The Suffering of Being Kafka | Page 6

neighbours.
Our driver deftly skirts the terminal's piers and ramps. Between two rows of houses shrouded in grimy washing, he hastens towards the freeway. He turns the radio volume up and speakers inundate us with tunes from the Levant. Some travellers squirm but no one asks to turn it down. It is the hourly news edition soon. Thoughts wander, gaze introspectively inverted, necks stretch to glimpse the passing views.
The broadcast screeches to a sickening but familiar halt. Faint cries, the Doppler wail of sirens, air surgically hacked by chopper rotor blades, the voices of authorities grating with shock and panic. The disembodied speech of spluttering witnesses. On site reporters at a loss for words record mere moans and keens. An orgy of smoking flesh.
The breaking news has cast us all in moulds of frozen dread and grief. Here burly finger poking nose, there basket petrified in midair haul, my neighbour absentmindedly rotates his hefty ring.
The announcer warns of imminent terrorist attacks on public transport. It recommends to err on the side of caution and to exhaustively inspect fellow commuters. Trust no one - exhorts a representative of the law - be on alert, examine suspect objects, call on your driver if in doubt. Pay heed to dubious characters and odd behaviours.
Our bus is trapped in a honking row of cars, under a seething sun. The baking asphalt mirrors. I am anxious not to be delayed. The wardens warned us: "Never be late. Make no excuses. Even if God himself comes down - be back on time." Latecomers lose all privileges and are removed to maximum security in Beersheba.
I debate the fine points with myself: is mass slaughter ample reason for being tardy or merely an excuse? No force is more majeure that prison guards. I smile at that and the tension plexus slackens.
A febrile thought:
Jailers are ultra right-wing and rabid nationalists. Terrorism must never be allowed to interfere with the mundane, they say. And I rehearse in hopeful genuflection: "You mustn't send a Jewish prisoner to an Arab-infested prison. After all, I was held up by Arab assassins who slaughtered Jews!"
The legalistic side (they are big on it in penal institutions):
How can I prove my whereabouts (on this bus) throughout the carnage? Think alibi. The inmate always shows that he has complied, the warden equally assumes he is being conned, but even he must prove it. A stalking game with predators and prey, but ever shifting roles.
I rise, prying my neighbour loose from contemplation. He eyes me, wicked. I pass a soiled boot above his clustered knees and place it gingerly between two bursting bags. Moustachioed women wipe milky exudation from upper lips with blotted synthetic handkerchiefs. They address me in a foreign, gravelling, language. They use elephantine, venous, legs to push aside their luggage - a gesture of goodwill more than a decongesting measure.
I feel the clammy, throbbing breathing of another on my trousers. Thrusting my other leg, I straddle the passage, two Herculean pillars, a sea of Mediterranean groceries between my calves. Toe by heel, I get nearer to the stuporous driver, a human ripple in my wake.
"I am a prisoner" - I inform his beefy neck.
His muscles tense but he does not respond or turn to scrutinise me.
"I am an inmate" - I repeat - "Can you please confirm by writing in this diary (I point at a grey notepad I am holding) that I was on your bus at this hour? I have no pen" - I add.
He casts a sideways glance at me, monitoring the hopeless traffic jam from the corner of a bloodshot eye.
(Emphatically):
"So, you are a prisoner? What could you have you done?" (you chalky, myopic, intellectual).
Right behind him, a woman past her prime, face coated, breasts nestled in a pointed bra. The driver cannot keep his eyes off them. She, on her part, seems to be fixated on his tensile musculature. They both start at the sound of my voice:
"Banks."
"Banks!" - the driver mirthfully slaps his bulging thighs and the woman chuckles throatily, lips peeled to reveal pink-tainted teeth. "Come over here, I'll sign it."
In one untrammelled motion, he removes a hirsute hand from the oversized steering wheel, takes hold of my jotter, and opens it. Off goes his second hand. He scribbles laboriously, tongue perched on fleshy lips, ending with a flourishing signature.
People are murmuring throughout the bus. My answer is equivocal. It could imply armed robbery - or fraud - or counterfeit. I may be violent. The innocent looking are the really dangerous. I may even be an Arab, impossible to tell them apart nowadays.
A web of mutters spins from crimson lips to hairy ears, from crumb-strewn mouths to avid auricles. I return to my seat, retracing my erstwhile progress, facing the hydra. With the pad in my back pocket, I