by CK Collins
———Son, I’ve seen you watching me.
I tell him I am sorry.
———You watch everything, don’t you?
Between him and the house I am positioned. My heart is hard beating.
———Carrying a burden like this all by yourself. That’s right much to shoulder, Ephraim.
I see no weapon, but about him is all strength.
———Ephraim, son, I’ve come to you from Liashe.
Ashma, the lift in my heart — but I am afraid of lies.
———Now, take note of your position, yeah? No visibility from the street. Or from any house but mine. So Hilm Hivaa can’t see us. Right?
He is right. I say yes. I should try to be at ease, he tells me.
———Son, I’ve got a sadness to share. My sympathy, lad, but your friend Daadik has passed into Ashma.
He tells me that Daadik’s death was only of age and not of violence brought. From his pocket he takes a book and it is the Bible of Daadik. Ashma, I am of struggle to resist unmanly sobbing. To me he gives the Bible and says Daadik would feel great pride of seeing me with Callie.
———I’m called Sule, Ephraim. And we’re all proud of you. Proud and impressed. Sister Imurna, the Brother of Liashe who sent me, all of us.
The Bible of Daadik I squeeze.
———Ephraim, you helped Callie when no one else would. You faced a vawdra for her. A vawdra. And you killed it.
I tell to him the truth, that it was Callie who did the killing. To that he says that we killed it together.
———How did you know she was special? That she needed you?
I talk of the sea and the footprints and the calls I heard. About those things he is of strong interest. He asks me was there before that something else. I think. And I say of my heart on seeing Callie. He asks me about that feeling, and I say it was of Ashma near and loving.
———Ephraim, what you did with the vawdra, that was brave. But that feeling, being open to that feeling, son that was braver.
I say thank you. But Ashma, hearing You was not of courage, it was of deepest need.
He says now I must tell about Hilm Hivaa.
All that I know, I tell to him. I say to him that they are coming soon.
———When the time comes, Ephraim, you need to follow me. You need to do everything I tell you. Not as a slave, not as a soldier. As a friend. And a child of Ashma. Can you do that?
I say to him that I want Callie to go to Sister Imurna. He says that we all will. I say that what he instructs, I will do.
———Good lad. We’ll get through this. Now listen close.
7 May
* * *
Jaya, Masalay
Serious downpour all day, and the baby is killing me. The rain has broken the heat some at least, but the baby won’t give me a minute’s peace. Like it wants to get out of me now.
Ephraim doesn’t want me going outside for the mail. But I’ve got to move. The neighbor lady, the one who seems not to hate us, she runs over with her umbrella.
“Dear, have you heard?”
“No, heard what?”
“We’ve a storm coming.”
“There’s a storm here already, seems like.”
“Dear, no: a cyclone. Please, you must prepare at once. They say we should expect the worst.”
It’s not funny, but I laugh. “Of course we should.”
Part Four
A Lower Deep
There is that in me - I do not know what it is - but I know it is in
me.
Wrench'd and sweaty - calm and cool then my body becomes,
I sleep - I sleep long.
Walt Whitman
8 May
* * *
Jaya, Masalay
The baby does not like cyclones.
It’s kicking me like it wants to bust straight out. I keep trying to explain — my best mom-to-be voice — that this is what us grown-ups call bad timing. And I also mention that it’s not nice to hurt your mama.
Ephraim’s constantly at the window. Lots of folks boarding up their windows, lashing stuff down. Some of the people down at end of the street and behind us have already bugged out.
Caida came on TV an hour ago. Dressed down, no emeralds. Flanked by military people, very commanding. I know it’s all kind of a performance, but I did feel reassured.
Masalay is not on the normal cyclone path, apparently. The last big one was 97 years ago, and it wasn’t pretty. They keep showing the same black-and-white pictures of streets blasted to smithereens and this one shot, which they really like, of corpses stacked like cordwood. A million people homeless, eighty thousand dead (give or take twenty thousand). The commentators all seem to agree we can do better this time.
Jaya’s better prepared than anywhere else, of course. Modern infrastructure and construction standards. The hotels have everything under control. Stay away from windows, fill your bathtub, have candles and electric torches. There’s an official advisory against swimming, jet skiing, snorkeling, and paddle boating. No word about parasailing.
* * *
The cyclone’s just sitting off the coast, is what their saying on the news, churning and churning, sucking up water, getting bigger.
Caida’s ordered the MDF into Sagaro, Jaya, and Patchil-Kinaat. Managing traffic and setting up roadblocks, which I have to say is something they excel at. Looters to be shot on sight.
I try to keep Ephraim busy with preparations, but he’s just so jumpy and can’t quit checking the windows. These Masalayans — they’re so used to the man-made disasters that the natural ones are extra hard to take.
