Saddle the Wind

by Jess Foley

  ‘There’s nothing left,’ a man observed to her with a strange, dazed smile on his face as she walked past him. Sadly she shook her head in agreement. Others called out to her as she went by. One chorus of voices came from above her head, and looking up she saw a little group of people standing precariously on a narrow balcony of a ruined hotel, The Trinacria. Help us, they called down to her; they were trapped; there were no stairs. What could she do, she asked herself. She could do nothing. Holding Adriana’s hand more tightly she walked on.

  After a time Blanche found herself on the Via Imera, standing beside Adriana and gazing at what had once been their home. A section of the lower part of the front wall was still standing, to a height of about eight feet, part of its window frame still in place. On the left side a curtain moved in the breeze. In the tangled wreckage of the rubble Blanche could make out the remains of a picture that had hung on the wall of the dining salon.

  ‘Wait here,’ she said, letting go Adriana’s hand. But Adriana snatched at her hand again, holding on, crying out in a mournful, keening sound.

  ‘Only for a moment, darling,’ Blanche said. ‘And I won’t leave your sight.’

  Pulling her hand from the child’s grasp she climbed up over the heap of rubble, casting her eyes about her and calling out: ‘Anna… Anita. Anna… Anita. Anna … Anita…’

  There was no response. Standing quite still in the midst of the ruins Blanche listened for the voices of the maid and the cook. There was nothing. After a moment she called out:

  ‘Edgardo … ?’

  No answer. After a few seconds she turned and moved back to where Adriana waited, took her hand and led her away again.

  The previous day Blanche and Adriana would have been able to walk the distance between the Via Imera and the Via Gabriele in less than half an hour. Now Blanche thought they would never come to the end of their journey. Since her arrival in the city only days before she had seen its streets busy with traffic of all kinds – not only its people, but its vehicles – trams, horse-drawn cabs, mule- and goat-carts, motor cars. Every sign of transport had gone now. Roads and vehicles had been destroyed, and buried under the ruins. Now there was only one way to move, by foot. And even this means of travel was fraught with difficulty and peril. Not only was there danger from overhead with the ever-present risk of collapsing buildings, but underfoot the way was also full of danger. Like everyone else in the ruined city, Blanche and Adriana found that in order to go anywhere they had to pick their way carefully and laboriously through acre upon acre of wreckage, to climb one hill of debris after another.

  Blanche came upon the remains of the Duomo without at first being aware of what it was. And then she realized. The magnificent cathedral lay in ruins. The great granite columns, once part of Neptune’s Temple at Faro, and which Blanche had gazed at in awe, now lay shattered, covered in the debris of priceless mosaics, frescoes and cornices. Only one wall was still standing – that in the apse at the east end. And on it still the serene, mosaic figure of Christ remained, hand uplifted in blessing, as it had been for the past five hundred years; now, Blanche thought, a terrible irony among the ruins.

  On the shattered steps of the cathedral stood a woman, beating her bare breast with one hand while she clutched a naked dead baby in the other and screamed her misery to the skies. Beyond her at the side of the piazza men and women worked pulling away the rubble, and as Blanche watched she saw them bring out a young girl of seventeen or eighteen, covered in blood and with her nightclothes hanging from her in shreds. There seemed no end to the suffering and the death and destruction, and suddenly, as if reaching the point where she could take no more, she sat down on a stone and buried her head in her arms.

  In seconds, though, she lifted her head once more. She couldn’t give in to despair. She started to rise, and as she did so there came to her a voice, calling from some distance away.

  ‘Blanche – oh, Blanche … Thank God …!’

  Turning her head she saw the figure of Gentry moving slowly and unsteadily towards her over the debris.

  ‘Gentry …!’

  Blanche got quickly to her feet and hurried towards him. She could see that he was walking with difficulty, limping on his right leg, while his left arm hung at his side. They met and Gentry put his right arm about her and drew her to him. Feeling his touch, his strength, her own arms encircling him, her last resolve went and she burst into tears. Alfredo, she told him, was dead, killed by a great wave that had come onto the shore. Her head against Gentry’s shoulder she remained there, weeping.

