“Were you in one of the towers?” asked one of them. She didn’t have the strength to answer and decided to get as far away from their gaping eyes as possible. Anna had only covered a few more paces before she bumped into a Japanese tourist who was bending down trying to take a photograph of her. She angrily waved him away. He immediately bowed even lower and apologized.
When Anna reached the next intersection, she collapsed on the sidewalk and stared up at the street sign — she was on the corner of Franklin and Church. I’m only a few blocks from Tina’s apartment, was her first thought. But as Tina was still somewhere behind her, how could she possibly have survived? Without warning, a bus came to a halt by her side. Although it was as full as a San Francisco tram car during rush hour, people edged back to allow her to clamber on. The bus stopped on the corner of every block, allowing some to jump off while others got on, with no suggestion of anyone paying a fare. It seemed that all New Yorkers were united in wanting to play some part in the unfolding drama.
“Oh, my God,” whispered Anna, as she sat on the bus and buried her head in her hands. For the first time she thought about the firemen who had passed her on the stairwell, and of Tina and Rebecca, who must be dead. It’s only when you know someone that a tragedy becomes more than a news item.
When the bus came to a halt in the Village near Washington Square Park, Anna almost fell off. She stumbled over to the sidewalk, coughing up several more mouthfuls of gray dust that she’d avoided bringing up while she was on the bus. A woman sat down on the curb beside her and offered her a bottle of water. Anna filled her mouth several times before spitting out dollops of black liquid. She emptied the bottle without swallowing a drop. The woman then pointed in the direction of a small hotel where escapees were trooping in and out in a steady stream. She bent down and took Anna by the arm, guiding her gently toward the ladies’ room on the ground floor. The room was full of men and women oblivious of their sex. Anna looked at herself in the mirror and understood why onlookers had stared at her so curiously. It was as if someone had poured several bags of gray ash all over her. She left her hands under a flowing tap until only her nails remained black. She then tried to remove a layer of the caked dust from her face — an almost pointless exercise. She turned to thank the stranger, but she, like the cop, had already disappeared to assist someone else.
Anna limped back onto the road, her throat dry, her knees cut, her feet blistered and aching. As she stumbled slowly up Waverly Place, she tried to remember the number of Tina’s apartment. She continued on past an uninhabited Waverly Diner before pausing outside number 273.
Anna grabbed at the familiar wrought-iron balustrade like a lifeline and yanked herself up the steps to the front door. She ran her finger down the list of names by the side of the buzzers: Amato, Kravits, Gambino, O’Rourke, Forster... Forster, Forster, she repeated joyfully, before pressing the little bell. But how could Tina answer her call, when she must be dead, was Anna’s only thought. She left her finger on the buzzer as if it would bring Tina to life, but it didn’t. She finally gave up and turned to leave, tears streaming down her dust-caked face, when out of nowhere an irate voice demanded, “Who is it?”
Anna collapsed onto the top step.
“Oh, thank God,” she cried, “you’re alive, you’re alive.”
“But you can’t be,” said a disbelieving voice.
“Open the door,” pleaded Anna, “and you can see for yourself.”
The click of the entry button was the best sound Anna had heard that day.
13
“You’re alive,” repeated Tina, as she flung open the front door and threw her arms around her friend. Anna may have resembled a street urchin who had just climbed out of a Victorian chimney, but it didn’t prevent Tina from clinging to her.
“I was thinking about how you could always make me laugh, and wondering if I’d ever laugh again, when the buzzer sounded.”
“And I was convinced that even if you’d somehow managed to get out of the building, you still couldn’t have survived once the tower collapsed.”
“If I had a bottle of champagne, I’d open it so that we could celebrate,” said Tina, finally letting go of her friend.
“I’ll settle for a coffee, and then another coffee, followed by a bath.”
“I do have coffee,” said Tina, who took Anna by the hand and led her through to the small kitchen at the end of the corridor. Anna left a set of gray footprints on the carpet behind her.
Anna sat down at a small, round, wooden table and kept her hands in her lap, while a soundless television was showing images of the other side of the story. She tried to stay still, aware that anything she touched was immediately smeared with ash and dirt. Tina didn’t seem to notice.
“I know this may sound a little strange,” said Anna, “but I haven’t a clue what’s going on.”
Tina turned up the sound on the television.
“Fifteen minutes of that,” Tina said as she filled the coffeepot, “and you’ll know everything.”
Anna watched the endless replays of a plane flying into the South Tower, people throwing themselves from the higher floors to a certain death, and the collapse of first the South and then the North Tower.
“And another plane hit the Pentagon?” she asked. “So how many more are out there?”
“There was a fourth,” said Tina, as she placed two mugs on the table, “but no one seems certain where it was heading.”
“The White House, possibly,” suggested Anna, as she looked up at the screen to see President Bush speaking from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana: “Make no mistake, the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts.”
The images flashed back to the second plane flying into the South Tower.
“Oh, my God,” said Anna. “I hadn’t even thought about the innocent passengers onboard those planes. Who’s responsible for all this?” she demanded, as Tina filled her mug with black coffee.
“The State Department is being fairly cautious,” said Tina, “and all the usual suspects — Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Iraq — have all been quick to scream, ‘Not me,’ swearing they will do everything they can to track down those responsible.”
“But what are the newscasters saying? There’s no reason for them to be cautious.”
“CNN is pointing a finger at Afghanistan and, in particular, at a terrorist group called Al-Qaeda — I think that’s how you pronounce it, but I’m not sure as I’ve never heard of them,” Tina said, as she sat down opposite Anna.
“I think they’re a bunch of religious fanatics who I thought were only interested in taking over Saudi Arabia so they could get hold of its oil.” Anna glanced back up at the television and listened to the commentator, who was trying to imagine what it must have been like to be in the North Tower when the first plane struck. How could you possibly know? Anna wanted to ask him. A hundred minutes telescoped into a few seconds, and then repeated again and again like a familiar advertisement. When the South Tower collapsed and smoke billowed up into the sky, Anna started coughing loudly, shaking ash onto everything around her.
“Are you OK?” asked Tina, jumping up from her chair.
“Yes, I’ll be fine,” said Anna, draining her coffee. “Would you mind if I turned the TV off? I don’t think I can face continually being reminded what it was like to be there.”