“Yeah, do that!” someone behind them shouted.
Giuliana had to smile.
Without another word, they reached for each other’s hand, squeezed through the crowd, and crossed through the ferry building back to Market Street.
* * *
“So, where to now?” Kate asked when they left the ferry building behind. She felt as if she could finally breathe again—not just because she was no longer trapped in the crowd but because Giuliana had agreed to stay.
“To the park?” Giuliana answered, making it sound more like a question than an answer.
Kate tilted her head. “We could do that. Or…would you mind some exploring? I’ve got three unexposed glass plates left, and I’d like to use them before this”—she swept her arm in a wide circle, indicating the ruins and the smoke hanging over the rubble—“is over.”
“Can we go to Italy Harbor? I like to check on the boat of my brother.”
“You still have it?”
“I wanted to sell it and send the money to my family, but…” Giuliana stared down the street, toward the horizon, and let out a long sigh. “I cannot.”
Kate put her hand on Giuliana’s arm and rubbed softly. “I understand. I still have Corny’s bicycle.” Her hand froze on Giuliana’s arm. She squeezed her eyes shut, but that didn’t help to keep out the pain. “Or rather, I had it. It was in the former stable, where we kept the automobile. By now, I guess it’s just a pile of melted metal.”
“Oh, Kate. I am very sorry.” Giuliana put her hand on top of Kate’s, which still rested on her arm.
They stood like that for a minute, their fingers tangled, just looking at each other.
The blackened bricks and the splintered poles all around Kate seemed to vanish. Instead of the dirty gray color of the sky, the only thing she saw was the warm brown of Giuliana’s eyes.
Then a trunk, mounted on roller skates, rattled over the cable car tracks and made her aware of what was going on around them. She looked up and patted Giuliana’s arm one more time before letting go. “Come on. Let’s go take a look at your brother’s boat.”
* * *
The smoke became denser with every step along the avenue cutting diagonally through the other streets. Giuliana couldn
’t tell where it was coming from; it seemed to be everywhere. Were they walking right into another inferno? At the next street corner, she paused, rubbed her burning eyes, and looked back at Kate. “Do you want to go back?”
Kate peered north toward Italy Harbor and hesitated. “No,” she finally said. “Let’s keep moving.”
“Are you sure?” Giuliana didn’t want Kate to risk her life for a stupid boat. As much as that vessel might mean to her, Kate meant more. It was a truth that she could acknowledge to herself, even though she didn’t yet dare voice it to Kate.
“I’m sure.”
They continued up the avenue that ran through Washington Square. The park where she and Kate had spent the nicest afternoon Giuliana could remember was now filled with hundreds of refugees. Tents had been set up, covering every available inch of grass. Most flaps were pushed back, revealing empty tents. Had the refugees moved on once morning came, looking for a safer place to stay?
People rushed past them, but they weren’t heading for Washington Square. They hurried past the tents and continued toward the northern waterfront, where hundreds of fishing vessels were bobbing on the waves, probably transporting refugees.
At the next intersection, just a few steps down the side street, lay the trattoria where they had eaten bucatini con le sarde less than two weeks ago. Luigi was rolling a barrel of wine out onto the street.
It seemed he had survived the earthquake without injury. Even the house looked intact. Giuliana smiled.
“What’s he doing?” Kate whispered and looked around. “Doesn’t he know that the mayor banned the sale of alcohol? It was in the proclamation we saw the day before yesterday. If the soldiers catch him, he’ll have the wine poured out—or worse!”
Giuliana didn’t want an overeager young soldier to shoot her friend, so she hurried toward Luigi and told him what Kate had just said.
He pulled the stopper out of the barrel and straightened. “Sell it?” he repeated in Sicilian and laughed, a sound bare of any humor. “I wish. No. I’m using it to put out the—”
“Hey, you!” a harsh voice yelled.
Giuliana and Luigi whirled around.
Two soldiers marched toward them, holding rifles with mounted bayonets. “Give me that!”
For a moment, Giuliana thought they were talking about the wine barrel, but the older soldier pointed at something else.
When Giuliana turned her head, she froze.
The soldier was talking to Kate, who had pulled out her camera, probably to take a photograph of Washington Square or of Luigi rolling the wine barrel out of his house. “We’re under strict orders not to allow reporters with cameras in the city.”
