I bathed the wound over and over, far more than it needed, until I realized the old man was flinching, that I was scraping the raw flesh against the bone. I put some salve on it. Worrying that the rats might be attracted to the smell of salve, I tried to cover the wound as completely as possible. They wandered around us as I worked on him but didn’t try to avenge their fallen comrade’s death.
Back on his feet, Mr. Contreras picked up the sledge and rapidly enlarged the opening behind the brickwork. More rats poured out as he worked. My arms were wet inside my coveralls. I began to shiver in the clammy air.
When he’d finished he needed a few minutes to catch his breath. I peered through the hole he’d made. The opening led directly to a set of stairs. I could see the top two or three in the light from my flash.
I picked up the rope, the ladder, the spare flashlight batteries, and a blanket from the dolly. I looped one end of the rope around my waist, then tied the other to my neighbor. As a final preparation I took the Smith & Wesson out from my armpit holster and stuck it in one of my side pockets. It was absurd—I couldn’t possibly shoot all the vermin milling around the space—but it made me feel better.
My neighbor nodded to show he had recovered his wind. “Ready, doll? Take it easy going down. You don’t know what kind of repair the place is in, or if you’ll be landing in water, or what.”
“Right. Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to work we go.” Taking my metal tube in one hand for a walking stick, I climbed through the hole in the wall.
43
Tunnel Vision
Damp had mixed with coal dust to form a black glaze over the stairs. The flashlight glinted on it like moonlight on black ice. We tried looking down the stairwell to see how far we had to go, but could make out nothing beyond the circle of light. We started gingerly down, using our poles for balance.
Beyond the flashlight the darkness was absolute. It was as though a giant hand had squeezed all the light from the air. We seemed to move not through dark air but the essence of darkness itself, a physical presence that squashed and flattened our puny light. We moved quietly, oppressed by the weight of the air, and of the earth above us. Only the twittering of the rats, taunting our slow movements by the speed and ease with which they ran past us, broke the silence.
For a moment I panicked, confusing the lack of light with lack of oxygen. Dizzy, I reached out for the iron bar someone had bolted to the stairwell. It came away in my hand and I landed with a smart thump on my rear end. Mr. Contreras hovered over me anxiously, but my coveralls provided a good padding. I got up again with nothing more than a twinge of pain in my tailbone. The jolt cleared my mind.
The air stank of mold and rat droppings, but it was not stale. I lit a match to prove it to myself. The flame burned bright. To overcome the weight of the atmosphere I started to sing Figaro’s jaunty farewell to Cherubino. Mr. Contreras and I were like a couple of butterflies ourselves, floating downward into the bowels of the earth instead of off to battle.
My singing released the spell holding back Mr. Contreras’s speech. He began to regale me with his own battle stories. I had heard most of them before, from how he’d stolen Clara away from Mitch Krueger to the piece of shrapnel he’d taken at Anzio, but his vibrant voice, echoing from the walls, filled the shaft with life.
At the bottom of the second flight the light caught on a lump. I stopped to pick it up. It was cloth of some kind, with shreds of a lining hanging from it. The synthetic outer shell still had enough shape to show me what it had been: a child’s ski mitten, originally a vivid aqua. I had no idea how fast mold and grime work on fabric, but it looked as though it had lain here for years. I put it back down—it would protect no child’s hand at this point. At least it confirmed that we were on the trail, if not of Tamar Hawkings, of some human life.
We continued downward, sobered into silence again by the frail relic. The stairs seemed to stretch endlessly away past the pale rim of light to the center of the earth. I lost my sense of time. I thought we had been moving senselessly downward for an hour, but when I looked at my watch at the third landing I saw we’d spent only seven minutes on the stairs.
At the end of the fourth flight we came to a closed door. Water had spilled around it and was lapping at the bottom step. We sloshed through it to the door. A couple of rats were climbing through a grate at its top. While Mr. Contreras grabbed the handle and pulled I used my pole to try to keep the rats away from him.
