Читать книгу Only the Women Are Burning - Nancy Burke - Страница 10

“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can’t strike them all by ourselves.”

- Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

Chapter 2

“Is there someone we can call for you?”

“Thank you, no,” I said. “My husband is out of town.”

“A relative? A neighbor?” the EMT asked.

“No.” I did not want my sisters, Grace and Lou, here.

I walked back through the park, remembering halfway there to call the school programs office at the museum.

“Shirley? Listen, can someone take my group? Something happened and I missed the train.” I felt ashamed that this excuse sounded so lame.

“Something happened? You okay girl?” she asked in her slow drawl. “We just heard on the radio about the woman in Hillston. Thank God it isn’t you.”

“I’m not going to make the second class either,” I said. “I’m very sorry.”

“You okay?”

“I was there. I tried to help and, well, the cops are asking me questions. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“Oh, I am so sorry. Don’t worry. I’ll tell Eric. He’ll do your groups. Take care of yourself.” She paused. “Girl, thank the Lord it wasn’t you.”

I thanked her and hung up.

By the time I crossed the park and unlocked my front door, I succumbed to fatigue. I shed my work clothes, pulled on last night’s tee shirt, and wrapped myself in the quilt on my bed. I could not shut down to sleep. I curled into a ball, shivered despite the sunbeam across the bed and the heaviness of the down comforter. I didn’t save her, as I had not saved Banhi. The women who lived in the slums there called it a self-immolation, a choice, they said to me, to leave her current life and gamble on her reincarnation to raise her up to a new form of existence. The police only believed what they were paid to believe. Nobody paid them anything that day in the Bangalore slum. They saw no girl and, because there are six million other missing women in India, the Bangalore police added Banhi to that list and closed her case. I had let her death recede into memory, but now it roared back from the past, all the confusion surrounding that day when Banhi died, all my pleas with the Bangalore police and the pervasive indifference to her death I could not forgive.

Sleep came. I woke to the sharp ring of the telephone and an even sharper anxiety. I expected Pete, but a stranger’s voice said my name with a question mark after it and I said, “Yes.”

“This is Doug Bluestein from the Jersey Star,” the voice said.

“Yes?”

“Are you the Cassandra Taylor who tried to save the woman this morning?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask you a few questions?”

“I told everything to the fire chief,” I said.

“That’s where I got your name,” he said. “And from the police radio.”

“The police were talking about me?”

“You and the conductor. They were saying how quickly you both reacted.”

“Well, I’m glad they think so. I feel differently.”

“In situations like that we’re always hard on ourselves,” he said. “I’m sure you did the best thing under the circumstances.”

“Thank you,” I said, feeling my fatigue lift.

I sat up and pulled the quilt to my chin. The deep tone of his voice soothed me. It was surely not the correct response to this. He was a reporter after a story, but I was suddenly in need of someone to talk to. I said, “Why don’t you come to the house to talk?”

He accepted immediately. I now had a compelling reason to get out of bed, out of my cold sweaty tee shirt, and go to the sink and press a warm washcloth to my face. I studied my eyes and tried a cold compress when the warm one did not work. I dressed and moved to my front porch to wait for this Doug person. Thirty minutes, he had said, so I went to the kitchen and filled the teakettle and turned the knob to ignite the flame under it. Tick, tick, tick, the igniter attempted to light but failed and the throat-closing scent of gas rose up. The scent from her flesh and hair burning rolled up from memory. I could almost taste the acrid smoke. Off, then a second attempt, tick, tick, tick. Still the fuel did not catch. Off. A wave of my hand to dispel the fumes. On the third try, it caught and a burst of blue flame rose on all sides of the kettle with a whoosh and a surge from the flame burned the skin on my forearm. My backing away was instinctive, my left hand moving to my right arm protectively. Heat, but only tiny hairs singed and shriveled, no damage to the skin but that, right now, was no consolation. I poured a pot of green tea, carried it to the porch, and waited for Doug Bluestein. He never came. He did not call. In the moments before I gave up, I sipped tea in the sunny oasis of calm I found on my porch and listened as sirens pierced the distance and I wondered what other awful thing could be happening.

