Cherian Mathai traces his finger through the morning air. There’s the Chase building,he motions. Next to it is a shorter, black building, its top barely visible. His handwaves in the direction above it. "That’s where it was," he says.
We are on a pier on the Brooklyn waterfront, gazing across the East River at theManhattan skyline. One can at best approximate the location of the Twin Towers now, theirheight and outline and their massive substance. But those were buildings. Cherian has cometo realise that siblings don’t fade to black. "People say time heals. But I feelworse now. The void is being felt as time passes on."
His older brother, Joseph Mathai, 49, was having breakfast at Windows on the World whenthe towers fell. It was his favourite restaurant. "He liked sushi," saysCherian. "They had good sushi." That morning Joseph had come down from Boston,where he lived with his wife and two children, to attend a financial risk managementconference. A managing partner at Cambridge Technology Partners, Joseph was an easygoingman who would have normally gone to the conference a little later, like his fourcolleagues did, all of whom survived. But Joseph was on time on September 11 because hisfriend was to deliver the keynote speech.
They found Joseph’s body intact. There were no burn injuries, a fact thatcontinues to confound Cherian. Perhaps, he ventures, he started running downstairsimmediately after the plane hit, escaping the flames that eventually consumed the topfloors. Joseph’s credit cards and subway pass were undamaged. The police found 61cents in Joseph’s pockets. Rather than give Cherian the coins, they wrote him acheque for the amount, Cherian has yet to encash it.
In the ’70s, Cherian and Joseph would spend untold nights walking the streets ofNew York, going for movies and plays and whiling away their bachelor lives. This September11, Cherian intends to visit Ground Zero, to lay a flower on the ground. It will be hissecond visit. "It’s always crowded," he complains. "People are tryingto market T-shirts and all sorts of things."
On this side of the water, however, things are quieter. A couple of Chinese touriststake snaps of each other in front of the Brooklyn Bridge before wandering off. We stepback to read a Walt Whitman poem etched into the metal railing around the perimeter of thepier. It is entitled Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.
Stand up, Tall Masts of Mannahatta!
Stand up, Beautiful Hills of Brooklyn!
Throb, Curious and Baffled Brain!
Throw out questions and answers!
