Ambulances collect the injured. Many suffer from extensive burns. The anchor says that a huge fireball plunged down the elevator shaft and blew out the door when it hit the ground floor, engulfing the crowd that was running toward the exit. Those who can walk on their own ignore the reporters that want to interview them, anxious to run away from the mayhem. The Plaza in front of the towers is covered with high-heel women’s shoes left behind.
“My God! They’re jumping from the 100th floor!” Rosa, with tears in her eyes, clasps her hands against her mouth.
They cannot believe what they see. Haunted by the fire, people rush to the windows, seeking an illusory escape. They jump. Hundreds of bodies perform a tragic dance in the air and crash to the ground amid a cascade of flaming debris.
It is 9:37. The BREAKING NEWS signal flashes in red across the screen. The scene shifts from New York to Arlington, Virginia, where a third plane has just crashed into the west wall of the Pentagon. They watch the replay. The plane is approaching at minimal altitude like for a landing, but going full speed. When it hits, it takes down the entire wall, leaving a gaping black hole in the white stone perimeter. The hole quickly fills up with smoke and flames. Now they are watching it live. Here, too, rescue squads arrive in no time. They help people out of the building, lay the injured down on the lawn for the ambulances to pick them up. There are not many survivors.
A voice over reports the news as it happens: “Air force jets are patrolling the space over the nation’s capital... The authorities fear an attack on Washington, DC... A United Airline flight, Flight 93, apparently has been hijacked... passengers have reached relatives on their cell phones...The White House has been evacuated, as well as all the buildings in the vicinities... The Capitol building and the Congressional offices have also been evacuated. We were told that the President was not in Washington this morning and he is now in a safe place. He will address the nation later in the day...” Then, abruptly, “Back to the New York studio. An emergency situation has developed there...”
“What else could still possibly happen?” asks Joe. He keeps his arms around Rosa. She clings to him. They draw strength from each other. Their mutual support also rubs off on Amy.
Back to New York. It is 9:59. The South Tower collapses. It implodes and crumbles like a castle of cards. A gigantic cloud of dust and smoke engulfs the area. The media are caught in that dense mass. For a while the screen is pitch black. Voices emerge from the dark: “Holy crap! It’s gone... the whole tower!” Gradually, the image returns.
A huge wave of white dust rushes through the streets. It rises up sixty feet. It fills the space. It runs over everything on its path. It pushes the crowd of survivors from behind like a raging torrent, like a gaseous tsunami. The debris trapped in the dust hit people like bullets.
A reporter emerges from the cloud, whitened with a thick coat of dust, coughing but still talking: “Many people remain in the rubble, crushed under concrete slabs and steel beams, their bodies minced and burned, unrecognizable, unrecoverable. Among them are many brave firefighters, and members of the Port Authority Police and of NYPD. They are heroes.”
Blinded and choked, people run away from the unleashed fury of the dust wave and seek shelter in doorways, stores, cafés... Trinity Church, a few blocks away, soon becomes a recovery center.
People keep running. They move up Broadway in a steady stream. Soon they are outside the pizzeria. Joe rushes to open the door. The dining room and the patio fill up with a pack of white ghosts. Some are injured, all are shaken, shocked, exhausted, disoriented, confused, incredulous... Rosa hands out water and food. Amy helps her. Joe goes to fetch blankets and first aid supplies. Then, Chris rushes in from Midtown to join forces with the rest of them, just in time before the area is sealed off.
A piece of news that was lost in the confusion is now being repeated on the radio: “At 10:06, UA Flight 93 crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, south-east of Pittsburgh, not far from the town of Shanksville. Apparently, a group of passengers showed extraordinary courage and took on the hijackers. They engaged the terrorists at the controls in the cockpit. Relatives on the phone reported that the plane was rolling wildly before crashing. The plane was allegedly directed toward the Washington Capitol in a suicide mission.”
Joe manages to bring a TV set into the dining room. It is 10:28. They witness the collapse of the North Tower. It is like a movie replay, a déjà vu, but not for this less horrific—another implosion, another wave of dust, more victims trapped in the rubble, more dead. Survivors keep coming in through the front door. Now, they are everywhere. They sit on blankets on the floor.
By the end of the day everyone is gone, picked up by loved ones, friends, or paramedics. Chris escorts out a few people who had no assistance.
In the empty room, the three of them sit in silence. The TV is still on. At the disaster site the fire has been extinguished, but the ashes are still burning. In the dim daylight the area is a flat, snowy-like landscape. The remains of the towers are contorted skeletons standing out sharply against the white background, Gothic silhouettes from a horror movie set for chiaroscuro effect.
Joe turns off the TV. The three of them get up and walk toward the door. They hug. Amy leaves.
At her desk that night Amy finds it difficult to work. Her eyes wander from the page to the window—a transparent wall, connecting, rather than separating, the interior space to the lights of the big city that never sleeps. One step through the glass, and she would be gliding among the stars of that electric firmament.
She lives in Larry’s penthouse. He died recently in a car accident. At seventy-eight, still in love with sport cars. She inherited his estate, and with it the publishing house. She had been working with Larry at L&N for many years as editorial director and, after the accident, she filled his chair as president.
I love New York, Amy thinks... since that far-away summer of my childhood, when I was first struck and forever conquered by its aggressive charm. Today, her city has been violated. Lady Liberty has been raped. She recalls the words of the cabbie that morning, “A pack of mad dogs...” It seems that, in this case, the mad dogs have only been facilitators. The pundits on all TV channels speculate that the mastermind behind this heinous operation is a Saudi by the name of Osama bin Laden, the head of a terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda.
In the optics of a perverse aesthetics, today’s tragic event looks to her like the conclusion of a cycle, the unhappy grand finale of a historical era. And, what is worse, it also looks like an ominous sign at the dawning of a new century, a new millennium.
Amy does not want to speculate about tomorrow. She clicks on Stella’s Story, brings up the digitized manuscript, and plunges into yesterday.
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