Pashi calls and says I should sit tight. They’re all trying to decide on the best option if it gets bad. She asks about the baby, and I tell her we’re doing fabulous.
* * *
Four more hours is how long I am now needing to hold off Hilm Hivaa. Viyka watch us front and back, and Sule says they have the front gate taken. He has a new plan made and will take care of the viyka. For me is only to have Callie ready.
I wait of signals but nothing happens except the rain.
Callie has into her bedroom gone. She is of pain. This rain is iron. Of yet there is not wind. People leave. Of every house there is a hurry of leaving. Callie has said I must bring her the telephone if it rings. She wants to talk to her Runai friend. To know of where to go.
For nails I search in drawers. A child is banging at the glass door. He is naked pleading. Of his face is very fear. To open the door to him is what I want. But, Ashma, this boy I know. His footprints I have seen in soil and sand. Callie’s bedroom, the door is closed. If she sees this boy, she will let him in. He needs to be sheltered, she will say. If I tell her that this boy is a trick of the Skythk, she will not understand. She will say that I am to evil returned.
Begins the breathless cry of frightened children. Callie, even if she knew him to be dangerous, still she would not leave him to the storm. But I have often before turned from pleading. The chill of my heart is our blessing today. The curtains I close. His little hands scratch the glass. The table I shove of making a barricade. His child’s cry a howl becomes. I ready my hands for keeping Callie away. Into the glass he thuds. He thuds. He thuds.
He goes.
And it hits like a wave the wind.
* * *
The wind was hardly anything this morning, but it’s like a freight train now. Everybody in the neighborhood is racing to get out.
Pashi hasn’t called. I keep checking to see if we’ve still got a dial tone. Her cell phone goes to voice mail.
Rika’s Jag sure is pretty, but the water’s already too high.
Ephraim boarded up the big sliding glass door. No idea where he got the wood. He’s starting on the front now.
The lights flicker.
I make marmalade toast.
I’ve got absolutely no appetite (how long’s it been since that was true?). I’m running a temp and the baby’s karate-kicking my gut, but I should eat before th
e power goes out.
I tell Ephraim to fill up the bathtub. I hate bossing him around, but my energy is so gone. I put down the toast. Breathe deep. Waves of — oh god — I retch — sour sour puke and the heaving makes my head spin. I grab the table. Then Ephraim is lifting me. I push him and puke again. He sits me. Water, which helps. I shove the plate. Trying to stay still and keep my insides calm.
Hard to see, but I think there’s some guys fighting the rain to get to us. Could be forced evacuation finally — fine by me as long as they’ve got something to take us in. Ephraim’s quick to the door, has to shove hard before it’ll budge. He looks back at me and I try to mime that we need a truck or something.
My stomach’s still rumbling but I’ve really gotta pee. I get to the bathroom and shut the door. It’s a little awkward getting the positioning right, but I lean against the wall and check myself. Some funky discharge. But no dilation, thank god. Huge gust and the lights flicker. This sucks.
* * *
Rika peers at the dashboard clock. Three in the afternoon, but darker than midnight. They pass a Jaya comfort sign torn from the overpass and twisted to face the descending sky. Alone in the remaining southbound lane, opposite a teeming seven-lane sea of headlights, they reach the Peninsula Interchange.
The MDF have attempted to erect a barricade, but the wind has thrown it prone and skidding against the side rail. Their armed 4Runner is perpendicular across the lane. A soldier steps out, irritated, thrusting his arms into an X. They pull close. The gaan climbs out and shouts about a hospital. The soldier jabs a finger northward. The gaan talks fast and waves his hands, continuing to advance. Their shouts are inaudible in the wind. The soldier begins to raise his weapon when the gaan shoots him. The rest is hideous and quick.
* * *
How the men come toward the house, I know what they have come to do. I am outside to meet them.
Sule asked me did I want a gun. How I answered is no. It was from my promise to Sister Imurna. I now am wishing I had answered him different. With me I have now a hammer and knife of the kitchen. I will hide them for how long I can and try to take by surprise both viyka. We are near. They hail me. I am hit by wind. I am lifted and roughly blown. I skid into a twisted fence. Dizzy and with struggle I am up and looking. Bent are the dead bodies of the men. I think they have been shot, Ashma, but I do not go to see.
* * *
They dump the MDF and transfer to their 4Runner. Blood squishes from the soggy carpet.
The viyka beside Rika attempts without success to radio the teams in Jaya. Comes the Pass. Comes Jaya. And even the gaan is shaken — the all-day-soaring city left dim and low under a burying sky.
Static-filled absence on the radio.
* * *
Callie wipes at her sweat.
