America.
Elena Caradin James. Two and a half years later she lay on the floor of his office in a fever, a sheen of sweat on her skin. He touched her, her eyes closed, and he was brought back to that moment on the subway platform with such force that the memory rendered him breathless. He realized suddenly who she reminded him of. A photo of a girl on the front cover of one of his parents’ books. What Work Is : a collection of poems. He read the poetry once and liked it, but he was less taken by the poetry than by the cover: a photograph of a girl of about ten, with Elena’s stillness and Elena’s eyes. She stood between an enormous machine and a factory window, and you could see this in her face: she knew what work was, and she knew she wouldn’t escape it in this lifetime. She was facing the camera, half in shadow. When Anton was ten and eleven and twelve and even fifteen he sometimes took the book down from the shelf just to look at her face.
“It can’t have been an easy business,” Elena said.
“It was an easy business. I was good at it. It was the easiest thing I ever did in my life.”
“Then why did you get out?” She was naked, resplendent in the August heat. A current of warm air moved through the broken window and passed over her skin.
“I don’t know, I just gradually didn’t want to do it anymore.”
“Why not? What changed you?”
“I don’t know. It was gradual.”
“If you could name one thing.”
“Well, there was a girl. Catina. I’d been thinking about getting out, but it was meeting her, it was talking to her . . . I didn’t know before her that I was really going to do it. Get out, I mean.”
“A girlfriend?” Elena asked. The recording device in her purse listened silently.
“No, not a girlfriend. I sold her a passport.”
Catina was reading a magazine when Anton came into the café. She looked up and smiled when he said her name, and he caught a glimpse of the page she’d been reading as she closed the magazine—the headline, “Who Was the Falling Man?” and a famous photograph. He’d seen it years earlier, and he recognized it at a glance. The picture was taken on September 11, 2001, at fifteen seconds past nine forty-one A.M .: a man, having jumped from one of the North Tower’s unsurvivable floors above the point of impact, plummets toward the chaos of the plaza below. He is falling headfirst. He will be dead in less than sixty seconds. One knee is bent; otherwise his body is perfectly straight, his arms close against his sides. He is executing a dive that will never be replicated.
“Did they figure out the guy’s name?” Anton asked. Catina looked blankly at him until he gestured at the magazine.
“Oh.” She shook her head. “They thought they knew. But the family wouldn’t concede it.”
“The family doesn’t think it’s him?”
“They don’t want it to be him. The guy in the picture’s jumping before his tower falls, so I guess they see something unheroic about it. They say their son wouldn’t have jumped.”
Anton shrugged. “Doesn’t seem like an unreasonable thing to do,” he said. “I might’ve jumped.”
“I think the falling man’s . . . admire-able?”
“Admirable.”
“Admirable.” Catina spoke with a Portuguese accent; she had been in the country for four years now, working as an assistant to a Portuguese businessman, and her English was good but traces of Lisbon remained. “There was no way out, and he made a choice. The air was all flames. On flames?”
“On fire.”
“The air was on fire. He could pause . . . no, hesitate. He could hesitate and burn to death, or he could take control in those last few seconds and dive into the air. I like to think I would have done the same thing.”
Anton nodded and found suddenly that he couldn’t breathe. He excused himself and went to the bathroom and spent several minutes staring at his face in the mirror, trying to think about what he would do if he were marooned a
Elena Caradin James. Two and a half years later she lay on the floor of his office in a fever, a sheen of sweat on her skin. He touched her, her eyes closed, and he was brought back to that moment on the subway platform with such force that the memory rendered him breathless. He realized suddenly who she reminded him of. A photo of a girl on the front cover of one of his parents’ books. What Work Is : a collection of poems. He read the poetry once and liked it, but he was less taken by the poetry than by the cover: a photograph of a girl of about ten, with Elena’s stillness and Elena’s eyes. She stood between an enormous machine and a factory window, and you could see this in her face: she knew what work was, and she knew she wouldn’t escape it in this lifetime. She was facing the camera, half in shadow. When Anton was ten and eleven and twelve and even fifteen he sometimes took the book down from the shelf just to look at her face.
“It can’t have been an easy business,” Elena said.
“It was an easy business. I was good at it. It was the easiest thing I ever did in my life.”
“Then why did you get out?” She was naked, resplendent in the August heat. A current of warm air moved through the broken window and passed over her skin.
“I don’t know, I just gradually didn’t want to do it anymore.”
“Why not? What changed you?”
“I don’t know. It was gradual.”
“If you could name one thing.”
“Well, there was a girl. Catina. I’d been thinking about getting out, but it was meeting her, it was talking to her . . . I didn’t know before her that I was really going to do it. Get out, I mean.”
“A girlfriend?” Elena asked. The recording device in her purse listened silently.
“No, not a girlfriend. I sold her a passport.”
Catina was reading a magazine when Anton came into the café. She looked up and smiled when he said her name, and he caught a glimpse of the page she’d been reading as she closed the magazine—the headline, “Who Was the Falling Man?” and a famous photograph. He’d seen it years earlier, and he recognized it at a glance. The picture was taken on September 11, 2001, at fifteen seconds past nine forty-one A.M .: a man, having jumped from one of the North Tower’s unsurvivable floors above the point of impact, plummets toward the chaos of the plaza below. He is falling headfirst. He will be dead in less than sixty seconds. One knee is bent; otherwise his body is perfectly straight, his arms close against his sides. He is executing a dive that will never be replicated.
“Did they figure out the guy’s name?” Anton asked. Catina looked blankly at him until he gestured at the magazine.
“Oh.” She shook her head. “They thought they knew. But the family wouldn’t concede it.”
“The family doesn’t think it’s him?”
“They don’t want it to be him. The guy in the picture’s jumping before his tower falls, so I guess they see something unheroic about it. They say their son wouldn’t have jumped.”
Anton shrugged. “Doesn’t seem like an unreasonable thing to do,” he said. “I might’ve jumped.”
“I think the falling man’s . . . admire-able?”
“Admirable.”
“Admirable.” Catina spoke with a Portuguese accent; she had been in the country for four years now, working as an assistant to a Portuguese businessman, and her English was good but traces of Lisbon remained. “There was no way out, and he made a choice. The air was all flames. On flames?”
“On fire.”
“The air was on fire. He could pause . . . no, hesitate. He could hesitate and burn to death, or he could take control in those last few seconds and dive into the air. I like to think I would have done the same thing.”
Anton nodded and found suddenly that he couldn’t breathe. He excused himself and went to the bathroom and spent several minutes staring at his face in the mirror, trying to think about what he would do if he were marooned a
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