September 11th was to have been Concertante’s first afternoon concert at Merkin Hall. I got up that morning around 7:00, and started practicing sometime before 9:00. One of the pieces we were going to play was a Boccherini Cello Quintet, and my part for that is tricky - I practiced getting the ricochet bowing just right. I thought about how it would be harder to do it well under the pressure of an audience sitting in front of me.
About 9:45 I stopped practicing and started to get ready to leave for the 10:30 dress rehearsal. I turned on the radio to listen to music as I put on makeup and gathered my things. There was only static on WNYC, so I changed it to WQXR, the other station that plays classical music.
Instead of music, an announcer was saying that planes had crashed into both World Trade Towers, that there were huge fires in each, that the Pentagon had also been hit, and that these were terrorist attacks. He was speaking to the woman who had initially called the station to inform them of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center, and she was still standing where she could see the Towers. As she was describing the burning buildings, she suddenly stopped and started saying over and over again, "Oh my God! Oh my God! The tower is crumbling! Oh my God, it’s gone! Oh my God!" There was silence from the announcer while we heard the woman gasping and repeating -Oh my God! It’s gone!- again and again. I thought of the newscaster who was on the scene of the Hindenburg disaster, and the sound of his shocked and hysterical voice. Finally the announcer said, "If what we have just heard is true, it appears that one of the towers has collapsed". It was very quiet. There was no way to react in words to this utter shock. He was having trouble saying something so unfathomable. When the woman said the tower was crumbling, I pictured a corner of the building collapsing, perhaps involving part of the top three floors. Then she kept saying that the tower was gone. It was gone! Just smoke!
I literally went weak in the knees, and almost dropped to the ground. My Twin Towers - always a part of my Manhattan skyline that I love and is where I come from - they are not candidates for coming and going, they’re just there - always. This is impossible. Not reality. Something that is impossible cannot happen.
For some reason I still was thinking about my rehearsal, and trying to get to it on time, so I did my best to get ready to go, and took with me my concert clothes in case the traffic would make it hard to pick them up before the concert. I tried calling Charles, my husband, at work on his cell phone, but could not get through. I was not concerned that he might be downtown because I was sure he had no reason to be there at that time. I tried to reach my mother at work in New Jersey, and could not get through. Then I called my dad at home, and he had spoken to my mother shortly after the planes had hit, so we knew she was safe. He had turned off the TV and radio about 45 minutes earlier because he had found it too difficult to hear again and again what had happened. "What was the last thing you heard had happened?" I asked, realizing that he may not yet know that one of the Towers had fallen. He just knew about the planes, so I told him about the collapse. He was very solemn and quiet. I left the apartment with all my stuff and my cello, and went downstairs to try to catch a cab.
The mass exodus heading uptown reminded me of images of masses of Iraqi soldiers trying to flee Kuwait at the end of the war before being bombed to oblivion by American planes. There were masses of people walking uptown, and incredible traffic too. It was clear I was not going to find a cab, so I got onto a very crowded bus. People were talking on their cell phones and to one another about what had happened. I strained to hear what others were saying so I could perhaps get more information. It became clear that I would be very late for my rehearsal if I stayed on this bus, so I got out and walked the rest of the way. I walked past Lincoln Center, which was being evacuated. I arrived at Merkin where there were several other musicians in the lobby, sharing their disbelief. It turned out that Charles had actually called one of them about 15 minutes earlier with a business question. He had called from his cell phone on
the street after leaving a meeting at a music management company. He had absolutely no idea of what was going on. The violinist he had called told him. I was relieved at least to know now for sure that Charles was safe. I kept trying to call him from the backstage phone, but could not get through to his office or his cell phone. As I was talking in the lobby with people, someone made some remark about both towers having fallen. What?? The second one is down too?? It seems it must have fallen while I was on the bus. I didn’t know what to do with myself. This was not possible. Someone brought in a radio, and we clustered around listening. I was partly curious to hear any new
developments, and partly too afraid of what I might hear to listen.
Also in the lobby with us were teachers from the Hebrew School of the Arts upstairs. They were meeting frantic parents that rushed into the lobby with panicked looks on their faces, and often tears running down their faces. The teachers thought it would be best for the children if these parents did not go upstairs to see their kids. The kids did not know yet that anything was wrong, and it might be upsetting to the ones whose parents were not there to get them. Oh my God, there might be children in school who will never be picked up by their parents. The teachers were crying. A janitor ran through the lobby saying that "they" had blown up a bank in Battery Park City. I started to cry. You mean there might be more? Were we safe a block from Lincoln Center, at a Jewish Institution? Would they blow us up too? I wanted to go north. Away from a target.
