The windows slowly gave way at last to brightness, the train leaving the confines of the station. Faulk saw other tracks, buildings and billboards, the tall blue shadows of the city, and, visible out the windows to the left, the smoke where the towers had been. The train picked up speed. The ash-and-smoke cloud was appallingly defined, a gigantic, ragged-edged, domelike shape, too strange a sight for belief. Bright, unblemished blue sky still shone far above its dissipating outline.
No one spoke to anyone.
Faulk watched until the cloud was no longer visible, and the many others watched, too, the harmed city behind them in the too-bright sun, and the silence felt almost supernatural, as if everyone here were already dead, spirits being carried away. Even the infant was completely quiet, staring at the faces. The ground on either side of the tracks gave way to tenements, yards with laundry on lines, and a view of the East River beyond, the factory silos and fortresslike walls of coal and metal, the auto junkyards, the cranes of the harbor lifting into the sun. It was all a confusion of commerce and waste, and the people in the packed car gazed at it out the windows, quietly taking in the vast industrial insignia of the country where they lived.
In Newark, there was more confusion and crowding, people hurrying to the escalators that would take them to the ticketing area. Faulk made his way up there and out of the building. The air was heavy and smelled strongly of gasoline and burning. He thought of the fires in New York. He saw a big barrel-shaped metal trash can with flames licking out of it. Someone had evidently thrown a lit cigarette into it. A man stood pouring a can of cola onto the fire. Faulk went on across the street, to the Hilton. In the lobby he saw men, women, and even some children lying on the furniture and on the floor along the walls. At the reception desk, which was surprisingly empty, he got the attention of a young man whose black string tie was hanging loose around his neck. The young man was bleary eyed, his reddish hair disarranged. He looked like someone recovering from a long night of overindulgence. He removed his coat, and Faulk understood that he was at the end of his shift. There was effectively no one behind the reception desk. The young man shook his head and gave him a commiserating look. “We don’t have any more rooms, man. Absolutely nothing. We’re letting people stay in the lobby.” He indicated the others, one or two already sleeping on their bags.
“I guess there’s nothing at any of the other hotels near here?”
“Everything’s booked.”
Faulk went to a side wall and set down his bag but a second later thought better of it and walked back to the station and to the ticketing area to wait along with the others. Hours went by, people moving incrementally closer, bending and picking up bags and setting them down, or simply standing with arms folded. The murmurous racket of the hall went on, and there was something nearly solemn about it. He thought of his training, the things he knew to say to shock and grief, but there was nothing to say, here, with everyone seeking only to go home. A priest came by him, hurrying somewhere, and Faulk saw his not-quite-looking-at-anyone face — he was just a man in a rush to get wherever he had to go, a little frightened and sick at heart.
Trains were leaving for Boston and points north. When he got to his window, he handed over his ticket for Washington and asked when the next train was. The clerk was a leathery-faced ruddy man with large green eyes and sandy hair. “There’s one coming into the station in about fifteen minutes from Boston. But it’s not an express.”
“I don’t care about that,” Faulk said.
“This ticket’ll work, then. Go right up those steps.”
Faulk thanked him and started for the stairs, feeling the need to hurry and expecting many people to be rushing behind him. But no one followed. He went up the stairs and out on a platform, thinking that he must not have understood the directions properly. He believed the train he’d arrived on was below this floor, and he almost started back down. But here on the platform was another man, Asian, a boy, really, no more than twenty-five years old, sitting on the bench, leaning forward with his hands folded, his elbows resting on his knees. “The train from Boston,” he said, simply. Faulk sat down next to him and adjusted his bag at his feet. The young man wore a business suit without the tie. His shirt was unbuttoned. It was very hot here. He turned and looked at Faulk and then looked away. He folded and unfolded his hands. Finally he looked over and said, “Were you there?”
Faulk nodded. “Up on Fifty-Fourth Street.”
“I was in the second one, the south tower,” the boy said, and took in a deep breath. It was as if something had struck him in the chest. He straightened, attempting to collect himself. “They — they told us — we were all going down the stairs — and they told us it was all right, we could go back up. But I didn’t like it, and I kept going down.” He gasped, trying to master himself. “They — all my friends — they — they went back.” And with that he let go, crying quietly, hands over his mouth. Then he reached in the pocket of his coat for a handkerchief, opened it, and put it over his face. “I’m going home, to Baltimore. My parents live in Baltimore.”
“Washington,” Faulk said. He felt the uselessness of it. “I’m a priest. If there’s anything I can do …” The words seemed false, and in the next moment he realized that they were false. “I was a priest,” he said, low, wanting to be exact. It was ridiculous.
The boy’s demeanor seemed to underscore the thought. He sat and stared off and waited for the train, and around them the noise of the station increased, a wave of distraught voices and sounds coming from the very walls. The train was coming in. The sound filled the hot little space where they sat, and it seemed strangely out of place, not something sensibly connected to this narrow room with its bench and its posters on the opposite wall advertising Broadway plays. They moved to the doorway leading out to the track. When the train stopped before them and the conductor jumped down and set the stool for them to step up, the boy hesitated. Faulk saw him wait to see which way he, Faulk, would go — into which car, the left or the right. He went left, took the first seat — the car was nearly empty — and glanced over his shoulder. The young man had gone the other way. The train pitched forward, rocking, and Faulk looked out the soiled window at the yellow lights, the empty platform, the vague shapes in the dimness beyond the wide expanse of other tracks, the cement abutments, switches, painted signs and symbols. The train was gathering speed, and once more, out of the tunnel, the light changed to daylight. But daylight was fading. Gazing at the burnished glow along the marshy fields south of Newark, he thought of how he had failed to be of help to anyone — how, until the minutes with the young man on the station platform, his one concern had been getting away from the city. He had spent most of his adult life performing the very tasks that were called for in this situation, yet he had only reacted, a numb, fearful refugee, like all the others, trying to get out.
6
It seemed to Natasha, looking out from her balcony, that the beach was less crowded. The part of the sky not barricaded by clouds had turned darker. It was almost black at its height.
Down in the lobby, she paused in front of the row of phones. People were still struggling to get through; others still waited to try. “Is anyone getting anyone in New York?” she said to a man who was holding a glass of something bright red with a little paper umbrella in it.