He was wondering whether they would get two seats when the driver deigned to open the door of the single decker bus. There were soldiers in front of him, men, women, there was a woman with four small children, two in her arms, there was an elderly couple arguing briskly.
There were two young men.
There were two young men who looked, moved, seemed different. Holt could not say how they looked, moved, seemed different. He was the stranger… Light chocolate skins, but then the Arabic Jews had light chocolate skins… Long dank curly hair, but then there were Arabic Jews of that age who would be in their last year of school, or who had some exemption from the military… Nervous movements, anxious glances over the shoulder, snapped whispers to each other.. . looking, moving, seeming different. And then the queue started to move, and the soldiers were surging and the woman was shouting for her stray children, and the elderly couple were bickering away their lives.
Alone in the queue, Holt saw two young men who looked, moved, seemed different.
He was a stranger. He took nothing for granted. He saw nothing as ordinary.
He watched. He was edging forward. He just knew that he would reach the steps into the bus, the driver, and Crane would not be back with the tickets. Holt moved a little out of the queue, so that he could watch for Crane more easily, so that he could shout to him to hurry. He was only half a step out of the queue. It gave him sight of one of the young men with his hand in a cheap grip bag, fiddling. He saw the frown of concentration on the forehead of one of the young men, and he saw the strain of the other young man who bent close to his friend. He saw that the two had their hands in the bag. Relief on their faces, hands out of the bag. He saw their hands clasp together, as if a bond was sealed, as if a mountain were climbed.
He was alone beside the bus, alone he saw them.
The taller of them slipped away. The shorter climbed the narrow steps onto the bus. Holt was looking for Crane – wretched man, as if the man enjoyed making Holt sweat… Holt saw the taller of the two young men standing at the ice cream kiosk. The one moment frantic because of something in a grip bag, the next moment buying ice cream. .. Crane walking unhurriedly back from the ticket booth, Holt waving for him to hurry.
He saw the taller man skipping across the road from the kiosk towards the bus.
The queue was formed alongside an all-weather shelter. A stout graffiti-covered brick wall masked the windows of the bus from Holt. He was buggered if he were going to stand like an obedient dog waiting on Crane. Holt was moving towards Crane…
He felt the hot wind. He heard the roar of the fire wind. He was off his feet, flying. Could not get his feet to the ground, could not control his body, mind, arms.
Moving above the road, moving towards the ice cream kiosk. He could see the kiosk, he could see the taller man with the ice creams splattering across his chest. He felt the snap cudgel blow of the bricks at the back of his legs. He heard the thunder blast of the explosion.
Holt careered into the taller man, hit him full in the body, smashed against the splattered ice cream cones.
Eyes closed. The knowledge of fire, the certainty of calamity. Ears blasted, ringing from the hammer strike of plastic explosive.
The body was under him. The body of the taller man was writhing.
Holt did not understand. Explosion, fire, demolition, he knew all that. He did understand that the taller man on whom he lay had wriggled clear of his belt a short double edged knife. Could not comprehend, why the taller man on whom he lay held the double edged knife and slashed at him. All so bloody mad. Mad that he had flown, that he could not control his legs, that debris lay around them, that the taller man slashed at him with the bright blade of a knife. The knife was at full arm stretch. The taller man screamed in words that Holt did not know.
He saw the knife closing on him. He saw the old dirty running shoe. He saw the knife part from the fist, clatter away. He saw the tail end swing of Crane's kick.
Holt blurted, "His friend took the bag. He went to get an ice cream. He tried to knife me."
The breath was crushed out of Holt's chest. Crane had smother dived onto him. He was gasping for air.
He felt himself pushed aside, rolled away, and Crane had twisted the taller man onto his stomach and hooked an arm behind the back, held it, denying the taller man any freedom of movement. Holt saw the spittle in the mouth of the taller man and heard the frothing words that he did not understand.
Again the staccato explanation from Holt. "There were two of them in the queue. They had a bag. One climbed onto the bus, the other went for ice creams. I was just picked up, I was chucked across the road. I hit him, fell on him. He pulled the knife on me."
"Bastard terrorist," Crane said, a whistle in his teeth.
"Arab bastard terrorist."
Holt looked into Crane's face. It was the eyes that held him. Merciless eyes. As if the anger of Crane had killed their life; ruthless eyes.
"He was shouting in Arabic at you," Crane said.
Crane moved fast. Holt left to fend for himself. Crane moving with the Arab propelled in front of him by the arm lock, and Holt crawling to his feet and struggling to follow. Crane driving the Arab forward as if his only concern was to get clear of the bus station. Holt thought he would be sick. His foot kicked against a severed leg.
He stepped over the body trunk of the elderly woman who had been arguing with her elderly husband, he recognised the shredded remnant of her dress. His shoe slid in a river of blood slime, and he careered sideways to avoid a young girl soldier who dragged herself across the road on her elbows and her knees, and who tried with her hands to staunch the blood flow.
There was the cut of the screams in the air, and the first shrill pulse of the sirens.
Holt lurched, staggered after Crane and the Arab.
They were going against the tide surge of shoppers, shop keepers, taxi drivers, passengers from other queues who ran towards the smoking skeleton of the Jerusalem bus.
A police car swung a corner, tyres howling. Crane put himself into the road in front of it, forced it to stop.
All so fast. Crane jabbering at the driver and his crew man and wrenching open the rear door and dragging the Arab inside after him, then reaching out to pull Holt aboard. The door slammed shut.
The police car reversed, turned, sped away. Holt smelled the fear scent of the Arab who was squashed against him, pressed between himself and Crane.
"Tell me I did well, Crane."
"Nothing to boast about."
"I did well."
"You did what any Israeli would have done. Nothing more, nothing less."
They had left him in the corridor that led down to the cell block. He had been there for more than three hours.
He was ignored. He sat on a hard wooden bench and leaned exhausted back against the painted white brick-work of the corridor walls.
Through all the three hours a procession of men passed up and down the corridor. There were soldiers, officers with badges of rank on their shoulders, there were senior policemen in uniform, there were inves-tigators of the Shin Bet in casual civilian dress. He was never spoken to. He was brought no coffee, no tea. The heavy wooden door with the deep key setting and the small peep hole was left empty. Holt heard the questioning, and he heard the thumping and the beating, and he heard the screams and the whimpering of the Arab. The screams were occasional, the whimpering was all the time. Holt could recognise the battering of the fists and the boots, could find images for those sounds.
Crane came out of the cell block.
Holt stood. "I have to say, Mr Crane, that whatever was done at the bus station I do not approve of the torture of prisoners… "
Crane stared at Holt. "There are five dead, two of them children. There are 51 injured, of whom eight are critical."