There Was an Old Woman

Chapter Fifty


Mrs. Yetner picked up the Empire State Building souvenir from the mantel. She looked at it for a moment, then set it on the coffee table. With the walker, she shuffled a few steps over to her chair, backed up, and sat. Evie tucked the crocheted throw over her legs, then ran into the kitchen to get her purse. She brought it back and pulled out a cassette recorder that, thank God, she always carried. She sat on the couch, opposite Mrs. Yetner, and turned it on.

“Tuesday, May 21, 2013. Evie Ferrante talking to Wilhelmina Higgs Yetner.” Evie spelled the name, looking to Mrs. Yetner to make sure she got it right. At Mrs. Yetner’s nod, she continued, “We’re at Mrs. Yetner’s home at 105 Neck Road, the Bronx, New York.”

She played that much back. Then she pushed Record again and set the machine on the coffee table, the microphone facing Mrs. Yetner.

“You know, those Catholics saved my life,” Mrs. Yetner began.

Evie smiled. She knew Mrs. Yetner was making a joke, but also knew she was probably referring to the Catholic War Relief Services, whose offices had been on the north-facing side of the seventy-ninth floor of the Empire State Building. One of the secretaries who worked there had told a reporter that from her desk she could see the pilot’s Clark Gable mustache right through the cockpit window as the plane struck the building. That pilot and both of his passengers had been killed.

But Evie didn’t interrupt to clarify. Oral histories took time to tell, and they were richest when the interviewer kept quiet and let them bubble up of their own accord. Not only that, people were surprisingly suggestible and obligingly conjured imagined details just to satisfy their audience.

“I had applied for a job there, but they turned me down,” Mrs. Yetner went on. “They thought I needed experience to be a twenty-five-dollar-a-week stock-and-file clerk.”

The sound of the vacuum cleaner started again upstairs. Evie could hear it being pushed across wood floor.

“Some of the people in that office were burned to death sitting at their desks,” Mrs. Yetner said. “I remember looking through the names of the dead in the newspaper and wondering if one of them was the girl who got my job.”

Evie sat quietly as Mrs. Yetner talked. The day before the crash, Mrs. Yetner and her friend Betty, an elevator operator whose station was on the eightieth floor, had gone up to the observation deck as they often did on their lunch hour to watch troop ships streaming into New York harbor and past the Statue of Liberty. The war in Europe was over.

“It was hot and windy up there, and my hat blew right off my head. Betty thought her husband might be on one of those ships. She’d already tendered her notice. I remember she took her compact out and was using the mirror to reflect the sun. She was trying to signal to soldiers on the ships. I was looking through binoculars to see if any of them noticed and waved back at us. We were so silly. Giddy as schoolgirls, really. But then, we were so very young.”

Mrs. Yetner paused, gazing off into space. Then she shook herself slightly and continued.

“The next day. Saturday. I was supposed to work because we were taking inventory. I remember it was one of those soupy mornings when you look out the window here and the water is gray and the sky is gray, and there doesn’t seem to be a horizon. From our office windows I could barely see the Chrysler Building.

“I had just gotten to work. I was coming out of the stockroom when I heard this roar. And I remember thinking it sounded like an airplane. I was heading for the window when someone shouted to get back. Then there was an enormous explosion. I was thrown across one of the desks. We all thought it was a German buzz bomb. Everyone was screaming. The Germans had tricked us, the Germans had tricked us! They hadn’t surrendered after all.

“Flames were shooting up the sides of the building. One of the windows was scorched black. The office filled with smoke, and everyone was rushing around, trying to get out. I remember wanting to get my purse from my locker in the cloakroom, but Mr. Salamino yelled at me. Said to leave it. Save myself.”

Evie picked up the cassette recorder and leaned forward with it to be sure it caught every word.

“I remember I had this miniature”—Mrs. Yetner pointed to the souvenir—“on my desk. I took it with me for good luck. I’d bought it in the souvenir shop on the day Mr. Salamino interviewed me for the job. My first job.