“Reporters?” Kate giggled, sounding like the silly rich girls that had sometimes come to the harbor to buy crabs. “Oh, no, Colonel, we’re just two women. Whoever heard of female reporters?”
Maybe this routine had worked for Kate before, but not this time. The soldiers gave her blank stares. “It’s Corporal, not Colonel, and I don’t care who you are. You’re taking photographs, and I can’t allow that. Give me the camera.”
Kate raised her chin and hid the camera behind her back.
“Give—me—the—camera!” Each word sounded like a clap of thunder. The two soldiers leveled their rifles at Kate.
Every muscle in Giuliana’s body went rigid. Cold sweat broke out along her back. “Kate…”
One soldier cocked his rifle. The sound echoed down the street, almost sounding like a shot already. His eyes, slightly narrowed, held no mercy.
No, no, no. Not again.
Giuliana clenched her good hand into a fist. This time, she didn’t have a weapon to defend Kate. The revolver was in the carrying case, which sat on the ground next to Kate. If she tried to take the weapon out, she’d be shot. “Please,” she said to the soldiers and extended a hand in their direction, as if that would stop the bullets. “She did not mean no harm. We can talk about this, no?”
“Nothing to talk about.” The soldier gave his rifle a little jerk, making Giuliana fear that it might go off by accident. “Destroy the photographs—now.”
“Diu miu!” Luigi paled. With a shaking hand, he dipped a ladle into the wine barrel, completely ignoring the soldiers and what they might do if they saw him hand out alcohol. “Focu! Fire!”
“What are you talking about, mister?” one of the soldiers asked. “What fire?”
“Are you blind?” Luigi pointed at something in the distance, behind the soldiers.
Giuliana followed his gaze. A sharp gasp escaped her.
Flames tore up the avenue, consuming one wood-frame house after the other in rapid succession. Cigar stores, Italian delicatessens, trattorias, pastry shops, and corner groceries went up in smoke before Giuliana’s eyes.
The fire rushed toward them even though the wind was blowing in the opposite direction. The hot air seemed to create its own draft, like a cyclone that preceded the flames. It sucked up roof shingles, tore loose pieces of metal, and whirled them upward.
“It’s a firestorm!” one of the soldiers shouted. “God help us all!” He swung his rifle over his shoulder and raced down the street toward the piers. The other soldier threw one last glance at Kate before cursing and following him.
“Run,” Giuliana shouted at Luigi over the roaring of the approaching fire.
“No! The trattoria is all I have,” he said in Sicilian. “It’s set back from the avenue a little, so I might be able to save it.”
That was madness.
“You don’t have water!”
“I have wine,” he yelled back and ladled out wine onto towels, drenching them.
Giuliana shook her head at him. “If it contains too much alcohol, it will feed the fire, not put it out,” she said in Sicilian.
He winked at her. “Don’t worry about that. The wine’s very light. I have to make a living, after all.”
So he was cutting the wine with water. Not that Giuliana cared at the moment. She peered down the street.
The fireball tore across Washington Square, igniting bushes, trees, and the wooden bench where Kate had taken the photograph of the two old women. The white tents went up in flames, ignited by the searing heat long before the fire ever touched them.
A horrible smell drifted over, coating the inside of Giuliana’s nose. She recognized it instantly. No one who’d ever smelled that odor would ever forget it.
Oh Madonna, no!
It was the sickeningly sweet stench of human flesh burning. Her stomach threatened to toss up what little food she’d had this morning.
Kate had smelled it too, judging by the greenish tint of her face. “Let’s go!”
Giuliana’s gaze darted toward Luigi. He wouldn’t leave; she knew that. He would either save his little restaurant or die trying.
“Can we stay and help him?” Alone, he didn’t stand a chance.
Kate stared at her. Then a weak smile curved up her lips.
“You’re something else, you know that?”
Not sure what that meant, Giuliana just shrugged. “Two other houses are between the trattoria and the street. We can save it, Kate.”
“The sparks will ignite the building when the firestorm tears by,” Kate shouted. “We don’t have water to put them out.”
“We have wine,” Giuliana and Luigi answered in unison.
