“Are you kidding?” the man said, drinking.
She felt the nausea returning and hurried into the ladies’ room, which was crowded and deathly quiet. There was something about a room this small that made for silence. Everyone had a protective shell of self-concern. She couldn’t breathe.
Back in the bar, Nicholas Duego was still there, with a fresh drink, leaning on the shiny surface with both elbows, head down, one hand making a swirling motion to move the ice and dregs of orange juice and vodka in his glass. The bar smelled of fear and the sweat of exertion, alcohol and tobacco — mixed with several kinds of fried food. She ordered a bourbon on ice from the small man with the gold tooth, and when he brought it she swallowed most of it, feeling it as a cold and then searing place at her middle. She grasped the glass with both hands, eyes fixed on the glossy water-spotted expanse of the bar.
“Are you all right?” Duego asked. “You have been gone a long time.” His eyes were not quite focusing. He drank and then put his head back down.
She signaled the bartender, indicating her empty glass. He nodded at her but went on with what he was doing.
The bar was growing more crowded, the noise level increasing. Alcohol and crisis had loosened some tongues. She couldn’t see clearly through the gathered faces, the crush of people pressing to the bar. She thought of Constance out by the beach somewhere, with Skinner, and the night coming on.
She kept replaying Constance saying Faulk could not have been in either building when the planes struck, and the old couple on the path, and the woman who knew exactly when the towers opened for tourists. Nine-thirty. Nine-thirty.
She went out onto the veranda, aware of herself now as being drunk, feeling nothing good in it, no release of tension or anxiety, but only the amplification of her fear, the need to hold on to it — as if to let it go would be to tempt God: it would be when she relaxed into the belief that Faulk was safe that she would discover something awful had happened.
But in fact something awful had already happened, and the images of it were still being broadcast, in little windows above the talking heads on the TV. She saw the irregular light at the entrance of the lobby, where an elderly man stood with a stricken expression on his face, staring in at the screen. She felt selfish, looking at this. She thought she might speak to him, but when she got to where he had been, he was gone.
It was like moving through a patchy, shifting dream.
She wanted another drink and remembered signaling the bartender. Looking into the bar, she saw the disorder there and decided not to go back in.
On the veranda, seated in one of the wicker chairs looking out toward the lowering red-daubed horizon, another woman sat quite still, with a handkerchief held tight in her fist. The backs of her hands looked bruised. There was nowhere to go — nowhere to escape these others and herself. She wanted sleep but feared being alone. The only empty chair was to this woman’s right. The woman sniffled and opened the hand holding the handkerchief and commenced folding and unfolding the cloth. On the other side of her was Ratzi. He glanced over at Natasha, held up one hand, and moved the fingers in an almost-sheepish little halfhearted wave. Beyond Ratzi, a young man was kneeling in front of a young woman, arms around her middle, making soothing sounds. But the young woman seemed to be laughing.
Mrs. Ratzibungen walked out and stood speaking to Ratzi in German, not quite whispering, casting quick looks at the woman folding and unfolding the handkerchief. Then she stepped over to Natasha.
“You vent to Kingston,” she said. “Ja? Mit Ratzi.”
Natasha nodded, though the other didn’t quite wait for a response, tilting her head slightly in the direction of the woman with the handkerchief. “This is Mr. Skinner’s vife.”
“Oh.” Natasha started to offer her hand but then decided against it. Nothing in Mrs. Skinner’s manner revealed any kind of tolerance for gestures.
She only glanced Natasha’s way, sniffled, and then said, “Do you know where my husband is?”
“He was looking for you,” Natasha told her. “Earlier. I mean this morning. He was with my friend Constance. You haven’t seen him since this morning?”
The woman’s expression was incredulous. “He has a drinking problem.”
Natasha kept still. Mrs. Ratzibungen shook her head and looked out toward the beach.
“And a heart problem,” Mrs. Skinner continued. “And liver trouble.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And psoriasis.”
Natasha was silent.
“And asthma.”
“Oh.”
“And kidney and prostate trouble.”
“Really.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Ratzibungen moved off, saying something about having other guests who were scheduled to arrive and who were either stranded somewhere on the way or, worse, had canceled their plans altogether.
“He had a stroke last year,” Mrs. Skinner continued, sniffling. “He’s in terrible shape. Well, you saw him. The doctors have told him over and over.”
“I don’t know where anyone is,” Natasha said. “My fiancé—”
The other cut her off. “What kind of person is your friend.”
“Excuse me?”
“Is your friend a moral person.” Mrs. Skinner’s tone was devoid of the slightest hint of a question. “I’m asking you. Is your friend a moral person.”
“Well — she’s my friend. And of course — of course, a nice person.”
Mrs. Skinner clutched the handkerchief tight in her fist again and, looking at Natasha with an expression very close to rage, said “What?” as if the younger woman had said something so preposterous that it caused offense.
Natasha gathered herself. “I said she’s a nice person. A good person.”
“Where are they, then? Where are they? Where is my husband. And where is your friend.”
Natasha said, “They came down to the beach.” She heard the grief in her own voice. “I was down there and they came down, they said, to get me. But that was earlier. And that’s the last time I saw them. I’m sorry. They came down and got in the water. My friend and — and Mr. — and your husband. She’s not that sort of person, really. Not at all. And he was looking for you. He said — he kept saying he couldn’t find you.”
“I was right here. Right here in this — in our room. I told him he was definitely and certainly on his way to hell. He had four — four, mind you — four of those little airline bottles of whiskey in the room. This morning — right after it happened. Eight o’clock in the morning. Right after the planes hit. And I told him. And he got sad like he does. Do you believe in God?”
Natasha was thinking now only of finding a way to extricate herself.
“Well, do you?”
“Perhaps it’s just a misunderstanding,” Ratzi said from his chair on the other side, leaning forward, glancing at Natasha and nodding as if to show his good intentions. “No one knows where anyone is at a time like this. I haven’t seen my brother all day. I think he’s in Kingston. We haven’t seen him.”
“Do you believe in God?” Now it seemed crucial for Mrs. Skinner to know whether or not they were believers.
“I do believe in God, yes,” Ratzi said, taking one of her hands into both of his.
She pulled away as if he had scalded her. “Don’t touch me.”
“I’m so very sorry, madam.”
“I’m looking for my husband.”
“We’re sure he’ll turn up.”
“He’s a cheater. Walter is. He cheats.”