Norman Manea - The Lair

12:48 p.m.:

Ahmed Mitawakil, the Taliban Afghan minister of external affairs, rebuffs insinuations that the poet Yussuma Ben Laden instigated the massacre.

1:04 p.m.:

The political analyst Jonathan Eyal qualifies the event of the day as “the best — planned action of its kind in all of history.”

2:32 p.m.:

Two aircraft carriers appear in New York Harbor to preempt imminent attacks.

3:27 p.m.:

A possible attack on NATO headquarters in Brussels is announced.

3:35 p.m.:

The military base in Aviano, Italy, declares itself ready for battle.

3:59 p.m.:

Air Force One directs its course toward Offutt, Nebraska, to the headquarters of Strategic Air Command. The White House announces that the First Lady of the United States and the two First Daughters are, thank God, sheltered safely.

Professor Gora feels suddenly overwhelmed by the presidential news and interrupts contact with the planet once more, exhausted. He lies down. He sleeps deeply, lost at sea, twisted in his sheets, unable to release himself from the conversation with Eva Ga par. From the first moment of the assault, Eva Kirschner — Ga par was in hysterics. She hadn’t heard from Peter in a long time. The wanderer had grown more and more distant, though there was no longer a distance that was distant enough; disaster finds you everywhere you go. Conceived at Auschwitz, Peter had plunged into the socialist den, then into the free madness of the free world. Now where would he close the circle?

Difficult to calm Eva down. Even more difficult to leave her without an answer. Professor Gora felt responsible. He’d been the only person with whom Eva had maintained contact since Peter had arrived in the New World. No, Peter wasn’t among the victims, dear Mrs. Ga par; after the madness of these days passes we’ll get some news from that fool Peter. All, yes all of us — his parents from the Carpathian paradise, Dr. Koch and his assistant Ludmila Sera — fim, her ex — husband Augustin Gora, Beatrice Artwein, and the Soviet man Boltanski — will have news from our good boy Peter.

True, he had a meeting that morning precisely at the World Trade Center. Unfortunately, precisely on that morning and precisely in that cursed building, Peter was to meet a lawyer who specialized in immigration, paid for by Professor Gora. The meeting had been scheduled many months in advance, before Peter’s disappearance. The meeting was with a famous and expensive lawyer.

However, this is not a fatal certainty, not at all. No one knows whether Peter went to the meeting. No one knows whether he even remembered, in his wanderings, the day and place, or whether he even cared about this bureaucratic disaster. Still, if he’d intended to keep the appointment, it couldn’t have been the first hour of the day. It was hard for Peter to wake up in the morning, as you well know, the Hotel Esplanade was far away from the grandiose World Trade Center, the meeting would have been around lunchtime.

There was a favorable new premise, as well. Half an hour ago it was announced, via trustworthy sources, that the sons and daughters of the Chosen People had been forewarned the night before not to find themselves in or around the Babel Towers on the morning of the great manipulation. Naturally, a manipulation: the demonstration we all watched is, in fact, a staging of considerable proportions. Those nineteen actors are, in reality, agents of CIA special forces, trained in the Arab language and the Islamic tradition. Herostratus, the code name of the operation, was chosen by a star Harvard graduate, Samuel Knish, the leader of the project. His parents had been assassinated when he and his twin sister were five years old. They’d lived in an isolated village on the Lebanese border. Samuel was now a historian of Antiquity, obsessed with the relationship between Athens and Jerusalem, which was why he’d christened the band of knifemen Herostratus, the name of the infamous Greek arsonist.

Well, okay, so not one of 2,974 victims of the massacre comes from among the Chosen People. Not one! You’re right. The Almighty repaid those who recognized him first and those with whom he closed the Sacred Covenant. If there were still a few sacrifices among them, it was merely due to negligence … yes, there were some.

Professor Gora sees, in his sleep, the planetary screen, as he describes to Eva the figures from his electronic mail: 246 victims in the hijacked planes that exploded; 2,603 in New York, in the World Trade Center and on the ground; 125 in the Pentagon of Power. At 8:45 a.m. there were 7,400 civilians in the Towers of Babel; other sources say 14,154. Those who were under the area of impact were promptly evacuated, others died under the ruins, some ran toward the roof, but access was blocked and they threw themselves into the emptiness. Hundreds of firemen also died, in the heroic rescue operation. None of those sacrificed, I repeat, not one was among the coreligionists of Peter! You’re right, it’s not just the hand of the Almighty looking for redemption after Auschwitz but also the solidarity of those who’ve learned that they need to rely on themselves, as you say.

Peter and his coreligionists are alive and unscathed in the City on the Moon, as he used to call the metropolis of exiles. It was because of him, I’m sure, that Tara, Deste, Mrs. Monteverdi, and her adorable cats also escaped. When they decided to accompany him, he warned them, I’m sure of it. Peter is a frivolous and unreliable scatterbrain with a generous soul, warm like bread fresh out of the oven.

Of course, there will be unpleasant consequences for Peter, as well as those young ladies, but it won’t be death. Peter called the witch with the scythe “The Nymphomaniac,” and he played hide — and — seek with her. He said often that here, in America, he will dominate the game. He led the cannibal astray this time as well, you can be sure of it.

What happened today marks the beginning of the new millennium of suspicion and guilt. Inevitably, the infantile college prank that Deste allowed herself to make will become, unfortunately, more suspect than it was already. There will be investigations, important personalities will be summoned, such as Atatürk and Borges, but also the college president Avakian and Professor Anteos and Ms. Tang and the student Tara Nelson. Even more likely, Deste Onal and her husband who was now in Austria, the family exiled in Germany, relatives in Sarajevo and the former Ottoman Empire, and even Peter, yes, Peter Ga par and his cousin Lu, Dr. Koch, the Soviet Boltanski, the Italian Beatrice Artwein, and I wouldn’t be surprised, not at all surprised if even Professor Gora were to be included in the parade of suspects.

The day had grown long, and he couldn’t sleep. Gora tossed and turned, moaning until, at last, he woke up. His absence would not be tolerated in this nonstop staging of the apocalypse. The news of the assault repeated itself and multiplied on that fatal day, and the day that followed, and after, a single and often prolonged day, grandiose and endless.

In the superb twilight, the city was speechless, silent. Long convoys of pedestrians were heading home. Stiffened subways. The sadness and discipline syndrome, solidarity and horror, unified the city dwellers who’d been so hurried and disparate the day before. How was it possible not to suspect everyone? And how could no one anticipate the disaster that a suspect hunt will lead to?