  He released her after a while and bent to Adriana and she came to him and he put his arm around her and pressed his begrimed face to her own.

  ‘Your arm –’ Blanche said as he straightened, and he nodded and told her briefly how he had come to injure himself. It must be set, he said: he knew how it had to be done, but he couldn’t manage it himself; she would have to do it for him.

  Searching among the wreckage he found a short piece of wood, and Blanche found some fragments of cloth which she tore into strips. Then, while he gritted his teeth and clenched his eyes against the pain, she helped him off with his overcoat and his jacket, after which he sat down among the broken stone of the cathedral steps. Laying his coat and jacket down at his side she unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt sleeve. That done she tore his sleeve from wrist to shoulder to expose the bare flesh. As she looked at it she was suddenly, for a moment, back in England, in a field in Wiltshire, bending above John Savill as he lay in the grass.

  Gentry’s upper arm was very swollen, and as she ran her fingers over the skin she could feel the form of the broken bone beneath. After a little time, however – though a time of great pain for Gentry – the shattered bone was in place and she began to bind the splint to his arm. She was halfway through when suddenly there was a cry from Adriana at her side and she turned to see a young man, his naked body almost black with dirt and dust, snatch at Gentry’s overcoat and dart away again. Before she could do anything to stop him he was hurrying off among the ruins, the garment clutched in his hands.

  ‘Stop!’ Blanche cried out. ‘Stop!’ But the man took no notice. In seconds he was out of sight behind the ruined walls of the cathedral. Blanche was about to go in pursuit, but Gentry held her with his free hand. ‘Leave him; he’s gone. You won’t catch him now.’

  ‘But your coat –’ Blanche said, shaking her head.

  ‘It’s gone now – there’s no getting it back.’

  ‘But you’ll be cold come the night.’

  He shrugged. There was nothing to be done about it.

  When Blanche had finished binding his arm she improvised a sling for him from part of a tablecloth that she pulled out of the debris nearby. She did not know what to do about his leg, however. While nothing was broken he appeared to have badly wrenched and bruised his knee. It would be all right in time, he assured her. For the moment what he needed was some piece of timber that he could use as a support to aid him in his walking. When this was done Blanche draped his jacket about his shoulders, with his right arm through the sleeve, and the three of them set off together, making their way slowly among the ruins in the direction of the Via Gabriele.

  Adriana must be hungry, Blanche thought as they walked, and she murmured to Gentry that they would have to try to find some food soon, and something to drink.

  That, he replied, could be a problem, adding that it was inconceivable that the water pipes and the reservoirs had remained undamaged. It was possible they might find some food, but where they would find drinking water he didn’t know.

  Reaching a small piazza near the Via San Cristoforo a little while later, Gentry recalled that there had been a baker’s shop on the corner. On coming to the spot they found the front part of the shop lying in ruins while the ground floor rooms towards the rear looked to be still comparatively whole. There might be bread there, Gentry said. With due warnings to take care – Gentry could be of little physical help due to his injured leg and
arm – Blanche moved carefully through the rubble towards the back part of the ruined house.

  As she slowly made her way she passed by the bodies of a man and a woman who lay in the hall, close to one another, still in their aprons, and quite dead, crushed beneath fallen stone and a huge beam. She went on past and came at last to the kitchen, a mass of broken beams and masonry, but nevertheless recognizable and just navigable. Seeing the huge old ovens ahead of her she had to stoop and crawl to reach them, but she got there at last. The oven fires had long since burned out and the ovens were quite cold. Moving aside some of the debris she managed to open one of the doors. The baker and his wife had been busy that morning, and the oven’s interior was packed with loaves of bread, overbaked, but fresh. She took up three of the loaves and thrust them into the bodice of her coat. Then, looking around her she saw lying in the dust and debris that covered the floor two oranges and a lemon. Snatching them up she put them into her pockets. There was nothing else she could see that might be of use. After a moment she turned and, bending, began to make her way back towards the front where Gentry and Adriana were anxiously waiting.

