When God Was a Rabbit

I rose with the sun and had my cofee on the roof, wrapped in an old cashmere cardigan that Nancy had bought me years ago – my first adult possession, a cardigan that cost more than a coat. As I watched the meat market close down for the day and the workers discard their whites and head instead for a breakfast pint before sleep, I read again Jenny Penny’s letter and finished the ‘Lost and Found’ article for that week.

7 September 2001

Elly . . . I’ve been making some extra money doing my tarot readings again. It gives people hope. I try to explain that its not just the reading itself, but the psychology behind it. But some people have never looked back you see. For some its simply too far to see. I’m quite popular with the lifers you know! I’ve recently been seeing ‘freedom’ in whatever cards they choose be it Strife or the Princess of Wands or even Death. I never see freedom in Justice though. Justice is a difficult card for the imprisoned.

I pulled a card this morning – a random card – one for me and a moment later, one for you. I usually get Adjustment or the Five of Cups. But this morning I pulled The Tower. The Tower! And then I pulled it again for you. Two towers Elly! One after the other. What’s the chance of that?

Its the most powerful of cards. The Tower falls and nothing can be the same again. Nows the time for true healing. The old is destroyed to make way for the New. We mustn’t hold on to anything any more because all will be destroyed by this trans formative power. The world is changing Elly and we must trust. Fate is beckoning. And if we can accept the laws of the Universe, the ebb and flow of joy of tragedy, then we have everything we need to embrace our true freedom . . .

I stopped reading. Could hear her words exact and persuasive, like her explanation of Atlantis all those years ago. The surety. The hypnotic lure of belief. I closed the computer and finished my coffee.

I felt restless, started to feel something that I’d known for a while: that we were finally coming to an end. It had been five years now, five years of Liberty and Ellis, and I felt their stories were now told, but I’d been putting it off, that final goodbye, especially when I found out that Jenny would be eligible for parole soon, something my father had told me the week before. And although some things were still to be decided, she would soon learn that it would be he who’d be representing her at that final hearing, leading her outside, to where life had progressed six years without her. And so I would wait a little while longer; for that final column; the one she would write herself, sitting on this roof with me by her side.

I skipped breakfast and made my way instead towards Soho for a lunch of cappuccino and croissant. I liked the walk; simply west along Holborn from Chancery Lane to the divide at New Oxford Street. The sun climbed higher and shadows shortened and the city awoke, spewing people onto the streets from all directions. I came to Cambridge Circus and suddenly veered off down Charing Cross Road towards the National Gallery and the Vermeer exhibition, an exhibition I’d been sloppy and procrastinating in my desire to see. Time was running out; only six days left. I didn’t even stop in Zwemmer’s, as I usually did, or the second-hand bookshops whose bargain basements filled most of my shelves; no, I continued on fast and dodged tourists slow to browse.

I could see the lines at the ticket desk already. The exhibition had been sold out for most of its run and I soon resigned myself to yet another wasted opportunity, but as I joined the end of a slow-moving queue, I heard the whisper that there were tickets available for that afternoon, and sure enough as I reached the desk, the assistant said, ‘Three o’clock OK?’ and I said, OK. And in the cool air-conditioned entrance hall I stood holding my ticket, feeling lucky that my day was now planned.

Soho was quiet and I sat outside; something I always did, even in winter. Deliveries were late and trolleys piled high with cans of oil and wine and tomatoes trundled carelessly towards doorways and disappeared into kitchens, only later to return. This would always be a working street to me. Elsewhere all the old shops had gone or were going, greedy landlords waiting for the brand names, the names that could afford the hefty rents, so byebye the rest. I looked to my left; Jean’s hairdressing was still there and Jimmy’s, of course, and Angelucci’s too, thank goodness. They still sent coffee down to my parents, an espresso blend that the postman loved to deliver, for the smell made his day, he said. This corner was safe, for now at least. I took out my newspaper and ordered a double macchiato with a baci on the side. This corner was safe.

It was hard to imagine we were heading towards dark mornings and the long cold haul of winter that would turn my skin the colour of greying whites. I knew this mild autumn would send the leaves into a riot of frenzied colour, more golds and reds dominating many a wood, the colours of Vermont, the place we’d gone to the previous year.

We’d driven up from New Paltz, a spur-of-the-moment thing, just the three of us. We went to ride horses but hiked instead, and on the way there we picked someone up, a young woman who looked more like a girl. We picked her up because it wasn’t safe to hitch-hike – and we all said that, not just me – and she said, ‘Yeah, Yeah,’ as she scrambled into the back. Her odour smelled strong; it was an odour that said, Don’t fuck with me, as she sat next to me with her black garbage bag on her lap. And the youthfulness we’d imagined from the roadside disappeared inside the car, because there under the rim of her Dodgers cap, was the face of a tough life: eyes tired and harder than her years. She said she was going on holiday. We knew she was running away. She took nothing from us except a big breakfast. We watched her disappear into a bus station, engorged by a carelessness she took for adventure. She said her name was Lacey; after the cop show. We became quiet after she left.

