Ground Zero

by Alan Gratz

  Reshmina wished she could capture this moment in a jar. Preserve it in amber. Hila was lost to her, and soon Marzia would be married and gone, and Pasoon would follow Darwesh and Amaan into the mountains, and Reshmina …

  From their village around the mountain came the sudden sound of a woman’s cry. Then Reshmina heard a man yell, “Open up!”

  Reshmina felt goose bumps on her skin. Pasoon pulled his hand from hers, and they both sat up quickly. Something was happening in their village.

  Something bad.

  Pasoon hopped to his feet and ran down the hill, and Reshmina hurried to follow him. They rounded the mountain and slid to a stop at the edge of the river.

  Afghan men wearing green camouflage uniforms and carrying automatic rifles—soldiers from the Afghan National Army—were pounding on doors in Reshmina’s village, demanding to be let inside homes. And there were American soldiers with them, directing their movements.

  Reshmina gasped. Her village was being raided!

  Brandon loved riding the express elevator that zipped up all one hundred and seven floors of the North Tower without stopping. It was a kind of magic—one minute you were on the ground, and the next you were more than a thousand feet up in the sky. Brandon watched with anticipation as the red digital numbers above the door flew by—101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106—and then ding! They were there. The 107th floor. Windows on the World.

  The restaurant took up the entire floor, and diners were already scattered at different tables for breakfast. Ms. Eng, the woman who managed the seating area, greeted Brandon as he entered, but he ran straight for the windows that gave the famous restaurant its name.

  The sky was still brilliant blue and cloudless, and Brandon could see far across the Hudson River, all the way into New Jersey. Huge container ships in the harbor looked like toy boats from up here. A news helicopter flew by underneath him. Brandon’s skin tingled, and he felt dizzy as his brain struggled to reconcile standing so high up with being safe behind the glass. Every part of him seemed to be screaming, “You. Can’t. Possibly. Be. Up. This. High.” But he was, and for this brief, wonderful moment he felt like the king of the world. Or at least of New York and New Jersey.

  “All right, Brandon. If you have to be here, I’m going to put you to work,” his father called. “Take a water pitcher and fill the flower vases on all the empty tables.”

  Brandon rolled his eyes, but he didn’t complain.

  He started with the tables on the other side of the restaurant, where he could get a peek at more amazing views. Right next door was the gargantuan World Trade Center South Tower. It was the twin of the North Tower, except that it had an observation deck at the top instead of a restaurant, and no antenna. Its windows, like the North Tower’s, were partially obscured by thin aluminum supports. Beyond the South Tower, far off in the distance, was the Statue of Liberty—from this height, just a speck on an island in New York Harbor.

  Brandon finished filling the vases and headed for the eastern side of the restaurant, which offered picture-postcard views of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. Brandon had been down there less than a half an hour ago, looking up at the Twin Towers from the Q train.

  I think I can see my house from here, Brandon thought.

  CRASH!

  The loud noise from the other side of the restaurant made Brandon flinch. An alarm went off, and someone yelled, “Help! Fire!”

  Diners stood from their tables, wondering what to do. Brandon set his pitcher down, suddenly afraid. The commotion was coming from the kitchen, where his dad was.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” Ms. Eng told the diners. “No need to panic.”

  Brandon ran to the kitchen and stopped at the door. A great towering flame burned on one of the stovetops, licking at the ceiling. Brandon could feel the heat through his clothes. The kitchen floor was littered with broken dishes and food, and cooks and servers stood back from the fire in fear.

  Brandon’s dad was there, but he wasn’t hurt. He wasn’t afraid of the fire either.

  “What are you all standing around for?” Brandon’s dad said. He grabbed a towel and started to beat out the flames.

  Brandon relaxed. He’d seen kitchen fires before. They were always spectacular, but ultimately not very dangerous. Grease would catch fire on a stove and burn hot and bright, and within half a minute someone would put it out by throwing a pot lid on top or smothering it with a towel.

