“But what do you need lamps for?” she asked.
“To light the way, of course,” he said.
“Is that all you need? Can’t you get those yourself?”
“Sam, are you coming or not?” he asked irritably.
She turned to watch the airship float away until it disappeared into the clouds above. Then she nodded. “All right,” she said.
They took the lift back down to the ground. People gave them a wide berth, thinking Hayes some maddened transient. Then they walked out into the street, heading southeast. Hayes followed Samantha, not thinking, just watching the city around him.
Down at the cabbie stand old men in worn knit caps and thick coats leaned up against the wooden posts. They smoked filthy cigarettes and watched the world go by with hangdog eyes and mournful shakes of the head, forever disapproving of the modern way and speaking of the past. Of forgotten wars, of legendary baseball players, of the city as it had been and never would be again. One man described the fire in great detail, his double-jointed fingers forming crooked flames that he spread out along an imaginary horizon. Then he shook his head and put his finger on his chin and they all mimicked the pose, staring into the sidewalk and trying to set the world to rights.
Down on the corner four new mothers sat on the front steps of their houses in white cotton dresses, peering up at the sky. Their eyes were troubled but they balanced their babes on their knees with thoughtless skill, fat chubby legs clutched around their thighs, perfect little booties bobbing up and down. As the mothers discussed the fire and the city and the future their children laughed and reached out to one another and shared some delight, as if they could see invisible wonders in the morning air. Which perhaps they could, after all.
Further down a newspaper stand clerk leaned up on his counter, chin in one hand, a mound of soaking cigarette butts beside his elbow like defeated challengers. His arms and his fingers were black with ink and he wore wandering lines of it on his face like some clownish war paint. Sometimes a pedestrian would catch his eye and he would squint at them and maneuver his toothpick about, flashing row upon row of gray teeth as though showing what he’d like to do to them. Hayes waved to him as he passed and the old man blinked in surprise and stared after him.
They found a supply store, and Samantha went in while Hayes stayed on the corner, absently watching the passersby. She came back out with three oil lamps and a pocketful of matches. Hayes took two of the lamps from her and then they continued walking east. Through parks and markets and floundering games of street baseball, through fights and purring traffic and the waking day. It all felt so fresh and new to Hayes. So alive with so much promise.
They came to a rickety old wooden fence with many KEEP OUT signs, but they ignored them and found a gap and walked through to where the street opened up and a staircase of sandbags led down into the dark.
Hayes gazed down into the tunnels. For a moment he quavered and wondered what would happen if he simply turned away, but then Samantha took his hand. He turned to her and she looked back at him, uncertain. He was not sure if she had taken his hand to offer support or to reassure herself, but either way it was welcome. He nodded to her, grateful, and then they began their way down the sandbags.
Once they reached the bottom they lit the lamps and started forward into the tunnels. Now Hayes led Samantha, sensing the way ahead, taking turns through maintenance shafts and over trolley tracks. A familiar world of darkness and dank and the soft hums of distant machinery, and sleeping secrets.
They wound deep into the labyrinth, Hayes walking with his head cocked as he tried to listen. Then as they passed by one tunnel’s opening Hayes looked to the side and saw Skiller standing there, whole and unwounded, ankle-deep in water and watching him with burning, pained eyes. He stood with his arms close to his body as though powerfully cold. He shook his head. “It’s not what we thought it was,” he said. “We’ve been betrayed. This isn’t the way.”
I know, thought Hayes. I know. Don’t worry. I know.
They continued on, leaving Skiller in the dark.
They bent low as the tunnel slightly began to shrink. The floor underneath them turned to iron grating, and sometimes in between bundles of piping they could see even deeper pathways below. As they walked over one gap Hayes looked down and saw Evans sitting there, crosslegged and staring up, his face concealed by shadow but his glasses glinting. “We’re making a new age,” he whispered up to him. “A new age. And we are but a part.”
Yes, thought Hayes. I see that now. I know.
They crossed over tracks and began up the maintenance tunnels, picking their way over old boots and shovels and ancient equipment. Up ahead he saw Jack sitting in the doorway of one of the maintenance sheds, not yet pale and ravaged. He watched Hayes pass with terrified, sunken eyes and pleadingly said, “I was scared. They left me there. I wanted to tell them not to leave.” As though this could somehow explain everything. Explain all the atrocities left behind in their wake.
“I know, Jack,” whispered Hayes. “I’m sorry.”
“What?” said Samantha, looking up.
“Nothing,” he muttered, and quickly wiped tears from his eyes.
He was not sure if they were his imagination or if they were memories he’d stolen, laid out here before him. To him they were simply more voices. Fragments and seconds from time past that came to life down here in the dark.
They found a maintenance hallway and followed the dim sodium lights along its winding path. As they walked they came to a darkened intersection, and Hayes looked to his right and saw Tazz or Crimley or whichever standing far down the crossing hallway in the darkness. “You have seen it out in the veins of the city,” he said. “You have seen the dead and the dying.”
Yes, whispered Hayes silently to himself. Yes, I have. I know.
They walked on through the cement hallway, and as they passed a small closet Hayes saw Spinsie sitting inside, lounging up against a set of empty metal shelves, smoke snailing up from a cigarette in his hand and his glance dismissive and contemptuous. “You don’t know everything, you know that, little brother?” he said, his words pluming smoke. “Just ’cause you’ve been around. Just ’cause you managed to get out before I could.”
Yes, Hayes thought. Yes, I know.
And somehow in the next room was Teddy Montrose, still wearing his overcoat and his hat and his prim tie, briefcase in hand. Face pale and pearled with the kiss of steam. He watched Hayes pass and begged, “Will He forgive me? God. Do you think He will forgive me?”
But Hayes shook his head and shut his eyes and kept walking.
Then as they passed the next room Hayes glanced in and saw it was crowded with the victims of the Bridgedale trolley, Evie and Naylor and poor Mrs. Sanna, and many more. They sat along two wooden benches running along the walls, or stood holding on to a support beam as they would a handrail. They casually read the paper with their legs crossed, or knitted or smoked or grinned at some small joke. They did not seem to know they would never arrive anywhere. That they had died down here, and were forever trapped in that little room.
In some way they would never leave here. They and all the others. They were claimed by the city and what it was built upon. Casualties caught in its many gears.
I’m sorry, Hayes said to them. I’m so sorry. But they did not hear, or if they did they did not show it.
Then finally they came to a huge, dark room with a thin passageway running along one side. Hayes looked to the end of the passageway, thinking. Then he raised the lantern and as the light reached further out it found Garvey standing there, the knot in his cheap tie loose and his hands in his pockets. His small smile was wry and sad, as though he was pained by the things he’d seen and yet at peace with the absurd knowledge that he’d willfully see more of them. Hayes swallowed as he stared at him. Then Garvey’s small smile deepened and he said, “Someone has to look, for things like that.”