Forty Signs of Rain

by Kim Stanley Robinson

  The water lapped higher again. It seemed to be rising in distinct surges. It had taken two full hours of frantic work to unlock all the doors, and as they were finishing, a roar louder than before overwhelmed them, and a dirty debris-filled surge poured over the whole park. Something upstream must have given way all at once. Any animals remaining in the lower section of the park would be swept away or drowned in place.

  Quickly the humans remaining drove the few big cats and polar bears they had herded into their trucks out the entrance and onto Connecticut Avenue. Now all Northwest was the zoo.

  The truck that had delivered the Swimming Tigers of Khembalung headed north on Connecticut, containing the tigers in back and the Khembali delegation piled into its cab. They drove very slowly and cautiously through the empty, dark, watery streets. The looming clouds made it look like it was already evening.

  The Swimming Tigers banged around in back as they drove. They sounded scared and angry, perhaps feeling that this had all happened before already. They did not seem to want to be in the back of the truck, and roared in a way that caused the humans in the cab to hunch forward unhappily. It sounded like the tigers were taking it out on each other; big bodies crashed into the walls, and the roars and growls grew angrier.

  The Khembali passengers advised the driver and zookeeper. They nodded and continued north on Connecticut. Any big dip would make a road impassably flooded, but Connecticut ran steadily uphill to the northwest. Then Bradley Lane allowed the driver to get most of the way west to Wisconsin. When a dip stopped him, he retreated and worked his way farther north, following streets without dips, until they made it to Wisconsin Avenue, now something like a wide smooth stream, flowing hard south, but at a depth of only six inches. They crept along against this flow until they could make an illegal left onto Woodson, and thus around the corner, into the driveway of a small house backed by a big apartment complex.

  In the dark air the Khembalis got out, knocked on the kitchen door. A woman appeared, and after a brief conversation, disappeared.

  Soon afterward, if anyone in the apartment complex had looked out of their window, they would have seen a curious sight: a group of men, some in maroon robes, others in National Park khakis, coaxing a tiger out of the back of a truck. It was wearing a collar to which three leashes were attached. When it was out the men quickly closed the truck door. The oldest man stood before the tiger, hand upraised. He took up one of the leashes, led the wet beast across the driveway to steps leading down to an open cellar door. Rain fell as the tiger stopped on the steps and looked around. The old man spoke urgently to it. From the house’s kitchen window over them, two little faces stared out round-eyed. For a moment nothing seemed to move but the rain. Then the tiger ducked in the door.

  SOMETIME DURING that second night the rain stopped, and though dawn of the third morning arrived sodden and gray, the clouds scattered as the day progressed, flying north at speed. By nine the sun blazed down between big puffball clouds onto the flooded city. The air was breezy and unsettled.

  Charlie had again spent this second night in the office, and when he woke he looked out the window hoping that conditions would have eased enough for him to be able to attempt getting home. The phones were still down, although e-mails from Anna had kept him informed and reassured—at least until the previous evening’s news about the arrival of the Khembalis, which had caused him some alarm, not just because of the tiger in the basement, but because of their interest in Joe. He had not expressed any of this in his e-mail replies, of course. But he most definitely wanted to get home.

  Helicopters and blimps had already taken to the air in great numbers. Now all the TV channels in the world could reveal the extent of the flood from on high. Much of downtown Washington, D.C., remained awash. A giant shallow lake occupied precisely the most famous and public parts of the city; it looked like someone had decided to expand the Mall’s reflecting pool beyond all reason. The rivers and streams that converged on this larger tidal basin were still in spate, which kept the new lake topped up. In the washed sunlight the flat expanse of water was the color of caffe latte, with foam.

  Standing in the lake, of course, were hundreds of buildings-become-islands, and a few real islands, and even some freeway viaducts, now acting as bridges over the Anacostia Valley. The Potomac continued to pour through the west edge of the lake, overspilling its banks both upstream and down, whenever lowlands flanked it. Its surface was studded with floating junk which moved slower the farther downstream it got. Apparently the ebb tides had only begun to draw this vast bolus of water out to sea.

