CORINNA
583
You dug into your eggplant slices in silence and when the man went
away to the distant table, you saw him putting his hand on the shoulder of
the professor, who turned to him and said, "Gentlemen, this is Eitan
Nachshon from the Palmach! Eitan Nachshon, listen to this!"
The radio on the bus whistles,
Kol IsraelfromJerusalem, it
is
eleven o'clock.
The driver stops. They call the shriek of the siren a moment of silence.
You have never gotten up to stand so eagerly in your life, leaning your fore–
head on the dividing bar between you and the driver.
Enough Enough
Enough I'm sick
if
it.
Without a sound, so as not to violate the seeming silence,
until the siren calms down.
Through the bus window women and men on the sides of the road
get into their vehicles like figures in a silent movie, and the voice of the
newscaster is heard as the bus passes by them,
The bombing in Hadera was on number 820 which was on its way not from
Tel Aviv to Afula but from Afula to Tel Aviv. Five people killed, twenty jive wound–
ed. "The bus stopped to take some passengers at Oum EI Fakhem,"
cries a woman
into the microphone on the radio, and the reporter asks,
"How do you know
that? u-ere you on the bus?" And the woman says, "I wasn't, but this woman here
next to me, she doesn't want to be identified, she was."
The reporter says, "Let's not be swept by rumors."
A passenger on the seat next to you says in a slow voice, "Must have
got on in Oum EI Fakhem." The bus drives by the sign announcing the
village. The road is overlooked by a house painted in red in the middle,
adorned with arches all along its three floors.
You turn to the man.
"Why do you say such a horrible thing?! In Oum EI Fakhem, they are
Israeli citizens; they are not terrorists."
The bus enters Mula. A voice on the radio says,
The terrorist got off the bus through the back door at the station in Hadera and
bEfore he got off he lift an explosive device on the stairs.
...
The driver lifts up a shocked face, smiles sadly at hearing the "Drive–
in-peace-and-return-in-peace" slogan, and says, "There's your bus arriving
over there. On platform eight."
On platform eight two elderly women in outfits adorned with
embroidery, hurrying each other in Amhari, climb with their bags onto
the bus.
A thin policeman says with surprise, "This bus always goes into
Nazareth. I don't understand why it's not going in, There'll be another one
soon, You'll be there on time, it's only a half-hour ride. Where are you
from? I've also just come on the 820 from Tel Aviv. No, not on your bus.
