The Expelled (9 page)

And I'm afraid to tell you everything that happened, because I don't know who you are and why you're asking me all this, I think I'm entitled to a lawyer, but no lawyer has come, and maybe you are front people who just want to abuse me, so I don't think I can say more than what I've already said, or not until I know who you are, because a front guy said he had a bomb in his suitcase and that we better shut up, although we don't really know if it was true or not. I think it wasn't true, who can carry an atomic bomb in a briefcase? But I was told that there are dirty bombs, that's what they're called. Does this mean the others are clean? I don't know. And I'm hungry, so if I could have something to eat and something to drink, it would help me to keep going. Or perhaps it would be best to answer your questions, a lot of unimportant things happened in four days and I don't see any reason to just enumerate them.

5.

“What is your name?”

“Nahid.”

“What is your last name?” A woman's voice.

“Ah, good news, there is a woman. There are two of you, at least two. Can I know what I'm doing here?”

“The first thing you have to know is that here we make the questions.”

“Ask.”

“What?”

“We ask or we formulate a question, or we just ask, but we don't make the questions. In English we ask questions, we formulate questions, but we don't make questions.”

“And where did that come from?”

“Whatever, that's what my grammar teacher always said.”

“And your last name?”

“Gramática
^[7]
.”

“Well, Mrs. Nahid Gramática, we want to ask you some questions.”

“Oh, very well, I love questions.”

“Where are you from?”

“What does it matter to you?”

“It's just a way to connect with you.” The woman’s voice came back.

“Oh, very well, I love making connections.”

“So where are you from?” a slightly nervous man’s voice.

“Where do you think I'm from, Gramática of course.”

“And where is that?”

“In Mesopotamia.”

“Aha...”

“Are you married?”

“Like everyone else.”

“Does this mean yes or no?”

“That means: divorced. Or do you live on another planet?”

“Alright, let's talk about the bus.”

“Why did you get on that bus?”

“Looking for love, a date in the Mediterranean. Romantic, right?”

“With whom?”

“With a certain Abdel Rahman el Rantisi.”

“Where?”

“At Al Andalus beach. At the restaurant with that same name. I think he will be gone by now, because we set a date seven years ago on a trip with my husband, when I saw him in an espadrilles shoe store in Malaga, I told him I was married, he said that changes, and we set a date for seven years later.”

“It seems a little weird, doesn't it?”

“Yes, but I believe weirder things have happened.”

“Like what?”

“Like the horse on the bus.”

“The what?”

“Did nobody tell you about it? There was a horse on the bus, in the front. Well, it was more like a pony, let's say it was a pony, because it took two seats. And nobody said anything since I went up in London I thought that was weird and bad luck too.”

“Are you superstitious?” A woman's voice, coughing a little.

“Well, a little bit, like everybody. But don't you tell me that a horse on a bus is not a little strange.”

“Yes, very strange.”

“And who killed the passenger who was next to you?”

“Well, not next to me... He was in front of me sitting with my boyfriend because we couldn't find a place together, we asked him to change places, but he refused because my seat wasn't comfortable. We didn't insist. He was right.”

“And who killed him?”

“I don't know, I was asleep, but I think it was the horse. It was a white horse. We ate it.”

“What?”

“On the second day, we ate it, the front people received the best parts, but it wasn't bad, we were hungry.”

“And the owner didn't put up a fight?”

“The owner...? The horse itself put up a fight. It stood up against us. But we shot it. That's how it is with horses. We made a bonfire and we put it in the fire, it was full of trees, olive trees, which gave it a better flavor, according to a French butcher who knew a lot about horse meat, for me it was the first time I ate horse meat. In Gramática, we were not used to eating that meat.”

“And were there Jews on the bus?”

“Sure, there was a whole mix, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and even some said that the horse was Jewish. I know very little about horse religions. And besides he was a white horse.”

“Didn't you say black?” Woman's voice.

“She said white.” Man's voice.

“She said black.” Woman's voice.

“I'm telling you she said white.” Man's voice.

“Why does it matter?”

“We are the ones who ask here.”

“Alright, keep fighting then.”

“White.”

“Black.”

“White.”

“Black.”

“White.”

“Black.”

“White.”

“Black.”

“White.”

“Black.”

“White.”

“Black.”

“White.”

“Black.”

“White.”

“Black.”

“And was the horse that good?”

“Scrumptious.”

“And you, Mrs. Gramática, do you really think that the horse killed Cash?”

“Yes. After that trip, I believe anything.”

“What else do you believe?”

“I believe that Red Riding Hood ate the wolf, that the world is rectangular, that God exists, that my lover is waiting for me at Al Andalus, that buses have wings, that the Messiah has returned, that the world is logical, that I have seven children, that frogs are carnations and that King Arthur was gay.”

“Anything else?”

“That's not enough? For someone who, just a few days ago, didn't believe in anything...”

“Yes.”

“Well, it is what it is.”

“And what do you think of the front people?”

“They are good people and they’re very compassionate, they are right, back people are jerks and they're bad, they had no other option but to mistreat us, but back people are to blame just for being back people, if there were no back people they would be angels, of that I'm sure, even my boyfriend acted like a jerk and left with another woman, that's what back people do, they're treacherous, they're bad. I only aspire to that, to become a front woman, I hope you will be the ones to give me that blessing.”

“Alright, you can rest, we will continue later on.”

––––––––

6
.

Nahid was alone in the small cell thinking about her cat, Cleopatra, a gray cat that she had left with her mother to go on that journey. The journey toward her destiny. And then she heard applause.

They were coming from a live album, then came an electric guitar, and the drum joined in quickly after. A distant voice, a little-known, but not so much, not very clearly either, began to sing in English, "They say there was a secret chord, that David played to please the lord...", it was Leonard Cohen's song “Hallelujah”, but he wasn't the one singing. Then the door was pushed open and they shoved in a man in his forties, bald, almost completely gray-haired, with a five-day beard.

