گردباد میکشه

Chapter three

The hurricane kills

September 17

The beautiful Caribbean island of Antigua was the first island to be hit by Hurricane Irene. The islanders had heard the hurricane warnings. They had lilted their boats out of the water and tied them to the ground.

They had put shutters, heavy pieces of wood, in front of their windows to stop the storm from breaking the glass. The islanders had bought so much food and water that the stores were soon empty.

They knew that the hurricane might destroy the island’s gas stations and that after the hurricane had passed there might be no fresh water for days. They had put gas in their cars and water in their bathtubs.

Most people living close to the sea packed their valuables, their children, dogs and cats into their cars. They closed and locked their homes and went to stay with friends or family in safer parts of the island.

Vacationers in coastal areas were not happy when their hotels were closed, but they had no choice. They were taken to stay in hotels higher up on the island where the storm waves could not reach them.

A group of twenty Americans on a week’s sailing vacation in the island also knew about the hurricane. They brought their boat, the 40-meter Wave Dancer, into Nelson’s Dock and tied it up to the jetty.

They went into the town to find a hotel, but all the hotels were closed because of the hurricane. There was nowhere for them to go, so they returned to the boat for the night. Wave Dancer was large and heavy, and they thought they would be safe.

After all, they were tied up to the jetty in shallow water only a few meters from land. Hurricane Irene hit them while they slept with 250 kilometers an hour winds.

The eight-meter storm wave broke the strong lines holding the boat to the jetty. It lifted the boat up like a toy and turned it over like a piece of paper. Then it dropped the boat.

The boat broke up like an egg dropped on a hard floor. All twenty people on the boat died.

Ikemi had not slept much during the night. Her father had still not returned. She put on a sweater and looked out of the window.

She could feel a change in the weather. The sky was cloudy and gray, and the leaves of the palm trees were moving just a little in the light wind. The air felt different. It was colder. She checked the time and turned on the radio.

“Hurricane Irene hit the island of Antigua during the night and more than forty people have died. Many coastal towns were destroyed and thousands of people are homeless.

Heavy rains from Irene are continuing to fall and winds have reached 274 kilometers an hour.

If Irene does not change course, the hurricane will pass over the Dominican Republic and the island of Cuba within the next twenty-four hours and the coast of Florida in about forty-eight hours. People should leave coastal areas until the storm has passed.”

Suddenly, Ikemi felt very worried. Where was her father? Why hadn’t he come back? She tried to call him on his cellphone but he didn’t answer.

“Maybe he’s working on the boat at the marina. He just forgot to call me to tell me he’s back.”

She left the apartment and went down in the elevator and out into the parking lot. She got into her car and drove a few kilometers down the main street of Key Biscayne before taking a side road.

The side road led through some palm trees before reaching a marina full of boats. The marina was busy and some people were taking their boats out of the water.

“Please be here” thought Ikemi as she hurried to the place where her father kept his boat. But the boat was not there. Ikemi’s father was still somewhere out at sea.

“I’m sure he’ll hear the hurricane warnings on the radio,” she said to herself as she drove slowly back to the apartment. But she was not really sure that he would. She knew that he did not always turn the radio on when he was fishing.

“I need peace and quiet to catch fish,” he always said.

Hiru was not getting much peace and quiet in the boat. He had seen the weather changing early in the day. The beautiful blue sky began to cloud over and the wind began to get stronger. It was no longer warm.

Maybe it was time to go home, before the wind got any stronger. But this was the best fishing ever! The cooler was full, and he was catching more and more.

The fishing was so good he could not stop. It might never be this good again. He wasn’t worried about the wind getting stronger or the sky getting darker.

He had been out in strong winds and bad seas before, and he knew that the Elizabeth would get him home.

So he threw on a sweater, and fished happily, knowing that he was not too far from the coast and could easily get back in an hour or two.

During the afternoon, the wind became much stronger and the fishing was not as good. But still he didn’t stop. At last the sea became so rough and the sky looked so dark he decided it was time to go back.

He put his fishing things away and tied the cooler down. It was difficult to stand up now, the boat was moving so much. He went across the boat, holding onto the sides of the boat to stop himself from falling.

He turned the key to start the engine. The engine started, coughed, and died.

Hiru turned the key again. Once more the engine started up and died. The third time Hiru tried, the engine did not start; or the fourth time, or the time after that.

Hiru checked the engine for problems. After an hour checking everything he could think of, Hiru still did not understand why the engine would not start.

There was only one thing to do. He had to take the engine to pieces and clean it. This would take time. Ikemi would be worried if he was away for another night.

He tried to call her on his cellphone, but he had no signal. He went down to the cabin and put on another sweater and a jacket.

He made himself some coffee and then began working on the engine. He worked slowly and carefully. It was going to be a very long night.

On the island of Nevis, less than 2000 kilometers southeast of Miami, Elaine Bridges felt safe in her beautiful new seventh-floor apartment on Fig Tree Hill.

The apartment building was very strong, and it was built well above the coast and the village where Elaine had lived as a child. She stood by the window and looked towards the village.

She had been happy to leave it. The streets were narrow and dirty and the houses were small and uncomfortable. Her parents’ house was crowded and dark.

She had left school when she was fourteen and started work. Her family needed money. There was not much work on the island and not much money for families in the crowded villages.

Elaine had begun to work in the fish packing factory. It wasn’t bad work. She could talk and joke to the other women who worked with her. But she hated the cold wet fish.

After only half an hour her hands became red and as cold as the large pieces of ice the fish were packed in. And she hated the smell of fish everywhere - on her hands, her face, her clothes, her hair.

