Pittsburgh, September 11, 2025  At the High School on September 11

On the approach to Pittsburgh, I have to think of the Harz. We’re flying over a hilly landscape that stirs something in me. Later, at Mount Lebanon High School, the German teacher will say to his students: the mountains here, they look a bit like the Harz. The students have read texts by Sonali and me, and my story, like so many of mine, takes place in the Harz. So yeah, I say, I think the Harz Mountains can be compared to the Apalachee Mountains (even though I’ve only seen them from the airplane window).

The high school itself is perched on a small hill, like many of the schools and churches scattered throughout Pittsburgh’s suburbia. We’re told this is a school district. Later, when it’s already dark, someone tells us that Pittsburgh has more churches per capita than anywhere else in the US. At night, the churches, there are four within walking distance of our hotel, are lit up. When it was still light out, you could clearly see that they’re not as old as they’re meant to look. On a sign I saw on the way to the high school, posted outside one of the churches, it said that these stones were only stacked into a church in 1945.

In front of us sit young people who are supposed to ask us questions about our texts, trying to ask them in German. I noticed that you’re very critical of men in your text, says one of the students. He reads the sentence from a sheet of paper. He wrote it down. Then he looks me in the eye and asks: Why?

I say that’s a good question, and that I believe it’s especially important for men, or people who were socialized or are perceived as male, to reflect on their role in a world created by and for patriarchy, and to work toward changing it, and that I think it’s important to critically examine the violent potential, especially of young men, and to make sure that violence doesn’t happen, and that safe spaces are created for

– and I realize, first, that I’m speaking way too fast for a high school class that’s just beginning to learn German, and second, that I’m in an American high school, and I think about how the German teacher who invited us had to submit our texts to the principal’s office for review, to check for potentially dangerous content, and personally signed a statement saying our texts posed no threat to his students, and about how, as he told us, the school recently had to pay millions in damages after parents sued over a children’s book that, broadly speaking, tried to show that trans people are just normal people.

– well, women

– and I can’t believe how it feels like I’m saying something I’m not allowed to say, and how I’m hesitating out of a nauseating, preemptive obedience to self-censorship, yet I try to speak more slowly and clearly now: and that safe spaces must be created for women, trans, intersex, and non-binary people. The student who asked me the question no longer looks me in the eye. He reads another question he wrote down: “Why does the uncle in your story drive a Ford and not another car?”
The boys in the first group ask Sonali fewer questions than they ask me, but they try. The girls ask the most questions.

After we’ve spoken with a second class, we’re given a tour of the school. There are four basketball gyms, an American football field, a swimming hall, eight tennis courts, and I was told there’s also a soccer field. I didn’t see it, though. There’s a theater, a film room, a woodshop, and basically everything you’d need to express yourself or try something out, and there’s fast food for lunch. While the students chew on slices of pizza or halves of sandwiches, the police officer’s hand rests on his weapon, his back leans against a column, his head bowed forward, watching the news on his phone.