I needed Pete. I needed to talk to him. To tell him this. I lifted the phone and dialed his mobile number. I heard his voice message. “You’ve reached Pete. I’m on the road in Chicago until Friday evening, but please leave a message and I’ll return your call at a convenient time for both of us.” Beep.

Always able to reach his phone, but never able to reach him. I slammed the phone into the base. “Now is a convenient time for me,” I said to the empty house. His message was always the same. He was on an airplane. Or, he was with a client. Or driving. Or sleeping. At least that’s what he always said when he walked in the door. He was returning home tonight. I could talk to him tonight.

The phone rang again. It was Grace, my sister. “Hi,” I said.

I waited. Grace never called. When she did, she rarely asked questions. This time I expected them, lots of them. Shirley had said she heard about the burning. Doug had said the police gave him my name. Had the TV news gotten it too?

“Are you calling about the news?” I asked.

“My news?” she asked. “How did you know I had news?”

“I didn’t know you had news. I meant the NEWS news. The radio. I thought maybe you heard my name…”

“Why in the world would I hear your name on the news?” she asked.

“The woman at the train…I was there…I was a witness.”

She was silent, so I said, “Don’t you listen to the local radio station?”

“Cassie,” she said. “Why do you always talk so much? I can’t get a word in edgewise.”

“Grace, you didn’t say anything. I was waiting.”

“You’re always talking about yourself.” I heard a pause. Then, she asked, “Okay, what were you on the radio for this time?”

“Did you hear what happened this morning?” I asked.

“No.”

“A woman burst into flame and burned to death at the train station this morning.” I waited for a moment, then I said, “And I saw it right before my eyes. I tried to use the fire extinguisher on her, but it didn’t save her.”

“Cassandra, that is gruesome. Are you okay?”

“I’m not hurt, if that’s what you mean.”

“Well, thank goodness for that. When you said news, I thought you meant Catherine’s news. She’s going to Vassar.”

“Congratulations.”

“You really ought to not take the train. Driving into Newark is so much safer. I think about the crime in that city and how you take a chance.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I was freaked out and the police and fire department asked me a million questions. I’m still a bit freaked out. And Pete’s not here. I thought your call was Pete. It was awful.”

“Well, thank God it wasn’t you,” she said.

“Yes, I thought that too. I was so close…”

“You’re okay? What do you mean she burst into flames?”

“She was there one minute, then the next she was on fire.”

“I heard a lot of sirens this morning,” she said.

“I did, later.”

“I’m going to turn it on when I get off the phone,” she said. “Now can I take a turn and tell you why I called? Do I get a turn now?”

I gave her a long moment of empty air, just like she’d given me.

“I’m calling about Catherine’s graduation.” Grace stated it firmly.

I said. “Yes, great. So exciting for her.”

“Charles and I decided to throw her a party at the club,” Grace said. “A pool party for her and all her friends.”

“Nice,” I said.

“Do you think you would want to come?” she asked. “I know you won’t know a lot of people there. And your girls won’t know anyone either. But, well, it seems odd to not have all the family there.” There was clear reluctance in her tone.

“Are you inviting us?” I said.

“Well, it isn’t an invitation yet,” she said. “I just need to know if you want to come. I’ll send invitations out later. It’s on Mothers’ Day. That’s another thing. It’s a busy family day, but the only date the club was not already booked. The graduation isn’t until mid-June.”

“We’d love to come,” I said. “Gift ideas?”

“Gift cards are always nice. She could use it to buy stuff for college.”

“Thanks, Grace,” I said. “Thanks for inviting us. The girls will enjoy seeing Catherine. Especially Lila.”

“Well,” Grace said. “I hope she has time to give some attention to her cousins with her friends around. You know how that is.”

“Yes, well, they’ll enjoy swimming at any rate,” I said.

“There is a dress code at the club,” Grace continued. “I will send you an email about their rules. Listen, I’ve got some things to do and more calls to make. I will talk to you soon.”

