street. The air siren screamed. The planes zoomed toward them. Their engines rumbled louder and louder, a fearsome roar.
Elisabetta whirled around, not knowing if there was a shelter. Men and women jostled her, scattering in all directions. She raced with the panicked crowd to the nearest building, a shoe store. People pushed and shoved to get inside, frantic and desperate.
She pressed in with them, obeying instincts for survival. The roar of the planes deafened her. Everyone covered their ears, screaming, shouting, praying, crying. Mothers clutched their children, cowering. The planes darkened the sky and eclipsed the sun.
Boom! A blinding flash of light exploded in the middle of the street. The percussive blast sent her flying through the air. Brick and stones spewed as if from a volcano. She landed on the ground with everybody else, a stunned mass of humanity, wailing, crying, screaming, groaning, bleeding.
Elisabetta stayed conscious. Her head pounded. She couldn’t hear a thing. It was as if she had gone deaf. She told herself she had to get moving. She had to find shelter. She tried to get up but a woman lay on top of her, motionless.
Elisabetta tried calling to her, but the woman didn’t respond. Elisabetta realized the woman was dead. A little girl lay moving nearby, her head bloodied.
There was another explosion, then another. The ground shuddered. Black smoke billowed. The roof of the shop buckled and crashed.
Elisabetta screamed in sheer terror. She still couldn’t hear herself. She struggled to her feet. Grit and debris blanketed her body. Cuts covered her arms and legs. Her purse was gone. She was missing a shoe.
Boom boom boom! Bombs exploded throughout the neighborhood. The explosions rocked the ground. Debris flew everywhere. Glass windows blew out of storefronts.
Elisabetta couldn’t see through the smoke. Fires broke out on the buildings, flashes of horrifying orange amid wreckage. The air superheated. Black smoke rolled across the rubble, heavy with particulate. Her eyes stung, her nostrils clogged. She coughed, gasping. People staggered like shadows in an inferno.
The explosions kept coming. She ran this way, then that, colliding into terrified people doing the same. Everyone fled screaming. She whirled around, losing any sense of direction. She heard crying and realized it was coming from her. Her knees buckled. She fell to the ground atop the rubble and lost consciousness.
* * *
—
Elisabetta looked up, blinking, trying to gather her senses. Her head pounded. Her entire body ached. She lay backward on broken concrete, facing up. The sky was barely visible through the smoke.
Her brain struggled to function. The American bombers had gone. The attack was over. She had no idea how long she had been lying here. She could hear faint wailing. She tried to move. It hurt, but her legs and arms weren’t broken.
She sat up slowly, feeling her face. Warm blood wet her hands. Her arms and legs were gashed. Gray soot covered her clothes and body. She couldn’t breathe, her nostrils were full. She snorted black snot. Her mouth tasted gritty and dirty.
She staggered to her feet, looking around in horror. San Lorenzo had been leveled. She could see through to the next street. Fires flared and burned in the rubble and ruins. People and authorities were trying to put out the flames. Shops had been reduced to piles of brick, marble, stone, and twisted metal.
Carnage surrounded her. Severed limbs lay in the street like so much meat. Men, women, and children lay dead among the debris and rubble, bleeding from gruesome wounds. Hospital personnel and authorities ran back and forth with stretchers and black medical bags.
Blood was spattered everywhere. Everyone’s clothes were soaked and stained, torn and shredded. Some people were still alive, moaning and crying, writhing in agony from mortal wounds. Among them was the detritus of human life. A spiral-bound notebook. A brown purse. Horn-rimmed eyeglasses. A briefcase.
The woman next to her lay motionless, her gaze fixed heavenward. A little boy lay next to the woman. Blood matted his hair. Tears dried in rivulets in the grime on his face. His lips moved, and Elisabetta realized he was alive.
She staggered to his side, kneeling down. “Are you okay?” she asked, and the little boy’s eyes fluttered open, a bloodshot dark brown. His mouth formed words she couldn’t hear. He raised his arms weakly, melting her heart, and she scooped him up.
“Mamma,” the little boy whispered hoarsely.
“Okay, okay.” Elisabetta scanned his little body for injuries. There were cuts all over him. She spotted a jagged shard of glass in