Ground Zero Page 3

  “Tell them not to let the Taliban into their village, and we’ll leave them alone,” the American said.

  “Not let the Taliban in?” Reshmina cried in English, not waiting for Mariam to translate into Pashto. Baba and Pasoon couldn’t understand her words, but they looked surprised that she was speaking up. “How can we stop the Taliban when you won’t let us have weapons?” Reshmina asked.

  “You always have a choice,” the American told her. “You can pick our side, or their side.”

  “That’s no choice at all,” Mariam told the sergeant. “If these villagers side with the Americans, the Taliban will kill them. And if they side with the Taliban, you and the ANA will kill them. You’re telling them to choose death!”

  “I’m sorry,” the sergeant said with a shrug. He moved on to the next house up the stairs, and the ANA soldiers followed him.

  Mariam took a deep breath and looked at Reshmina. “I’m sorry too,” she said, and she left to join the soldiers.

  “What was all that about?” Pasoon asked Reshmina. The last part of the conversation had all been in English.

  “Nothing,” Reshmina said. Telling him would just make him angrier.

  “I hate them,” Pasoon said, and he spat on the ground.

  Baba went back inside the house, and Reshmina started up the stairs.

  “Wait—where are you going?” Pasoon asked her.

  “I’m following that translator,” Reshmina said.

  “No, you can’t!” said Pasoon. He grabbed her arm and glanced over his shoulder.

  “Pasoon, what are you doing?” Her brother was suddenly acting very strange.

  “Nothing,” he said. “You just need to get your chores done. Come on. I’ll help you sweep the floor.”

  Now Reshmina knew something was up. Pasoon never offered to help with her chores. She pulled herself free.

  “Pasoon, what’s going on?”

  Pasoon looked around warily, then pulled Reshmina into a shadow on the stairs.

  “It’s the Taliban,” he whispered. “They started the rumor there were weapons in our village, to lure the soldiers here. Darwesh and Amaan told me yesterday. It’s a trap, Reshmina—the Taliban are going to attack the soldiers on their way out of the village!”

  The elevator kept sliding down—and not the way it was built to. Brandon could feel how wrong it was in the pit of his stomach. From the horrified looks on their faces, the other passengers in the elevator felt it too.

  “Hit the emergency stop button,” the blonde woman said.

  Nobody moved. The elevator kept sliding. Above them, something groaned sickeningly.

  “Hit the emergency stop!” the woman cried.

  There was a loud chung! above them, and the floor of the car dropped like a stone. Brandon’s heart jumped into his throat, and he lunged for the control panel and slapped the red STOP button. The elevator’s emergency brakes grabbed hold with a squeal and the car jolted to a stop. Everyone tumbled to the ground, and then they were still.

  Brandon’s breath came fast and hard, and he panted with fear. What had just happened?

  Something smelled like it was burning, but not like a kitchen fire. It had a chemical tinge to it, like when you squirted lighter fluid on the burning charcoal in a grill.

  The passengers stirred and helped each other to their feet. Brandon’s legs were trembling so much he almost couldn’t stand.

  “What the heck just happened?” the big man in the blue blazer asked.

  None of them had an answer.

  “I rode out Hurricane Belle in this tower in ’76,” said Shavinder, the Windows on the World worker. “During the hurricane, the towers swayed back and forth five yards each way. But it was nothing like that.”

  The silver-haired man clutched at the buttons on his shirt. “Good God, if this thing fell over, it’d reach all the way to Chinatown.”

  Brandon blanched. The Twin Towers fall over?

  “That’s not helping,” the woman said. “Try the phone.”

  There was an emergency phone behind a metal panel, and Shavinder pressed the call button and waited.

  “Yes! Hello!” he said after a moment, and Brandon relaxed. If somebody knew they were in the elevator, they could come rescue them. “Yes, something happened, and we’re stuck in an elevator around the 85th floor.”

  Brandon heard a calm voice on the other end answering back.

  “He says there is some kind of problem on the 91st floor,” Shavinder told the other passengers. “An explosion or something. He says— Hello? Hello, are you there? He’s gone.”

