Angana
Woman floats to rock where we watch ten days seagull and smoke flying over Atlantic.
"Let's go," I tell Marisol. "That's me."
"How do you know?" she say. "That one's so blue. And puffy."
"When you see your body, you can feel it," I say.
Down we climb to Orchard Beach, to far end where there is fence. To right, long line of umbrella, brown and black people sleeping under them. To left, court with boys who hit blue rubber ball. All the way back, past hot dog and water fountain, two hundred car flash up at Saturday sky. But down here my body come, up-in, to green sign: No Loitering, No Swimming, No Fishing.
"Careful," I say. We pull body over sand, thick line only flesh can make.
Marisol roll up skirt, pinch chubby leg. "You do look like this."
I hold cabbage head, and water spill from mouth, blood from ear, so I taste. "Mmm. Salty. You try."
But black girl is leaning over fence, clipboard clattering from shirt that read Parks Department. "Ho-ly shit! Heather! Here's another one!"
"Drop me," I tell Marisol.
"She can't see us," Marisol say.
"Now!" I say.
My body sway and plop! Sand fog around it. Black girl is spooked because she sprint down walkway. "Help! Someone! Come quick!"
"Should we hide it?" Marisol say.
"Maybe if they find me," I say, "they'll find who I belong to. I can be handled proper way."
We climb back up rock, and Marisol's hands shake. "What if no one finds me in all the rubble? Will I stay here like this?"
People crowd wood fence, saying Dios mio. Boys slide under picket gap. Girls point and turn away lipstick faces. Parks girl and Heather run back, two white police huff-and-puff behind them. They'll find you, I want to say. You also will leave.
But maybe I say this because one police is tagging my hands, another photographing my feet. How can I know this when two thousand body pile city after just one day? Who am I to decide where we will go from here?
Priya
Seven mornings, I've gone to work inspecting city parks, thinking as I've sifted for glass in sandboxes or waded in cattail fields, not here. Not here. Where in the city's name did she go? I've paced ten nights between Manuel's apartment and the house, trying to find her at the grocery or the bank. Fourteen thousand minutes, I've listened for the phone to ring, for someone to say, your mother's fine, we're bringing her back.
Then tonight, as Manni and I watch the towers crumble again on the news, the phone screams like a woman from the kitchen. Shrill, shrill, shrill. I dash to the counter, where the phone spins, and my heart teeters at some sudden balcony.
It's a smoker's voice, coroner he says, Biallo, and something about my mother's body, body I repeat, egg-zactly he says like he's won the lottery, and on and on about the drowning, a classic drowning he says, but Ma hated water, Ma couldn't swim, so why would she, and Biallo says, suicide is probable, could we stop by tomorrow to ID the body, talk to the cops, and I think Roy hates cops, Roy hates Dilip, so why would we go, but Biallo's saying he's sorry for my loss, and I wonder, does he know what that means?
On the street, cars double-park for garbage collection tomorrow. Garbage collection as on any week, except Ma won't sit by our window, watching the garbage man toss cans.
Manni bear-hugs me, and I muffle my face in his good white shirt, rub snot on the gold-flecked tie I bought him when he started at the Columbia Project. Still, he rubs his palm up and down my back, says, "I was supposed to go in tomorrow but I'll tell Yanira I need the day off."
"Manni," I say, and twist the button on his lapel.
Was it the cancer, chomping Baba as if a man were pulp and peel? Or the months after, when Ma trailed silences on the phone? Or Dilip, who wouldn't visit the house? Too busy, he said, with his promotion, he was the eldest, he needed to keep us running? Or Roy, burning-burning, one minute steady enough to watch Ma nights I couldn't go, next minute, off at some park, speechifying at some rally? Or me who, when Ma called, saying nobody needs me, would drive at midnight through the Bronx streets, lit gold and brown by the rusty lamps, would pinch the wheel and think, don't let it come to this?
"Dilip and Roy are gonna be in the same room tomorrow," I say.
"That's why I should go," Manni says. "Tell Roy to take it easy."
"Dilip won't like you there," I say.
Manni wipes my nose with his tie. "Nice girl. Crazy family."
"You could do one thing though," I say. I pull him to the bathroom and take the shears from the cabinet. I unsnap my clip so curls bounce down my back.
Manni steps close. "Tu pelo rizo," he says.
"I have to," I say. "It's ten days since she left. The tenth day, the Assamese shave their head in mourning."
"You didn't do this for your dad."
"Boys do," I say. "Dilip and Roy did. This time, I'm gonna do it with them."
"If you're gonna be so impulsive," he says, hiding the shears behind his back, "you can do it yourself."
"Please," I smile. "You're the only one I'd ask."
When he turns me to the mirror, I hear hair whooshing off, hair Ma had massaged for years with coconut oil while telling me her stories. And though I knew this day would come, the bright blades, the black pool about my feet seem unreal, as if Manni will turn me about, my hair intact, and whisper, just playing.
Angana
Dawn, I walk beach with spirits. Two thousand, dragging broken bone, burned lung, glass and wire cut all over. They stream from smash building, fallen plane, moan a hundred language: how this happen, who will find them?
Marisol whisper behind me. "Get ready. We're going to meet your family."
We board first bus from Orchard Beach, number twelve, up road that pops like soda in rain. Every stop, at parkway, at house, rain falls on driver's sunglasses. But true bulldog, he will not move, will not look at old Jewish man holding rail, Jamaican mother climbing muddy step, Puerto Rican lady asking help in Spanish.
"So rude," I say.
"We'll get off soon," Marisol say. "Jacobi Medical. The cops mentioned it yesterday. They said the coroner called your family there."
"I'm nervous," I say.
"I know if you had to wait another week, you'd complain. Marisol, when will anyone find me? Marisol, when will I know my story?"
I smile. "You figure me out."
Bald girl sit near us, shivering in T-shirt. Her face, tip up for ad, stop me: lazy eye, top lip curled open, as if she want to speak. I want to brush lip down, cover her bald head, but Marisol say, "Don't touch. That's your youngest, Priya. The coroner called her first."
I shift hand up pole and say her name, but Priya chews nail, looks out at parkway of strangers. When I touch sleeve, she look through me to flashing sign, Stop Requested.
"It's no use," Marisol say.
"Why can't I remember anything?" I say.
But Marisol is waving me up, bus is dropping us at grey building, where green-shirted men smoke at turning door, and wheelchair people pass in and out. I follow in line Jewish man, Jamaican mother, Puerto Rican lady across plaza. I follow right through glass, Priya and Marisol.
Eighth floor, people are crying in corners, doctors are walking away, no one speaking, just waiting room television. And at every loop, over all this buzz, there go the dead. Hundreds and hundreds. Rising from bodies wired to monitor, standing behind doctor that say sorry, sorry, sorry to this person or that, holding hands through hall, looking for somewhere to go.
"Marisol," I say. "This is country of ghosts."
But Marisol is at room 802. "Angana. Tu familia tá aqui."