One Amazing Thing

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

  “Sometimes we grow into a name,” the girl said. “You might surprise yourself, Sir Knight.”

  Maybe she was right. Now that he thought of it, didn’t he love the thrill of manipulating numbers, of balancing on the razor-edge of the law?

  “It was embarrassing,” he found himself saying. He wanted to say more. How boys had made fun of his name, how once they had put his head in a toilet. Where did that ancient memory spring from? He couldn’t believe the things he wanted to pour out into this forgiving, pillowy dark!

  His fingers twitched without a cigarette to hold. He marveled at the human mind, its tendency to crave what it could not have. Under normal circumstances, he smoked only two cigarettes a day, one after lunch and one while driving home from work. Mrs. Pritchett didn’t like the smell, so on weekends he went out into the yard to smoke.

  And she—what had she done in return? Betrayed him by trying to kill herself, that’s what.

  “I know about embarrassing,” the young woman said. “My parents named me after a goddess. I’m going to India to see them. Why are you going?”

  He could not bring himself to speak in the optimistic present tense. “Mrs. Pritchett wanted to visit India,” he said, though this was not exactly true. “We were going to stay in a palace.”

  “Why, that’s wonderful!” she said. “I’m planning to visit the Taj Mahal myself. I’m sure you’ll love it.”

  Mr. Pritchett was not sure of any such thing. He wondered what the woman would say if he told her how the idea for this trip came to him.

  AFTER MR. PRITCHETT HAD BROUGHT HER HOME FROM THE hospital, Mrs. Pritchett sat on the couch all day, looking at the window. She had always loved the view of the bridge and the sun setting beyond it, the entire vista framed by the camellias she had planted. But now she stared as though there was nothing outside but fog. The pills the psychiatrist had given her put a vacant smile on her face that was worse than out-and-out sadness. Mr. Pritchett was afraid to go to work and leave her, but when he was at home with her all day, that unasked question—why?—hung between them like a sword. He missed the efficient, antiseptic smell of his office, the obedient numbers adding up the way they were supposed to.

  Mrs. Pritchett had been a meticulous housekeeper, priding herself on taking care of the big house by herself. But now there were dirty dishes stacked on the sideboards, unread newspapers spilling across the floor, dust bunnies in corners that smelled of despair. The maid who came in once a week didn’t make more than a dent in the disorder.

  Tidying up one evening, he had come across an old travel magazine Mrs. Pritchett must have picked up somewhere. There had been an article on old palaces in India being converted to hotels. A photograph of a spacious, marble-floored bedroom: a four-poster piled with red bolsters, a peacock perched on a windowsill, a curtain lifted in a foreign wind. On another day he would have found the room outlandish. This time, on an impulse, he had asked if she would like to go.

  Something had stirred in her eyes for the first time since the hospital. “India?” she had asked. She had stretched out her hand and taken the magazine from him. Now they were trapped beneath several stories of rubble.

  It was not Mrs. Pritchett’s fault, but Mr. Pritchett couldn’t stop himself from blaming her. But for her, he could have been in his office right now, its cool, white walls, its spare furnishings, its view of the Bay Bridge, those perfectly proportioned metal girders that he liked to contemplate while mulling over a tricky account.

  He said none of this, but it seemed that the young woman sensed something. She fumbled in a pocket and handed him a stick of gum. How could she bear to perform this simple act? Didn’t she realize they might not be rescued in time? He held the gum in his hand. In the dark, someone was sobbing quietly. It sounded like the Chinese teenager. Her grandmother spoke in a soft, cotton-wool voice until she grew quiet.

  A lump formed in Mr. Pritchett’s throat—no doubt an aftereffect of shock. He wanted to tell the woman that he was afraid of dying in a slow, drawn-out way, from starvation or maybe lack of oxygen. He didn’t feel too good about the possibility of a fast death, either. An image of himself being crushed under the rubble from an aftershock had flashed in his brain several times already. Instead of speaking, he got off his chair to sit cross-legged beside her, though he could not remember the last time he’d sat on the floor. He was embarrassed at how stiff his leg muscles were, his knees sticking up like little hills. And he so proud of being in good shape, of running on the treadmill for an hour at the gym, keeping up with younger men. Then he realized it did not matter. He opened the wrapper and bit down on the gum. The flavor of Juicy Fruit filled his mouth until his salivary glands ached.

