In the Middle of the Night (5 page)

My sister
, I cried.
She’s trapped in there.

A voice at my ear:
Come on, boy, come on.

My sister. She might be dead.

I know, I know, but come on, the rest of the balcony could fall. Come on.

Outside, clear sky, faces, sirens screaming, slashes of red fire trucks, white ambulances, everyone running and stumbling, harsh colors bright, hurting my eyes, and I closed them and someone picked me up and rocked me and I smelled smoke and sweat and heard voices:

His sister’s dead.

I know.

No pulse, nothing.

Moaning, I opened my eyes, saw other eyes staring down at me, filled with pity. But I didn’t want their pity, I wanted my sister back. I didn’t want my sister to be dead. Even though I knew it was too late, even for prayers.

The weeping and the moaning, and what Aunt Mary called the “keening” from the Denehans upstairs, filled the house as if even the walls and ceilings were mourning the dead. Three of the Denehans gone—Eileen and Billy and Kevin—and Mickey in the hospital with a broken pelvis, contusions and abrasions.

Even with her own dead, Mrs. Denehan came down, lines fierce in her face, like gashes, bloodless and deep.

Aunt Mary and Mrs. Denehan wept together, clutching each other while I roamed the rooms, not knowing what to do, where to go, unable to sit or lie down, unable to eat or drink. On the prowl through the rooms, looking for something but not knowing what. I was afraid to close my eyes because I knew what would happen: I would see Lulu’s eyes, open and staring and seeing nothing.

The telephone rang, cutting through the moaning. Aunt Mary reached for it, her other arm still embracing Mrs. Denehan and Mrs. Denehan’s face like a bruise, all pain.

Aunt Mary listened, her face altering, joy suddenly leaping in her eyes, her mouth open in astonishment. Placing the phone against her thin chest, she announced:
She’s alive. Our Lulu’s alive … at the hospital … she’s not dead
 …

In the hospital room, everything white, walls and ceiling as well as the white cast that enclosed Lulu’s body like a suit of armor and the bandage around her head like a helmet. Her eyes, dark islands in all that whiteness, looked at us as if from some far distance.

Aunt Mary rushed to her side and I lingered near the doorway. Lulu lay stiff on the bed and did not, maybe could not, lift her arms to receive Aunt Mary.

You’re alive
, Aunt Mary crooned,
an answer to our prayers, a miracle.

It wasn’t a miracle
, Lulu said.

Back from the dead
, Aunt Mary said, shaking her head in wonder.

I was not dead
, Lulu said, voice sharp and bitter.

Well, whatever, you’re with us now, back with us
, Aunt Mary said.

I’m not back with you
, Lulu said, eyes snapping with anger.
I didn’t go anywhere. I’m here. I was always here.

I finally went to the bed and looked down at her. She closed her eyes and her face closed up, too, shutting us out.

Later, the doctor spoke to us in a small office at the end of the corridor. An old doctor, eyes bloodshot, hair askew, white jacket soiled, reeking of fire and smoke.

Poor you
, Aunt Mary murmured.
On the go, all this terrible day.

I had seen him moving among the injured outside the theater, stethoscope dangling, gnarled hands touching, soothing, passing across bruised flesh.

He sighed, weary, body sagging in the chair. Then:
Let me tell you about Lulu. A remarkable recovery.

A miracle
, Aunt Mary said.
An answer to our prayers.

Some things are hard to explain
, he said, stroking his gaunt face with those old hands.
I’m so tired, so tired. Anyway, we thought we had lost her but she rallied.

Did her heart stop?
I asked, hearing my voice as if someone else had spoken.

It’s been a long day
, he said, sighing again. Then, briskly:
Let me tell you about her injuries and the prognosis.

He spoke of the fractures and the concussion and the months of therapy and rehabilitation ahead.

He did not say that her heart had stopped.

But did not deny it, either.

Later, I said to Lulu:
Tell me what happened.

Nothing happened
, she said.

When the balcony came down
, I told her,
I ducked my head, then found myself on the floor, a seat on top of me. Then I began sneezing, stupid sneezes. What do you remember?

Nothing
, she said.

But her eyes said otherwise. Those snapping black eyes of hers looked away, and Lulu was never one to look away. Especially from me.

Didn’t you feel anything, Lulu?

No.

Don’t you remember anything?

You’re repeating yourself
, she said. Then:
I … don’t … remember … anything.
Spacing the words.
What more can I say?

Why are you so mad?

She did not answer, but her anger was like heat coming from a stove.

I knew what I wanted her to say. I wanted her to tell me what happened when her heart stopped beating, when
her blood stopped flowing, when the pulse in her temple became perfectly still.

What she saw, what she felt, what it was like to die.

She finally looked me straight in the eye.

I’m not Lazarus
, she said.

A long time later, I visited the rehabilitation unit and found her sitting in a chair, bandages removed from her head, wearing a flowered dress Aunt Mary had bought her, the white hospital gown in the closet, at last.

She was studying a folded newspaper in her lap when I came in. She looked up, her face revealing an expression I had never seen there before. My mind scurried to identify it. Anger still there, but more than that. Something calm and cold in her face and eyes, but also deadly.

He went free
, she said.

Who?

The boy who started the fire. Who started it all.

She brandished the newspaper, and I saw the picture of the boy, the headline:

USHER CLEARED IN TRAGIC CASE

The boy
, she said,
who
 …

She looked away from me, stared out the window, as if searching the outdoors for something no one else could see. I saw her lips move as she finished the sentence, her voice so low that I couldn’t hear the words. Then she turned back to me, a terrible look in her eyes.
The boy who killed me
, she said.

