I’m a survivor. The closest I’ve been in harm’s way was in a fire next door, the concrete wall between us providing no sense of security. It marked the first time for me to take a risk, in violation of a basic rule of survival dad taught me: Never, ever volunteer.
It happened a very long time ago, in another life, when my now middle-aged children were still in grade school, but how I remember it well!
There had been a garden party at our home that night, and the fire next door might have started immediately after the caterer had left, and we had just gone to bed. The power went out, and we were alerted to it by the sudden shutdown of the aircon.
In the semidarkness, my husband collected our four children, instructed the maids to gather their own valuables, put the dogs on their leashes, and get out. He himself drove the two cars out to safer ground.
Flashlight in hand, I made my own escape, but not until I had picked up the fireproof case that contained property titles, bank passbooks, birth and marriage certificates, passports, and some jewelry. Or so I thought.
As happened, I had two such cases, the other containing the children’s medical records, report cards and academic medals and citations—in other words, things whose value was merely sentimental.
Out, clutching the case, on the safe side of the road across from our block, I stood with other escapees watching the flickering red tongues of flame lick upward out of the windows of the stricken house. Mercifully, there wasn’t so much as a hint of a breeze. I didn’t realize no firefighters had yet come. My body felt so heavy with exhaustion and dread I was unable to do anything, not even worry.
The wrong case
Finally, I noticed neighbors farther down the street, well past our house, loading furniture and stuff into cars and driving away. Possibly noticing I had but one little case saved, a neighbor asked if I didn’t need anything else to bring out. Only then did I realize that not only was my house in closer danger, but I had picked up the wrong case and I had left far more things of value than I had remembered in the rush of panic.
“I need to go back!” I said, frantic now—at least for the right case!
“There’s time if you know exactly where it is,” the neighbor advised.
I nodded, relieved to be able to spare myself the eventual horror of losing important documents, not to mention the shame of having saved the wrong case: I’d be taking my own place in history.
Family lore has it that an older cousin of dad’s had been in the same situation and done something really difficult to top. The story is repeated at every chance, a tradition in itself in a family of hecklers.
The uncle in question is sent by the family to a United States military school, and soon enough his first test comes: his dorm catches fire. He saves a fire extinguisher.
I don’t think I could survive being attached to his story even as a footnote. I stole back into the house, succeeding in not being noticed, not by my children, kept busy dealing with our frisky dogs or the maids standing rigidly on the sidewalk hugging their rolled-up beddings, their clothes stuffed in them; not one of them had given any thought to saving anything of ours, not the paintings, not the silverware, not the blue-and-whites, not the crystals, not the Persian carpets.
(I remember a dear doctor friend who used to warn me and his wife against buying anything that we weren’t prepared to carry up the mountains, in case of a revolution.)
Once inside, I realized how much hotter the darkened house had gotten. I ran up the stairs, my way illumined now by the flames outside; I could now hear glass crackling and exploding from the heat—in my own house! I grabbed the correct box and ran back out.
It was at that point that I realized I had put myself in danger to save myself from ridicule, more than for any other reason. I felt great relief, though, once I had taken my safe place back on the sidewalk to resume watching, helplessly, the fire raze the house next door. Our own house suffered no damage that could not be fixed by repainting and installing a few new glass panes.
Still, it all had a sobering effect on me; it certainly altered my life’s priorities. I mean to go on living safely, treading ever so lightly. I’m not putting good money on anything I can’t lug out the door, never mind up the mountains, in case of a fire.
