The Expelled by Mois Benarroch Page A

the sole survivors of an ancient village or a tribe, I don't know.”
    “But they're oppressing us.”
    “It depends on how you see things, because they are the ones who have to decide what to do and they say that we cannot really understand the world because we haven't had our grandparents killed, so we don't have to worry about making decisions.”
    “But maybe they're making bad decisions.”
    “Maybe, but they are in charge, it's better not to be in charge because all the decisions are bad.”
    “This is an ambush, an impasse, a maze, let them manage it.”
    “They are raping us.”
    “It's worse when they rape you and then kill you.”
    “And much worse when they rape you and then kill your entire family.”
    “So we need to have compassion even though they are raping us.”
    “And even though they kill us.”
    “Even though they abuse us.”
    “Even though they kidnap us.”
    “But we're all in the same bus, and if we have an accident we're all going to suffer equally.”
    “No, it's not true, we are behind, the front people will suffer more, and anyway there is nothing we can do, they make the laws.”
    “They are the laws.”
    “We can say what we think, we can talk, and we can try to convince them.”
    “They are very convinced.”
    “Yes, they know what has to be done, they are front people, they are very developed and they understand buses better than we do. Say the truth.”
    “What truth? How do they know about buses more than us if they come from an Eastern tribe and from a country without buses?”
    “They have learned.”
    “Where?”
    “On the bus.”
    Then the front people started throwing stones at us, and one of them left a back guy in a coma. When we took the broken stones and threw them back at them they called us terrorists, and most back people were opposed to throwing stones because it didn't seem humane to them. The front people accused us of racism and of not wanting to accept the natural course of the world. And the back people of not wanting to be part of the society of the bus and of being segregative. By that I mean they practically accused us of everything, separatists, terrorists, anti-whatever, undemocratic, anti-development, anti-ballons, anti-bus-people, anti-life, and everything else.
    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