“Bye, Grace,” I said. I listened to the click of her hang up and placed the phone back down. It didn’t ring again. I wanted to call Pete again. Instead, I did nothing but drink tea. Why had this Doug person not come? I supposed I’d get a phone call, but I didn’t. I walked to the bus but the girls weren’t on the bus. I’d forgotten. Today was Girl Scout day and they’d be dropped off late by their leader. I walked home and imagined it happening to me. Imagine if I just burst into flames and disappeared from life right in the middle of a routine day full of tasks and duties? Who was she, that anonymous woman in the blue business suit? Had she been making a political statement? Or, what random mistake or malfunction or terrible path of fate had she stepped across so she was not able to step out of it. Clichés like ‘There but for the grace of God’, ‘In the end it’s a blink of an eye’. It could just as easily have been me. The difference of a few feet, maybe just a few minutes, my spot in line to board just ahead of her.

The New York news channels gave this mention, the way they would a car accident, a mugging in Central Park, a water main break, but to me, this felt too much like 9/11 when the towers fell. Innocent people dying. But it felt strangely like a dream, like it was only significant to me, not the rest of the world. My heart thudded against my ribs and I could feel a pulse in my temples. Then, the shock of what the news anchor said next. There were two other fires, two other women, two more, in Hillston, two more women stepping through their ordinary days, one at a school, one at Mills Reservation. Just like that. Dead. Burned. Gone.

I wanted to get in my car and drive to the Girl Scout meeting to bring Mia and Allie home to safety. I wondered where Lila was. My intrepid teenaged Lila could fall victim to some random accident or the evil in some stranger or even someone she knew, roaming the earth making trouble, destroying lives with fire. I wanted them all home with me. Maybe that’s why that reporter hadn’t come. Maybe something awful happened to him. And Pete was on planes all the time. Then, Lila was on the steps.

“Mom,” she said. “We were dismissed early. Something awful is happening. Did you hear? Look, here’s a notice they gave out. Everyone at school was talking about it.” She shoved the door open and I followed her inside.

“I know. I saw it. A woman at the station.”

“You saw it?”

“I did. I was right next to her.” I closed the door firmly. I wanted the drapes drawn in the living room. I wanted the windows locked. Somehow, a dim light was preferable to the brilliant late afternoon rays slanting over the roof of the house, across the street, and through my windows. The sun’s heat, usually comforting, dragged up terror. I wanted my twins home.

The crumbled notice stated that a student at the middle school had lost his mother in an unexplained fire in the reservation this morning while walking her dog. I switched on the news right away in my kitchen as I prepared dinner, waiting for my two girl scouts to arrive. As I switched from station to station, it further explained Doug’s failure to appear. Edna Totten, the anchor on the NJ local news channel, who lived in Hillston, delivered the segment. “Police are investigating this incident. They are seeking any additional witnesses who might have been in the area. They’re warning us to stay alert while walking in town or nearby as there may be dangerous individuals using fire to harm women.”

Edna Totten, on the TV, said, “The woman appeared to spontaneously ignite. Similar incidences also occurred at various places in suburban communities around Hillston, where I am now, reporting from the elementary school where principal, Elizabeth Lindsey, burst into flame during a routine fire drill this morning, at approximately nine thirty.” Edna blinked at perfect intervals and continued. “Mrs. Lindsey was standing at the curb just there,” she indicated with a gesture. “The students were led back into the building through other doors while the fire department and EMT’s arrived. They were too late to help. The fire, which consumed Mrs. Lindsey, is being investigated. Fire Chief Jeff Heffly indicated there was no evidence to indicate how it started.” Edna said, “This fire and the death appears identical to the death of a woman at the Hillston train station this morning. We go now to the videotape of a press conference held earlier today by the New Jersey Transit spokesperson, Allen Cavallo.”

The camera cut to a podium behind which stood a tall man with thick gray hair and wire rimmed glasses, tie loosened, hands gripping the edges of the podium while he read from a prepared statement. “I would like to extend my condolences to the family of Ann Neelam, a customer of New Jersey Transit, who lost her life this morning under circumstances that are still being investigated. New Jersey Transit dispatched a maintenance crew to the station in question immediately. As of right now, there doesn’t seem to have been any malfunction of the equipment or the electrical system at the Hillston station. Their work continues.”

