The Pilgrimage

By Daniel J. Bishop

Eventually, Joan found that she didn't really care about work anymore. It wasn't that she had anything saved up--her bank account seemed to be constantly in overdraft. This was a deeper malaise. A crisis of the suburban spirit.

It would have been easy to blame the tragic events of last autumn. Many people did. The economy had turned for the worse. Utility bills soared, their already high rates deregulated through the ceiling (not that the ceiling was all that high in Joan's basement apartment). Old growth forests people had fought hard to protect were being logged thanks to a government whose concerns were more corporate than humane.

Joan knew that she should be thankful that she was even working.

Unemployment was up. Her employers reminded her of that fact at least twice a week, while she jockeyed a phone in her cramped cubicle, and watched her standard of living plummet. When two planes plunged into the World Trade Center, the bigwigs in Toronto's downtown core all went home, in case they might also be targeted. The upper management in Joan's company went home, too.

But Joan was effectively chained to her desk with the other wage slaves.

"Anyone who wants to can go home early," Mr. Sunny said as he packed up his briefcase. "We're not heartless here." But from his tone, Joan heard You should be thankful that you have a job; unemployment is up. Everyone else must have heard the same thing, because only one person left, and he was fired later, in mid-December.

The images flashed across the television again and again, tiny needles tattooing their ugly patterns into her mind. And then the evidence, so easily found after the fact, and the rain of bombs. Civil liberties disappeared on both sides of the border--not so many, or so strongly, as to result in another American Revolution, but enough that the citizenry were more tightly controlled than they had been before the Declaration of Independence had been signed. They had already been more hideously taxed for over a generation.

Maybe it was just that she had been told, time and again, that the world had changed forever, and Joan no longer knew her place in it.

It was odd, even in New York, how many owners and managers had been conveniently away when disaster struck. It was odd, too, how some of those same transnational corporations had lobbied unsuccessfully to remove many of those now-forgotten civil liberties not long before the terrorists struck.

Joan made her decision on the way home one evening. The days were getting longer. Spring was rising, and there was still a hint of sun in the sky. The scent of oranges and distant spices was getting stronger in the back seat of Joan's second-hand Buick. During the day, the Old Woman was only a soft perfume, barely noticeable. But as evening approached, she coalesced like living smoke. Her perfume became incense, her form given an illusion of solidity by the shadows.

"They will burn you, Joan," the Old Woman said. "They always do."

Joan didn't know who the Old Woman was. Maybe she had died in the car. Maybe the car just represented her best memories, sweaty teenage gropings, or long drives in the country. Joan didn't think of the Old Woman as a ghost, exactly. There was something unreal about the idea of ghosts, and the Old Woman was real enough that other people had seen her. She had appeared to Joan for the first time, after Joan had purchased the car almost three years ago. And Joan had accepted it. Why she didn't feel frightened, or question her sanity, she didn't know. In some way, the Old Woman was part of the Buick. That was all.

"How do you feel about a road trip?"

Joan could sense the Old Woman's smile, or thought she could. Every night, the Old Woman grew from the shadows in the back seat, only to fade with the dawning sun. Of course, Joan was not always present when the Old Woman appeared or disappeared, and even during the day, there was a faint scent of her about the car. But Joan never saw her during the day, or failed to see her at night. So far as Joan could tell, the Old Woman never left the Buick's back seat.

"Where are we going?"

"New York."

"Ah. A pilgrimage." The Old Woman's voice sounded sad. Although she was confined to the automobile, she had access to news through the car's radio and Joan's reports. She sometimes seemed to know things through other, unknown means as well. "I thought I could hear the sound of distant flames."

Pilgrimage. Joan rolled the word across her tongue. It tasted like Medieval Saints. Like high school English class.

But maybe Joan's need was the same drive that made people flock to holy places. Manhattan had become an icon, a bare symbol not only of our vulnerability, but also of our greed, our hopes, the shallowness of our culture, and the strength that still remained, hidden in the deeps of our souls.

With the deep cynicism of modern consumer society, Joan had turned away from anything dealing with the terrorist attacks as opportunism, or, worse, sentimentality. It ate at her all the same. The effort required to pretend that she was unaffected, to not talk about it, to feign indifference, drained her of what little energy she had.

"A pilgrimage," Joan said. The word tasted like freedom now. "Yes, I suppose it is."

It was not a long trip. Joan only drove at night, except during the border crossing, when the Old Woman would have been more trouble than her company was worth. How could she explain the phantom passenger to American Customs?

Away from the city, the stars seemed brighter, even with the sweeping gray clouds of spring. Going through customs, this time, the authorities seemed to glower at her skin--which was darker than Caucasian from a hint of Native American blood, but lighter than coffee with double cream. That had never happened before. She had always thought of her high cheekbones and tan skin as her best features. Before, they had lent her a touch of exotic beauty. Now, she wondered if she looked like a terrorist.

Joan only went as far as she had to, past the bridge between Canada and the United States, before she could find a rest stop. She had only intended to sleep the daylight hours, waiting for the Old Woman to materialize at night. But, first she found herself crying from the tension of the border crossing. Then she felt enraged. It was as though some part of her had been violated. It was the same feeling she had had, once, when her apartment had been broken into three years ago. Joan slept fitfully at the rest stop until the sky grew dusky and the Old Woman's spice-and-orange scent became real enough to be almost tangible.

