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
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
In the past, this particular talent of Mangalam’s had enabled him to enjoy moments of forbidden pleasure without worrying about consequences. Today it was bolstered by a bottle of Wild Turkey that had miraculously escaped the wrath of nature and was safely hidden inside his file cabinet. Over the last several hours, he had been making surreptitious pilgrimages to it, followed by guilt-ridden mouthwash sprees in the bathroom. The guilt was two-pronged. First, he had been brought up in a strict Hindu household on scriptural verses that declared that the consumption of alcohol was a primary symptom of the depraved age of Kali. And second, though it didn’t exactly fall under the category of food, he felt that he should have turned the bottle in to the soldier.
Under normal circumstances, Mangalam was not a drinker. He had the bottle in his office only because he had received it last week, a gift from a grateful client whose visa he had expedited through a less-than-legal shortcut. He had planned to take it back to India, where the price of Wild Turkey was astronomical. He hadn’t yet decided whether he would sell it or re-gift it to someone important who might extend his overseas assignment. But now India had receded from his life, and the best he could hope for was that an aftershock would not shatter the bottle before he had the chance to empty it.
Mangalam hauled off beams that had splintered like the neem sticks his parents had used as toothbrushes, yanked at metal rods twisted into skewers, and spat out with Zen dignity pieces of plaster that had found their way into his mouth. As he did so, he wished that Mrs. Mangalam, who used to denounce his ability to compartmentalize as callous and cowardly, could observe him now. Since that was not about to happen, it wasn’t unreasonable of him (was it?) to hope that Malathi would notice his single-minded, stoic demeanor. Although when he thought of her, the drawers in his mind shrank. He ould not fit her into any of them. He thought of how he had kissed her, her soft mouth opening under his, her tongue tasting of fennel seed, which she must have chewed after lunch. Later, he had gripped her by the forearms and shaken her. He remembered how her head had snapped forward and back, how astonished she’d looked before hatred had heavied her features. He wished he could tell her that he was sorry. But even if the perfect opportunity for it arose, he would never take it. Apologize to a woman and she would gain the upper hand. Mangalam knew better than to let that happen.
IT TOOK THEM THREE HOURS TO MAKE THEIR WAY TO TARIQ and dig him out. Throughout, Lily stayed with them in the passage. When Cameron told her she was taking an unnecessary risk, distressing her grandmother, she put on her sullen teen face. Once they uncovered Tariq’s hand, she clutched it as though it rightfully belonged to her. She had to let go when the men made their way, carrying him single file, through the tunnel they’d dug in the Lilliputian mountain, but as soon as they were on the other side, she grasped it again.
Back in the room, Tariq said nothing. Though he was conscious, he kept his eyes shut and refused to answer the questions Cameron asked him in order to figure out if he had a concussion. By now, the floor of the visa office was too wet to lay him down, so they seated him in a chair. Lily held his hand, which she patted from time to time. Malathi propped him up while Mrs. Pritchett cleaned him off with a wet piece of what had once been a blue sari. But they were both distracted.
“Why isn’t anyone trying to get us out?” Malathi whispered to Mrs. Pritchett. “Do you think they’ve forgotten us? Do you think we’re going to die down here?”
Mrs. Pritchett wiped cursorily at Tariq’s face, missing a large patch of grime on his cheek where his skin had been scraped raw. “God hasn’t forgotten us,” she said, staring into the distance with concentration, as though attempting to read a billboard that wasn’t adequately lighted. “He knows our entire histories, past and future both, and gives us what we deserve.”
If the words had been meant to comfort, they failed. Malathi gave a moan and backed away. Tariq began to slide sideways. He might have slipped off the chair if Lily hadn’t grabbed a fistful of his shirt. She gave the two women her best evil-eye look, but they didn’t seem to notice.
The sudden movement had jolted Tariq into a more alert state. When Cameron came back with some ointment, he strained away until the other man threw down the tube with an expletive. It was Lily who rubbed the salve into Tariq’s face and forearms and bandaged him the best she could, admonishing him for his misbehavior. Afterward, she delved in her backpack and found a pink comb and smoothed down his hair. Her own once-spiky hair had wilted, falling over her forehead, making her look waiflike. She asked if she could get him anything else, and bent close to his mouth to listen. When, eyes still shut, he whispered something, she found his briefcase and put his Quran in his hands. She made him drink some water and recommended that he open his eyes. “No need to feel embarrassed. We’d probably all have done the same thing and rushed out.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “Jeez! Quit behaving like a baby. No one’s looking at you.”
This was true. Cameron had just informed the group that beyond the pile that had trapped Tariq, the stairwell was blocked, floor to ceiling, by chunks of debris too large to be moved without the help of machines. He had reminded them not to talk or move about too much. He wasn’t sure how good the air was down here. How much oxygen they had left. People were trying to deal with the fact that their greatest hope-that the door, if only they could open it, would lead them to safety and sunlight-had evaporated. Until now death had been a cloud on a distant horizon, colored like trouble but manageably sized. Suddenly it loomed overhead, blotting out possibility. Panic darkened each mind, and Malathi’s questions-
Tariq heard Lily, but he kept his eyes shut. He was mortified by having caused more trouble, by having required rescuing-by the African American, no less-when he’d hoped to lead their band to safety. That’s why, although he wanted to, he wasn’t able to tell Lily how grateful he was for what she had done for him out in the passage, when terror had spread through him like squid ink. She had been brave, far more than he. He had sniveled and sobbed under the weight of darkness and debris. Even if no one else found this out, he knew it.
Holding the Quran in his lap, he tried to pray. God was the only one he could bear to connect with, because surely over the ages He’d seen more contemptible behavior than Tariq’s and forgiven it. But Tariq couldn’t recall any of the traditional words. He would have to make up his own prayer. He couldn’t remember the last time he had undertaken that. Removed from the elegant choreography of the chants he depended on, he was stumped. What did people say to their Maker, anyway? In which tone did they register their complaints or pleas? How did they (not that it appeared that Tariq would have a reason to do this anytime soon) offer their thanks?
