Had Robby not felt the stinging pain near his shoulder, the slow movement of his legs, he would’ve sworn that this was death. He stopped at an intersection that was barely recognizable. The landmarks, the signs, the stationary street vendors were all gone. He stood, turning in a full circle to survey what had become of this little portion of Port-au-Prince. He peered up toward the hills. The houses in the distance looked like an avalanche of concrete.
Robby stopped in front of the auto parts store Tanya’s uncle owned and saw a group of men lifting pieces of concrete from the caved-in entrance. The cinder-block archway where he always stood waiting for Tanya to emerge from the tiny office in the back of the open yard was buried beneath piles of rubble fallen from adjacent buildings. Tanya’s uncle, according to a spared neighbor, had been seen running back into the office, probably to alert Tanya when the ground started to move.
Robby had no idea where he found the strength to lift a fallen piece of concrete the size of a small child with his bare hands. He thrust his body into a narrow opening that led to the yard. He thought that above the screaming and praying that had become the new background noise of the city, he heard some people cheer. He could not get Tanya out of his mind. If she were under there, he would not leave until he had pulled her out. He blindly moved large chunks of concrete and long strings of rebar aside, estimating with his hands and feet the approximate location of the tiny office where Tanya might be trapped. Finally, he saw what he thought were Tanya’s beautiful legs peeking out from beneath a huge piece of wood from the doorway of the tiny office.
Robby clawed at more concrete and wood and managed to loosen the load on top of Tanya’s chest. Hauling the creaking wood aside allowed him to see an arm, then another. The impact of the fall had torn apart most of her clothes. Her flesh was sunken in places that, as well as he knew her body, he no longer recognized. Her face had been chipped apart by the debris as well, her features, her beautiful nose and mouth, all flattened into one, as though she had been kneaded by some gruesome baker’s hands.
Some more men were crawling on top of the rubble nearby. They were calling for Tanya’s uncle Serge and Manuel, one of the other mechanics.
Neither one answered.
“The building next door might collapse on top of this one,” one of the men said, as he turned around to leave. “You should get out of here.”
“Tanya!” He began calling her name, even though he knew she could not answer.
The screams he was hearing now were from farther away, out in the distance and not in the rubble beneath him.
He quickly went back to digging, lifting more cement from Tanya’s sunken torso. Her entire compressed body was now loose. He grabbed her and tried to lift her up, but she was limp and her body gave way, sinking back into the hole from which he had just plucked her. He tried again, grabbing her harder this time, not being as gentle. He lifted her with all his might over his healthy shoulder. She was soaked with blood and the movement released a cloud of bloody dust over his body and into his face, throwing him into a coughing fit that made his body convulse and nearly forced him to drop her.
He found an opening that both their bodies could fit through and exited the rubble. As he struggled down the crowded and dusty street, a woman holding an open Bible moved up beside him, placing a hand on Tanya’s body. His shoulder ached from Tanya’s weight, his thirst was unbearable from the heat and dust, and he shooed the praying woman away.
He had never thought of it this way before, but he now considered it a good thing that Tanya, Minouche, and Caroline, even with their various societal standings, all lived rather close to each other, and to him. The walk to his house from Tanya’s uncle’s mechanic shop took nearly a half hour with her body over his shoulder-it would’ve been much quicker had she not been so heavy. His house was one of the few on his block that were cracked, but had not fallen. He ignored the long gashes in the cement and headed inside.
It was only after he lay Tanya’s body down on his bed that he allowed himself to focus his full attention on what might have happened to Caroline and Minouche. Had they died as well? Was he the only person in their maddening puzzle who was still alive?
He’d been so cautious all along, trying his best not to fall in love with any of them. But he loved them all and now might lose them all, along with his mother in Léogâne, his city of birth. Who knew how widespread this thing was? It might come again, with the same vengeance, this time in the middle of the night while he was having a one-person wake for Tanya. It would be unfair, Robby thought, that his dear Caroline and Minouche would be out there longing for his embrace, when it was only Tanya that he had saved.
Toni was right. (Oh, had Toni perished too?) It would have been better if he’d never fallen in love with the three women. He was now feeling a stinging pain on the shoulder which had carried Tanya all that way. It was the least of his problems, though. Hell, he knew, was just outside his window.
The screaming and praying continued in the distance as night fell. Tanya was snugly tucked in when he stepped outside. The brokenness of the world around him shocked him for a moment. In the brief time he had spent inside, sitting at Tanya’s side, he had forgotten what it looked like now. How long would it be before he was used to it? Before he would look at it as though it had always been there, a normal part of the new landscape of the city he’d escaped to from the provinces when he was a teenager and had loved ever since? He would look for Minouche first. He imagined her smile and her plump, dimpled cheeks. He imagined her cursing him out for not coming sooner.
He didn’t know whom or what to thank when he spotted Minouche sitting on a plastic crate right in front of her partially collapsed house. She was surrounded by a group of dusty and bloodied women and children, crying. Many of her companions were hurt, others praying and singing. Minouche had her face in her hands, sobbing.
Robby braced himself for a slap in the face, but instead Minouche held both arms in the air toward him, like a child greeting a parent. Her left foot was crushed so badly she could not stand on it. He kissed her dry lips and caressed her dusty face. Even with the smell of blood and death all around, he kissed her neck, pressed his chest against hers.
“Hospital,” she whispered, grinding her teeth in agony. “Robby, please.”
“I’m taking you home,” he said. “With me.”
It now occurred to him that none of these women had ever seen his home. He had been at times ashamed of the cramped space and at times afraid they would take his willingness to bring them there as a sign of total surrender.
His shoulder throbbed with pain, but he allowed Minouche to place an arm around him to brace herself as she hopped on her good foot. When she cursed Robby for not being strong enough to carry her, he hailed down a pickup truck filled with people-some limp, lifeless, others staring blankly into the night air.
Maybe he was crazy for bringing her here, he thought as they entered his and Toni’s room. He could hear more singing and praying through the window that had earlier allowed children’s laughter to wake him. He helped Minouche onto Toni’s bed as she moaned in pain then mumbled something- another curse or demand. The whole world may be wanting a hospital or doctor, but his Minouche was safer here; he could care for her better than any doctor or nurse. He kissed her forehead once more and placed a single finger on her lips. She groaned in pain as he wrapped a towel around her bloody foot. She could barely ask for water.