  Outside she tore a piece from one of the loaves and gave it to Adriana. Then she gave some to Gentry and took a piece for herself. The bread tasted good and they ate as they walked. When Adriana had eaten her piece of bread she tugged at Blanche’s coat: ‘Mama – Mama …’

  Hearing the child’s voice Blanche halted beside her, crouched down and looked into her eyes. It was the first time Adriana had spoken since their dash to the quays. Her heart full, Blanche lifted a hand and gently touched it to Adriana’s soft but grimy cheek.

  ‘What is it, darling?’

  ‘I’m thirsty.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you are.’

  Taking one of the oranges from her pocket, Blanche peeled a part of it. With Gentry’s words in mind about a possible water-shortage she gave Adriana just two segments of the fruit, gave one to Gentry and ate one herself. The remainder of the orange she put back into her pocket.

  As they moved away a small, dirty street urchin came by. Seeing the bright pieces of orange peel lying in the dust he snatched them up and ate them.

  There were two further earth shocks as they continued on their way. On each occasion it brought cries of fear from many of those who moved about the ruins, causing little flurries of sudden movement as the frightened survivors instinctively began to run, desperate to escape the possibility of further harm. Very quickly, however, they all came to a halt, realizing that there was no longer any safe haven they could run to.

  On some occasions Blanche and Gentry stopped to help in the rescue of some poor individual, though Gentry’s disabilities made their assistance of limited effect. Also, he and Blanche were anxious to get to Marianne in the Via Gabriele, so often they shut their eyes and ears to the pleas.

  Due to the delays, and Gentry’s injuries and the difficulties caused by the conditions of the terrain, their journey took many hours and it was mid-afternoon before they eventually reached the remains of the Via Gabriele. Turning into it – what had once been a street of tall, elegant houses – they picked their way across the rubble. As they did so a figure suddenly appeared hurrying towards them – a young girl, sobbing, crying out, ‘Signore, signore …’

  Gentry came to a stop. ‘Lisa …’

  The girl came to him, stopping before him and bursting into tears. In between her sobs she told him that the signora had jumped from the house and that the house had fallen, and now the signora was buried in the ruins.

  At her words, hearing what he had been so afraid of hearing, Gentry gave a groan. But then as he raised his hand to cover his eyes Lisa said that the signora was still alive; she had heard her crying out from underneath the debris. At her words Gentry began to hurry forward across the rubble.

  Reaching the ruined remains of the house that had been his home, Gentry asked where Marianne lay, and Lisa guided him to a spot at the front. Then, against the continuing background of moans and screams from the trapped and the injured, he picked his way through the debris, came to a stop and shouted out Marianne’s name. They stood listening, and then faintly from below the rubble came the muffled sound of Marianne’s voice:

  ‘Gentry …’

  She was alive.

  Bending as much as his injured leg would allow, Gentry called out to Marianne again, asking whether she was all right and what was her situation there. She replied faintly that she was trapped in a hollow in the debris, that she could not move but that she was all right. Gentry replied that they would get her out as soon as they could. Turning quickly, seeing a man who stood gazing nearby, Gentry called out to him to come and help. ‘My wife is buried here beneath the ruins,’ he called. ‘Please help me get her out.’ At Gentry’s call the man turned to him, eyes blank, registering nothing, and then looked away, to gaze dully upon the devastation before him.

  In spite of the number of people about and notwithstanding Gentry’s pleas there was no help forthcoming. Many of those nearby were already involved in scrabbling at the debris with bloody hands, trying to release trapped relatives and friends. Others lay there among the ruins, too injured to do anything even to help themselves. Others, like the man whom Gentry had appealed to, just sat or walked about in a daze, as if their senses had been stunned by the calamity.

