I got up and ran out. I just ran, panicked out of my mind, blind with smoke and pain, not human anymore. I should have died.
“Later, I wished I had died. Later, all I wanted to do was die.”
Marcus stopped and sat silent for several seconds.
“Someone must have helped you,” I said when I thought the silence had gone on long enough. “You were only 14.”
“I was only 14,” he agreed. After another silence, he went on.
“I think I must have fallen down in the Balter yard. I was on fire. I didn’t think about rolling on the ground to put the fire out, but I must have done it. I was just scrambling around in panic and pain, and the fire did go out. Then all I could do was lie there. I must have passed out at some point. When I woke up—I have a clear memory of this—I was on a big wooden wagon on top of a lot of scorched clothes and some pots and pans and junk. I could see the sidewalk passing under me—broken concrete, weeds growing in the holes and cracks, and I could see the backs of a man and woman walking ahead, leaning forward, pulling the wagon with rope harnesses. Then I passed out again.
“A pair of scavengers, picking over the bones of our neighborhood had found me groaning—although I don’t remember groaning or being found—and they had loaded me onto their salvage wagon. They were a middle-aged couple named Duran, believe it or not. Maybe they were distant relatives or something. It’s a pretty common name, though.”
I nodded. Not unusual at all, but the only Duran I happened to know was my stepmother. Duran was her maiden name. Well, if these Durans had saved my brother’s life five years ago when he couldn’t have lived without their help, I was more than willing to be related to them.
“They had had an 11-year old daughter kidnapped from them the year before they found me,” Marcus said. “They never found her, never found out what happened to her, but I can guess. You could sell a pretty little girl for a lot then. Just like now. I’ve heard people say things are getting better. Maybe so, but I haven’t noticed. Anyway the Durans were handsome people. Their daughter could have been really pretty.”
He sighed. “The kid’s name was Caridad. They said I looked enough like her to be her brother. The woman said that. Inez was her name. She was the one who insisted on collecting what was left of me and taking it home to nurse back to health.
“I’m surprised I even looked human when she found me. My face wasn’t too bad—blood and bruises from falling down a few times. But the rest of me was a hell of a mess.
“There was no way these people could afford a doctor—not even for themselves. So Inez herself worked on me. She worked so hard to save me—like a second mother. The man thought I would die. He thought it was stupid to waste time, effort, and valuable resources on me. But he loved her, so he let her have her way.
“These people were a lot poorer than we used to be, but they did what they could with what they had. For me that meant soap and water, aspirin and aloe vera. Why I didn’t die of 20 infections I don’t know. I goddamn sure wanted to die. I’ll tell you, I’d rather blow my own brains out than go through that again.”
I shook my head. I had no medical training beyond first aid, and I doubt that I’d be much good administering that, but I’d lived with Bankole long enough to know how nasty burns could be. “No complications at all?” I demanded.
Marcus shook his head. “I don’t know, really. Most of the time I was in so much pain I didn’t know what was going on. How could I tell a complication from the general run of misery?”
I shook my head, and wondered what Bankole would say when I told him. Soap and water and aspirin and aloe vera. Well, a little humility would be good for him. To Marcus, I said, “What happened to the Durans?”
“Dead,” he whispered. “At least I guess they’re dead. So many died. I never found their bodies, though, and I tried. I did try.”
Long silence.
“Marcus?” I reached over and put my hand on his.
He pulled away and put his hands to his face.