Wunderland(16)

She wiped her leg off with a burp cloth and unfolded a fresh Pampers. A siren lowed into the distance. Ava stared at the phone, which didn’t ring. And didn’t ring. She started pacing: from the crib to the window. Then back. On her third round her bare foot landed on something hard and sticky; looking down, she saw the cooking spoon she’d given Sophie to chew on.

Foot half lifted, Ava squinted down at the sticky utensil. Then, leaving it where it lay, she raced back to the phone and dialed again.

“Eggs,” she said, the minute Livi picked up.

“What?”

“There were goddamn eggs in this pudding I was making. Raw eggs. I gave Sophie the spoon to chew on.”

A measured pause. “You think it’s salmonella?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what else causes this kind of a fever. God. I’m such an idiot…”

“Stop it, sweetie,” said Livi sternly. “You know that’s not helpful. Okay, listen. Daniel said you should take her to an emergency room.”

“You mean call an ambulance?”

“No. Just go. The heat is causing a crazy backlog on the phone lines. You’re better off with a cab. Or even just walking her over.”

“To where?”

“Wherever’s closest.”

“I don’t know wherever’s closest.”

“Are you serious?” Livi sighed, exasperated. “Av, you’ve lived there for two years!”

“So I’m fucking stupid, okay?” Ava snapped. “I’m a complete Dummkopf. I’m the reason we have to go in the first place.”

Sophie stirred at the outburst. Reflexively stroking her hair, Ava noticed that it was wet before realizing that she’d been weeping into it. She hiccupped, took a shuddering breath. “Sorry. I think I’m—” She struggled to remember the English term. “Losing it. I’m losing it.” Then: “Oh God, what if I lose her?” It came out a shuddering half wail.

“Just—listen,” said Livi sternly. “Can you just listen to me for a minute?”

“Yes.” Ava swallowed. “I’m listening.”

“Go outside. Hail a cab. Tell them to take you to Cabrini. If you can’t find a cab, walk. Fast. Just take Second uptown. Cabrini is on Nineteenth, between Second and Third. Did you ever buy that pepper spray stuff I told you about?”

“No.”

Another pause—this one inaudibly annoyed. “Okay. It’s not that late, so you should be fine. But it’s dark now. So walk fast. Be aware of your surroundings. I’ll meet you in the ER in, say, twenty minutes. Okay?”

“Yes.”

“Repeat it back,” Livi prompted.

“Cabrini. Nineteenth. Between Second and Third.”

“Good. I’ll see you there.”



* * *





The heat had seemingly heightened taxi demand as well, since hailing one outside proved outright impossible. After the fourth had sped by in a checkered blur Ava started walking: past the prostitutes in their cropped halters and shortest of shorts, past the ragtag boys aiming basketballs at a broken air conditioner. A few looked in her direction, and the hooker in thigh-high boots asked Ava for a light that she didn’t have. Her skin tingled with an unspecified vulnerability as she pushed the stroller along. She’d dismissed Livi’s pepper spray suggestion as American overkill, but now she wished that she’d bought at least one can. As Ava quickened her pace, the pulsating beat she’d heard earlier—heavy and syncopated—was growing louder. In her exhaustion and the lingering remnants of her pink wine buzz she had the surreal impression that everything in the airless city, even her own quick-paced trot, was somehow set to its rhythm.

She’d just crossed East Houston when the lights above her flickered: not just the lamp she was passing, but all of them. For a few seconds the effect was almost festive; like fairy lights twinkling against the urban grit.

Then everything went black.

It happened not all at once but rather in a slow, almost graceful progression; a broadening swath of blankness that started somewhere above her head and swept its way up Second Avenue. Poof, poof, poof: as though each streetlight were being snuffed out by ghostly, synchronized lamplighters.

Ava stopped in her tracks. So, it seemed, did everything in the clamorous, filthy city. It all fell eerily silent, as though sound itself were being swallowed by the sudden blackness: two million television shows shrinking into tiny light points before vanishing. Five million radios falling into static-framed silence. A million humming air conditioners freezing midrumble. Oddly enough, nonelectric sounds stopped too: shrieking sirens and honking car horns, the shouts and greetings of passersby. The wary, rhythmic barkings of dogs. Even the pigeons stopped cooing, as if the sudden shift in atmosphere had caught them off-guard. Rooted where she was, Ava looked up into a sky filled with newly numerous stars.

For a moment she just stood there, transfixed by the sight: the revelation of such unfamiliar and unexpected beauty. Then someone somewhere near her—deep-voiced, male—let loose a three-note song: “Hoooooo! Blackout!”

As if on signal, the urban street sound blasted back on, though its tone felt somehow different from before: the sirens amplified and more urgent. The shouts shriller and more heartfelt, as though roused by a sudden call to battle. Ava heard the word again—blackout—and distractedly searched her brain for the corresponding German, finally settling on Stromausfall. It was a term that—until tonight—she’d associated with aerial bombings: a verbal relic from the War No One Willingly Mentioned. As she squinted into the sudden gloom, though, it seemed particularly apt: but for the light of passing cars, she felt almost blinded by inky darkness.