They gave her medicines. The medicines stopped the dreams, the siren screams, the running steps in the night past her apartment. They let her sleep in the ghostly bed, high above ruin, with the flames crackling and the voices screaming. She did not speak of these’ things. Years in hospitals had taught her. She complained only of nightmares, and restlessness, and they let her have more of the red pills.
WAR, the headline blazoned.
The cup rattled and trembled against the sauce; as she picked it up. She swallowed the last bit of bread and washed it down with coffee, tried not to look beyond the broken front window, where twisted metal hulks smoked on the street. She stayed, as she did each day, and Sam grudgingly refilled her cup, that she would nurse as far as she could and then order another one. She lifted it, savoring the feel of it, stopping the trembling of her hands.
The bell jingled faintly. A man closed the door, settled at the counter.
Whole, clear in her eyes. She stared at him, startled, heart pounding. He ordered coffee, moved to buy a paper from the vender, settled again and let the coffee grow cold while he read the news. She had view only of his back while he read–scuffed brown leather coat, brown hair a little over his collar. At last he drank the cooled coffee all at one draught, shoved money onto the counter and left the paper lying, headlines turned face down.
A young face, flesh and bone among the ghosts. He ignored them all and went for the door.
Alis thrust herself from her booth.
“Hey!” Sam called at her.
She rummaged in her purse as the bell jingled, flung a bill onto the counter, heedless that it was a five. Fear was coppery in her mouth; he was gone. She fled the cafe, edged round debris without thinking of it, saw his back disappearing among the ghosts.
She ran, shouldering them, braving the flames–cried out as debris showered painlessly on her, and kept running.
Ghosts turned and stared, shocked–he did likewise, and she ran to him, stunned to see the same shock on his face, regarding her.
“What is it?” he asked.
She blinked, dazed to realize he saw her no differently than the others. She could not answer. In irritation he started walking again, and she followed. Tears slid down her face, her breath hard in her throat, People stared. He noticed her presence and walked the faster, through debris, through fires. A wall began to fall and she cried out despite herself.
He jerked about. The dust and the soot rose up as a cloud behind him. His face was distraught and angry. He stared at her as the others did. Mothers drew children away from the scene. A band of youths stared, cold-eyed and laughing.
“Wait,” she said. He opened his mouth as if he would curse her; she flinched, and the tears were cold in the heatless wind of the fires. His face twisted in an embarrassed pity. He thrust a: hand into his pocket and began to pull out money, hastily, tried to give it to her. She shook her head furiously, trying to stop the tears–stared upward, flinching, as another building fell into flames.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Please,” she said. He looked about at the staring ghosts, then began to walk slowly. She walked with him, nerving herself not to cry out at the ruin, the pale moving figures that wandered through burned shells of buildings, the twisted corpses in the street, where traffic moved.
“What’s your name?” he asked. She told him. He gazed at her from time to time as they walked, a frown creasing his brow. He had a face well-worn for youth, a tiny scar beside the mouth. He looked older than she. She felt uncomfortable in the way his eyes traveled over her: she decided to accept it–to bear with anything that gave her this one solid presence. Against every inclination she reached her hand into the bend of his arm, tightened her fingers on the worn leather. He accepted it.
And after a time he slid his arm behind her and about her waist, and they walked like lovers.