Даниэла Стил - Neighbors

“We’ll go inside soon to get her,” Tyla said, holding Daphne close to her, “and the house isn’t going to burn down. Daddy’s going to turn off the gas.”

“Daddy needs a wrench and he can’t find one,” she continued to cry, as Tyla held her, and she saw Andrew walk to the house next door, and bang hard on the door. No one answered. They were either out or injured, or too frightened to open the door. Andrew continued pounding, and Will came to stand next to his mother. She could feel his whole body shaking as he huddled next to her, as Andrew went on banging his fist on the door. He wasn’t going to leave until someone answered, so he could borrow a wrench.

—

Peter Stern was hunched over his old manual typewriter, typing as he did every night in his small bedroom in the attic. He worked in the advertising department of a local magazine by day, and had worked for Arthur Harriman at night for the past year. Peter considered it an honor to work for him, and the night job he had with him had saved his life. He made a very small salary at the magazine and lived on the commissions he made from selling advertising. Both amounts combined weren’t enough to allow him to pay rent for even a studio apartment in a decent neighborhood, and he didn’t want to live with half a dozen strangers as roommates anymore, particularly since he wanted to write at night. He’d been working on a novel for the past two years. At thirty-two, he didn’t have a job he loved, but writing was his passion, and completing a novel and getting it published was his dream. He hoped to be a successful writer one day.

He’d been living in a seedy apartment in the Haight-Ashbury with five roommates he’d found on Craigslist, and with all the comings and goings of his roommates, it had been almost impossible to write.

He’d found the job working for Arthur Harriman in the Chronicle. He needed someone to sleep in his home at night, and provide occasional assistance. His housekeeper of many years, Frieda, stayed until eight P.M., and cooked him dinner. She arrived at seven in the morning. A man came to assist him on weekends. He needed someone to sleep in his home seven days a week, in exchange for a small salary and a bedroom. He was a world famous concert pianist, and had been blind since a car accident when he was eighteen. He was eighty-two years old and managed very well on his own. He just needed to know that there was someone in the house, but he was very independent and extremely self-sufficient. Peter had expected to meet a frail old man when he came to interview for the job, and was astounded to find him walking all over the house, managing the stairs with ease, with more energy than people half his age.

Peter was nothing more than a presence in case of an emergency of some kind, but there had never been one. They had long philosophical discussions, and often Arthur practiced at night. He was interested in the subject of Peter’s novel, and he was vital and alive, well informed, and had someone to drive him when he needed to go out, who also traveled with him when he had a concert scheduled in another city. When he traveled, Peter had time off, but he rarely went out at night. He was intent on finishing his novel.

When the earthquake hit, Peter stopped typing for a minute while he wondered what was happening. The moment he realized it was an earthquake, he lurched toward the stairs across the floor that felt like it was rippling beneath his feet, and shouted as loud as he could.

“I’m coming, Mr. Harriman! I’m coming!” He slid down the stairs, reached the floor below within seconds, and found Arthur Harriman sitting underneath his grand piano, looking surprisingly calm. “I’m here, Mr. Harriman, I’m here. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. It’s a big one, get under here with me!” He’d been playing when it happened. “Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m fine,” Peter told him.

“Do you have shoes on? There will be broken glass everywhere.” The sound of the earthquake tearing the earth beneath them was awful, and unconsciously, Peter held tightly to his arm. He’d never been in an earthquake before. He had come to San Francisco from the Midwest two years before. He was a good-looking young man with dark hair and brown eyes and had a boyish quality to him and a gentle manner. He had grown very fond of the older man he worked for every night. He reminded Peter of his own grandfather, who was a dignified old gentleman, a lawyer in the small town where they lived. Peter had gone to college at Northwestern, and had dreamed of moving to San Francisco for years. Growing up, his family life had been wholesome. His father ran the local newspaper and his mother was a teacher, but their small town was lackluster and dull. His brother and sister had moved to Chicago after college and Peter had dreamed of coming West.

“I have shoes on,” Peter reassured him. “Where I come from, we have tornadoes. That’s even worse. They just pick up houses and they fly away.”

“It’ll be over in a minute, son. Don’t be afraid,” Arthur said in a kind voice, listening and waiting for it to pass. “Is the power still on?”

“No, it’s dark, in the house and outside.”

“It’s a big one,” Arthur confirmed. They could hear something heavy fall in the house, and the Victorian wooden structure was groaning, but it had survived the quake of ’06, so Arthur wasn’t worried. “You have to be careful of falling objects afterward, and broken glass. The aftershocks will shake loose whatever this one didn’t. Do you know how to turn off the gas?”

“I’m not sure. What do I do?” Peter asked him, as the earth and the house stopped shaking and the noise receded, like a wounded beast going back into its lair underground.

“The valve is on the side of the house. You need a crescent wrench. We have one in the tool closet. Let’s go outside first, and see what’s happening there. Someone will be able to show you how to do it.” This was precisely why he hired a person like Peter. His last night man had worked for him for four years, and had gotten married shortly before he hired Peter. It was for times like this that he needed someone with him, and occasionally to help him get to bed, if he was exhausted after a concert. But most of the time, he preferred to manage on his own, as long as he knew Peter was upstairs. He used an intercom to call him. He wasn’t a demanding employer and Peter loved working for him, and living in the handsome old house. Moving there had been a godsend for him, and in some ways reminded him of his boyhood home in Illinois. He still missed it at times. He rarely went home now. He didn’t want to leave Arthur alone. After a year of working for him, he felt responsible for him. “Let’s go outside,” Arthur suggested to Peter. “Be very careful if there are live wires down. Don’t step on them!” he warned him, and Peter helped him out from under the piano, led him carefully down the stairs and out the front door. When he opened it, there was a man standing at their front door and a woman with two young children standing in front of the house next door. Peter suddenly realized that the man had been pounding on their front door, and in the excitement, and the noise at the tail end of the earthquake, they hadn’t heard him.

“What took you so long?” Andrew almost shouted at Peter.

“We were busy,” Peter answered him, leading Mr. Harriman to a cluster of people standing outside his house and talking. He was gregarious and an extrovert, and Peter knew he would want to talk to them.

“We need a wrench to turn our gas off,” Andrew said, once he realized that the older man was blind, and bringing his tone down a notch.

“So do we,” Peter said. “I think we have one in a tool closet. I’ll go back inside and look in a minute. You can come with me. We need a crescent wrench and I’m not sure what that looks like. You can use ours if we find it.” Andrew followed him into the house a few minutes later, as Arthur chatted with their neighbors, and Tyla and the children walked over to him. He was telling them all about the quake of ’89.