“He was right here when it happened,” Jonah said. “Probably looking out the window the wrong way. I mean, on the other side of the bus, where nothing was happening.”
“It’s getting dark,” Ann Mary said. “We should go.”
“Just clouds,” Paul said. “You know how the weather’s been lately. We could use the rain.”
“Mom?” Gina said, pointing at where the valley was narrow. The trees were rippling.
They all looked and paused. Ann Mary put her hand on Gina’s shoulder, gripping too hard, but Gina leaned into her, gripping Buster too hard.
“Good Lord,” Paul whispered. His voice rose on the last word. Ann Mary squinted, leaned into the wind, and looked at her husband’s beatific face. Her heart rose, too.
Jonah thought only of Joey, caught in the grip of the wind, and how much he had missed him already, and how impossible it would be to go on missing him.
The wooden saw horse flew away—out ahead of them, like something jerked by a magnet. It looked like a wide, dirty cloud dipping its head at them . . . a whirlwind, a spout. It was rushing towards them and as it rushed it got broader and thicker and there was a sound—a big shout in the background of the other shouts.
As Jonah watched he saw two thin spouts split off from the massive centre, one to each side. They tipped away from each other and then magnetically the feet of their spouts drew back in to the centre and the high wide whirling wash of it took a breath and rushed forward.
The horizon twitched and rolled towards them and the renewed tornado bore down on them, shrieking.
It took up leftover trees and pieces of earth; things were lifted and swirled, intact, for half a rotation and then they went to pieces, the smallest parts swinging up ahead of the largest. A mailbox from down the road faced forward, standing upright, as if it were being shooed.
The lifting up was stunning and fast. The tornado jiggled to the right and swept up trees and a rock and a baler. Joey thought he saw birds being pulled in, because he saw things pulled in now, not just lifted up. An old boundary wall got pulled up like a carpet, and a small wood outbuilding fell apart and got swept up all at the same time, rising in pieces almost neatly disassembled. And was there a man in there too? He was sure now he could see people rotating up the wide whirl of it, some upside down, some with their arms out, as if to steady themselves. There was a dog, too, and it seemed that its mouth was moving, that it was barking, all astonished, as it was turned and disappeared. The dog hurt his heart.
His mother started forward, then looked back at them, laughed, said something that couldn’t be heard, then faced back into it. Her hair was straight up now, blown up.
He could barely breathe. With all that wind, there seemed to be too little air. He was afraid but he was thrilled, too. His father, bent over, tried to make his way to Ann Mary, and Gina fell over and then fell up, and the dog ran to the side and then got knocked over. His mother turned again and her face was splendid.
His father reached an arm out to him and grinned. He was rising, that’s all he knew, and his heart, already beating wildly, beat hopefully. He reached his hand out and grabbed, feeling his father’s hands close on his. He shouted for joy. His back arced as he rose. He held his eyes open. It was glory, it was glory, it was glory.
I am dizzy with height, breathless. The wind up here is so strong it has fingers, fists, walls, even waterfalls in it.
The rope—thick as my wrist—is curved like an inverted horizon. Einstein rules here; for left to right, top to bottom, no plane is straight. The wind takes part of the rope and pushes it, slow motion, as if to shake me off. But I can resist the wind.
It’s so high up here, with the rope stretched between the Twin Towers, that I know the truth: distance is the secret at the heart of things.
I am afraid of heights; I am in love with heights. Only someone this terrified would climb so high, so far, so free, so pure.
I never look down. Looking down has the fatal flaw of attraction in it. I like the moment when the rope is set, when it slides in the wind, and I pause on the edge of the roof. The sound of the air blows every other thought away and all I see around me is space without confines, just space—and the rope—and there, appearing just in the centre—Gabriel.
Damn smack on the rope, riding it, his hand outstretched as ever, expecting me. The wind at a pitch, the rope swaying, and Gabriel, his wings folded flat against his back tight as a fingernail, or outspread partly, never as large as you’d think and light and densely etched, each feather sometimes moving like a living thing as he unfolds, unfolds.
I walked the first rope because I needed to overcome fear, because the things you fear control you, and the second rope—ten stories higher—to prove my resolve. Every rope has been higher, longer, more inhabited by height and I won’t lie, I can no longer tell the difference between love and fear.
I know I’m always afraid that this will be the last rope my nerves can handle, or that I’m now more enslaved by the need to triumph over fear than I was by fear itself. It’s possible, always possible.
I suspect my fear is no longer pure.
The third walk—at a height of roughly 500 feet—was the first time I saw a figure on my rope, turned and waiting for me.
I stood on the windowsill, my fingers backed against a pane of glass, trying to place him, who he was and why he was there. I already knew enough to look only out—out, never down—so my eyes were trapped by him and I thought at first it would be impossible to step out, that two people on the rope would be a disaster, that I would force him down or it would be—at the least—a breach of etiquette I knew nothing about, because every rope I had stepped on I stepped on alone.
