A Thunderous Whisper (18 page)

I weaved around bodies already covered by sheets or curtains, a few with their heads visible so that they could be identified by their families. I needed to find Mathias.… He was the one person who could help me make sense of everything.

The
makila
was what I first noticed. Mathias himself was curled up in a ball, sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, his face buried in his hands. A row of sheet-covered bodies lay in front of him.

My heart sank.

“Mathias?” I put my hand on his shoulder.

He didn’t look up.

“Oh, Mati,” I said softly, sitting down next to him.

Not even the slightest movement came from him.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, but I would not let them out.

Mathias lifted his head ever so slightly, and I could see the tears flowing out of him like a dripping faucet someone forgot to shut off.

“The whole stupid shelter collapsed,” he muttered. “Everyone inside … they didn’t have a chance.”

I sat next to him, wrapping my arm around him.

He took a deep, shaky breath. “Your mother, is she …? Did she make it?” he asked.

I shook my head, not able to speak.

“I’m sorry too,” he whispered.

I crumpled against him, and we sat there on the sidewalk as the smoke of our city and the ashes of our lives drifted into the sky.

THIRTY-FOUR

T
he rumbling sound of a wagon and the sensation of things moving drew me out of the blackness of exhausted sleep. Mathias and I were balanced against each other, each one keeping the other from falling. As I lifted my head off his shoulder, Mathias opened his eyes. The soft light of dawn cast a glow over what used to be Guernica.

Mathias stumbled as he sprang to his feet. “What are you doing? Don’t touch them!” he yelled at the two men bending down to pick up the bodies of his parents.

“Cálmate.”
A short man, covered in dirt but still wearing his beret, walked around the wagon and came toward us. I knew he was the town’s undertaker.

“I said don’t touch them!” Mathias raised his
makila
, ready to strike anyone who dared lift the bodies. The men took a few steps back.

“Son, were they your parents? You know we can’t leave them in the streets.… They need to be identified and buried.” The undertaker pulled out a pen to write down the
information and motioned for the men to start with the other bodies. “Tell me your parents’ names.”

“No! I’ll bury them myself! Just go!” Mathias pushed the short man back a few steps.

“Mathias, you need to …,” I said, placing my hand on his back.

He turned to face me. “I need my parents. That’s what I need.”

I looked at the undertaker. “Can’t you come back later?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. We need to do this now, before the day gets any warmer.” Gently, with all the patience of someone who had done this too many times, he guided Mathias back to the sidewalk. “Tell me about them. Their names, addresses.”

Mathias said nothing.

“García is the last name,” I said. “Joaquín and Ingrid, right?” I glanced at Mathias, who nodded and sat down as the men continued to put all the bodies in the wagon.

“Are you related?” the undertaker asked me.

“No, just a friend.”

He wrote something in his book. “And did they live in Guernica, or were they—?”

“No, they lived here above the theater.” I gestured behind me as one of the men walked toward us and handed something to the undertaker.

“My mother. She’s Jewish,” Mathias muttered.

“I’ll make a note of it. Here.” He placed a thin gold chain with a star dangling from the end and two wedding rings into
Mathias’s hand. The undertaker then took off his beret and bowed his head slightly. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

As the wagon pulled away, we saw it stop down the street. More victims. More sadness.

After a few minutes, I ached to do something … anything.

“Mathias, we should go. Help if we can.”

He looked down at his hands, at the pieces of jewelry lying in his palm, and shrugged.

I stood up. “We have to do something,” I said.

He kept staring at the jewelry, then he balled his hand into a fist … clenching the chain and rings tightly. “You’re right,” he answered, looking up at me. “We can’t just let them win.”

I nodded. The old Mathias was returning.

“We’ll figure out how to make a difference … even in a small way,” I said, wiping off some of the dirt and dust from my arms.

Mathias had his eyes fixed on something on the horizon. “They won’t get away with this. I won’t let them,” he said, but I knew he wasn’t really talking to me.

I pulled on his torn shirtsleeve, wanting to leave the area. “We should check the church and see if we can help over there.”

