Fire Watch

  While he was gone, Jack hit another tap, almost on top of the first one, and Jewell locked up the liquor. The men didn’t want music. They wanted to talk about putting in a double, even a triple tap. I was grateful for that. I was not sure I could play with my hands tied.

  Jewell told me to go meet Taber at the mooring, and then changed her mind. “I’m worried about those sotted fools out at Jick’s sidon. Doubletapping. They kidd blow the whole star. You’d bitter stay here and hilp me.”

  Taber came before the shift. “I’ll bring you your present tonight, Pearl,” he said. “I know you’ll like it. Ruby helped me pick it out.” I watched the sudden twitching of Pearl’s hands, but my own didn’t even move.

  Taber waited almost until the end of the shift, spending nearly half of it in the card room with Carnie leaning heavily over his shoulder. She had already gotten her present. Her eyes were bright from the sot-slice, and she stumbled once against him and nearly fell.

  “Bring me a cigar, Ruby,” he shouted at me. “And look in the inside jacket pocket. I brought a present back for everybody.” Pearl was standing all alone in the middle of the music room, her hands in front of her. I didn’t look at her. I went straight upstairs to my room, got what I needed, and then went back down into the anteroom to where Taber’s tapper jacket was hanging and got the cigar out of Taber’s pocket. His sparker was there, too.

  The present was a flat package wrapped in red and green paper, and I took it and the cigar to Taber. He had come into the music room and was sitting in Pearl’s chair. Carnie was sitting on his lap with her arm around his neck.

  “You didn’t bring the sparker, Ruby,” Taber said. I waited for him to tell me to go and get it. “Never mind,” he said. “Do you know what day this is?”

  “I do,” Carnie said softly; and Taber slid his hand up to hold hers where it lay loosely on his shoulder.

  “It’s Chrissmiss Day,” he said, pronouncing it with the Solfatara accent. He took his hand away from Carnie’s so he could lean back and puff on his cigar, and Carnie took her red, bruised hand in her other one and held it up to her bosom, her sot-bright eyes full of pain. “I said to myself we should have some Chrissmiss songs. Do you know any Chrissmiss songs, Ruby?”

  “No,” I said,

  “I didn’t think you would,” Taber said. “So I brought you a present.” He waved the cigar at me. “Go ahead. Open it.”

  I pulled the red and green paper off and took out the hardcopies. There were a dozen Christmas songs. I knew them all.

  “Pearl, you’ll sing a Chrissmiss song for me, won’t you?” Taber said.

  “I don’t know any,” she said. She had not moved from where she stood.

  “Of course you do,” Taber said. “They played them every Chrissmisstime in the happy houses in Solfatara. Come on. Ruby’ll play it for you.”

  I sat down at the pianoboard, and Pearl came and stood beside me with her hand on the end of the keyboard. I stood the hardcopies up against the music rack and put my hands on the keyboard.

  “He knows,” she said, so softly none of the men could have heard her. “You told him.”

  “No, it’s a coincidence,” I said. “Maybe it really is Chrissmisstime on Solfatara. Nobody keeps track of the year on Paylay. Maybe it is Christmas.”

  “If you told him, if he knows how it happened, I am not safe anymore. He’ll be able to get in. He’ll be able to hurt me.” She took a staggering step away from the pianoboard as if she were going to run. I took hold of her wrist.

  “I didn’t tell him,” I said. “I would never let him hurt you. But if you don’t sing the song, he’ll know there’s something wrong. I’ll play the first song through for you.” I let go of her wrist, and her hand went limp on the end of the keyboard.

  I played the song through and stopped. The version I knew didn’t have an introduction, so I spread the fingers of my right hand across the octave and a half of the opening chord and touched her hand with my left.

  She flinched. She did not move her hand away or even make any movement the men, gathered around us now, could have seen. But a tremor went through her hand. I waited a minute, and then I touched her again, with all my fingers, hard, and started the song. She sang the song all the way through, and my hands, which had not been able to come down on a single chord of warning, were light and sure on the keyboard. When it was over, the men called for another, and I put it on the music rack and then sat, as she stood, silent and still, unflinching, waiting for what was to come.