It was the flutter at his back that decided me, the sly protrusion of his flexing wing. My foot stepped out, the arch of it fisted on the rope, holding it like a hand grasp, so that when the rope swayed I held on to it with my foot. The trick is not to fight it; the trick is to believe that air is the floor of your life.
Gabriel was naked. How was it ever possible to pretend angels would be clothed? Are birds? How would a hummingbird fly in a gauzy white gown?
The naked, winged man on the rope had a casual air. He stood at ease, with grace and friendliness, with interest. I moved slowly on the rope.
There was a slight wind and I was still relatively new to ropes then. I was grateful in a way to keep my eyes on him. When I first stepped out I saw the buildings behind him, framing him, but as I reached him the space around him freed up, so there was air. All ropes seem curved that way, their centres independent of their moorings, as if the bridge a rope makes is itself the impossible country, Oz in the sky.
Gabriel, that first time, let me approach without saying a word. Surprises are so much more impressive in silence. He had dark, straight heavy hair parted in the center, falling down to the point where his jawbone turned up to his ear. His eyes were brown and direct, not quite almond-shaped, and his nose was almost Indian, strong and sharp. There was no crease anywhere on his face, nor on his body, which was muscular, narrow at the hips and dark in the loins. His feet were beautifully formed, resting almost without impression on the rope.
The wing that had flexed when I first saw him opened and I caught a faint ripple of muscles on his shoulder as it did. The wing opened straight out, the way a sparrow’s did, without the bend that artists like to put in it. It was paler than his skin when open—a beige colour faintly streaked with cream. The feathers were small and it was possible when looking at the wing as a whole to think it resembled a shell, changing at the edges into transparency. I was soon close enough to see the way each feather topped the one in front of it and how the skin thickened where the wing sloped into his shoulder. There it was the consistency of muscle with a thin opaque covering. When I looked at the feathers I wanted to stroke them lightly; when I looked at the wing I wanted to fly.
Tremors fluttered the wing in waves, as if he were idly clenching and unclenching muscles, and it appeared to me that each feather was separately operated and intricately managed.
He smiled as I looked at him, waiting for my study of his wings to end. Then he held his hand out to me, also beautifully extended, a hand without callus or scar, its fingers shaped to a roundness at the tip. I refused his hand; I had no doubt that his touch would be unnerving.
“Will you take one step with me?” he asked, and his voice had a rich, surprising depth to it. It was a sliding voice, it slipped into your head and loosened speculations.
The sky behind him now was a flat aluminum. It seemed so flat and I seemed so high and yet the effect of it—I could feel my heart beat through the soles of my feet, linked with the strands of the rope—the effect was to make me feel like the centre of the universe.
Of course, that’s why I love the rope: Time is concentrated. Your life is stark, reduced to each minute, each move; every second matters as it never matters on the ground. You are aware of your pulse, the sweat on your skin. Things that have no consequence on earth matter with a vengeance in the sky. You cannot live by default, only by choice.
So when I heard him speak in that sliding voice, I stepped backwards on my rope and said No.
He turned his head half away from me, seeking out the flat gray sky. The wind hooked high around him, he leaned into it, and his wings opened and fluttered so fast they blurred before fitting neatly back together. “Do you think you could dance,” he asked, “this high up?”
I felt the rope under my foot begin to wriggle, shifting in the wind in unpredictable impulses. “Hold my hand,” he said. “I can help you.”
For one brief moment his voice gave me hints of a promise, release from the rope. But even then I noted how my foot relaxed—and how I was starting to lean clumsily forward into the curve of the rope where Gabriel stood. I had lost concentration. He was not offering me grace.
“Are you a fallen angel?” I asked.
He smiled. “Half-fallen,” he said.
That was all we said, that first time, because I backed up along the rope, till I stood firm against the window. He had smiled for a while, watching me, and then stopped smiling. His head turned into the breeze and the sky. He had a quality of waiting that was impressive; I have never waited well.
I was curious whether he would be there the next time, and as I prepared the rope a few weeks later, the thought of him standing in the sky—a sky closer by another ten stories—was always in my mind.
I am very careful about choosing the rope days. No rain, small winds, no sun. The light has to spread out in space without disruption: that means cloudy skies.
A dusty sky this time, brushed here and there with washed-out slate as ranges of clouds lined the distance, mountains to be climbed someday, shifting Everests.
My hair was slicked right to my head, my body taut in tights, my arms outspread for steadiness, and I stepped out again.
Gabriel was there, small as a statue as I took my first step. Still as a statue, a weightless one, barely bending the rope. As I walked towards him, I could feel the line’s resistance alter.
I stopped a yard away from him. “Gabriel,” I called.
“That’s not my name.” He crossed his arms on his chest. “Gabriel’s a name in one of your stories,” he said. “Not mine.”
“Gabriel. Why are you waiting for me?”
“I’ve been watching you. You draw me to you. Your eyes are the colour of the sky today. Please give me your hand.”
“Why? Will you show me the sky?” I asked.
His head dipped sideways. “I can show you the world.”