“We ran out of the office, but when we got to the elevators, smoke was already starting to fill the landing. Fire alarms were going off. People were running for the stairs. A woman was on the floor, screaming. People standing around her. I didn’t realize who it was at first.” Mrs. Yetner’s face pinched at the memory, spots of color on her cheeks. “It was Betty. She’d been blown right out of her post. One side of her uniform was just ashes. Her legs were horribly bent, and she was in so much pain. There were ambulances on the street. We could hear the sirens. We needed to get her down there, but there was no way. Down eighty flights?”

The doorbell rang. Mrs. Yetner ignored it. So did Evie.

“Some people ran for the stairs. They just left her there. But I couldn’t. The elevator was still sitting there, empty. Everyone kept saying, Don’t take the elevator. It’s too dangerous. But there was no choice. It was the only way for her to get down.

“Mr. Salamino and another man from the office carried Betty into the elevator. I didn’t volunteer to ride down with her, it just happened. The elevator needed someone to operate it and of course she couldn’t, and she was holding on to me, so I stayed. I got the doors closed. Got the elevator started. I remember praying that we’d make it. Praying that we’d get to the lobby in one piece. Praying that everything would be all right.

“And at first it was. One floor, three floors, ten floors down. Then I heard what sounded like a gunshot. The elevator jumped and lurched. The lights went out. And we began to fall. I remember screaming and not being able to hear my own voice.”

The doorbell rang again. The vacuum cleaner stopped, and Evie could hear footsteps on the stairs. The front door opened and closed. Evie heard Brian talking to someone in a hushed voice. Mrs. Yetner seemed oblivious.

“You know how they say time slowed down? Well, that’s not what happened at all. I felt sick, like I was going to throw up. And we were moving so fast that I had to hang on to the railing of the elevator to keep from floating. I knew Betty was thinking about her husband. I was sure it was the end.”

“Aunt Mina?” Brian said.

Evie kept her focus on Mrs. Yetner, but out of the corner of her eye she could see Brian looking in from the dining room. There was a woman with him.

“Aunt Mina, this is Dora Fleischer, the woman—”

Mrs. Yetner sent him an icy look. “I’ll talk to her later,” she said. Brian hung in the doorway for a moment, then he turned around and went into the kitchen with the woman.

Turning back to Evie, Mrs. Yetner lowered her voice. “After that, my memories are jumbled. There was a funny smell. That must have been all that burning fuel. And a light overhead. Like a flashlight. I have no idea how long we were down there. The next thing I remember is being outside, lying on a stretcher. Astonished that I was still alive. This priest—he had a pale face, and his glasses were streaked with soot—was standing over me and reading me last rites. I told him to please stop. I wasn’t Catholic, and I’d already forgiven them for not giving me that job.”

She leaned forward and picked up the Empire State souvenir from the table. “I must have been holding this when I got into that elevator, because one of the rescue workers brought it to me later in the hospital. He said he’d been flabbergasted that either of us had a pulse. I’d broken my back, and the bones in my legs had to be pinned back together. He said the floor of the elevator had cracked like the shell of an egg.” She shook her head. “Like the shell of an egg.”

Mrs. Yetner leaned back and exhaled, her face relaxed. “I’ve never told that story to anyone but Annabelle and Henry. I was afraid people would think I was a hero. But there was nothing heroic about it. What happened just happened.”

Evie turned off the recorder. “What an amazing, fascinating story. Thank you so much. This is just incredible.”

Mrs. Yetner held the miniature out to Evie. “Here. Do you think the Historical Society would want this? I don’t need any more good luck.”

“I’m sure they’d love to have it. Thank you.” Evie reached out and took it. The metal felt soft in her hand. Its blurred surface was a testimony to the destructive force of a fire that, against all odds, had spared at least two of its victims. Tomorrow she’d take it to the Historical Society. Already she knew exactly the spot for it in the exhibit. Too bad they hadn’t gotten it in time to be featured in the poster.

“You know,” Evie said, “you could have headed for the stairs and saved yourself, just like everyone else. But you didn’t. You stayed to help your friend.”

