A Book of American Martyrs(153)

“And how has your mother been, Naomi?”

“I think—my mother has been well . . .”

“Jenna isn’t in Ann Arbor any longer, I’ve heard?”

“Yes. I mean—no. She’s in Bennington, Vermont.”

How halting, Naomi’s speech. And why did she think it was necessary to add “Vermont”—as if Madelena would not know where Bennington was.

“She’s grieving, Naomi. It doesn’t end.”

Was Madelena defending Jenna? But why would Madelena suppose that Jenna needed to be defended, to her daughter?

“Are you in touch with her—with Mom?”

“In a way. No and yes. Not obviously.”

Naomi would consider this elusive remark, at length.

Madelena told Naomi that she’d planned several outings for them during Naomi’s visit—to the Metropolitan Opera, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to the Neue Galerie, to Lincoln Center for the New York City Ballet —but she would be away from the apartment for much of the day most days, at the university; she would be away some evenings as well—“You’ll be on your own. As much as you wish. Or, if things work out, you can accompany me.”

If things work out. What did that mean?

“Life is not inevitably more complicated in New York City than in the Midwest but for those who thrive on complications, this is our city.”

Madelena led Naomi along a narrow corridor into a sparely furnished white-walled room flooded with waning afternoon light.

On a sleek white plastic desk in this room Madelena had laid several pages of the New York Times listing museum exhibits, concerts, plays, films, lectures and poetry readings for the upcoming week. Beside some of the listings, a red check.

“Feel free to add anything of your own that you’d like to see, and if we have time, we will. This is a ‘holiday’ for me, too.”

The closet door was ajar as if to suggest that Naomi should open it farther, and hang her things inside. At the foot of the bed was a small cedar chest.

“There’s a bathroom just across the hall, for you.”

“Thank you . . .”

Naomi didn’t know how to address her grandmother. “Madelena” did not sound right, but “grandmother” was out of the question.

As if reading her mind Madelena said, “Please just call me ‘Lena.’ I realize it’s awkward, but you will get used to it.”

“‘Lena.’”

“With more emphasis, dear! ‘Le-na.’ ”

“‘Le-na.’”

Madelena laughed happily, and touched Naomi’s arm. For a moment Naomi thought her grandmother might embrace her again, swiftly and tightly, but that did not happen.

Next, Naomi was asked by Madelena if she had any questions—she could not think of a single question!—except questions she dared not ask of the straight-backed silver-haired woman whose eyes were obscured by tinted glasses. Why am I here, why did you invite me, do you care for me, is it expected that I will care for you?

When she was alone she lay her suitcase on the cedar chest and began to unpack, slowly. Her gaze was drawn to the floor-to-ceiling window of the outer wall, that opened out into pure shimmering light. She was feeling weak with excitement, and had to sit on the edge of the bed.

The coverlet was made of a stiff white puckered fabric, with rough-textured pillows in bright colors and designs that might have been Native American, Mexican. She smiled happily. She was a child who has crawled through a looking-glass and come into an amazing world—like Alice, her old, lost heroine.


WHEN YOUR FATHER DIED I came here to live. I could not breathe in the low place I’d been living, a brownstone in Washington Square Mews.

For a long time then I slept mostly in this room—though it’s meant to be obviously a child’s room. I fell asleep to the view outside this window, at night. I woke to this view in the morning. It was months before I got around to unpacking. I hardly went into the other rooms . . . During the day I was a professor at the University.

I have always been hypnotized by my work and essentially my life is this “hypnosis.” It has not been a personal life, much.

At the Institute it was suggested that I take a semester’s sabbatical but I refused. I took on new responsibilities—a new graduate seminar in the philosophy of linguistics, a new course with a colleague in art history titled “The Art of Estrangement.” A university committee on minority hiring, a selection committee for post-docs at the Institute for Independent Study.

I could not bear a protracted time during which I would mourn my son for there was no thought of Gus that was not an infinity into which I could fall, and fall.

I am not by nature a mourner. That is not my personality. What it was that happened to me, I have never understood. But it was in this room and not the other rooms of the apartment that it happened.

Though I was very tired at this time I was also tireless.

You may find yourself in this state someday. I think it is a woman’s state of being. Your mother would know.

And then, it was September 2001—the morning of September eleventh.

This window faces south—downtown. Of all the windows in the apartment it is this window, ironically, in this small room, that gives the most direct view of what would be called Ground Zero. I happened to be in this room on the morning of September eleventh. I don’t think that I had slept here the night before but sometime in the early morning, at dawn, when I was awake and couldn’t get back to sleep, I came into this room, which has such an extraordinary view of the avenues and streets and their lights and the taxis—on West Houston, the taxis cruise at all hours. To watch the sky change its colors—the clouds change—that is very comforting. And then, later, as I was about to leave to go to the University, there was—suddenly—a few miles away—in the area of the World Trade Center—a patch of something fiery-red.