“It didn’t happen to me.”
“It doesn’t have to.” Lorraine frowns. “I’m glad you’re all right.”
Then comes the bad news: the military has instituted an escort policy. No Westerner is to leave the city limits without military accompaniment. They impose a curfew: no one is to move about after dark. Sometimes, late at night, Piotr senses figures skulking around the periphery of the aid compound, avoiding the light to escape identification. Perhaps they are soldiers on patrol, former residents retrieving personal belongings. Perhaps they are aid workers administering help. Perhaps. But he fears that they are not. Those figures are something else entirely, and their work belongs in the dark.
The aid compound itself is secure. The fire that brews the coffee is now a small bonfire, one of many dotting the city. Someone has added the morning’s coffee grounds to the flame, the smoke bitter and comforting. Piotr remembers his first day of work with Lorraine’s team, Rana’s first day alone in their apartment. She had forgotten to turn off the coffeemaker, and the liquid in the carafe boiled into sludge. The smoke detector went off, and she called him, panicked. So much noise. So much smoke. Lorraine let him take the day off, and he returned home to open the windows and the doors, to sweep up the shards of the shattered carafe, and to comfort his wife, who still believed that no place could ever be safe.
It must be midnight now — Piotr no longer has a watch — and only a few people sit around the fire. The flames dwindle. The night air has a bracing chill, and those sitting around the fire try to bring back what warmth they have to their tents.
Ted is there, and he motions for Piotr to sit. To his left is a strapping young man, who glows on his chest and shoulders, the reflective stripes of a search-and-rescue uniform.
“This is Andy,” Ted says.
“Good to meet you,” Andy says. He has a strong grip, a claw. As Andy sits back, he nudges Ted in the shoulder, as if sharing a joke. In the firelight, their faces flicker, orange one moment, shadow the next. Their arms press together.
The curfew has hampered rescue efforts, Andy explains. Their best work is done at night, when everything is silent, when they can listen for signs of life. The racket during the day is too hectic. They’ve lodged a complaint with the military heads and hope for a quick resolution.
“But they’re calling the shots,” Andy says.
“Are you feeling better, Piotr?” Ted asks. Everyone asks this question, as if determined to catch him in a lie. Piotr nods, little bursts of agreement. When he returns to New York, he has resolved not to tell Rana about today. She will worry unduly. He is unharmed.
“I think it’s time for me to turn in,” Ted says.
“So soon?” Andy sounds disappointed.
“You, of all people, should be resting.”
“Yes, Gramps,” Andy says. Ted pushes him so that he leans but doesn’t fall over.
Their interaction seems odd. They look at each other to shut out the world. Good. Perhaps they find some modicum of comfort, of peace.
Piotr is determined to discover the coffee brewer’s identity. He has brought his pillow and blanket to the fire. He’s the last one there, though he’s far from the only person awake. Light seeps from beneath certain tents like a carpet. The medical area glows. Arni is there now, he imagines.
He closes his eyes and listens for footsteps. When the brewer comes, Piotr will thank him or her. Piotr remembers his mother explaining the concept of a mitzvah, a good deed for its own sake. Sometimes, selflessness seems so remote, like the light of a faraway star. Yes, Piotr does good work, but it’s also profitable. Yes, he had rescued Rana, but he also desired her. There are no gifts that aren’t covered in thorns.
When he wakes, the embers have died. Not even a smolder. He hears the glug of water pouring from a jug. The person stirs the ashes with a stick and stacks kindling into a pyramid. He positions the pot, the metal black with char. Piotr lies still, as if the brewer were a doe that would bolt if startled. Perhaps the person has already seen him. He doesn’t know. And he accepts that there are things that he will never know.
The fire crackles into life. He sees clearly: legs standing next to the fire, a pair of shoes split in several places. The soles are nothing more than thin strips of rubber; the leather is polished as much as it will bear. The person waits for the water to boil. It might take an hour for that much water to heat. Dawn seems a distant promise.
It’s Babu Roshan. They say nothing. The heat reaches Piotr, and the rawness of the cold peels away. Babu Roshan holds a bulging paper bag. He has defied curfew to bring them coffee. He could have been shot. Piotr doesn’t know if the coffee implies an explicit exchange, a debt to be repaid at a later time, but this no longer matters. Babu Roshan pours in the coffee, dark as soil. It’s an inexact science, brewing for so many people. Babu Roshan adjusts the sign about stirring up the grounds. In the last day, new languages have appeared: Russian, Arabic, Chinese.
Babu Roshan stirs with a metal ladle, which he taps against the side of the pot. He pours a paper-cupful for Piotr.
“I heard about your friend,” he says.
Piotr should offer an apology. Thanks. These are small gestures, minor instances of grace. But to expect anything in return for kindness is a mistake. Back in the tent, he places the cup of coffee next to his cot, where it will grow cold by the time he wakes. This he knows — and he takes comfort in what little knowledge he can possess.
OUR LIVES IN RUINS
On this morning, the fifth since the earthquake, the dogs return. They roam in arrowhead packs, noses close to the ground, locking onto the scents that promise sustenance. They pad around the aid camp, quiet as rustling paper, and Ted imagines he’s at McCarren Park. Dogs off their leashes, doing what dogs do best. There are single dogs, skittish outcasts that snap and growl and slink away. These paw at the rubbish heaped on the north side of the compound, at the open-trench latrine, and lick drops of water from the insides of discarded bottles.
On the way back from the facilities, Ted sees a dog holding a hand. More bodies are recovered than the funeral pyres can burn. When the wind carries the smoke into camp, Ted gags. Some bodies burn incompletely, and what this dog has clamped in its teeth is blackened and gnarled. It sniffs its path home, edging away when vehicles drive by and kick up veils of dust. The dog’s teats hang low, brown and hard as walnuts. The tips of her fur are singed. The hand still has identifiable fingers, but it’s no longer flesh. It’s meat.
A passing soldier yells and cocks his rifle. A retort, a thunderous crack in the air, and the dog falls, without a yelp. The soldier grabs the dog’s legs and drags her away, leaving a skid in the road like a brushstroke.
For the past four days, Ted has taken statements, transcribing stories spilling out of people into steno notebooks. The pages fill with broken words, half-formed letters, and every evening, he re-creates what he can’t understand. His fingers, where he holds the pen, have bruised.
He spent yesterday afternoon in the medical tents. There, the staff maintained a fire in an old gasoline barrel, feeding it bloodied bandages, gauze, and chunks of flesh. They turned their heads when they dropped the waste in, the heat unbearable. The metal hummed as if alive.
Ted asked a battery of questions to assess the needs of the displaced. Do they have a supply of food and clean water? Sufficient shelter? Medical care? The basic necessities of life? Some complained about the inadequacy of the blankets, about the dryness of the high-energy food biscuits, about how difficult it was to balance on the crumbling edge of the latrine. But complaints meant that they were doing well enough to complain.