  Ordinarily, Brandon would have stayed to watch. But this, he realized, was the perfect distraction for him to slip away down to the underground mall and buy the replacement Wolverine gloves for Cedric. He patted his pocket again, feeling the lump of bills and coins. Getting the mess in the kitchen cleaned up would keep his dad busy for a while, and Brandon could be down to Sam Goody and back before his dad even knew he was gone.

  Brandon hurried past Ms. Eng, who was still reassuring the diners, and over to the elevators. He pressed the DOWN button and looked over his shoulder nervously, hoping his dad wouldn’t come out of the kitchen and see him.

  Ding!

  An elevator door opened. It wasn’t the express elevator that went straight back down to the lobby. This one only went to the Sky Lobby on the 78th floor. From there, Brandon would have to take two more elevators to get downstairs. It wouldn’t be as fast, but Brandon didn’t want to wait around for someone to spot him.

  Brandon jumped onto the elevator, just missing the closing doors.

  He’d made it! Brandon leaned against the railing at the back of the elevator and smiled. He couldn’t fix punching Stuart Pendleton in the nose, but he could fix breaking Cedric’s Wolverine gloves, and that made him feel better.

  The elevator slowed to a stop, and an elderly white man with silver hair got on. The elevator stopped again, and a blonde white woman in a purple pantsuit got on, followed by a big white guy in a blue blazer and red necktie.

  I shouldn’t have taken the local, Brandon thought. He glanced at his LEGO watch. 8:45 a.m. He was going to have to be speedy if he didn’t want his dad to find out he was gone.

  The elevator stopped again, and a man with brown skin and a graying beard wheeled a catering cart with empty dishes onto the elevator. He wore a light blue turban that matched the color of his Windows on the World uniform. Brandon froze. The man wore a name tag that said SHAVINDER. Brandon didn’t recognize him, but he worried Shavinder might have seen Brandon around the restaurant and would know he was Leo Chavez’s son. Brandon slipped farther behind the big white guy and watched the red digital numbers of the floors tick by. 94, 93, 92, 91, 90, 89, 88, 87, 86—

  THOOM.

  Something boomed above them, and the elevator suddenly went sideways.

  Brandon grabbed on to the handrail to not fall over. Two other passengers—the blonde woman and the old man—did fall down, but Brandon couldn’t have helped them even if he’d tried. The elevator was shuddering so wildly it felt like someone had taken him by the shoulders and was shaking the life out of him.

  And then a new sensation: They were falling! No—the elevator car wasn’t falling—it was leaning. Farther and farther and farther to the side, like they were on the Tilt-a-Whirl at Coney Island. Brandon held tight on to the handrail, digging in his heels, while the other passengers slid forward until they were all pinned to the opposite wall. The serving cart toppled over, spilling dishes and water and silverware.

  Brandon’s mind raced, trying to make sense of what was happening. The elevator couldn’t swing this far in the elevator shaft. Elevator shafts were just a little bigger than the elevators inside them. That meant—that meant the whole tower was leaning. All one hundred and seven floors. That wasn’t possible, was it?

  The elevator stopped tilting, and Brandon held his breath. No one uttered a word. Then slowly, sickeningly, popping and complaining the whole way, the elevator began to right itself. It came up straight and Brandon caught his breath, but then the elevator swayed in the other direction. The passengers who’d been pinned to t
he wall scrambled to cling to the railing to stay put. Brandon closed his eyes and braced himself as silverware and broken plates came skittering across the floor toward him.

  But the elevator didn’t swing so far this time. It shuddered and groaned its way back upright. The lights flickered but stayed on, and suddenly everything was quiet again.

  “What the hell—?” the silver-haired man started to say.

  And then the elevator began to slide.

  Reshmina and her brother ran up the steps of their village, Reshmina’s thoughts racing faster than her feet.

  Americans were here.

  Reshmina had encountered Afghan National Army soldiers before—they had a base nearby and checked in occasionally with the village elders. The Americans were a different story. Reshmina had seen their helicopters flying over the valley, heard the pops and booms from their far-off gunfights with the Taliban. But in her eleven years, the Americans hadn’t once come to her remote little village. Why were they here now?