  As the morning wore on, more and more boats appeared. The TV shots from the air made it look like some kind of regatta—the Mall as water festival, like something out of Ming China. Many people were out on makeshift craft that did not look at all seaworthy. Police boats on patrol were even beginning to ask people who were not doing rescue work to leave, one report said, though clearly they were not having much of an impact. The situation was still so new that the law had not yet fully asserted itself. Motorboats zipped about, leaving beige wakes behind. Rowers rowed, paddlers paddled, kayakers kayaked, swimmers swam; some people were even out in the blue foot-pedaled boats that had once been confined to the Tidal Basin, pedaling around the Mall in majestic ministeamboat style.

  Although these images from the Mall dominated the media, some channels carried other news from around the region. Hospitals were filled. The two days of the storm had killed many people, no one knew how many; and there had been many rescues as well. In the first part of the third morning, the TV helicopters often interrupted their overviews to pluck people from rooftops. Rescues by boat were occurring all through Southwest district and up the Anacostia Basin. Reagan Airport remained drowned, and there was no passable bridge over the Potomac all the way upstream to Harpers Ferry. The Great Falls of the Potomac were no more than a huge turbulence in a nearly unbroken, gorge-topping flow. The President had evacuated to Camp David, and now he declared all of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware a federal disaster area; the District of Columbia, in his words, “worse than that.”

  Charlie’s phone chirped and he snatched it to him. “Anna?”

  “Charlie! Where are you!”

  “I’m still at the office! Are you home?”

  “Oh good yes! I’m here with the boys, we never left. We’ve got the Khembalis here with us too, you got my e-mails?”

  “Yes, I wrote back.”

  “Oh that’s right. They got caught at the zoo. I’ve been trying to get you on the phone this whole time!”

  “Me you too, except when I fell asleep. I was so glad to get your e-mails.”

  “Yeah that was good. I’m so glad you’re okay. This is crazy! Is your building completely flooded?”

  “No no, not at all. So how are the boys?”

  “Oh they’re fine. They’re loving it. It’s all I can do to keep them inside.”

  “Keep them inside.”

  “Yes yes. So your building isn’t flooded? Isn’t the Mall flooded?”

  “Yes it is, no doubt about that, but not the building here, not too badly anyway. They’re keeping the doors shut, and trying to seal them at the bottoms. It’s not working great, but it isn’t dangerous. It’s just a matter of staying upstairs.”

  “Your generators are working?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hear a lot of them are flooded.”

  “Yeah I can see how that would happen. No one was expecting this.”

  “No. Generators in basements, it’s stupid I suppose.”

  “That’s where ours is.”

  “I know. But it’s on that table, and it’s working.”

  “What about food, how are we set there?” Charlie tried to imagine their cupboards.

  “Well, we’ve got a bit. You know. It’s not great. It will get to be a problem soon if we can’t get more. I figure we might have a few weeks’ worth in a pinch.”

  “Well, that should be fine. I mean, they�
�ll have to get things going again by then.”

  “I suppose. We need water service too.”

  “Will the floodwaters drain away very fast?”

  “I don’t know, how should I know?”

  “Well, I don’t know—you’re a scientist.”

  “Please.”

  They listened to each other breathe.

  “I sure am glad to be talking to you,” Charlie said. “I hated being out of touch like that.”

  “Me too.”

  “There are boats all around us now,” Charlie said. “I’ll try to get a ride home as soon as I can. Once I get ferried to land, I can walk home.”

  “Not necessarily. The Taft Bridge over Rock Creek is gone. You’d only be able to cross on the Mass. Ave. bridge, from what I can see on the news.”

  “Yeah, I saw Rock Creek flooding, that was amazing.”

