many have crumbled.
But from one, awful sounds come, the sounds of live female human beings trapped under the weight of looming death.
We have to wait for the fire brigade, Duncan says. We can’t go in there. We have no hoses, no water, our truck has no sandbags or buckets. How can we help?
Duncan, listen!
We need to wait.
Duncan! Listen!
We need to wait!
Julian doesn’t disagree with Duncan.
Wild doesn’t disagree with Duncan.
Neither does Mia. But all four of them hear the unbearable sound of a young woman’s voice crying, Michael, Michael.
Wild is distraught, but he doesn’t move.
We gotta help her, Dunk, Mia says.
The fire truck will be here soon. They’ll help her.
I hate to agree with Duncan, Wild says, but it’s a bad idea to go in there.
But we’re the first ones here!
Is it our fault that Jules got here so quick? Jules, stop driving so fucking fast.
Michael, Michael . . .
It’s one thing to put out a kitchen flare-up, but Wild can’t go inside a fully burning house; everyone who knows his story knows that. No one is asking him to. Mia can’t go inside because she is terrified of fire for reasons no one but Julian understands.
Michael!
Men! Mia yells. Are you going to make me go in there on my own?
The three of them, with Wild far behind, make their careful way through the cratered rubble up to the house.
There is trouble in that house. The second floor has fallen and collapsed into the first, and all the bedrooms and furniture that were up are now down.
Two women are trapped under a bed. They must have hidden under it, and then the bed fell through the ceiling, and a dresser and part of the roof fell on top of them. One woman is badly injured because she’s not speaking, but the other one wails agonizingly, trying to point, crying Michael! It’s all right, darling, it’s all right.
When she sees the three men and a woman making their way toward her, she yells, “Not me, not me! Please—save my baby. Look. Save my baby.”
Sure enough, there’s an intact crib nearby, standing upright in the wreckage. It too must have fallen through the ceiling. Inside it, a child, caked in mortar dust, sits tangled in the cords of the fallen curtains. If he’s making any sounds, Julian can’t hear, because the air raid siren is at full throttle. It’s been twenty minutes, and the siren still shrieks, like the baby might shriek if his throat weren’t glued together with wet dust.
“Get him, please,” the mother trapped under the bedframe and the wardrobe begs. “Forget me, just get my baby.”
Every beam in the crumpling house is unstable, and the fire is raging.
Julian turns to Mia. “I’ll help her,” he says, “but you go back to the street. Don’t come in with us, it’s too dangerous. I can’t worry about you when I’m trying to help her. Please. Just turn around and get away from this. No, Wild—you stay.”
Mia returns to the street. Duncan and Julian try to lift the wardrobe off the woman. Wild stands back.
“My baby, my baby,” the woman keeps saying. “Just get my baby. Look, he’s scared. He’s stuck. It’s all right, darling! It’s all right, son, Mummy’s here. Please! Have him pull out my baby!” She motions to motionless Wild.
“Wild!” Julian yells. “Go get the kid!”
Wild shakes his head. “He’s stuck,” Wild says. “He can’t stand up.” He keeps shaking his head. “I can’t.”
“Wild! Go! Use the knife I gave you.”
“I can’t get him out with one arm.” What he doesn’t say is his brother was trapped like this, and Wild couldn’t save him even with two arms.
Julian can’t deal with Wild because he and Duncan are having zero luck budging the wardrobe. Above them, the house is burning and pieces of debris keep falling on top of them, on top of the wardrobe, onto the woman. The other woman has stopped moving or blinking. They can’t look into that face. They’re still trying to save the living.
A chunk of burning wood falls inside the crib.
The mother screams. Mia screams. Julian screams for Wild.
Finally, Wild moves. Taking out his knife, he makes his way to the crib. He loosens and cuts the drapery cords trapping the baby and frees the boy. Dropping the knife, he manages to pick up the infant like a puppy, by the scruff of his pajama suit. The boy, maybe six months old, grabs on to Wild’s neck. Holding him with one arm, Wild carries him