Remembering the Titanic Part 11

YANKING HER SKIRT UP over her face again, Katie crawled over to the small figure. She knew to feel the tiny wrist for a pulse. It was faint ... very faint ... but it was there. Bridget was still alive. But she needed to be taken from the smoke-filled house.

How? Katie would have shouted aloud if she'd had a voice. How? She was so weak herself, she could barely crawl on her own, let alone carry even as small a child as this one.

Why had no one come to help them?

Anger pulled her up onto her hands and knees. I did not survive the worst sea tragedy in history, she told herself grimly, when so many others did not, only to perish in a fire in a Brooklyn roominghouse!

The voice that Katie heard next was not her own. It was her ma's. "Well, if you're goin' to do what you came in here to do," her ma's voice said, "you'd best be about it."

Katie lifted her head. "Ma?"

No answer. Sheila Hanrahan had said all she meant to say. Now it was up to Katie to heed or ignore her mother's advice.

Didn't seem like she'd have heard it in the first place if she was meant to ignore it.

There were no new flames taunting her, and the smoke seemed to have lessened just a bit. Could be her ma had scared it away. Reaching out tentatively with both hands, Katie clasped her hands around Bridget's small wrists. She could still feel a pulse, which seemed a great wonder to her. Bridget's spirit must be very strong, then. That thought renewed her own strength, and holding tightly to the two delicate wrists, Katie began inching her way backward, still on her stomach on the floor. She had no free hand now to keep the green skirt and petticoat over her face. But her head had cleared, as if her mother had somehow filled it with life-giving oxygen.

If she could drag Bridget to the top of the staircase, staying flat to avoid the thickest smoke, they could slide or even tumble down the stairs to safety.

If she could find the stairs.

She couldn't.

She wasn't sure exactly how she'd got turned around. Perhaps when she'd crawled to Bridget. Though she crawled the length of the corridor, pulling the little girl along with her, she never came upon any stairs. Perhaps they'd collapsed. Or perhaps they were there and she couldn't see them in all the smoke.

This, Katie thought despairingly, must have been what it was like for Brian when he was thrown into the Atlantic Ocean. It would have been as dark and murky down there as it is in this hall. Like me, he wouldn't have been able to see, or get his bearings, or think what to do. The difference was, Brian would have frozen to death almost immediately in that below-freezing water, and so he hadn't been able to save himself. It was not cold in the hall of Agnes Murphy's roominghouse. Katie felt she had no excuse for not saving herself and Bridget. Brian would expect her to, considering how much more fortunate she was than he.

Without a staircase, they would have to leave the house some other way.

Katie slid her body around on the hot floor to kick out behind her, seeking a door, any door, that would allow them to escape the smoke-filled hall. If she could find a room that wasn't being consumed by fire, there would be a window in it. She could open the window and let in blessed fresh air.

The thought spurred her on, and she slid and kicked out at the wall behind her, slid and kicked, never letting go of Bridget's wrists for a second. She didn't realize she'd come to a door until it burst open after several sharp smacks with Katie's booted foot. Still pulling the unconscious child, she used her knees and feet to propel them both backward. Her left arm was beginning to pain her fiercely, and she realized that it had been burned. She wasn't sure how, hadn't been aware of a flame touching her. But one must have, because she knew a burn when she felt it, and when she turned her head to look, she saw that the sleeve of her green dress was blackened just above the elbow.

Flo wouldn't like that, either.

The room was not as thick with smoke as the hall had been. And when Katie lifted her head and with tremendous effort opened her swollen eyes, she saw no sign of flames. She stood up and lifted the little girl, then hurried to the window. But once there, she had to lay Bridget down on the floor. She needed both hands to open the window.

Out of a deep need to let the child know she hadn't been abandoned, Katie planted one heeled boot firmly on the skirt of Bridget's smoke-grimed, flowered dress. Maybe the little girl wouldn't know someone was there ... but maybe she would. Then, too, it was Katie's way of keeping track of the child, should the smoke thicken again.

Suddenly there were flames, small ones, dancing in and out of a tall bookcase standing against the wall opposite her, near the door. Like children playing hide-and-go-seek, Katie thought, even as the sense of urgency within her mushroomed. How long would it be before the infant flames, fed by the pages of the shelved books, grew up?

If she could get some air into her lungs, the constant coughing would stop, the sharp knives carving into her chest might go away, and then perhaps she could think straight.

Keeping her right heel firmly planted on Bridget's dress, Katie examined the window. The gla.s.s was smoke-grimed, but when she looked down, she could see the scene below. There in the street were two fire engines, parked helter-skelter. The crowd of neighbors and spectators had thickened to a deep, wide, puddle of people. Katie saw her uncle Malachy, still in his iron-gray work clothes. He was standing with his arm around Lottie. She must have telephoned him, summoning him home. Had Tom come, too? Katie didn't see him. Her aunt was openly crying and twisting in agitation the flowered ap.r.o.n tied around her waist. Behind her stood Flo, an anxious look on her face.

