The Edge of Dreams(8)

And then we were falling. Plunging down toward the street below.





Three

I must have passed out because I opened my eyes to a scene of hell. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. As I came back to consciousness I realized I was lying, pressed against a door that miraculously held fast, with a jumble of people across me. The air was full of acrid smoke and through it there came moans and screams. Someone very close to me was whimpering, “Help. Somebody help me.”

For a moment I couldn’t remember where I was and how I had come to be in this predicament, then the full realization came back to me. The train going too fast around a steep curve. Squeal of metal. Awful jerk. Plunging. Falling. I tried to push away the weight that was pinning me down and saw it was the large woman with the basket. She seemed to be unconscious. And the second I tried to shift her weight from me I remembered I had been holding Liam. She must be lying on him. Suffocating him. I struggled desperately and got a hand free, then pushed with all my might.

“Liam!” I yelled. “Where’s my baby? Somebody help me find my baby.”

Other people stirred, shifted, moved. My other arm came free. And there was no Liam in it. No Liam pinned to the door or on the floor at my feet. In my panic I struggled to stand upright, but I teetered and couldn’t get my balance. Then I looked out of the window and saw why. I was in a train car that was dangling at a crazy angle, suspended from the elevated track above. I had no idea whether we were hanging in midair or the other end of the car was resting against something solid. Any minute now we could continue our plunge to destruction. And my child was nowhere to be found. I scrabbled around like a mad thing through the smoke-filled car—pushing aside God knows whose limbs to look under seats, under bodies, growing more and more frantic every second. It hurt me to breathe and I couldn’t tell whether it was because of the acrid smoke or whether I was injured. I saw there was blood on my hands and couldn’t tell if it was mine or someone else’s.

Then through the chaos I heard a cry.

“Liam!” I screamed and clambered down the steep angle of the car, over seat backs, people’s backs. There were shouts, complaints. Then I heard his wailing again, his little voice full of fear, and another voice saying calmly, “Don’t worry, son. Your mama’s here somewhere. We’ll find her.”

A gentleman, dressed in smart business attire—his dark suit now covered in dust and debris—was holding my son, who was squirming and bawling like a mad thing. Liam’s new white sailor suit was streaked with black and the matching sailor hat was missing.

“Liam. My precious.” I grabbed him and held him tightly to me, rocking him, crying with him. I could feel his little heart pounding against me and a searing pain in my chest with each breath.

“Thank you.” I looked up at the man.

“He was quite fortunate,” the man said. “He must have slid down under the seats and landed at my feet. Come on. We must see if we can get out of here before this car catches on fire too.”

I glanced down and could make out a crushed and burning heap below us. It was hard even to recognize it as a former railway carriage, and I realized it was the second car, the one I hadn’t taken because of the man who was coughing. On such minute details hangs our fate, I thought.

There was movement below us. Shouts through the smoke. More shouts coming from outside the car.

“Careful,” someone warned. “Don’t shift the weight or we might fall down to the street.”

“No, it’s all right,” a man’s voice shouted back. “We’re resting against the wall of a building, and if I can get this window opened enough we can climb out onto a window ledge.”

One by one people were helped through the carriage window. Hands came out from the building to pull them to safety. The smart gentleman called out, “Lady with a baby here. Take her next.” And I was passed down to the window. Liam screamed as he was wrenched from my arms again and handed through to waiting arms. I had to hitch up my skirts as I squeezed through the window and then take a large step, through the black and swirling smoke, across to the nearest window ledge. But frankly, concern about who might see my bloomers was the last thing on my mind at that moment.

Then I was in a small kitchen that reeked of garlic and onions. Several dark-eyed children huddled behind the table, eyeing us with fear and fascination. Liam was handed back to me. I was assisted through the apartment, onto a landing, and down a flight of steep wooden stairs before coming out to join the throng on the street below. I could hear the sound of fire truck bells jangling as an engine approached. Police were yelling “Stand back. Let them through.”