With the fire hall but a block away, volunteer firemen had raced over to help. To pull me free, one began prying my fingers from Arie’s. The fireman’s coaxing wasn’t enough. I let go only when Arie told me to do so. In the span of an afternoon, he’d become my singular source of reason.

Carried back into the main hall, I was set on a chair. The rows were disheveled, random portions toppled. In the middle of what had been an aisle stood a girl’s buckled shoe. Perfectly upright, polished to a shine. As if waiting for a salesman to offer it for a fit.

Did the girl walk home with one foot bare?

“Sweetheart, is any of your family here?” a woman asked, dimly to my ears.

Papa, I remembered. He’s just downstairs. I meant to relay this but couldn’t be sure what came out. My observations had gained a hazy distance. I was told to stay put. I think.

Motionless figures were being laid out in the room. Small ones on tables, large ones on the floor. Some by the tree. Rescuers worked tirelessly at reviving many. A fortunate few prevailed.

Across the aisle from me, Arie too had been guided to a seat. An aproned helper was attending to a wound on his arm.

The baby was still crying, impressively, though the sound had turned hoarse. An older woman was holding the child, patting its back, shushing it with gentle words. Tears cracked her voice. At her feet, a limp form in a yellow dress stared at the ceiling. If not for the blankness of her gaze, I might have looked up to discover which sight had so intrigued her. Perhaps her own soul, ascending, untethered.

A priest appeared to affirm this by kneeling to lower her eyelids. It was Father Lawrence, with his silvering hair and gentle paunch. Bible in hand, he prayed over the woman, touting her final act on this earth as saving her child.

I noticed a baby buggy then, vacant in the corner. Did it belong to the same mother? A teacher once told me that instruments, violins in particular, forever carry with them a piece of their owners, that musicians imprint themselves in grains of the wood, store their tales in the strings.

If only infant carriages held similar power, a mother’s love might be felt in the grooves of the handle, her voice heard in the rattle of the wheels.

I was imagining this when a worried little boy passed by. A lady was helping him hunt for his parents, weaving him through the shocked and grieving crowd—a grieving that took on various forms. Some came in silent weeping, others in anguished sobs. Big Vera openly raged.