Someone saw her then, an elderly woman Katie didn't recognize. The woman opened her mouth in a shout, and pointed. The firemen looked up, along with everyone else.

Spots were appearing in front of her eyes, blue, yellow, purple, dancing like the flames near the door. And the room had begun slowly spinning around her, like the wonderful carousel at Coney Island. But this kind of spinning was not so wonderful. Katie guessed that the spots meant she was close to pa.s.sing out. She had never fainted in her life, not even when she broke her elbow. She dare not do it now. They would both perish for certain.

She reached out and undid the latch. It took every ounce of strength she had to raise the window. But it was worth the effort, as cold air smelling of smoke rushed into the room. Katie gulped it in gratefully, and at the same time, reached down to scoop up the unconscious child and lay her head on the windowsill, as close to the air as possible.

It took her only a second to realize the price she would pay for the fresh air. The incoming oxygen had fueled the baby flames, transforming them from playful little creatures to full-blown, adult flames, grasping like tentacles for everything in their path.

They had already, in just seconds, swallowed up the door.

There was no way out of the room.

Chapter 22.

BRIDGET HUNG FROM THE windowsill, limp as a rag doll. From below came shouting. It was Katie's name they were shouting. And something else... "Jump! Jump, Katie!"

Jump? From the second story?

Then Mary's voice, surprisingly strong. "Did you find her, Katie? Did you find my Bridget? Is she all right, then?"

Other voices shouted, "Jump! You've got to jump!"

Katie looked down. There were five, no six firemen in black coats and helmets. Their extended arms supported a black cloth or canvas, round as pie. From where Katie stood, it looked no more substantial than a child's blanket. They weren't thinking, were they, that she was to jump into that? Or fling poor Bridget down upon it? Did they think the smoke had driven her daft? She turned away from the window, sagging against the windowframe. "Oh, Paddy, d.a.m.n you," she whispered, "where are you? Why are you not here, as you were on the s.h.i.+p? Are you not goin' to save me this time, then?"

She knew he wasn't. He didn't even know she was in trouble. Such terrible trouble. And not just her. Bridget, too. Paddy liked Bridget. He would be sore distressed to see the child in such a state.

The flames had swallowed up a full quarter of the room. They consumed flowered wallpaper, a wall sconce, a wooden valet supporting a blue serge man's jacket, an inexpensive fake leather jewelry box and its contents, a floor lamp with a pink fringed shade, a pile of clean white pillowslips neatly folded on a brown wooden chair. Then they ate the chair. Katie watched in horror.

There was no more time.

"Jump!" came from below. "You must jump!"

She knew the voices were right. She felt again for Bridget's pulse. Still there ... but oh, so faint. If there was any chance at all ... Mary must have her child. She would never forgive herself if her baby died.

"Oh, Lord," Katie whispered, "you ask too much of me, and that's the truth of it. But I guess I got no choice. I'll do it then, if I must." Then she muttered grimly, "But I'm sayin' right now I won't like it!"

Turning back to the window, she hoisted Bridget up over the sill. When Mary glimpsed the red curls, she cried out in joy and shouted, "Bless you, Katie, bless you!"

Even with a voice, Katie wouldn't have had the heart to shout, "Don't bless me yet, Mary. You haven't seen the state your child is in." The only blessing was, as far as she could tell, Bridget wasn't burned. It was the smoke that had done her in, poisoning her little lungs. Looking at her pinched, gray-blue face and her limp body, it was impossible to believe that Mary's Bridget would ever walk, run, play, breathe normally again.

"I cannot toss this child out the window," Katie whispered to the gluttonous flames. "I cannot!"

But she did. Dropping the little girl out into s.p.a.ce was the hardest thing Kathleen Hanrahan had ever had to do. Worse even than stepping off the great s.h.i.+p t.i.tanic into a lifeboat. But now, as then, she had no choice.

The child landed softly, gently, just as Katie had hoped. One of the firemen scooped her up, cradling her in his arms, and rushed with her to a waiting ambulance. Mary and Agnes Murphy raced along behind him. Both climbed into the back of the ambulance before it pulled away, siren wailing.

Katie, her breath coming in agonizing, ragged gasps, fell to her knees. She knew she had only been inside the house ten minutes or less. It seemed days.

"Jump, Katie, jump!" her uncle Malachy shouted from below. "Hurry! Jump now!"

If only there were a lifeboat hanging on davits right outside the window, like the one she'd stepped into from the t.i.tanic. She would step into it then and someone above her would slowly, safely, lower it down to the ground. She wouldn't even mind if it lurched like a drunken donkey, as the lifeboat had. As long as it got her out of this inferno and safely to the ground.