  Like most other villages in the province, Reshmina’s was built into the side of a mountain. Flatland for farming was scarce, so houses were stacked one on top of the other, like a pyramid of square pieces of sweet bread. To get from the bottom to their house near the top, Reshmina and her brother had to climb a long set of switchback stairs cut into the rock.

  Reshmina and Pasoon turned a corner and saw a group of ANA soldiers just ahead. They looked very young—almost like teenagers. Boy-men, Reshmina thought. Like Darwesh and Amaan, Pasoon’s friends.

  Two of the soldiers held an old man named Ezatullah outside his home while other soldiers went inside.

  “They’re searching all the houses,” Reshmina whispered. But what were they looking for?

  Ezatullah started to argue with the soldiers, and Pasoon took Reshmina by the hand and pulled her along past them, up the stairs.

  At the house just below theirs, Reshmina saw an American soldier giving instructions to a team of Afghan soldiers. The American’s uniform was sand-colored, unlike the green camouflage the ANA soldiers wore. He had more equipment too—and a bigger gun.

  Reshmina pulled her headscarf over her face and looked away as she and Pasoon slipped by.

  “Did you see that?” Pasoon hissed. “Afghans taking orders from an American in our own country!”

  They came at last to their house, a squat square home made of mud and brick and wood. Pasoon threw open the door, and Reshmina followed him inside.

  There were only three rooms in their house—a front room where the family ate their meals, a room beyond that where the women spent most of their time and where the family slept, and their tiny kitchen in the back with its cooking pit. Each room had a dirt floor with rugs on it but no other furniture.

  Reshmina ran to the women’s room. Her older sister Marzia sat on the floor picking the bad bits out of a bowl of uncooked rice, and their anaa—their grandmother—did needlework and sang softly to Reshmina’s little brother, Zahir, who rolled around on a rug beside her. Marzia looked pretty in her pink dress and teal headscarf. Anaa wore a blue-and-white flower-print dress and a blue shawl.

  “The Afghan army is here!” Reshmina cried. “They’re searching everyone’s homes!”

  Marzia stood. “What? Why?”

  “It’s the Americans. They’re the ones in charge,” Pasoon said. “They don’t need a reason!”

  Reshmina’s father came into the room on his wooden crutch. The rugged mountains of southern Afghanistan had stolen years from their baba, carving the lines and wrinkles of an older man into his reddish-brown face. His beard was short and bushy, more gray now than black, and he wore baggy pants, a long olive-green tunic, and a gray turban.

  Someone pounded on their door. Boom boom boom!

  Reshmina’s mor—her mother—hurried out of the kitchen. Mor was clutching a gray scarf around her face. “What is it? Who’s come?” she asked.

  “The army,” Baba told her. “I will speak to them.”

  Pasoon followed Baba to the front door while Reshmina waited nervously with the rest of her family in the women’s room. A few minutes later, Reshmina heard the soldiers enter her home and begin to search the family room. She could tell that Baba had come inside with them but not Pasoon.

  Reshmina couldn’t make herself stop shaking. What did the soldiers want? She and her family had nothing to hide! Marzia took her hand and squeezed it, and Reshmina knew her older sister was frightened too.

  Baba led the Afghan soldiers into the women’s room. The American soldier Reshmina had passed on the stairs was with them. He had brown skin and was short, with wide shoulders.

  “Baba, where is Pasoon?” Reshmina asked her father.

  “They’re keeping him outside,” Baba said.

  Anaa continued to do her needlework, unperturbed, but Reshmina’s mother snatched up little Zahir, then pulled Reshmina and Marzia to her, like the soldiers had come to take them all away from her.

  “Tell them we’re not here to hurt them,” the American soldier said in English. Despite her fear, Reshmina felt a small thrill go through her. Her English lessons had paid off. She understood what he said!

