Nana didn’t want to leave NOLA. She wanted to go to her house. She could endure discomfort and wait for the electricity to start working again; she could stay busy scrubbing away the mud. She would dry things out. In her time at the stadium, she’d heard all kinds of tales about what Katrina had done to New Orleans. But Treme was a solid, well-built quartier, and its sturdy houses had come through earlier storms unharmed. No, she wasn’t going to leave her city. She would sit right here until somebody with some clout told her she could go back home. Exhausted and inert, she took her last two pills; they stuck to her palate and eventually dissolved into a bitter mess. Her mouth was so swollen and her tongue so dry that she couldn’t even swallow.
A young man in a Red Cross jumpsuit approached her. “Are you alone, ma’am?”
She tried to answer but no words came. Instead of speaking, she broke down and started crying. She’d lapsed into crying jags on and off through the night, but they hadn’t done her any good. Embattled and surrounded, she was as determined to survive as ever, but she was so terribly tired. She didn’t have the strength to react. She was appalled to find herself an old woman, drained of energy, unable even to talk.
The young man handed her a bottle of water, but she couldn’t lift a hand to accept it. He loosened the cap, placed it in her lap, and moved on. When she eventually stopped sobbing, she lifted the bottle and drank, careful to take tiny sips. She felt better immediately. Such a damn thing—she hadn’t even realized she was dehydrated! She finished the water, set the bottle on the ground, and then, clinging to the metal railing, struggled inch by painful inch to her feet.
She hurt all over, and her head was spinning. She nearly lost her balance, so she tightened her grasp on the railing. If she fell, she’d break a bone or worse, and then she’d die like a poor old turtle left upside down to dry out in the sun.
Nana hung on the railing for more than an hour before working up the courage to cross the crowded plaza to where the lines for the buses were forming. Maybe somebody over there could tell her something. Step by step, squinting against the intense sunlight, she set out. She clenched her jaw. Her vision blurred. She was dizzy, nauseated, and in pain.
“Nana!” someone shouted.
Nana kept moving forward, unable to stop.
“Nana, it’s me!”
She managed to halt. Her old eyes, afflicted by the light and burning with misery, opened wide.
Bobby hugged her so hard she lost her balance, but he held her up. “Oh, Nana, I’m so sorry, I couldn’t get here till now. Nana, Mama Seletha died yesterday. I don’t even know where they gonna take her or when we gonna have a funeral.” His voice was broken and exhausted, hoarse and unrecognizable. He gestured toward the stadium. “I looked all over for you in there. I thought maybe they took you out with the first buses.”
“Bobby, let’s go home.”
Bobby’s face was grief stricken. “Nana, the house is gone. The flood went all the way up to the upstairs floors in Treme. They ain’t no neighborhood left. It all washed away.”
She tried to negotiate. “But the water goes down. It always goes down after the storms.”
“Nana, the levees broke and the water gonna stay right where it is. They ain’t even any way to get there, ’less you got a boat.”
Nana was distraught but she refused to be defeated. She couldn’t imagine her little house underwater, her kitchen obliterated, the album of clippings she’d left on the table washed away . . .
“Nana, it’s over. We got to go.”
“But maybe the storm gonna give my things back . . .”
“Storms don’t give nothing back, Nana, they take and take, till everything gone.”
She broke into sobs again and pressed her face into the young man’s chest. He held her with great tenderness. Gradually, comforting her the whole way, he guided her toward the place where thousands still stood in line, waiting for the buses that would take them away from their homes, many of them forever.
The plaza around the Superdome was filled with distress. Amaia saw thousands of people standing in the beating sun, all looking around with no idea of what they were seeking.
The stifling heat intensified the stench of body odor and mold. The damp bundles people were hauling stank. So did Amaia’s clothes. She felt the fabric stiffen as it dried against her skin. Their feet sank deep into the muck as they approached the structure.
Angry shouts in the crowd brought her out of her reverie. The people had been waiting for hours, and only six buses had departed that morning, all for Baton Rouge. Thousands waited to be transported, to be taken anywhere at all.
Ten buses drove up at about six o’clock in the evening. People roused themselves, got up, and pushed toward the loading area, pressing the dense crowd already there against the barriers the National Guard had installed. Heated arguments broke out as people disputed places in line. The soldiers guarding the buses watched blank faced and didn’t intervene.
Amaia had asked around, only to find that no log or register had been kept. It was impossible to determine the whereabouts of any individual. So much for Dupree’s request, and she was beginning to lose hope for herself and Charbou. “It’ll be days before we get out of here!” She was dismayed by the spectacle, the sluggish arrivals and departures of clearly inadequate numbers of buses, the understandable anger of those left standing.
Charbou lit up, looking into the distance at a uniformed police officer talking with the soldiers. “I know that cop. Wait here.” He dashed off toward the far end of the plaza, not waiting for a reply.
He came back right away, grabbed Amaia’s hand, and pulled her to the far end of the access road. “These buses are going to Houston,” he explained. “They’re more or less shifting refugees from the Superdome to the Astrodome in Houston. My friend says we should go around to the back. They’re giving priority to the most vulnerable—the sick, the elderly, and families with children. Once they get a bus almost full, I can get you on board. People will get mad when they realize you weren’t in line. Don’t say a thing. Just put your head down and climb in. Don’t engage with anybody.”
She stopped short and dropped his hand. He took a few more steps, carried by his own inertia, then came back to her.
“But what about you?” Amaia demanded, even though she knew the answer. She’d seen it in his eyes that morning when they were splashing toward the Superdome.
Charbou had helped a man wading along the street with two tiny children in his arms and a small boy walking beside him. A woman behind them stumbled and fell headlong into the water. When Charbou helped her up, Amaia saw that she looked like Oceanetta. Charbou was shaken by the resemblance.
“She’ll be fine,” he’d told Amaia, referring to his aunt. “Old girl’s tough as nails and resourceful.” He’d marked his words with a decisive nod, but Amaia knew he was boiling with anger, deeply affected by what was happening to his city.
Charbou surveyed the chaos reigning at the Superdome plaza. “I can’t leave, Amaia.”
“But . . .”
“It won’t be easy to get you on a bus. Wrangling two seats would be practically impossible.”
“That’s not the reason,” she contradicted him.