blonde woman was supporting the dark-haired woman. Salvación felt a nudge from the unicorn. She approached the women.
“Do either of you know how to cook for groups?” Salvación asked. The dark haired woman answered.
“I do. I run the Plaster Peacock.”
“Good. You’re chief cook. What can you do?” she asked the blonde.
“I’m good at getting things organized,” the blonde woman said. “I’m Elke, Elke Hall. This cook is Rosa Krushan. Who are you?”
“Salvación Mandor. I run this mission. You can call me Señora, most everyone does. Can you help me get ready for the people who’ll be coming?”
“Yes,” Elke said. Rosa nodded.
“Come see what’s in my pantry,” Salvación said to Rosa. “Elke, I’ll show you to the blankets, soap, and medical supplies.”
Willy Waugh found Len DeLys setting up large kettles to boil water. He tapped Len’s arm, and handed him the note. Len took it, shouted some orders toward a group of young men stacking wooden debris in one corner, and then read the note.
He shook his head. He had already promised the big tent for a hospital. Then he looked at the booths. Some had fallen in the temblor; others were in good shape. He called again to his young men.
“Take these booths apart. Stack the goods for the booth owners as carefully as you can. Then run these booths up to the Park and set them up for Salvación Mandor; she’s running a kitchen and shelter out of her mission there.” Willy Waugh waited at Len’s side. Len looked at him and grinned. He knew Willy slightly, and knew he wasn’t much for words. “I’ll write a note for you to take to Salvación,” he said. Willy nodded. When Len gave him the note, he sped away on his tough bare feet to the Mission.
La Señora had begun to receive refugees within an hour after the quake. She received Len’s note just before the first of the booths arrived with able-bodied men to re-erect them in the park. Elke Hall organized the construction effort, while La Señora allotted the available housing to the neediest.
Willy stood by La Señora’s table, waiting for instructions. Rosa Krushan noticed him there, and asked La Señora if Willy could help her in the kitchen. La Señora said yes. Rosa fixed a stern eye on Willy.
“Willy, will you help me? I need someone to peel vegetables for me. I can’t do it all by myself.”
Willy nodded solemnly at Rosa. His eyes were very large and fear showed in them. He took a great breath, puffing his chest out, and expelling a noisy sigh, he said, “But you have to show me how. Never peeled nothing.”
“I’ll show you,” Rosa promised. “Come with me.” Willy followed her. La Señora shrugged with relief. One less responsibility to watch. And the boy would help, if he could. He seemed very grateful for food and shelter, though he shed his clothes at any opportunity. If he did so now, at least he’d be in the kitchen, out of sight.
The Key Incident
The Swami picked up the key. He opened the locker with it. He looked inside the satchel, and discovered a large quantity of very fine smoking herb. The Swami guessed the Mandarin man was a dealer in fine herbs. Well, spoils of war, and all that. He took the satchel but left the pistol, for he was a man of peace who eschewed violence.
At the doorway to the bus station, a hand reached out and stopped him.
“Open the satchel,” an official voice commanded. Someone flashed a badge at him. Suddenly the satchel was snatched from him. His hands were forced behind his back and handcuffs clicked around his wrists.
“Fu I, also known as Quig Drye, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…” The Swami didn’t hear the rest of the warning, though he nodded that he understood. Great shame blackened his astral plane. Only later did he realize that Chief Inspector Pryor had arrested him in someone else’s name, that of the Mandarin carpet bagger. Let the record note that Chief Inspector Pryor knew only that the dealer he sought was dressed in “Asian” robes. Specific ethnicity had not been spelled out for him.
The jail smelled of old urine and stale fear. Despair pooled in its shadowed corners. After booking him as Quigley Drye, the police caged the Swami in a one-person holding cell. The Swami didn’t know that this was an honor reserved for especially feared prisoners. The police had been told Quigley Drye was prone to violence. That’s why they gave the Swami the number-one-bad-man cell.
The Swami called on all his spirit guides for deliverance. They did not hear; sometimes parties on the astral plane interfered with spiritual guidance. The Swami huddled in a corner, abject in his misery. He gave himself up for lost.
