century and the end of the seventeenth, at least forty whales were beached on the shores of Flanders and the northern Netherlands. For the Dutch, who were attempting, at the time, not only to define their new republic but also to consolidate their hold on New Amsterdam and other foreign possessions, the spiritual meaning of the whale was ever-present.
About two hundred years later, when a young man from the Fort Orange area came down the Hudson and settled in Manhattan, he decided he would write his magnum opus on an albino Leviathan. The author, a sometime parishioner of Trinity Church, called his book
The Whale;
the subtitle,
Moby-Dick
, was added only after the first publication. This same Trinity Church had now left me out in the brisk marine air and given me no place in which to pray. There were chains on all the gates, and I could find neither a way into the building nor anyone to help me. So, lulled by sea air, I decided to find my way to the edge of the island from there. It would be good, I thought, to stand for a while on the waterline.
W HEN I CROSSED THE STREET AND ENTERED THE SMALL ALLEY opposite, it was as though the entire world had fallen away. I was strangely comforted to find myself alone in this way in the heart of the city. The alley, no one’s preferred route to any destination, was all brick walls and shut-up doors, across which shadows fell as crisply as in an engraving. Ahead of me was a great black building. The surface of its half-visible tower was matte, a light-absorbing black like that of cloth, and its sharp geometry made it look like a freestanding shadow or cardboard cutout. I walked under some scaffolding in the alley and, from Thames Street, crossed Greenwich, and came to Albany, from which I saw the tower more clearly, although still at some distance. It was completely veiled in a densely woven black net. Where that narrow, quiet street met Washington, I saw to my right, about a block north of where I stood, a great empty space. I immediately thought of the obvious but, equally quickly, put the idea out of my mind.
Shortly afterward, I was on the West Side Highway. I was the only pedestrian at the crossing. The taillights of cars were chased by their red reflections toward the bridges out of the island, and to the right, there was a pedestrian overpass connecting one building, not to another, but to the ground. And again, the empty space that was, I now saw and admitted, the obvious: the ruins of the World Trade Center. The place had become a metonym of its disaster: I remembered a tourist who once asked me how he could get to 9/11: not the site of the events of 9/11 but to 9/11 itself, the date petrified into broken stones. I moved closer. It was walled in with wood and chain link, but otherwise nothing announced its significance. On the other side of the highway was a tranquil, residential street called South End, on the corner of which was a restaurant. It had neon signs outside (I remember the neon, but I forget the restaurant’s name) and, when I peered in through the glass doors, I saw that it was mostly empty. The few patrons, it seemed, were all men, and most satalone. I went inside, and sat at the bar, and ordered a drink from the waitress.
I had just finished my beer and paid for it when a man came to sit beside me. You don’t recognize me, he said, raising his eyebrows. I noticed you at the museum, about a week ago, the Folk Art Museum. My face must have remained foggy because he added: I’m a guard there, and that was you I saw, right? I nodded, faint though the memory was. He said, I knew I recognized your face. We shook hands, and he introduced himself as Kenneth. He was dark-skinned, bald, with a broad, smooth forehead, and a carefully trimmed pencil mustache. His upper body was powerful, but his legs were spindly, so that he looked like Nabokov’s Pnin come to life. He was in his late thirties, I guessed. We made small talk, but soon he launched into a monologue,
About two hundred years later, when a young man from the Fort Orange area came down the Hudson and settled in Manhattan, he decided he would write his magnum opus on an albino Leviathan. The author, a sometime parishioner of Trinity Church, called his book
The Whale;
the subtitle,
Moby-Dick
, was added only after the first publication. This same Trinity Church had now left me out in the brisk marine air and given me no place in which to pray. There were chains on all the gates, and I could find neither a way into the building nor anyone to help me. So, lulled by sea air, I decided to find my way to the edge of the island from there. It would be good, I thought, to stand for a while on the waterline.
W HEN I CROSSED THE STREET AND ENTERED THE SMALL ALLEY opposite, it was as though the entire world had fallen away. I was strangely comforted to find myself alone in this way in the heart of the city. The alley, no one’s preferred route to any destination, was all brick walls and shut-up doors, across which shadows fell as crisply as in an engraving. Ahead of me was a great black building. The surface of its half-visible tower was matte, a light-absorbing black like that of cloth, and its sharp geometry made it look like a freestanding shadow or cardboard cutout. I walked under some scaffolding in the alley and, from Thames Street, crossed Greenwich, and came to Albany, from which I saw the tower more clearly, although still at some distance. It was completely veiled in a densely woven black net. Where that narrow, quiet street met Washington, I saw to my right, about a block north of where I stood, a great empty space. I immediately thought of the obvious but, equally quickly, put the idea out of my mind.
Shortly afterward, I was on the West Side Highway. I was the only pedestrian at the crossing. The taillights of cars were chased by their red reflections toward the bridges out of the island, and to the right, there was a pedestrian overpass connecting one building, not to another, but to the ground. And again, the empty space that was, I now saw and admitted, the obvious: the ruins of the World Trade Center. The place had become a metonym of its disaster: I remembered a tourist who once asked me how he could get to 9/11: not the site of the events of 9/11 but to 9/11 itself, the date petrified into broken stones. I moved closer. It was walled in with wood and chain link, but otherwise nothing announced its significance. On the other side of the highway was a tranquil, residential street called South End, on the corner of which was a restaurant. It had neon signs outside (I remember the neon, but I forget the restaurant’s name) and, when I peered in through the glass doors, I saw that it was mostly empty. The few patrons, it seemed, were all men, and most satalone. I went inside, and sat at the bar, and ordered a drink from the waitress.
I had just finished my beer and paid for it when a man came to sit beside me. You don’t recognize me, he said, raising his eyebrows. I noticed you at the museum, about a week ago, the Folk Art Museum. My face must have remained foggy because he added: I’m a guard there, and that was you I saw, right? I nodded, faint though the memory was. He said, I knew I recognized your face. We shook hands, and he introduced himself as Kenneth. He was dark-skinned, bald, with a broad, smooth forehead, and a carefully trimmed pencil mustache. His upper body was powerful, but his legs were spindly, so that he looked like Nabokov’s Pnin come to life. He was in his late thirties, I guessed. We made small talk, but soon he launched into a monologue,
Similar Books
