Cameron called the granddaughter, Lily, to hold the large flashlight for him as he cleaned the old woman’s wound and pressed gauze on it. Uma could see Lily biting her lips as red soaked the gauze, but the girl did not look away. Cameron frowned as he worked on the wound. He had to use all the gauze before he could stop the bleeding. (Who would have thought the old woman to have so much blood in her? Uma longed to say to someone who would recognize the allusion.) Finally, he tore a strip off the bottom of his T-shirt and bandaged up the old lady’s arm. He instructed her to lie down and keep the arm as still as possible. Then he lowered himself heavily onto the ground. Uma felt a stab of anxiety as she saw him lean his head against the customer-service wall and close his eyes. He fumbled for something in his pocket, held it to his mouth, and squeezed. Was he ill? Be strong, be strong, she thought between the bouts of pain that pulsed in the bones of her face.
In a while, Cameron pulled himself up and examined the back area for a door or window that might form a possible exit route. Perhaps a ladder that they could use to climb up to the large air vent near the ceiling? Failing to find anything, he deployed people with cell phones to move around (but carefully) in case they could catch a signal. Mangalam was put in charge of checking the office phones at regular intervals. Nothing there either. Cameron waited for the realization to sink in: they were stuck here until a rescue team arrived or until they decided to take the risk of pulling open the front door. Then he instructed people to pool whatever food or drinks they had, for rationing.
A reluctant pile of snacks formed on the counter, along with a few bottles of water. Uma, who did not have anything to contribute, felt improvident, like Aesop’s summer-singing cricket. (But she was suspicious, too. Had people squirreled things away at the bottoms of their purses, deep inside a coat pocket, in their shoes? In their place, she would have done it.) For a moment she heard her mother reading her that old story, her voice indignant as the ant sent the cricket off into the winter to die. Right now, half a world away, her mother lay asleep on her Superior Quality Dunlopillo mattress, ignorant of her daughter’s plight. But hadn’t her mother always been that way, oblivious to trouble even if it lay down in her bed and placed its head on her pillow?
“Does anyone have pain medication with them?” Cameron called. “Something prescription strength? This young woman, Miss Uma, her arm is broken. I’d like to give her something before I try to set it. Legal or otherwise, I don’t care.”
But no one admitted to possessing anything.
Cameron turned to Mangalam. “I need some long strips of cloth for bandages and a sling. We’re going to have to use her sari.” He gestured with his chin toward Malathi. “You’ve got to explain it to her.”
But when Mangalam spoke to Malathi, a rapid-fire set of staccato sounds that Uma did not understand, she retreated behind the counter and folded mutinous arms across her chest. “Illay, Illay!” she cried in a tone that was impossible to mistake. She continued with a wail of unfathomable words.
“She says it will destroy her womanly modesty,” Mangalam reported. He looked flustered. Uma suspected that Malathi had said something more, something he was withholding from them. Then another wave of pain struck and she was no longer interested.
“Ma’am, you have to cooperate,” Cameron said. “We’re in a situation where the regular rules don’t apply. I can’t help Miss Uma here unless I have enough cloth.” But Malathi had backed into a narrow space between two file cabinets at the far end of the room.
With her uninjured hand Uma groped in her backpack and pulled out a sweatshirt. The pain had taken over her head by now, making her dizzy. She walked unsteadily to the file cabinets and raised her swollen arm as best as she could for Malathi to see. The skin was turning a sick purple, visible even in the gloom. For a long moment Malathi did not move. Then she shot Uma a look of hate, snatched the sweatshirt from her hand, and retreated into Mangalam’s office. A few seconds later, the blue sari came flying through a gap in the door. Uma heard the click of a lock.
The pain of setting the arm almost made Uma faint, but once her arm was stabilized-the enterprising Cameron had used two rulers to make a splint-and placed in a sling, she felt slightly better. She took two more aspirin tablets from Cameron, picked up her backpack, and made her way to Tariq. He accepted the tablets she held out and gave a nod of thanks. Then he grimaced and clasped the back of his neck.
“Does it hurt a lot?” she asked.
He gave a bitter bark of a laugh. “What do you think?”
“I’m sorry about what happened.”
He shrugged. “I’m going to kill him.”
His tone startled her. It was so casual, so chillingly certain.
“Don’t talk like that,” she said sharply.
She would have said more, but Mrs. Pritchett joined them. The older woman turned her body as though she did not want the others in the room to see what she was doing. From a bottle in her hand she tapped out two pills that glowed like tiny oval moons. “Xanax,” she whispered. “Maybe they’ll help.” Tariq looked at her palm disdainfully. Uma, however, picked them up. She was hazy about what exactly Xanax did, but from where she stood, it could only improve things. She thanked Mrs. Pritchett, who gave a smile of complicity and took a pill herself. The pills glided across Uma’s tongue with ease. She was getting better at this. She wished she could have had a sip of water to wash away the aftertaste, but Cameron had said that they should wait a few hours before eating or drinking, and she did not want to make trouble for him.
“I’m going to lie down,” she announced to no one in particular. Cameron had used chairs to cordon off the area to the right of the customer-service cubicle, where the ceiling sagged open like a surprised mouth. Uma wandered to the other side, where the old Chinese lady was stretched out on the ground. Elsewhere the flooring had cracked into chunks and torn its way up through the carpet, but here it was fine and free of glass. She maneuvered herself into a prone position, placing her backpack under her head, where it made a lumpy pillow. After what the Muslim had said, she wasn’t going to share anything with him. She should have told Cameron about the threat, though the man probably had not meant it. When people were angry and hurting, they blurted out all sorts of things that later made them feel sheepish.
In any case, it was impossible to summon the enormous energy she would need to get back to her feet. The pills were dissolving inside her, sending out little tentacles of well-being, jellying her muscles. Bless you, Mrs. Pritchett, unlikely angel! Cameron was crisscrossing the room very slowly, his cell phone held out like a divining rod. Uma angled her head so she could keep him in her line of vision. There was a restfulness to him. But a vast, misty lake had opened up around her. How enticing it was. Drifting onto it, she promised herself that she would warn Cameron as soon as she awoke. By then, most possibly, their rescuers would be here, and it wouldn’t matter.
TARIQ HUSEIN SQUINTED AT THE LIGHTED DIAL ON HIS WATCH. It was seven p.m., past time for the sunset prayer. He had already missed the noon and afternoon prayers. The second time it was because the African American had attacked him from behind, the coward, and knocked him out. The memory made rage undulate in his stomach. Rage and futility, because if the bastard hadn’t stopped him, they might all be outside by now. However, missing the Dhuhr prayer earlier was no one’s fault but his own-Tariq was honest enough to accept that. His own weakness had kept him from pulling out the prayer rug and the black namaz cap from his briefcase and kneeling in the corner of the room, because he had not wanted people to stare. He would make up for it now.