An hour later I was belching and pretending not to. “Margrethe, have I told you today that I love you?”
“Yes, but not lately.”
“I do. You are not only beautiful, fair to see and of gainly proportions, you are also a fine cook.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Do you wish to be admired for your intellectual excellence as well?”
“Not necessarily. No.”
“As you wish. If you change your mind, let me know. Quit fiddling with the remnants; I’ll tidy up later. Lie down here beside me and explain to me why you continue to live with me. It can’t be for my cooking. Is it because I am the best dishwasher on the west coast of Mexico?”
“Yes.” She went right on tidying things, did not stop until our picnic site was perfectly back in order, with all that was left back in the basket, ready to be returned to Amanda.
Then she lay down beside me, slid her arm under my neck—then raised her head. “What’s that?”
“What’s—” Then I heard it. A distant rumble increasing in volume, like a freight train coming ’round the bend. But the nearest railway, the line north to Chihuahua and south to Guadalajara, was distant, beyond the peninsula of Mazatlán.
The rumble grew louder; the ground started to sway. Margrethe sat up. “Alec, I’m frightened.”
“Don’t be afraid, dear; I’m here.” I reached up and pulled her down to me, held her tight while the solid ground bounced up and down under us and the roaring rumble increased to unbelievable volume.
If you’ve ever been in an earthquake, even a small one, you know what we were feeling better than my words can say. If you have never been in one, you won’t believe me—and the more accurately I describe it; the more certain you are not to believe me.
The worst part about a quake is that there is nothing solid to cling to anywhere…but the most startling thing is the noise, the infernal racket of every sort—the crash of rock grinding together under you, the ripping, rending sounds of buildings being torn apart, the screams of the frightened, the cries of the hurt and the lost, the howling and wailing of animals caught by disaster beyond their comprehension.
And none of it will stop.
This went on for an endless time—then the main earthquake hit us and the city fell down.
I could hear it. The noise that could not increase suddenly doubled. I managed to get up on one elbow and look. The dome of the basilica broke like a soap bubble. “Oh, Marga, look! No, don’t—this is terrible.”
She half sat up, said nothing and her face was blank. I kept my arm around her and looked down the peninsula past Cerro Vigía and at the lighthouse.
It was leaning.
While I watched it broke about halfway up, then slowly and with dignity collapsed to the ground.
Past the city I caught sight of the moored aeroplanos of the Coast Guard. They were dancing around in a frenzy; the new one dipped one wing; the water caught it—then I lost sight of it as a cloud rose up from the city, a cloud of dust from thousands and thousands of tons of shattered masonry.
I looked for the restaurant, and found it: EL RESTAURANTE PANCHO VILLA. Then while I watched, the wall on which the sign was painted crumpled and fell into the street. Dust rose up and concealed where it had been.
“Margrethe! It’s gone. The restaurant. El Pancho Villa.” I pointed.
“I don’t see anything.”
“It’s gone, I tell you. Destroyed. Oh, thank the Lord that Amanda and the girls were not there today!”
“Yes. Alec, won’t it ever stop?”
Suddenly it did stop—much more suddenly than it started. Miraculously the dust was gone; there was no racket, no screams of the hurt and dying, no howls of animals.
The lighthouse was back where it belonged.
I looked to the left of it, checking on the moored aeroplanos—nothing. Not even the driven piles to which they should be tied. I looked back at the city—all serene. The basilica was unhurt, beautiful. I looked for the Pancho Villa sign.
I could not find it. There was a building on what seemed the proper corner, but its shape was not quite right and it had different windows. “Marg—Where’s the restaurant?”
“I don’t know. Alec, what is happening?”
“They’re at it again,” I said bitterly. “The world changers. The earthquake is over but this is not the city we were in. It looks a lot like it but it’s not the same.”
I was only half right. Before we could make up our minds to start down the hill, the rumble started up again. Then the swaying…then the greatly increased noise and violent movement of the land, and this city was destroyed. Again I saw our towering lighthouse crack and fall. Again the church fell in on itself. Again the dust clouds rose and with it the screams and howls.
I raised my clenched fist and shook it at the sky. “God damn it! Stop! Twice is too much.”
I was not blasted.
XIII
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and,
behold, all is vanity and vexation of the spirit.
Ecclesiastes 1:14
I am going to skip over the next three days, for there was nothing good about them. “There was blood in the streets and dust.” Survivors, those of us who were not hurt, not prostrate with grief, not dazed or hysterical beyond action—few of us, in short—worked at the rubble here and there trying to find living creatures under the bricks and stones and plaster. But how much can you do with your naked fingers against endless tons of rock?
And how much can you do when you do dig down and discover that you were too late, that indeed it was too late before you started? We heard this mewling, something like a kitten, so we dug most carefully, trying not to put any pressure on whatever was underneath, trying not to let the stones we shifted dislodge anything that would cause more grief underneath—and found the source. An infant, freshly dead. Pelvis broken, one side of its head bashed. “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” I turned my head away and threw up. Never will I read Psalm 137 again.
