Ash and Silence

The silence bothered me. The gloom gathered more thickly, and her breathing became more labored. If I told her to take the rag from her nose and mouth, she would bring ash into her lungs with each breath. Although we held hands, the sweat of our palms made the grip slippery with mud. The powdered rock continued to fall, and though it was mid-day, all signs indicated it would get worse.

“Pliny,“ she said huskily, “You must go on without me. Your survival is all that matters. I promised your father.”

Beneath her coating of ash, I knew that her skin had grown blotchy. I had seen it before when she suffered overexertion. Mother and her brother had both become corpulent in the last years. I was old enough to know that a rest could bring back some of her indomitable spirit. I changed the hand I was holding, and placed the other on her elbow, ushering her to the side of the road. At that moment, the earth trembled again, like a horse responding to a fly on its rump. The press of humanity and occasional livestock being driven blindly swirled past us, threatening to knock my already tottering mother down.

“I’m concerned that one of us will get trampled if we stay on the highway. let’s find a side path where we can rest,“ I told her. The sound of my voice was faint to my own ears, as if I was speaking behind a closed door. I wondered if mother could hear me at all. But, I could hear her labored breathing, despite the muffled quality of sound.

Fortune smiled on us even through the dimness.

I found a track leading away from the highway, with a low wall running alongside. Our feet shuffled through ash up to the ankles, and I felt along the wall with one hand, searching for a more sheltered spot. I didn’t tell mother about the dead bird already buried which I knocked away from the wall before she could feel it. Nothing was singing today, but that bird would never sing again.

When I heard a disturbing rattle begin in mothers breathing, more everything else became unimportant. I guided her to sit on the wall, and I put an arm around her, protectively. The noise of her breathing would have been loud in my ear, and the panicked cries of flying villagers would have been deafening, without the pervasive clouds of ash surrounding us. 

I listened as her breathing stilled. Waves of terror rose up in the center of me, and I ached to jump away from that wall, and run madly with the rest, seeking the outside edge of the ash cloud. My uncle, however, had insisted that, even at 18, I could control my actions despite my fear. I stayed.

“Do you think he survived?” she asked wistfully. Naturally, her mind would dwell on her brother, our protector and friend ever since father’s death when I was young.

“Perhaps he did,” I said, not really believing it. “The two of us spent quite some time reading about volcanic eruptions. A cloud of ash like this may travel swiftly in one direction, leaving bright day in another. So much depends on which parts of the mountain were compromised, the direction of winds, and the geography around the erupting volcano.”

She tried to heave a deep sigh, the effort giving her a coughing fit instead. The rags covering our noses and mouths were no longer dry, and had ceased to be clean within minutes of being tied on. The mud caked in the cloth made breathing difficult, but dry ash could still reach into the lungs with any sharp intake of breath. Throughout that day, mother and I had learned to breathe shallowly.

“Why would he go into the center of the trouble that way?” she said in despair.

“So many reasons.” I considered how I should have never been named for Pliny. I wasn’t bold like him. I wasn’t generous like him. He assured me that I was more intelligent than him, but I had only pretended my reason for staying behind was to finish the studies he assigned. The fact of the matter, if I was being honest with myself, was that I was scared. I could’ve gone on the boat toward Vesuvio with him, and I declined.

Mother slumped toward me. I did my best to be a comfortable support. She was heavy, though. I wanted to take refuge in poetry to escape the aching muscles of holding her up, the deepening gloom, the fear. If only I could recite a heroic poem for both of us. That would be something.

Mental discipline failed me. I could remember only scraps, and partial lines of the volumes I had memorized. Instead, the vivid memory of Vesuvio appeared before me — as it looked after the huge noises abated. The mountain seemed as though it pushed a massive tree up into the heavens, much higher than the birds. Possibly all the way to the moon itself. We saw it clearly from Misenum, all the way across the bay from the volcano. 

My uncle never let anything get in the way of his creature comforts. His confidence was never an act, either. He got up, undressed, covered his skin with olive oil, and walked down the beach in his vigorous way, calling greetings to only a few other nude walkers. Then he returned a bath and a hearty meal. We had all felt the earthquakes during the last few days. That was to be expected in this area. They got progressively worse, though, just before the explosion. Pliny let none of that bother him. His morning routines including planning to go and see up close what the volcano was doing.

The dirt, the flaming rock, the ash, could only be held suspended in the air for a short time. The messenger from my uncle’s friend arrived just as the collapse began. Pliny’s anticipated scientific expedition of discovery turned immediately into a rescue operation. His entered own small boat, and sailed before a fair wind directly toward the personal who asked for help. As administrator for the entire fleet, he sent all galley ships to the most populated areas, to collect whatever survivors might be able to reach the shoreline.

During the interminable night, I despaired of ever finding out what happened to my uncle.

Mother, recovered enough of her vigor to begin the argument again, “You must move on, son. I will remain here and take my chances that the worst is over. I have lived a good life, and your father would be satisfied. I fulfilled my promise to help you become a man. You must now survive as a man.”

I stood, taking both of her hands in mine. It was time to brush the layers of ash from our heads, shoulders, laps. Becoming entombed under a solidifying mass of lightweight dirt was hardly a fitting end for the sister and nephew of Pliny. I pretended she had not spoken at all.

“Leave me!” she shouted. She yanked her hands away and turned her back.

I stood there, paralyzed. The urge to flee combined with mothers fierce cry to make an unbearable goad to my will. If I actually did go away, re-join the crowd, and find my own safety, I would be doing what she asked.

This was the person who enlivened the drudgery of study with her laughter as she brought a meal. She soothed the bloody knees, and the broken bones of childhood. Her song pervaded the memories of each day of my life. Honestly, my own safety dwelt only where mother dwelt. I kicked a drift of ash, mournfully considering how adrift I would feel without the presence of this still beautiful woman.

She shrieked, even more loudly, coughing in between burst of hysteria, “go!” never looking at me, “be on your way!”

I took two unsteady steps backward — away from her. The dimness had increased so that her shape was obscured although two arms’ lengths was all that separated us.

Her back was still turned.

I moved further away, my hand dragging through the dust on the top of the wall as I searched. In only a few minutes I found what I wanted.

When I returned, mother was sobbing, but still breathing shallowly as she did it. The noise carried no more than a hand breath away from her. I only knew of the violent sobs because the outline of her body quivered with grief in the slow swirling dust. I once more wrapped my arms around her.

“Come, mother,“ I said, right into her ear, “a little further on, I have found an alcove which will give us protection during the night.”

She allowed me to lead her by the hand on the short journey to a tenuous respite.

A building of some sort backed up to the wall, the eaves hanging over. Delete your app ash on the wall just under the eaves what is no more than thick dust in a house that had seen no use for years. I cleared away a jumble of tools resting there so that she could sit. Although the ash could still swirl around her feet, it wouldn’t fall directly on her head and shoulders. I settled her into this more protected spot. The low wall ended just beyond her seat. I could lean against the wall with my head under the eaves to keep the ash from falling on me, or, I could sit next to her, fully exposed.

I took my perch by the woman who raiseed me. As I did, the earth gave another shudder. This time, she was the one to reach out a protective arm. I leaned into her, and vowed I’d never tell her that had I felt her muddy tears sliding into my hair.