  “I know. The zoo and everything. Drepung says most of the animals will be recovered, but I wonder about that.” Anna would be nearly as upset by the deaths of the zoo’s animals as she would be by people. She made little distinction.

  Charlie said, “I’ll take Mass. Ave. then.”

  “Or maybe you can get them to drop you off west of Rock Creek, in Georgetown. Anyway, be careful. Don’t do anything rash just to get here quick.”

  “I won’t. I’ll make sure to stay safe, and I’ll call you regularly, at least I hope. That was awful being cut off.”

  “I know.”

  “Okay, well … I don’t really want to hang up, but I guess I should. Let me talk to the boys first.”

  “Yeah good. Here talk to Joe, he’s been pretty upset that you’re not here, he keeps asking for you. Demanding you, actually—here,” and then suddenly in his ear:

  “Dadda?”

  “Joe!”

  “Da! Da!”

  “Yeah Joe, it’s Dad! Good to hear you, boy! I’m down at work, I’ll be home soon buddy.”

  “Da! Da!” Then, in a kind of moan: “Wan Daaaaaaaaaa.”

  “It’s okay Joe,” Charlie said, throat clenching. “I’ll be home real soon. Don’t you worry.”

  “Da!” Shrieking.

  Anna got back on. “Sorry, he’s throwing a fit. Here, Nick wants to talk too.”

  “Hey, Nick! Are you taking care of Mom and Joe?”

  “Yeah, I was, but Joe is kind of upset right now.”

  “He’ll get over it. So what’s it been like up there?”

  “Well you see, we got to burn those big candles? And I made a big tower out of the melted wax, it’s really cool. And then Drepung and Rudra came and brought their tigers, they’ve got one in their truck and one in our basement!”

  “That’s nice, that’s very cool. Be sure to keep the door to the basement closed by the way.”

  Nick laughed. “It’s locked Dad. Mom has the key.”

  “Good. Did you get a lot of rain?”

  “I think so. We can see that Wisconsin is kind of flooded, but there are still some cars going in it. Most of the big stuff we’ve only seen on the TV. Mom was really worried about you. When are you going to get home?”

  “Soon as I can.”

  “Good.”

  “Yeah. Well, I guess you get a few days off school out of all this. Okay, give me your mom back. Hi babe.”

  “Listen, you stay put until some really safe way to get home comes.”

  “I will.”

  “We love you.”

  “I love you too. I’ll be home soon as I can.”

  Then Joe began to wail again, and they hung up.

  Charlie rejoined the others and told them his news. Others were getting through on their cell phones as well. Everyone was talking. Then there came yells from down the hall.

  A police motor launch was at the second-floor windows, facing Constitution, ready to ferry people to dry ground. This one was going west, and yes, would eventually dock in Georgetown, if people wanted off there. It was perfect for Charlie’s hope to get west of Rock Creek and then walk home.

  And so, when his turn came, he climbed out the window and down into the big boat. A stanza from a Robert Frost poem he had memorized in high school came back to him suddenly:

  It went many years, but at last came a knock,

  And I thought of the door with no lock to lock …

  The knock came again, my window was wide;

  I climbed on the sill and descended outside.

  He laughed as he moved forward in the boat to make room for other refugees. Strange what came back to the mind. How had that poem continued? Something something; he couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter. The relevant part had come to him, after waiting all these years. And now he was out the window and on his way.

  The launch rumbled, glided away from the building, turned in a broad curve west down Constitution Avenue. Then left, out onto the broad expanse of the Mall. They were boating on the Mall.

  The National Gallery reminded him of the Taj Mahal; same water reflection, same gorgeous white stone. All the Smithsonian buildings looked amazing. No doubt they had been working inside them all night to get things above flood level. What a mess it was going to be.