“I’ll need a gun. Find a place to stay, get supplies before heading out,” he muttered.

“Gun? Head out? What are you talking about?”

Mathias looked at me as if he suddenly realized that I was standing next to him.

“Ani.” He shook his head. “I have to go.”

“No.” I had lost Mamá, but I was not going to lose Mathias too. “You can’t leave me. We’ll wait for Papá to come back, and we’ll help rebuild the city.”

“Papá? Rebuild? Ani, you don’t even know if he’s alive!”

I staggered backward as if he had punched me in the gut. It was the one thing I had refused to think about. The idea that I might have already lost both my parents … just like he had.

Mathias put a hand on my shoulder. “Listen, I didn’t mean it like that. Your father might be on his way back right now. It’s just … we need to figure things out for ourselves … at least for now.”

I glanced around at the people slowly walking by. Everyone coming to terms with the reality of having lost so much.

“Yeah, I know.”

“We can go up to Garza’s farm. I’m sure they’ll let us stay there for a couple of days.”

“Garza’s farm,” I repeated, watching as a woman whose head had been bandaged entered one of the few buildings that were still standing.

“We can plan what to do from there.” Mathias strung his parents’ rings onto the chain, slipped his mother’s necklace over his head, and then looked back at the rubble of what had been the theater and his apartment. “But they
will
pay for this.”

THIRTY-FIVE

T
he trail up the mountain toward my tree looked surprisingly the same. Birds chirped in the distance. The early-morning sun reflected off white puffy clouds that lingered overhead, and a gentle breeze ruffled the long grass that lined the road. It was as if nature had forgotten what had happened the day before.

Glancing back toward the valley, at my broken town, with fires still smoldering and rubble evident even from a distance, I knew I could never forget. Nothing was ever going to be the same.

“Why are you slowing down?” Mathias asked me.

I stopped walking. “I think we should’ve stayed and helped the people in town.” I reached forward and pulled the back of his shirt. “Mathias, can you just stop and listen for a minute?”

He paused, but only for a moment to tuck the back of his shirt into his pants again. “We can help more people by stopping Hitler from doing this anywhere else.”

I rolled my eyes and trotted next to him. “Seriously, Mathias. What do you expect us to do? Go kill him ourselves?”

Mathias didn’t react. In an even tone, he said, “If we get the chance.”

I shook my head at the ridiculousness of his idea. “Sure, that’ll work. Because Hitler doesn’t have a million guards protecting him.”

Mathias threw his hands in the air. “Fine. You stay quiet and do nothing.”

“Oye.”
I grabbed his shoulder. “That’s
not
what I said.”

“Then stop wasting time. Let’s get up there”—Mathias pointed to the speck of a house on the mountainside—“and start making some real plans.”

From afar, the stone and rock walls of the Garza house looked almost as if they were part of the mountain itself, and as we got closer, I couldn’t help thinking how much safer I’d feel once we were inside with a solid roof overhead. There, in the quiet of that house, I’d be able to gather my thoughts. I’d be able to survive until Papá returned. I had to believe he would come back.

I walked up to the large front door and gently knocked.

No answer.

Mathias reached over my shoulder and knocked harder. “Garza? Señora Garza?” he called.

“Shhh!
¡Entra!!
” a woman’s voice called out in a loud whisper.
“¡Está abierto!”

I turned the doorknob and entered a small, dimly lit room. The shutters were all closed, and the sunlight that streamed in came from a single missing panel. As my eyes quickly
adjusted to the darkness, I saw a large woman crouched down in the center of the room wrapping a bandage around an unconscious boy’s eyes. Several people lay strewn around the room, resting on blankets and pillows.

The woman lifted her head to look at me, and then her eyes went to Mathias. “Oh!” She drew in a sharp breath before covering her mouth.

In an instant she leapt over two people and ran around a group of sleeping children to reach Mathias. “You’re alive! Alive!” she said, kissing his cheeks. She pushed him back as if to make sure it was really him, then pulled him into a hug.

Mathias couldn’t help but smile.

