The German Wife(41)

“Do you hear that?” Henry said suddenly.

There it came again.

Help. Come help. Please. Oh God. Please.

We both shot off the bed but Henry reached out to stop me.

“You stay—”

“Like hell I will.”

For only a split second, he hesitated. Then he fumbled for my hand and squeezed it fiercely.

“Do not let go of me,” he hissed. “If we lose each other, we’re gone. Do you hear that?”

“Stop babying me and just go!”

I followed Henry by feel, not by sight. He had the lantern in his hand, but I could tell from the cautious steps he took that it wasn’t helping much.

Henry stumbled near the door, and I felt the crunch of corrugated iron beneath our feet—a piece of the barn roofing had come through the window. He struggled but managed to pull the door open, only to find that walking outside in that wind thick with dirt was like swimming through cement. We were making such slow progress that I was starting to fear we’d be dead from suffocation before we even figured out who was calling out for us.

“Help...” The voice came again, and this time I knew it was Daddy. Henry sped up, just a little, stumbling forward down the stairs of the porch. I lost him for a brief second, so threw myself forward and went weak with relief when my hand landed on his shoulder.

“Call again, Daddy!” Henry shouted.

“Henry. I’m over here!” Dad called back.

“Keep calling so we can follow your voice!”

Slowly we inched toward the sound of Dad’s voice, but it was only when I kicked the wheel of the car by mistake that I realized we’d overshot our mark.

I tugged on Henry’s shoulder to pull him in the right direction and we felt our way along the car. Finally, my hand connected with hair, covered in a layer of soft dirt.

“Mother!” I cried. I pulled the car door open and bent down to shelter behind it. Mother was curled in a ball between the back and front seats.

“Oh, honey,” she wheezed, and then she gave a spluttering fit of coughs. “Clever girl. You...found us.”

She sounded hoarse and weak and defeated. I took the wet cloth off my mouth and pressed it over Mother’s, ignoring the way she fumbled at me to protest. I tried to stifle the immediate urge to cough, but every breath I took now filled my lungs with unfiltered dirt. Soon, I was coughing and wheezing just like Mother.

“How far are we from the house?” Dad shouted.

“Close,” Henry shouted back. “Maybe twelve feet?”

“I tried to find my way but I was too scared I’d get lost and wouldn’t get back to Mother in the car.”

We figured it out quickly from there. I’d follow Dad, holding on to the back of his shirt. Dad would carry Mother, throwing her over his shoulder so one hand was free to hold on to Henry’s hand, and Henry would lead the way.

Henry said it was only twelve feet or so from the car to the house, but every single step into that swirling black dust felt like a marathon. I was dizzy from lack of air, like every panting breath I sucked in only brought me closer to suffocation. By the time we made it back to the bedroom, and Henry closed the door and propped the towel beneath it, I couldn’t take another step. I sank to the floor in a heap by the door. The wet cloths we’d taken outside were now dripping with mud—a whole other kind of suffocation. There was no way to filter the air other than to pull our dry shirts up over our mouths—a measure so ineffective we wouldn’t have bothered, except that we were desperate for any measure of relief.

For an hour, we sat and waited. Finally, the wind began to slow and then the darkness lifted, and then after all of that, the thickness of the dust in the air started to ease.

I was too exhausted to be relieved. Crumpled in that weary heap by the door, I was gradually becoming aware that I was hurt—that the sand-filled wind outside had burned my exposed skin, especially my cheeks.

Henry was the first to rise. He came to my side, gently swept the dust from my head and the uninjured skin of my face with his fingertips.

“You’re bleeding here,” he said gently, motioning toward my face.

“I figured,” I whispered back, both of our voices raw and thick. He helped me up and dust poured down from my clothes, running down my body like waterfalls after rain. I blinked over and over again, trying to clear my blurry vision, only to realize that my eyes were as burned as my skin was. I wouldn’t see clearly again until they healed.

“Mother? Dad?” I croaked, fumbling toward the bed. I could hear the rattling of Mother’s breathing even from the door, even over the sound of the fading wind. But it was only when I came closer that I realized how bad she was. Dad had her in his arms, and he was touching the skin of her face gently, whispering in her ear. He was wearing a strange, panicked smile on his face, as if he were trying to stay calm. One side of his face was bruised, the skin around his eye black and purple and swollen.

I sat gently beside Mother and took her hand. It was icy cold, so I rubbed it to warm it between my fingers.

“What happened?” Henry asked, coming to the side of the bed beside me.

“Tried to beat the duster but it came on so fast,” Dad said hoarsely. “Never seen anything like it. I completely lost my bearings once it got dark—kept getting in and out of the car trying to figure out where we were. Couldn’t find any landmarks I recognized, and the barn wasn’t where I expected it to be, so I thought we’d come in the wrong gate. Jesse was flailing, knocking the cart around as she reared up, so I got out to let her off her harness, but she knocked me to the ground. That’s the last thing I remember for a while.”