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By Root 875 0

open, with his clenched teeth showing, in an expression that would have suited an animal better than a human. And then Jonas saw, on the floor, burnt post office workers. From one of the steaming pockets a gloved fireman was able to pull out a post office personnel card which said on it, ‘Marta Rena Stroud’. On the face of another body a small patch of unburned skin remained on which could be seen a roughly circular patch of black dirt, but perhaps it was not dirt but a rude fly perched there, but looking closely Jonas Lutt was able to see that that was not a patch of dirt or a fly at all, but actually a mole, which somehow curiously resembled the shape of a city far away in the Netherlands, a mole just like the one our mother had on her cheek, coincidentally in exactly the same place too. That was what Jonas Lutt remembered as he saw that old couple holding each other in front of him. He shook then with all his nerves as if an aftershock was being experienced in his person alone. He shook and trembled and quivered and could not steady himself. He would shake like this for three days and nights. He could not stop it. Some kind man gave him a bottle of brandy but as he brought it to his lips he was unable to stop himself from shaking it all over the street. Some kind woman tried to hug him but then she began to shake also and had to let go. He shook himself then in small, shaking, mechanical steps all the way to Veber Street. On his way, oblivious, he passed signs saying ‘Do not enter this street—epidemic threatened,’ or, ‘Ottila’s hospital now re-opened,’ or ‘Looters will be shot’, but on Jonas shook, onwards to Veber Street.

Other people were in Veber Street by then trying to clear away the debris. He would not help them. He sat on an upright metal-framed plastic seat that had been flung from some house or other. The chair jiggled up and down beneath him. And then he saw our little city, and then he saw us. And he shook his heavy way down the street, and then we learnt about Mother, who, before that moment, we had not even thought of once, and then we stopped laughing and Jonas Lutt passed his shaking onto us.

‘Mother!’ ‘Mother!’ ‘Mother!’ ‘Mother!’ ‘Mummy!’ ‘Mummy!’

THAT FIRST night, we huddled and shook together in a makeshift home, not far from our old home, because Irva could not bear to leave the plasticine city. Jonas made this home for us from a canvas and old coats and jumpers. We sat on chairs which had once belonged to Miss Stott. Who could sleep, we wondered, with all that noise about the city, the great clatter of people saving other people? Seek out the sleepers, kick them awake, there should be no comfort, not until things begin to make sense again, because suddenly, within a few minutes, sense had been capsized, suddenly we lived in a nonsense city without electricity or water with thousands upon thousands of smashed homes and people, and we wondered: is this really our city? They should change all the names. Broken Street. Fallen Street. Bits and Pieces Street. Too Late for Help Street. No People People Street. Upside-down Square.

People called out into the night: ‘Where’s our home? Where has it gone to? Give us back our home.’ And I, close by our plasticine city, thought, ‘Here it is, here it is.’

ON THE NINTH day after the earthquake, we huddled around a radio, like the rest of surviving Entralla, to hear the wonderful news that even now a survivor had been found buried beneath the rubble of Trinity Square. A hospital porter named Alvy Phipps. That same day, when it was officially proclaimed that anyone left beneath the rubble must now be dead, we listened to a speech by Ambras Cetts—our acting mayor—which we would, in time, learn by heart.

‘It is the saddest, most savage, heart-gutting of a city that could ever be contemplated. So many of our people have lost their lives. We remaining will never be the same again. But we have no time to lick our wounds, to comfort ourselves. We must forget for now all our very real tragedies and turn our minds to rebuilding at once. If there is rubble in our hearts,