Wir haben es nicht verdient, du Schießkopf. Wir haben es nie verdient.

I cried this morning, the first time since the towers fell. NPR played a clip of a 10-year-old boy reading his father's name at the ceremony in New York City, and suddenly the sharply curved exit ramp I was navigating looked smeared and distorted, as if it was behind warped glass. I blinked and sniffed, and pulled into the parking lot at work.

When the south tower fell, I was 5,000 miles from home, in my first week of a semester-long study abroad program in Germany. I didn't cry as I stood watching the coverage on a bank of TVs in a Wal-Mart on the edge of town. At first, the shock was too overwhelming for tears, and then, as the days passed, I was too busy adjusting to a new country and a suddenly threatening security situation to grieve properly.

We were warned not to be "overtly American" in public. I strove to speak only German when I was out; I weeded the red out of my already limited wardrobe. I walked silently past the man on the downtown street corner: he was selling handbags decorated with rhinestone American flags, and as he fingered them, he said clearly, "Die Amerikaner haben es verdient. Wollen Sie eine Tasche kaufen, Amerikanerin?" [The Americans deserved it. Do you want to buy a bag, American woman?]

That man came to mind this morning as I was driving to work, his tan face, his lips twisted in a smirk, his dirty blond hair. I couldn't say anything to him then—it wasn't safe, and my German wasn't—still isn't—strong enough to construct something sufficiently withering. I think the only comeback powerful enough is that 10-year-old's voice, cracking over the syllables of his dead father's name.