light moving toward him. She placed the flashlight on the countertop, along with a plastic Walmart bag that held two batteries and a white metal box painted with a large, red cross. Inside he found alcohol swabs, a few Band- Aids, a bottle of aspirin, some cold medication, a tube of antiseptic ointment, and a container of dental floss. It was better than nothing, though not by much.
He tried to order, in his head, the things that needed to be done. He had to check all areas of the room to determine if there were other possible exits. He had to check if anyone else was injured. He had to find out who might have food or water with them, and then persuade them to give it up. Were there bathroom facilities? If not, alternate arrangements would have to be made. He would have to walk around the room to see if there was a spot from which his cell phone worked. He would have to ask others to do the same. He would have to try to open the door, even though it might cause them to be buried alive.
His chest was beginning to hurt. The dust wasn’t helping any. Soon he would be forced to use the inhaler.
It’s too much, Seva, he thought. I can’t manage it all.
Behind him he heard a swishing. He swung around, aiming his flashlight like a gun. Malathi had found a broom and was sweeping up some of the debris. He was not able to catch her eye, but at least she no longer seemed terrified. That was good, because soon he would have to ask her to do something she would hate him for.
He allowed his mind to move away from the demands of the present, to follow, gratefully, the rhythm of the broom, which sounded a little like something his grandmother, who had grown up as a house servant in a Southern home, had described for him: a woman walking down a staircase in a long silk dress.
3
Uma looked down at her hand, which was so swollen that she could no longer make out the wrist bones. Cameron had given her three aspirin tablets, which she had forced herself to dry-swallow, almost gagging in the process. They did nothing for the pain, which throbbed all the way up her arm into her shoulder, and which she could not separate from her fear. Under her skin, something jagged was grinding into her muscles. She imagined a bone-or maybe several, ends cracked and sharp and uneven, stabbing her flesh from the inside. She wanted to escape to something outside this dreadful prison of a room-the ocean, her parents, the pad Thai noodles that she had been planning to make for dinner, Ramon bringing her jasmine tea in bed-but she was unable to squeeze past the panic. Could one die of internal bleeding in the arm? By the time they were rescued, would her arm have to be amputated? She had believed herself to be the kind of person who could handle a crisis with cool intelligence. Now she was abashed at how quickly pain had eroded her resources.
Everyone was huddled in the center of the room, where Cameron had summoned them. Everyone except the bearded young man, who was still lying where he had fallen, although he was conscious now. He had turned onto his side so he could watch Cameron. His unblinking eyes were like black glass in the glow of the flashlight. His head lolled at an uncomfortable angle. When a wave of pain receded, Uma would think vaguely of placing something under his head, her backpack maybe. Then the next wave of pain would break over her and she would lose track of the thought.
Cameron was checking people for injuries. They sat in a chair, their faces docile and tilted up like children’s, while he ran his pencil light over them. Almost everyone had cuts or bruises. The old woman had a nasty gash on her upper arm that was bleeding copiously. He handed swabs, Band-Aids, and the antibiotic cream to the older couple, Mr. and Mrs. Pritchett, and told them to do what they could to help those who were not too badly hurt. People had stammered out their names by now, all except the bearded man. But they knew his name anyway, because while he had been passed out on the floor Cameron had asked Mr. Mangalam, and he had asked Malathi. It was Tariq. A Muslim name. Uma wondered if that had anything to do with his violent outburst; then she was ashamed of such a stereotypical thought.
Cameron called the granddaughter, Lily, to hold the large flashlight for him as he cleaned the old woman’s wound and pressed gauze on it. Uma could see Lily biting her lips as red soaked the gauze, but the girl did not look away. Cameron frowned as he worked on the wound. He had to use all the gauze before he could stop the bleeding. (
In a while, Cameron pulled himself up and examined the back area for a door or window that might form a possible exit route. Perhaps a ladder that they could use to climb up to the large air vent near the ceiling? Failing to find anything, he deployed people with cell phones to move around (but carefully) in case they could catch a signal. Mangalam was put in charge of checking the office phones at regular intervals. Nothing there either. Cameron waited for the realization to sink in: they were stuck here until a rescue team arrived or until they decided to take the risk of pulling open the front door. Then he instructed people to pool whatever food or drinks they had, for rationing.
A reluctant pile of snacks formed on the counter, along with a few bottles of water. Uma, who did not have anything to contribute, felt improvident, like Aesop’s summer-singing cricket. (But she was suspicious, too. Had people squirreled things away at the bottoms of their purses, deep inside a coat pocket, in their shoes? In their place, she would have done it.) For a moment she heard her mother reading her that old story, her voice indignant as the ant sent the cricket off into the winter to die. Right now, half a world away, her mother lay asleep on her Superior Quality Dunlopillo mattress, ignorant of her daughter’s plight. But hadn’t her mother always been that way, oblivious to trouble even if it lay down in her bed and placed its head on her pillow?
“Does anyone have pain medication with them?” Cameron called. “Something prescription strength? This young woman, Miss Uma, her arm is broken. I’d like to give her something before I try to set it. Legal or otherwise, I don’t care.”
But no one admitted to possessing anything.
Cameron turned to Mangalam. “I need some long strips of cloth for bandages and a sling. We’re going to have to use her sari.” He gestured with his chin toward Malathi. “You’ve got to explain it to her.”
But when Mangalam spoke to Malathi, a rapid-fire set of staccato sounds that Uma did not understand, she retreated behind the counter and folded mutinous arms across her chest. “Illay, Illay!” she cried in a tone that was impossible to mistake. She continued with a wail of unfathomable words.
“She says it will destroy her womanly modesty,” Mangalam reported. He looked flustered. Uma suspected that Malathi had said something more, something he was withholding from them. Then another wave of pain struck and she was no longer interested.
“Ma’am, you have to cooperate,” Cameron said. “We’re in a situation where the regular rules don’t apply. I can’t help Miss Uma here unless I have enough cloth.” But Malathi had backed into a narrow space between two file cabinets at the far end of the room.
With her uninjured hand Uma groped in her backpack and pulled out a sweatshirt. The pain had taken over her head by now, making her dizzy. She walked unsteadily to the file cabinets and raised her swollen arm as best as she could for Malathi to see. The skin was turning a sick purple, visible even in the gloom. For a long moment Malathi did not move. Then she shot Uma a look of hate, snatched the sweatshirt from her hand, and retreated into Mangalam’s office. A few seconds later, the blue sari came flying through a gap in the door. Uma heard the click of a lock.
The pain of setting the arm almost made Uma faint, but once her arm was stabilized-the enterprising Cameron had used two rulers to make a splint-and placed in a sling, she felt slightly better. She took two more aspirin tablets from Cameron, picked up her backpack, and made her way to Tariq. He accepted the tablets she held out and gave a nod of thanks. Then he grimaced and clasped the back of his neck.
“Does it hurt a lot?” she asked.
He gave a bitter bark of a laugh. “What do you think?”
