HAMBURG, Germany — The letter from the dead man did not surface for months after it was sent, after, presumably, Aysel Senguen had enough time to fully absorb the grim deeds and suicide death of her fiance, Ziad Jarrah.
Ziad sent the letter and a package of personal belongings to Aysel from the United States on Sept. 10, 2001, a day before he and three comrades hijacked United Airlines Flight 93, set it on a heading for Washington, D.C., and, finally, rather than allow a passenger revolt to rescue the airplane, purposely pitched it nose first from 40,000 feet into a pasture in Stony Creek Township, Pa.
By the time the letter was revealed in November 2001, Aysel knew others thought the evidence overwhelming that Ziad had been at the controls of that airliner, that he was a critical component in the deadliest terrorist attack in history. She nonetheless believed, she told investigators, that he was alive; that he would one day come back; that he would, as he had before, show up at her door with gifts and a sheepish grin, telling her not to worry, that there had been problems but now everything was fine and they would have the life they had planned.
There was something about Ziad Jarrah that made a lot of people hope, if not actually conclude, that Aysel was right and the investigators wrong -- that some horrible mistake had been made and he wasn't a mass murderer.
Then came the letter, which postal officials said was misaddressed and lost in the mail for weeks.
"I did not escape from you but I did what I was supposed to do and you should be very proud of me," Ziad wrote. "Remember always who you are and what you are. Head up. The victors never have their heads down!"
He was gone, he said. "Everyone has his time."
Ziad apologized for feeding Aysel's dreams of a wedding and children and a normal life. He called her, as he frequently did in his letters, "chabibi" -- darling.
"I am what you wished for," he said.
For many who held out hope, the letter erased it. Not Aysel. She ignored the dark passages and chose to believe the part where he promised to "always be your man," the part where he said, "I love you from all my heart. You should not have any doubts about that. I love you and I will always love you, until eternity," the part where he promised that one day they would live in a place "where there are no problems, and no sorrow, in castles of gold and silver."
