Now that begins 21. Century
We all knew that this could occur. Now it is many worse By Paul Auster
[This is a very rough translation of a piece by Auster in Die Zeit]
11 Septembers 2001, 16:00 o'clock
Our 16 year old daughter is today broken open to her first day at Highschool. For the first time in her life she took the underground from Brooklyn to Manhattan - alone.
She will this evening not come home. The Subway stopped its traffic. My wife and I ensured that she can stay overnight with friends in the Upper Westside of New York.
Fewer than one hour after it had happened the two gigantic towers deeply under the World trade center in the direction of the school, collapsed in on itself.
From the upper floor of our dwelling in Brooklyn we, over the East River away, could see how the smoke clouds collude the sky over the town center. The wind blows in our direction and the smell of the fire penetrates all rooms of our house. It is a terrible, biting smell of burning spaghetti tubings, of plastic and building materials.
My wife's sister, who lives in Tribeca, only few block north that place, at which the World trade center called us and the first tower told down of a terrible cry on the road, and then fell. Other friends, who in John Street lives, told us that the police took her out of her house, after a pressure wave had inward hurled its entry door. They went to direction the north, through rubble and remnants of human bodies.
After we had sat all the mornings before the television set, left my wife and I the dwelling. The people on the road held handkerchiefs before their faces, others carried protective masks such as painters and surgeons. I stopped and talked with the man, who cuts my hair. He saw desperately out. Few hours beforehand his neighbour, who operates an antique business beside its loading, with its son-in-law had telephoned, in 107. Floor of the World trade of center in the trap sat. Only one hour after had together-sunk the tower in itself.
Long I, while the television ran and I saw the smoke before my window by-floating, had to think the whole morning of my friend, the high express typists Philippe Petit, which balanced in August 1974 on a wire rope between the two towers of the World trade of center, briefly after the end of the construction work. A small man on a rope, more than one mile over the soil, a sight of unforgettable beauty.
Today this became a place of death. I have fear to paint to me how many humans died.
We all knew that this could occur. For many years we spoke of it. But now, since the tragedy occurred, is it many worse, than somebody could itself have presented.
The last attack on American soil had taken place 1812. For what occurred today, we do not have an example. The consequences of this attack will be certainly terrible. Still more force, still more dead one, more pain for all.
Now only that has 21. Century begun.
The writer Paul Auster (" Smoke", " my New York ") lives together with his wife, the authoress Siri Hustvedt, in Brooklyn