CORINNA
581
The mother hugs the baby and nods, her eyes fierce, "That's another
thing I will teach him!"
You sit down behind the broad shoulders which look good in the light
blue shirt, thinking with your eyes open about the possibility of cuddling
up between him and the steering wheel, and you take out of your bag a
book which opens with words by Anna Akhmatova:
But the future, as we know, casts its shadow long bifore it enters, and it knocked
on the window,
when a female soldier comes up from the rear seats:
"Can you turn up the volume?"
Immediately the radio whistles,
This is Kol Israel, the voice of Israel. The ten o'clock news. At the Central Bus
Station in Hadera at nine-forty a terrorist bombing at least two people killed twen–
ty injured at the central bus station in Hadera at nine-forty in bus number 820
which was on its way from Tel Aviv to Afula, and more attacks are expected, the
police are warning the public.
Hey, you are riding at this very moment on the number 820 bus from
Tel Aviv to Mula.
Under the seat there is no foreign object. The aisle is clear.
Your body woke up at quarter to eight this morning, as you had
ordered it: this morning I will get up at quarter to eight. You don't
believe in alarm clocks. Electronic devices will not manage your life for
you.
And at quarter to eight in the morning you said,
1 won't go
1 won't go
this is a disaster-prone day
because in your dream you were being pushed from one place to the
other.
And one hour later, at quarter to nine, you got up and left.
The bus turns right.
"Hadera"?
Someone answers, "Yes," and here is a town, country houses and wide
boulevards, between which the driver turns the steering wheel like a horse
smelling his stable, until he is blocked inside an intersection, and he opens
the door:
"I can't go into the station?"
The policewoman answers him in a sharp, high-pitched voice, "No!
No! It's a slaughter in there! A slaughter!!! Drive on! Drive on! Be care–
ful! There's going to be two more bombs, it's been announced!"