  Charlie steadied himself against the gunwale, feeling so stunned that it seemed he might lose his balance and fall. That was probably the boat’s doing, but he was, in all truth, reeling. The TV images had been one thing, the actual reality another; he could scarcely believe his eyes. White clouds danced overhead in the blue sky, and the flat brown lake was gleaming in the sunlight, reflecting a blue glitter of sky, everything all glossy and compact—real as real, or even more so. None of his visions had ever been as remotely real as this lake was now.

  Their pilot maneuvered them farther south. They were going to pass the Washington Monument on its south side. They puttered slowly past it. It towered over them like an obelisk in the Nile’s flood, making all the watercraft look correspondingly tiny.

  The Smithsonian buildings appeared to be drowned to about ten feet. Upper halves of their big public doors emerged from the water like low boathouse doors. For some of the buildings that would be a catastrophe. Others had steps, or stood higher on their foundations. A mess any way you looked at it.

  Their launch growled west at a walking pace. Trees flanking the western half of the Mall looked like water shrubs in the distance. The Vietnam Memorial would of course be submerged. The Lincoln Memorial stood on its own pedestal hill, but it was right on the Potomac, and might be submerged to the height of all its steps; the statue of Lincoln might even be getting his feet wet. Charlie found it hard to tell, through the strangely shortened trees, just how high the water was down there.

  Boats of all kinds dotted the long brown lake, headed this way and that. The little blue pedal boats from the Tidal Basin were particularly festive, but all the kayaks and rowboats and inflatables added their dots of neon color, and the little sailboats tacking back and forth flashed their triangular sails. The brilliant sunlight filled the clouds and the blue sky. The festival mood was expressed even by what people wore—Charlie saw Hawaiian shirts, bathing suits, even Carnival masks. There were many more black faces than Charlie was used to seeing on the Mall. It looked as if something like Trinidad’s Mardi Gras parade had been disrupted by a night of storms, but was reemerging triumphant in the new day. People were waving to one another, shouting things (the helicopters overhead were loud); standing in boats in unsafe postures, turning in precarious circles to shoot three-sixties with cameras. It would only take a water skier to complete the scene.

  Charlie moved to the bow of the launch, and stood there soaking it all in. His mouth hung open like a dog’s. The effort of getting out the window had reinflamed his chest and arms; now he stood there on fire, torching in the wind, drinking in the maritime vision. Their boat chugged west like a vaporetto on Venice’s broad lagoon. He could not help but laugh.

  “Maybe they should keep it this way,” someone said.

  A Navy river cruiser came growling over the Potomac toward the
m, throwing up a white bow wave on its upstream side. When it reached the Mall it slipped through a gap in the cherry trees, cut back on its engines, settled down in the water, continued east at a more sedate pace. It was going to pass pretty close by them, and Charlie felt their own launch slow down as well.

  Then he spotted a familiar face among the people standing in the bow of the patrol boat. It was Phil Chase, waving to the boats he passed like the grand marshal of a parade, leaning over the front rail to shout greetings. Like a lot of other people on the water that morning, he had the happy look of someone who had already lit out for the territory.

  Charlie waved with both arms, leaning over the side of the launch. They were closing on each other. Charlie cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted as loud as he could.

  “HEY PHIL! Phil Chase!”

  Phil heard him, looked over, saw him.

  “Hey Charlie!” He waved cheerily, then cupped his hands around his mouth too. “Good to see you! Is everyone at the office okay?”

  “Yes!”

  “Good! That’s good!” Phil straightened up, gestured broadly at the flood. “Isn’t this amazing?”

  “Yes! It sure is!” Then the words burst out of Charlie: “So Phil! Are you going to do something about global warming now?”

  Phil grinned his beautiful grin. “I’ll see what I can do!”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks for help from Guy Guthridge, Grant Heidrich, Charles Hess, Dick Ill, Chris McKay, Oliver Morton, Lisa Nowell, Ann Russell, Mark Schwartz, Sharon Strauss, and Jim Shea.