Wave, p.14
Wave, page 14
“I won’t forget your mother and brother. If they come here, I’ll make sure you know. One way or another.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As our SUV rumbled down the road, it stopped every time we passed someone who looked as though they might be a foreigner. The man and woman—he was Ryan and she was Lulu—would ask if the person knew the little girl. Not knowing her real name, they called her “Blondie.” I’d then take the opportunity to show the same people the photo of my family.
Most often, the people we met would ask us about somebody they were searching for, or show us a picture. Once, both Ryan and Lulu thought they recognized a woman in a photo and they sent her husband back in the direction we’d come. They didn’t want to get his hopes up for no reason, but they thought the woman in the photo—his wife—might be the one we’d seen sitting on the steps of the temple when we were leaving. Hope was all any of us had.
When we weren’t looking out the windows I couldn’t help but glance at the little girl snuggled into Lulu’s arms. Lulu sang her lullabies and rocked her, and Ryan played peek-a-boo games. The little girl didn’t seem to have words, but it wasn’t that she was in shock or traumatized. She just didn’t understand English. I was positive of that.
I was equally positive that she was fortunate that these were the people she’d been entrusted to. She wasn’t their child, but they were going to protect her and comfort her as though she were. She was so lucky to have them. Maybe “lucky” wasn’t the right word, though. Nothing here, nobody here would think this was lucky. But at least, through all of this, she had somebody.
“How old are you, Beth?” Lulu asked.
“Eighteen. I’m in first-year university. That’s why I couldn’t be down here with my family.”
I explained to them about my family’s holiday tradition, about my swim meet and why I’d decided to stay back in New York. I didn’t say anything about my father, but I’d seen Seth pull them aside to speak to them before we left, and I was pretty sure he’d told them. I had a feeling that he’d also asked if they could keep an eye on me. I didn’t mind that, either. Funny how, not so long ago, I’d wanted so badly to prove to my parents how independent I could be, and now here I was latching on to anyone who could offer me the least bit of help and support.
“We were wondering,” Ryan said, “if you’d mind staying with us. That way, we could all search together. We’ll try to find the family of the baby, and you can try to find your family. It might go better if we all work together as a team.”
“It would really help us,” Lulu said, “to have another set of hands. I don’t know very much about children.”
“I don’t think you really need my help,” I told them, “but I’d sure appreciate it if I could stay with you.”
“Then we have a plan. Thanks for helping us find Blondie’s family.”
The SUV came to a stop in front of a small brown building made of wood.
“This is the hospital,” the driver announced.
“Doesn’t look like much,” Ryan said.
I had to agree. It looked more like a small, cheap motel than a hospital, except that all along the path leading up to it were people sitting on chairs, slumped on the ground, or lying on makeshift beds. They had casts, or bandages on their heads, or IV lines dripping into them. The hospital must have been so full that patients had spilled out onto the path.
“I have to go and pick up some other people,” the driver said. “I’ll be back here within an hour to get you and take you on to the evacuation center. I’ll meet you right here.”
“Good. Thanks for the drive,” Ryan said.
I hopped out of the vehicle, and Lulu struggled to climb out with the little girl in her arms.
“Would you like me to take her?” I asked.
“Thanks.” She offered the girl to me, but Blondie spun around and clung tightly to Lulu, protesting, refusing to leave her arms.
Ryan had climbed out now, and he took Lulu’s hand and pulled them both out together.
“She doesn’t even want me to hold her,” he said.
“She just wants to be in my arms,” Lulu said. “I guess that’s a good thing. I understand what Seth said about being careful, but she’s not going to let anybody take her that she doesn’t know.”
We started up the path. There was no need to talk to the first people we passed because they were all Thais. Not my family, and obviously not little Blondie’s, either. We stopped at a counter just inside the main door. Behind it was a Thai woman in a white uniform—a nurse, I hoped.
“Can I be of assistance?” she asked.
“We’re looking for some people,” Ryan explained.
“We have lists, but they are very incomplete,” she replied.
“Even if they were complete it wouldn’t help. We don’t know the name of this little girl. We’re looking for her family. Has anybody reported a missing child?”
“Many people are missing children, but our list includes only the people who are here, and, as I said, it’s not very up-to-date. The best thing you can do is simply walk through the wards and ask. I wish we were more organized, but we’re all doing our best simply to cope with the scope of the tragedy.”
“We understand,” Ryan said. “Where should we start?”
“Start with the wards. There are three of them. The cafeteria has been converted to a fourth. Out back, under a large tarp, we have a fifth area. And, of course, look in the corridors as you pass and check out the smaller rooms. I think we have a few patients in the laundry room right now.”
“Thank you,” Lulu said. “We’ll start looking.”
“Ready or not, here we come,” Ryan added.
The nurse looked confused.
“Hide-and-seek…that’s what you say.”
She looked even more confused, but she nodded her head politely.
We started down the first corridor. Right away we saw people sitting on the floor. They didn’t look injured—no bandages or IVs or casts—but they did look exhausted. Maybe they were waiting for somebody who was getting treated or had been admitted.