I waited. Surely, they would field questions from the reporters filling this room where this Allen Cavallo delivered his speech. I wondered what Doug Bluestein looked like and if his head was one of those I could see from behind. The program switched the broadcast back to Edna. I stopped trying to cook and sat. “ Another fire of unknown origin took the life of a woman who was walking her dog in Mills reservation, also near Hillston.” Edna had her hand on the earpiece from which she was being fed updated information. Her gaze turned inward as she listened, then she recovered herself as she was still on camera. She said, “We’re sorry. We have no visual on that report. Witnesses who were questioned by the Hillston authorities reported that the victim was discovered by a jogger along a footpath near the south end parking lot. The jogger, a local actor named Bruce Gilbert, used his cell phone to call 911 but reported that the fire was raging so fiercely he could not get near enough to try to save her. She had completely expired before the police and firefighters arrived.”

One, a principal, two, Ann Neelam, three, an unknown woman at the reservation. How very strange and horrifying. The coverage continued. Here was the mayor, Bobby Moore, a close-up, with a blue background. He was plugged into a mic and an earpiece was stuck in his left ear. He kept touching it with his forefinger, tilting his head at an odd angle. His eyes stared unblinking and unrehearsed at the camera, while his face reflected the strain of listening through his left ear. Then, he came to life. I thought he was reading a teleprompter, the way his eyes didn’t stay on the camera. “It seems that the women are spontaneously igniting in various locations across our suburban landscape. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern associated with these burnings and there seems to be no immediate danger to anyone else in the vicinity when the fire appears.” A pause while he tilted his head to listen. “No, there doesn’t seem to be an indication of common circumstances.” Another pause. “I have not witnessed any of these very strange occurrences.” Pause again. “I am not in Hillston. I will be on a plane on my way back in a few hours.” Pause. “Would you repeat that?” Comprehension passed over his eyes. “I would not say, at this time, that the Hillston citizens are in any kind of danger, but I would caution anyone to be on the alert for any suspicious looking individuals.” A frown. “I have no evidence to support the idea that someone is responsible for these deaths. These are all still under investigation.”

Suddenly the watching audience could hear the questions he was responding to and I was startled by the very loud voice of Edna Totten again. It went on from there. Edna attempting to pin him down to an explanation and, when that failed, she began a series of questions that required so much speculation or guess work on the mayor’s part that all I could imagine as a result was panic entering the hearts and minds of anyone who lived near Hillston. It certainly had entered mine in a quiet and insidious way. Hearing the rising panic in Edna Totten’s tone, asking if this was reminiscent of a Stephen King novel, the hint of suggestion that something strange and sinister was at work in this locale swelled up in me. I imagined I shared this growing fear with everyone listening to her. Mayor Moore said, after a long series of leading questions, “If I were a woman in Hillston, if I were someone who loved a woman in Hillston, and I am, actually, although my wife and kids are in Texas right now, I would discourage them from spending any time outdoors until the mystery of how and why this is happening is solved.”

The news station cut to a commercial, one of those homegrown ones about a family-owned car dealership, and I turned back to my cooking. This is terror, I thought. This is how they destroy not just the one who died, but everyone who sees it. This is like the aftermath of 9/11. I still had jugs of water and canned goods, probably expired now, in the basement. We had all expected bombs and war back then. The media had encouraged us to prepare. Now all they said was to stay indoors.

I decided then and there my kids would not be out of my sight. I would drive Lila to school, no walking around town with her camera until this was over. I would be the one to drive Mia and Allie home after Girl Scouts. I would protect them from whatever this was. If it happened again, it would not be to anyone I loved. I’d rather die than let anyone or anything hurt my girls.

“I’ve got to get some photos done. I’m going to be downstairs, okay? You’re not doing laundry down there, are you?” Lila said, suddenly behind me. I wondered how long she’d been there and what she’d seen of the news.

“Homework?” I asked.

“After dinner,” she said. “Not a lot. Just some math.” She retreated to the dim safety of her basement darkroom, a place where up to now I felt she’d spent far too much time. Now, I was grateful for the photo hobby and the cinderblock walls I hoped could keep her safe.

