Strangers: A Novel(61)
I don’t respond, so she hastily goes on to say what I’d feared she would. “We’re not complete without you, Dad especially; he really suffers from not seeing you.”
I’m unable to hold back a snort. If there’s anything he’s suffering from, then it’s not having me under his direct control. After all, here I can make my own decisions, ones that could go against his interests.
“I don’t want to push you into anything.” Now she sounds sheepish and it makes me feel bad. “But you know how happy we would be if you were back with us.…”
I’m only listening with one ear now; my gaze is drawn back to the TV screen. There’s a news ticker announcing a special report in five minutes.
“… just spoken with Jasper and Ashley, they send their best—”
“I’m sorry, Mama,” I say as I read the words running along at the bottom of the screen, read them again and again. Unable to believe them. Unwilling to believe them. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”
I hang up without another word, and the phone slips from my hand. Instead of picking it up, I go over to the television and kneel down in front of it.
The news ticker is still running. And then the first pictures come.
28
There’s a deafening explosion; something throws me to the ground, compacting my lungs, making it difficult to breathe. Air … I need air. I feel sharp pain. In my back, in my arm, everywhere. Pieces of debris are raining down on me, a strange hail of destruction. I curl up my body, protect my head. Suddenly it stops. A brief moment of muffled silence, then chaos. Screaming, shouting, grinding and crashing noises. Dark clouds are all around me, shards of glass, shredded objects. And dust, everywhere. It settles in my nose and my throat; the need to cough becomes unbearable and I give in to it. I’m lying there, coughing, wheezing, gasping for breath, trying to understand what has happened. An explosion, maybe gas … maybe a bomb?
I have to get away from here. Get out of this building. Maybe there are more explosions to come? I carefully raise my head. The world is nothing but dust now, gray and grim. And in the middle of it all, scenes straight out of a nightmare. Shadowy figures appear as though out of nowhere, hunched over, climbing clumsily over the rubble. Some of them stumble, others run past, some fall over again, crying … And all this screaming. Coming from everywhere. Some of it from very close by.
Someone trips over my foot, falls to the floor next to me. A man. Covered in dust. He groans, forces himself back to his feet, limps onward.
I tuck in my legs, move my arms. A thought comes to me, of major importance: I have to get out of here. Slowly I straighten up, until eventually I’m standing in an expanse of shattered glass, chunks of concrete and mortar, wood … A man is next to me. Gray dust on his coat and his hair, his face covered in tiny dark marks. He’s looking at the rubble with his eyes widened in fear. Motionless. In shock.
And on top of it all, these awful screams. A woman shouts out, very close by. “Oh God! Oh my God!”
More and more people are crawling out of the devastation. I see blood on their hands, their arms and legs. Another woman staggers toward me, her face nothing but an expanse of gray. Her dress is torn; a long, dark wound gapes open on her forearm. Black blood. Everything here is black and gray. The explosion has blasted all the color out of the world.
The woman’s knees buckle. I take a step toward her, try to catch her, but get caught on something and topple down to the floor with her. I nearly black out from the pain. The wound on my upper arm …
The woman lands on top of me. Absurdly, I ask her, “Is everything OK?” as I twist out from under her.
“Gerhard. My … my husband.” Her voice sounds hoarse. “I was dropping him off at the train.”
I manage to get back on my feet. My gaze keeps falling on her blood-smeared arm. She’s looking past me, over to where the exit is. A bright speck in this gray dusty hell. “I want to get out of here, please.” I help her get up. Once we’ve managed it, she walks away without another word, and vanishes seconds later.
I should follow her. Get out of here too.
The station hall is filled with distraught shouting, with groaning and, again and again, with ghastly cries of pain—even very close to me.
About thirty feet away from me, a man is twisting on the ground. He’s holding his thigh; I can’t see the rest of his leg in the chaos. A stooping figure teeters past him, but doesn’t help him. Nobody’s helping him.
There’s a towering pile of large fragments from the display board next to him. Behind it, a fire is blazing amid the rubble from a wall that’s collapsed. The platforms are all located there, somewhere. That’s where the explosion seems to have happened. I approach the screaming man, climb over a massive wooden beam, slip, and take a hard knock, of course to my injured arm.
What the hell am I doing here anyway? There was an explosion directly up ahead; the people are all running away from there. Maybe there’s a gas leak and there is going to be a second blast any second? I should get out of the building as quickly as possible too.
But … the man. He’s screaming his lungs out. His leg seems to be jammed somewhere; I have to at least try to help him. A few feet farther on I have to climb over stones and splintered wooden beams. My body convulses into a coughing fit, incapacitating me for several minutes.