All We Have Left

by Wendy Mills

  “But how will you know what kind of guy is right for you if you don’t—you know—try out a few?” I ask.

  “You make it sound like test driving a car! This is my heart, my body, we’re talking about. After I graduate from college, there will be time to think about the man I want to marry, and he’ll know I waited just for him, and I’ll know he waited for me.”

  “But what if you fall in love without meaning to?” I ask, and I can’t help glancing over toward Adam who is laughing at something Jade has said.

  Sabeen follows my gaze. “We can fall in love. We’re human, and it’s not like we have control over things like that, but …”

  She looks at me steadily. “You just can’t do anything about it.”

  “Can I talk to you?” I ask Adam a while later. People are starting to arrive, and Yalda and Adam and Sabeen’s father, a tall man with skin the color of light rust and salt-and-pepper hair, are greeting people at the door with a hearty “Eid Mubarak!”

  We’re both trying to stay out the way of the last-minute frantic effort to cram all the food, some familiar, most deliciously exotic smelling, onto a long table, and I lean on the wall beside him.

  “Sure, as long as you don’t talk to me about a big, juicy hamburger. Or pasta,” he says. He’s dressed in khakis and a long-sleeved green shirt that still has straight-from-the-store creases in it, and I can’t help but notice the warm, deep boy-smell of him, soap, and something spicy.

  I hesitate, wondering where to start. After our talk on top of the mountain, I feel better with him, but I’m still not sure we’re completely okay.

  He turns to me. “What’s up?”

  And I find myself pouring the story out to him, about finding the answering machine, and about Alia, and how if I could find her, maybe she could tell me what Travis was doing in those last hours before he died.

  “Alia could be either a Jewish or Muslim name,” I finish. “If I knew which, maybe it could help me find her.”

  “How old did you say she was?” Adam asks thoughtfully.

  “On the tape, she sounds young, like my age.”

  “I would say Muslim, then, if it is her scarf. A lot of Orthodox Jewish women cover their hair, but not until after they’re married. Or maybe it was just an ordinary scarf she decided to wear that morning and she wasn’t religious at all.”

  “I suppose,” I say in frustration, “that her name might not mean anything either. People name their kids all sorts of things. I mean, you’re ‘Adam,’ which isn’t a Muslim name. Maybe she’s Christian, and her parents just liked the name ‘Alia.’”

  “But Adam is a Muslim name,” Adam says, amused. “You’ve heard of Adam and Eve, right?”

  “But that’s in the Bible,” I say.

  “Adam and Eve are in the Quran too,” he says. “Muslims respect the original Jewish Torah and the Christian Psalms and Gospel, and believe that all three religions worship the same God. Basically Islam just continues where Judaism and Christianity left off. The Quran talks about a lot of the same stuff as the Bible, like Abraham, Moses, Noah and his ark, and John the Baptist. Even Jesus. Especially Jesus. We don’t believe he was the son of God, but we do believe he was a very important prophet.”

  “Oh.” I’d never really thought about what Muslims believed, but somehow I’d thought their religion was completely different from Christianity. “So who the heck is Allah, then?”

  He laughs. “What’s the Spanish word for ‘hello’?”

  “Hola.” I stare at him in confusion.

  “The Spanish word for God?”

  I think a moment, and then shrug.

  “It’s Dios. In French it’s Dieu. In Arabic, it’s Allah. It’s all the same God.”

  I nod, wondering if my dad knows this. How could he not? How could I not, before?

  “So how do I find this Alia? Assuming she’s Muslim?”

  “What, just because I’m Muslim, and she’s Muslim, you think I know her? There’s like 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “Joking, Jesse, I’m joking.” He puts his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. “You said Alia was from New York City, right?”

  “I’m guessing she was, since she was in the towers so early that day.”

  “Well, we used to live there, before … we had to leave. My dad still knows a lot of people in New York. He’s always going there. I’ll see if he can ask around about her.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “Sure.” He flashes me his dimple. “Why not?”

  We both know why not, and I smile gratefully.

  A chorus of phones begin ringing, many of them with a strange, haunting trill. People stir and reach for them, a murmur of excitement filling the air.

  I raise my eyebrows at Adam as he takes out his phone and hits a button.

  “It’s an app,” he says, showing it to me. “It has alarms to let us know when we can eat, and when to pray.”

  His screen shows a compass with an arrow pointing toward the front of the building.

  “When we pray, all Muslims face Mecca,” Adam says. “While Muslims may be pretty cool, we’re not geographic prodigies, so the arrow tells us which direction to pray, no matter where we are. Sabeen’s got a prayer rug with a compass in it that she keeps in our car because she’s always losing her phone.”

  A woman offers me a bowl, and I reach for a fat, juicy date.

  “Think fast!” Sabeen cries, and tosses a water bottle at Adam, who catches it easily.

  Around me, people are uncapping the bottles and chugging thirstily.

  “I could maybe not eat all day, but I can’t imagine not drinking,” I say.

  “You get used to it,” Sabeen says cheerfully, coming up to us. “Honestly”—she lowers her voice and leans close to me—“the worst is at the end of the day when your breath starts stinking and you can’t even eat a mint. You just know you’re gross, but there’s nothing you can do.”

