Ice Storm (10 page)

Alice was unconvinced, but Mrs. Hartley seemed excited by the idea. “Will there be other people there?” she asked.

The big soldier smiled as if at a secret joke. “Oh yes,
Madame,
there will be other people.”

The big one went to Mrs. Hartley’s house to pack her a few things for the shelter. Mrs. Hartley acted like she was going on a holiday or something, telling him to find her best blouse, the one wrapped in tissue in the top drawer. The short soldier went through the house with Alice, preparing it to be alone. He laughed when she poured alcohol down the toilet, but agreed it was a smart thing to do. He pushed the barbecue into the garage for safekeeping and helped her check all the doors and windows. Alice wrote a note to her dad and put it on the kitchen table, anchored by the sugar bowl. The soldier suggested they empty the fridge and freezer and put all the contents outside in a green garbage bag.

“The food will all be spoiled by the time you get home and your fridge will need a big cleanup,” the soldier said. “Might as well keep the mess outside.” Then he said quietly, “You were very brave to help your friend as you did.”

“She’s not my friend,” said Alice unkindly. “Just a neighbour. A tree fell on her – nobody would just leave her there!”

“You’d be surprised,” said the soldier grimly.

In a half-hour, they were ready to go. Alice shouldered the backpack she had filled with overnight stuff, including Juniper and her cell phone, and took a last look at the living room. She hoped her dad wouldn’t be mad. But she could hardly say no to a soldier, right? As the big one carried Mrs. Hartley out to the army truck, the other one taped a big “X” across the front door.

“What are you doing?” she asked him curiously.

“This tells the other soldiers that your house has been abandoned and there are no dead bodies inside,” he replied.

“Have people died in their houses?” asked Alice in horror.

“Oh yes,” said the soldier matter-of-factly. “Some elderly people have frozen to death. Some houses have burnt down because people didn’t mind their candles. Some died from carbon monoxide poisoning when they tried to cook on their camp stoves inside the house.” Alice grimaced. That explained why Dad had been so fierce about the camp stove.

As they drove slowly down her street, driving up on the Thibeau’s lawn to avoid the fallen maple, Alice saw a big “X” on every one of her neighbours’ homes. Abandoned. What a lonely word.

Alice usually took the
Métro
when she went to the mall. It was nothing like the trip she was taking now. She and Mrs. Hartley stared out their windows. That radio announcer hadn’t been kidding when he called Montréal a war zone. The army was everywhere and some of the soldiers were carrying guns. They were going house to house, pounding on doors. Big convoys of army trucks drove past, carrying more soldiers. It was eerily quiet. There should have been traffic and car horns and music. But the intermittent pounding and shouting were the only sounds, and the thick blanket of ice and snow muffled them. Every so often the sky lit up with a flash of blue. Alice jumped the first time.

“Another transformer blowing,” explained the big soldier. “The power grid is breaking faster than they can fix it.”

Tears filled Alice’s eyes.
Was Dad okay? When would she see him again?
All along the road the utility poles had snapped. It looked like a giant had walked down the street and stomped on every single one. The ground looked like a snakepit, with thick black high- voltage wire lying coiled everywhere. But worst of all were the people. The few that were out looked like clowns. They were fat with layers of warm clothes and most sported hockey or bicycle helmets on top of their toques to protect themselves from falling ice. There was nothing amused in their expressions. Some looked frightened, others looked angry. All were bewildered. Their faces said, “How could this happen to
us?”

It took a long time to get to St. Catherine Street. Two big rooms in the Eaton Centre Mall were full of army cots. The room they were taken to was right next to the movie theatre. Alice guessed the concrete rooms were normally used for storage, because the rest of the Eaton Centre Mall was full of stores and had a glass roof. There were
lots
of people. Mrs. Hartley smiled in anticipation.

Alice sucked in her breath. She couldn’t stay there, she couldn’t. She had to go home.

Day Five

Friday, January 9, 1998

I
t was still raining.
Sophie tried to protect her
face from the stinging pellets of freezing rain as she slipped and slid from the house to the barn. Her flashlight batteries were wearing out and it was hard to see her way. As she grabbed the heavy metal door and heaved it sideways, Sophie switched off her flashlight for a moment and looked behind her. She had never experienced such complete darkness. There was not a glimmer of light, not a promise of light anywhere. She tried to think of all the words Alice would use to describe it. Alice was the one who liked words. Thick, inky, velvety, deep, palpable.

Sophie gave herself extra points for that last one. It was a good word, because the dark wasn’t actually something you saw, it was something you felt. She shivered. Thinking about the dark like that freaked her out. She turned the flashlight back on.

The cows were restless. Steam was building up in the barn, making it uncomfortable for them to breathe. Should she lower the curtains to give them some ventilation? Or would they freeze? They were hungry and thirsty too, but she didn’t want to feed them until she was sure she could water them, and she wasn’t sure when she could do that. The generator was late.

Sophie had sent Sébastien to bed around one in the morning. He had been nearly frantic trying to call all the farms and rearrange the schedule. Sophie had tried to assure him that it wasn’t his fault. The chores were just taking longer. All the farmers were getting tired and it was hard to work through the night. The whole process had slowed down, which meant the cows had to wait, like it or not. That put the cows off schedule too, and they didn’t milk well. Sébastien needed to sleep. They all did.

