Memoria (30 page)

"Follow her!" the coach shouted from below.

Frank blinked, unable to see where she was gone, and
finally noticed her body lying
in the mud
at the base of
the wall. She lay face down, her
arms spread wide
, as if
worshipping the camp ground. Frank turned, pre
paring to jump, when he heard an approaching motor.

"Hurry!" the coach shouted.

On the road
outside
, two police
SUVs sped
to
ward
them, a machine gun mounted on the roof of the clo
sest
one
. Frank pushed himself away fr
om the wall, expecting to fall
. Instead, he stayed put
. He heard the ripping of fabric, followed by what felt like a knife
cutting into
his ribs. H
is back writh
ed in agony,
Frank tumbled down from a
height of
several
meter
s
.

He fell and
cried out from
the agonizing pain in his side. Turning face up, he saw the coach straddle the wall
next to a dislodged
coi
l of barbed wire.

Now everything fell into place. When he'd helped Maggie, tossing his body this way and that
, his belt had caught
on
the wire which ripped through his side as he jumped.

"Quit l
az
ing about and help her!" the coach
shouted
.

By the time Frank scrambled back on his feet,
Max
was already standing next to him. Together, they picked up the girl, and,
with
her arms over their shoulders,
carried her
across
the overgrown railway tracks.

Behind the wall, ti
res screeched,
motors idle
d and voices came
from the patrol cars.

"Upstairs," barked the coach when they'd dragged Maggie into the building.

"
Wait up
," Frank
turned
his head
this way and that
in the dark stairwell, blinded by the lack of the bright midday sun
they'd left outside
. He didn't see
the stairs and
lagged behind.

"Wh
at's up," the coach stopped.

"It's all right now," Frank blinked the darkness
from
his eyes and took the first step. "Come on,
then."

"Mind your step. Make sure you don't drop her."

"I can carry her on my own, if you
want
."

"No, I don't. This way she's s
ecure
."

They lugged her all the way
up
to the third floor and lay the girl
down
by the wall.

"
Stick your head out the window and get our bearings
,"
Max
commanded
and bent over the girl, his hands gingerly feeling her neck and arms for fractures.

Frank unbuckled the
attaché
case
and
walked to the window opening on t
he south
side of the building. There, he could
get a
glimpse
of
the concrete wall with the cops behind it,
the overgrown tracks and, far off,
the
squat remains of
what used to be either
the
rail
yard
or
some derelict warehouses.

"What
can you see
?" the coach
asked
.

"Not
much
," Frank winced and felt his ribs.
Moving clockwise, he headed for another window.
What he saw made his heart jump
. The street to this side, too, was overgrown
to the point where the trees and shrubbery ripped the tarmac open concealing the remains of what used to be blocks of flats.
In the d
esolation
bursting with gree
n and wild flowers, a few
old
jalopies
rusted
in front of the house
like large spots of sunlight.
Instead of
the
missing wheels, their frames rested
on
neat
ly
stacked
brick
s
.
The cars had been taken to bits neatly and meticulously
—
no missing parts lying around and no junk
—
as if the men who'd
left them there
planned on coming back to restore everything to its working order.

So this is what the Bronx was like? Frank could hardly take it
all
in.
He was so used to living in his noisy, glass-and-concrete
metropolis
that at first, he couldn't work out what had moved him so much.

Silence. A d
eafening,
strange silence pressing against his ears.

"Frank? Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he shook it off and walked to the eas
t
window.
"You can't see jack shit there. Everything's
over
grown. I had no idea the Bronx
was so
green."

The coach patted Maggie's cheeks. Her eyelids twitched, and she opened her eyes.

"Did we
...
make it?"

Frank
paused
by the window
. He
could barely hear her voice
.

"We did," the coach said. "You all right? Nothing hurts? Try to move your arms and legs, but easy."

Slowly, Maggie raised
her arms and bent her elbows. She then attempted to scramble back onto her feet, and almost succe
e
ded, but immediately slid down the wall
onto the floor
strewn
with shattered bricks.

"Take it easy,"
Max
told her.