  She glances at Adam, and suddenly they say in a chorus, “The smell of a fasting man’s breath is like perfume to God!”

  “It’s what my dad always says when we complain,” Adam explains.

  “Feel free to eat, my friends,” Adam and Sabeen’s father calls, but most of the group follows him to the front of the room, the women with uncovered hair winding scarves around their heads.

  “First, we pray,” Adam says, and grins widely at me. “Then we eat.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Alia

  We stop in a corner of the stairwell for Julia to rest for a moment, kicking aside abandoned stiletto heels, jackets, and a coffee cup so we can stand out of the way against the wall.

  Someone has a radio, and we hear the murmur of “planes, planes hit both towers” go through the crowd.

  “That explains the smell,” one man says as he passes us, typing furiously into his BlackBerry as he walks. “It’s jet fuel.”

  “My God, we’re breathing jet fuel?” someone else asks.

  I reflexively pull my shirt up over my mouth and nose. I wish I’d thought to dump water on my shirt before I gave it all away. Travis has already told me that I should take my scarf off and wrap it around my face, but I won’t. Not now, when I need to feel brave and strong more than ever.

  “How could planes hit both towers?” I ask as we start down again with Julia. “It’s a beautiful clear day. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Accidents happen,” Travis says under his breath. He looks exhausted, his blond hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.

  “How could it be an accident?” the man with the BlackBerry asks. “It’s not like they could miss seeing the towers. One plane, maybe, but not two.”

  I’m silent, because I know he’s right. Someone must have deliberately flown those planes into the towers. How could someone do something like that?

  “It’s those damn Muslims again,” someone says angrily from behind us.

/>   I say loudly, “You don’t know that. Why would Muslims do something like this? It’s against everything we believe.”

  A woman in a no-nonsense suit with tennis shoes over her panty hose glances back at me, and her eyes widen as if I just sprouted horns and a tail. Suddenly I’m a danger because I’m wearing a head scarf?

  Is this the way it’s going to be?

  Please God, please don’t let it be Muslims.

  Julia sags against us.

  “Just leave me, please just leave me,” she has been murmuring over and over again for the last couple of flights.

  I hear the scattered clapping and hum of excitement ahead of us a full flight before I see the first fireman. We all drop to single file as a group of them comes up the stairs. They look exhausted, in heavy pants and boots, their coats open to show blue sweat-soaked T-shirts emblazoned with the FDNY shield, lugging axes, hoses, crowbars, and oxygen tanks.

  I lock eyes with one of them, a young guy, probably in his twenties, and he has clear blue eyes and gingery bangs matted with sweat, and his helmet keeps slipping over his eyes. He’s breathing hard, but he manages to nod at me. I feel scared for him, but so, so happy that he’s here with me on the stairs, even though he doesn’t say anything.

  None of them say anything, they’re all so tired. One older firefighter has a hand clasped to his chest and he’s gasping raggedly for air, leaning heavily on the rail.

  One of the last in the group notices Travis and me catch Julia as she abruptly sags in our arms.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks. He’s not young, and even though he looks nothing like my father, he reminds me of Ayah with his steady voice and calm gaze. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s got some sort of heart condition,” I say.

  He leans down over Julia, and for the first time I notice her face is stark white and her lips are blue. Her eyes flutter as she presses a hand to her chest.

  He calls up to the other firemen who have already trudged out of sight. “Lieu, I got a woman here having a heart attack or something. Whatcha want me to do?”

  There’s a flurry of activity above as someone snaps an order, and another firefighter comes back down and helps lift Julia out of our arms.

  “Let’s go,” the older firefighter says, and though his voice is unflappable, I can sense his urgency.

  Impulsively I hug him, and his helmet bumps against my head, and his ax pokes into my leg, but he hugs me back, one-armed and without speaking.

  “Wait, wait,” Julia whispers, her eyes closed. She opens her eyes and looks straight at us. “Thank you,” she says, and her voice is clear.

  We nod, and her eyes drift closed. “Thank you,” she murmurs again.

  And then they are gone. The two firemen charge down the stairs, Julia dangling between them, her head resting on one of their shoulders. I frame the picture in my head, because I don’t want to forget.

  I notice that Travis is still carrying Julia’s purse, and he sees me noticing.

  “I didn’t think the firemen would want to carry it,” he says defensively. “I’m going to make sure it gets back to her.”

  “I believe you,” I say softly, and I do. Maybe he was thinking about stealing the maintenance guy’s wallet earlier in the sky lobby, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that’s not what he’s thinking about now.

  “I’m not like you think I am,” he says. “I mean, sure, I’ve gotten into some trouble lately, but it’s not like I’m some sort of career criminal or anything. It’s just … nothing seemed to matter. My dad thinks I’m a pretty horrible excuse for a human being, and it’s hard not to agree with him.”

  “You were in college. You said you wanted to be a music teacher.” I stare at him curiously. “How do you go from that to, you know. That.” I gesture at the purse he’s carrying, meaning him trying to steal from the guy in the sky lobby, which is a little oblique, but he seems to get it.