But there was no lifeboat here. The only way to the ground was a dive, a leap out into empty s.p.a.ce. What if she missed the canvas? She would escape death by fire only to die of a broken neck or smashed skull.

If I'm ever goin' to see Paddy again, Katie thought as another wave of coughing overtook her, if I'm ever goin' to see Ireland again and me sisters and brother, me ma and da, I'm goin' to have to take a leap out this window and I'm goin' to have to be quick about it. She did so want to see Ireland again. Even if it meant boarding a s.h.i.+p.

Closing her red and swollen eyes, she pulled herself to her feet and climbed over the wooden sill until she was perched on it. Heat from the flames gobbling their way toward her seared the back of her neck. Terror made her oxygen-deprived heart skip, slow, skip again, as if it were trying to decide whether or not to go on with the struggle. Afraid it would give up before she could jump, Katie stared down at the black canvas circle just long enough to take aim. Then she leaned forward, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," she whispered, "I give you my heart and my soul."

Then she jumped.

Chapter 23.

ELIZABETH HAD BEEN STAYING with Anne, in her shockingly messy and postage stamp-sized apartment under the el, for only two days when there was a commanding knock at the door. Anne had gone out to hear her idol, Emma Goldman, a fiery, free-thinking speaker, give a speech in the Village. "You should come, too, Elizabeth, you'd be inspired," she had urged. But Elizabeth, desperately needing to be alone with her thoughts after two days and nights of Anne, declined.

Thinking it was Max at the door, Elizabeth hurried to answer it.

Nola was standing on the other side. Dressed in a chic navy blue suit with a white blouse, and a matching blue hat on her head, she looked thoroughly shaken. Elizabeth understood that when Nola left her house for Anne's apartment, she couldn't possibly have known what the neighborhood was really like. If she had, perhaps she would have stayed home.

"Where did you get this address?" Elizabeth asked.

"From Max. It wasn't easy. He really is terribly stubborn, Elizabeth. I can't see how you can find that attractive. Still, he did help me understand a few things. He isn't stupid, I'll grant that much."

Max had been after her to call her mother, straighten things out. Elizabeth knew he meant well, but she hadn't seen any point to that. A waste of time ... still, here was her mother now, standing in front of her.

Without waiting for permission, Nola moved past Elizabeth, stopping in shock just inside the door. "Good heavens, Elizabeth, you can't possibly prefer this to your own home! Why, it's ... it's..." Apparently unable to find a word in her vocabulary that suited Anne's shabby, messy apartment, Nola fell silent.

Elizabeth closed the door. "What do you want, Mother? Why are you here?"

Nola turned to face her daughter. "I want you to come home. Now. With me. Joseph is waiting downstairs."

"But I don't want to. You lied to me. You frightened me. I don't trust you anymore. I don't want to live with you." Ignoring Nola's wince, Elizabeth continued, "I've already spoken to a lovely woman at Va.s.sar, in Admissions. They will allow me to begin cla.s.ses in mid-January, and they'll reinstate my scholars.h.i.+p. I'll be living on campus, coming back to the city on weekends to see Max and my friends here. That's what I'm going to do, Mother. Until then, I'm staying here. Anne may be a radical, but she has a generous heart." She moved over to stand at the window. It was filthy with grime, which she perversely hoped Nola noticed. The windows in the Fair house were always gleaming. "I suppose I should thank you. And Claire. If you hadn't done what you did, and Claire hadn't told me about it, I might never have left that house. And you would still be telling me what to do and where to go and how to dress and..."

"I won't do that anymore," Nola said in a small voice.

Elizabeth laughed. "Yes, you will. You can't help it." More seriously, she added, "What you and Dr. Cooper did was unforgivable."

Nola sighed heavily. She glanced about the room and, finding no uncluttered place to sit, joined Elizabeth at the window. "I don't know what Claire told you, but Fenton only does what he does for women who lost husbands ... sons ... on the t.i.tanic. Women who are so terrified of being further abandoned, they really are sick. Heartsick. Frightened. They know what it's like to lose someone they loved, and they're frightened to death that it will happen again. So he gives them just this tiny heart condition. Is that so terrible? To make sure there will always be someone there for them."

"But it isn't true. It's a lie."

"It is true!" Nola's sudden pa.s.sion startled Elizabeth. It was so unlike her mother. "It is not a lie! These are women whose hearts are troubled, all the time, every second, skipping beats every time they remember that night. And they remember it a lot. Skipping beats when they think about being even more alone than they already are because the daughter who survived when the son and husband did not is about to marry and move away, or go away to school, or leave for Europe with friends, or join the suffrage movement or take a job in an office building. Their hearts skip a beat when they think of having to spend a holiday all alone in a big house, with no one there to share it. These are hearts already damaged, if not broken completely in two, by what happened out on the sea. They can't take any more pain, and that, Elizabeth, is true. Fenton Cooper knows that, and he understands."

