I snapped toward the voice. In the doorway of the nearby vestibule, a man was waving his arms. He wore his coat collar high and hat pulled low. “There’s a fire!” he hollered, and someone shrieked in response.

Startled, I watched the fellow race out. Fear gripped faces around me, marking those who understood him. Others puzzled over the language they didn’t speak.

I strained for a whiff of smoke. Where was the danger? The kitchen, the café?

Warnings spread in scores of languages, overtaking the event hall, stopping the music. Folks in the balcony leaned out from between columns for a look. On the main floor, parents were swooping up their children and rushing into the man’s wake. The narrow staircase past the vestibule would lead straight down to the street. Down to Papa.

I caught Arie’s eyes mirroring my panic a second before a throng of people shoved past, dividing us and pushing me into a wall. Beyond the blur of movement, Big Vera fluttered her hands from the stage, either urging calm or reinforcing the alert. Adults climbed on chairs in a furious search, scanning faces, calling out names.

All at once, I was traveling without will, swept off in a flood of bodies. My feet scrambled to keep up on a floor I couldn’t see, could scarcely touch. The mob pressed in, enclosing me head to toe, shortening my breaths.

“Papa…help…” I wheezed out, unthinking and desperate.

We crossed the threshold of the vestibule, where something seized my collar. It was a hand reaching through a web of arms. Arie’s. I latched onto his grip, a lifeline, as we were carried toward the stairwell. Like a log at a waterfall’s edge, I braced for a plunge.

The drop was indeed a fluid slope, the steps wobbly and slippery and moving. But how? I sought traction over dips and bumps. A glimpse revealed fabric and hair. People—we were walking on people! They must have stumbled on the way down. Unseen hands were pulling at the bottom of my coat, my dress. Terror whisked through me. Bile rose to my throat.

There was pounding at the base of the stairs. Strangers’ cries collided with bellows: “Open the doors! God, please, open the doors!” Foreign words shrieked past my ears. No more than a yard away, a baby wailed, hovering above the crush. A woman with bright-yellow sleeves was holding the red-faced infant high overhead.

Suddenly I was hurled onto my side. Shoe heels stepped on my hip and ribs and neck. I screamed from the pain, protecting my head as much as I could without surrendering Arie’s grasp. I had to hang on—it was my only coherent thought. Then a weight collapsed on me. It felt like sandbags, uneven and stifling. Fallen bodies. They wriggled and struggled, darkening my vision. My lungs battled for air, shallow bursts in and out.