Memories of 9/11
I was working on my computer in my small bachelor pad in the center of Amsterdam. A friend of mine was taking a nap in my bed; her toddler daughter was being looked after by their nanny.
An ICQ message popped up on my screen --uh-oh!-- from my American e-pen-pal Sean.
"Are you watching TV?"
"No."
"Turn on your TV."
That was it. Confused (How could he know what is on Dutch television?) I switched on the TV and watched in horror as the events unfolded.
I woke my friend, and for a long time we watched the news. Later that day, she was supposed to fly back to France, where she lived at the time. I accompanied her to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.
The airport was packed. All flights that would enter American airspace had been cancelled. I walked around, trying to help people who needed it. Two women came back with me to the center of Amsterdam.
One was an American woman (Jennifer N.) who managed to find a hotel in the Nieuwe Doelenstraat. The other was a Finnish woman named Minnie, who was on her way to work on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico [1].
I don’t know whether all the hotel rooms were booked or she simply couldn’t afford one, but Minnie ended up staying with me. My bedroom door didn’t have a lock. When I left her there and went to sleep on the couch in the living room, she was sitting upright on my bed, legs covered by a blanket, leaning against the head board. She was still sitting that way when I woke her the next morning. I have always wondered whether she felt too uncomfortable, too unsafe, to fall asleep that night. What if I had given her a broomstick to jam beneath the door handle from the inside?
The three of us had dinner at Indonesian restaurant Kantjil & de Tijger. Jennifer and Minnie were hesitant when I suggested it, expecting the food to be spicy, but I convinced them to give it a try, and they loved it. Knowing all the misery caused by the attacks, it seems almost disrespectful now that we had such a good time. I have eaten at Kantjil several times since [2], and each time I have thought of Jennifer and Minnie.
I also remember how, a short time after, the world commemorated the attacks. Traffic throughout the Netherlands came to a stop. People cried in sorrow. Seas of flowers appeared outside American embassies across Europe. It felt even more solemn than our own Liberation Day. The scale of that shared, pure grief was overwhelming.
When people remember September 11, they naturally remember the images on television. I remember those too. But I also remember an ICQ message, a packed airport, two stranded strangers, an unlocked bedroom door and an unexpectedly enjoyable dinner. Perhaps that is how enormous historical events remain real to us: through the small, ordinary moments that became attached to them forever.
[1] Jennifer sent me a card afterwards; Minnie had a friend send me an email to tell me she'd arrived safely (perhaps Internet access on oil rigs was more limited at the time). I still have the card somewhere, which is why I only still know Jennifer's full name.
[2] Google indicates it's "permanently closed," now.