A train rumbled by overhead, making it impossible for Elizabeth to be heard. When it had pa.s.sed, she said quietly, "I'm sorry, Mother. I guess I didn't realize ... you all seemed fine after a while. All of the women. You all went shopping and to concerts and plays, and I thought you were all doing amazingly well. I'm sorry."

"That's just how we do things." Nola paused, then pleaded, "Elizabeth, if you'll just come home, I promise you things will change. I'll be different. You can go to Va.s.sar and you can do as you please. I won't interfere."

"Mother..."

"I know you don't believe me. I don't blame you. But it's true."

Elizabeth decided Nola did mean it. Now. At this moment, in this place, her mother meant every word she was saying. But once back in the Murray Hill house, the old behavior would take over. Nola couldn't help it. The time would approach for Elizabeth to leave and if her mother didn't actually have an "episode," she'd come up with some other reason why Elizabeth should "wait a while" before leaving for Poughkeepsie. Perhaps she'd bring up her daughter's promise to her father. She would think of something. That was just who she was.

"I'm not coming home, Mother. I'm sorry. But..." Elizabeth saw her father's face as Max had painted him. Brave. Sad. But trusting as he gazed out upon the departing lifeboats that his wife and daughter would survive, would be all right, would go on with their lives when he could not go on with his. "But I will come to see you. Before I leave for Poughkeepsie. And when I come back to the city on weekends. Perhaps we could even go shopping once in a while. Not every weekend, though." She smiled. "I don't have the stamina that you have."

It was almost impossible for Nola to admit defeat. "But it's so much nicer at home. This place..." She glanced around again. "It's not very clean, is it? You could stay at home just until you leave for school."

"No, it's not very clean. But Anne doesn't mind. Nor do I, although," Elizabeth smiled, "I had thought about straightening up a bit while she's out." The finality in her voice was unmistakable.

A light died in Nola's eyes. Just as quickly, another appeared, proving her resilience. "You really will visit me on a weekend now and again? You're not just saying that so I'll leave now, are you?"

"Mother, I wouldn't lie about something like that. I meant it."

Nola's eyes filled with tears. "And you won't forget?"

"I won't forget. Why don't we make a date right now, while you're here? There's a calendar somewhere in all this mess." Elizabeth found the calendar, smeared with dried jelly and coffee stains. "There, the last weekend in January, why not then? That will give me two weeks to get settled on campus. I'll telephone you and let you know how things are going, and we can make plans." But," she warned, "no dinners at the Winslows, can we agree on that?"

Nola said with a straight face, "Oh, but they're so fond of you. Especially Betsy."

Elizabeth smiled. "Promise me, Mother."

Nola nodded. "I promise. All right then, the last weekend in January. I shall look forward to it. And perhaps," she said, turning toward the door, "next summer when there are no cla.s.ses, you might think about joining me in Atlantic City. Max could go with Jules and Enid and then we'd all be there together, wouldn't that be fun, dear?"

Elizabeth smiled. That was Nola, trying to sweeten the pot by tossing in Max, when not so long ago she hadn't wanted him anywhere in sight. "I may look for a job next summer, Mother. For the experience. But well see. Atlantic City is always fun. We can talk about it later. Now I really should clean up around here a bit before Anne gets back."

Nola took the hint. Though she was hurt and probably, if the truth were known, angry that she hadn't accomplished what she'd come there to do, she did give Elizabeth a hug. The hug, Elizabeth knew, was a way for Nola to pretend she'd gained more ground than she actually had. But that was all right. Elizabeth wanted the hug, too.

She stood in the doorway watching her elegantly dressed mother cautiously descend the shabby wooden steps, glancing around her the whole time, as if afraid a thief might at any moment jump out and s.n.a.t.c.h her purse out of her hands. Nola Farr in a shabby building under the el ... now there was a sight Max would never paint. He'd shrug and say, "Who would believe it?"

That night, she related to him, in careful detail, every moment of her mother's astonis.h.i.+ng visit. "You helped," she said when she had finished. "I don't know what you said to her, she didn't tell me. But it made a difference. She didn't argue half as long as she usually does."

"I wasn't rough on her, if you're worried about that." They were in his apartment, alone, on his old davenport, Elizabeth in his arms, leaning against his chest. "I guess I would have been, before the unveiling. But that business about the paintings, I guess it showed me how differently everyone has dealt with what happened out there on the ocean. Everyone grieves in a different way, seems to me. Maybe that's why people have such a hard time talking about it. We're all thinking differently. No common ground, though you'd think that's exactly what we have, since we were all there. We all went through it. But we reacted differently." He looked down at Elizabeth, comfortably nestled in his arms. "Are you worried that you've broken your promise to your father?"