[Aftermath Comment]: Letter to Romania

[Ana Doina <dorulet@eclipse.net>]

 Letter to Romania

Dear parents, brothers, cousins and friends,

I hope you will not feel offended receiving this letter, this report of
the last few days, not individually addressed to any of you, but to all of
you and those who, worried, have asked for news of us, and our lives. I
wish there was nothing special to tell, but unfortunately these last few
days will mark us all, no matter where we are, and what we think about the
world.

On September 11, when evening finally came, the house across the street
from my bedroom's window remained dark and quiet.

I never connected with those neighbors, a family of four, with two grown
sons; which gave us grief many times, throwing empty bear bottles on our
property, or idling their cars along our fence, while an excessively loud
radio went on and on and on. I never liked them much, and they didn't like
us either. They never said hello, not even a friendly smile, although
every morning both adults took the bus to the City with my husband, and
then the subway. They both work in one of the towers of the Wall Trade
Center.

I still can't think the World Trade Center in the past tens; I still say
_are_, not _were_. My mind cannot comprehend, cannot accept the new
grammar.

My oldest son did not go to school for one week after September 11, his
first year in college, it should have been his firs full week of school;
too close to 'ground zero.' Fortunately he was still in the bus when the
first plane hit the first tower. Thinking it was an accident I called him
at his cell phone to alert him of the traffic nightmare I assumed would
follow, and asked him to avoid the area at all cost. The towers, I knew,
could sustain a crush with a small commuter plane, the kind allowed to fly
in the area. But then the second plane hit and horrified I understood this
was no accident, we were under attack. I called him again, frightened.
Begged him not to enter the city. You see, he is the kind of guy who likes
to get right where the action is, to get involved, and I was afraid he'll
go straight to the area, and put himself in harm's way with only
enthusiasm and good will for skills. His bus had not yet entered the City,
and they were stopped right in front of the Lincoln Tunnel and turned
around, and the bus brought him home safely.

Some of his colleges, who also live in the suburbs and did make it into
town that day, remained trapped in Manhattan for a few days afterwards.
All the bridges and tunnels were closed for fear of new attacks, false
alarms, bomb scares, rumors of trucks full of explosive racing towards the
City. Most gather together with kids from other parts of the country who
were in the dorms, trying to call home, to talk with their parents, to
hear themselves saying 'I'm ok, don't worry' although they were sending
jittery emails to my son, obviously scared, far away from home their first
year of college.

Later that day, when I went to pick up my youngest son from his school,
policemen and teachers patrolling the area stopped everyone. Parent?
Enemy? We do have a few kids whose parents work in various embassies in
the City, and at the UN.

Inside the school, teams of counselors were staying close at hand, talking
with the kids who were desperately trying to reach their parents and
couldn't. All those whose parents were supposed to be 'there' at work,
were taken out of class and ushered into the principal's office under
closed doors, with more counselors there. Throughout the school you could
hear kids sobbing, crying inconsolable. In each class a tv was on, nonstop
on news coverage, and the kids were advised to talk 'about it,' to let off
anger and fear into words, and be comforted by their pears.

My husband works three blocks away from the WTC. I was able to get in
touch with hom immediately after the second plane hit. I will never forget
the bewilder tone of his voice, the sadness with which he said 'I can see
them. They are burning like to prayer candles' while I was begging him to
run away, to leave no matter what, to come home.

He made it home safely, late in the afternoon, snowed with ash and soot
after running ankle deep through cinder and debris through a decapitated
town. He took the ferry over to NJ, a bus over to another town, and called
home to let me know he is ok, out of the danger zone. I went to pick him
up, him and another neighbor he met on his way, a woman shaking and
crying; she had escaped the south tower, but didn't know if any one else
did.

And I felt so guilty and selfish when we finally got home, all of us,
dusty, frightened, bewildered, and my youngest son, who still remembers
the house of his early childhood, our living room window lit every night
by the NY skyline, where he learned to name each tall building, asked of
their history and height, marveled at how the many shades of red and blue
glitter in the windows of the Twin Towers at sunset, my youngest, looking
at his father's shoes said in terror, 'daddy brought home on his shoes all
that's left of the Twin Towers.'