He glanced down and for a split-second my eyes followed his. My right arm dipped, my balance faltered, I was stricken with a hollow feeling. I threw my eyes up again, past him, to hang my sight on a cloud; that cloud and I became the centre; the rest of the world moved and we stayed steady. My arm regained its balance.
“I wouldn’t hurt you.” His voice tempted me, and I believed him. For that my arms relaxed and I bent to the earth. With an effort I stopped that; I ceased to believe.
“What do you want from me?”
“Please. Take my hand.”
“I’d lose my balance. I’m sure of it.”
“It’s not a question of balance, not really. See? I can look anywhere.” And to prove it, he looked down.
“Please stop looking down. You could cause me to hurt myself.”
He looked back up at me. He had a simple, clear gaze. I admired his features, the purity, the classicism of them. Perhaps such things belonged to his kind, above gravity of all sorts. I had to balance myself, right foot back, shift weight, right foot forward.
“All falling things fall to earth,” he said sweetly, once again gazing down.
I was learning to control the impulse to follow his eyes. I locked myself to the horizon and said, “How marvellous it must be, to step out in the sky.” The clouds were rushing towards me; it was windier than I liked.
“It’s everything you could imagine,” he whispered.
On that we both paused, our eyes ranged in different directions. He blinked and then opened his eyes. “I don’t have terror of any kind,” he said gently. “Just a thought, that goes on forever. A single train of thought. What would I be?” He gestured slightly downwards. “That’s all. I don’t know why it occurs to me, but it does. If there were only the sky, I would be content, I suppose. But if I look down, at them . . . at you, I start to wonder,
What would I be?
”
I knew I had to get off the rope. His voice was so soothing, so musically sad, I began to feel the sadness myself, a longing for Earth.
“We could help each other,” he said as I backed away. “We want the same thing.”
My heart was bumping into itself; the rapid beats threatened to make me dizzy. He didn’t lean towards me or follow me as I left, but kept his steady stare on my face, as if he were still talking.
When I thought, later, of going up again, and having him there again, and feeling again that longing to rush through the air without check, I grew frightened. He made death feel fond. I had always respected my own willingness to be afraid—
that
had given me courage, not the fight to overcome it.
But it is a fight somehow. I know very well that the Twin Towers is as high as I can go, and that he will be there. In the back of my mind is a decision I can’t make, a question I can’t even ask. I would have gone up again anyway, I’m sure of it, but I know that this time I’ve come to see Gabriel.
The wind smells of iron and glass. This high up there is a different climate from below. It’s private that way.
If he wasn’t here I could walk from one end to the other, I could bend in the wind and defy the cold that’s different—stripped—from the weather below.
But he is here and I move to him, my arms outspread, walking to him, to hear his voice. I have to continue, despite Gabriel—or despite my feeling that Gabriel has twisted the conditions of my test. He has introduced melancholy; I’ve caught it from him, that yearning to reach not the cause of fear, but the end of fear.
Once again, he smiles at me from the curve of the rope. Again, I stop a yard away. He sighs. “Watching you is lovely,” he says. “You’re so careful, so concentrated. I envy that.”
“Why?”
“This is as far as I’ve been able to get,” he says, his eyes bright and warm. “I can’t go any farther.”
“I don’t understand.”
He holds his hand out, friendliness reaching for me like tentacles. “I need a body to weigh me down.”
The wind has a sound to it, a long sigh. It makes my neck prickle.
“You want to fall,” he says. “That’s why you’re here.”
“No.”
“You’re in love with falling, you dream about it, it’s in your head like a song.”
“No.”
“All the time below is meaningless; this is all that matters. How sweet, how clear, how consequential. We are a pair,” he croons, lifting his wing out along with his hand. “You come up and look there, and there, and there.” He sweeps the sky with his wing. “But this isn’t what matters to you, is it?”
My knees tremble, I can feel a thrill translating to them from the rope. I have always believed that I was superior to fear because I swallowed it whole each time I set foot on my rope. But—it was true, it wasn’t the sky or the wind or the clouds that drew me up; it was the bursting out, through, down, the long straight moment that stretched between me and the land. I always went higher to stretch the moment longer. The thought of it makes my mouth dry, my eyes water, it gazes at me, it’s almost carnal in its itch.
The sigh the wind makes is resolute, it gathers in a pitch like a voice around my tongue.
Gabriel, clothed in serenity, holds himself gently on the rope. He moves toward me. He’s close enough now that my hand and his hand would meet if extended.
The rope keeps moving, shaking itself solemnly, and my feet dance with it. The curve of the rope is heavier than it has been; it compels me to Gabriel, like a bright light in a long tunnel.
Gabriel holds his hand out, palm up, a plea for my company, my consent. I want to touch it, to see what density there is in it—light, cold, silky, firm? A cloud pours itself into a dark flower and flows into a wing.
“No,” I say, “no,” and I walk back on the rope to the roof of my world, and I cut the rope so that it falls like a bridge collapsing, and Gabriel opens his wings as if he doesn’t even need them and he stays there, poised where the rope should be, as if I would return, as if a time must come when I’ll return.