  Taber looked up inquiringly, casually and Jewell frowned and half turned toward the door, and Scorch banged through the thick inner door and stopped, trying to get his breath. He still had his lantern strapped to his forehead, and when he bent over trying to catch his breath in gasping hiccups, the strip where the hair had been burned off was as red as his face and starting to blister.

  “One of the sidons blew, didn’t it?” Jewell said, and her scar slashed black as a fissure across her cheek. “Which one?”

  Scorch still couldn’t speak. He nodded with his whole body bent over double again, and tried to straighten. “It’s Jick,” he said. “He tried to tripletap and the whole thing wint up.”

  “Oh, my God,” Sapphire said, and ran into the kitchen.

  “How bad is it?” Jewell said.

  “Jick’s dead and there are two burned bad. Paulsen and the tapper that came in with Taber last shift. I don’t know his name. They were right on top of it when it went, pitting the comprissor on.”

  The tappers had been in motion the whole time he spoke, putting on their jackets and going for their shoes. Taber heaved Carnie off his lap and stood up. Sapphire came back from the kitchen dressed in pants and carrying the remedy case. Garnet put her shawl around Scorch’s shoulders and helped him into Pearl’s chair.

  Taber said calmly, “Are there any other sidons close?” He looked unconcerned, almost amused, with Carnie leaning limply against him, but his left hand was clenched, the thumb moving up and down as if he were clicking the sparker.

  “Mine,” Scorch said. “It didn’t kitch, but the comprissor caught fire and Jick’s clothes, and they’re still burning.” He looked up apologetically at Jewell. “I didn’t have nithing to put the fire out with. I dragged the it her two up onto my comprissor platform so they widdn’t cook.”

  Pearl and I had not moved from the pianoboard. I looked at Taber in the mirror, waiting for him to say, “I’ll stay here, Jewell. I’ll take care of things here,” but he didn’t. He disengaged himself from Carnie. “I’ll go get the stretchers at the gaminghouse and meet you back here,” he said.

  “Let me get your jacket for you,” I said, but he was already gone.

  The tappers banged out the doors, Sapphire with them. Garnet ran upstairs. Jewell went into the anteroom to put her outside shoes on.

  I stood up and went out into the anteroom. “Let me go with you,” I said.

  “I want you ti stay here and take care of Pearl,” she said. She could not squeeze her bandaged foot into the shoe. She bent down and began unwinding the bandage.

  “Garnet can stay. You’ll need help carrying the men back.”

  She dropped the bandage onto the floor and jammed her foot into the shoe, wincing. “You don’t know the way. You kidd git lost and fall into a sidon. You’re safer here.” She tried the other shoe, stood up and jammed her bandaged foot into it, and sat back down to fix the straps.

  “I’m not safe anywhere,” I said. “Please don’t leave me here. I’m afraid of what might happen.”

  “Even if the sidons all go up, the fire won’t git this far.”

  “It isn’t those sidons I’m afraid of,” I said harshly “You let a sidon loose in the house once before and look what happened.”

  She straighened up and looked at me, the scar as black and hot as lava against her red face. “A sidon is an animal,” she said. “It kin’t help itself.” She stood up gingerly, testing her unbandaged foot. “Taber’s going with me,” she
said.

  She was not as blind as I had feared, but she still didn’t see. “Don’t you understand?” I said gently “Even if he goes with you, he’ll still be here.”

  “Are you ready, Jewell?” Taber said. He had a lantern strapped to his forehead, and he was carrying a large red and green wrapped bundle.

  “I’ve gitta git another lantern from upstairs,” Jewell said. “There’s nithing left but town lanterns,” she said, and went upstairs.

  Taber held the package out to me. “You’ll have to give Pearl her Chrissmiss present from me, Ruby,” he said.

  “I won’t do it.”

  “How do you know?” he said.

  I didn’t answer him.

  “You were so anxious to get me my jacket when I went next door. Why don’t you get it for me now? Or do you think you won’t do that either?”

  I took the coat off the hook, waiting for Jewell to come back downstairs.