Zvi, a cellist from Israel, told me that in a situation like this you have to
accept that you have no control over your fate, and just relax into whatever it will be. I supposed he had lived with fears similar to the ones I was having.
We went to the home of one of the musicians, Rachel. I tried again and again to reach Charles, and finally left a message at home telling him where I was and asking him to join me. Someone immediately turned on the TV. I could not bear to see photographs of what had happened. I paced in another room, only listening to the news. I could tell by what they were saying when they were showing the towers on fire or collapsing, and I covered my ears so that I would not hear it. Little by little I began to watch, and couldn’t believe my eyes. Impossible. Impossible. This cannot be real. This is too awful. I didn’t want to even imagine that there could have been people inside. I kept thinking that the planes had hit before 9:00, so very few people would have shown up for work yet. So the damage was basically to the building only.
And then they started describing people jumping out of windows trying to escape the flames. Oh my God, there were people behind those metal and glass walls. Trapped in cages. Too much. Almost all the musicians from the rehearsal were at Rachel’s apartment, and we talked about whether or not to play the concert. I had mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I did not feel safe in that building. On the other, I liked the idea of defiantly playing music. They will not impose on us a Taliban ban on music. They will not prevent us from living. Or at least not all of us. I imagined getting out my cello and playing solo Bach outside on Broadway. Let there be some force of good and enveloping warmth in the midst of this horror. Finally Charles called from home. He was on his way to Rachel’s apartment. I told him to make a detour so that he would not be walking directly next to Lincoln Center. It seemed like ages before he finally arrived. I waited outside Rachel’s building so I would see him the moment he came close.
A man was walking his dog. How strange to be doing something so normal. Charles came into view and we hugged for a long time. A bunch of us decided to go to the Red Cross to donate blood, something I had never done before. We got there and found that many people had had the same idea, and that they were asking anyone who did not have a rare blood type to come back after 9 that evening. But, we could go next door to Martin Luther King High School, where the auditorium had been converted into a volunteering sign-up center. We filled out forms saying when we were available to volunteer, and I started checking with my schedule to put down exact times. Then I scratched that all out and wrote in large letters "ANYTIME". The form asked what special skills I have and what my driver’s license number is. I don’t know how to drive. I don’t know about computer programming. I don’t know how to operate heavy machinery. I don’t speak other languages, except for some French. I have never worked at a soup
kitchen. I am not a doctor. I am not a mental health worker. I play the cello. How useless. No, the Red Cross guy said, put that down as your special skill. You can cheer up a lot of unhappy people with your music. I never got called to help.
We returned to Rachel’s and it turned out that the father of one of the musicians, Ittai, worked one day a week at the World Trade Center, but Ittai did not know on what day. He couldn’t reach his father or anyone who might know where he was. Ittai was being very quiet and calm, and I was worried about him. He is from Israel, and somehow I imagined that as an Israeli he might be more used to this kind of worry than I was. Charles, Ittai and I went for sandwiches. Our concert was cancelled because some city official told Merkin to close. Charles and I waited outside the hall to meet my dad in case he showed up for the concert. We saw a woman in business clothes with a briefcase, covered in white powder, limping and looking disoriented. I asked her if she was okay. She waited a moment before answering, and said, "The heel on my shoe broke." And she continued on her unsteady walk home. We spent the rest of the day until 11:00pm watching the news at Rachel’s. The time went by so quickly that I
was shocked every time I looked at my watch. I remember the next morning, waking up and immediately thinking about the day before, checking to see it was still there. I could not escape reality.
Friday, a national day of mourning, I ventured out of my cave to look around. On Fifth Avenue, American flags at half-mast, blowing in the wind as far as the eye could see. Nobody smiling. Stores closed. Purple and black swags of fabric hung over the wide-open doors to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Billowing smoke coming from the hole in the sky where the Twin Towers were. Twins, like babies, New York’s twins. At 7:00pm walking up 8th Avenue with Charles, holding candles. Many other people with candles, standing in front of apartment buildings and at street corners. Making eye contact with fellow New Yorkers. Walked to Lincoln Center. There a crowd holding candles. Huge flags hung up at the Met Opera, Avery Fisher Hall and the NY Ballet Theater. People quietly singing patriotic songs. Crying. A cluster of people singing in another language. Someone asks if we could have a few minutes with no singing, just silence. Many of us walk to a nearby fire station, the one responsible for putting out
Lincoln Center’s fires. Oh my God. Ten men gone. Prayers, candles, flowers, letters taped to the wall. I futilely relight the candles the wind has blown out. Many people gathered in support for a long time. Singing. Firefighters standing watching. What are they feeling? I wish I could heal their hurt somehow. If only they could understand how much we love them. Someone reads a beautiful poem she wrote. I stand in front of the huge shrine of a garage door, and cry hard. A woman I do not know puts her arm around me and cries too. Charles and I take a subway down to Union Square. This is the place for all of us to grieve together and in whatever way we want. African drummers jamming with jazz saxophone players and a bagpiper. Improvising together on the national anthem - many cultures together singing the song that tonight speaks for them all. Dancing in a trance. Posters everywhere of missing New Yorkers. Thousands of candles in the park. Letters of hope. Prayers for peace and love.