“We heard the theater was destroyed. We feared that you … that you …”

Mathias nodded.

She glanced back at me and then noticed no one else with us. “But … your parents?”

I shook my head as Mathias looked away.

“¡Ay, Dios mío!”
She quickly made the sign of the cross over her chest. “I’m so very sorry.” She pulled Mathias close to her again and hugged him even tighter.

I could see Mathias’s shoulders drop a little as she held him.

“Are you Ani?” she asked. “Mathias has told us all about you,” she said, still holding on to Mathias.

I nodded and then felt something squeeze my legs.

“Ani! Ani!” a little voice exclaimed. I looked down to find Carmita wrapping her small hands around me.

“Carmita!” I knelt next to her.
“¿Qué tú haces aquí?”
I asked, wondering why she was so far from the church.
“Where’s your mother?” I glanced around the room, not seeing Lupe.

Carmita’s lips quivered. “Mami! MAMI!” she called out, running to the door.

Señora Garza released Mathias and ran to Carmita, scooping her up in her arms as the little girl kicked and struggled to get free. “Shhh,” the woman said, “
tranquila
. It’ll be all right.”

Mathias and I exchanged a look. Lupe would not have left Carmita unless …

“MAMI-I-I-I!” Carmita screamed again, kicking and fighting to be let go.

Everyone around us started to wake up.

“MAMI-I-I-I!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.

The other children in the room began to join her cries. The anguished sound of their little voices felt like the same pain I had in my heart.

“Shhh, niñita.”
Señora Garza rocked the wriggling little girl.

“Carmita,” I said softly, touching her back.

The little girl paused for a moment.

“Carmita, do you want to come with me?” I held out my arms.

She dove into them and buried her head in my neck.

Mathias looked around the room and then at Señora Garza, who was already sitting on the floor cradling two other small children. “How? What happened to—?”

Señora Garza shook her head and whispered, “They were trying to escape the bombing.” She pointed to Carmita, who was now crying softly on my shoulder. “Garza found her
near the outskirts of town, next to her mother. Asking her to wake up.”

I held on tighter to the little girl, wanting to take away the horrors she’d witnessed.

“Was she …?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

Señora Garza nodded. “Garza and a few of the other farmers picked up as many survivors as they could. I’ve been taking care of the ones brought here, but Garza took some to town already.”

“So Garza’s not here?” Mathias asked, disappointment in his voice.

“No. He should be back soon, though.” She stood up, leaving the two children huddled together on the floor. “Hopefully, he’ll bring a doctor with him.” She glanced over at the children, who were eyeing us carefully. “Watch them for a minute,” she told us before going toward one of the back rooms.

I scanned the room, not recognizing any of the sleeping or dazed faces. It didn’t matter. I felt a connection to them all. We had survived, but now what? What lay ahead?

“Julián, look who’s here,” Señora Garza said. In her arms was a boy who looked much too old to be carried and who still had sheet marks on his cheeks.

“
Hola
, Mathias,” the boy answered in a scraggly voice. He glanced around at all the people. “Abuela, I think there are more people here than when I went to bed.… Who are they?”

“Friends. And I need you to help keep an eye on these little ones.” Señora Garza strapped him into a wooden wheelchair
and pushed him toward the corner where the children now sat quietly, apparently tired of screaming.

“What should we do?” I asked, with Carmita still clinging to my shoulder.

“Well, I need to feed everyone, and it goes without saying that the two of you will be staying here with us.” She looked at me, waiting for my response.

Since I had nowhere else to go, I gave her a slight nod.

Señora Garza was now back to the business of running her makeshift hotel and hospital. “Mathias, why don’t you go out and gather some eggs and vegetables. Ani, can you help Julián watch the little ones?… Make sure they stay out of trouble while I change the dressings on some of these wounds.”

“C’mon, Carmita,” I said, walking over to Julián. “Let’s sit with your new friends.”

“No! No friends!” The little girl buried her head in the crook of my neck.

“Yes,” I responded. “Friends are important.” I glanced over and caught Mathias’s eye. “Sometimes they’re all we’ve got.”