  An explosion? Brandon thought. What could have exploded?

  The big man took the phone from Shavinder and pressed the call button again. He shook his head. “The line’s dead.”

  Black smoke crept through the seams at the top of the elevator, and Brandon felt a bead of sweat roll down his back. Smoke? Was there a fire? It was getting really hot too.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” the silver-haired man cried.

  “Stay cool,” the woman told him. She dug a cell phone out of her briefcase and flipped it open, but she couldn’t get a signal. Nobody else had a cell phone to try.

  They were trapped and cut off from the rest of the world.

  Brandon put his head in his hands and tried not to cry. He was scared and separated from the person he relied on the most—his dad.

  It’s you and me against the world, Brandon. This is how we survive.

  But how was Brandon supposed to survive without him?

  Smoke tickled the back of Brandon’s throat, and he coughed. The old man coughed too, longer and harder. Brandon could now see the black smoke among them, curling and twisting like something alive.

  The big man pulled cloth napkins from the wreckage of the cart. “Here, wrap these around your faces,” he said.

  “Dab them in some water first,” Shavinder said. The overturned pitcher had a little water left in it, and he wet the napkins and handed them out. Brandon tied his napkin around his mouth and took a deep breath. It was still hard to breathe, but the napkin filtered out a lot of smoke. The old man kept coughing though, even with the damp napkin to help.

  They all sat down on the floor to get as far away from the smoke as they could and went around introducing themselves. The blonde woman’s name was Marni, and she was a stockbroker from Connecticut. Shavinder was born in New Delhi, India, and lived in Queens. He had worked at Windows on the World since it opened in 1976. The old man’s name was Stephen. He was an investment banker who worked on the 101st floor and lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He’d been a New Yorker all his life. The big man’s name was Mike, and he lived in New Jersey. He was in the tower to interview for an insurance job.

  “I’m Brandon,” Brandon said when it was his turn. It was weird, talking to a bunch of grown-ups like he was one of them. But in a way, he was. It didn’t matter whether they were young or old, or where they were from. They were all stuck in the same bad situation together.

  “Wait, you’re Leo Chavez’s kid, aren’t you?” Shavinder said. Brandon nodded. There was no sense hiding it now. Getting in trouble with his father was the least of his worries.

  “Whaddya think that sound was?” Mike asked. “That snapping sound right before the kid hit the stop button? You think that was the elevator cable?”

  Nobody answered him. So far no one seemed to be outright panicking, but Brandon realized he was shaking and he couldn’t make himself stop.

  He wished he could reach his dad. If only I hadn’t gone off on my own, Brandon thought. And all for some stupid Wolverine gloves. What a fool he had been, and now he was going to choke to death inside this metal coffin.

  “Kid, you with us?”

  It was Mike. He and the others were looking at Brandon like they’d asked him something when he wasn’t listening.

  “We’re gonna try to get out of here,” Mike told him. “Can I lift you up so you can try the ceiling?”

/>   Brandon agreed, and Mike boosted him up onto his shoulders. The smoke was heavier up there, and Brandon held his breath. He pushed and pounded on every inch of the ceiling, but nothing budged.

  “Let’s see if we can get the doors open instead,” Shavinder said. He and Mike put their palms flat on the shiny metal doors of the elevator and pulled, and the doors opened a crack. Brandon felt a tiny thrill—maybe they were going to get out of here after all! He and Marni jumped in to help. Together the four of them pulled the elevator doors wide, and Shavinder jammed a metal serving tray between the doors to keep them open.

  Brandon stepped back, expecting to see a hallway. Or at least part of one. Instead there was nothing but an unpainted gray wall, with the number 85 handwritten on it in pencil.

  They were at the 85th floor, but they couldn’t exit onto it.

  Of course, Brandon realized. The local becomes an express after the 97th floor. There were no exits from this elevator until the Sky Lobby far below them on the 78th floor.

  Which meant they really were trapped. And the smoke and heat were getting worse.

  “It’s drywall,” Mike said. “Sheetrock. The stuff they make walls out of.”

