From This Wicked Patch of Dust

The New Jerusalem

187 The New Jerusalem November 2001 Ismael left five-year-old David at the Margaret Wise School for Children at 8:45 a.m., after staying for a few minutes to make sure he had placed David’s tiny backpack with his lunch in his cubby. Immediately David started building a block city with his friend Diego on the white linoleum floor. Ismael kissed David on the cheek and said good-bye. Instead of returning to their co-op on 86th Street, or crossing the street to Columbia University to find a quiet, secluded spot deep inside the Butler Library stacks, Ismael was headed there for the first time. His book, San Lorenzo Street, a collection of fictional stories about growing up in Ysleta, had been published a little over a year ago, to excellent reviews and even a modest success in sales. It had already been reprinted once, and his university publisher seemed pleased and printed the new edition with an extra page of review blurbs. But there, this heap of metal and glass and bodies, had pushed aside any kvelling about his first book, or the thrill of seeing it occasionally in a bookstore, or the need to write more. As Ismael rode the downtown No. 1 to as close as he could get to the World Trade Center, he remembered that Tuesday. Ismael had dropped off David at the Wise School—the second day of school—and walked home. Jean-Paul, their French-speaking doorman from the Antilles, said somewhat excitedly that a plane had crashed into the Twin Towers. Once inside their west-facing two-bedroom co-op on the fifteenth floor, he turned on CNN. The sleek silver skyscraper smoked and burned on TV. While listening to the breathless chatter of the commentators, he washed the dishes, threw out the trash, and prepared 188 a toasted bagel with butter before he left for Columbia. The talking heads seemed gleeful to have another catastrophe to report. A live shot of the evacuation at street level showed nervous emergency workers sprinting toward the chaos. The grooved aluminumlike façade of the skyscraper was agape with a wound of black smoke and red fire pouring out into the blue sky. There were reports that a “small plane” had been flying near the Hudson River. Perhaps in distress. Ismael finished munching on his sesame bagel, aware he was wasting time. As he stood up to turn off the TV, he froze in mid-chew as a new flash zoomed behind the Twin Towers. A second later a giant fusillade of smoke and fire exploded from the second building. “It’s not an accident,” Ismael whispered to himself. His stomach dropped a foot inside of him. Ismael looked at their panoramic view of the Hudson River and New Jersey and suddenly felt ominously vulnerable fifteen floors above Broadway. “We’re being attacked.” Ismael spent black Tuesday staring dumbfounded at the TV images of the charred walls of the Pentagon and the brown haylike field in Pennsylvania where a small smear of black was all that was left of another hijacked passenger jet. He must have seen three replays of the sickening slow-motion collapse of both towers. In the video, the gigantic antennae eerily pointed and tumbled at him. The next day, he walked. Ismael walked to feel the air, to see other people’s faces. Overnight Manhattan had become a near ghost town. Could a poison gas attack be next? Were the subways the next target? Should they stay in New York City? Lilah was six months’ pregnant; David was five years old. Should they go stay with Lilah’s parents in Wellesley? Or to the countryside? Or to a motel for a few weeks? Ismael walked to get away from himself and to find answers. He walked from 86th Street down Broadway, all the way to Times Square. Over forty blocks. He walked by the New York Public Library, where he had edited his book, and to Grand Central Station. Strangely, newsstand after newsstand had stacks of bundled, unbought 189 newspapers. When Ismael reached the train station, he turned around and walked home. At the glittery spectacle of shops on Fifth Avenue, an older, well-dressed couple cried in front of Fortunoff’s. A small suitcase was between them. Central Park at 59th Street was bereft of the usual pandemonium of traffic, horse-drawn carriages, and...