The first thing she did when she got home in the evening was throw her clothes into the sink and take a shower.

She stood under the thin stream of water and washed her hair again and again. But it seemed to her that the smell of fish never left her.

Sometimes she dreamed about having a husband and family and her own home to look after. Elaine sometimes looked at the older women working beside her, women in their forties and fifties.

They joked and laughed like the young girls, but their faces were tired, their hair had gray in it, and their bodies were shapeless. Elaine hoped that she would not still be working in the factory when she was forty.

She hoped she would meet a rich and handsome man who would take her away from the factory and put her into a beautiful apartment. But it was difficult to find men like that. Then she met Rick.

Rick was a schoolteacher, twelve years older than she was and not very handsome. But his face was kind and he had a good job as Principal of the nearby school.

She had agreed to marry him and now her dream had come true - here she was living in this lovely new apartment with two beautiful baby girls born just six days ago. She smiled.

She turned away from the window and put on some water to make tea. She made two cups, added lots of milk and sugar, and carried one cup into the living room.

Rick was outside on the narrow balcony of the apartment where they used to sit in good weather. He was putting the storm shutters over the windows.

It was a difficult job in the narrow balcony in the strong wind, and he dropped one of the shutters with a crash.

“Shh, quiet, honey” she shouted through the balcony door. “Don’t make so much noise! You’ll wake the babies!”

Rick picked up the shutter and shouted back.

“If those babies can sleep through the noise of this wind, they can sleep through anything! What do you want me to do? Wait until they wake up?”

Elaine looked out over the island. It was raining so hard she couldn’t even see the sea. But she thought she could hear the wild crashing of the waves above the noise of the wind.

“Well, no, honey.”

“The hurricane might hit any time! You want me to wait for the babies to wake! We should have left the island two days ago for somewhere safer.

But no. You said the babies were too young to travel. You said it would be too difficult to move them. You said you didn’t feel well enough to leave the apartment.

You said we’d be fine with the storm shutters up. Then everybody else goes to stay someplace safe, and here we are with one of the worst hurricanes in years coming straight for us. And you say I’m making too much noise?”

Elaine took the tea back to the kitchen and then went into the babies’ room to see if they were awake. She was happy to see they were still asleep.

Elaine couldn’t understand how they could sleep through the noise of the wind and the rain. Such lovely babies! Only six days’ old and so beautiful.

Little hands, little faces, little heads of soft black hair. She looked round the room. It was painted yellow, with yellow and white curtains.

There were pictures on the walls, and pretty painted furniture stood around the room. The little beds were painted different colors, and there were two little cupboards for the babies’ clothes.

Well, her babies were going to be the best-dressed, best loved, cleverest babies in the Caribbean!

She walked over to the window. It was getting windier, and some of the palm trees looked like they were almost touching the ground.

Yes, the wind was much stronger now than a few minutes ago. She put her hand on the window and could feel the glass moving backwards and forwards in the wind. She couldn’t believe it. How could the glass move in and out like that without breaking?

“Rick” she shouted. “Rick! Come here! Put up the shutters here!” But just then the hurricane hit the building which shook it as if it had been hit by a train.

“Rick!” There was no reply, only the horrible screaming noise of the wind and horrible, loud noises coming from the building itself.

She ran over to the balcony door, but she could not see Rick. “Dear God, the wind has blown him off the balcony” she thought.

The rain was falling so heavily and the sky was so dark that it could almost have been night. Then at the far end of the balcony, she saw something move. It was Rick. He was on his knees, with his arms around the metal rails of the balcony.

His head was down and the heavy storm shutters had blown out of his hands.

“Rick” she screamed again. Rick began to pull himself along the balcony, head still down, holding onto the rails. Halfway along the balcony, he stopped.

She could see he was tired. The wind was blowing harder than ever. A huge piece of metal, probably the roof of a house, came flying up into the air.

It flew straight at the balcony, and crashed against the rails. Then the piece of metal fell, taking with it some of the rails and the wall of the apartment below them. There was nothing to stop the wind blowing Rick off the balcony. He had stopped moving. She wondered if the metal had hit him.

“Rick, come on, come on” she screamed. She was crying when he began to move again. Slowly, he pulled himself along the balcony, head down.

After what seemed like hours, he reached the door. Elaine opened it, and he half fell, half pulled himself into the room. The wind blew into the room with him. Magazines and papers flew through the air, cups fell off the tables, chairs fell over.

“Help me shut the door!”

They both pulled the door shut.

“Rick! Are you all right? I was so afraid! I thought the wind had blown you away!”

Rick was shaking.

“I’m fine. Listen, Elaine! We have to move fast, the windows are going to break! Quick! Get the babies! Get into the bathroom!”

Elaine picked up the babies and they ran into the bathroom. It was a small room with no windows. Rick shut the door and locked it.

“Dear God, dear God, please look after us,” whispered Elaine as she sat on the floor with the babies in her arms.

The noise was terrible. And it was getting worse. Screaming like a wild animal, the wind threw itself at the building, shaking it like a dog shakes a rabbit. Then came a loud crash as the window of the babies’ room broke, and another soon after as the living room window followed.

The wind screamed into the apartment and they could hear the furniture crashing against the apartment walls. They heard the television crash to the floor and the sound of breaking glass as the hurricane destroyed the kitchen.

The wind blew under the bathroom door and the shaking got worse. It was like a wild animal in the apartment was trying to kill them.

Then suddenly, the lights went out and they were in darkness. Elaine screamed and the babies began to scream too, both at the same time.

“Rick! It’s going to get us! We’re all going to die! We’re going to die!”