Dragged by the pressure the man landed right in the middle of Nahid's breasts, who jumped back from shock and hit the wall.

“Hello, I'm Dospasos
^[8]
.”

“I would say you're a rather big step.”

The music was very loud and he did not hear what she said. But he continued.

“They finally put some music on, and good music, although the recording is not great, it's a bootleg, it's Bob Dylan singing the song of Leonard Cohen. Very strange.”

“That's it, Dylan, I thought I recognized it. I don't like his voice.”

“What?”

“I don't like his voice,” Nahid shouted.

“Well, there are those who like his voice and others who hate it, I'm in the middle, sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. But I always like Leonard Cohen... Hello, nice to meet you, I'm Dospasos,” he stretched out his hand.

“I'm Nahid.”

“Nahid?”

“Yes, it's a Persian name. My father was Persian.”

“Then you are a persiana
^[9]
.”

“Persian.”

“Ok, it was a joke. A really bad one.”

“Do you remember me?”

“No. Where do we know each other from?” He asked while she remembered his face.

“No, nothing,” she said.

Dylan's song ended and a smooth, quiet electric guitar was heard, which seemed better to Nahid, or at least less noisy, and a delicate voice resonated. It was the same Leonard Cohen song sung by another singer, although it sounded like a completely different song.

“It's not Cohen this time either,” Dospasos said, “it's Jeff Buckley.”

“I don't know him.”

“He died recently, drowned in the Mississippi, the river, very young, and his father was also a singer, Tim Buckley, he also died before he was thirty. They have similar voices. Poor women, the one who married Tim, Jeff's mother, but on the other hand, she must have loads of money from royalties from the two of them, I'd say it's as if they reincarnated to pass money on to her, something strange. Do you believe in reincarnations?”

“A little.”

“What do you mean a little?”

Now they could hear each other well, although at times Buckley's voice was broken in two as he almost screamed.

“Well, that's not what I care about now, what I want is to get out of here. I get on a bus and I end up in a cell with nosy people I have no idea who they are.”

“Were you on the bus?”

“Yes, that's where I know you from.”

“I don't remember you.”

“You should.”

They skipped to another song, it was finally Leonard Cohen singing “Who by fire”, and they both recognized that song.

who in the sunshine, who in the night time,

who by high ordeal, who by common trial,

who in your merry merry month of May,

who by very slow decay,

and who shall I say is calling?

S
uddenly they were surprised by the sound of loud drumming. It was the song “First We Take Manhattan” and Dospasos immediately recognized it, but it was only after two or three lines that he realized that it was Joe Cocker singing. He didn't know that version. They had turned the volume up and they could barely hear each other. They stopped talking for a while. She looked at him but was afraid to meet his eyes. When he laid eyes on her, she turned her face toward another wall. She preferred the wall to the eyes of that man. He thought she was shy.

The song ended, Sting sang “Sisters Of Mercy”. The music had calmed down.

“And what is your name?” She asked.

“My name is Dospasos.”

“That is a last name.”

“Yes, normally it is, but it's my name, my parents gave me that name because they were in a bookstore looking for that writer named Dos Passos, but they called me Dospasos, in one word. My last name is Auster. Dospasos Auster.”

“Very literary.”

“Well, yes, my parents were very literary, they still are, they are alive, I haven't seen them for years.”

“Mine is Gramática, it's my last name.”

She didn't want to be there with him, she was scared, and she hated those eyes. His beard was repugnant, but she knew that the best thing was not to tell him anything.

“And where were you on the bus?”

“Around.”

“I mean back or front...”

“I don't know anything about that.”

“What?”

“I am a poor Persian girl, that's it, you said it, a persiana.”

“Come on, that was a joke, don't get upset. I was a front guy.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“Well, I was one of the good ones, I did what I could for the back people, I gave them water and even a little food.”

“Wonderful! There are such good people in this world. It makes me want to puke.”

“Not that good, but we do what we can for others, it all depends on the situation.”

He recognized the song but not the singer, the song was “Sitting on top of the world”, the acoustic version, a man's voice with a guitar.

“I'm just saying that we do what we can depending on the situation.”

And that includes raping me, she thought, but she was afraid to speak up, she was afraid he would rape her again, maybe he was the same guy who questioned her an hour earlier, and not a policeman investigating what had happened. For that reason she said:

“Yes, I remember, you were one of the good ones, that's why I remember you.”

“But I don't remember you.”

Better this way
, she thought to herself,
it's better if he doesn't remember. If what he says is true.

“Of course one cannot remember everyone, we were sixty passengers.”

7.

The music stopped.

They both looked at each other, she began to remind him of something, something beautiful in confused fall colors, something that he couldn't quite discern. She saw him differently now, more human, part of a group, but separated from it, now he was one, and when he was one he was as helpless as a child who has lost his mother. In their own solitude, a knowing look was born, a look through time and life, a look from the beyond.

Then the woman's voice from the other side said:

“Mr. Dospasos and Mrs. Nahid, we have finished our investigation and you can go now, the door is open and you can leave. Sorry for the inconvenience, we apologize. The real terrorists have been found in a town a hundred kilometers from the capital. If someone asks about our meeting, it never took place, you better not talk about it. In any case, nobody will believe you. We would like to offer you our most sincere apologies. Goodbye.”

“Just a second,” Nahid said, “that's not how you end things, we want to know more.”

Dospasos was going to say the same thing, but he realized they were alone. And the investigators had left.

“It is like in Harry Esh's novels, have you read any?”

“No.”

“When you think you've understood the plot and that something is about to happen, nothing happens. The book goes in another direction or things end.”