  “Maybe we can bust our way out of here,” said Marni.

  Mike lifted a big foot and kicked at the wall.

  THWACK!

  Brandon leaned in close to look. All the kick had done was leave a footprint.

  Mike waved everybody back, lowered his shoulder, and ran full tilt at the wall.

  THUNK.

  Nothing happened to the wall, but the elevator shuddered and jerked down another half a foot. Brandon thought he was going to have a heart attack.

  “Let’s not do that again!” Stephen said.

  “Well, excuse me for trying to save our lives!” Mike snapped.

  Everybody started yelling at each other, and Stephen started coughing again and couldn’t stop. The smoke was getting worse, and now the elevator felt like a sauna.

  Brandon plucked a butter knife out of the wreckage from the serving cart and held it up triumphantly. “What about this?” he cried.

  Everybody stopped arguing and stared.

  “Yeah, that’s good. That could work!” Mike said, and Brandon felt a small flush of pride. Mike took the knife and hacked at the Sheetrock. A tiny bit of drywall crumbled into dust and rained down on the carpet, leaving a divot in the wall.

  “There we go!” Mike said. He pulled off his blazer and loosened his tie, and went back to hacking on the wall. Shavinder grabbed a spatula-like serving utensil from the floor, and he used that on the hole too, taking turns with Mike. When they got tired, Marni and Brandon took turns. It was exhausting work. They didn’t ask Stephen to help though, and he didn’t offer. He was having enough trouble breathing already.

  Smoke streamed in through every crack and every seam now, and something up above them popped and groaned.

  Stephen tried the elevator phone again, but there was no answer.

  What was going on? Where was everybody?

  “We’re all going to die here,” Stephen wheezed.

  “We’re not going to die,” Marni said, but it didn’t sound like she believed it.

  Brandon’s arms shook, and he could barely aim straight when he whacked at the hole. How could he be trapped without his dad? Just this morning they had been together in another elevator. Why hadn’t this happened then, when they could have helped each other?

  Mike and Shavinder took over again, steadily chipping away at the wall. There wasn’t one layer of drywall, they discovered, there were three. But working together, the elevator passengers managed to carve, yank, and kick a pizza-sized hole in the wall.

  None of them could fit through it though—except for Brandon.

  “Go, young man, go!” Shavinder told him.

  “But we don’t even know where it leads!” said Brandon. The space beyond the hole was dark and empty.

  “Who cares, as long as it’s not in here?” said Marni.

  Brandon couldn’t argue with that. He took a deep breath of wet, smoky air, and with Mike and Shavinder’s help, he climbed up and out, into the unknown.

  Reshmina stared at her brother in horror. He knew the Taliban planned to attack? Did other people in the village know?

  “Pasoon, the ANA are Afghans! Our own people! And I have no more love for the Americans than you do,” she went on before her brother could speak, “but this betrayal will only make things worse for our village. The Americans will blame us for the attack.”

  “The Afghan soldiers made their choice when they agreed to do the Americans’ dirty work for them,” Pasoon said. “Besides, it’s not like we’re the ones carrying out the attack.”

  “No, we’re just the ones not telling anyone about it,” Reshmina said. “And if you won’t, I will!”

  “No! You can’t!” Pasoon said. He grabbed for her again, but Reshmina was too quick. She broke free and ran up the steps, Pasoon close on her heels.

  Pop-pop! Pakoom. Pakoom.

  The familiar sounds of gunfire and explosions made Reshmina duck and pull up short, her heart racing.

  “It’s started already!” Pasoon cried. Reshmina heard shouting and saw ANA soldiers scrambling down the steps for cover.

  Pasoon grabbed Reshmina’s hand and pulled her back toward their house. “Run, Reshmina!”

  Reshmina raced back down the stairs and into their home, where her family was gathering in the front room. Baba wasn’t there, and Reshmina realized Pasoon hadn’t come inside with her.

  THOOM. The ground rocked from a nearby explosion, and dirt rained down from the ceiling.

  “It’s safer in the back,” Anaa said, leading them into the women’s room. Mor disappeared into the kitchen.