He had trouble shifting the door against the water. I finally abandoned my battle with the rats to help. Sticking a hand through the gap at the jamb, I yanked while he pulled. Panting, we managed to heave it open.
On the other side lay the tunnels. We waded past the threshold and stood ankle-deep in water to look around. We had used only one flashlight coming down the stairs so as to conserve our batteries. Now we turned on both to get a better look.
Our flashlights danced on the greasy surface of the water. A few rats were swimming toward us. They moved to the open door and disappeared up the stairs. Trying to ignore them I looked up and down the tunnel. Moving slowly, kicking through the water, I found rails in the middle of the floor. The walls, made of set stones, rose about five feet above our heads to form a vaulted ceiling.
“Now what? You reckon they’ve gone on to safety someplace?” Mr. Contreras’s voice echoed dully against the stone like the clanging of an ancient bell.
“I don’t reckon anything. I don’t even know if they’re down here. That mitten we found shows some kid was here, but how long ago?” I stuck a nervous hand into the fetid water to feel the current; water was rising from the right of the door. “If they got surprised by the water they’d have moved away from it. We don’t think they went into the building. Why don’t we go up the tunnel a ways? If the water gets to our knees we’ll come back.”
I wiped my hand over and over on a tissue before putting my work glove back on. Mr. Contreras surveyed me and then the water, then grunted agreement.
“We’d better figure out some way to tell when we’re back, in case the place is littered with identical doors,” he added.
We didn’t have paint or any kind of marking. Finally I tore a strip from the blanket and tied it around the grating of the open door. The rats should be too busy climbing to safety to stop to eat a scrap of cloth.
Using our poles to steady ourselves we waded up the tunnel. Mr. Contreras turned off his flashlight. Every now and then we checked the water level. It wasn’t rising fast, but I couldn’t suppress a sense of panic. What if we got trapped down here? We could drown and never be discovered.
“You know, cookie, I’ve had a good life,” Mr. Contreras announced, his thoughts apparently running on the same track as mine. “I had a good marriage—Clara was the best, she really was. I’m sorry you never met her—you two would really’ve hit it off. But I don’t think I was ever as happy in my young days as since you moved into our building. What’s it been—six years now? The things you get up to—if any of the guys in my local is doing something half this interesting this morning—breaking into a building—looking for a runaway family—I’ll eat a pipe wrench, threads and all.”
I had to laugh. “You’re having a good time and I’m scared out of my wits worrying about drowning.”
“Yeah, you get scared—you ain’t no robot without feelings—but you don’t let fear stop you. That’s why I admire you so much. I sure am going to hate it if one or the other of us has to move away from Racine Avenue. Specially if it’s me and I end up with Ruthie out in Elk Grove Village.”
We came to a bend in the passage. On the other side of it the water was swirling in tiny whirlpools and starting to rise faster around our ankles, reaching midway to our calves. I hesitated, then plunged onward. Mr. Contreras looked at the water, shrugged, and followed.
After fifty feet or so we came to an intersection with another tunnel. Water was pouring from the right-hand shaft into our shaft. That explained the whirlpools—that flow was mee
ting the tide rising behind us. I had no sense of direction down here, no idea where we were in relation to the breached wall or how water was flowing, so I didn’t know if we were walking to or from the main source.
“Can you stay here a minute?” I said. “I want to see what this left-hand fork looks like.”
He turned his flashlight on again. “When you’re ready to come back, turn off your light. You’ll see mine. Just head for it. And holler every thirty seconds or so, so I know you’re okay.”
I turned in to the left fork, dutifully shouting out every ten paces. After thirty steps the water seemed to be lower. Another fifty and I was standing in sludge. Shining my light ahead I could see dry ground as the tunnel curved away from me.
I tried calling out to the old man to join me, but the bouncing of sound from the walls made me doubt whether he would hear me. I made my way back to him.
The water was halfway up our calves by the time I reached him. “You want to try this? If we don’t find anyone in ten minutes we can call it quits.”
