Unsure how to answer, I reached down and put my arms around Don’s neck. The dog’s eyes opened with annoyance, and he let out a sound, half cough and half burp. Then he slipped out of my embrace, ran once around the cabin, and came back to the same sunny spot.
“I suppose,” I said, my tone intentionally ambiguous. “But do you think he’ll ever be able to come out of hiding? Do you think he’ll be able to see his wife and child again? I doubt it. I think he’ll be able to live only in the hidden room. His soul is too dense. If he comes out, he’ll dissolve into pieces, like a deep-sea fish pulled to the surface too quickly. I suppose my job is to go on holding him here at the bottom of the sea.”
“I understand,” the old man said, nodding, his eyes staring at his hands.
Don, apparently hoping to nap a bit more, rubbed his paws on his jaw and then stretched out with a satisfied air.
Just then, a terrible noise rumbled through the heavens. We hopped up instinctively and braced our hands on the table. Don jumped to his feet.
The boat began to rock violently. The dresser, the dish cabinet, the radio, the lamp, the pendulum clock—everything in the cabin crashed down around us.
“Earthquake!” the old man cried.
Chapter 21
When the shaking stopped and I opened my eyes again, the first thing I saw amid the debris was Don, hiding under the couch, trembling with fear.
“It’s all right,” I told him. “Come here.”
I pushed aside the drawers that had fallen from the dresser and the toppled lamp and pulled him to me through the narrow space.
“Are you all right?” I called to the old man. The room was so completely ruined that it was impossible to tell where he had been sitting just a moment before. Don began barking, as though he, too, were calling the old man.
“Yes, I’m here,” I heard him say, after what seemed a long time. His voice was weak.
He was trapped under the dish cabinet and covered with shards from the shattered plates. His face was bloody.
“Are you all right?” I asked again. I tried lifting the cabinet, but it wouldn’t budge, and I was afraid I might hurt him.
“Don’t worry about me. Get away as fast as you can.” His voice was barely audible under the rubble.
“Don’t be silly. I can’t leave you here.”
“But you have to. The tsunami will come.”
“Tsunami?… What do you mean?”
“A huge wave that comes from beyond the horizon. They come after an earthquake. If you stay, you’ll be caught up in it.”
“I don’t understand, but I’m not leaving without you.”
He waved the fingers of his one visible hand, as if to urge me on my way. I tried again to lift the cabinet, but I couldn’t move it more than a few inches. Don watched us with a worried look.
“It may hurt, but you have to try to crawl out as soon as I move the cabinet.” I said this as much to reassure myself as to explain my plan. A piece of glass had torn my stocking and cut my knee. There was blood everywhere, but I felt no pain. “I’ll tell you when, and then you move. I’m sure we can get you out of here.”
“Please, you have to leave me…”
“Don’t say that! I’m not leaving without you,” I yelled, almost angry with him for giving up so easily. I saw the pole and hook that had once been used to pull open the skylight in the cabin and it occurred to me to force it under the cabinet and use it as a lever.
“One, two, three!” I called. The cabinet moved a bit more this time. I heard a creaking sound—from the trembling earth or the cabinet… or perhaps from my back?—but I paid no attention and continued to push on the pole with all my might. “All right, one more time. One, two, three!”
The old man’s left shoulder and ear came into view. And just then the boat began to roll again. Not as violently as before, but I lost my balance and gripped the pole to avoid falling.
“Is that the… tsunami?”
“No, a tsunami is much worse than that.”
“We’d better hurry,” I said.
No doubt wanting to help, Don bit the sleeve of the old man’s sweater and began to tug at it.
My palms were red, my temples and teeth were throbbing, and my shoulders felt as though they were being pulled from their sockets, but still the cabinet did not move as much as I’d hoped. But as I continued to push, the old man’s body gradually came into view.
I tried to keep the tsunami out of my mind, but somehow the word was stuck in my head. What was it? If the old man was frightened, it must be a terrible thing. A monster that lives at the bottom of the sea? Or some sort of force that was impossible to oppose, like the disappearances? I pushed even harder on the pole, hoping the physical effort would keep this fear at bay.
As the old man’s right leg came into view, I fell over backward in relief. He immediately struggled to his feet.
“All right, young lady,” he called. “We have to go!” I gathered Don in my arms and followed him.
I don’t recall how we managed to escape the shattered boat or which way we went after we left the dock, but when we finally stopped to catch our breath, we found ourselves among the ruins of the library, halfway up the hill, surrounded by others who had also taken refuge from the earthquake. The weather, which had been magnificent, had turned gray and gloomy, and the sky threatened snow.
“Are you injured?” asked the old man, turning to look at me.
“No, I’m fine. But how are you? You’re all bloody.” I took a handkerchief from my pocket and began wiping his face.
“Nothing to worry about,” he said. “Just scratches.”
“No, there’s blood coming out of your ear.” A thick, dark ooze trickled from his earlobe to his chin.
“It’s nothing,” he insisted. “Just a cut.”
“But what if it’s inside your ear… or your brain. It could be serious.”
“No, no, it’s nothing. No need for you to worry.”
He put his hand up to hide his ear, and just then we heard a rumbling in the distance and saw a white wall of water rushing toward the coast.
“What is that?” I gasped, dropping the handkerchief.
“The tsunami,” he said, his hand still clasped to his ear. The scene in front of us was transformed in an instant. It seemed as though the sea were being simultaneously drawn up into the sky and sucked down into a hole in the earth. The floodwaters mounted higher and higher, threatening to wash over the entire island, and the people around us began to wail and moan.
The sea swallowed up the boat, washed over the seawall, and smashed the houses along the coastline. All this must have happened in a moment, but I had the impression that I was able to observe individual scenes, one at a time—the deck chair where the old man took his naps being carried away; a baseball abandoned on the docks being tossed on the waves; a red roof being folded like origami and sucked under the surging waters.
When the wave at last subsided, Don was the first one to open his mouth. He leapt up on a stump, faced the sea, and howled long and low. Then, as if this were a signal, everyone began to move again, though slowly at first. Some headed back downhill. Others went in search of a phone or water. Some simply sat and cried.
“Is it over?” I asked, gathering up my handkerchief.
“Probably, yes,” said the old man. “But we should stay here a while yet, just to be sure.”
We turned to look at each other… and found we were both in an awful state. The old man’s sweater was hanging in tatters, his hair was covered with dust, and he had lost both shoes. In his hands he held just one thing: the music box—totally unharmed despite all we had been through. For my part, the hook on my skirt had come loose, my stockings were in shreds, and the heel had come off one of my shoes.