Matthew Mather's Compendium

by Matthew Mather

  “At seven in the morning? I’ve never seen that guy before. Tony must have left the front door to the building open. And why in the hell did he go straight onto the fourth floor like that?”

  “Maybe it’s just a neighbor you don’t recognize,” I countered, but the hair on my neck prickled. An intruder.

  “You drag this the rest of the way to our place. I’m going downstairs to lock things up.”

  Chuck rushed off down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and I watched him vanish as the hollow echoes of his footsteps faded. Opening the door to our floor, I leaned down, grunted, and pulled on the generator.

  10:05 a.m.

  Despite everything, the rest of the morning took on a festive air.

  As soon as Chuck returned from locking up downstairs, I went over to knock on Pam’s door and asked her to have a look at Luke. Tony went down and double-checked the front door, leaving a note saying he could be found up at Chuck’s place.

  Chuck instituted a strict rule that only our gang, which included Tony, would be allowed into their apartment. He made an exception for Pam, and after some protest, for her husband, Rory. After he fired up a kerosene heater, the apartment quickly warmed, and we woke up Lauren and Luke and moved them into Chuck and Susie’s spare room.

  After a quick inspection, Pam declared that Luke definitely didn’t look symptomatic of bird flu, at least from what she understood, and that his fever was breaking. He still had a temperature of 102, dangerous but manageable, and she promised to stay close and check in on him.

  Pam had been up all night at the Red Cross blood bank. It had transformed into an emergency clinic, with volunteer doctors appearing almost as quickly as the flood of people claiming symptoms. One of the doctors there had worked at the CDC doing research on avian flu. Pam had had a long chat with him about what was going on, and he’d explained that the news didn’t make any sense—incubation, transmission, symptoms, and so on. It looked like it really was a false, or fake, alarm.

  Our run-in with the suspected intruder was quickly forgotten, and Chuck insisted on opening a bottle of champagne to pour mimosas for everyone. It was Christmas Eve, he proclaimed, and a white Christmas at that, he added, looking out the window at the driving blizzard beyond. We all managed to laugh.

  Together in the room that morning, warm and safe and unpacking Chuck’s equipment as if we were on an indoor camping trip, the sense of danger disappeared. My baby boy was sick with a fever, but it was such a relief that it was just a regular flu or cold, I felt almost overjoyed.

  In the background we kept a radio turned on. The broadcaster detailed the road closures—I-95, I-89, the New Jersey Turnpike—and the running tally of homes without power, estimated at ten million and counting across the Northeast. The subway system was shut down. They said the power failure was some kind of electrical cascade in the network, same as had happened a few years ago, and the snowstorm was making it worse.

  The voice of the radio announcer, this small connection to the outside world, lent the morning a feeling of familiarity, the same as any other disaster day that New Yorkers would rally from to begin the process of rebuilding. Reports coming in on the bird flu scare were bearing out our feelings—the CDC couldn’t confirm any cases, and they hadn’t been able to identify the source of the warning.

  Buoyed by the alcohol in the mimosa, I went next door to check on the Borodins. I remembered that Irena’s daughter and family, who lived in a building next door, had gone away for the holidays, so they were alone. The radio was reminding us to check on the elderly, but I had a feeling the Borodins were just fine.

  I went anyway.

  Knocking on their door, I heard Irena telling me to come in, and I entered to find them as usual. Irena was sitting in her rocking chair, knitting, and Aleksandr was sitting asleep in his lounger, in front of a blank TV, with Gorbachev at his side. The only difference was that they were bundled up under blankets. It was freezing in their place.

  “Some tea?” offered Irena.

  Watching her carefully finish another stitch, I wished for hands as nimble as hers when I was ninety. I’d be happy just to get to ninety. “Yes, please.”

