Esi Edugyan - The Second Life of Samuel Tyne

Samuel went after his daughters. He searched all of Aster: Nothing. He returned home only when his stomach began to nag him.

Maud was in the kitchen, fixing the evening meal. She smiled when she saw him. “Am I ever glad to see another face. Poor Ama’s just tuckered — we went all around town today.”

Samuel frowned. “Why didn’t you take the twins?”

Maud looked at him. “Where are those two, anyway? They usually stay indoors after six. And why aren’t you in your study? Has everyone given up their habits around here?”

Samuel felt nervous at the prospect of explaining what he’d seen that afternoon; Maud would surely buckle under the news. She sensed his apprehension.

“What’s wrong, Samuel? Tell me.”

Sitting at the table, Samuel gave her the details, watching her worn face. She closed her eyes, gripping the back of a chair. When she spoke, she said the one thing he didn’t expect.

“Leave them be. Let their anger run its course — they’ll come back.” Maud let out a breath, fidgeting. “I know them. For all of their hyperactivity and their fighting, I know them. They’re scared, they’re frightened, we’ve left them alone too long. We’ve been irresponsible. God, I wish we had just said something when this all began, this silence.”

Samuel felt the intended guilt at her words. He knew he was responsible in all ways, for having hit Yvette, for being an indifferent father. During the meal he couldn’t meet anyone’s eye. Afterwards, he retired to his study, so fatigued he fell asleep.

He was shocked awake by the sound of a shot. An awful musk pervaded the dark. Fully clothed, still clouded by sleep, he gripped the familiar leather of his armrests. He realized he was sitting in the dark like a dead man awaiting discovery, limp in his study chair, his head slack. He fumbled through rags and wires to the lights. Everything was in order, and his watch read ten-thirty. But the smell. It made every breath like an acrid spoon of medicine. Then he heard the cries, as though the light had made him sensitive to them, and he rushed to the window. A fire was raging across the field.

Shouting his wife’s name, he ran out the bay door in confusion. A few field rocks broke his pace, but he was never aware of tripping, so fixed was he on the mass of people who’d gathered there, and the bellowing sirens surprisingly near. He felt tears in his eyes, pricked by the smoke and wild detritus from the bulk of Porter’s burning house. Samuel thought first of his children, then of Porter’s children, and then with guilt of Porter himself. It sickened him to think he’d loathed that man, and a new sense of fellowship entered him at the sight of this tragedy.

The fire filled the sky with an unnatural light. The flames rose and sank, giving off brown smoke. Every few minutes, with a low, doleful sound, like something issuing from the ground, a flaming beam collapsed, raining hot ash on the crowd. Flakes of golden ash smouldered in the grass around them, vibrant as fireflies. Just as the flames were dying, they would flare again, illuminating people’s faces with a naked severity.

Samuel broke through the crowd, which cried out each time sparks shot high or a new child was dragged from the wreckage. Two firemen caught him by the arms and forced him back. The crowd, like a mound of moths, jostled Samuel aside to better see the fire. Ravaging flames ate at all sides of the house and the farthest wing had already scarred to ash. Samuel was shocked to see the very door he’d spent all summer knocking on torn free by a violent blast that roused screams from the crowd, who were beaten back by the firemen. A preternatural silence resounded between screams. The filthy smoke was choking, the showers of debris scattering people only to have them regroup in their morbidity to examine the burnt pieces.

Samuel ran, breathless, unsure of what he sought even while he screamed for people to move. The moon shone through gossamer smoke. The dark figures of firemen crossed back and forth past the flames. With great, voluble thunder the roof collapsed, spitting out a whip of fire.

Samuel wiped sweat from his eyes. Holding his breath, he watched them pull another child from the detritus, the poor thing screaming in fear. Samuel tried to get to the front of the crowd. But the harder he tried, the nearer he found himself to his own house. Yet when he resigned himself to the madness and propelled himself backwards, the crowd responded by forcing him forward, and baffled, he found himself just behind the line of firemen, a timid hand on his back.

It was Porter. For years Samuel would maintain he’d never seen so devastated a man. The top of his Panama hat was singed black, and his dreadful eyes were wet. He’d been restricted from going in after his family, and stood now with the impotence of a cripple, watching his life burn down.

“Tyne,” he said with more emotion than Samuel had ever believed that man could feel. “Tyne, this is a bad case. Oh, it’s a bad case. Oh, oh …”

Tears came to Samuel’s eyes, and he went to put his arms around his neighbour. But the man resisted, as though not even this tragedy could make him forget their differences. Samuel withdrew, feeling a little hurt, and side by side they stood watching that spectacular mansion burn down, tired, aware of their enmity, but drawing a kind of solace from each other’s company that they could not have found with any other man.

The fire lasted hours, until nothing was left to burn. Samuel stared at the embers. He watched the Porters reunite outside, amazed they’d all survived; there were considerably fewer children than he’d once thought. He took their survival not as sheer luck, or as human endurance, but as what it was: an act of God. Watching the children cower under police-issue blankets, nuzzling up to their parents, Samuel was filled with awe. He had witnessed a miracle. He felt disgusted for having thought ill of the Porters, and with a dry throat, with tears in his eyes, he waited for the police to finish with them so he could invite them into his house.

A hand touched his shoulder, and he turned to see Eudora, looking careworn, her face ancient with deep lines, her eyes rimmed red.

“Oh, God, Sam,” she said. “Oh, God. Who knew this could happen?”

The ache in her voice made Samuel feel guilty. “This … this is a bad case.”

She pressed his hand. “I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later.” And she walked off towards the Porters.

Now Ray had replaced the police and stood speaking with the Porters. The Franks seemed to receive the Porters like old friends. Samuel watched, then went home, where he found Maud waiting with a mug of coffee and some toogbei .

“Is everyone safe?” she said.

“Maud, a miracle has happened. Not one hair on one head was hurt. Can you believe it?” Maud looked like she’d lost weight overnight. Samuel worried.

“It’s God’s grace,” said Maud, sitting exhausted at the table. “The twins came home.”

“Oh,” said Samuel. Their disappearance seemed to have happened a lifetime ago. “Where were they?”

“They won’t say.” Samuel noticed Maud’s hands trembling. “But they’re home now. That’s what matters.”

Samuel stirred his coffee with a forefinger. He sipped the drink, ruminating over the taste that recalled the ashy roots his family used to pry from their fields, which even boiled tasted of soil. He tried to collect his thoughts, but was too aware of his present wariness. A new, unwanted thought had come him, and he sat in silence. Maud stared at him, and this, too, weighed on him. He left without dismissing himself, to stand with a kind of dark hopelessness before his daughters’ unopened door. All was quiet, and raising his fist to knock he let it fall. Instead, he walked to his own room, where he collapsed onto the low bed.