“Sicilians,” Kate muttered, but grabbed one of the wine-soaked towels. “All right, all right. Let’s help him.”
Giuliana took one of the towels too, readying herself.
Most of the street was deserted, but two neighbors and their families prepared to fight for their homes too.
They didn’t have to wait long.
Even though dark smoke blocked out the sun, the temperature rose and the glare of the flames lit up the street. The approaching firestorm tossed hot embers high up into the air. A hail of sparks rained down, like a swarm of fireflies. For a moment, it looked almost beautiful.
Then the glowing pieces of ash landed on Giuliana’s unprotected left hand and face. It stung. She cried out and quickly shook off the cinders.
A few sparks landed on the bellows of Kate’s camera, leaving tiny holes in the leather. Cursing, Kate closed the camera and shoved it into its case before carrying it a few steps down the side street, where the fire wouldn’t be able to reach it—at least Giuliana hoped so.
The air began to vibrate and flicker with the heat as the fireball rolled toward them.
Giuliana held her breath, afraid her lungs would be scorched if she sucked in even a little air. She covered her face with her arms to protect it from flying embers. Heat shot toward them as if someone had opened an oven door. It scorched her skin, even through her clothes.
Oh Madonna and all the saints!
They’d be charred alive!
Then the fireball shot past them, engulfing the building closest to the avenue. Dry wood cracked under the heat. The flames immediately threatened to ignite the next house too.
Sparks danced along its roof and rained down on the trattoria.
“The roof!” Kate shouted. “We need to get up there.”
Luigi ran to the back of his house. A minute later, the sounds of him scrambling up the roof drifted down. Two wooden shingles slithered down the roof and crashed to the street below.
“Accura!
Careful!” Giuliana grabbed Kate’s arm and pulled her back.
Sicilian curses, more colorful than even the ones Turi had used, drifted down to them. “Throw me the towels! Quick!”
Giuliana pulled her arm back and hurled the towel up as hard as she could.
Crouching at the edge of the roof, Luigi caught it and lashed out with it at the flames licking at the shingles.
“Giuliana! Help!” Kate furiously beat at sparks threatening to ignite the wooden front steps.
Giuliana ran over and slapped at the embers with her towel. But as soon as she’d put out one flame, another sprang to life somewhere else. It seemed like a never-ending battle. She rushed around the house again and again, trying to be everywhere at once, until her head started spinning and the ache in her ankle returned.
Paint blistered on the walls, sticking the towel to the wood. She tore it free and continued to lash out at a burning windowsill.
The towel ignited.
She dropped it just before it could burn her already bandaged hand and stomped on the burning rag. When it was out, she rushed around the house, dipped a new towel into the wine barrel, and ran back.
Steam hissed as she beat at the flames with the wine-drenched towel. The alcohol vapors made her woozy. Her face burned from the heat, and her lungs stung, but at least the bandage around her hand protected her fingers from the searing heat a little. The thick smoke made every breath painful. The shirtwaist clung to her torso in a sweat-soaked, soot-stained mess. The muscles in her arm hurt, so she switched the towel to her other hand and continued lashing out at the sparks.
She lost track of how many flames she’d put out and of how often she’d soaked her towel in wine or thrown a new towel up to Luigi. Her movements became mechanical, as if her body was moving without her control. A roaring started in her ears, but she couldn’t tell if it was all in her head or coming from the fires tearing down the neighboring houses.
Every now and then, she caught a glimpse of Kate, who was fighting just as hard, sweat dampening her blonde hair and turning it a darker color. Somehow, the sight gave her the strength to continue.
* * *
Kate pulled her arm back and furiously beat at the glowing embers that blew over from the burning houses next door. A few drops of hot wine splashed onto her hand.
“Ouch! Dang.” She shook her fingers for a moment before continuing to swing the towel.
Papery pieces of ash and showers of cinders, some as big as dollar coins, swirled around her. She flinched every time one of them landed on her, but there was no time to do more than shake them off.
Above her, Luigi kicked burning shingles off the roof, adding to the sparks that she had to put out.
The acrid smell of melting paint and charred human flesh stabbed at her nose, making her gag. She would have breathed through her mouth, but her throat was raw from the smoke already. Even swallowing hurt. The hot air made her eyes swell shut until she was squinting at the sparks through mere slits.