  They’d set up what looked like an antique camp stove in their kitchen, and a pot of hot tea sat steaming on it. The Borodins were Jewish, but they had a large holiday tree, beautifully decorated, occupying nearly half of their living room. I’d been surprised last year when they’d asked me to help them get a tree, but I’d learned that this wasn’t a Christmas tree, but a New Year tree. It was the nicest one on our floor, whatever it was called.

  Irena went to her pantry door, opening it to get some sugar for the tea, and for the first time I noticed their pantry was stacked, floor to ceiling, with cans and bags of beans and rice. She noticed me looking.

  “Old habits die hard,” she said, smiling as she returned to pour the tea. “How is the little prince?”

  “He’s good. I mean, he’s sick, but he’ll be okay,” I answered, wrapping my hands around the cup of tea. “Isn’t it awfully cold in here? Do you want to come over to Chuck’s?”

  “Ah,” she snorted, waving away my concern, “dis is not cold. I spent winters in shacks in Siberia after the war. Sorry for you, but I opened the windows for some fresh air.”

  Aleksandr let out a particularly loud snore. We laughed.

  “Do you need anything?” I cocked my thumb toward Chuck’s place. “Just come next door, anytime.”

  She shook her head. “Ah, no. We’ll be fine. Stay quiet, not bother anyone.” Taking a sip from her tea, she considered something and looked at me. “If you need anything, Mih-kah-yal, you remember, you come here, da? We will be watching.”

  I said I would, and we chatted for a bit. I was struck by how calm Irena was. The power failure struck a chord deep within me, making me feel as if I’d lost a sense, as if I was blind or deaf without the hum of the machines. Next door, surrounded by Chuck’s gadgets and gizmos and the steady noise of the radio broadcaster, I felt almost normal again. At Irena’s, though, it felt different; colder certainly, but also calmer and more secure. She was from a different generation. I guessed the machines weren’t a part of them like they were for us.

  Thanking her for the tea, I went back to check on Luke. A collection of neighbors had congregated in the hallway. Bundled up in winter jackets and scarves, they looked much less happy than I felt.

  “Goddamn building administration!” growled Richard as I came out of the Borodins’. “Someone’s going to lose their job for this. Do you have any heat?”

  “No, but Chuck has some heating gadgets. You know how he is.”

  “Could I buy one from him?” Richard started toward me. “My place is bloody freezing.”

  Holding up my hand, I waved him back. “Sorry, but this bird flu thing, we should keep our distance. I’ll ask Chuck, but I don’t think so.”

  Richard frowned but stopped.

  I turned and opened the door to Chuck’s, feeling warmth wash over my face, ready to have a laugh with him over my encounter with Richard, but I found everyone sitting still, staring at the radio. “What?” I asked, closing the door behind me.

  “Shhhhhh,” said Lauren.

  “The extent of the crash is still unknown, and whether it was a derailment or a collision,” said the radio.

  “What happened?”

  Chuck moved around the couch, pushing aside boxes and bags. He was favoring the hand the door had banged into, holding it up to his chest. The snow beat urgently against the windowpanes as the wind churned the air outside. I couldn’t even see the next building, twenty feet away.

  It was a complete whiteout.

  “There’s been a crash,” murmured Chuck. “A train crash. Amtrak. Halfway between New York and Boston early this morning, but they didn’t find it until now. At least, this is the first announcement.”

  “—terrible loss of life, at least in the hundreds, if not from the crash itself th
en from freezing to death in the blizzard—”

  12:30 p.m.

  “Why couldn’t we have stuck this inside and vented it out?”

  Even with heavy gloves, my hands were numb, and I was getting tired of leaning halfway out a window nearly a hundred feet above the ground. No matter how much I tried to shake it off, the driving snow piled up on my face and neck and melted uncomfortably into the nooks and crannies where clothing met skin.

  “We don’t have time to weld and pressure-test any joints,” replied Chuck.

  Mounting the generator outside their living-room window was proving to be harder than we’d thought. It didn’t help that Chuck could barely use one hand. His injured hand had swollen up like an angry purple grapefruit.

