There was this ugly rope and a man behind the ugly rope. The man had a beard, I think. A white beard. The man with the beard was looking at what was behind the rope. Behind the rope were the stones and the bits of wood and the bits of metal and the people who were firemen some of them and policemen others. Others were nurses, and ambulances. I don’t know if there were any doctors. They were all walking quite quickly and the man with the beard was not walking. The eyes of the man with the beard were walking, watching the people.
Where the man with the beard was there were some more people, some were crying and others shouting and others were leaving. The man was not crying or anything; he was staring hard behind the ugly rope and was saying:
‘Why don’t you get my grandson out?’
He didn’t say anything else. He said it quietly and you could hardly hear him because what there really was behind the ugly rope and in front of the ugly rope was, most of all, noise. The man said quietly why don’t you get my grandson out and he looked quietly, as if he wasn’t looking and he wasn’t speaking.
‘Why don’t you get my grandson out?’
That was what he said. Nobody was listening to him, least of all the firemen who had their helmets covering their ears. And although the firemen are very good people, they couldn’t hear the man at all.
The firemen hadn’t got out the hoses. All they were doing was moving the stones and the metal and other stuff like that from the school, which now would not be a school until they rebuilt it. There was always some fireman or some other person who was sometimes a nurse and sometimes not.
Suddenly a stone fell and afterwards you could hear why don’t you get my grandson out? But there were other times when they threw down a stone or some metal on purpose, to get someone out of there. Then they would get out a boy and almost always someone in a white coat would come to see if the boy had something or didn’t have something.
This is what happened especially at first. At first they got many kids out. Because the kids screamed from inside, and the firemen and the other people got rid of the stones or whatever was on top and they would get the kid who was screaming out, sometimes by pulling and sometimes by helping the kid to get out, because the kid was crawling out, for example.
But this is what happened especially at first, when you could hear that noise and when the firemen and the policemen and the ambulances started arriving, as they arrived a little bit later, but not that much later. A fireman said that three or four houses in the other side of the town had fallen down, and the man said why don’t you get my grandson out? And a woman said that the school was badly made. And they put up the ugly rope, tied to a tree and to the streetlights.
And, at first, when they were getting the kids out, whenever they got one of the kids out, the people would shout a bit, and some people would get into the ambulance with the kid, and some people would cry some more. But really, people would get exited whenever they got a kid out.
Of course this was at first, when they got quite a number of kids out. At first the man with the beard just looked, because he only had time to look at the kids to see if any of them were his grandson. At first he didn’t speak to anyone. He was quiet behind the ugly rope and it seemed as if he’d been there forever. He was a person who put up with a lot, who had strong legs, because if not it’s impossible to be so quiet staring. But from time to time, later, from time to time he would say:
‘Why don’t you get my grandson out?’
Then a lot of time passed. They were getting fewer kids out. But whenever they got a kid out everyone would get exited, because they all would run up to the ugly rope and up to the ambulance. Everyone had red eyes by now. Everyone, or nearly everyone. This was during the morning. And they would run up to the ugly rope and up to the ambulances and up to the firemen and the policemen.
But this was now not so often, as a lot of time had now passed. And a lot of time is a whole day a whole night and half the next day or maybe half the next day. And what was most amazing was that the man with the beard was in the same position and without moving, why don’t you get my grandson out? He had to be a sportsman. When he was younger, definitively.
Then there were times when they would get kids out who weren’t moving. And the people wanted to believe that in the hospital they would help the kids to move again, but I think the kids were dead. It could be that they weren’t dead and that I, although I thought that they were dead, thought that in the hospital within a few days they weren’t going to be dead. What I mean is that I liked thinking that.
And at ten to two lots of hours had passed without them getting any kids out. The firemen didn’t move very quickly any more and the policemen were standing still, but always standing. There was only one ambulance left, and it was sad seeing just one ambulance left because there had been four. And at night it was pretty. Four ambulances.
The man with the beard was still. Standing. Staring. And he stared so strongly that in the end he saw his grandson get out. He got out through a hole that they’d made when it was getting light. A hole made by a fireman and a strong person who helped a lot and walked over the rubble. They’d got rid of some stones and a large bit of metal and a piece of material with pictures on it. Then they’d gone. Then a lot of hours went by. And then the grandson of the man got out.
The grandson of the man was called Gur. And Gur ran up to the ugly rope after getting out of that hole very carefully and very slowly. But when he got out of the stones he wasn’t careful any more and he started to run towards the ugly rope. Towards the man with the beard, who was his grandfather.
I thought that Gur was a name that they’d given him in the school and that it wasn’t a real name. But it was a real name, because his grandfather called him Gur too. And even though it’s a strange name, Gur was really called Gur, because that’s what the man called him when he ran towards him. The man said ‘Gur’ while he crouched down to pick Gur up. And when he bent his knees to pick Gur up his knees made this noise: crrrick crrrick. They made that noise twice. Each knee made that noise, but as both knees bent at the same time when he bent down, the two noises came very close together. And those two noises coming very close together were very loud.
After this the man and Gur started to leave. They stopped a while by the ambulance, because it was fantastic seeing the ambulance close up and Gur couldn’t have ever seen an ambulance close up until then, because he’d been until then beneath the rubble and stuff.
But they weren’t very long by the ambulance. They started to walk to Gur’s house. Gur lives a long way from the school. Not as far away as other kids, but he doesn’t live next to the school either. What I mean is that the man and Gur had a bit of a walk to get home although it wasn’t too far. But that didn’t bother them, because the man, who was Gur’s grandfather and who had quite a large beard, must have been a sportsman. Not a sportsman now, of course. But he must have been a sportsman when he was younger and it didn’t bother him walking. You could see that.
The man opened the door of Gur’s house. Because the man lived with Gur and with Gur’s parents. Gur’s father and Gur’s mother were in the house. Gur’s mother said that they were very late and that they’d been just about to start eating without waiting any more and she asked Gur to kindly lay the table, as he was always lazing around.
Gur laid the table and his grandfather helped him with most of it. I mean, the man with the beard laid more of the table than Gur. What I also mean is that they finished laying the table quite quickly. Compared to other days.
To eat there was something that Gur liked and something else that he didn’t like. Gur ate both things. When everyone finished eating both things, some had coffee, and Gur’s mother got up and started doing things.
Then someone rang the doorbell. The doorbell rang and a man walked in. The man who walked in also had a beard, but it was a different beard to the beard of the man who was Gur’s grandfather. But although the beard of the man who walked in was different to the beard of Gur’s grandfather, both men looked really similar.
The man who had walked in walked into the kitchen and said:
‘They’ll be burying Gur at seven this evening.’
Gur’s mother said that she couldn’t go, that she had lots of things to do. She said that she had lots of things to do and that afterwards she had to go some place. Gur’s father said that now wasn’t the time for funerals and that his father would go instead of him. The father of Gur’s father was the man with the beard, obviously. He was a sportsman and he didn’t reply.
The man who had entered and who had a different beard from Gur’s grandfather looked a bit surprised and said that he had to go, and he said to the other man that they’d see each other later.
A few hours passed and it was now the hour of the funeral. The man with the beard took Gur’s hand and they went to the funeral. It was ten to seven, because I saw the time on this clock.