Sophie wished Alice was here. It was weird, not being able to phone or email. What was she doing? Uncle Pete wasn’t going to be able to work as many hours if he had to keep going home to check on Alice, make her supper and stuff. And Alice could be another pair of hands. She was actually good at milking cows now, although her first time had been sort of rocky. The memory made Sophie smile.

She’d wanted to teach Alice how to milk a cow the old-fashioned way. It just seemed like something everybody ought to know how to do. When Alice sat on the little stool, she was terrified that the huge cow would sit on her and crush her. Sophie knew it wouldn’t. But when Alice tried to make the teats squirt out milk, the cow flicked its tail around and caught her right across the face. Not only that, it whipped her pearl earring right out of her ear. Alice was determined to get the earring back. But to do that she had to catch the tail and find the earring clinging to it. That tail – Sophie had to laugh when she thought of it. Cow’s tails don’t get shampooed on a regular basis. They can be kind of mucky. Alice had been horrified. But she got her earring back. Sophie had been proud of her.

She frowned. Those stupid bridges.

Sophie decided to lower the barn curtains a little, to balance ventilation with the cold. Good thing they had a hand-winch for that. Just about everything else on the farm needed electricity. Then she left, because her presence was raising the cows’ expectations of being fed and she needed to know about the generator before she could start. She patted the cordless phone in her pocket, in case Maman called to say she was on her way home. Sophie decided to see if Mélisande was awake while she waited.

Mélisande was sleeping. She looked so peaceful. Sophie curled up on the hay beside her to share her warmth. There was nothing like a cow to keep you warm on a cold night. The sweet smell of hay, the tang of sour milk, the acrid undertone of urine – all were beautiful smells to Sophie. As she drifted off to sleep, she thought how strange it was that darkness had a feeling and warmth had a smell.

When the phone rang, Sophie jumped. It took her a moment to remember where she was. “Maman?” asked Sophie.

“Oui, ma petite.
You were awake?”

“Oui,
I’m with Mélisande. Are you on the way? The barn is steamy and the cows are restless,” said Sophie urgently.

“Je sais,”
replied Maman in a tired voice.
“Je sais.
We should be there in forty-five minutes, so you can start the hay. Is Sébastien asleep?”

“I put him to bed a couple of hours ago,” answered Sophie. “He was upset about the schedule.” Sophie could just imagine Maman shaking her head on the other end of the line.

“Pauvre petit,”
she sighed. “His mind is so busy. He just can’t let things go. Thank you for putting him to bed. As soon as we get home and get the milking started, you can go to bed too.” Then she added,
“Merci,
Sophie. You are doing a wonderful job.” Then she was gone.

Sophie smiled. Why wouldn’t she do a good job? The cows were her family too. Grateful to be able to actually do something at long last, Sophie flicked on her flashlight and once again did battle with the storm. As she manoeuvred the tractor towards the feed, she was sure she felt the wind picking up. The howling was more deep-seated and seemed to whip
the pellets of ice with greater viciousness into her face. She hoped she was wrong. Wind would tear more wires out of the sky. It was the last thing they needed.

|||||

Alice sat on the foamie
she had been
assigned, her knees to her chest, her arms squeezing them as close to her body as they could go. She hated this place. Each foamie was placed just two feet away from some stranger. Her neighbour on one side was a snotty-nosed kid who never stopped crying. On the other side was a burly man who not only snored but had unbelievably bad body odour. Their whole corner stank of sweat and farts and dirty diapers. Mrs. Hartley had done much better.
Because she was old and sick, she got one of the Red Cross cots in a special section for old people.

It wasn’t just the noise and the smell that was keeping Alice awake. She was afraid. The sleeping rooms had concrete ceilings but the rest of the Eaton Centre had a glass roof. Right next to the centre was a tall office tower and huge chunks of ice were falling off the tower, right onto the glass roof. What if the ice broke the roof, and it shattered on top of them?

Alice wasn’t the only one who was worried. The shelter staff didn’t want to move all the people, but when ice actually broke through the roof, sending glass down onto the escalators, they made an announcement. Everybody had to go to a different shelter. Alice couldn’t believe it. How would her dad ever find her?

As shelter volunteers moved through the rows, telling people to pack their stuff, Alice jumped up and grabbed one of them by the arm.

“Please, if we have to move anyway, can I go home? I could take a taxi. I do it all the time. I even know what driver to call. Guillaume knows me, and he knows where I live. My dad won’t be able to find me if I go to a different shelter!”

“No,” said the volunteer wearily. “You’re registered with us. We can’t let you go without an adult signing for you. Don’t worry, your dad will find out what’s happened. Why isn’t he with you, anyway?”

“He works for Hydro,” replied Alice.

“Ah,” said the volunteer. “That explains it. I wish him luck with this mess. In the meantime, go get your stuff.”

Alice decided to move with Mrs. Hartley. She didn’t know anybody else, and anyway, the old lady seemed way less grumpy than she had been. She actually seemed to enjoy the people in the shelter, although Alice couldn’t believe how. Going to the old people’s section, she helped Mrs. Hartley pack up her things and stayed with her as they waited to be transported to Place Ville-Marie, just down the road. While they waited, a man from the St-Viateur Bagel Shop came in with a huge box that smelled delicious. Alice jumped up to say hello.

“Maurice!
Comment ça va?”

Maurice smiled at Alice. “Good – we’ve got a generator! Are you keeping warm? Where’s your dad?” Alice chatted with Maurice as she helped him hand out hot bagels to the people at the shelter. The heavenly smell had drawn a crowd, but Alice made sure she saved one for Mrs. Hartley.