Only the Women Are Burning. Nancy Burke
and inertia now rendered me barely able to move.
He touched my arm and the signal of his touch put me into motion. A door opened before me and a chair at a table appeared and I was in the station house restaurant and a man was placing a ceramic cup with a slow stream of steam in front of me. Fire inspector Jeff Heffly, I recognized his red face and bulbous nose and short buzz cut grey hair. He’d been in the paper just last week. For what? A house fire...he’d also been on the TV news, a broadcast from town hall - a commendation to one of his men who had saved a child.
“Cream and sugar?”
“Just cream,” I said.
He placed my tote bag and my purse alongside my chair. I’d forgotten about them. Then, he fetched a cup for himself and sat. He took off his glasses and wiped them with a paper napkin. I put down my cell phone. He nodded as though giving me permission to drink my coffee which tasted like smoke.
“You’re not on the train,” Heffly said it so deadpan, not a question, not an accusation, not anything. Just a flat observation.
“I was supposed to get on.”
“So was she.”
“I saw her waiting, like she was looking for the next one. This one goes to New York. The next one goes to Hoboken.”
He asked, “Did you know her?”
“No,” I said.
“Did you hurt her?” he asked, his tone even.
“No,” I said, “I tried to save her.”
“But how did it start? Did you see anything…anyone…near her?”
“No. But I wasn’t really paying attention. I was just looking at the train as it came up.”
“Did you see her smoking?”
“No.”
“Did you see anything unusual?”
“No, just all of a sudden she was in flames.”
He stared at me. “Do you think she did it to herself?”
“Is that what you think?” I asked. It was what they thought in India whenever a woman burned and women burning to death was frequent in Bangalore. But this was different.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“What?”
“Did you watch the news during the Vietnam War? Are you old enough?” I wasn’t, but I knew because fixations happen when you experience something like Banhi and you read a lot of archived newspapers.
“I served there. You’re thinking of that Buddhist monk.” He studied me.
“Yes. A self-immolation on the evening news.”
He took a sip of coffee. “Yes. That’s what this looked like,” he said. “It has to be something else, a spark from her cell phone, a cigarette, an electrical something.”
“Alice Herz did it,” I told him.
“Who is she?” he asked.
“During the Vietnam War. In 1965. In Detroit.”
“Never heard of her,” he said.
“She was famous for her protest.” I guessed not that famous. I took a sip of coffee. “It looked like it came from inside her.”
He studied me. “You think she did it to herself?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Her clothes didn’t burn. It didn’t spread. It seemed to burst out of her.”
He looked squarely at me. “Do you know more about this than you’re telling me?”
“There’s a war on now. Not everyone supports our being there.” I know more than you, I thought, but I didn’t say it.
“You think she’s a war protester?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know her. All I am saying is that there was a time this happened in the United States and elsewhere.”
He wrote down some notes.
“She didn’t scream. She didn’t move. She hardly seemed to feel any pain. At least, I would have expected a reaction but I didn’t see any.”
He wrote down some more notes. “We’re inspecting the area, checking for a source of flame or spark.” He looked over my shoulder and then, following his gaze, I saw one of the men in those oversized canvas coats with yellow reflective tape staring at me from the doorway. “We will figure it out, Ms. Taylor.”
He brushed his hand over his buzz cut. My mind went to the hair, her hair, flaming then gone, and I drifted to the idea of a firefighter in a blazing structure with hair that could ignite like a wick on a candle. The portraits of this morning’s Marines flashed and I understood buzz cuts for soldiers for the very first time.
“I just need you to give me everything you witnessed, what you did, and if you observed anything odd while you were waiting for the train - I mean before the, before she...”
I gave him what he wanted, slowly, patiently, with vivid details. He listened intently and scribbled.
“Tell me one thing, please,” I asked. “Why would a fire like that burn her so completely and not burn her clothes? Even if it was self-inflicted. Even if it was something like an electric wire electrocuting her or if someone torched her or if she accidentally burned from a cigarette. Maybe a spark from her cell phone. Her clothes would still burn.”
“Because you soaked them in foam from the extinguisher,” he said. “You just told me how fast you reacted…you and the conductor…you both moved fast.”
He didn’t want me to speculate. He didn’t want me to think. He only wanted facts. Observations of the surface of this thing. His words and the blanched look in his eyes signaled to me that I was dismissed and so was my question.
“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can’t strike them all by ourselves.”
- Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate
Chapter 2
“Is there someone we can call for you?”
“Thank you, no,” I said. “My husband is out of town.”
“A relative? A neighbor?” the EMT asked.
“No.” I did not want my sisters, Grace and Lou, here.
I walked back through the park, remembering halfway there to call the school programs office at the museum.
“Shirley? Listen, can someone take my group? Something happened and I missed the train.” I felt ashamed that this excuse sounded so lame.
“Something happened? You okay girl?” she asked in her slow drawl. “We just heard on the radio about the woman in Hillston. Thank God it isn’t you.”
“I’m not going to make the second class either,” I said. “I’m very sorry.”
“You okay?”
“I was there. I tried to help and, well, the cops are asking me questions. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“Oh, I am so sorry. Don’t worry. I’ll tell Eric. He’ll do your groups. Take care of yourself.” She paused. “Girl, thank the Lord it wasn’t you.”
I thanked her and hung up.
By the time I crossed the park and unlocked my front door, I succumbed to fatigue. I shed my work clothes, pulled on last night’s tee shirt, and wrapped myself in the quilt on my bed. I could not shut down to sleep.