The Woman Who Wasn’t There

by Jr. Robin Gaby Fisher; Angelo J. Guglielmo

  “What is it?” she cried. “What’s happened? Did she do something to herself?”

  “It’s not what you think,” Linda said. “It’s not what you think. Tania . . . Tania is a fraud.”

  Elia felt nauseous. Her first inclination was to scream at Linda. How dare she say such a terrible thing? But, way down, in the place in her gut that never lied, she knew what Linda was saying was the truth. All she could do was cry.

  Only Brendan Chellis breathed a sigh of relief when he heard. For months, he had kept his suspicions to himself as he watched Tania bask in her celebrity and suck the life out of his friends with her constant bids for attention. So when Richard Zimbler and Lori Mogol called, their voices grave, and said they had something to tell him about Tania, he felt like a weight had been lifted off his chest.

  “I already know,” he said.

  For the next few days, as the Times wrapped up its research, Tania’s friends took her calls, acting as if nothing had changed. They didn’t want to tip her off that the story was about to break. She had taken a short sabbatical to Spain with her mother, but Janice spoke to her every day, trying to encourage her to weigh in should a story be published. She finally agreed to a three-way conference call with Janice and Times investigative reporter Serge Kovaleski. The call lasted about thirty minutes, with Kovaleski asking questions and Tania skirting around them. In her reticence, she would say only that she had done nothing illegal.

  The reporter finally spelled it out for her. Her lack of clarity had gone on long enough, and their story was nearing completion. They really wanted her to have her say, but time was running short. Tania promised to meet with Kovaleski when she returned from Spain. But once again, she cancelled.

  On the eve of publication, Tania wrote a blanket email to her survivor friends:

  As you know, the New York Times is going to publish an article about me. I ask all of you to please not listen to what is in the article, but reflect upon what you know of me.

  On September 27, 2007, the headline on the front page of the Times read, “In a 9/11 Survival Tale, the Pieces Just Don’t Fit.” A photograph of Tania leading the Tribute Center tour for Pataki, Bloomberg, and Giuliani accompanied the 2,200-word account. The story quoted almost everyone on the Survivors’ Network board and deconstructed Tania’s personal history, myth by myth: The family of Dave , the man she claimed to have married, who really did die in the north tower, had never heard of a Tania Head. Merrill Lynch had no record of an employee with her name. Nor did Harvard or Stanford have a Tania Head in its student files.

  “In recent weeks, the New York Times sought to interview Ms. Head about her experiences on 9/11 because she had, in other settings, presented a poignant account of survival and loss,” the story said. “But she cancelled three scheduled interviews, citing her privacy and emotional turmoil, and declined to provide details to corroborate her story.

  “Indeed,” the Times concluded, “no part of her story has been verified.”

  The Survivors’ Network board held an emergency meeting to vote Tania out of the organization and to appoint Richard Zimbler as acting president. The board released a statement:

  Tania Head is no longer associated with the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network. This change will have no impact on the WTCSN’s mission or effectiveness. We are on track and moving forward to ensure that the people in our community get the services they need. Our organization was created so that those affected by the terrorist attacks could help each other through crisis and its aftermath. That mission, as well as the bond of fellowship we share with the other members of the 9/11 Community, remains unchanged.

  Officials of the Tribute Center issued their own statement saying that Tania would no longer participate in the docent program. “At this time, we are unable to confirm the veracity of her connection to the events of September 11,” Jennifer Adams told the Times.

  No one felt more vindicated by the revelations than Gerry Bogacz. He remembered once asking Tania for her husband’s last name, then going home to look him up in the roll of the World Trade Center dead. He wasn’t sure why he had even asked, but he wondered if Tania had picked up on some doubt that he wasn’t even conscious of at the time. He’d found Dave’s name and never gave the incident a second thought. But, thinking back, he remembered that his troubles with the board began soon after that.

  Just before the Times outed her, Tania had called Bogacz’s office and begged him not to speak to the reporters about her. It was the first time he had heard from her since he’d been driven out of the survivors’ group, and her call had come too late, even if he had been inclined to grant her request, which he wasn’t. He had already spoken with the Times.

  “No,” he had said. “I won’t promise you that. The only thing I promise is to answer their questions with the truth.”

  THE AFTERMATH

  The board sent Tania a certified letter making her removal from the group official.

  “The board of the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network (WTCSN) voted to remove you as president and revoke your membership. Therefore, please immediately return to our office at 22 Cortlandt Street all documents, records, and property related to the formation, governance, membership, and operations of this organization and its affiliated online groups, including financial records, passwords, membership lists, and the corporate seal.”

  The letter came back unopened and stamped “Unclaimed.”

  Tania seemed to have vanished.

  What she’d done that ill-fated day is hijack a defenseless people and shake their faith in the goodness of mankind. Yet the great irony was that she had also taught by example that healing from such a terrible breach of trust came with taking care of one another.

  The Survivors’ Network went into damage control with the collective resilience of troops goaded into battle. Was its aggressive defense a fight-or-flight reaction to yet another crushing event in the members’ lives, or was it that they had simply learned from the best? Probably a combination of both. Saving their trademark meant saving themselves. There was work to be done.