Flowers. We are so together now. There is no room for disagreement. We all feel what is essential, and it unites us. We walk downtown to Washington Square Park. More shrines. Relighting candles. Other people join me to do the same. If they stay lit, will the people stay alive? Will they die if I let the flame go out? Walk to Canal Street, the farthest south you are allowed to go now. We walk on Canal to the West Side Highway, which has become the artery for vehicles and men headed to the front to fight for our humanity at Ground Zero. A crowd cheering on anyone who goes by. Every conceivable kind of vehicle is used to transport people, equipment. A golf cart even. A flatbed truck leaves, packed with rescue workers standing holding American flags. They look so exhausted. Everyone gets a loud cheer from us. These men are soldiers going to the front to rescue all of us. They are risking their lives for us. I feel so grateful I want to hug and kiss them. A police barricade covered with
candles and flowers. I again try to relight the ones that have gone out. It’s very important. The golf cart carries piles of dog food in big bags. I guess that’s for the dogs that sniff for humans in the wreckage; some sniff for live ones, some sniff for corpses - they specialize. Firemen covered in dust come out on foot. We cheer and wave to somehow show them we love them. Will it help them if they know that? We look down the West Side Highway to the place where those two twins stood, poking out above Manhattan’s towering skyline. They have vanished, vaporized. Still huge clouds of billowing smoke. Floodlights, like a massive movie being filmed, illuminate the disaster. There is no rest at night here. Those under the rubble cannot wait. Please let there be someone alive. It has been days since they found someone alive. How could anyone survive the Twin Towers falling on their head? Please let there be no one suffering underneath, still alive, never to be found. Too cruel.
Sunday, Avery Fisher Hall, special concert. Beverly Sills: "I believe that culture is the signature of a civilization. And we are a very civilized people." Emerson Quartet. First violinist walking onstage with tears on his face. Beautiful Beethoven Op. 131. This music is still with us. It has not changed. It has in it the instrument to carry whatever emotion we feel. It holds everything. Near the end of the piece, defiance. Somehow Beethoven had access to wisdom that I thought only God had. Perhaps God was writing this music through Beethoven’s hand. I cry uncontrollably. The audience leaves. Charles and I still in our seats. I can’t stop crying. The usher asks if I am okay.
Alice Tully Hall. Les Musicians du Roi from Quebec comes to perform a program that was planned months ago: Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and the Mozart Requiem. The conductor explains to us that the original title of the Mass was "Mass for a Time of Fear". The orchestra and choir debated whether or not to come to New York to do the concert, and decided they "had to come to New York" to show their support and to "bond with the American people." Every one of them wears a red, white and blue ribbon. I am moved by their desire to stand with us in our time of grief. A moment of silence before the music. The silence is so intense, deep, for so long, that with my eyes shut, I can believe that I am alone in the room, that there is only one person in the room. I open my eyes to see hundreds of people, one united people alone in the room. The musicians sing and play their hearts out. I cry for two hours solid. We go backstage to thank them for coming and for their performance. I feel they have given me
something very personal. They were truly giving each one of us a gift.
I buy a big scarf with stars and stripes on it. The first American flag I have ever bought, and perhaps ever owned. I wear it around my neck. On two separate occasions men salute me as I walk by.
I buy an "I Love New York" T-shirt, and wear it with a red, white and blue ribbon. Two Middle Eastern looking men walk holding American Flags over their heads and say to me, "We love you too!"
I go to the garment district and buy 50 yards of red, white and blue ribbon. I make ribbons for people to wear, about 60 of them. I put them in a basket and leave them in our lobby with the doorman. Two hours later every one of them has been taken. The doorman asks for more. I make 60 more, and two hours later he needs more. This repeats. Finally at 11pm I bring down the last batch (a total now of about 350). By 8:00 the next morning they are all gone. A man asks if it’s okay for him to take one even though he’s Canadian. Of course! These ribbons and our flag right now do not stand for anything political, only human.
Charles begins to wear a ribbon.
I perform the Schubert Cello Quintet at the Met Museum where they are having daily noontime concerts now in the wake of this catastrophe. We play in the Medieval Hall where the Christmas tree is in December. A huge church-like room, cavernous ceiling. The final chord of the piece goes on forever, reverberating upward, through the roof and to heaven.
