The Power Of The Dog (37 page)

A line of corpses awaits his attention. Twenty-five bodies wrapped in makeshift shrouds—in blankets, towels, tablecloths, anything that could be found. Lying in a neat line in the dirt outside the fallen cathedral while frantic townspeople comb the ruins for more. Search for their loved ones, missing, trapped under the old stone. Desperately, hopefully listening for any signs of life.

So his mouth mumbles the Latin words, but his heart …

Something has broken inside him, has cracked as surely and lethally as the earth has cracked. There is now a fault line between me and God, he thinks.

The God that is, the God that isn’t.

He can’t tell them that—it would be cruel. They’re looking to him to send the souls of their dearly departed to heaven. He can’t disappoint them, not at this time, maybe never. The people need hope and I can’t take it away. I’m not as cruel as You, he thinks.

So he says the prayers. Anoints them with oil and goes on with the ritual.

Behind him a priest approaches.

“Padre Juan?”

“Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“You’re wanted in Mexico City.”

“I’m needed here.”

“They are orders, Padre Juan.”

“Whose orders?”

“The papal nuncio,” the priest says. “Everyone is being summoned, to organize the relief. You have done such work before, so—”

“I have dozens of dead here—”

“There are thousands dead in Mexico City,” the priest says.

“Thousands?”

“No one knows how many,” says the priest. “And tens of thousands homeless.”

So, Parada thinks, there it is—the living must be served.

“As soon as I’m done here,” Parada says.

He goes back to giving the last rites.

They can’t get her to leave.

A lot of people try—police, rescue workers, paramedics—but Nora won’t go to get medical help.

“Your arm, Señorita, your face—”

“Bullshit,” she says. “There are a lot of people hurt a lot worse. I’m okay.”

I’m in pain, she thinks, but I’m okay. It’s funny, a day ago I would have thought that those two things couldn’t go together, but now I know they can. So her arm hurts, her head hurts, her face, scorched from the fire like a very bad sunburn, hurts, but she feels okay.

In fact, she feels strong.

Pain?

Fuck pain—there are people dying.

She doesn’t want help now—she wants to help.

So she sits down and carefully picks the glass out of her arm, then washes it in a broken water main. Rips a sleeve off the linen pajamas she’s still wearing (glad that she’s always opted for linen over some flimsy silk thing) and ties it around the wound. Then she tears the other sleeve and uses it as a kerchief over her nose and mouth because the dust and smoke are choking, and the smell …

It’s the smell of death.

Unimaginable if you’ve never smelled it, unforgettable once you have.

She tightens the kerchief on her face and goes in search of something to put on her feet. Not hard to do, seeing as how the department store has basically exploded its contents onto the street. So she appropriates a pair of rubber flip-flops, doesn’t consider it looting (there is no looting—despite the overwhelming poverty of many of the city’s residents, there is no looting), and joins a volunteer rescue crew digging up the rubble of the hotel, searching for survivors. There are hundreds of these crews, thousands of volunteers digging through fallen buildings all over the city, working with shovels, picks, tire irons, broken rebar and bare hands to get to the people trapped underneath. Carrying the dead and wounded out in blankets, sheets, shower curtains, anything to help the hopelessly overextended emergency personnel. Other volunteer crews help remove the rubble from the streets to clear the way for ambulances and fire trucks. Fire department helicopters hover over burning buildings, lowering men on winches to pluck out people who can’t be reached from the ground.

All the while, thousands of radios drone a litany, pierced by screams of grief or joy from the listeners as the announcer reads the names of the dead and the names of the survivors.

There are other sounds—moans, whimpers, prayers, screams, cries for help—all muffled, all from deep within the ruins. Voices of people trapped under tons of rubble.

So the workers keep working. Quietly, doggedly, the volunteers and professionals search for survivors. Digging beside Nora is a troop of Girl Scouts. They can’t be more than nine years old, Nora thinks, looking at their serious, determined faces, already carrying, literally, the weight of the world. So there are Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, soccer clubs, bridge clubs, and just individuals like Nora, who form themselves into teams.

Doctors and nurses, the few who are left after the collapse of the hospitals, comb the rubble with stethoscopes, lowering the instruments to the rocks to listen for any faint signs of life. When they do, the workers holler for quiet, the sirens stop, the vehicles turn off their motors and everyone remains perfectly still. And then a doctor might smile or nod, and the crews move in, carefully, gently but efficiently moving the rock and steel and concrete, and sometimes there’s a happy ending with someone plucked from the rubble. Other times it is sadder—they just can’t move the rubble fast enough; they are too late and find a lifeless body.