The phone rang and it was that voice, that deep soothing voice from this morning and it said, “Ms. Taylor, I owe you an apology.” And the knot in my gut I hadn’t acknowledged responded. I felt a letting go in the muscles in my neck. My grip on the phone loosened.

“It looks like there was more than one person you needed to talk with today,” I said. “I just saw the local news.”

“Tune into CNN,” he said. “They’re all in town. All the news stations. As a matter of fact, you should look outside. There may be news vans watching your house.”

I carried the phone to my front porch as he kept talking. He explained how he was diverted to the scenes of the other fires. I looked out and watched an Eyewitness News van passed slowly, then I saw a CNN van idling down the street at the curb.

“I’d still like to talk to you,” he said. “Is that still possible?”

“Yes,” I said simply.

“Who was the woman in the woods?” I asked. I didn’t know Ann Neelam, the woman I failed to save. My children attended a different elementary school and I did not know Elizabeth Lindsey. I knew a lot of women in town through PTA and the early moms support group I’d started upon my return from Bangalore, from the YMCA, and my yoga studio. It was surprising that Bruce Gilbert was the jogger who saw her die. He was a bit too short and round of body to fit the stereotype of a jogger, but he was an actor. He had also been my contractor for my kitchen renovation when he was between acting jobs. I now shared an experience with him. I felt an urgent need to call him and wondered if this Doug person had already.

“Her name is Cynthia Barrow,” Doug said.

“Gees,” I said. “Come over.” I hung up.

Cynthia. Cindy. My Cindy. Our Cindy. Cindy of the Institute for Philosophy for Children. Cindy, my partner in early motherhood. Cindy, the co-founder of our mom’s group. A sister in spirit, she’d called me in a birthday card she’d once sent. I walked through my front door, dropped the phone on the carpet and there I was again in the pillows on my couch, my legs curling up to my chest, my eyes closed. Gone. Dead. Burned. I waited for this Doug Bluestein person to arrive. And, in the stillness of my living room, the faint sounds of Lila in her darkroom below came to me and I let the soft sounds of her life overpower the pounding of my own blood pulsing just under the taut muscles in my neck. I wanted my twins home. Just then, there they were and I ran through my front door to the car at the curb, pulled them quickly into the house, barely thanking Barbara Kinsley from down the street for bringing them home. She waved at me and sped off. Now if only Pete were here. We would all be safe. Instead of trying him again I tried to reach Bruce Gilbert. It rang until the message announced his unavailability. I left a hurried message and hung up. Cindy was dead. I lifted the phone. I still could dial the number from memory. But a rush of shame and a sense of self-doubt ambushed me. Cindy and I hadn’t spoken in five years. What would Derrick Barrow think now if he heard my voice? What would he do? Hang up on me? He could be as righteous as Cindy. I hung up. This needed more thought than I was capable of right now. It was too soon.

I turned my attention to my daughters who were seating themselves at the table in the kitchen for their daily ritual of homework. Shiny brown-haired heads bent over their work as though nothing was different.

Cindy had been so often at this table, Brandon and Lila finger-painting or sharing play dough to create creatures and turn them into characters in a story. Cindy and I would drink tea in late afternoon. Sometimes it would stretch to dinner when Pete was out of town, which was often. Sometimes Derrick would join us as he stepped off the train from New York. These memories assailed me. She’d come in the house some mornings and immediately lift one of the twins from her bassinet and say, “Where’s the bottle?”

Brandon would join Lila playing on the floor and we’d sit there, burp napkins over our shoulders, coffee on the table in front of us, and feed the babies and ourselves. Now, the disagreement that had severed our bond seemed so banal, so pointless, and waves of remorse and longing for those days of early motherhood washed over me. We had been sisters in spirit, until we weren’t anymore. We’d even lost our mothers in the same year, hers back in Chicago, mine just about a mile from me.

Cindy had filled a huge space in my life. Pete never home. My sisters, Grace and Lou, never did what Cindy and I did for each other. Now I swallowed lumps in my throat and let my hair hide my face from my Mia and my Allie as tears rolled onto my chin and dripped onto my tee shirt.