The air is such damp and heavy heat. Long dead are the fans and cooling vents, and we are dark but of candles and battery torches.
To the baby Callie whispers.
I ask is the baby coming. At that she is mad and says it is too early for the baby to come. She makes herself breathe deep. She speaks a need but I am deaf of the storm such holler in my head. She shouts it in my ear.
———Water.
For the jug I search.
Ashma, everyone has gone.
No one has called Callie with help. The street is darkness.
Not of Hilm Hivaa.
Not of Sule.
Callie is on her knees. Eyes tight. I touch her shoulder, offer the jug, but her head she worry shakes. She finds the bathroom. She shuts the door.
* * *
Contractions — close then not close — sharp and grinding — this baby wants out. I’m so hot. God we are so screwed.
Ephraim lays a wet washcloth on my neck. We’ve got the one radio jacked to eleven but still I can barely hear it. Up and down the dial is nothing except this one station playing jazz. Makes me think of Dad’s workshop, always the radio on WRTI.
The guy speaks good English. Sounds so young. And stoned. Going on about Lester Young and his feathery tone.
Long silence. I’m thinking maybe we lost him too.
He’s back. He has something to announce about life on earth. The cyclone made landfall on the Nova Coast at 10:17. “Goodbye Silva,” he says, “You were ugly. Bear ugly. Ass ugly. But you were ours and we loved you.”
The Sutcliffe Tunnel has flooded, he says. And the Askita Daar Bridge buckled an hour ago. The city is cut off. But we have the melodic master Mr. Hank Mobley on the tenor saxophone and the incomparable Paul Chambers on bass.
Ephraim’s heard something. At the back door, he says, and goes.
Huge whoosh and slam. This roof is gonna go, this is bullshit.
Goddammit, where is he?
I pull myself up. There’s broken glass on the counter from a window that he couldn’t board up. Rain howling through, glass shards sparkling in my flashlight.
Ephraim’s there and he’s not alone.
It’s the neighbor and he’s bloody. A deep lac bleeding through his shirt and looks like a dislocated shoulder. He tells me he’s got a truck and knows a place to go.
“Great, great,” I shout back.
“Is there anything you need to bring with you?”
“No.”
9 May
* * *
Masalay
The shelter is teeming and the entry queue poorly administered. It’s gone midnight by the time Tchori gets inside and finds Kistulo.
He presents her with a Pepsi that somehow is cold. “You’re too good to me,” she says and kisses his cheek before checking round the corner for Carodai. “And smartly done with the pillows.”
“No reason not to be comfortable. And this was the scullery, remember? I’ve scavenged.”
“Of course you’ve done. I do rely on you that way. Have you seen Brother Carodai?”
“Had a great haul,” he boasts, opening a canvas kit to reveal a right tangle of kitchen implements.
“Lord within, Kistu, what need have we for eighteen kinds of spoon?”
“For barter. No saying how long we’ll be here.”
“Right, and no doubt there’ll be a thriving market in ladles. Come on then — seen Carodai, have you?”
“He’s probably gone to a nearer shelter, hasn’t he then?”
“No, we agreed: He’s to come here.”
“You’ve forgotten, have you, who we’re talking about? He’s likely chasing some stamps he saw flying on the wind.”
“You prat, Carodai doesn’t collect stamps.”
“Will you sit, please?”
She does and allows him to put an arm around her. “Haven’t got a Guinness in that kit, have you?”
“Had thought to pouch something of that sort in. Expected you’d admonish me, though, over the rules.”
“It’s true, it’s true,” she says, laying her head on his shoulder, “I am a stickler.”
“Want a prediction?”
“Yes.”
“All the hail-and-holler on the news, everything they’re predicting, I don’t buy it. Mark my words, monkey: this won’t be all that.”
“Kistu, Kistu.” She nuzzles in and closes her aching eyes. “It’s going to be so much worse.”
* * *
I stoop as low as I can and lean in to the wind — like pushing against a crashing wave that won’t quit crashing. Our neighbor’s out in front, heading toward his truck, and I just follow his flashlight. Ephraim tries to shield me from the rain and all the debris that’s whipping around.
The guy opens the door of the SUV, and I’m sucked up, I’m off my feet, I’m lifting — but Ephraim’s got me and he pulls me in.
We take a few seconds to catch our breath. It’s quieter, just a little. The guy climbs into the back seat and passes me the keys. The car seems brand new and it’s loaded up with water and other supplies. The wind’s like a gang of gorillas rocking us. I take a quick look at him with the ceiling light on. He really does not look good. If I saw in
juries like that in the ER, I’d think about calling the cops.
“Callie, yeah?”
“Right, hi. This is Ephraim.”
“He is called Sule,” Ephraim tells me, like they go way back.