Untold Stories
The raw scene.

September 13, 2001 1:00 p.m.

t the tip of Union Square, beneath the equestrian statue of George Washington, an impromptu memorial has emerged. There is a makeshift column of cement, surmounted by a twisted square foot of metal screen — a fragment of the former World Trade Towers, the passerby thinks, though it might be anything at all. The litter of flowers and candles — "so Indian, so Mexican" one used to think, until it became ubiquitous here — surrounds the base. Taped to the fan-shaped southern steps of the park are sheets of brown paper, with magic markers, for writing one's thoughts.

Most of the sentiments were simple blessings on the departed; some of these also asked blessings on America. There were reflexive appeals foreswearing violence — this is, after all, still New York — which prompted one or two bellicose replies. One corner of a sheet showed considerable religious debate: "Why is life such a bitch?" "All heads must bow and acknowledge Jesus. Repent." "God has many new angels in heaven watching over us." Natural man, the Covenanters, and the New Age. We are still in the first flush, when everyone retains his old opinions, only moreso.

A neighbor, wheeling her three-year-old in a stroller, told me her parents had been Holocaust survivors, who had stayed in Germany, ignoring the signs until it was too late. Perhaps she should move to Michigan, near her sister. Where does your sister live, I asked. Ann Arbor, she said. Considering the Arab population of greater Detroit, I said, there were certainly more people in Ann Arbor who knew of the attack ahead of time than in New York.

We told the waiter at the place where we ate lunch yesterday that it was our 21st anniversary (we were not celebrating, that was impossible, but we did want to note the fact). He pointed to his new bride, a Lithuanian model taller than he is. Then he unburdened himself passionately on the disaster. He was patriotic all the way, and he asked in passing why Israel's neighbors can't give it a fair chance?

At the same time, a friend of my wife's, whose family is Greek Cypriot, said that such things will continue to happen until the Middle East's problems are "resolved." It will be interesting to see how such sentiments ebb and flow, beneath the go-team aegis of war.

The swath of the city between 14th Street and midtown is oddly lively. There are few of the big businesses of midtown here, whose workers have not come in, and the devastation does not quite reach us. But the reminders are frequent. In the early afternoon yesterday a grey acrid cloud drifted north: the dust of the collapse of a few more hulks at the Word Trade Towers site. Pedestrians look up at the sound of airplanes — something New Yorkers, living in their many flight paths, never did. Soon we will learn to recognize fighters. Late in the afternoon, a caravan rolled up Third Avenue. Three New Jersey State Police Cars led the way (how many NYPD cars, and their crews, have been buried?). There followed a line of trucks, loaded with fastened metal boxes, and buses full of relief workers. There were nine buses, seven or eight trucks. When pedestrians tried to scoot across the avenue in a momentary lull, a cop on a motorcycle barked them back.

Washington Irving High School has become a Red Cross center for evacuees. My wife, who is a psychoanalyst, went to offer her help. The Red Cross volunteers were genial, but they seemed encumbered by help. The evacuees — people who lived downtown — were mildly dazed, rather than severely disoriented. One old lady who had lived in her apartment for 37 years wanted to go home. A volunteer with a facemask dangling from her neck carried another old person's cat in a box. People were given plastic bags with elementary toiletries, and cots in the auditorium. I once heard Isaac Stern play there. This activity occurred in a hallway decorated with Maxfield Parish-like mosaics of the history of New York — muscular Indians, Dutchmen, otters and beavers — and inscriptions of the smooth and fruity prose of Irving.

People who live in the Village or Soho, and who have ventured further south — there is a National Guard Perimeter at Center Street — say how much has been kept out of the papers. There are piles of corpses and severed limbs; a Brooks Brothers store is serving as a morgue.

When this comes out, as it must, the dull shock will become true distress, and then such as my wife will have work indeed.

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