And I felt selfishly safe having all of them home, out of danger, while
the house across the street remained dark, and in my mind I kept hearing
the sobs of the children from school, and knew that some of them might not
go back to school the next day, although the school in our town was going
to be open.

But what surprised me the most about myself the next day on awakening, was
how deeply and dreamlessly I had slept. Nothing populated my sleep. All
day on September 11 I had been sobbing and crying, exchanged messages with
people all over the world, made comforting calls to my mother back in
Romania, to let her know we are safe, although I wasn't sure of it myself,
although I _knew_ it will never end.

All I could think of all day was 'there will be another one.' I grew up
with the shadow of 'the bomb' shaping my imagination, and learned to live
with the certainty that there will be a time and a way when 'the big one'
will start. I was under the frightening thought that now it just did, and
there will be another plane coming out of the sky to hit god knows where,
maybe the Statue of Liberty, for the sake of a symbol, maybe the Bridge,
for damage and carnage, or the White House, or another one right here,
close, murderous.

All day I corresponded with friends from Israel, who commiserated by email
with me, 'the American,' and were compassionate and understanding in a
fraternal kind of tone, with friends from Romania who were stunned and
promised me 'America is going to 'do' something,' as if they were in touch
with the State Department, and knew certain secrets I was yet unaware of,
with friends from France who doubted everything, believed nothing and
suspected some sort of a conspiracy somewhere, that will, in the end,
explain it all, with friends from Germany who called with long silences
unable to find their words, other than to say how sorry and scared they
feel, as if their own safety has been destroyed, too; 'If this could
happen to you...' and a Russian friend asked me almost defiantly 'what are
_you_ going to do now?' as if I were in charge and was called upon to
react decisively, immediately.

Many people I have not been in touch with for decades emailed and called,
just to make sure we are still here, some distant effigy for their
thoughts about an 'over there' they sometime allow into their realities.
They asked if we are safe, as if all of a sudden they realized how long
it's been since they had no idea if we are still alive.

My brother emailed. 'It is just the beginning' says one of his lines. He
lives in Jerusalem, in the area where bombs and snipers are part of the
daily routine, where gasmasks are kept in backpacks next to lunch, books,
and bus schedules. He is a doctor; he tries to mend those who are ripped
apart by killing machines on either side of the conflict.

All day I listened to the radio refusing to visualize what I was hearing.
I listen while driving from town to town to pick up friends stranded on
neighboring suburbs, wherever a bus, a ferry, a police car, or even a good
Samaritan dropped them. Many people were hitchhiking out on the open road.
People who are old and cautious enough to know you _never_ hitch-hike, and
never pick someone up, not in this area, not anywhere; they put their
thumb out and got into a stranger's car, not thinking twice about 'don't
talk to strangers.'

I didn't want to watch tv after the first images in the morning, it was
too overwhelming. Only at night I glimpsed for a minute, and then turned
the tv off. I didn't want to see. Late, with every one home, safe,
sleeping, I went to bed exhausted.

In the morning, before waking, feeling my husband next to me at a time he
usually is out to work already, I thought for a moment it was the weekend,
the one that had just passed, and that's when I realized I didn't have any
dreams, while behind my still closed eyelids, in the first drowsiness of
awakening I started to recover the reality, images and all.

I took my youngest to school, 'will I get in trouble for not having done
my homework for today' he was wondering, his first full week of high
school, this honored student who always does his homework.

At school the principal told me 'we have a few parents missing' and I
started sobbing again. I later found out the kids whose parents were
missing did not come to school, leaving their schoolmates felling helpless
and worried for them. Some classes did go as scheduled, others broke up in
tears with children and teachers trying to cope with a new concept -
missing parents.

Home my oldest was desperately trying to get in touch with a kid he met
during summer classes at school; a kid of Indian descent from some
Midwestern American suburb, who now lives in Manhattan with his stock
broker brother, near the Twin towers, and loves to go early in the morning
to watch the trading monitors in his brother's office, at some high floor
in the North Tower.