  “The soldiers are not here to hurt you,” someone said in Pashto, and Reshmina’s jaw dropped as the translator stepped out from behind the American. The translator wore tan camouflage pants, tan body armor over a black long-sleeve shirt, and a green headscarf.

  The translator was an Afghan woman!

  “The Americans were told there is a cache of Taliban weapons in this village,” the translator told Reshmina and her family in Pashto. “The Afghan National Army is here to search your house. The American sergeant is here as an advisor.”

  “There are no weapons here,” Anaa said to the translator. “No Taliban either.”

  Reshmina was barely listening. All she could do was stare wide-eyed at the translator. All the Afghan women Reshmina knew were mothers, wives, and daughters. None of them had jobs outside the home—and especially not important jobs like translator, where they worked and talked with men outside their families.

  “Who are you?” Reshmina whispered to the translator.

  The woman smiled. “My name is Mariam. I’m from Kabul.”

  Reshmina couldn’t believe it. It was like a whole new path had appeared before her that she hadn’t known was there before. A whole new person she could become.

  Mariam.

  The two Afghan soldiers searched the women’s room, and then the American soldier sent them to search the kitchen and the goat pens. The American certainly acted like he was in charge, just as Pasoon had said.

  Reshmina studied the American again. This time she noticed a silly-looking stuffed animal tucked into the gear on his vest. The doll was all mouth and tongue and long spindly arms and legs, and it had a wild, mischievous look in its eyes. It was shabby and faded and dusty, like everything else in Afghanistan, and it was coming apart at one of the seams. Reshmina frowned. Why would the American be carrying something as strange as that? And what did it mean?

  One of the Afghan soldiers came back into the room with a small object in his hand. Reshmina recognized it immediately—it was a toy airplane their sister Hila had bought Pasoon as a gift two years ago. Now that Hila was gone, that plane was Pasoon’s most treasured possession in the world.

  “I found this in a hole, high up on the back wall of the house,” the soldier said in Pashto to Mariam, who translated for the American soldier.

  The American took the toy and turned to Reshmina’s family. “Why was this hidden?”

  Mariam translated, and Anaa laughed. “It’s my grandson’s. He’s a boy. He hides things.”

  Reshmina nodded. Anaa was right. Why should the soldiers care what Pasoon did with the little airplane? It was none of their business!

  “It’s only a toy,” Baba told the Afghan soldier.

  The American frowned and handed the airplane to Baba. “Tell them not to hide things from us,” he told Mariam in English. “It m
akes them look suspicious.”

  The soldiers finished searching the house, and Baba escorted them and the American and Mariam back to the front door. Reshmina pulled away from her mother and followed them. Mor hissed, but Reshmina ignored her. She wanted to watch Mariam. Hear her.

  Mariam and the American soldier stopped outside the house to speak to Baba. Reshmina saw that Pasoon was there too, flanked by two other ANA soldiers. Pasoon was scowling. His fists were clenched tight, and his arms were straight down at his sides. Reshmina could tell he was ready to fight.

  “The sergeant says that he appreciates your cooperation,” Mariam said to Baba and Pasoon, gesturing to the American. “He hopes we can put the past behind us and start over with a clean slate.”

  “A clean slate?” Baba asked. “When they force their way into our homes? When they kill our people?”

  “They killed my sister Hila!” Pasoon cried, glaring at the American. He turned to the Afghan soldiers. “And now you betray our country by working for them!” he snapped.

  Reshmina’s father put a hand on Pasoon’s shoulder to calm him, but Pasoon shook him off

  “This ‘past’ they speak of is our present,” Baba told Mariam. “Are we supposed to forget about our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters the Americans have killed in their attacks? If someone came along and killed a village of their people, would they say, ‘Ah well, time to start over with a clean slate’? Or would they swear revenge and promise never to forget?”

  Reshmina wanted to cry. She hated the idea of revenge, but she too could never forget how the Americans had killed her sister. Sometimes she wished they could hurt as much as she did, just so they’d understand.

  Mariam translated everything for the American soldier, expressing all their sorrow and frustration in English.