rivulets, drenching her skirt.
In David's arms Debra began to tremble. The swine, she whispered, oh,
the filthy murdering swine. From the smoking destruction of the
shattered building another figure shambled with slow deliberation. The
blast had torn his clothing from his body, and it hung from him in
tatters, making him a strange scarecrow figure. He reached the terrace
and sat down slow, removed from his face the spectacles that were
miraculously still in place and began fumbling to clean them on the rags
of his shirt. Blood dripped from his chin.
Come on, grated David, we must help. And they ran down the steps
together.
The explosion had brought down part of the roof, trapping and crushing
twenty-three of the students who had come here to eat and talk over the
evening meal.
Others had been hurled about the large low hall, like the toys of a
child in tantrum, and their blood turned the interior into a reeking
charnel house. Some of them were crawling, creeping, or moving
spasmodically amongst the tumbled furniture, broken crockery and spilled
food. Some lay contorted as though in silent laughter at death's crude
joke.
Afterwards they would learn that two young female members of El Fatah
had enrolled in the university under false papers, and they had daily
smuggled small quantities of explosive on to the campus until they had
accumulated sufficient for this outrage. A suitcase with a timing
device had been left under a table and the two terrorists had walked out
and got clean away. A week later they were on Damascus television,
gloating over their success.
Now, however, there was no reason nor explanation for this sudden burst
of violence. It was as undirected, and yet as dreadfully effective as
some natural cataclysm. Chilling in its insensate enormity, so that
they, the living, worked in a kind of terrified frenzy, to save the
injured and to carry from the shambles the broken bodies of the dead.
They laid them upon the lawns beneath the red-bud trees and covered them
with sheets brought hurriedly from the nearest hostel. The long white
bundles in a neat row upon the green grass was a memory David knew he
would have for ever.
The ambulances came, with their sirens pulsing and rooflights flashing,
to carry away death's harvest and the police cordoned off the site of
the blast before David and Debra left and walked slowly down to where
the Mercedes was parked in the lot. Both of them were filthy with dust
and blood, and wearied with the sights and sounds of pain and
mutilation. They drove in silence to Malik Street and showered off the
smell and the dirt.
Debra soaked Davies uniform in cold water to remove the blood. Then she
made coffee for them and they drank it, sitting side by side in the
brass bed.
So much that was good and strong died there tonight, Debra said.
Death is not the worst of it. Death is natural, it's the logical
conclusion to all things. it was the torn and broken flesh that still
lived which appalled me. Death has a sort of dignity, but the maimed
