‘Good’ said Eva. ‘I’ll go first.’
The cabin of the staff elevator shook. Eva clasped the edge of the destroyed dividing wall, pulled herself up and swung a leg onto the other side.
Not look down?
Eva, Eva. It was easier said than done. She suddenly felt queasy, and her courage disintegrated. The distant bottom of the shaft disappeared into the ominous darkness, and even the bars suddenly seemed disconcertingly narrow. Forcing herself not to look up at the demolished remains of cabin E2, she reached out, grabbed one of the bars and felt the heat penetrate the material wrapped around her hand. With her teeth clenched, she clambered right over to the other side and rested her feet on the hot steel.
Well, it wasn’t exactly a boulevard. But she was standing.
Resolved, she dared to take a step sideways and groped her way forwards until she reached the front-facing shaft wall. She bridged the corner with her leg and sent the tip of her foot searching for something to grip on to. Her upper body leaned backwards, the material of her improvised bandage slipped off against the steel of the brace. For a moment she feared losing her grip and clung on with her heart beating wildly. She couldn’t stop herself from craning her head back and staring at the underside of the glowing cabin. E2 was now directly above her, black and threatening, its edges fiery.
If the thing falls now, she thought to herself, at least I won’t have to worry about whether they still have the blouse at Louis Vuitton. Then she remembered that Rebecca Hsu had bought Louis Vuitton, years ago even.
Rebecca will just have to sort something out for me then, she thought grimly.
She tightened her grip. With one more courageous step, she reached the bars on the front wall. Quickly now! The heat was starting to get painful through the bandages, burn blisters were inevitable. They wouldn’t be able to last all that long in here, and to top it all off she had a sneaking suspicion that the smoke was making its way downwards now too. Arching her feet like a ballerina, she pushed her way past the lower edge of the elevator doors, then conquered the second corner as well. The opening was to her right, barely a metre away. Cautiously, she turned her head and saw Karla at the height of the doors, closely followed by Sushma, who had her face turned towards the wall and was obediently refusing to look up or down. Mukesh, who had just made it to the other side, secured himself with his right hand and helped Hsu heave her ample body across the ledge.
‘Take care of Sushma,’ said Hsu, ignoring Mukesh’s outstretched hand. ‘I can make it by myse—’
Her words were drowned out by metallic screeching. She hurriedly swung herself over the ledge. A crash and clatter sounded out, disappearing quickly into the depths as the staff elevator fell.
‘Everything okay?’ Mukesh’s voice echoed off the walls and was swallowed by the abyss.
Hsu nodded, trembling on one of the bars. ‘God that’s hot!’
‘Wait, I’m coming.’
‘No, I’m fine. Go. Go!’
Eva took a deep breath and pushed herself forward to just below the passageway. It was higher up than she had thought and she could only just peer over the ledge, but there were two narrow rungs built into the wall. With a chin-up, she managed to get inside. She crawled forwards and, almost immediately, her hands came up against a metal plate which sealed off the back of the passageway. To the side of it was a small control panel. Taking a chance, she pressed her finger on it, and at the same moment icy horror rushed through her.
Vacuum pressure! What if the fire and smoke had already annihilated too much of the oxygen in the elevator shaft?
To her incredible relief, the panel glided to the side and revealed an evenly lit, two-metre-square shaft. There was a ladder on the left-hand side. She contorted herself to turn around, crept back and stretched both hands out towards Karla.
‘In here,’ she called, her voice reverberating. ‘The ventilation shaft is behind here.’
Karla slithered into the passage next to her.
‘Climb down the ladder,’ said Eva. ‘At some point there should be a way of getting out.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’m helping the others.’
‘Okay.’
Sushma turned her face towards her. In it, hope and deathly fear were grappling for supremacy.
‘Everything’s okay, Sushma.’ Eva smiled. ‘Everything’s fine now.’
There was a loud creak above her, then a metallic crash, and sparks rained down in dense showers.
Eva looked up. A fiery glow was gleaming through a crack in the cabin. Had that been there before? It looked as though the floor of the burning cabin was beginning to break away from the rest of it.
No, she thought. Not yet. Please!
Hsu looked towards the ceiling in alarm as she battled to overcome the second corner. Her knees were shaking violently.
Sushma started to cry. Hastily, Eva pulled the Indian woman into the shaft, helped by Mukesh, who pushed from below and then hesitated, unsure as to whether he should follow his wife or help Hsu, who was edging her way along centimetre by centimetre.
‘Get in!’ ordered Eva. ‘I’ll take care of Rebecca. Come on!’
Mukesh obeyed, squeezed past her and disappeared into the ventilation shaft. Another creak came from above. The glowing rain became denser. Hsu screamed as sparks landed on her naked shoulders. She pressed herself against the wall, unable to carry on, frozen with fear.
‘Rebecca!’ Eva stretched her upper body out.
‘I can’t,’ groaned Hsu.
‘You’re almost there.’ She stretched her long arms out to the Chinese woman, trying to get a hold on her.
‘My legs aren’t doing what I tell them.’
‘Just a little further! Hold on to me.’
Volley-like blows droned through the shaft. The cabin floor of E2 bulged out, then exploded into pieces.
No, pleaded Eva. Not now. Not yet. Please not yet!
She reached out as far as she could. Fiery reflections darted over the walls of the shaft. The Chinese woman overcame both her rigidity and the corner, managed to take an utterly fearless step, came closer, made her way to right beneath her, grasped her outstretched right hand, lifted her gaze to Eva—
And then up to the ceiling.
Time stood still.
With a crash, the floor plate broke free. Hsu’s features contorted, reflecting the realisation that she had lost, and froze. For the duration of a heartbeat, her gaze rested on Eva.
‘No!’ screamed Eva. ‘No!’
The Chinese woman pulled her hands away. As if wanting to welcome her end with open arms, she spread them out, let herself fall and tipped backwards into the shaft. Eva reacted instinctively. In a flash, she pulled back, protected her head and buried her face in her elbows. Centimetres away from her, the cabin floor thundered past, spitting out fountains of embers. It singed her lower arms, hands and hair, but she didn’t feel a thing. The elevator shaft filled with the sounds of crashing and banging. In distraught disbelief, she pulled herself over the edge and watched as the fiery cloud became smaller and paler, until it seemed to implode into the depths as the cabin floor fell deeper and deeper.
Rebecca’s coffin lid.
‘No,’ she whispered.
Tongues of fire lashed down from above. Eva pulled herself back into the ventilation shaft. Her feet found the ladder of their own accord. There was an identical control panel to the one in the passageway. On autopilot now, she touched it and the trapdoor glided shut without a sound. Below her, she heard voices, the echo of feet on metallic ladder rungs. She had lost all concept of an imaginable future. Listlessly, she hung there in the heat of the shaft. The heat was unbearable here too, but she was shaking all over, freezing, as if her heart were pumping icy water, and couldn’t get a grip of her thoughts, not even when the tears began to stream down her bony cheeks.