“See? There you go. That’s what I mean. The truth is, I didn’t do anything. It just happened, and I was in the wrong place at the right time.”

Evie didn’t argue. She saw her point. “Would you mind writing a note, saying that you’re donating the souvenir and giving the Five-Boroughs Historical Society permission to use your oral history?”

“Oral history? Is that what they call long, old stories these days?”

Evie laughed.

Mrs. Yetner reached over, opened a drawer in the coffee table, and pulled out a pad and pen. In a careful slanting hand, like what Evie had seen in old penmanship books, Mrs. Yetner began to write.

“Just one more thing,” Evie said, getting out her cell phone. “Would you let me take a picture of you signing the bequest?”

Mrs. Yetner put her hand up and smoothed her hair. “I suppose,” she said, touching the pearls she wore around her neck. Then she put the notebook in her lap and held the pen to the page. Evie set the little statue beside her so it would be in the picture, too. As Mrs. Yetner signed and dated the note, Evie snapped a picture, then another. After that she took a picture of the old photo on Mrs. Yetner’s mantel—Mrs. Yetner with her sister when they were girls. Then she carefully tore the page from the notebook and tucked it into her bag along with her cassette recorder and cell phone.

“So you weren’t burned in that fire, were you?” Evie said, taking a seat on the couch opposite Mrs. Yetner.

“No.”

“But how—?” Evie touched the spot on her own cheek where Mrs. Yetner had a scar on hers.

Mrs. Yetner tilted her head. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“I . . .” Evie was baffled. “Should I?”

“No. But I thought you might.”

“Why? Was I there? When?”

“A very long time ago. We’ll talk about it. Another time.” Mrs. Yetner leaned back in the chair. She looked very tired.

Evie couldn’t push her, not after the story she’d just heard. “I’ll come back and tell you all about what everyone says when they hear your story. I’ll bring you a picture showing your little Empire State Building mounted in the exhibit hall. In fact, I hope you’ll let me escort you to the gala opening. You’ll come, won’t you?”

Mrs. Yetner flushed. “Oh, good heavens. You can’t be serious.”

“You have to come. It won’t be right without you. People will be dying to meet you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“And you won’t make a heroine out of me, will you?”

“Promise.”

Mrs. Yetner smiled. “Good. Then I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Under her breath she added, “Go out in a blaze of glory, that’s what I say.” Then she called out, “Brian! We’re done here.”

Brian came in from the kitchen. Following him was the woman who’d arrived earlier. From the neck down she looked like a visiting nurse: loose but ironed pastel hospital scrubs and a man’s watch on her wrist. But from the neck up she could have been on her way to a ladies’ lunch at Olive Garden: not a strand of her dark hair was out of place, her pink lipstick thick and carefully applied.

But she seemed to know what she was about. She went over to Mrs. Yetner and crouched in front of her, trailing a wake of gingery scent. She took one of her hands. “My name is Dora. I’ll be staying with you—”

Brian picked up Evie’s purse from the floor and handed it to her, clearly her cue to leave. Evie stood and followed him to the door.

“I think it’s great what you’re doing. Arranging it so your aunt can live where she wants to.” Evie looked up the stairs. The door at the top was closed. “Sounds like you’re doing quite a bit of work up there. My mother always wanted a second bath.”

“I am sorry about your mother,” Brian said, holding the door open for her.

“You were friends?”

“Friends?” Brian looked aghast.

“No, of course not,” Evie said. “Never mind. I’ll try to get back soon to see your aunt.”

“Dora will be here. She’ll let you know whether Aunt Mina is up to company.”

Evie wondered if there was something about Mrs. Yetner’s health that she didn’t know. She started to ask. Then thought better of it. Selfish of her, really, but she couldn’t take any more bad news.

Outside, the panel truck was gone. In the dark, Evie could see that pieces of lumber and building debris were not so much stacked as tossed, willy-nilly, in Mrs. Yetner’s driveway. It was just as well that Mrs. Yetner couldn’t see it. She’d have pitched a fit.