  With a measured, almost philosophical resolve, Acting President Richard Zimbler drove the message that the network was intact and continuing to work toward its core mission. The media frenzy was daunting, but the outpouring of support from leaders in the 9/11 community was encouraging. Alice Greenwald, the director of the National September 11 Memorial Museum (then known as the World Trade Center Memorial Museum), assured the survivors that their involvement in the planning process would continue. Jennifer Adams promised continued solidarity with the Tribute Center. The survivors focused their attention on the network’s goals. Linda Gormley and Gerry Bogacz met with museum curators to help guide the plans for the Survivors’ Stairway to what would be its permanent place in the underground memorial museum. Elia Zedeño and Peter Miller lectured at schools and colleges when requests came into the Survivors’ Speaker’s Bureau.

  “Part of the reason why I was in pain after I found out that she lied was because I felt that I’d just buried another friend as a result of September 11,” Elia Zedeño said, speaking sadly but with resolution. “So it was basically a matter of, this is a funeral. My erasing her from my future is, well, I buried a friend.”

  As expected, Linda Gormley was hit hardest by the revelations of Tania’s deceit, and her rage was palpable.

  “I’m going to make it my mission that she never do this to anyone else in any other tragedy,” she said. “Tania was my idol. She was the person I looked up to. But she wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. I have no place in my heart at this moment to forgive her. What she did is unforgivable. This country was attacked by terrorists. We lost almost three thousand people on September 11, and what this woman did was terrorism to me. Should we forgive the terrorists? No. I look at her as no more than a terrorist from September 11.”

  Tania had deceived many during her nearly five-year reign as America’s most famous survivor. None had been more supportive
of her than her band of supporters from the Oklahoma City tragedy. Richard Williams reached out to her on behalf of himself, his wife, Lynne, and the others from their circle who had come to know Tania so well. In his quest for the truth, he wrote her a letter and asked the question that everyone wanted answered:

  I haven’t said much during this last two weeks, but I really wanted you to know how all of these revelations affected me. First of all, I want you to know that I still hold very dear that person who laughed with us through Chinatown and Little Italy, and shared the sights and sounds of Manhattan. I want very badly to believe that the real person I felt I knew is somewhere under all of the reports we’ve heard recently. We felt such a personal tie with you when you allowed us to share in those things. You must realize that as forsaken as you must feel, we feel equally forsaken. We’ve loved you—not because of your injuries, your marriage, your job, or your social status—we’ve loved you because you captured our hearts on a personal level. I don’t want to lose a friendship because we can’t be completely truthful with each other. Please tell us the one thing that we really need to know. Were you in the towers on 9/11/01? Please?

  AN ENDING FOR THE MOVIE

  “Sometimes,” she said, “I have to go back and think, ‘Was it real? Was it a dream? Was my life really like that? Or was it just all make-believe?’”

  —Tania talking about her life, and all the sadness she had endured since September 11, 2001

  I had just gotten back from my trip to LA and quickly read the Times article in the morning, then headed for Tania’s apartment. Pushing past the reporters outside, I rushed through the lobby and took the elevator to apartment 1803. Tania was alone. She was disheveled in a T-shirt and sweatpants and obviously stunned by what was happening.

  She had read the story and seen the initial television reports, some of which included interviews with members of the Survivors’ Network board. Gerry. Richard. Janice. Linda. Tania was furious at Linda for talking to the Times but the interview that sent her into a tailspin was the one by Janice, who had gone on camera for Good Morning America. The piece was introduced by Diane Sawyer and narrated by Chris Cuomo, and in it Janice says, “I’ve heard her story over and over. I’ve been there any time she needed someone to listen, even if it was at three in the morning. She has stolen my time and my soul. All I know is, for the last four years, she’s been lying to me, and I feel betrayed.”

  Janice felt betrayed? Tania was incredulous. “How could she say she’s my friend and say these things?” she asked. Gerry Bogacz appeared in the same segment. He said he was “shaken” by the revelations in the Times. She could almost understand Gerry speaking to the press, she said. But Janice was her “New York mom.”

  “I never thought . . . Janice? . . . Never!” she cried.

  For the hour or so that I was there, Tania toggled between rage and self-pity. One minute her face was twisted in a scowl. The next, her lips quivered, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “How could they say all these terrible things about me?” she asked. “What kind of friends are these?”

  I couldn’t help but feel sad for her. She seemed genuinely bewildered, and, at the same time, she seemed to be searching desperately for a way to stay connected to the world that was slipping away. “No one is talking to me,” she said. “No one is answering their phone.” Her own phone was ringing nonstop. She kept checking her caller ID before taking any calls. I assumed that most of those she answered were from relatives in Spain who had heard about what was happening. The constant interruptions made it hard to get what I had come there for: the truth. But I felt I had to try. At that point, my allegiance was with the true survivors. They were reeling, and I wanted to be able to offer them some explanation about why she did what she did, or, even better, to deliver an apology or heartfelt words of regret.