I must have heard the shout, but I just wasn’t aware of it at the time. But looking back I remembered I’d heard something, but I had no context, you see. But then someone tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the screen inside and I turned round and saw four people already watching. I couldn’t see clearly what was going on because it was quite dark, and so I got up and followed inside; slowly, horrifically, drawn to the solitary image that filled the giant screen:

Blue sky. A beautiful September morning. Black smoke and flames billowing from the gaping wound in its side. North Tower, the caption said.

Gotta call Joe. North. Charlie’s South. South’s safe. I dialled his number, straight to voice mail.

‘Joe, it’s me. I’m sure you’re all right but I’m watching TV and I can’t believe this. Have you spoken to Charlie? Call me.’

It came in low and banked and it was the noise, a haunting whine that greeted its target as it exploded into a fireball, sending thousands of gallons of burning fuel rampaging through the lift shafts, melting its spine. Your tower. Charlie. Yours. The woman next to me started to cry. Straight to voice mail. Fuck.

‘Charlie, it’s me. I’m watching it. Phone me; please tell me you’re all right. Please phone me, Charlie.’

My phone rang immediately and I picked up.

‘Charlie?’

It was my mother.

‘I don’t know. I’m watching it now. I can’t get through either. I’ve left messages. Yeah, of course keep trying. Let me know. Of course I will. I love you too.’

The café was packed, silent. Strangers comforted strangers. The impact zone was lower than the North Tower and that was a bad thing. Maybe he was downstairs buying a newspaper or in the bathroom, not at his desk. Not at your desk, Charlie.

People were now waving at the windows, looking for rescue. They were leaning so far out, straining away from the black smoke creeping towards them. I dialled Joe again. Fucking voice mail.

‘It’s me. Call me. We’re all worried. I can’t get hold of Charlie. Tell me he’s OK. I love you.’

They tumbled out, just a couple at first and then more, like wounded archers from distant ramparts. And then I saw them, the two people of my future dreams. I saw them hold hands and jump; witnessed the last seconds of their friendship and they never let go. Who reassured who? Who could do that? Was it done with words or a smile? That brief moment of fresh air when they were free, when they could remember how it was before; a brief moment of sunshine, a brief moment of friends holding hands. And they never let go. Friends never let go.

I picked up.

‘No I haven’t,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’

I sounded tired, I knew I did. I heard the fear in her voice and I tried to reassure her, but she was a mother and she was scared. She’d heard from Nancy, she was trying to get from LAX to New York but the airports had shut down. A plane had crashed into the Pentagon.

‘Joe,’ I said again. ‘Call me – just a quick, I’m OK.’

‘Charlie, it’s me again. Call me. Please.’

People all around were on their phones, the lucky ones had located friends; others waited, pale; I was one of them.

Two fifty-nine p.m. South Tower sucked to the ground amidst a flurry of millions of bits of paper, of memos and drafts with names of those now lost, until it was gone, and all those inside were gone and their nightmare was over, now handed to those who were left, those left waiting, now mourning by their phones.

I rang again. No voice mail now, nothing. Another plane had crashed outside of Pittsburgh; a rumour that it was shot down – conspiracy was starting already. Conspiracy breeds conspiracy. That’s what Jenny Penny would have said.

The Tower is falling. Nothing can be the same.

Three twenty-eight. North Tower gone. Scenes of dusty moonscape where once was an avenue of people holding coffees, and smiling and rushing to work with thoughts of lunch maybe, or what they’d be doing later, because at that time of the morning they still had later. And as the dust cleared, survivors from the street crawled out dazed and covered in ash, and a man whose shirt had ripped across his front revealed a bleeding chest, but he was oblivious as he concentrated on smoothing his hair to the side, because he’d always smoothed his hair to the side – it was something his mother had started when he was young – so why should that day be any different? It was his search for normality. Call me, Joe. Call me, Charlie. I want normal again.

And that’s when I could’ve done it. Could have wandered down to the Vermeer and reminded myself of beauty. I could have gone down there and been normal. I could have lost myself in a joy I could still remember from that morning, because it was still so close, and I could remember everything before the world changed.

I could have done all that and would have, had I not picked up my phone instead and heard his voice and I started to shake when I heard his voice, and he was talking fast, and he sounded panicked but he was OK. He’d never gone to work that day, had got up late and couldn’t be fucked, and I was telling him about the reports here, stuff I’d heard, but he kept telling me to stop, and I didn’t hear him at first because I was so happy. But then he shouted at me and I heard.

‘I can’t find Joe,’ he said, and his voice broke.