Girls screamed from the window. “Somebody help us!” But they were shouting to nobody in a useless well of blank walls.
We could feel the heat of the flames and the acrid black smoke coming up the stairs behind us now. Girls packed tighter and tighter, not wanting to be the last on the stairs. I tried to herd them back again, out of the office, but nobody was willing to retreat toward those flames.
“It’s no good. There’s nothing this way. We’ll have to try the attic,” I yelled, “and if that doesn’t work we’ll just have to break the windows and see if we can find any cloth long enough to lower ourselves to the street.”
“Lower ourselves to the street, are you crazy?” someone close to me screamed.
“Move!” I shouted, trying to close Mostel’s office door enough to open the door to the attic hidden behind it, but nobody wanted to risk being shut in the office.
“Help me, Sadie!” I screamed and we literally pummeled and clawed girls out of the way to open the other door. When the girls saw that there was indeed another door and maybe a way of escape, they didn’t fight us as much. We opened it and staggered up the stairs to be met by a frightened Katherine.
“What’s happening? I can smell smoke.”
“Place is on fire. We have to get out,” I gasped. We were all finding it hard to breathe by now. The girls weren’t screaming anymore, but coughing and moaning and praying. Ave Marias and Hebrew prayers rose simultaneously to the smoke-filled rafters.
“This is not good,” one of the girls groaned. “Look at all this fabric. Look at the gauze and muslin. It will burn like crazy. We better get back down again and try the windows.”
“Wait,” Katherine shouted. “There is a window at the end that leads onto the roof. We may be able to get out that way.”
She ran to the skylight at the far end. It was cut into the slanted roof above our heads. “Help me push this table under it,” Katherine shouted as I ran to join her. We shoved the heavy table between us. She climbed up beside me and we pushed at the window with all our might. Just when I thought we were going to have to smash it, it came flying open.
“Give me a push.” I hoisted up my skirts and dragged myself out. The pitched roof of the attic ended in a broad flat strip of tarred rooftop.
“Come on, it’s all right. We can get out this way,” I shouted back as smoke licked around my ankles. “Help them up, Katherine. Give us your hands.”
“I’m not getting on no roof,” someone said but a little girl scrambled onto the table.
“I ain’t waiting to be cooked like a chicken,” she said and reached up to me. Katherine shoved from below and I hauled her through the narrow window.
“Sit on your bottom and slide down gently to the flat part,” I said, then reached for the next one.
One after another we handed the girls out onto the roof until the flat area was jam-packed with terrified, sobbing bodies. Now I just prayed that the roof didn’t collapse under the weight of them.
There was an explosion as glass blew out from a window on the floor below us and flames licked upward. Smoke billowed up toward us, making it hard to see.
“Where do we go now?” someone shrieked.
That was a good point. I hadn’t had a chance to see how we might get off the rooftop.
“Hold on a minute. Katherine, you get the last few out,” I said and slithered down the slates myself, working my way through the crush of bodies. When I reached the end of the roof and turned the corner they followed me, like rats after the Pied Piper. We kept on going down the other side. I had hoped that this roof would join the next building somewhere, but it didn’t. There was a six-foot gap between them. Safety was a few tantalizing feet away.
At the other end of the building there was a crash and sparks shot high into the air as part of the ceiling fell in. A collective scream arose again.
“We’re going to be burned alive.”
One girl threw her leg over the parapet. “I’m not waiting to fall into that,” she said. “I’m ending it now.”
Katherine grabbed at her. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “We’re going to get out of this. Listen—I can hear the fire engines.”
And it was true. In the distance we could hear bells ringing as fire engines galloped toward us. I looked at the flames, now licking up from all sides and knew that there was little the firemen could do. Even if they had ladders long enough, how could they put them through the flames to reach us? I stood at the parapet and looked at the rooftop on the next building. It was maybe less than six feet away and stacks of lumber were piled on it. If only I could get across—
Without hesitating any longer I unlaced my boots, undid my skirt, and pulled it off, then off came my petticoat until I stood there in my drawers and stockings. This produced a gasp of horror almost as great as the original flames had done. I climbed up on the parapet and heard screams behind me.