“Sure, cookie. We’ve come this far with a whole lot of trouble and nothing to show for it. We might as well go a bit more just to see.”
I tied another strip of blanket to a bracket that hung at the intersection. As I looked back I could see a row of similar hooks—perhaps they’d been used to hang lanterns when the tunnel was in regular use. Above the hook I could see faint lettering. I stood on tiptoe to look: Dearborn and Adams, I deciphered. We’d gone two blocks west and one block south in the twenty minutes we’d been down here.
My flashlight was beginning to dim. I switched it off and let Mr. Contreras lead the way with his. The water had moved a bit farther up the left fork, but once we were on dry ground we moved fast. On the other side of the bend a shadowy mass suddenly started moving away from us. I couldn’t make it out, but the motion was definitely human.
“Hey, wait up!” I called. “Mrs. Hawkings? Jessie? It’s V. I. Warshawski. I’ve come to help get you away from the water.”
The figures continued to scuttle away from us. They weren’t moving very fast, but I wasn’t going to make much headway in my waders. I wrenched them off and started jogging down the middle of the tunnel between the tracks. Mr. Contreras followed as fast as he could but I was soon beyond the rim of light. I switched on my own flashlight again. It was almost dead, but in its feeble glow I could avoid tripping on the tracks.
In another minute I had caught up with the scrambling group. I grabbed the nearest figure, a small child. He struggled briefly, then stood still and began to wail softly. The rest of them stopped. There were more than four, but how many I couldn’t tell in the light of my failing flashlight. Above the smell of mold and coal and rats the stench of urine and fear rose to smite me. I swallowed a gag.
“Let him go. You have no business holding him.”
One of the larger figures tried to pry my hand from his arm but her fingers were weak and she couldn’t free the child. His own arm underneath my hand felt frail. Mr. Contreras arrived, panting a little.
“These them, doll?”
In the stronger light of his flashlight I made out Tamar Hawkings, backing soundlessly up the tunnel with her children clustered around her. The woman who’d been trying to pry my fingers loose stayed near me. She was carrying a toddler who started to wail in a thin, helpless thread of a voice.
“It’s okay, Natie, it’s okay. Don’t cry; I’ll take care of you.”
“Emily?” Her name exploded on my lips so loudly that she backed away from me. I stared at her astounded. If she hadn’t started to talk I would not have known her. Her frizzy hair was matted to her head, her face pinched and gray with hunger and filth. Her blue jeans and shirt hung on her shrunken body.
She backed away from me. I put a hand on her arm.
“I need to get you and your brothers to safety. You must come with me. Do you understand?”
Too much white was showing in her eyes. She looked feverish, her breath fast and rasping. I wasn’t sure she could follow anything I said. I turned to Mr. Contreras.
“These are the Messenger children. Can you hold Joshua while I get Mrs. Hawkings?”
He picked the older boy up like a negligible load and cradled him against his chest. As I trotted farther up the tunnel Mr. Contreras began crooning to the child in the soothing tone you usually hear only from women.
When I reached Tamar Hawkings I didn’t try to argue with her—I scooped up the youngest of her children and headed back toward Mr. Contreras. Hawkings followed, clawing at me and whispering invectives. Her two older children staggered after her. When I had the group reassembled I spoke briefly.
“The Chicago River is pouring in here. The wall between the river and the tunnels broke last night. If you don’t get out now you may all drown. You certainly will starve: it will soon become impossible to get aboveground to find food. You must come with me. We’re going to have to go back through the water. We’ll be able to get into the Pulteney and then we’ll get you medical care. You must come with me. If you don’t, you will all die.”
Emily tugged wildly on my arm. “We can’t go back. We can’t go back! Tamar, don’t let them take me back!”
“You don’t have to go back to Fabian, Emily. But you must come with me now.”
Mr. Contreras held both Joshua and the older Hawkings girl while I struggled back into my waders. I fished the spare batteries for my flashlight out of a side pocket and changed them. With Mr. Contreras in the lead bearing Joshua, we turned back down the fork in the tunnel and headed for the water. I continued to carry the younger Hawkings girl,holding the boy by the hand. All the children except Emily were whimpering and Jessie’s asthma began racking her slight body.