  “Feel,” the young woman said. She took his hand in her good one. He mistook her intentions and his heart hammered with shock and contraband excitement. But she merely guided his hand all the way back to the edge of the carpet. His fingers came away wet. Water was seeping in from somewhere.

  “Oh God!” he said. “We’re going to drown.” He scrambled to his feet to warn the others, but her hand closed around his ankle.

  “Hush,” she said. “The water isn’t coming in that fast. I wasn’t even going to tell you, but it was too frightening, knowing it all by myself.”

  In angry panic, he kicked at her hand. Stupid girl. She was going to get them all killed.

  “Stop that!” she admonished him. “Let them rest. It’s not like we can do anything about it.”

  The truth in her words pulled him down like gravity. When his heartbeat slowed, he could hear the sounds of sleep around him, breath moving in and out like waves in a cove. He felt a curious satisfaction, as though he were watching over fellow knights exhausted by a quest. As though he were responsible for their brief, trustful peace.

  5

  They awoke to dampness, the carpet smelling like a dog caught in rain. Everyone could see that the water was rising. And although it was happening very slowly, there was something about the slurping sound the carpet made as they stepped on it that caused panic to swirl in their stomachs. The phones were still dead. No one had tried to rescue them yet, which probably meant that the earthquake had done a huge amount of damage and the authorities were overwhelmed. The time had come to open the door. Cameron felt as though his lungs were filling with ice. He was not a praying man, but he closed his eyes and took a shallow breath (that’s all he could manage) and tried to feel his center, as the holy man had taught him. Then he told them.

  When he heard the African American’s announcement, which was an admission that he had been right all this time, Tariq’s heart leaped in vindication. But he conducted himself with admirable restraint, giving only a small, righteous sniff before he pushed past the others and laid a proprietary hand on the doorknob. He had scoured the entire area and found no other avenue of escape, but now they would get out, he was sure of it. He beckoned to Mr. Pritchett and Mangalam to hurry up and join him. They took turns pulling at the door, then tried it together. But the door was stuck fast. Tariq kicked at it—which, Mr. Pritchett pointed out, did not improve matters. The two men glowered at each other.

  Cameron walked to the back with Mangalam to see if he could unearth any tools. He knew he should hurry, but a strange lethargy had taken him over. The squelch of his shoes on the wet carpet reminded him of a summer he’d spent with cousins out on a farm in East Texas, where his aunt had sent him to get him away from bad influences. That part hadn’t worked. He’d found trouble there, too. He was a trouble magnet, as his aunt liked to say. Today, though, he didn’t recall the problems. What he remembered was the rain coming down in silver sheets on the barn roof, the oaks draped in gray-green moss, the red mud in which you could sink up to your ankles if you weren’t careful, the expanse of endless washed sky from the porch that made a strange hurt in your chest. He would stand on the porch for hours at a time. His cousins laughed at him, called him that daft city boy. He didn’t care. It was the first time in his life that he was awar
e of nature as a seductive force.

  But he couldn’t afford the luxury of reminiscing. He wrenched his mind back to the task at hand, rummaging around on the shelves while Mangalam held the flashlight. Mangalam reeked of mouthwash. It was as though the man hadn’t just swirled it around in his mouth but had splashed some on, like cologne. Oh well. People responded to stress in strange ways. More significant was the fact that they hadn’t found a single strong tool, only another butter knife and a cake server.

  What he wouldn’t give for a crowbar, Cameron thought as he walked back. And as though the thought had split him in two, a voice inside his head said, Would you give up Seva?

  He was familiar with the tricks of this voice, which had started speaking to him when he was in the war.

  No, he said to it.

  Not even if you were going to die? the voice persisted. Not even if you knew everyone was going to die because of your decision?

  The second question gave him more pause than the first. No, he said finally. And then, I’m not going to answer any more questions.

  How about your life? The voice continued, undeterred. Would you give up your life for the lives of all these people?