Lulu would try to get the attention of a few people at once and then ask about little Blondie. If people spoke English they would answer, while others just shook their heads. Some people didn’t say anything—either they didn’t speak English or they didn’t understand it—but obviously they would have reacted if Blondie had been their relative or a child they at least knew.
I followed behind. For me it was easier. I knew who I was looking for, and neither of those people was there.
We entered a ward. This was more like what I had expected to find: rows of beds with bright white sheets and a shiny linoleum floor. A nurse in a clean, starched uniform was moving among the patients, and another woman in scrubs was pushing a man in a wheelchair. All the beds were filled, and I could see that almost all of the patients were foreigners.
Lulu walked up to the first bed. “Hello, do you know this little girl?”
The woman looked up. “No…no…don’t know…” she said in broken, accented English.
“What language do you speak?” Ryan asked.
“Croatian.”
“Could you speak to her in Croatian?” Lulu asked. She came closer and turned Blondie to face the woman.
The woman said something, a few sentences, and we waited for a reaction or response. Nothing.
“Sorry,” the woman said. “Not Croatian…maybe Swede.”
“We’ve tried that. She’s not Swedish.”
“Poor little baby,” the woman said sadly. “So many lost…so many.” She looked as though she was going to burst into tears.
“Thanks for trying,” Lulu said.
We continued down one row and came back along the other. I followed behind, showing my family photo. Some people just shook their heads. Others asked questions or even reached out and took my hand, offering sympathy or encouragement to keep going, to not give up hope.
That was the hardest. I was starting to lose hope. My father was gone—I still had trouble believing that was real—and my mother and brother were lost. If they were alive, why hadn’t they called somebody, why weren’t they on a list, why hadn’t we connected, why didn’t anybody even recognize them? I had to keep looking, but what I really wanted to do was curl up in a little ball and go to sleep. Maybe that was what I needed. I could sleep and then get up in the morning, filled with more energy and hope, and start looking again.
“That’s strike one,” Ryan said as we exited the first ward.
The next corridor was filled with people, and the wall was lined with makeshift beds. Ryan and Lulu kept asking questions and I kept showing my photo.
We stopped at a man with his eyes closed. He had one arm in a cast and a line dripping into his other arm from an IV bag on a pole. He was asleep—or unconscious.
“Should I wake him up?” Ryan asked Lulu.
“I think so. We can’t take a chance.”
“Excuse me,” Ryan said as he gently nudged the man. He didn’t move or open his eyes. Ryan looked up at Lulu.
“Give him a little shake,” she suggested.
Ryan pushed his shoulders and the man opened his eyes. He looked groggy, half asleep, or so heavily medicated that he wasn’t all there.
“Sorry,” Ryan said. “Do you know this girl?”
The man opened his eyes wide. He looked confused, frightened. He looked at Blondie and then at me.
“Do you know her? We’re looking for this little girl’s family?”
He muttered something in a language I didn’t understand and then turned to face the wall.
“I guess that’s a no,” Ryan said. “I hated doing that. Poor man looked to be in a lot of pain.”
“There was no choice,” Lulu replied. “We owe it to Blondie and her family.”
We walked into the second ward. It was almost identical to the first, orderly and organized, so different from the corridor—so different from what was outside the doors.
Ryan explained the situation to the first two patients, two women who would have been about the right age to be Blondie’s mother. One answered in English. The other just shook her head, her expression so sad that I felt like crying. I couldn’t help but wonder who she’d lost or who she was still looking for. I looked away from her. I didn’t want to imagine any body else’s tragedy.
“Hello,” Lulu said to the next woman. “I was wondering if you knew this—”
“Teti! Teti!” Blondie squealed. She was reaching over Lulu’s shoulder and scrambling, trying desperately to get out of her arms. “Teti!” She reached out again.
“Baiba!” a man cried from a bed on the other wall.
Lulu let the struggling Blondie down and the little girl ran right across the floor. We ran after her. She practically threw herself at the man, who wrapped his one good arm around her. His second arm and one leg were encased in plaster.
The man started crying and speaking, while Blondie buried her face in his chest and wrapped her arms around him tightly.
He looked up at us. “Ta ir mana meita…mana meita!”
“We don’t understand…we don’t know what you’re saying.”
“My daughter…this is my daughter…my Baiba…we thought she was…she was…” He started to cry again and hugged her even tighter.
“Mara! Nac! Nac! Mara!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. What was he saying? What was he doing?
A nurse came running over, and then a porter. A woman pushed past them and she threw her arms around Blondie and the man, and I knew—this was the mother! This was Blondie’s mother!
“I don’t think we have to check for identification,” Ryan said.
Lulu started to cry, and Ryan wrapped an arm around her. I started to cry as well, and they both hugged me. We all watched—the whole ward watched, dozens of people gathering around—while the three of them sobbed and hugged and talked in whatever language they were speaking.
The man looked up at last. He reached out and took Lulu’s hand and pulled her—pulled all of us—forward. The woman stood and hugged each of us.
“You have done…done…my English is no so…you have given back my life,” the woman, the mother, said, and she started sobbing again.
