I shifted my weight across the box and tugged with both hands. The dumbwaiter jerked underneath me and started to move. It was slow, tedious work. The rope burned my bare palms. My biceps had pretty much turned to water by now and strongly resisted the idea of more exercise. “You’re at the wall now, Vic—go for the burn,” I mocked myself, then returned to rope chants.
I’d been through my repertoire twice when we finally came to the opening onto the ground floor. The door was shut. When I put a hand on it, it was scalding to the touch. A poor exit choice. I tried looking up but it was a futile exercise. Even adjusted to the dark, my eyes could make out nothing.
I started hauling again, sticking a hand up every few pulls to see if I was going to run into ceiling. The pain in my head had passed beyond agony to some light, remote feeling, as though the top of my head were floating some miles from my body. Every time I stopped working to feel about, though, it came crashing down with a pounding thud. Was this what it was like to use heroin. Was this what Cerise had crawled off to the Rapelec site to feel— her head buoyant above her body?
“Last night and the night before, twenty-four robbers came knocking at my door. Asked them what they wanted, this is what they said”—the words kept spilling out, against my volition, long after I couldn’t stand the sound of them. In the dark I was seeing pinwheels spinning through the elevator shaft, flashing strobes of light from my burned-out retinas. Future and past disappeared into an endless present, presence of rope, of muscles beyond fatigue, of hand over raw hand, and the unbearable sound of my own voice spewing out childhood chants.
The rope abruptly stopped moving. For a few seconds I kept tugging at it, frustrated at breaking my liquid crystal movements. Then I realized we were at the end of the line. If we couldn’t get out here, we were—well, at the end of our rope.
I sat down on the box. My knees were stiff from the long haul upward and gave me little protesting stabs at my abrupt bending, I leaned down and felt for the dumbwaiter door. It was cool to the touch. I turned around, climbed down the front of the box, and twisted around to sit against the bulk of the mattress.
The door was stiff but not locked, as I’d first feared. I leaned against the mattress and pushed as hard as I could with my wobbly legs. The door creaked. I drew my knees to my chest, ignoring their throbbing, and kicked hard. The door popped out of its frame.
I slid out and turned around for my aunt. Years of abusing her body had given it great resilience—she remained unconscious, but her shallow uncertain breaths still came snorting out.
I propped her against the wall and forced my tired legs down the hall. Now that we were above ground, faint light from the full moon and streetlamps gave a pale glow to the walls, enough that I could walk without feeling my way. In the distance I could hear the deep excited honking of fire engines. All I had to do was find a window where they could see me.
“Love will find a way,” I sang softly to myself. “Night or day, love will find a way.” I was skating, moving so smoothly I was almost floating. My cousin Boom-Boom and I were on the forbidden frozen lagoon, circling round and round until we slid dizzily onto the ice. We weren’t supposed to be there, no one knew how thick the ice was, if it gave way, we’d drown for sure because no one would rescue us. The first one to give up was a chicken and I wasn’t going to be a chicken to my cousin. He was a better skater than me but he wasn’t tougher.
He was near roe someplace, I knew that, but I couldn’t quite find him. On and on I skated, calling his name, opening every door but not seeing him. I got to a window and stared through it at a metal platform. I thought Boom-Boom was behind me, but when I turned he was gone. When I looked back at the window all I found was my own reflection. Beyond the glass lay a fire escape.
I struggled with the window but it was painted shut, I looked around the room for a tool, but it was completely bare. I lifted my trembling right leg and kicked as hard as I could. The ancient glass shivered and cracked, I kicked again and the whole bottom pane gave way.
I looked down. Below me the building was burning steadily and fire was licking upward. We’d come up three stories and we’d better get back down them fast. The fire escape was at the back. Whatever firepower belonged to the distant engines was around the other side of the building.
I lurched back down the miles of corridors I’d traveled until I came to Elena, still snorting away under the dumbwaiter. I pulled her pallet from the box and got her settled on it again. At some point my body must surely give out, no longer respond to the senseless commands of an imperial brain. I flogged myself onward, a good warhorse, old and near collapse but responding to one last call to arms.
Back at the fire escape I wrapped my sweatshirt around my right arm and knocked out the remaining shards. Then I slid Elena to the floor, moved her pallet to the fire escape, and lifted her again, my hamstrings and back shrieking in dismay, and laid her out on the mattress.