  I was caught in a flurry of emotions because I still cared about Tania. I suppose that the enormity of what she’d done—who she really was—just hadn’t hit me yet. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t given any thought to the impact this spectacular turn of events would have on the survivors’ documentary. I had hours of Tania on video, talking about every aspect of her survivor’s story. I asked her to go on camera then and there to address the accusations against her. I told her she could say whatever she wanted.

  “This is your opportunity to set the record straight,” I said.

  “No!” she said, swinging from tears to fury. “Is the camera on?” she asked.

  I told her it wasn’t. She went to check my camera bag, convinced that I was pulling a fast one. “You know I wouldn’t do that,” I said.

  “They’re hypocrites!” she cried, satisfied that I wasn’t recording her surreptitiously. “Every last one of them. I helped a lot of people. Did they forget that?”

  At that moment, it became clear that I was seeing two personalities coming together. I didn’t detect a trace of remorse from either one. Tania played me a phone message from one of the Oklahoma City survivors. “We’re sticking with you, kid,” the woman on the message said. “We’re not going anywhere.” She snapped her phone shut. “These are friends!” she cried, shaking the phone in her clenched fist. “These are real friends!”

  I stayed for a while longer, waiting patiently as she fielded calls, unable to understand most of what she was saying because she spoke in Spanish. I realized that my mission had been futile. I wasn’t going to learn, as I’d hoped, that Tania was telling the truth, that the Times had gotten it all wrong. And I wasn’t going to get a confession of guilt, not by any means. There would be no clarity for me that day.

  As I prepared to leave, I embraced her. “I’m so sorry this is happening to you,” I said. I pulled on my jacket, and she turned toward me, gazing into my eyes, her own dark eyes so penetrating that I felt as though she were hacking into my consciousness. But her words didn’t match my thoughts. She didn’t say anything about sadness or regret, or shattered trust and broken hearts. She was oddly pragmatic.

  “Well,” she said. “Now we have an ending for the movie.” Her answer, and the matter-of-fact way in which she delivered it, gave me the chills. Yet, in a strange way, I understood what she meant.

  My filmmaker instincts kicked into high gear after that. I called the survivors with whom I had been working and asked each of them how they wanted to proceed with the documentary, if they wanted to proceed at all.

  They took a vote and unanimously decided that they wished to see it finished. Their goal in taking part in the movie was always that the true story be told, warts and all, and Tania’s role, whatever it turned out to be, was crucial to that narrative. I appreciated their trust.

  Tania, meanwhile, simply disappeared. Some of the survivors said that she had made limp attempts at contacting them, but only Brendan Chellis responded. In her email to him, Tania wrote, “Can you tell me where you stand in regards to me? Do you want to talk to me or not and hear what I have to say?” I was shocked to learn that Brendan had been onto Tania for months before the Times story, but he had said nothing for fear of being abandoned by the group. After her email, he had a phone conversation with her that went pretty much the way my visit with her had. Tania stuck to her story and claimed that the media was out to get her. How could her friends have turned against her the way they did? She couldn’t understand it.

  Of all of the survivors, I worried most about Linda. Tania had been the sister that Linda never had. She had shared her most intimate thoughts with Tania. The sense of betrayal she must have felt had to have been overwhelming. When I checked in on her a few weeks after Tania was exposed, she told me that she was suffering from debilitating panic attacks and nightmares—all of the symptoms she suffered right after 9/11. She told me she felt terrorized all over again. Wavering between rage and fear, Linda vowed to do whatever she could to make sure that no one else fell under Tania’s spell. Taking part in the documentary was a way for her to do that.

  Late that fall, as filming for the documentary resumed, Tania
called me out of the blue. She was panic-stricken.

  “Are you going forward with the movie?” she asked. Her voice cracked, and she sounded as if she was on the verge of hysteria.

  I decided to tell her the truth. That I was making the film.

  “How could you do this to me, Angelo?” she cried.

  “Tania,” I said, calmly, “this is what you’ve always wanted. You were the one who wanted a survivors’ movie. I started it for you, and the others want it finished.”

  She was furious. She huffed and seethed and threatened me with repercussions. I struggled with the pity I felt for her. It was tough. I promised I wouldn’t demonize her.

  “And how will you do that?” she asked, her voice now engaged and curious.

  “By telling the truth,” I said. “But also showing all the good that you did, too.”

  I encouraged Tania to come clean. No matter how ugly the truth might be. I truly believed that a public telling of her side of the story, and an apology to the people she’d betrayed, if that was what was called for, would help her. She wouldn’t hear of it.

  “I want the footage,” she said.

  “It’s not my footage to give,” I said. “It belongs to the Survivors’ Network. You know that.”

  She flew into a rage. “One day the truth will come out, and you’ll all feel terrible and apologize to me,” she said.

  I wanted so much to believe that the story would turn out that way, but the person I saw after the story broke wasn’t the Tania I had known and cared for. She was harder, calculating, and bitter. I wanted the old Tania back. But even more than that, I wanted to know her the way she knew me. I wanted her to be as revealing as she had been on camera when I interviewed her for the original survivors’ documentary—before her real identity was revealed. Only this time, she would be telling the truth. But that was not to be. Finally, I realized that if I were ever going to get answers, I would have to find them on my own.