Either way, they keep working.

All that day and through the night.

Nora stops once during the night. Takes a break and gets a cup of tea and a slice of bread from a relief station set up in the park. The park is crowded with the newly homeless and with people afraid to stay in their houses and apartment buildings. So the park resembles a giant refugee center, which, Nora thinks, I guess it is.

What’s different about it is the quiet. Radios are turned on low, people whisper prayers, talk quietly to their children. There’s no arguing, no pushing or shoving for the small supply of food or water. People wait patiently in line, bring the spare meals to the old and the children, help one another carry water, set up makeshift tents and shelters, dig latrines. Those whose homes weren’t damaged bring blankets, pots and pans, food, clothing.

A woman hands Nora a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt.

“Take these.”

“I couldn’t.”

“It’s getting cold.”

Nora takes the clothing.

“Thank you. Gracias.”

Nora goes behind a tree to change. Clothes never felt so good. The flannel feels wonderful and warm on her skin. She has closets full of clothes at home, she thinks, most of which she’s worn once or twice. She’d give a lot right now for a pair of socks. She’s known that the elevation of the city is more than a mile high, but now she feels it as the night gets cold. She wonders about the people still trapped beneath the buildings, if they can stay warm.

She finishes her tea and bread, then ties her kerchief back on and walks back to the ruins of the hotel. Gets on her knees beside a middle-aged woman and starts to move more rubble.

Parada walks through hell.

Fires burn crazily, rampantly, from broken gas lines. Flames glow from inside the shells of ruined buildings, lighting the Stygian darkness outside. The acrid smoke stings his eyes. Dust fills his nose and mouth and makes him cough. He gags on the smell. The sickening stench of decomposing bodies, the stink of burned flesh. Underneath those sharp smells, the duller but still pungent scent of human feces, as the sewer systems have failed.

It gets worse as he moves along, encounters child after child, wandering, crying for their mothers and fathers. Some of them in just underwear or pajamas, others in full school uniforms. He gathers them up as he goes along. He has a little boy in one arm and he’s holding the hand of a little girl with the other, and she’s holding another child’s hand, who is holding another …

By the time he gets to La Alameda Park he has over twenty children with him. He wanders until he finds where Catholic Relief has set up a tent.

Parada finds a monsignor and asks, “Have you seen Antonucci?”

Meaning Cardinal Antonucci, the papal nuncio, the Vatican’s highest representative in Mexico.

“He’s saying Mass at the cathedral.”

“The city doesn’t need a Mass,” Parada says. “It needs power and water. Food, blood and plasma.”

“The spiritual needs of the community—”

“Sí, sí, sí, sí,” Parada says, walking away. He needs to think, to get his head together. There’s so much to be organized, so many people with so many needs. It’s overwhelming. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and starts to light one.

A voice—a woman’s voice—bites out of the darkness. “Put that out. Are you nuts?”

He snuffs the match out. Shines his flashlight and finds the woman’s face. An extraordinarily pretty face, even under all the dust and grime.

“Broken gas lines,” she says. “Do you want to blow us all up?”

“There are fires all over,” he says.

“Then I guess we don’t need another one, huh?”

“No, I suppose not,” Parada says. “You’re American.”

“Yeah.”

“You got here quickly.”

“I was here,” Nora says, “when it happened.”

“Ah.”

He looks her over. Feels the faint ghost of a long-forgotten stirring. The woman is small, but there’s something of the warrior about her. A real chip on her shoulder. She wants to fight, but she doesn’t know what or how.

Like me, he thinks.

He puts a hand out.

“Juan Parada.”

“Nora.”

Just Nora, Parada observes. No last name.

“Do you live in Mexico City, Nora?”

“No, I came down on business.”

“What kind of business are you in?” he asks.

She looks him square in the eye. “I’m a call girl.”

“I’m afraid I don’t—”

“A prostitute.”

“Ah.”

“What do you do?”

He smiles. “I’m a priest.”

“You’re not dressed like a priest.”

“You’re not dressed like a prostitute,” he says. “Actually, I’m even worse than a priest, I’m a bishop. An archbishop.”

“Is that better than a bishop?”

“If you’re judging solely by rank,” he says. “I was happier as a priest.”

“Then why don’t you go back to being a priest?”

He smiles again, and nods, and says, “I’m going to wager that you’re a very successful call girl.”

“I am,” Nora says. “I’ll bet you’re a very successful archbishop.”

“As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of quitting.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure I believe anymore.”

Nora shrugs and says, “Fake it.”

“Fake it?”

“It’s easy,” she says. “I do it all the time.”