S Rozan - Absent Friends

In the minutes and hours of the crisis itself Marian had remained calm. (Those hours so elusive, difficult for memory to grasp: some episodes compressed, some elongated. Events recollected as following others when in reality they must have come long before. Some recalled as though only recorded by a single sense: this, an odd sweet smell. That, a shout, and someone weeping. Sticky dust clinging to skin and hair. An abrupt midday darkness that rolled away to reveal a new, ash-covered world.) She had shepherded her staff down the staircase immediately after the second plane struck. (Their building was not yet being evacuated; its security office was “assessing the situation.” Marian, watching in horror as flaming bodies and massive chunks of steel twisted through the sky to crash to roofs and slice through walls of buildings around them, wondered exactly what there was to assess.)

She had directed her people to a rear exit and had stayed in the lobby after they all had dashed outside, to help others find that back way, too, visitors to the building, strangers, office workers who came here every day but in the crescendo of their panic were losing all orientation, all direction. Thus she was still inside when the roar, the sound none had ever heard before, the rumble and clamor that froze them all, began. And as the black cloud poured down the street, she watched (helplessly, through the lobby glass) the implosion's immense pressure smashing down people trying to outrun it.

When the darkness (complete, much blacker than night, than closed eyes, than your dreams) had passed, Marian was first to the lobby doors, shouldering them open against the dust and debris. She shouted to people, ordered and offered and tugged them inside, as many as understood what she was saying, or would follow her though they clearly were too stunned to comprehend.

And when the second roar and crash and dust cloud came, pounding the lobby doors shut again, Marian waited for the darkness to pass once more and resumed her work.

People said later that she was an inspiration, that her calmness kept them calm, that her bravery made them brave. During the crisis Marian never panicked, and everyone said how courageous she was; but Marian knew that was a lie. Staying in motion, being useful, was how Marian outran-how she had always outrun-the boundless hollow terror that had besieged her and of which she was much more afraid than the roar or the cloud.

After the crisis, though, came the announcement that the building would be closed indefinitely. “Indefinitely” was just three weeks, as it developed, but she didn't know that then, who knew anything then? Marian was thrown into a state of alarm and dread. Without work, how could she go on? What would create solid ground for her to stand on, keep the void from swallowing her? She volunteered immediately for the most intense and time-consuming tasks she could find. She kept up with as much of MANY's ongoing work as she could, from home, fighting the lack of phones, the rerouted subways, the abrupt reordering of everyone's priorities.

And there was Kevin.

Kevin was in the hospital at NYU. Marian went every day, past the coroner's huge tent, past the refrigerated trucks that held remains waiting to be identified, past the crowds of relatives and friends who gathered there because others were gathering there, because someone might have glimpsed your parent or child or lover wandering dazed, lying injured, maybe they'd been taken to another hospital and someone had seen them there and you wouldn't have to come here anymore where the coroner was identifying remains.

Kevin was her godson, and she'd gone every day, and whatever time she got there, she found other firefighters sitting with him, or arriving, or leaving. Marian soon understood that Kevin, because he had lived, because he had been saved, was an emblem for these men. He represented something they could do: his brothers had saved him then, they could support him, comfort him, kid him along now. They came to visit Kevin, she understood, for the same reason that she worked and worked late into the night.

Some of the firefighters had been digging on the pile, and had conscientiously scrubbed and changed clothes before coming to the hospital. Some were on their way to dig, or going on duty, or coming off duty. They told Kevin what had happened on the site today, who was giving commands, whose body had been found; they told him what fires they had fought in the course of their normal day's work and whose funerals they had gone to. One evening Marian had arrived to hear three firefighters describing Jimmy's memorial service to Kevin: the dignitaries, the prayers, the pallbearers shouldering the bier of flowers that carried Jimmy's helmet because there was no body to bury. Kevin was in tears, and Marian, hovering outside the open door-Marian who had been there, who had sat at the back of St. Patrick's Cathedral among the largest crowd she had ever seen in a church and had found herself shivering uncontrollably-felt her own hot tears start. She'd turned and fled from the hospital before she was noticed.

The firefighters were always courteous to her and got up to go for coffee or buy Kevin ice cream so he and Marian could have time alone. Occasionally she let them go, but most often she insisted they stay. She'd smile and set to the task of keeping order among the gifts that crowded Kevin's room.

As a rule she had trouble discarding flowers; at home she let them linger until colors dulled and petals scattered. But in Kevin's room, bouquets and sprays, cut flowers and potted plants, and also balloons, fruit baskets, and candy, arrived daily, from friends and neighbors and from total strangers who sent these things to Kevin for the same reason they sent money to the Red Cross and the Salvation Army and the McCaffery Fund.

At his suggestion she distributed many of them to other patients in the Burns Unit, and to the nurses and therapists who worked so hard for these patients. Then she would sit and drink a cup of tea, telling Kevin about anything funny that had happened to her, any gossip or intriguing event that might interest him. When her tea was gone, she would rise, kiss his cheek, and leave, promising to return the following day. If Sally arrived while she was there, and Marian had the time, she'd wait in the lounge for Sally to finish her visit, and she and Sally would go for coffee, or a drink if the hour was late enough.

“Honey, he's fine,” she'd reassure Sally the same way each time. “He's doing really well. I talked to the doctor.”

“Thanks.” Sally would squeeze Marian's hand. “I talked to him, too, but I can't understand a word he says.”

Of course Sally could understand doctors, but Marian knew what she meant, and smiled encouragingly. Because the more important something was to you, the more you needed it and demanded it, the more it grew and mushroomed in your own head, and then the harder it was to hear.

There was a rhythm to Marian's visits with Kevin, and only one thing could disturb it. If Phil Constantine arrived while she was there, Marian would gather her things and leave at once. The lawyer invariably offered to be the one to come back later, but she would not allow it. And if he was there when she arrived, she would put her flowers in water and leave. She wanted to owe him nothing, not even ten minutes with Kevin. Let him owe that to her.

And after three weeks Marian's office building reopened. On that day Marian had come in alone and very early, lugging files and computer disks. Unlocking the oak door, she anticipated with a child's excitement the magic of that moment, when she would step from the wilderness-a wilderness, always; but never before as desolate as this-into the garden.

It had not happened. Disappointed, almost panicked, Marian had found no enchantment inside, only drooping plants and forlorn furniture coated with a fine white dust that had once been buildings and everything inside them.