  PAK! PAK! PAK!

  Gunfire erupted close enough nearby to rattle the dishes, and Reshmina and Marzia huddled together against the wall. Anaa pulled Zahir into her lap to sing to him, but the shooting and explosions didn’t seem to bother the baby. He was already used to it. Reshmina didn’t know if she would ever stop flinching at the sounds.

  The earth shook again, and Marzia squeezed Reshmina’s arm.

  Dear God, please keep Baba and Pasoon safe out there, Reshmina prayed. And Mariam, she added, remembering the translator.

  Even as the fighting continued outside, Reshmina found herself wondering what it would be like to go to Kabul someday and study to become a translator. She might be able to work for the Americans, like Mariam did. That had to pay well and would be worth more to her parents than bartering her off as a bride. Reshmina could put her English skills to work and support her entire family. It was an almost-impossible dream, but if Mariam could do it, so could Reshmina.

  And without a dream, without ambition, what point was there to living?

  Rifles and rockets boomed outside. Reshmina slid away from Marzia and pulled her blue English notebook from between the sleeping mats stacked in the corner. If becoming a translator was her way out, she wouldn’t waste a second when she could be studying.

  Reshmina’s mother came into the room carrying a broom. “Oh no, none of that now,” she said, spying Reshmina’s notebook. She snatched it away and put the broom in Reshmina’s hands. “You focus on your housework, not your schoolwork. And you get back to sorting that rice,” she told Marzia. “Keep your heads down and learn how to be good wives. That’s how a woman survives.”

  Mor left for the kitchen again, and Reshmina threw the broom down in frustration.

  “Forgive your mother, Mina-jan,” her grandmother told her. Zahir had fallen asleep in her lap, and Anaa took up her needlework again while Marzia returned to the rice.

  “Why?” asked Reshmina. “All she wants is for me to learn how to be a good wife and marry a successful man. She has no dreams in her heart. No hope for something more!”

  “You must understand, Mina-jan,” Anaa said. “Your mother has never been allowed to dream. Me, I was born in Kabul long before the Americans cam
e, or the Taliban. Before the Soviet invasion even. It was a golden time in Afghanistan,” Anaa continued dreamily. “Women went to school and got jobs. One of my sisters became the principal of a school. Another woman I knew became a poet. We dressed differently too, like they do in Europe and America. I once wore a skirt that didn’t even reach my knees. They called it a miniskirt.”

  “Outside?” Reshmina asked. She shared an astonished look with Marzia. Reshmina couldn’t imagine wearing such a thing in the house, let alone out.

  “Oh yes,” their anaa said, laughing. “The boys rather liked it. And I did too.”

  Marzia blushed, and Reshmina got up and started sweeping. The sounds of fighting still filtered in from outside.

  “Some women wore the chador, but only if they wanted to,” Anaa told them. A chador was a robe that covered a woman from head to toe, with only her face visible. “We were all Muslims, but in those days no one tried to force their beliefs on anyone else. There was real tolerance of others. We were brothers and sisters, working toward a better future. A better Afghanistan.” Her face fell. “Then, forty years ago, the Russians invaded, and I fled to the mountains with your grandfather, God shower blessings on his grave.” Anaa closed her eyes. “Afghanistan has known nothing but war ever since. That is the world your mother was born into.”

  “But so were we,” Reshmina said, glancing at Marzia and Zahir.

  As if to prove it, there came the thump thump thump of an American helicopter, and an even louder BOOM that made Reshmina flinch.

  Anaa shook her head.

  “When your mother was six, her father was killed by a missile while he was praying in his backyard,” she said softly. “When she was your age, her older brother was killed by the Taliban for no reason that has ever been explained to her. Her husband—your father and my son—had his leg mangled by an old Soviet mine right after they were married. Two of her children died before they reached their fifth birthday, and her eldest daughter, your sister Hila, was killed by an American bomb.”

  Anaa closed her eyes again and sighed. She wore her sadness like a chador.

  Reshmina swallowed. She knew about her sister and her father, of course, but her mother had never spoken about the rest.