  Tony had gone to help some residents on the second floor, and Pam had returned to the Red Cross station. We had Lauren and Susie take the kids into the spare bedroom to play while we opened the windows. The apartment was freezing cold and awash with melting snow.

  “A slow death by carbon monoxide poisoning is peaceful,” added Chuck, “but not what I had in mind for Christmas.”

  “You almost done?” I groaned.

  “Just connecting cables.”

  I could hear him fumbling around and swearing.

  “Okay, you can let go.”

  With a relieved sigh, I released the plywood platform we had the generator sitting on and leaned back into the apartment, swiveling my window closed as I did. Beside me, Chuck gave me a grin, his injured hand resting carefully on the generator. He pulled on the starter chord with his good hand, and the generator stuttered and growled to life.

  “Hope the goddamn thing doesn’t freeze out there,” said Chuck, closing up the window with the generator hanging outside it, but leaving a small gap for the power cords to get in.

  The apartment had no balcony, and we didn’t want to risk putting it on the fire escape in case someone got the idea to come up and steal it. So we’d balanced it outside a window on an improvised platform.

  “I’m more worried about water getting into it,” I mused. “Not sure it’s weather-proofed for sitting under a foot of melting snow.”

  “We’ll see, won’t we?” Leaning against the window, he gingerly pulled off lengths of duct tape from a roll, handing them to me so I could seal up the gap. “With enough duct tape, you can fix anything,” he laughed.

  “Perfect. I’ll give you a thousand rolls and send you down to Con Edison to get the power back on.”

  We both laughed at that.

  The radio was giving continual updates about the train crash, the increasing severity of the storm, and the power failure. All of New England was paralyzed. It was another Frankenstorm—this one a powerful nor’easter colliding with a low-pressure system rising up from the Southeast. They were predicting it would dump three or four feet in the New York area as it sat on the coast. Fifteen million people and counting were without power, and many were without food or heat or any access to emergency services.

  The updates about the train accident were a mass of conflicting information. Some eyewitnesses said the military was onsite almost immediately but news outlets didn’t report the accident for several hours, leading to speculation that the military was trying to hide the accident for some reason, and no cause was reported.

  As the scale of the storm became clear, and rumors surrounding the train accident spread, the mood in the apartment shifted from cheerful to anxious.

  Pulling off my hat and scarf, I unzipped the parka Chuck had loaned me and shook off the crust of snow that had wedged down the back of my neck. Chuck walked to the kitchen counter, stepping around boxes and bags, to turn up the kerosene heater, and then began rummaging around for extension cords.

  Just then there was a knock on the door and Pam appeared.

  “Back so soon?” I asked.

  Lauren and Susie heard the knock and came into the main room.

  Pam looked around the room as if she was trapped. “I had to leave.”

  “What happened?” asked Lauren.

  “Only one doctor and half the nurses showed up today. We did the best we could, but it turned from people worrying about bird flu to people asking for medications and demanding shelter, and then the emergency generator quit.”

  “My God,” said Lauren, putting one hand to her mouth.

  “We tried closing, but people refused to leave. The battery-powered emergency lights came on, but when we tried to force them out, people panicked and starting grabbing anything they could get their hands on—” Pam burst into tears, putting her face in her hands and trembling. “People aren’t prepared because they assume that somebody else will always fix the problem, and they’re usually right,” she said tearfully. “But this time there’s no help out there.”

  It was true. New Yorkers somehow felt invincible, no matter how dependent they were on their complex infrastructure for survival. In the small town outside Pittsburgh I’d come from, the power could go out any time from storms, or even a car hitting a pole, but in Manhattan a blackout for any length of time was almost incomprehensible. Typical emergency shopping lists for New Yorkers included things like wine, microwave popcorn and Häagen-Dazs, and their biggest issue during a disaster was often boredom.

  “There’s help in here, Pam,” said Chuck. “Come on, sit down and have a cup of tea. We’re about to start the show.” He held up an extension cord and waggled it in the air.