“She was in my wife’s arms when the wave overwhelmed her,” the man said. “She was lost…drowned…gone. How did this happen? How is she here?”
“She was brought to us by locals. We cleaned her up and started searching for her family. We didn’t even know her name.”
“Baiba, her name is Baiba. My mother’s name.”
“I heard her say that word, I think,” Lulu said. “We just couldn’t understand what she was saying.”
“What language are you speaking?” Ryan asked.
“Latvian…we are from Latvia.”
“Across the Baltic from Sweden. We thought she looked Swedish.”
“Her grandmother, my wife’s mother, is Swedish.”
Like my mother, I thought.
Blondie—Baiba, now—snuggled into her father’s chest.
“This is a miracle,” he said. “You have brought us a miracle! I do not know how we can ever repay you.”
“You already have,” Lulu said.
I knew what she meant. In this tragedy, in this unbelievable, unfathomable tragedy, with hundreds of thousands of people killed, many more injured, buildings destroyed, lives changed forever, this miracle that had taken place. And I was a little part of that miracle. Maybe that was all I could expect, and it would have to be enough. A second miracle was more than anybody could hope for.
“Beth.”
I looked at Ryan and Lulu.
“Beth.”
It wasn’t them. I stared across the aisle. My brother looked back at me and he smiled.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I stood on the beach holding my brother’s hand. He was so much steadier on his feet than he’d been only three days before, and to look at him you wouldn’t have known how close he’d come to dying. The doctors had told me that he was unconscious for almost a full day after he was brought in—a blow to the head—and even the following day he’d barely made sense when he spoke. It was only a few hours before I’d found him—before he’d found me—that he’d been able to give his name. There was still a nasty bump, the size of an egg, on the back of his head. He said he remembered getting hit by the second wave, being torn away from our father, and then something hitting his head. Nothing else. He didn’t even know how he got to the hospital. The last time he’d seen our mother, he said, she was in the lobby of the resort, helping. He had no idea what might have happened to her.
When I’d found him I’d cried more than I ever had before. I cried tears of joy at finding him, but also tears of sadness for my father, for my mother, for everything I’d seen or heard, for everybody who had lost a life or a loved one. But still maybe most of all for my brother. I’d found him.
The next three nights I slept in a chair beside his hospital bed. Ryan and Lulu offered to stay with me, keep me company, but I told them I was okay. I had someone now—I had Sam. I kept finding myself reaching out, just to touch him, even when he was asleep. I’d wake up in the middle of the night in that chair and just lean over so I could put a hand against his shoulder. I needed to know that he was there and breathing, by my side. I just needed the contact. I think he needed it, too.
It was hard to leave him, especially that first morning, but I knew I had to keep looking for my mother. That was how I spent the days. Searching. For that first day and the next I felt hope. She wasn’t on the lists of the dead, no picture on the boards, and she wasn’t under a tarp in any of the morgues. But she also wasn’t at the evacuation center, or at the camp, or at the hospital. She hadn’t called. And I knew. She hadn’t called because she couldn’t.
Slowly I had to recognize in my heart what I’d known for some time in my head. My mother was gone. She was one of the thousands who were missing but would never be found. She was buried in a collapsed building or under tons of sand and mud, and her body wouldn’t be uncovered for days or weeks or even longer. Or maybe she had been pulled back out to sea with the retreating water. I still held on to a little hope, a dream of another miracle, but, really, I knew.
In a strange way, I was grateful that I didn’t have to share with her what had happened to Dad. It would have broken her heart in two. Telling my brother about our father was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my whole life—harder even than finding him under that tarp. The next hardest thing was helping Sam to understand that my mother was gone, too. It was just the two of us now. All we had was each other.
The sun was just getting ready to sink into the sea as we stood on the beach. Surrounding us were a handful of tourists, other foreigners, as well as dozens and dozens of local people. Everybody there had lost somebody. Some had lost everybody.
“It’s beautiful here,” Sam said.
I was startled out of my thoughts. “Yes, it is.”
“Hard to believe…any of it.”
“It is.”
My brother hadn’t said much in the last few days. There was too much for him to understand, to accept. It was too much for me too.
Tomorrow morning we’d be flying home. My aunt and uncle would be waiting for us at the airport in New York. Tad would be there, too. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to Sam and me—where we would live, what we would do—but I knew we had a home with my aunt and uncle for as long as we wanted. We’d have to arrange a funeral service for my father and mother, sell the house, and maybe I’d have to take a semester off school to help my brother settle into their home and a new school and—there was no point in even trying to think it through. There’d be time, and I’d have help. Right now I just had to be here, with Sam.
I looked over at my brother as he stared out at the water. He looked as sad and solemn and serious as I felt…as the occasion deserved. I squeezed his hand tighter.
Moving among us on the beach, drifting as if they were orange sails pushed by the gentle wind, were the Buddhist monks. Their voices were soft and calm, chanting words that I didn’t understand. All around us there were candles set into little holes dug in the sand. They provided puddles of light that slowly spilled over and onto the beach, and as the sun began to set, its rays were replaced by their warm light.