That night we spent on the lower slopes of Icebox Hill. When the sun went down, we perforce stopped trying. Not only did the darkness make it impossible to work but there was looting going on. I had a deep conviction that any looter was a potential rapist and murderer. I was prepared to die for Margrethe should it become necessary—but I had no wish to die gallantly but futilely, in a confrontation that could have been avoided.
Early the following afternoon the Mexican Army arrived. We had accomplished nothing useful in the meantime—more of the same picking away at rubble. Never mind what we found. The soldiers put a stop even to that; all civilians were herded back up the peninsula, away from the ruined city, to the railroad station across the river. There we waited—new widows, husbands freshly bereaved, lost children, injured on make-do stretchers, walking wounded, some with no marks on them but with empty eyes and no speech. Margrethe and I were of the lucky ones; we were merely hungry, thirsty, dirty, and covered with bruises from head to foot from lying on the ground during the earthquake. Correction: during two earthquakes.
Had anyone else experienced two earthquakes?
I hesitated to ask. I seemed to be the unique observer to this world-changing—save that, twice, Margrethe had come with me because I was holding her at the instant. Were there other victims around? Had there been others in Konge Knut who had kept their mouths shut about it as carefully as I had? How do you ask? Excuse me, amigo, but is this the same city it was yesterday?
When we had waited at the railroad station about two hours an army water cart came through—a tin cup of water to each refugee and a soldier with a bayonet to enforce order in the queues.
Just before sundown the cart came back with more water and with loaves of bread; Margrethe and I were rationed a quarter of a loaf between us. A train backed into the station about then and the army people started loading it even as supplies were being unloaded. Marga and I were luc
ky; we were pushed into a passenger car—most rode in freight cars.
The train started north. We weren’t asked whether or not we wanted to go north; we weren’t asked for money for fares; all of Mazatlán was being evacuated. Until its water system could be restored, Mazatlán belonged to the rats and the dead.
No point in describing the journey. The train moved; we endured. The railway line leaves the coast at Guaymas and goes straight north across Sonora to Arizona—beautiful country but we were in no shape to appreciate it. We slept as much as we could and pretended to sleep the rest of the time. Every time the train stopped, some left it—unless the police herded them back on. By the time we reached Nogales, Sonora, the train was less than half full; the rest seemed headed for Nogales, Arizona, and of course we were.
We reached the international gate early afternoon three days after the quake.
We were herded into a detention building just over the line, and a man in a uniform made a speech in Spanish: “Welcome, amigos! The United States is happy to help its neighbors in their time of trial and the U.S. Immigration Service has streamlined its procedures so that we can take care of all of you quickly. First we must ask you all to go through delousing. Then you’ll be issued green cards outside of quota so that you can work at any job anywhere in the States. But you will find labor agents to help you as you leave the compound. And a soup kitchen! If you are hungry, stop and have your first meal here as guests of Uncle Sam. Welcome to los Estados Unidos!”
Several people had questions to ask but Margrethe and I headed for the door that led to the delousing setup. I resented the name assigned to this sanitary routine—a requirement that you take delousing is a way of saying that you are lousy. Dirty and mussed we certainly were, and I had a three-day beard. But lousy?
Well, perhaps we were. After a day of picking through the ruins and two days crowded in with other unwashed in a railroad car that was not too clean when we boarded it, could I honestly assert that I was completely free of vermin?
Delousing wasn’t too bad. It was mostly a supervised shower bath with exhortations in Spanish to scrub the hairy places thoroughly with a medicated soft soap. In the meantime my clothes went through some sort of sterilization or fumigation—autoclave, I think—then I had to wait, bare naked, for twenty minutes to reclaim them, while I grew more and more angry with each passing minute.
But once I was dressed again, I got over my anger, realizing that no one was intentionally pushing me around; it was simply that any improvised procedure for handling crowds of people in an emergency is almost certain to be destructive of human dignity. (The Mexican refugees seemed to find it offensive; I heard mutterings.)
Then again I had to wait, for Margrethe.
She came out the exit door from the distaff side, caught my eye, and smiled, and suddenly everything was all right. How could she come out of a delousing chamber and look as if she had just stepped out of a bandbox?
She came up to me and said, “Did I keep you waiting, dear? I’m sorry. There was an ironing board in there and I seized the chance to touch up my dress. It looked a sorry sight when it came out of the washer.”
“I didn’t mind waiting,” I fibbed. “You’re beautiful.” (No fib!) “Shall we go to dinner? Soup kitchen dinner, I’m afraid.”
“Isn’t there some paper work we have to go through?”
“Oh. I think we can hit the soup kitchen first. We don’t want green cards; they are for Mexican nationals. Instead I must explain about our lost passports.” I had worked this out in my head and had explained it to Margrethe on the train. This is what I would say had happened to us: We were tourists, staying in Hotel de las Olas Altas on the beach. When the earthquake hit, we were on the beach. So we lost our clothes, our money, our passports, everything, as our hotel had been destroyed. We were lucky to be alive, and the clothes we were wearing had been given to us by Mexican Red Cross.