  “Do you think it would help if we removed the doorknob?” Cameron asked Mangalam. He knew he was speaking too loudly. “We could take the screws out with the butter knife. Maybe we’d get a better grip if the hole is opened up—”

  The voice grinned. Later, it said, before submerging itself.

  Mangalam looked startled at having his opinion solicited, but after a moment he said, “I don’t think that would help.” Hesitantly, he added, “But maybe if everyone who wasn’t hurt held on to one another, and we all pulled together, like when you play tug-of-war—”

  That’s what they did. Everyone except Jiang, Lily’s grandmother, and Uma formed a line behind Tariq, who clasped the knob with both hands. Mrs. Pritchett tried to help, but Mr. Pritchett told her, curtly, to please sit down. Each person held the waist of the person in front. When Cameron gave the signal, they pulled as hard as they could. On the third pull, the doorknob broke off, so Cameron took off the screws with the butter knife and Tariq grasped with both hands the edges of the hole that was opened up. On the next pull, the door came unstuck all of a sudden; some people fell down and others fell on top of them. But a cautious cheer went up as soon as they had regained their breath, because the L-shaped bit of corridor that could be seen from the doorway was clear. Tariq gave a triumphant shout and ran out into the passage.

  “Wait,” Cameron cried, making a grab for the younger man, but Tariq had already sprinted up the dark corridor. Others tried to follow, but Cameron blocked the doorway with outstretched arms.

  “Folks! We’ve got to wait a few minutes to make sure the door wasn’t holding up anything major, something that’s shifting right now and might collapse on us,” he said. They pushed against him. Mangalam was at the front of the crowd with the flashlight. The beam blinded Cameron. He could hear mutinous whispers, someone panting, impatience building like steam inside a cooker. There was a strong possibility that at any moment they would rebel against his cautiousness and trample him in order to follow Tariq. He braced himself for it.

  Then they heard the rumble from down the corridor, and Tariq’s cut-off cry.

  IT WAS CLEAR TO EVERYONE, EVEN TO HER GRANDMOTHER, WHO was absolutely against it and clutched her tightly to make sure that everyone knew how she felt, that Lily was the only possible choice. She was the smallest and lightest; she might be able to crawl onto the pile of rubble that was now blocking the width of the corridor without starting a landslide and bringing down more of the ceiling. She could peer through the gap of about a foot and a half on top of the rubble and see what lay beyond. Cameron was hoping she would be able to glimpse Tariq, who he suspected was buried under the portion of the ceiling that had collapsed farther down the passage. He wasn’t certain, though, because when he had cautiously called the young man’s name, there had been no answer except for a warning drizzle of plaster from the hole above. Lily gently pried her grandmother’s fingers from her shoulder and gave her a kiss, and nudged her back into the visa office, where Cameron wanted everyone to wait in case of further problems. She was surprised at the feel of her grandmother’s cheek, so much more wrinkly than she remembered it, possibly because she hadn’t kissed it in a while. She noticed with a thrum of worry that her grandmother’s hurt arm felt hot. She would have to tell Cameron about it after she returned. She took the pencil flashlight from Cameron, who gripped her elbow.

  “Climb only as far as you need to in order to look over the pile,” he whispered. He had explained that out in the passage they must speak very quietly, if at all. Loud sounds could multiply through echoes and cause an avalanche. “If you don’t see him, come back right away. Are you sure you want to try?”

  She gave a small, stiff nod, though she was not sure at all. Her heart felt as though it was too big to fit in her chest. She could feel it beating up in her throat.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t,” he said. “It’s very—”

  She didn’t wait for him to finish, because then she would be too scared to do it. She pointed the thin, shaky beam of light at the jumble of Sheetrock, rods, and plaster ahead of her and took small, definite steps. She tried not to look at the gaping tear in the ceiling from which the debris had come—and from which more could drop at any moment—but it pulled at her eyes like a giant magnet. It was darker than anywhere else and huge, a black hole that could suck in entire solar systems. And was that something red shining deep inside it, like eyes? When she reached the pile, she started climbing, feeling carefully with her fingers because Cameron had warned her to watch for nails, some of which might be rusty. The pile shifted. She stiffened. Stopped. When it appeared to be holding, she went on. By the time she reached the top, she was sweating, but she had developed a rhythm of sorts, an understanding of the nature of debris.