  “Lits go,” Jewell said, hardly limping at all as she came down the steps, and I took the jacket over to him. He handed the package to me again, and I took it, watching him put the jacket on, waiting for him to pat the sparker inside the pocket to make sure it was there. Jewell handed him an extra lantern and a bundle of bandages. “Lits go,” she said again. She opened the outside door and went down the wooden steps into the heat.

  “Take care of Pearl, Ruby,” Taber said, and shut the door.

  I went back into the music room. Pearl had not moved. Garnet and Carnie were trying to help Scorch out of the chair and up the stairs, though Carnie could hardly stand. I took his weight from Garnet and picked him up.

  “Sit down, Carnie,” I said, and she collapsed into the chair, her knees apart and her mouth open, instantly asleep.

  I carried Scorch up the stairs to Garnet’s room and stood there holding him, bracing his weight against the door while Garnet strung a burn-hammock across her bed for me to lay him in. He had passed out in the chair, but while I was lowering him into the hammock, he came to. His red face was starting to blister, so that he had trouble speaking. “I shidda put the fire out,” he said. “It’ll catch the it her sidons. I told Jick it was too close.”

  “They’ll put the fire out,” I said. Garnet tested the hammock and nodded to me. I laid him gently in it, and we began the terrible process of peeling his clothes off his skin.

  “It was thit new tapper thit came down with Taber this morning. He was sotted. And he had a sparker with him. A sparker. The whole star kidda gone up.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “It’ll be all right.” I turned him onto his side and began pulling his shirt free. He smelled like frying meat. He passed out again before we got his shirt off, and that made getting the rest of his clothes off easier. Garnet tied his wrist to the saline hookup and started the antibiotics. She told me to go back downstairs.

  Pearl was still standing by the pianoboard. “Scorch is going to be fine,” I said loudly to cover the sound of picking up Taber’s package, and started past her with it to the kitchen. The blowers had kicked on full-blast from the doors opening so much, but I said anyway, “Garnet wants me to get some water for him.”

  I made it nearly to the door of the card room. Then Carnie heaved herself up in the white chair and said sleepily, “Thits Pearl’s present, isn’t it, Ruby?”

  I stopped under the blowers, standing on the sidon.

  She sat up straighter, licking her tongue across her lips. “Open it, Ruby. I want to see what it is.”

  Pearl’s hands tightened to fists in front of her. “Yes,” she said, looking straight at me. “Open it, Ruby.”

  “No,” I said. I walked over to the pianoboard and put the package down on the stool.

  “I’ll open it then,” Carnie said, and lurched out of the chair after it. “You’re so mean, Ruby. Poor Pearl kin’t open her own Chrissmiss presents, ivver since she got blind.” Her voice was starting to slur. I could barely understand what she was saying, and she had to grab at the package twice before she picked it up and staggered back to Pearl’s chair with it clutched to her breast. The sots were starting to really take hold now. In a few moments she would be unconscious. “Please,” I said without making a sound, praying as Pearl must have prayed in that locked room, ten years old, her hands tied and him coming at her with a razor. “Hurry, hurry.”

  Carnie couldn’t get the package open. She tugged feebly at the green ribbon, plucked at the paper without even tearing it, and subsided, closing her eyes. She began to breathe deeply, with her mouth open, slumped far down in the white chair with her arms flung out over the arms of the chair.

  “I’ll take you upstairs, Pearl,” I said. “Garnet may need help with Scorch.”

  “All right,” she said, but she didn’t move. She stood with her head averted, as if she were listening for something.

  “Oh, how pretty!” Carnie said, her voice clear and strong. She was sitting up straight in the chair, her hands on the unopened package. “It’s a dress, Pearl. Isn’t it beautiful, Ruby?”

  “Yes,” I said, looking at Carnie, limp again in the chair and snoring softly “It’s covered with lights, Pearl, green and red and gold, like a Christmas tree.”

  The package slipped out of Carnie’s limp hands and onto the floor. The blowers kicked on, and Carnie turned in the chair, pulling her feet up under her and cradling her head against the chair’s arm. She began snoring again, more loudly.

  I said, “Would you like to try it on, Pearl?” and looked over at her, but she was already gone.

  It took me nearly an hour to find her because the town lantern I had strapped to my forehead was so dim I could not see very well. She was lying face down near the mooring.