By the time we got to the intersection with our tunnel, water was swirling above Emily’s knees. Mrs. Hawkings, even smaller than Emily, was swaying against the current. None of them had waders to protect them, and all of them were too weak to hike back through the flood.
“We’re going to have to do this in relays,” I said to Mr. Contreras. “Can you carry Joshua and leave him on the stairs? I’ll stay here with these folks. If you can make two trips alone we can manage the rest of the children between us in a final run.”
His face grim in the half-light he nodded agreement. “Okay, son, you and me is going for a quick ride. No need for you to cry—we’ll have your sister to you in no time flat. You just leave it to your uncle Sal: I’ll get you out of here shipshape, you’ll see.”
His voice, uttering these soothing words, mingled with Joshua’s faint cries for Emily. The two sounds echoed and reechoed down the tunnel after his flashlight had disappeared around the bend. Next to me Emily was trembling, tears cutting ribbons through the muck on her face. Nathan clung to her, wailing in a soft monotone.
The two older Hawkings children were in water now up to their waists. I tucked the toddler into the bib of my overall—she was so small from malnutrition that she fit inside without difficulty—and picked up the boy. He clung to my neck like a small monkey, his arms trembling with fatigue.
Jessie was gasping so violently for air I was afraid she would suffocate. There was nothing I could do for her; I was so breathless from exertion myself I could scarcely summon the strength to speak.
I took my piece of rope and looped it around Tamar Hawkings’s waist, planning to attach her to Emily. It was a battle: they were resisting me, fighting to return to the dry ground we’d left behind.
Tamar suddenly slipped in my grasp and fell into the water. I yanked her to her feet, pounding water from her, struggling to maintain my hold on her children.
“Damn you,” I panted. “You’re going to drown your children as well as yourself. Stop fighting with me.”
She stood sullenly, coughing the sooty water from her throat, and let me tie the end of the rope around her. When Emily saw Tamar had stopped struggling, she let me tie the rope around her waist as well. I held the end, leaning against the wall to catch my breat
h and to spread some of the load the two children were putting on my body. The blow on the back of my head was beginning to throb. My cracked rib pushed against my lungs with exquisite agony.
While I leaned there, panting, Mr. Contreras finally returned. He was staggering a little in the water, holding on to the wall for support.
“We’d better try to get everyone out now,” I said. “The water’s rising faster and I don’t think you have the stamina for two more trips.”
He nodded, gulping down mouthfuls of fetid air. “It’s ... up ... to the fourth stair ... on that bottom flight now. I took ... the little boy ... up to the landing. He’ll be okay there. The rats ain’t coming so fast—I only saw two—and I gave the kid a stick just in case.”
We waited while he caught his breath. I tied one end of the rope to him and the other to myself. After a minute he scooped up Jessie, whose whoops had subsided to a shallow wheezing. Her eyes were rolling sightlessly.
I fished the toddler out of my overalls and handed her to her mother—I couldn’t walk and carry two children. Our little train started in motion down the middle of the tracks, Mr. Contreras in the lead, followed by Tamar, then Emily holding Nathan, with me bringing up the rear.
It was a slow, difficult journey. Emily had only been underground a week but was already weakened from malnutrition. Mrs. Hawkings, who’d been living down here for months, was so feeble she had to struggle hard to make headway against the water. She fell more than once. The third time she went down she dragged Emily with her. Hampered by the children we were carrying, Mr. Contreras and I had a hard time righting them. I was scared that we would lose Jessie and both toddlers.
The water was almost level now with the tops of my waders. If it rose any more I’d have to take them off so as not to get bogged down by its weight inside the boots.
“Stop a minute,” I gasped to Mr. Contreras. “I want to tie the rope to one of these brackets and haul Mrs. Hawkings along.”
Tunnel Vision Page 30