a year later

The Silence, and the Cross

BY LORENZO ALBACETE

Exactly one year has passed. I am at “Ground Zero.” The most impressive thing is the absolute silence. There are thousands of people here, coming from all over the city and the world. Soon, President Bush will arrive. I am right above the pit in the ground where, a year ago, the Twin Towers collapsed. I am in the Merrill Lynch Building, a part of the complex that was called the World Trade Center. A year ago, this building had to be evacuated because it had undergone structural damage as a result of the collapse of the Towers. But not all the tenants have returned. Most of its thirty or forty floors are still empty. And yet the building has been declared safe. Therefore, for this occasion they have rented the enormous tenth floor terrace to the TV stations. There are crews from more than fifteen different American and foreign networks. I was interviewed by CNN. They asked me to speak about the “religious dimension” of what happened here. It is a magnificent afternoon, with an almost cloudless sky. But there is a gusting wind. A tropical storm is beating the East Coast 300 miles south of here, and they say that these winds are the effect of the storm. Often, we are forced to grab hold of something to keep the gusts of wind from throwing us to the floor. In these parts, people say that the spirits of those who died here are what provoke the fury of the winds. They have not yet found rest, a reporter for a German TV network tells me. And yet, despite all this wind, an oppressive silence reigns.

There are TV flood lights everywhere, pointed at the great pit in the earth down below, where about two hundred people (officials, family members of the victims, the honor guard, and security personnel) are awaiting the President’s arrival. I don’t see how any more light can be added from up here. But as evening falls, the lights sweep about like wreaths of fire in the enormous space where the Towers once stood. The entire southern tip of Manhattan has been closed to traffic. In the distance one can hear the sirens of the police cars, but the silence of this spot is even stronger. Not even the noise of one of the security helicopters can break the silence, because the wind does not permit the helicopter to fly over the enormous pit in the ground (it looks like a sunken football stadium).

Suddenly, down below, the figure of the President appears (looking small from up high), with his party. We all follow him on the television monitors. No one saw him arrive. He appeared suddenly, walking toward the spot where the officials and family members of the victims were awaiting him. They say that he has no intention of giving a speech. If he had spoken, he too would have been swallowed up by the silence. Then, all of a sudden, I glimpsed it, in a corner of the sunken stadium. It is a cross made of the girders of what was once one of the Twin Towers, which was left standing even when a hundred stories collapsed on top of it. A construction worker found it there and dug it out. For several days they carried it in procession and then they set it in this corner. No one has complained so far. The President, the officials, and the family members stay on the other side, far away from the cross. But from up here it looks to me like it is surrounded by a group of people. Probably, they are praying. But silently.

Then the President is gone. His limousine is not in sight. He disappeared among the policemen. And everything continues exactly as before, waiting for night to fall.