  I unstrapped the lantern and laid it beside her on the ground so I could see her better. The train of her skirt was smoldering. I stamped on it until it crumbled underfoot and then knelt beside her and turned her over.

  “Ruby?” she said. Her voice was squeaky from the helium in the air and very hoarse. I could hardly recognize it. She would not be able to recognize mine either. If I told her I was Jewell or Carnie, or Taber, come to murder her, she would not know the difference. “Ruby?” she said. “Is Taber here?”

  “No,” I said. “Only the sidon.”

  “You’re not a sidon,” she said. Her lips were dry and parched.

  “Then what am I?” I moved the town lantern closer. Her face looked flushed, almost as red as Jewell’s.

  “You are my good friend the pianoboard player who has come to help me.”

  “I didn’t come to help you,” I said, and my eyes filled with tears. “I came to finish killing you. I can’t help it. I’m copying Taber.”

  “No,” she said, but it was not a “no” of protest or horror or surprise, but a statement of fact. “You have never copied Taber.”

  “He killed Jack,” I said. “He had some poor sotted tapper blow up the sidon so he could have an alibi for your murder. He left me to kill you for him.”

  Her hands lay at her sides, palms down on the ground. When I lifted them and laid them across her skirt as she had always held them, crossed at the wrists, she did not flinch, and I thought perhaps she was unconscious.

  “Jewell’s feet are much better,” she said, and licked her lips. “You hardly limp at all. And I knew Carnie was on sots before she ever came into the room, by the way you walked. I have listened to you copy all of them, even poor dead Jack. You never copied Taber. Not once.”

  I crawled around beside her and got her head up on my knees. Her hair came loose and fell around her face as I lifted her up, the ends of it curling up in dark frizzes of ash. The narrow fretted soles of my shoes dug into the backs of my legs like hot irons. She swallowed and said, “He broke the door down and he sent for the doctor and then he went to kill the man, but he was too late. My mother had let him out the back way.”

  “I know,” I said. My tears were falling on her neck and throat. I tried to brush them away; but they had already dried, and her skin fe
lt hot and dry. Her lips were cracked, and she could hardly move them at all when she spoke.

  “Then he came back and held me in his arms while we waited for the doctor. Like this. And I said, ‘Why didn’t you kill him?’ and he said, ‘I will,’ and then I asked him to finish killing me, but he wouldn’t. He didn’t kill the tapper either because his hands were broken and all cut up.”

  “My uncle killed him,” I said. “That’s why we’re quarantined. He and Kovich killed him,” I said, though Kovich had already been dead by then. “They tied him up and cut out his eyes with a sot-razor,” I said. That was why Jewell had let me come to Paylay. She had owed it to my uncle to let me come because he had killed the tapper. And my uncle had sent me to do what? To copy whom?

  The lamp was growing much dimmer. The twillpaper forehead strap on the lantern was smoldering now, but I didn’t try to put it out. I knelt with Pearl’s head in my lap on the hot ground, not moving.

  “I knew you were copying me almost from the first,” she said, “but I didn’t tell you because I thought you would kill Taber for me. Whenever you played for me, I sat and thought about Taber with a sidon tearing out his throat, hoping you would copy the hate I felt. I never saw Taber or a sidon either, but I thought about my mother’s lover, and I called him Taber. I’m sorry I did that to you, Ruby.”

  I brushed her hair back from her forehead and her cheeks. My hand left a sooty mark, like a scar, down the side of her face. “I did kill Taber,” I said.

  “You reminded me so much of Kovich when you played,” she said. “You sounded just like him. I thought I was thinking about killing Taber, but I wasn’t. I didn’t even know what a sidon looks like. I was only thinking about Kovich and waiting for him to come and finish killing me.” She was breathing shallowly now and very fast, taking a breath between almost every word. “What do sidons look like, Ruby?”

  I tried to remember what Kovich had looked like when he came to find my uncle, his broken hands already infected, his face already red from the fever that would consume him. “I want you to copy me,” he had said to my uncle. “I want you to learn to play the pianoboard from me before I die.” I want you to kill a man for me. I want you to cut out his eyes. I want you to do what I can’t do.