Was heading up to the thirteenth floor of a high-rise. The building where her son lived, which looked like a vertical city for service workers. Nannies, paperhangers, Uber drivers, people with by-the-hour contracts. Karen’s mother looked with alarm at the plastic ceiling of the elevator, which was slow and wheezed like a chain-smoker. Stacked-up slums, with partially exposed electric wires, gas stoves, moldy window frames. Along with her son and his veiled wife, another ten people lived in the three-room flat. Karen’s mother sat uneasily among them on a sofa wrapped in plastic film. The people spoke Arabic. Just not with her. She sat, bored, and wondered why she had bothered to come. Then she noticed that it smelled funny. Then she heard screams from outside. Karen’s mother looked out the window and got

Smoke in her face. There seemed to be a fire on the lower floors—the third and fourth floors were in flames, it crackled, windows shattered, the smoke grew thicker, pressed under the door of the flat. The coughing began, eyes burned. In the hall, nothing like THIS WAY OUT. In the hall, crying children, screaming women, people in underwear, carrying bundles, not carrying bundles, with dogs, all tripping over each other, kicking each other, shoving their way to the staircases and elevators—seriously? Ceiling boards fell on people, smashed their heads as they stumbled over people fallen to the floor. Karen’s mother was pushed into the staircase. Nothing to see but smoke. Nothing to hear but screams. It was dark and overcrowded. She shoved her way back into the apartment. Surely the fire brigade would be there momentarily and save them. That’s what you learn: the fire brigade saves you. Sticking your head out the window didn’t work; the flames had reached as far as two floors below them. People were jumping out of their windows. You could hear them thud below. The fire brigade instructed those still in the building to lie on the floor and seal their doors.

Right.

THE CHILDREN

Were lying on the bed like—children. They put their feet in each other’s faces, tickled each other, and had just watched Black Mirror after watching Utopia. Then the news came on, the news barely anyone could stomach anymore, could grasp: ISIS was tearing across the desert beheading people, some icebergs had fallen into the sea, the sea was rising, the Russians looked forward to new sea passages, a researcher warned of centuries-old viruses that had survived in ice that was now thawing, in India a couple of women had been killed, some fascists had taken power somewhere, all over Europe now large groups of unbelievably ignorant, loutish people appeared, who screamed their hatred of everything into the cameras, in London a building was on fire. Be quiet. Just be—

Quiet. Said

KAREN