  She could feel the impatient anxiety of the group, as tangible on her back as heat from a blaze. There had never been a time when so many adults had depended on her for something crucial, something they could not do. It made her feel taller. Without turning her head, she whispered that she could see another pile. It wasn’t very far, maybe three feet ahead. Something dark was sticking out of it. She thought it was a shoe. She would need to get closer to make sure.

  “I’m going to climb down to the other side,” she said.

  “No.” Cameron spoke with soft urgency. “Come back. Now that we know he’s there, we’ll clear this pile.” When he realized that she wasn’t going to listen, he said, “Be careful. Hold on to the light. If you start to fall, curl into a ball and remain still.”

  Lily lay flat on top of the debris for a moment, left hand fisted around the pencil light. She’d have to swing her legs over to the other side before she climbed down, and she wasn’t sure what that would do to the pile. I’m Gulliver, she told herself. This is a mountain in Lilliput. Making it into a fantasy helped a little. She turned her body cautiously and inched her legs across until they hung down. Almost immediately, she began to slip. Her feet couldn’t find a hold. She grasped a piece of wood with her free hand, but it came with her. The entire pile teetered. She felt herself sliding down in a noisy rush of plaster. It’s a small mountain, she kept saying. It’s a small mountain. Then she hit the floor, the blessed, solid floor, with a thump, a fog of dust rising around her. Amazingly, the rest of the pile held. She clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle her coughs and dragged herself into the small clearing between the piles.

  “Tell Grandma I’m okay,” she whispered as soon as she could speak. She could hear the chain of whispers on the other side, people relaying her message back into the visa office. She crawled forward until she reached the blob—it was a shoe—and grasped it. Carefully, she inched her fingers up over its edge, and sucked in her breath when she felt an ankle. Was it her first dead man she was touching? The thought jerked her hand back even though she hadn’t
intended to.

  “He’s here,” she whispered.

  “Ask him to move his foot,” Cameron said.

  She did. There was no response.

  It hit her that she was stuck here in the passage with a corpse, that she had gone through all this for nothing. Now she couldn’t stop the hiccuping sobs. Knowing how dangerous they were just made her cry harder.

  “It’s okay,” Cameron said. “You did really well. Better than any of us could have. Try one more time, then come back.”

  She made herself touch the dead foot. She shook it, feeling the bile rise in her mouth. Just when she thought she would throw up, the heel turned a little.

  “Tariq,” she cried, forgetting to be quiet. “I’m here.”

  There it was again, the tiniest swivel of the heel, as though he had heard what she was saying.

  “Brave girl!” Cameron said. “Come back now so we can start clearing the debris.”

  Lily imagined herself buried under that pile, wood and metal and pieces of glass pressing against her backbone, her mouth stuffed with dirt. She imagined feeling a hand around her foot, and then that hand going away. “I’ll wait here,” she said. It wasn’t heroism. When she thought of her journey in reverse, slats of wood coming loose again in her fingers, that uncontrolled sliding, it made her body heavy with terror.

  Cameron didn’t waste time trying to persuade her. She could hear him whispering instructions. She removed a little debris from the side of the pile under which Tariq was buried but stopped when a chunk of Sheetrock slid menacingly toward her. Instead, she thought about Beethoven. When deafness began to descend on him, it must have been like being buried under auditory darkness. But somehow he found a spark, the music sounding inside his head. As she waited for Cameron to arrive, Lily tapped out the rhythm to the Danse Villageoise on Tariq’s heel.

  MANGALAM WAS NOT AFRAID AS HE HELPED CAMERON AND MR. Pritchett clear the passage. He did not look up at the hole from which grainy dust drizzled intermittently. He did not wonder what might happen if they pulled the wrong piece of wreckage from the pile that teetered in front of them like a crazy giant’s Jenga tower. (Mangalam loved American games and had bought several since he arrived here. If they required more than one player, he played against himself.) Right now, his brain was a file cabinet where he had shut all the drawers except one. The open drawer held a single folder, titled What the Soldier Says to Do, and that was what he focused on.