At the office where I work no one could concentrate on what needed to be
done, all tasks seemed pointless, every dilemma: trivial. Mid morning, a
high school student we had just hired for 'office help' called to say she
could come to work; 'How come you don't have school?' I asked; she had
called her counselor and was told not to come to school for now, at least
until Monday.

She's Muslim. She loves rock and roll, she reads The Catcher in the Rye,
she laughs with the musicality of a little crystal bell when she hears a
joke, and she loves to tell funny stories. She wears the traditional
Muslim shall, wrapped around her head and shoulders. A sweet little girl
of 15, from some godforsaken village in India, speaking a language that
sounds warm and spiced with strange inflections, she was afraid to go to
school now, and was advised to stay home by her teachers.

We talked; we talked about a fallen world, a world neither she, nor I
could keep it whole anymore, and she said she understands why people are
angry and upset, and how they could irrationally go hurt someone just for
appearances. _She_ understands. I don't.

My husband and my oldest son, not knowing what to do with themselves on
this weekday planned for work and school, went in the park and played
basketball. It was a beautiful late-summer day, the air just a bit hazy on
the southern part of the horizon, and many men from all walks of life, of
all colors and creeds, from every single corner of the world, from every
culture and ethnic background; men who live in our little suburb, this
melting pot, this anonymous 'bedroom' community, men who work in the Big
City across the river, came to the town's basketball courts, ball on hand,
didn't say more than hello and god by to each other, but got together to
play a game, play to exhaustion, and forget, while large shadows of
military planes crisscrossed the blacktop from time to time.

When I came home we sat down for dinner, and looking at each other we all
thought the same thought; we are safe. But when the thick air from the
south blew in that evening, bringing the oppressing smell of burnt rubber
and the taste of dust from 'over there' we weren't so sure anymore, and we
realized again how much our lives have changed, and that many of my
husband's colleagues from the port authority offices, people he worked
with, people he signed projects with, people he met with in long and not
always productive or pleasant meetings over designs for highways and
airport landing ramps, people with offices, and documents, and blueprints,
and accounting books, and ideas, and solutions, and know-how, half of his
industry from this side of the world, people - are gone. Many, known dead.

In the other room my oldest son was on the phone non-stop, retelling the
story of 'where I was when _it_ happened' to countless friends calling
from distant parts of the country, where they were, away to college, 'when
_it_ happened,' and in his room my youngest was trying to concentrate over
homework, and sometimes stopped to stare into the void of a window, closed
to keep the dusty air and the sickening smell outside, and I knew he was
thinking and praying his friend's dad would be found alive. And my throat
went dry with anger and dust.

For a week, only emergency personnel were allowed in the part of the City
my husband works and my child goes to school. Many buildings around
'ground zero' were damaged; windows blown, roofs broken, no electricity,
no water, no phones. The school was considered unsafe because of the
chemicals in labs, and was closely supervised. Still is.

Many buildings around the area of the WTC are affected and could be in
danger. There could be many structural problems arising from how the WTC
was built. It seems the foundation on which the Towers were build, once
their weight is removed, or the weight of the fourteen-stories high pile
of derbies which is now pressing on, from underground up to the surfaces,
the entire foundation is in danger of floating up, upsetting the structure
of every other building around it.

On Saturday, our friend Mark asked us to come for a barbeque. He decided
all of us should come, no matter how sad or depressed we were, come and
gather around our common fears, our common loss, come together to hold
each other's hand and comfort each other.

On the way there we had to take the Turnpike, and for the first time I saw
the panoramic view of the City with the two skyscraper missing. Far in the
distance I knew the towers were still burning, and my eyes filled with
tears again watching the thick column of smoke rising from within the
other buildings as if from the chimney of a mortuary crematorium.

In Mark's backyard, all the way up in the scrub oaks' canopies squirrels
were gathering food and kept throwing shells and half-eaten acorns at us.
We cried, we laughed, we offered plans for reconstructions, strategies for
reprisal, pronouncing as best we could, names of places so far off our
area of knowledge, so far away from our homes we can not even imagine what
they are like, jus like I suppose those living there can't really imagine
how we are, how our lives are.

