Looking at me disapprovingly, he said, "As ice."
I touched the bottle and found it warm, so I said, "No, I'd like a cold one."
While making his displeasure with me clear, he held out the bottle toward the crowd. I reached out and rummaged among the bottles. I discovered that not only were most of them warm, but there was no sign of ice in the water. The vendor kept his eyes on the thirsty, who were wiping sweat from their brows and panting in the heat. He ministered to them with the warm bottles.
I watched them drink the magic liquid. They touched the bottles as though to assure themselves of their ability to distinguish hot and cold. Then, resigned, they swallowed the contents to the last drop and paid the price the vendor demanded. He had doubled the listed price on the pretext of the imaginary ice. He scowled and everyone paid it submissively.
I transferred my attention to the vendor, who was moving energetically and somewhat aggressively. I guessed he would attain his ambition quickly; the store would soon be filled with foreign cigarettes and candy, then with other imported commodities, including cassettes, tape recorders, and canned goods.
I was caught up in my thoughts and didn't notice what was happening until there was a warm opened bottle in my hand. I automatically raised it to my lips.
I paid the price the others had paid and continued walking in a leisurely fashion to the bus stop. I stood with the others until the "Carter" bus came.
The rationale behind using the name of the American president for this type of bus can't be attributed to its particular shape, which resembles a long, sad-faced worm, or to its unusual length, or to the great roar it makes as it runs, or to its higher fares (five times the usual fare), or to its being made in the USA. Rather, it has to do with the insignia on its side, right next to the door, which consists of an American flag emblazoned with two hands clasped in friendship.
In all likelihood, this insignia is the source of the people's delight in the buses' appearance during the last two years or so. They consider the buses the herald of the promised prosperity, which has been so long in coming. They seem prepared to overlook the noise on the grounds that noise is something commonplace in an underdeveloped country like ours. Higher fares are overlooked on the grounds that world prices are rising, and the thick polluting exhaust on the grounds that environmental pollution is only a problem in developed countries. The absence of bars and straps, which leaves the standing passengers swaying and dancing, is excused on the premise that our dull life needs some recreation.
However, it wasn't a week before the buses developed strange symptoms. Their interior support had begun to collapse and the rivets holding the walls to pop out. The automatic doors stuck open and the wall panels fell off. The rubber gaskets in the windows were torn and the screws holding the dashboard came off, revealing the inner workings.
The longer the papers remained silent about these wondrous phenomena, the more the explanations proliferated. They ranged from citing poor maintenance as the cause, to citing the hard use buses are put to in our country and the drivers' inadequacy and carelessness.
But other makes of buses that were in circulation along with the "Carter" bus were still in good condition, although it had been years since they were put into operation. Some of them were even assembled in Egyptian workshops. All this cast doubt on the soundness of these inferences.
Perhaps because of the frustration the common peo ple felt at their inability to explain this phenomenon or perhaps because in every time and place people alter nouns and adjectives so that their vocabulary matches their level of education and limited awareness, they soon called the buses mentioned above "Tartar."
This linguistic development drew my attention at the time. I consulted dictionaries until I found that "tartar" is among the oldest words in Arabic and means false pride. From this derives the word "taratur," meaning a conical dervish hat, which is also a slur applied to a weak wretch. But "tartar" as a noun means filtered wine dregs and thence, generally, has come to mean colloquially "to take a leak."
In light of what had happened to me lately, which stimulated my mind and drew me into probing phenomena and attempting to explain them, it is natural that my interest shifted from the linguistic aspect to the essence of this phenomenon itself. I intended to get on the "Tartar" several times, and while riding, painstakingly examine its makeup. But my findings made things more ambiguous.
I discovered the bus was made of the worst and cheapest components, from the outer frame and right down to the nails used to hold down the floorboards. It didn't make sense that the bus would be allowed to operate in this condition on the streets of New York, even in the black ghettos. Nor would it make sense for it to be produced especially for us. Like the foreign drugs, I couldn't imagine that the industry of the world's richest and strongest country could produce, even by design, such a poor-quality product. Even if the United States sent us the motors and nothing else, and the buses were then assembled in our country, this would still not be an explanation, since we've had industrial assembly since the '60s. A fortunate few still hold on to powerful, sturdy buses produced in Egyptian factories.
At this thought, my nose, well trained by the odor of old newspapers, began to quiver in excitement.
However, the developments in my relationship with the Committee wouldn't give me the opportunity to reach significant conclusions. To me, as to others, the matter became an unfathomable mystery.
I remembered all this as I worked my way in between jostling passengers near the back exit of the bus. I searched in vain for something to hold onto while boarding. There was an enormously fat woman in front of me. She climbed on with difficulty and found a spot inside. I was behind her when the bus suddenly set off and she lost her balance.
She reached out to cling to one of the metal poles, but it bent under her weight so that she almost fell on her face. She clung to me. Meanwhile I was busy taking out the fare the conductor demanded. I had spread my legs to brace myself and avoid falling.
The woman regained her balance and moved forward. She moved in spite of herself because of the bus' motion and the vibration of the floorboards, which had cracked and separated each from the other in many places.
Lately, preoccupied, I had not left my apartment much. I had not had a chance to ride the "Tartar" even once. I noticed immediately how the passengers' reactions had changed.
Early in the bus' service, the dancing motion that occurred had called forth a shy smile from all the riders, whether sitting or standing.
Today I noticed that the violence of the dance had increased, tearing the bus apart, breaking up the walls and floor, and completely destroying the riders' delight in the dancing.
Since they were looking, oblivious, at the ads decorating the streets, it appeared to me that they were preoccupied with other things. These ads were about international inventions in all fields. They looked at the late-rr_odel cars equipped with new features to protect passengers from noise, dirt, heat, cold, and the eyes of others, so that the vehicles resemble small armored cars.
I continued to look around at the thin, exhausted faces, stopping at a middle-aged man absorbed in some less-than-cheerful thought which was reflected on his features. He was smoking nervously. Beside him sat a youth with straightened hair and a gold chain around his neck. Another man clasped his hands greedily over a passport. There was a woman with wide-framed glasses, violet colored to match her dress, and a wristwatch shaped like a spaceship.
Sitting beside her was a sad-faced man proudly holding a package from which wafted the aroma of fish. He must have gotten it on sale in some corner of the city. Behind him, a neatly dressed man was nodding off, even though he was armed with all the modern devices: glasses with tinted lenses, a watch with a calculator, an annual calendar and alarm, and a Samsonite briefcase.