This story had two advantages: Hotel de las Olas Altas had indeed been destroyed, and the rest of the story had no easy way to be checked.
I found that we had to go through the green-card queue in order to reach the soup kitchen. Eventually we got as far as the table. A man there shoved a file card in front of me, saying in Spanish: “Print your name, last name first. List your address. If it was destroyed in the quake, say so, and give some other address—cousin, father, priest, somebody whose home was not destroyed.”
I started my spiel. The functionary looked up and said, “Amigo, you’re holding up the line.”
“But,” I said, “I don’t need a green card. I don’t want a green card. I’m an American citizen returning from abroad and I’m trying to explain why I don’t have my passport. And the same for my wife.”
He drummed on the table, “Look,” he said, “your accent says that you’re native American. But I can’t do anything about your lost passport and I’ve got three hundred and fifty refugees still to process, and another trainload just pulling in. I won’t get to bed before two. Why don’t you do us both a favor and accept a green card? It won’t poison you and it’ll get you in. Tomorrow you can fight with the State Department about your passport—but not with me. Okay?”
I’m stupid but not stubborn. “Okay.” For my Mexican accommodation address I listed Don Jaime; I figured he owed me that much. His address had the advantage of being in another universe.
The soup kitchen was what you would expect from a charity operation. But it was gringo cooking, the first I had had in months—and we were hungry. The Stark’s Delicious apple I had for dessert was indeed delicious. It was still short of sundown when we were out on the streets of Nogales—free, bathed, fed, and inside the United States legally or almost. We were at least a thousand percent better off than those two naked survivors who had been picked up out of the ocean seventeen weeks ago.
But we were still orphans of fate, no money at all, no place to rest, no clothes but those we were wearing, and my three-day beard and the shape my clothes were in after going through an autoclave or whatever made me look like a skid row derelict.
The no-money situation was particularly annoying because we did have money, Margrethe’s hoarded tips. But the paper money said “Reino” where it should have read “República” and the coins did not have the right faces. Some of the coins may have contained enough silver to have some minor intrinsic value. But, if so, there was no easy way to cash it in at once. And any attempt to spend any of this money would simply get us into major trouble.
How much had we lost? There are no interuniversal exchange rates. One might make a guess in terms of equivalent purchasing power—so many dozens of eggs, or so many kilos of sugar. But why bother? Whatever it was, we had lost it.
This paralleled a futility I had run into in Mazatlán. I had attempted, while lord of the scullery, to write to a) Alexander Hergensheimer’s boss, the Reverend Dr. Dandy Danny Dover, D.D., director of Churches United for Decency, and b) Alec Graham’s lawyers in Dallas.
Neither letter was answered; neither came back. Which was what I had expected, as neither Alec nor Alexander came from a world having flying machines, aeroplanos.
I would try both again—but with small hope; I already knew that this world would feel strange both to Graham and to Hergensheimer. How? Nothing that I had noticed until we reached Nogales. But here, in that detention hall, was (hold tight to your chair) television. A handsome big box with a window in one side, and in that window living pictures of people…and sounds coming out of it of those selfsame people talking.
Either you have this invention and are used to it and take it for granted, or you live in a world that does not have it—and you don’t believe me. Learn from me, as I have been forced to believe unbelievable things. There is such an invention; there is a world where it is as common as bicycles, and its name is television—or sometimes teevee or telly or video or even “idiot box”—and if you were to hear some of the purposes for which this great wonder is used, you would understand the last tag.
The Salvation Army.
Once I laid hands on a telephone book it took me no time at all to get the address of the Salvation Army mission (although it did take me a bit of time to recognize a telephone when I saw one—warning to inter-world travelers: Minor changes can be even more confusing than major changes).
Twenty minutes and one wrong turn later Margrethe and I were at the mission. Outside on the sidewalk four of them:—French horn, big drum, two tambourines—were gathering a crowd. They were working on “Rock of Ages” and doing well, but they needed a baritone and I was tempted to join them.
But a couple of store fronts before we reached the mission Margrethe stopped and plucked at my sleeve. “Alec…must we do this?”
“Eh? What’s the trouble, dear? I thought we had agreed.”
“No, sir. You simply told me.”
“Mmm—Perhaps I did. You don’t want to go to the Salvation Army?”
She took a deep breath and sighed it out. “Alec… I have not been inside a church since—since I left the Lutheran Church. To go to one now—I think it would be sinful.”
(Dear Lord, what can I do with this child? She is apostate not because she is heathen…but because her rules are even more strict than Yours. Guidance, please—and do hurry it up!) “Sweetheart, if it feels sinful to you, we won’t do it. But tell me what we are to do now; I’ve run out of ideas.”
Job: A Comedy of Justice Page 14
