Assaf Gavron - Almost Dead: A Novel

I climbed aboard the Little No. 5 as I did every morning on my way to work. Little No. 5 is what I call the minibus-sized cab which follows the route of the No. 5 bus. Its actually a cross between a bus and a cab. You get the best of both worldsthe familiar route and the cheapness of the bus, but theyve got the speed of a cab and you can hail them and get off where you like.

And since there were bombs all the time, I only ever took Little No. 5s to work and back. Even if a real No. 5 arrived at my stop before a Little No. 5 I let it pass. A bus was too easy a target for a terroristespecially the No. 5, which was almost always full and had already been bombed. I wasnt really all that sure about doing this, but Duchi made me swear never to take the bus. And they were never going to bomb a Little No. 5. For one thing, they can only take ten people, eleven with the driver. Plus theres only the one door, at the front, so the driver can see exactly who gets on board.

That day I got on at the usual place. The time was around nine in the morning. A pale midwinter sun was hanging in a translucent sky; wet leaves covered the boulevard.

The driver was Ziona. She was the only woman driver in the Little No. 5 fleet but she was no pushover. She was always yelling down the radio at the dispatcher in the office, complaining about some guy whod dared to overtake her or cut her up, or wondering how the hell that Jumbo had gotten so far ahead of her. A Jumbos a bus, in the Little No. 5 drivers dialect. The dispatcher was always telling her to shut up and stop hogging the frequency. Maybe she ought to chill out? Maybe she ought to stop drilling a hole in everybodys head, including the heads of the passengers?

And Ziona would take a drag from the cigarette she liked to hang outside her window and whisper to herself as she exhaled, Oh, ffffuuuckk your fucking hole in the head!

We were heading down Dizengoff Street when an elderly lady turned to me. Quietly she said: Doesnt that man look suspicious?

With her eyes she indicated a dark guy at the front. We were sitting at the back. He was wearing a grey wool hat and holding a suit in a suit bag.

Come on, dont exaggerate, I said. He looks fine to me.

But I kept looking at him. I thought about the fact that explosive belts were the latest thingthe flavour of the month. Explosive belts must be pretty flat if you can strap them round your body. Just possibly there was one in his suit bag.

Dont you worry about it, I told the old lady. Itll be fine.

She gave me a sour look and tried another guy who was sitting at the back with us. She whispered something in the other guys ear, and he looked towards her suspect and a second later shook his head and flapped his hand. Now I was certain. Just paranoid. Why is everyone so paranoid in this country? Cant dark guys get on buses with suit bags any more?

The old lady called over to Ziona.

Can I get off at the next corner?

Ziona looked in the mirror with her big eyes. Of course you can, honey, she said. Ziona was a nice woman. She had short hair and wide shoulders. Shes dead now, of course. You talking to me, Yossi? she jabbered into the radio. Hey, whos that? You got a driver called Morris next to you? Morris, the driver of Seventy? Yossi didnt answer. Another driver was saying, Hey, what is this, the cemetery? We got no passengers today? Ten minutes and nobody gets on. Someone else was saying, At least you get to see some of these chicks bellies and Yossi cut across them: Will you cut this crap out! Ziona, youre doing it again, and everyone else piles in after you with their chatter. Ziona swore to herself. The radio was tuned to a news show. They were talking about a bomb in Wadi Ara. The passengers were listening quietly. Then there was a song.

The old lady got off at Jabotinsky Street. She didnt trust our judgement. On her way out she gave the dark guy a long look. He looked back at her. I didnt think at that moment that his look meant anything. If I did have a sneaking suspicion that she might have a point, that I ought to get off too, just to be on the safe side, I blotted it out immediately. I didnt have time for the safe side. Who has?

Everyones under pressure, eh? the other guy at the back said. He had a little goatee and big aviator sunglasses with mirrored lenses. His hair was the colour of honey, held back with plenty of gel, darkening into curls at the back. Cool, at least in his own eyes. Pleasant smile. Giora, I know now. Giora Guetta, from Jerusalem. I know plenty of things now.

This paranoia I said. People are completely crazy.

He looks OK to you, right?

I looked once more towards the dark guy. I wasnt sure. Who could be sure?

Yeah, no problem with him, I said.

Each of us looked through his window. Winter, but the sun was out. I watched the tree-lined canyon of Dizengoff slide by, the parade of designer clothing shops, an ad for the movie Monsters Inc. , a small Gad Dairy truck passing. A builder got on and started shouting at Ziona.

Why didnt the last two stop for me? The builder was the father of two girls. I read it later on Ynet.

Dont get mad, honey, Ziona said. They were probably full.

Come on, people, my time is precious, the builder said.

Everybodys time is precious, honey.

If theres one thing I like about the Little No. 5s, its their efficiency with time. I know something about this: I work in the business of time. For example, all the handling of money and change is done during the ride, not like on the bus, where everyones got to finish paying while its still standing at the stop. You give someone sitting in front of you some money and they pass it down, from passenger to passenger to the driver, and your change comes back up, from hand to hand back into your palm. Money circulating efficiently from stranger to stranger, like the buss blood. Or the way the drivers change money with other drivers: they arrange it over the radio, and when they pass each other theyll stop for a couple of seconds and, one-two, its done. Or their skill on the roadthe way they improvise, overtaking cars and Jumbos by driving on the other side of the road, stealing valuable seconds at traffic lights, avoiding traffic jams by cutting through narrow streets off their usual routes: decisive actions. Its a pleasure to watch them.

Somebody touched my shoulder. I looked up in alarm and saw it was only the guy in the mirrored shades, with a PalmPilot in his hand. I thought to myself: what are you showing off for? Ive got a Palm too. Actually, that wasnt entirely true. My Palm had stopped working a couple of months before.

Listen, he said, if something happens to me, I want you to tell my girlfriend in Jerusalem, ShuliI want you to tell her He was thinking, but he couldnt seem to find the right words. I chuckled. What was he talking about, if something happened to him? Him too? The old lady, OK, shed probably been paranoid since the Holocaust, but him?

If something happens, I said, Im hardly going to be the one left to pass on messages, am I? Dont worry, man, nothings going to happen.

I know nothings going to happen, he said, but if it doesIf you want, I can also send a message to someone, like, if Iyou know.

No, I said reflexively. Then I thought: maybe I should send a message to someone? Maybe I should get my will written? You never know. I thought that if there was anyone I would leave anything to, it would have to be Duchi. Despite everything.

And then I thought again. Damnwhat the hell am I doing, on a bus, on the way to work, worrying about my will? How did I get here? On the back of the bus in front there was a picture of one of those red-jacketed guardsmen in London. It said: Going abroad? Take your mobile! On the radio, a man who was driving behind the bus that was blown up in Wadi Ara told Rafi Reshef, Im optimistic, optimistic, optimistic, optimistic. We were getting to the busier part of Dizengoff Street, where the towers of the Centre loom and the city crush grows denser. A phone rang and someone answered. I got my little notebook outsince my Palm stopped working Im back in the Middle Agesand wrote: Check again how much rent house New Zealand. Talk w/Duchi about it.