Late in the afternoon the ground trembled, shook, and then the jail collapsed around the Swami. A falling telephone from the second floor knocked the police sergeant in the head. The Swami pushed aside some light rubble lying on him. He stood and hobbled out of the jail cell through its broken door. He stopped to check on the desk sergeant. The Swami could feel no pulse in the Desk sergeant’s neck. He bowed to pray. “Great Power of the Universe, walk with the spirit of this man through the in-between places. Help him find his new body when it’s his time. And don’t hold his old profession against him. It’s a mean job, but somebody’s got to do it. Amen.”
The Swami bowed three times to the corpse, dusted off his saffron robe, and walked away, mildly bruised by falling bits of the jail, but otherwise unharmed. Several other prisoners un-stunned by the falling cells determined this a good time to go on holiday.
The Swami picked a way to his temple through the fallen rubble of balconies and facades. His temple and its venerated plaster figures were crumbled dust. Not even one of his statues appeared to have survived the temblor. He especially mourned the two Kuanyins that were part of a set of three. To his mind they had special holiness. Forlorn, he joined other refugees in the park.
La Señora and Elke Hall were handing out blankets. The Swami walked up to them. “Hello,” he said.
La Señora spoke to him with a weary authority. “Hello. Please wait in line for your blanket.”
The Swami asked her, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Elke snapped at him. “We’ve got things in hand.”
La Señora laid an admonishing hand on Elke’s arm. “What we need is somebody to keep the kids busy.”
“I know a few magic tricks,” the Swami said. “Simple things.”
“Can you collect them over there, under the trees?” La Señora asked him. “Keep them busy?”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Thanks.”
The Swami began to gather a few kids around him. When he judged he had a core audience, he began to sing, in a loud voice.
“On a tree by a river a little tomtit/Sang willow, titwillow, titwillow! /And I said to him, Dicky-bird, why do you sit /Singing willow, titwillow, titwillow!”
More children joined the children around him. Some adults joined, too. The Swami continued:
“Is it weakness of intellect, birdie, I cried, /Or a rather tough worm in your little inside? /With a shake of his poor little head he replied, /Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!” The children and gathering adults clapped and whistled their delight as the Swami made a particularly gruesome face.
La Señora said to Elke, “Well, that worked, at least.”
“I’m glad,” Elke said. “He looks wild in that saffron robe.”
“He must have a good heart, to charm the children,” La Señora said, and went back to distributing blankets.
While capered and conjured, the Swami contemplated his miraculous release, and determined to start his life over yet another time. Later, he gratefully accepted a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt from another volunteer. He gave his robe and tasseled belt to a shivering mother and her babe to use as a blanket, and faced into the chaos and night to meet his new life.
Hospital Hospitality
Ben worked his way between the cots with the water bucket. Bandaged patients lay, some as
leep, others awake and moaning or mumbling. Ben didn’t notice Len in the shadows at the side of the tent watching him.
“Water? I boiled it myself,” Ben said to one patient with a white cap of gauze. “Clear cool water.” The patient, Ben wasn’t sure whether it was a boy or a girl, tried to rise to drink. Ben swiftly set the bucket down, supported the patient under the shoulders, and held the dipper to the person’s lips. The person sipped at the water, then gestured that it was enough. Ben smiled, and helped the patient lie down. Then he went on to the next patient.
“I’m out of water. I’ll have to get more. Be right back,” he said. Len stopped him on his way to the vat of cooled boiled water.
“How are you holding up?” Len asked him. “You’re the man who just came to the City, right?”
“Just got here yesterday.”
“And today you get a quake. Rough welcome, man. Moving here, or just visiting?”
“I think, moving here. If I can find a job.”
“Anything special?”
“Depends on what’s available. I’m willing to start low and work my way up.”
“If you don’t mind dumb work, I know of an opening. Indigent Aborigine Insurance needs a mailroom worker. By the way, what’s your name?”
“Ben. Ben Soul. Mailroom would feed me, and maybe pay rent.”
“Right. I’m Len, Len DeLys. Take my card. You got a pen?”
“Yes.” Ben felt in his pocket, found his pen, and pulled it out.
“Give it to me,” Len said.