The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu

Author:Shani Boianjiu [Boianjiu, Shani]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-95596-8
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2013-06-24T16:00:00+00:00

I CLIMB into the bus and pretend to be looking for money in my purse. It is only when the door closes that I take out my uniform shirt and put it on without buttoning it and show the driver my military ID, the one that lets me ride public transportation for free whenever I am wearing my uniform.

The driver doesn’t care about the shirt or the buttons or even the road. He is on his cell and signals me with his hand to step inside. As we drive away, I try to wave to the officer, but he is nowhere to be seen.

I sit by the window, two seats behind the driver. The red linoleum of the bus is bursting at the seams with foam and the window is covered in dust. I lower my head and close my eyes and I wait for the bus to get to Azrieli. I wait for the wait to be over.

All the time I fight. Why? It would have made no difference for me to get a citation for inappropriate public attire, or whatever it’s called. No difference at all. Everything—Emuna, me, life, the bus, Jonah—would have hammered on and forward just the same.

On the next stop, a suicide bomber comes and sits right next to me. I have no proof he is one, but I have convinced myself that it is true, so I try to make sure. The last thing I want is to build an elephant made of fear. He looks in his fifties, and his step shows he is tired of the worldliness of the bus and this new land.

As he sits down he is rocking back and forth. His rhythm is that of a man who has given up on this world yet for some reason is still nervous. His seconds are loaded enough so that even in his weariness he finds a reason to worry. He is waiting for something big to happen, something that will change everything forever.

He puts two large black plastic bags under his seat. I can see a plastic container with brown cookies in it bulging out of the bag next to me, but that could be a diversion. A man like that carrying homemade cookies?

If I didn’t suspect that he was a suicide bomber, I would guess that he is Russian. Something about how close his eyes are to each other, and his strange gray hat, a hat that does not belong to this country. But I am almost certain he is Arab: the accent of his grunt to me as he sits down, the way his eyes are sunken inside his face, his yellowing skin. And he looks like a suicide bomber.

Even though it is summer, he is wearing a nice jacket and slacks, a puffy sweater underneath. His clothes were nice once, but now they’re worn out.

I quickly stand up. I look around but there are no empty seats on the bus and none of the other passengers seem alarmed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.