  So, Gentry, one-handed, helped by Blanche and Lisa and Adriana, set to the task of trying to extricate Marianne from her prison beneath the ruins of the house. It was like digging bare-handed into the side of a hill, a hill of stone and wood and bricks and plaster and broken glass. Adriana was soon too exhausted to continue and Blanche took off her coat, which was now nearly dry, wrapped the child in it and laid her down out of harm’s way in a small hollow in the debris nearby. She had given a piece of the bread to Lisa and the remaining loaves she hid beneath the coat at Adriana’s feet. Leaving Adriana with a small piece of bread to eat, she turned back to continue in the work of setting Marianne free. Later, when she moved back to look at Adriana she found her sleeping soundly among the rubble.

  Removal of the smaller bits of debris presented no difficulty; they could easily be lifted. Larger pieces, however, required all their combined strength, while there were some pieces that they found impossible to shift. Their work also needed great care, for there was always the danger that they would dislodge some of the heavy debris and that it would fall upon Marianne as she lay trapped.

  Working without tools, using only their bare hands, the work was not only extremely slow, but very painful; in a short time their hands were torn and bloody from manhandling the rough stone and brick and timber, and Blanche searched among the debris until she found some fabric – the remains of a cotton sheet. Tearing it up, she carefully bound the hands of Lisa, Gentry and herself as a protection against further injury.

  And the work continued, laborious and exhausting. Every now and again they would be forced to stop and rest and catch their breaths. At these times Gentry would bend and call out to Marianne and she would call back to him. Later in the afternoon Blanche took some of the bread and shared it out between them. Afterwards they ate the rest of the orange. Having eaten they resumed their work, and so, gradually, bit by bit, they fought their way nearer.

  A bitterly cold wind was blowing, and as the light began to fail a few spots of rain fell. At this Gentry broke off work to say that they must erect some kind of cover for the night in case the rain grew worse. In many of the ruined buildings around them shelter was offered from the cold and wet in rooms where parts of ceilings remained intact. It was not safe to go into them, though; many were so unsound that there was a danger that at any second they might come crashing down. To remind them of the situation, every few minutes as they worked there would come a crashing thud as the standing remains of another building fell in a heap.

  At Gentry’s suggestion they erected a small, low, very crude, three-sided shelter which they put together from a door propped up on supports made from vario
us items taken from the debris. Into this they put a mattress which they had managed to salvage. Though torn and with its stuffing bulging from its sides, it was a welcome acquisition and would at least provide a bed for Adriana.

  After making the shelter they at once went back to work removing the debris, though they were forced to halt not long afterwards when darkness fell. By now they were almost too weary to move. Lisa moaned and cried in misery and exhaustion as she sat down, and Blanche sat beside her and put an arm around her, drawing the girl’s head onto her shoulder. ‘I want to go home,’ Lisa cried. ‘I want to go home.’ Blanche held her tighter and murmured that she should go home soon. Everything would be all right, she said; they had survived the worst and they would go on surviving.

  In the glow of a fire that Gentry made from bits of timber that Blanche had collected and which he had lit with matches he had found in his pocket, the four of them sat together, warming themselves at the flames. Blanche shared out more of the bread. Afterwards Adriana and Lisa crawled in under the rough shelter and lay down on the mattress side by side, snuggling close for warmth in the cold night air, Blanche’s coat wrapped around them both.

  Apart from their own, controlled little fire Blanche could see the glow of fires that burned here and there in the ruins about them. Some were quite near, others off in the distance, some quite small, others infernos in which the raging flames lit up the area around them and sent up showers of sparks into the night sky.

  Gentry sat a few feet away from her, his begrimed face bathed in the light of the flames before them. He looked cold, disconsolate and unutterably weary. Blanche leaned across to him and adjusted the jacket over his shoulder. She laid her hand briefly on his. ‘Get some rest, Gentry. You must rest. There’s no more you can do tonight.’

  He said nothing. After a few moments he got up from the stone on which he was sitting and moved once more towards the hill of rubble beneath which Marianne lay. In the faint light cast by the fire he began to pull at the debris. Blanche got up and went to him.