Admitting, at last, that she was Lazarus, after all.

T
his is what Denny’s father, John Paul Colbert, thought about in the middle of the night: how his life changed forever at the age of sixteen when he became assistant manager/head usher at the Globe Theater in downtown Wickburg, Massachusetts.

His job was not as glamorous as it sounded. The Globe was a faded relic of Hollywood’s golden years, when ornate theaters featured velvet curtains and crystal chandeliers, and snappy ushers in military uniforms guided people to their seats. Those were the days of double features (two movies for the price of one), twelve-chapter cowboy serials at Saturday matinees and Milk Duds for five cents a box. What a time that was!

At least, that’s the way Mr. Zarbor described those earlier times. Mr. Zarbor owned the Globe and he liked to
tell John Paul about the olden days before television came along and provided free movies at home.

Worst of all, he said, were the shopping centers which later on brought the “cinemas,” a word Mr. Zarbor detested. “Cinema One and Two,” he lamented. “Made of cinder blocks. No velvet curtain—no curtains at all.”

The Globe featured foreign movies that never made it to the shopping centers, and provided a place in downtown Wickburg for special programs like the annual Christmas show, when the
Nutcracker Suite
was presented for young and old alike, and appearances by old-time big bands. Mr. Zarbor loved variety acts—magicians, tap dancers, jugglers and acrobats. He was most proud of his annual “Monster Magic Show” each Halloween, a program for the city’s children, especially orphans and those in foster homes. Although the Wickburg Rotary Club was the official sponsor, John Paul’s father told him that Mr. Zarbor paid most of the acts out of his own pocket.

John Paul worked at the theater weekends and two or three nights a week, depending on business. He sold tickets at the box office, swept the floors, ran errands. Mr. Zarbor was a good boss. He sympathized with John Paul and his family. They had arrived from Canada a few years before to start a new life in the United States. Mr. Zarbor had been an immigrant whose family had fled Hungary a generation earlier, when he was sixteen years old, exactly John Paul’s age. “You remind me of myself,” Mr. Zarbor said.

In the United States, John Paul woke up every day with great expectations. His parents had been eager to
leave the small parish north of Montreal in the Province of Quebec. His father, a quick-talking impatient man, claimed that the French-speaking people of Quebec were treated as second-class citizens by the Canadian government. He and John Paul’s mother spent their savings on their son’s education, sending him to a private school in Montreal where classes focused on the English language and U.S. culture and history. When he and his parents moved south, John Paul was ready, although he had certain doubts. Language, for one thing. He spoke without a heavy accent but his English was stilted and formal, learned from books and not from conversation. At Wickburg Regional High School, he was glad to lose himself among hundreds of other students while he adjusted to his new life.

John Paul’s parents adjusted quickly to life in Wickburg. His father found a job immediately as a chef in a French restaurant downtown, and dreamed of the day when he would open his own place. His mother kept busy with the activities of St. Therese’s Church. She sold cards at the Friday night beano parties and visited the sick and the shut-ins.

The restaurant where John Paul’s father worked was next to the Globe Theater. He struck up an acquaintance with Mr. Zarbor—they both loved foreign movies, especially French and Italian films—and this led to John Paul’s employment at the theater.

Life, John Paul reflected, was good. As far as language was concerned, he would have to learn contractions. That was his biggest difficulty. Mr. Burns, his English teacher,
said: “Your vocabulary is excellent but you have to learn to say
don’t
or
aren’t
or
doesn’t.
Instead of
do not, are not
or
does not.”

“I will try,” John Paul said. In his mind he used contractions, but when he spoke, they disappeared.

“No—
I’ll try
,” the teacher said, kind but firm. “That’s the only way you’ll sound like a real U.S. teenager.”

“Okay,” John Paul said.
Okay
—a safe American word that always came in handy.

Preparations for the magic show began early that year, featuring “Martini the Magnificent,” a magician who often appeared on children’s television programs. His performance included sawing a woman not only in half, but in five separate pieces, sudden disappearances and strange rituals featuring ghosts and goblins. His act also called for special constructions backstage, where John Paul learned to his disappointment that there was no magic at all in Martini’s act. All of it was mechanical, not mystical. It was like learning that there was no Santa Claus—a wonderful moment of discovery followed by the bleak lonesome truth. Martini himself, when he showed up, turned out to be a fussy, demanding man whose real name was unromantic and ordinary: Oscar Jones.

Preparing for the big day, John Paul vacuumed the faded carpet in the aisles, tried to scrape away the remains of chewing gum from the cement floor under the seats, did his best to repair seats that did not fold down properly. Mr. Zarbor paid him time and a half for overtime and treated
him to sundaes and ice cream sodas after the work was done for the day.

“What about the balcony?” John Paul asked. He had heard that the balcony, closed for many years, might be reopened for Martini because a bigger audience than usual was expected.

They both looked up at the cluttered, forbidding balcony, long used as a place for storage.

Mr. Zarbor sighed hugely. “Forget it, the balcony,” he said. “It would take an army to move all that stuff. We’ll arrange for an extra performance if it becomes necessary …”

“Okay,” John Paul replied cheerfully. He avoided the balcony if possible. When he was sent there, he often heard rats scurrying among the debris and strange crackling sounds. He always looked around nervously, expecting … he did not know what he expected. We should clean the balcony up, he thought. But he never said anything to Mr. Zarbor. Too big a job, removing all that junk.

John Paul awakened early the day of the magic show, glad that Halloween this year fell on a Saturday because that added to the drama of the event. He looked forward to seeing the show through the innocent eyes of the children, hoping this would bring back some of the magic that had disappeared when he’d seen the backstage facts.