Frank turned back to the window
and froze. The stadium rose
up
behind the trees,
not even a mile away.

"Sir," he said without looking at his coach. "
Climbing t
hat wall saved our
guts.
That was
really
good timing.
We couldn't have escaped them
faster
even if we
'd
tried." Hearing
Max
's steps beh
i
nd his back, he moved aside.

Max
took his p
lace, his powerful fists resting on the chipped window
sill
.

"You can say that again," he finally said. "We've been lucky indeed."

"What happened?" Maggie asked. They turned to her.

"You fell of
f
the wall," Frank
lowered his guilty eyes. "I failed to
hang on to
you properly."

"You know you have blood o
n your s
hirt
?"

Ah, so that's what she was going on about.
The girl
was
worried about
him
.

"Just a scratch from that wire."

Max
grabbed
Frank's
shoulders and
inspected his back.
"Does it hurt a lot?"

Frank
waved it off
.

"Now," the coach stepped to
the middle of the room, arms akimbo. "What we now need is a good wash
, something to lick our wounds with and
each a set of decent clothes
. Then we can go and look for that Council of theirs.
Frank? You're the migrant expert."

"I don't know that much," Frank shrugged and winced with the sharp pain in his side. "I was present at the tal
ks, true, but I've never been to
the Bronx."

"But you must remember something, surely?
What do they do here
?
Anything at all."

"Ah!
Water. They supply New York wi
th purified water.
So they must have
hydrants on the str
eets," he paused, remembering, "
if I'm not mistaken."

"Good,"
Max
concluded. "If we don't find a functional hydrant,
we'll knock
at a door
and
ask for some water. Come on, then."

"But how about the police?" Maggie
looked at them. "Won't they
hand
us
over
to the cops?"

"Let's hope not," the coach hesitated and checked the gun
in
his belt.

They went back downstairs.
Max
walked first, followed by Frank who grasped the
attaché
case
in one hand and supported Maggie with the other.
A breeze rustl
ed in the tree tops and sent
fallen leaves back into the air. Warm sunrays touched their faces.

"So quiet here," Maggie whispered.

"It is, isn't it?" Frank said. "Very unusual."

Max
stopped.
"We can discuss the unusual later,"
he gave both a meaningful stare and
stole
through the wai
st-high grass, leaving in his wake a trail
of disturbed green
. Instinctively the other two
ducked and followed.
They soon passed the rusty car skeletons, skirted a thicket and found themselves on a deserted
tree-shaded street.

Frank
had
missed the moment when the coach pulled out
his
gun. Something had alerted him, a distant sound had made him stop.
In front, in the opening between
decaying
houses overgrown with wild ivy, another street
lay
. It looked totally different.

A clean pavement
,
the curb painted white
, fronted
a neat little house with cheerful curtains in its windows
. It
had an almost antique feel.

"Let's go," the coach said
.

Without saying a word, Frank and Maggie followed him. A few minutes later, they stood
at
a s
mall intersection looking at a
white signpost with blue pointed street signs.

"Where
to now
?"
the coach said, rather to himself.

To their north
stretched Nelson Avenue. To t
heir east and west,
167th
Street
.
The house they'd just seen
stood
on its corner
, its front door
ajar
.

Max
looked around them and opened his mouth to speak when a little black boy ran out from behind the building. He was laughing
, trying to escape a tall girl
who was chasing him. He wore light-colored shorts, a tank top and a
pair of dusty, worn-out shoes; the girl had a summer dress
on
.
She nearly c
aught up with him and raised her
hand to give his backside a
hearty
slap, but the boy
escaped,
darted
for the front door and froze
, his large eyes staring at the strange adults.

The girl didn't notice them. She raised her hand again and rushed at the boy
, but he screamed out, pointing at the filthy Maggie,
Max
and Frank.
Her
hand slowed in mid-air and although the boy did get his comeuppance, the slap was too weak and
un
enthusiastic
.

For a moment
she
didn't move,
studying
them. Her intelligent eyes glistened. She hugged the little
urchin, trying to cover him, and stole a worried glance at the front door.