Ground Zero

Reshmina tells the American soldier that she will have her father come to help him. He begs her to stay because he cannot see and tries to reach for her. She tells him she is not allowed to touch him because they are not related and she cannot bring him into her home without permission. She tells him that instead, she will practice English out loud, and if he “happens to follow” (61), she will not stop him. The soldier crawls behind her to her house. Reshmina runs to get her father, Baba, who is concerned but agrees the soldier can stay.

The soldier introduces himself as Taz. Reshmina sees him pat a strange stuffed animal and realizes he is the soldier who came to their house earlier. He tells Reshmina that the stuffed animal is a Tasmanian Devil, based on a cartoon, and that it is where his nickname “Taz” comes from. His name tag reads “Lowery,” his last name. She asks him about his tattoo that says “DTV.” He tells her: “It means […] Damn the Valley. It’s kind of my company’s slogan. This valley—it kills our friends and ruins our lives” (65). Reshmina reminds him, “It is the same for us” (65). Her mother, Mor, arrives and yells at her, saying her action will bring death to everyone in the village.

Pasoon arrives, happily saying that the Taliban killed all the soldiers. Reshmina is upset that Miriam, the translator, must have been killed, too. Pasoon is furious that Taz is there. He thinks Reshmina should have chosen the revenge aspect of Pashtunwali and wants to give Taz to the Taliban. Baba refuses, so Pasoon leaves to do it himself. Reshmina tells Taz that he is the only survivor of the attack. Baba leaves to tell the villagers about Taz and to go to the American base five kilometers away. Reshmina leaves to collect firewood. She checks Pasoon hiding place and sees that he took his toy airplane with him. She knows he is headed to the Taliban, and she runs to go stop him.

Brandon climbs up Stairwell A. He is the only one in the stairwell, and there is a clear liquid pouring down the stairs. As he climbs higher, the building’s condition worsens. He tries to climb over big, crumbled pieces of drywall but falls, injuring himself. He makes it to the 88th floor and sees fire. He is relieved, thinking that his dad must be safe above the fire. At the 89th floor, the stairwell is completely gone. He decides to look for another stairwell and does the skateboarding trick “rock to fakie” to crack the door open. When he gets through, he sees that the 89th floor does not exist anymore and he is “staring out into open sky” (80).

Reshmina does not see Pasoon anywhere in the mountains. She remembers a day a couple of years ago when she went exploring in the mountains with Pasoon. He brought her to a hidden rifle, placed there by the Taliban. Darwesh and Amaan had told him where it was and that they would pay him five dollars to fire it at Americans. Reshmina begged him not to fire at the American base below them, but he told her, “We’ll leave them alone when they leave us alone” (84). He fired at the base, and the Americans fired back but missed because they were not sure where Pasoon and Reshmina were.

Thinking back on that day, Reshmina decides that Pasoon must have gone to the same place where the Taliban rifle was. She believes that Pasoon wants to join the Taliban because they will allow him to be like a man and not a child. She thinks about how in school, they had old American-made textbooks that taught them to hate the Soviets. The alphabet, picture books, and even math lessons were anti-Soviet, saying things like “J is for Jihad. Jihad is the kind of war that Muslims fight in the name of God to free Muslims and Muslim lands from the enemies of Islam” (87). Reshmina thinks about how the Americans call the Soviets invaders in the books, but now they themselves are the invaders. Reshmina was not influenced by the propaganda, but Pasoon was. Reshmina finally sees him, but he is already waving to the Taliban.

Brandon looks out at the sky that surrounds him; he is nearly a thousand feet above the ground. He is terrified and thinks about all the people who are now gone. He imagines himself falling to the ground. A police helicopter appears in the sky at his level. He waves at the man and woman inside and excitedly thinks they will help him. He realizes that there is nowhere for them to land, though, and the woman inside mouths to him that she is sorry. He decides to try to crawl his way across the remaining ledge of the wall to get to another stairwell. He still wants to try to go upstairs to find his dad at Windows on the World. He starts to crawl forward, and the wind knocks him down onto his stomach. He feels himself being dragged and realizes a person is dragging him. The person pulls him to the other side. He looks familiar to Brandon.

Reshmina runs up the mountain, shouting at Pasoon to stop. She feels and hears a loud American helicopter, an Apache, approaching “like an angry animal” (97). The helicopter fires a rocket into the area of the mountain where Reshmina saw the Taliban fighters whom Pasoon waved to. Reshmina realizes that the Americans are taking revenge for the Taliban attack against the American and ANA soldiers. Reshmina catches up with Pasoon and yells at him for trying to join the Taliban. The helicopter stops firing and flies away, so Reshmina and Pasoon run away. Reshmina falls and starts to slide off a cliff. Pasoon tries to pull her up. The helicopter returns, flying behind Reshmina, and its machine gun is pointing at her.

The man who rescued Brandon, Richard, recognizes Brandon. He is the man Brandon saw that morning on the escalator who almost spilled his coffee. Richard gives Brandon a wet cloth for his mouth and helps him down the hall. The smoke is thick and black, and it “smelled like a gas station” (104). Richard knocks on a jammed office door to check on Mr. Chen, who worked on the same floor. No one replies, and Richard says he was probably killed by the falling ceiling.

Brandon sees Stairwell C and wants to go upstairs. Richard says there will be too much wreckage, but Brandon insists he wants to get to his dad. Richard goes upstairs with Brandon. They help each other up the stairs, but when they get to the 93rd floor, they have to stop. The landing of the stairwell is blocked, and the 93rd floor is on fire. Richard says they have to turn back, and Brandon feels “like the life had been sucked out of his body” (108). Down on the 92nd floor, he collapses and cries. Richard says that Brandon’s dad must be okay because the plane hit the 93rd floor, not the 107th. They continue to go down, checking the doors on each floor for survivors. Brandon realizes he and his dad cannot be a team anymore, and he has to do it on his own now.

Pasoon helps Reshmina climb back to safety. The helicopter flies away. Pasoon and Reshmina continue to run away from the fighting. They come across a few dozen people from the Kochi tribe. The Kochi are a nomadic tribe. They lay out mats for prayer, and Reshmina joins them. She prays that Pasoon will stop seeking revenge. She steals Pasoon’s toy airplane from his pocket when he is not looking. The Kochi invite them to share their food even though they are poor. They accept, and Reshmina thinks that there is “a charming simplicity” to their lives (117). She wishes that she and Pasoon were Kochi. Pasoon leaves, and Reshmina tries to stop him from going to find the Taliban again. They exchange insults. She shows him that she has his toy airplane.