  He shakes his head. “You’d be surprised how easy it is for everything good about yourself to slip away. I know it was stupid, I always knew it really wasn’t me, but I just couldn’t seem to care enough to stop.”

  “Your dad really thinks that about you? That you’re horrible?” I can’t even imagine. No matter what I did, what I said, I know that Ayah will always love me. Even now, when I’m still a little angry at him for not letting me go to the NYU program, I know that he truly believes that he has my best interests at heart.

  “When I was a kid,” Travis says slowly, “and it would storm, I used to sneak into bed with my parents. My dad would put his arms around me, and I’d feel so safe, like a kid taco. He’d kiss my forehead, and it felt all scratchy and rough, but still good, you know? I knew he loved me, then. He’s just not a real huggy-feely type of guy. He doesn’t give out praise very often, but when he does, you know he means it. But he is so sure he’s right. He hears what he wants to hear, and thinks what he wants to think. He used to tell me, ‘I get up every morning and get on the side of that mountain and prove I’m a man. What are you going to do to prove what kind of man you are, Travis?’ Like I had an answer; I was ten years old. But that’s how he sees the world. And now, I know I’ve disappointed him. And I don’t know if he’ll be able to look at me the same way. Mom tells me to just wait, that he’ll come around, but I’m not sure he will.”

  I open my mouth, but what on earth is there to say to that?

  All of a sudden, there’s a call from above us, an urgent command to “move right, move right!”

  Travis and I squeeze up against the wall and see the woman coming down the stairs, her eyes wide open and unseeing. “Don’t touch her!” the man behind her yells, and we squeeze back tighter against the wall.

  Oh God, oh God, please help me, please help her! I scream silently in my mind as she drifts toward us silently, like a ghost.

  She has what looks like gobs of dirty bubble gum on her face, but I know with a kind of dumb horror that it is her skin, blackened by fire, peeling away from her flesh.

  She walks by, her eyes unseeing, not even touching the railing. Several people hover around her, afraid to touch her, but still making sure she doesn’t fall.

  As she passes me, I see that she has no skin on her back, none at all; it’s just raw, charred flesh. Her skin has rolled up to the back of her neck, like an obscene pink turtleneck.

  After she’s gone, I put my hands on my knees because I feel like I’m going to throw up. Travis’s face is pale, his eyes wider.

  “Let’s go, let’s go,” someone calls from above us, and I realize that Travis and I are holding up the line.

  We start down again.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Jesse

  Adam walks me home from the Peace Center through the heavy night air, swollen mosquitoes buzzing past our ears. His hands are stuffed into his pockets, and he’s not walking particularly close to me, but I feel almost magnetized, like my entire body is being pulled toward him.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asks, and the question opens something in me, like my heart has been unfolded and shaken out in the clean, summer air.

  “Have you ever kissed a girl?” I ask before I lose my courage.

  He doesn’t say anything for a minute, and I feel so stupid.

  “Never mind,” I say quickly. “Forget I asked.”

  “You’ve been talking to Sabeen, huh?”

  “We talked for a while.” I look at the rich, red henna design Sabeen painted on my palms, an elaborate floral drawing. I like Adam’s sister, even if I get the feeling that she’s worried about Adam and me. The fact that she thinks there’s something to worry about makes me feel warm and jittery inside.

  “Well, Sabeen thinks she knows what’s best for me, and maybe she does, but what I choose to do,” he says and shivers race up and down my arms, “is none of her business.”

  How can words have this effect on me, like I jumped into a lake so icy that it burns and makes me feel heady and alive? His eyes are o
n me, and something tells me that he can see what I’m feeling.

  We walk in silence for a few minutes.

  “What else do you have? I’m almost afraid to ask,” he says, and turns to smile at me.

  It’s like he is handing me a key to himself, and the unexpected power of it makes me brave. “Do you ever regret being Muslim? I’ve been thinking about how we’re born into this world with no control of what we are, and it seems like we spend the rest of our lives trying to make people see who we are.”

  He gives me a quick glance, but whatever he sees in my face seems to reassure him.

  “My father says that coming to America made him a better Muslim,” he says, kicking some leaves off the road. “When he was in college, things had gotten pretty bad in Syria, and people were being arrested and killed by the thousands. One day Dad and his brother helped some people who were being attacked in the street. That night he got a call telling him not to go to his finals at the university the next day, that there would be people waiting for him. He left that night and eventually made his way to America. His brother didn’t believe the warning, and was never seen again. When my dad first got here, he applied for political asylum, but he said he was determined to hate pizza and jeans because he thought somehow that would keep him from forgetting his home country.”

  “Pizza and jeans?” I ask, and a small burble of laughter escapes me.

  “I know.” Adam laughs. “Now pizza is his favorite food. But he didn’t want to lose himself here, so for a while he did everything he could to not forget where he came from. But after he graduated from college and got a job, he decided it was pretty cool to live in a country where you didn’t have to be worried about just disappearing one night, like his brother did. He married my mom, a good southern girl from Louisiana, and by the time my sister and I were born, he had hired a lawyer to try to move the immigration proceedings along, but then 9/11 happened …” He stops.