I am scheduled to play tonight for emergency workers in a church near the World Trade Center. They are using the church to rest, meditate and pray between shifts. A friend has organized musicians to play for them. I want so much to do this. I can be a sort of rescuer this way. I get a call that the music is cancelled. They have been finding many bodies in the last couple of days, and they feel that the workers would prefer silence for now. I want whatever they want.
My flutist friend Ulla goes to St. Vincent’s Hospital to play for people injured in the attack. While she plays upstairs, someone rushes over to tell her that a firefighter just arrived at the Emergency Room. He was hurt during recovery efforts, and could she play some music for him? She goes to the Emergency Room and improvises for an hour and a half on the other side of the curtain that surrounds the fireman’s bed. He holds a red rose someone gave him, and he cries. She plays to him, sending him resuscitating strength and love with every breath she blows into the flute.
Ulla tells me of a prayer, St. Francis’ prayer I think. It begins, "Let me be the instrument of your peace." She says that as musicians we can be the instruments of people’s peace.
"Concert of Remembrance" broadcast on the radio from Carnegie Hall. Yo-Yo Ma plays solo Bach, beautifully. He means it. James Levine plays Bolcom’s "Graceful Ghosts Rag"; it is tender, comfortable, soothing, still there, not transformed into something raging or fearful. Leontyne Price sings "America the Beautiful" - Charles is cooking, I am sitting at the computer - we stop dead in our activities. This performance/music is as spiritually powerful as the acts of these terrorists were physically powerful. This music grabs onto us, leads us forward, pulls us up, pushes our fear behind us, unites us all, ignites us. I cry harder than ever in my life.
That image of a lone tower, still standing after its twin has fallen, reminds me of a wild animal, maimed, part of its body cut off, still alive, in agony, screaming, squawking, eyes crazed and burning, doomed, and knowing it.
A week after the 11th I run into a high school classmate of mine on a subway going from Brooklyn to Manhattan. We have a long time to talk as our train inches through tunnels, bypassing stops at who knows what devastation. Kareem is Egyptian, but has lived in New York since he was a kid. He says he feels like a tourist in his own city. I ask him what he means, and he pulls his US passport out of his shirt pocket - he carries it with him everywhere now.
Wandering aimlessly down 8th Avenue from my apartment building. Parked in front of the Days Inn, a small flatbed truck carrying a bronze statue of a fireman on bended knee with his head down. Acknowledging fallen brothers. The Fireman’s Prayer inscribed on it. Selflessness. Goodness. The statue’s journey from its factory to its planned home in Missouri has been diverted to New York, thanks to the unanimous wishes of the firefighters in Missouri for whom it was made. Here is its new home. The man driving the truck is staying at the Days Inn, and has parked his cargo on the street in front of his hotel. It has become yet another shrine in this city of countless spontaneous memorials to the lost members of our community. People surround it, silently staring at it, crying, leaving candles and flowers. Two blocks downtown is my neighborhood firehouse. It is my first visit here since that day. It is the scene of a community’s overwhelming compassion and gratitude towards its firemen heroes.
There are hundreds and hundreds of candles, bouquets, scattered flowers, letters, notes scrawled, a beer bottle with a box of cigarettes attached to it with a rubber band and a note saying "My dear Paul, I thought you could use a beer and a smoke after a hard day", a table set up to hold all the home cooked and baked food that has been given as gifts, people standing around just looking, reading the letters, writing in a book of condolences, gazing at the photographs and names of the 15 missing firefighters and trying to understand that those people are gone, torn from us. Above their names is written "Our Brothers." This station was the hardest hit in the city. A weeping woman hugs a firefighter and the two are soon wrapped in the embrace of another fireman. The families of the surviving firemen are here - for support and perhaps also to savor every moment of life together that they miraculously have been granted. It is unspeakably sad. And beautiful. It is a display of the very best that we are made of, made possible by the very worst that we are made of. I have never seen such generosity of spirit among strangers. I go to a nearby bodega to buy a candle. The owner of the store says that he has to reorder them because they keep selling out. This bestseller gives him no pleasure. He gives me a pack of matches with my candle. I go back to the fire station and light my candle. I say a prayer. A Japanese TV crew asks if they can talk to me on camera. I tell them I would prefer not to. I leave crying again, and continue my walk.
After going to bed before Charles one night, I awaken the next morning to this composition of word magnets on our fridge door:
elevate modern building gray big watch overwhelm sky scraper -- huge Manhattan skyline architecture steel wonder view tall gorgeous -- New York -- flying assault crush dream -- feel let down noise dark ugly smoke run leave never return
We are still here.