  Lauren put her arm around Pam, talking quietly and taking her to the kitchen to put some water on the propane burner. Chuck and I went back to connecting the extension cords to the generator. We were going to try to power up some lights and the TV to see what was happening on CNN.

  “The gossip in the hallway is that it’s more than just one train crash,” Chuck whispered to me. “They’re saying there was a plane crash at JFK, and more all over the country.”

  “Who said that?” I asked in a hushed voice, sitting on a box. “They didn’t say anything on the radio.” I sat silent for a moment. “Don’t say anything to anyone.”

  Chuck looked at Lauren. “Did her family get out before the bird flu alert?”

  Her mother and father were supposed to have left for Hawaii the day before.

  “We didn’t hear anything,” I replied, realizing there was no way we could have heard anything.

  “I hope GPS isn’t knocked out in this mess,” said Chuck. “There are over half a million people in the air at any time, and without GPS, the pilots flying over water would be reduced to dead reckoning.”

  I plugged in the last of the cables. “Let’s just get CNN on. Should I do the honors?”

  Chuck handed me the power bar we’d plugged the TV and lights into. He went to the couch and picked up the TV remote with his good hand.

  “Everyone!” I announced. “We’re ready to go. Can I get a countdown?”

  Lauren came into the room. “Just plug it in, Mike. Quit fooling around.”

  I shrugged. “Okay, here we go.”

  When I plugged the power bar into the generator, several of the lights we’d set up around the room blinked to life, and the TV clicked on. At the same moment, all the other lights in the house came on, and appliances in the kitchen started beeping.

  I looked at the plug in my hand in amazement. “How in the world?”

  Chuck motioned behind me. I turned to see lights on in the building across from us, shining faintly through the snow squalls, and then my mind clicked. “The power came back on?”

  Chuck nodded as he worked the controls on the remote. Everyone grabbed a cup of tea and crowded onto the couch. The TV screen glowed as Chuck found the right channel.

  I steeled myself for the worst, expecting to see burning aircraft wreckage in a snowy landscape. The image flickered, blocky and pixilated, going blank and then returning before finally stabilizing. A fuzzy field of green appeared, unsteady as if filmed from a helicopter, and then what looked like a field
of wrecked houses. Destroyed houses. The image zoomed out to reveal a scene of devastation in a green valley, with the sloping, rocky sides of a canyon rising up into mountaintops in the distance.

  “What, is that like Montana or something?” I asked, trying to make sense of what we were seeing. The fuzzy text below the image seemed to say something about China. “Did the Chinese do this?”

  “No,” replied Chuck, “that is China.”

  The image flickered in and out again. We were getting sound in staccato bursts. I read what was on the screen: Dam failure in China’s Shanxi Province destroys town, hundreds feared dead.

  Then the sound became clear. “—warning US forces to back down. Both sides are denying any responsibility. An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council has been convened, but China is refusing to attend, while the US has invoked Article Five of the NATO collective defense treaty.”

  “Are they declaring war?” said Chuck. He got up, walked to the TV, and banged on the cable box. The blocky image stabilized.

  “This is Professor Grant Latham from Annapolis, an expert in information warfare,” said the CNN anchor. “What can you tell us about what is happening, Professor?”

  “This is textbook cyber-escalation,” said Professor Latham. “Power outages across China have been reported, and this dam accident appears to be one of several critical infrastructure failures, but we have no idea of the scope.”

  “Cyber-escalation?” asked the anchor.

  “An all-out attack on computer systems and networks.”

  The anchor considered this. “Do you have any recommendations for how people could be preparing themselves, anything they could do?”

  Professor Latham took a deep breath and closed his eyes before opening them and looking straight into the camera.

  “Pray.”

  7:20 p.m.

  “His fever has definitely broken,” said Pam, looking at the readout from the baby thermometer.

  She showed it to me—101—then passed it to Lauren, who leaned down into the crib to coo at Luke. His face was still mottled red, but he was fidgeting and crying less.