeannie said. “I thought you were dead.”
Slowly Lisa sat up. She would not look at Jeannie. Her lips were bruised. “He … he raped me,” she said.
Jeannie’s relief at finding her alive was replaced by a sick feeling of horror that gripped her heart. “My God. Here?”
Lisa nodded. “He said this was the way out.”
Jeannie closed her eyes. She felt Lisa’s pain and humiliation, the sense of being invaded and violated and soiled. Tears came to her eyes, and she held them back fiercely. For a moment she was too weak and nauseated to say anything.
Then she tried to pull herself together. “Who was he?”
“A security guy.”
“With a spotted scarf over his face?”
“He took it off.” Lisa turned away. “He kept smiling.”
It figured. The girl in khaki pants had said a security guard felt her up. The lobby guard was sure there were no other security people in the building. “He was no security guard,” Jeannie said. She had seen him jogging away just a few minutes ago. A wave of rage swept over her at the thought that he had done this dreadful thing right here, on the campus, in the gymnasium building, where they all felt safe to take off their clothes and shower. It made her hands shake, and she wanted to chase after him and strangle him.
She heard loud noises: men shouting, heavy footsteps, and the rush of water. The firemen were operating their hoses.
“Listen, we’re in danger here,” she said urgently. “We have to get out of this building.”
Lisa’s voice was a dull monotone. “I don’t have any clothes.”
We could die in here! “Don’t worry about clothes, everyone’s half-naked out ther
e.” Jeannie scanned the room hastily and saw Lisa’s red lace brassiere and panties in a dusty heap beneath a tank. She picked them up. “Put your underwear on. It’s dirty, but it’s better than nothing.”
Lisa remained sitting on the floor, staring vacantly.
Jeannie fought down a feeling of panic. What could she do if Lisa refused to move? She could probably lift Lisa, but could she carry her up that ladder? She raised her voice. “Come on, get up!” Taking Lisa’s hands, she pulled her to her feet.
At last Lisa met her eyes. “Jeannie, it was horrible,” she said.
Jeannie put her arms around Lisa’s shoulders and hugged her hard. “I’m sorry, Lisa, I’m so sorry,” she said.
The smoke was becoming more dense, despite the heavy door. Fear replaced pity in her heart. “We have to get out of here—the place is burning down. For God’s sake put these on!”
At last Lisa began to move. She pulled up her panties and fastened her bra. Jeannie took her hand and led her to the ladder on the wall, then made her go up first. As Jeannie followed, the door crashed open and a fireman entered in a cloud of smoke. Water swirled around his boots. He looked startled to see them. “We’re all right, we’re getting out this way,” Jeannie yelled to him. Then she went up the ladder after Lisa.
A moment later they were outside in the fresh air.
Jeannie felt weak with relief: she had got Lisa out of the fire. But now Lisa needed help. Jeannie put an arm around her shoulders and led her to the front of the building. There were fire trucks and police cruisers parked every which way across the road. Most of the women in the crowd had now found something with which to cover their nakedness, and Lisa was conspicuous in her red underwear. “Does anyone have a spare pair of pants, or anything at all?” Jeannie begged as they made their way through the crowd. People had given away all their spare clothing. Jeannie would have given Lisa her own sweatshirt, but she had no bra on underneath.
Finally a tall black man took off his button-down and gave it to Lisa. “I’ll want it back, it’s a Ralph Lauren,” he said. “Mitchell Waterfield, math department.”