I am really scared of all this rhetoric of war I hear every day from
officials and generals, all this thirst for blood and revenge which came
into our lives just as suddenly as the attack did, although I think some
of it al least is done for collective therapy purpose, some sort of
band-aide to a wounded pride. I want to believe that any action we will
take will be taken with wisdom and tact, in such a way that those 'over
there' who are themselves victims in this absurd struggle will not suffer
even more than they already do, and with no hope.

It is not true that every American wants war. Hundreds of people here
watch with apprehension all the belligerent talks, all the promises of
bloody retribution. Many send letters and petitions to representatives,
civil and military officials expressing their views, their wish for peace
and a well balanced, well thought out solution to a difficult problem, a
problem our entire civilization is confronted with, not only United
States. Yes, something must be done, but something that will solve not
only this terrorist action, but what is at the root of it, the misery of
the poor and destitute lives of so many people in the Middle East.
Something must be done, something that could bring peace to those
children, a simple, human life to their parents, a place to work, a good
neighbor, schools and doctors, and bread. And many American know that this
kind of 'something' cannot be obtained with tanks and bullets. Just like
in WWII, not only the battle had to be won, but also the peace, and peace
was won then with chocolate, not with bullets.

Coming home on the Turnpike in the evening, we were fascinated again by
the City's landscape across the meadow. All the skyscrapers were enliven
by the sunset's colors, and where not too long ago two twin towers stood a
column of white smoke rose to the sky like an angel's wing.

It is hard to deal with the after effects, and I am a bit intimidated by
all the sudden restrictions and the presence of military personnel, the
boats on the river, the planes flying above, all the checkpoints, the cars
stopped, all the guns. I hope whatever it is we are going to do will not
destroy our own democracy in the process.

On 22nd, we celebrated 18 years since we came to America.

Many times I find it hard to think, to speak and particularly to write in
Romanian. I live within the customs of this other tongue, this other way
of thinking. There are stages of my life I can't recount with ease in any
other language but in English, and when I have to explain something about
my life to someone who is not from around 'here' I first have to present a
context and details unfamiliar to them, and I realize how hard it is for
them to understand, and for me to explain.

Our children are Americans. This is their country, and through them it is
ours too. We identify with people here, the life here is the life we live,
and this world is the world we understand, maybe not fully understand, but
non the less the only one we understand. Don't ask me to go back, don't
tell me I could leave, don't ask me to come back. I can't loose one more
country, one more world, one more language. I can't put ocean and land
between my children and me. Whatever the future will bring for this
country it will bring for me too.

Eighteen years ago when we came, our first residence was Cliffside Park; a
little town right at the edge of the Palisades, on the shores of the
Hudson River, where almost every street offers a view of Manhattan.

Saturday the 22nd of September we decided to go to a little restaurant in
our old neighborhood, although none of us was in a celebratory mood. We,
like probably most of America, are still under the strong heavy pain
brought upon us by the attacks, and the immense lose of life.

Every day we find out about a victim, someone who was part of the texture
of our lives, a neighbor, a friend of a friend.

As scared as I am for what's coming, I have to try to hide my fears and
mediate the shock and the stress these events brought upon my children.
And that's not always easy. Because they are males, they don't verbalize,
don't tell, don't want to face or recognize their fears, their feelings,
and so I have to pull words out of their mouths, watch for gestures,
inflections, scoop out whatever reaction they have, understand it and help
them understand it in order to heal (however much we all could heel form
such a tragedy) and grow up mentally, and emotionally healthy, and with a
good optimistic view on life. They are so young, they need so much to
believe that life is worth the trouble of living.

My oldest son was telling me one day that every morning he watches for the
faces of those he travels with in the bus to NYC, he's looking for those
faces he used to see every day before the attack. There are 'faces,' he
says, he hasn't seen since that day, and he wonders what happened to them.
He realizes there could be a million other reasons why those people do not
board the bus anymore, but he's worried, he'd like to see them again, to
know that they too, are all right. After all, they are strangers, but
those strangers that give context to his life.

He and my husband are the most exposed to the tragedy and its
aftereffects. Every day they have to go to school or work and walk
alongside the cortege of people still looking for their loved ones, still
showing the pictures of those missing, hoping against hope that someone
could have seen them alive after September 11, refusing to give up their
search and accept their immense loss.

