Free Open City by Teju Cole Page A

their eyes signaled nothing other than the usual gap between the old and the young. A little walk north, the promenade broadened, the residential row ended, and there I saw the glass atrium of the World Financial Center, with its assortment of massive indoor plants that made it look like a gigantic aquarium. There was a calm inlet just in front of the building, on which several boats, one of which had a sign for the Manhattan Sailing School, bobbed gently. I went down a short flight of wooden steps, and walked onto the pier and alongside the boats, and beyond them into the section where there was water on both sides. The inlet was to my right, the river to my left, and I faced out to the left, settling my eyes on the black water, the scattered lights of Hoboken and Jersey City, and above them black sky. The soft ululations of the water fell into my ears, and out of those murmurs, M.’s plaintive voice.
    How could I be so stupid, Turkish-American wife, Turkish mistress. I always told her I had business in Ankara, which I did, but she didn’t know about my other business; and this other one, I gave her three hundred dollars every month, it was a good arrangement, I think, or I should say I thought. I thought. I didn’t think. One day, she wrote and asked for more—women are crazy, Doctor, even crazier than me—she wanted five hundred. Can you imagine this? Everymonth, five hundred, and my wife said, A letter from Turkey, let me see who writes my husband. That was the end for me. When I came home she was waiting with the letter in one hand, and a stick in the other. How can I blame her? I was thinking with my, I don’t know, Doctor. And now, everybody at home knows this. I was thinking with my balls. I didn’t think. Everything good I have made bad, I disappoint God.
    His eyes brimmed. He had told the story before, and had wept before, but each time it was like never before. He experienced the pain afresh and dramatized it each time. And, as thought leads to thought, standing there looking at the river, I felt an unexpected pang of my own, a sudden urgency and sorrow, but the image of the one I was thinking of flitted past quickly. It had been only a few weeks, but time had begun to dull even that wound. It was getting cold, but I stood awhile longer. How easy it would be, I thought, to slip gently into the water here, and go down to the depths. I knelt, and trailed my hand in the Hudson. It was frigid. Here we all were, ignoring that water, paying as little attention as possible to the pair of black eternities between which our little light intervened. Our debt, though, to that light: what of it? We owe ourselves our lives. This, about which we physicians say so much to our patients, about which so little can reasonably be said, folds back and also asks us questions. I wiped my hand on my jacket, and breathed on my fingers to warm them up.
    Two boys, late teens, up on the promenade with their skateboards, were the only people within shouting distance. They were absorbed in their sport. One of them repeatedly made jumps from a low ramp, taking off and landing with loud clacks, while the other raced alongside him on another skateboard with a video camera, held low, almost at ankle level, and with a beam of light from its lamp. A security officer drove past in a motorized cart, and warned the boys against jumps. They stood and listened respectfully, and seemed chastened. But as soon as he drove off, they resumed their jumps.
    Away from the water, in the plaza behind the World Financial Center, was a small semienclosed space consisting of a fountain, plant beds with rushes, and two marble walls, one higher than the other. The walls were inscribed, and on the lower wall was a plaque: DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE MEMBERS OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN SERVICE TO THE PEOPLE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK . On the other wall, there was a list, with dozens of names on it. At the very top was the first entry— PTL.