Joan drove down Interstate 81, following the eastern edge of Lake Ontario. At Syracuse, she turned onto the 90 going east, toward Albany. From Albany, the 87 would take her south almost all the way to New York City. It was a distance that could be driven in one shot, but Joan broke it up into two nights, to keep the company of the Old Woman. Near Albany and Syracuse, and even more near New York, the stars faded. Joan knew that only the brightest stars could outshine the artificial illumination poured across the sky. Even these seemed small and dim.

"Just 'cause you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there, Joan," the Old Woman said. "Stars don't go nowhere."

Joan nodded. The stars were still there, even when the sun was shining, although you couldn't see them in the sky. Or knowing that the Old Woman would appear in the Buick's back seat, as soon as it got dark enough. Knowing that things are still there, even when you can't see them--that's the essence of faith, isn't it?

Still, everyone seems a little more aggressive now. Even in the little roadside dinner where she stops for coffee, there's a sign in the window with an American flag and the words, "These colors don't run."

Maybe their fear was justified, their outrage mixed with sullen pride.

There was no way to avoid those images. They screamed from newspapers and web sites. They were repeated so often on TV that they almost became part of the background. Almost, because they were images that could never really be ignored, no matter how much you tried.

"Someone always has to burn," the Old Woman said. "Just the way people are."

Joan had seen hundreds of images of the towers on fire, from all angles. She had seen the flames leap high, and had heard the television anchors talk about the incredible heat. It wasn't nearly enough to make her really understand what it must have been like for those people trapped on the top floors, who leaped into the sky. Some choices are beyond the comprehension of anyone not faced with some kind of hell.

Roast. Roast, or trust yourself to the sky, hoping in that last minute that comic book promises will turn out to be true, and you...you...are the one meant to fly, to salvage hope from disaster.

And then the towers collapsed, first one and then the other. Untold tons of steel frame, concrete, and glass, had raised a wave of dust taller than the sky. It swept through Manhattan like a giant's eraser crossing a blackboard city.

How did Joan know that she was right to complain about freedoms lost? How could anyone tell which freedoms were essential, anyway? She didn't know. She couldn't know. Everyone said, the world had changed forever.

But she still couldn't help wondering, what if the planes had been flown into apartment buildings? What if the same numbers had been killed, but they were all homeless? Would they still have dropped bombs on Afghanistan?

And how come so many little people had died, while the machines that owned them just rolled on?

It had taken almost eleven years to build the World Trade Center. Its seven buildings had occupied a sixteen acre site, clustered around a central plaza. The twin towers were 110 stories, with an average height of about 1,353 feet. People had viewed it as a symbol of human ingenuity, of the rise of technology, or corporate greed. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, all seven buildings had collapsed, and the complex's symbolic meaning had changed forever.

Joan parked the Buick as close as she could to ground zero, then walked. It seemed odd to leave the Old Woman behind, but even without her Joan wasn't alone--there were still candle-bearers holding vigil for the dead. Joan saw the deep scars on One Liberty Plaza, across the street, and the damage to St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. Linked perimeter columns that would have been several stories high were they still standing, lie strewn among the debris. Although Joan knew intellectually that, sooner or later, something would be built here again, at the moment it seemed as though there was enough debris to take a lifetime to clear away.

She wondered what would rise from the ashes. Would it be an office complex or a memorial? A park would be better.

The birds were stirring by the time Joan left. Any other time, she would have felt odd, maybe even afraid, walking around in New York City at such an hour. Or even being at the disaster site alone. Joan had grown up hearing horror stories of muggings and rapes. Something had changed, though. Although she was certain that New York retained its violent element, it was no longer a stranger. She had seen into a small portion of the city's pain, and it echoed something in her heart. She reached her Buick before the sun was visible, but the Old Woman had already faded away.

Joan got into the car and drove away.

Later, when the car was fully gassed, and Joan had gotten some sleep, the Old Woman took form in the shadows.

"How did it go?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," Joan said. "I...I just wanted to understand it, I guess. I wanted to know why it happened."

The old woman said nothing.

Joan shrugged. Maybe that's all pilgrimages were about. People's lives change, and they wonder what's happened to the world. So they head out to Mecca, or Jerusalem, or Manhattan, to learn that we're the ones who are changing. The world is constant. Maybe she had learned something about faith. Knowing that something is out there, even when you can't see it. The essence of faith, as well as fear. Is there any real difference between the unseen stars, ghostly old women and terrorists?

"I guess I didn't really learn anything." Joan shrugged again. "The world's just out there. I'm still trying to understand why."

The Old Woman laughed. "We're all trying to figure out what it all means, honey. Don't take a disaster to make that true."

Joan nodded. The pilgrimage was over. Crisis resolved. Time to go back to the daily grind.

But was there ever any real resolution?

They drove on for hours in silence, the car eating up long miles. Joan was headed straight north this time, up the 87, as though she meant to drive the whole distance in a single night. Eventually, as the dawn light began to shine around the edge of the world, she pulled car over into a rest area.

The Old Woman had faded, but Joan could still smell her orange-spicy scent in the car.

"Do we learn from our mistakes?"

Joan hadn't expected an answer. She buried her face in her hands, and cried until the tears burned like fire.