Almost every square and park on their rout has ad hock memorials, people
fraternizing with someone visibly aggrieved, people stopping to change
stories, to join in a song, to hug and console each other, and if you
happened to be around, you can't just go by, you too, are pulled into this
wailing, and weep for the collective sorrow, even if you are not directly
afflicted.

With the little one is even worst. There are a few kids in his school who
lost their parents, and one of them is now facing losing everything he
ever knew. His mother, a widow now, is not culturally and financially able
to remain in US, and will go back to Japan after more than 15 years of
living here. However, my youngest is more open, and if I am patient with
him and provoke him when he is _captive_, in the car or at dinnertime, he
talks at least for a while, until he can escape me with a le'me alone! and
a dash down the stairs to the tv., or to his Nintendo games. But I know
that no matter how much they are trying to avoid talking about 'it,' they
need to verbalize their feelings and their thoughts, to enter into a
dialog with the world and its new reality.

Maybe because I know too much history, I feel as if I have already lived
through this time once before, particularly since an online friend posted
the news item about the Hindu population forced by the Taliban regime to
wear a distinctive yellow sign on them at all times. I feel as if I am
witnessing the reincarnation of an old nightmare.

I feel so vulnerable, so powerless in the face of this new world, and this
very feeling becomes a cause of anxiety and sadness. All I can do is cry
and give a meager dollar to each cause that comes my way, while helplessly
praying that fate will protect my children, and will have pity on all the
children of the world.

I entered a couple of European email lists, I read news papers, and the
more I read the more I realize how few recognize that what happened did
not happened because America did something wrong, or because of American's
attitude and allegiances around the world, it has almost nothing to do
with Israel, or with the Palestinian cause, it didn't even happened to
America alone, but to our entire civilization, and however we are going to
react from now on, will affect the entire world, everything there is to
come.

However Saturday we decided to celebrate our 'coming to America' in our
old neighborhood, in a small Spanish restaurant, with mandolins and
sangria.

On leaving we went to visit the streets we used to go on for daily walks
during our first years here, to watch as we did in the past the Big City
across the river.

When we came here we were so poor we couldn't afford any kind of
entertainment. A daily walk on the streets offering the panoramic view of
Manhattan was the only show we could afford. There was one particular
street we loved, a street with an unobstructed view of the river, the
city, the bridge. We would go there to watch how the lights turned on in
millions of the city's windows.

Saturday too, the lights turned on in the city's windows, and as the
river's water grew darker, small boats and flocks of seagulls and ducks
calmly drifted into the night under the smile of a quarter moon, only far
to the south a thin and transparent column of smoke was still rising, like
a winter breath.

Home, a message from someone I participate with on a reading group was
waiting to remind me of the next meeting. During the summer we take a
break and return in September, but in the avalanche and urgency of the
last few days I have forgotten that it is time to go back to our daily
activities, as insignificant and trivial, as they might seem now.

Monday, after the meeting we went out as we usually do, to a small café
for a bite and a little gossip. One of the ladies in the group told us her
father in law had the temerity to take the first flight after the attack,
and come from somewhere in California to NJ, for his previously planned
visit. How did he have the courage? she asked him, a man in his late 80's
early 90's, he said 'I know, it stinks, but life goes on'

Tuesday, two weeks after the attack, I finally got in touch with a
childhood friend, after all these many days of worry, not knowing what
happened to him. Phones in Manhattan are still down, everything that goes
through the affected area will probably be down for days to come. He was
telling me with a new found and surprising wisdom 'that's it, that's life,
when we were children our parents where trembling for our fate, worrying
over what the next day would bring, now it is our turn to worry for our
children. Same shit, and nobody can escape it.' His voice was intense with
the heavy breath of an angry man, he was dusting and vacuuming the house
while carrying on the conversation, 'I left the windows ajar when I went
to work on Tuesday, and was not allowed to return until today,' he was
saying 'I have enough dust, ash, and soot in this house to fill up a
landfill.' He was mixing curses with thanks for having been blessed not
too loose any one dear to him, 'everything else...stuff, things, don't
matter, we did them once, will do them again'

Life goes on.

Love,
Ana Doina