***

I liked to come to Dahab in April, when Europe was still cold and only beginning to show signs of spring, but the Sinai was hot and dry and beautiful. I liked to sit on the cushions in the beach-front restaurants and smoke a sheesha-pipe and look out on the Red Sea. I loved to sit there at dusk, when there’s a kind of hush over everything, and watch the sunset with my shades on. I came to Dahab every year, even after the bombings in Ras-el-Shitan, even after the bombings in Sharm the year after. You can’t stop living your life. And it’s been quieter there, but you still got the tourists, they came from all over. I’ve been coming to the Sinai for years. There is no heat like it, not anywhere. The sun is so strong there, and the light suffuses everything with the quality of old, fine clay, making objects seem opaque and fragile. And the hash is good. And I was sitting in the restaurant and thinking about what to order, thinking about a dip of smoky-flavoured roasted aubergines, anticipating the taste of the food on my tongue even before I voiced it, when it happened.

***

The blast came like a thunderstorm in a bay, when the sound rolls and continues to roll, echoing from one shore to the other. I was on a bus from Ugi. It stopped outside the American embassy. I saw a truck stop outside the embassy. I saw a man step out. I saw him swing his arm and heard a popping sound. The last thing I remember seeing is the window crumbling. It moved towards me. It was like being in the sea, the way the current used to wash over me when I was a girl. I must have been thrown back. I put my hand to my mouth and realised I had no teeth. I touched my eyes, but there was nothing there. I didn’t feel pain, but I remember worrying about my hair. I tried to touch my hair and couldn’t feel it. I was going to get it done that afternoon in a saloon on Ngara Road.

***

Asses and elbows. It was asses and elbows in there. The call came in and we got on the rig, and as we’re driving down the kid in the back – the proby – he said it was an attack. I didn’t know what it was, at that time. I don’t think anyone really knew. When we got to the building and looked up it was, like, uh – arms and legs, waving – they were jumpers. There was a lot of smoke, a lot of damage in the lobby. The – there were a lot of jumpers. We went into the building, started climbing up the stairs. Single file. After a dozen floors we started taking breaks, every four. Four floors. We made it to the – the thirty-third? Thirty-fourth floor? – people were coming down the stairs, helping each other down, injuries everywhere – I was with my hands on my knees, taking in air, we were talking about hooking up with another company to get up there, all the while there’s a throbbing passing through the building, like the sound of a train as it approaches the platform, growing in intensity. Then someone came on the radio, said, ‘Drop everything and get out.’ He said it a couple of times. We were moving out, when there was a – I don’t know how to describe that sound – the ceiling was collapsing, and I remember looking up. That’s what I remember. Looking up, and suddenly not seeing anything.

***

It was three days to the elections, it was in the paper that morning, and I stopped on my way to the station for a cup of cortado, easy on the milk, leafed through the paper. It looked like it was going to be a nice day. I was thinking – tomorrow’s Friday already. I caught the cercanías at more or less my usual time. I was going to Atocha, had to change there. It was packed on the train, it always is in rush hour, but I got a seat and was reading the paper, really not paying much attention to anyone around me. I was going to take my wife for dinner that evening, it was our anniversary, and I was looking through the restaurant listings, trying to decide on a good restaurant, what sort of food to order. That was the last thing I remember thinking – what did I want to have for dinner that evening with my wife.

***

It picked me up and I went flying through the air. I hit a wall. I remember thinking – this is silly – I remember thinking about red Indians. Like in the Westerns. Red Indians, with war paint over their faces. I…I touched my face but my jaw was gone. I heard an American woman say, ‘Please help, please help my kids,’ and I heard another woman shout, ‘George, can you help me?’ I didn’t know who George was. There was a…there was a hand lying on the floor. Just a hand. It had a ring on its wedding finger. I tried to move then but realised that I couldn’t. Something was holding me down. I could hear people, but it all seemed to come from far away. I…I became very thirsty. I didn’t feel the pain at first, I guess I was in shock, but it crept over me, slowly, and then I was screaming too, but I don’t know if anyone heard me. I remember crying. It became very dark. I don’t know how much time passed. Then there were men calling to me, telling me to hold on, and I could hear them, and I tried to talk back but I don’t know that I could speak, by then. I heard them pulling someone out and she was alive. I remember being really happy then. Then there wasn’t much pain any more, and the voices all faded away, little by little. Then there was no pain at all. I remember thinking that was lucky.

***

The pain…the pain was like a boiling sea across my skin. I never knew I had so much skin. I never knew it could hurt so much. I was screaming, begging them to kill me. There were flames eating my flesh, eating me. I couldn’t see. I just kept begging them, begging them to kill me. Then I couldn’t even think, not in words, all there was was pain, a kind of torture I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t make it stop, there was fire, fire everywhere. Then there was a sting, something bit me, and the pain began to go away – I don’t know how to describe it. The pain went away and I heard someone say, ‘The morphine should do it,’ and the world constricted, from hell into a hospital bed, and I wasn’t in pain any more. It was the best feeling in the world, that lack of pain. I just lay there, and I was so relieved. Then I fell asleep. At least, I think I did.

***

There was a heart-shaped stain on the back of the seat in front of me. It was hard to breathe. There was a heavy sick smell where people had been puking. I had a window seat. I looked out of the window. I had my fist in my mouth and was biting on it, so hard I drew blood. I heard someone talking on the phone, talking softly. ‘It’s getting bad, dad,’ he said. There was a child, a girl, and she was crying. I tried not to think about the dead stewardess. They’d stubbed her. I looked out of the window. The sky was so blue. New York was beautiful below. I had always liked flying, before. I tried to shut out the screams. I could feel us descending, and without thinking I popped my ears, like I always do. I popped my ears. I don’t know why I did that. I could see the towers out of the window. My left hand was resting on the windowsill. My right was still in my mouth. One of the towers was burning. Someone said, ‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ over and over. The towers came closer, very quickly. Then there was a noise, like a thousand bones, breaking.

PART SIX

ENDGAME

postcards

——

He came to in a quiet street and was violently sick on his shoes. Only when it was done did he straighten up. There was a queasy feeling in his stomach, a turbulence, a rough sea heaving this way and that in a storm. He puked again, almost daintily, missing the tips of his shoes, a puddle of stomach fluid that was almost clear water sipping into the hard, dry ground below. When he straightened up for the second time he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, feeling his throat burn with the ejected acid. He took off his hat and patted it, raising a tiny storm of dust.