Zal wished that, like all other people, he could insert a smile there to console his father, but he just stood there, with his always-blank face, trying to transmit sincerity and wellness.
“Zal, I’m not convinced you’re well enough,” he said.
“I can’t live like this, Father,” Zal said. “I can’t be kept here like. .” He was about to say “like in a cage,” but he stopped himself. “Eventually, I have to move on. Look, everything is okay. Asiya is cut off from me. I’ve gotten rest. What’s done is now done. We’ll wait, we’ll see.”
And suddenly it occurred to him that he may never see Hendricks again. And for a moment he did not want to leave, either.
“The only thing that’s important now is one thing,” Zal said, his voice cracking slightly as he tried hard to rein in any telltale emotion, not wanting to alarm Hendricks any more than he already had. “I hope you know how much I have appreciated you all this time and how much I truly love you, Father.”
Hendricks turned a bit red, unused to such declarations from Zal.
“I meant that,” Zal went on. “You saved my life. Over and over. You did it when you first adopted me and then you did it by raising me. And now in this difficult period, I’ve come to you over and over in pieces and you’ve put me back together. I owe you my life.”
Tears welled up in Hendricks’s eyes. He looked down, wanting to hide it. “You don’t owe me anything, son. You’ve saved me as well. I love you more than anything I have ever loved.”
They embraced, Zal holding on longer and harder than Hendricks expected. He thought about worrying about it. But he had heard Zal; his worries were nothing but negativity. Zal was feeling better. And Zal was free. He had to be free. He had raised him against all odds to get to this point, after all.
And with that, Zal left. Hendricks was heartened that all his belongings, all his mess, was left behind. It made him feel like nothing was changing that much.
But something was. Zal could feel it in the air. New York felt different. In some ways, the city felt thrilling. His imagination was running wild, eyeing every person — man, woman, and child — all the potential, all the possibility. He closed his eyes and tried to conjure Asiya, too, with closed eyes herself, and he tried to send her a mental message. Asiya, he thought, I did love you. And if it turns out the way it likely will, I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything. I’m sorry I didn’t altogether believe you.
And as he scanned the city streets, he thought about how they were trapped on this island that was now overfilling with the insane potential of miracle and disaster stirred together. Asiya, wherever she was, encaged, might actually make it, ironically. She might be the only one to live to tell the story.
Zal brushed the ideas out of his head and went to his old apartment. He had left only a few things behind, things he didn’t need, like the suit his father had sent him for the trip to Las Vegas to see Silber. How fitting that he’d be back in that outfit for this final act. He put on the suit, a bit overwhelmed by its smell of another time — that dinner at the top of the World Trade Center that had triggered it all — moved by how doubly fitting it could all be, and he left his old home.
Only to return for an umbrella. Outside, as he made his way through the evening after-work crowds, a storm was in full force, one of those late summer storms full of gales and thunder and lightning. The sky flashed pink and brown and purple and the city hissed through the downpour.
It felt right. It felt just like she had said, just as he had imagined. Downpour. Downfall. The Before.
At Battery Park, just a few blocks from his apartment, the huge seating area was tented already, and crossed off by police lines. The buildings themselves were overtaken by awnings and a platform, and a few cranes that held giant lights. A massive black billboard seemed to envelop it all, announcing in lavish golden script, tuesday, september 11, 2001. . come behold the fall of the towers, the most earth-shattering feat of our lifetime. behold bran silber, the greatest illusionist in american history, alter the new york skyline. . and play with the future of not just the city, but the world 9/11/01, world trade center, new york city, u.s.a., a bran silber production.
Zal could hear Asiya’s thoughts break through those words; he could read his own interpretation to Silber that one desperate lonely night — and there it was. Silber had needed him, just as he’d once needed Silber. Zal would never be able to fly — he couldn’t even believe that, once, not even that long ago, he had held on to that desire — but he’d helped Silber soar. He had given him something much bigger than flight.
You’ve given me purpose, meaning, kiddo, Silber had said at the end of their call, weeping into the phone, a weeping that sounded like howling. A story to tell. I don’t think you know how big that is for a man in my business. It’s everything. It’s a reason to go on. .
They had hung up that night with the intention of seeing each other soon, at the show. Silber promised Zal seats, Zal promised to pick up the tickets from Indigo, and he had just never done it. He didn’t want seats. If it came to seats, he’d have other things to celebrate, namely survival.
And so Zal, umbrella overhead, stiff in his suit, walked the city that night. He walked almost the entire city, from that end of the city to Harlem. It took him three hours. When he got there, it was 10 p.m., and he stopped to get a papaya smoothie from a stand and walked all the way down again.
It was, in many ways, a beautiful city. And it was, in many ways, his home. He felt for it. He really felt for it.
By time he got to Battery Park again, it was very late. It had taken him longer than three hours to walk back downtown. He was exhausted. He couldn’t remember ever walking so much in his life.
And so he climbed over the yellow police tape and into an empty chair, in a back row, wanting to sit far away to get the full view. Huddled in his own arms, under the finally dry skies, he fell asleep.
He had never slept in the streets of New York before, but that was what he loved about the city — you could simply imagine doing the unthinkable, and then, the next thing you knew, there you were doing it. Nothing was out of the question. Anything could happen. You had to do it your way.
And as he fell asleep, he thought how strangely safe he felt. He really felt secure out there. Either he was completely losing his mind and thus gaining the strange peace of the truly lunatic, or his calm came from actually being quite safe — compared with what was to come very soon, after all.
And in that cage that had become her new home, where she sat day after day, drowning out her fellow inmates’ infinite variations on every profanity, the sounds of anchormen and women in some distant world overhead, the constant echoes of hard heavy steps — and sometimes, she swore she heard chains dragging down the corridor. She heard it all, and she transmitted right back to him the only thought she had for him: Zal, it’s okay. I know you loved me. And I know you couldn’t believe me. And I’m sorry I acted like it mattered. Belief is an optional bonus. What needs to happen will happen. These things were written long before our time. We’re just reading the lines off the script. There was nothing anyone could do, and I knew that and I still brought so much pain to us. That’s why I’m here. I’m where I belong. I’m where I should have been long ago. Locked up and away from all sorts of people that I could harm. But we’ll all be in the same boat soon, so what did the minor points even matter? Everything will be as it should be: equal once and for all.
We’re almost free.