Mists of the Serengeti(3)
“Of course.” Jack looked around the hall. It was filling up, but the first two rows were reserved for family. “Do I have time to run to the car and drop them off?”
“Five minutes, but Lily is up third, so you should be okay.”
“Great. I’ll be right back.”
Jack took the escalator back up to the parking lot. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee hit him as he passed the café, reminding him of the travel mug he’d left in his car. Nothing beat the taste of rich Arabica coffee beans from the farm. There was a precision that led to its distinct flavor—from planting to picking to roasting it in a rotating drum over a gas flame. Jack unlocked the car and retrieved his coffee, taking a deep, satisfying swig.
He was about to put the balloons inside when a burst of sharp, loud cracks rattled the air. His first thought was that the balloons had popped, in quick succession, but the sound had an echo, a boom that reverberated through the parking lot. When it happened again, Jack felt a bone-deep chill. His marrow congealed. He knew guns. You don’t live on a farm in rural Africa without learning how to protect yourself from wild animals. But Jack had never used a machine gun, and the shots ringing out from the mall sounded very much like one.
They say that a person’s true strength comes through in times of calamity. It’s a strange and unfair measure of a man. Because disasters and catastrophes are absurd, freakish monsters lurking in the periphery of your vision. And when one of those formless, shapeless shadows shows itself and stands before you, naked and grotesque, it completely incapacitates you. Your senses witness something so unexpected, so bizarre, that you stop to question the reality of it. Like a blue whale falling out of the sky. Your brain doesn’t know what to do with it. And so Jack stood paralyzed, holding his coffee in one hand and the balloons in the other, in Parking Lot B of Kilimani Mall on a clear Saturday afternoon in July, as shots rang out from inside, where he’d just dropped off his daughter.
It was only when the screaming started, when a stampede of panicked shoppers tumbled through the doors, that Jack blinked. He didn’t feel the burn of coffee on his feet as his mug split open. He didn’t see six yellow balloons drifting off into a blue whale of a sky. He just felt the desperation of a father who needed to get to his daughter. Instantly.
If someone had flown over the mall in that moment, they would have witnessed a strange sight: a mass of people scrambling, pushing, fighting to get out of the building, and a lone, solitary man scrambling, pushing, fighting to get inside.
It was more conviction than strength that got Jack through the crowd. Inside was pure chaos. Gunfire rattled through the mall. Discarded shoes, shopping bags, and spilled drinks were everywhere. The balloon cart stood, abandoned and unaffected, smiley faces and Disney princesses gaping at the havoc. Jack did not stop to look left or right. He didn’t care to differentiate friend from foe. He rushed past the café, past the half-eaten almond croissants and crushed cookies, past the cries for help, with a single-minded purpose. He had to get downstairs to the recital hall.
Sit in the front row so I can find you, okay?
I know the drill, Lily. Have I ever failed you?
He was almost at the escalator when a toddler, going the opposite way, came to a halt in front of him. The boy was lost and had cried himself into a state of exhaustion. Jack could barely make out his soft whimpers over the pounding of his own heart. For a moment they stood there, the little boy with his face painted like Batman, colors smudged from tears, and the man who, for a split second, was torn between getting him to safety and getting to his own daughter.
Then Jack stepped aside. He was sure he would always remember the toddler’s face, the look of expectancy in his big, round eyes, the pacifier pinned to his shirt. As he stuffed his shame into a dark recess of his soul, someone started shouting.
“Isa! Isa!”
From the way the boy turned at the woman’s voice, she was obviously the person he’d been looking for.
Jack heaved a sigh of relief and rounded the escalator.
“Mister! Stop. Please. Get my son out of here.”
She was lying on the floor, about ten feet from Jack, beside a stroller that had toppled over, holding on to her ankle. She was hurt. And pregnant.
“Please get him out of here,” she begged.
People were still fleeing the mall, terrified blurs of motion, but of all the people, of all the people, she was asking Jack. Perhaps because Jack was the only person who had heard her. Perhaps because he had stopped long enough to acknowledge a crying toddler in the middle of the chaos. She had no concern for her own safety, no request for herself. And in that, they were united. They both just wanted to get their kids out.
Jack felt the escalator belt sliding under his hands as he stood at the top of the stairs.
Go down.
No. Help them.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Every second he wasted was a second that kept him from Lily.
He should have averted his eyes then, but he caught the moment the boy embraced his mother, the slackening of his little body, the relief at having found her, the belief that everything would be all right—in complete contrast to the utter desolation and helplessness in her eyes.
Fuck.
So Jack did the hardest, bravest, most selfless thing in his life. He turned back. He grabbed the boy with one hand, supported the mother with his other, and got them out the door. In his adrenaline-fueled state, it didn’t take more than a minute. But it was a minute too long.