On the morning of July 15, Moscow was as hot as an oven. Deep in the Metro, the trains seemed to travel too fast, the crowds were densely packed and the air was sweaty and close.
When the news came that a train had derailed between Park Pobedy and Slavyansky Stations, killing 22 people, it was a fact to turn over in the mind, to consider with perverse wonder: I was on the Moscow Metro that very morning. I was down there, sweating and claustrophobic and silently complaining about the speed. Just as, the month before, I was flying over eastern Ukraine, on a Singapore Airlines flight to London, before that airspace was closed. Eat, drink and be merry, the universe was telling me, for tomorrow we go up in smoke.
Like a child, sleeping in a UN school in Gaza. In a Moscow hotel we watched the World Cup final. In the bar were 30 elderly Germans and a group of Israelis. Two screens had been set up, one a Russian channel, the other German. At half time, Russian TV played clips of sexy cheerleaders, while the German channel dourly switched to the news: live coverage of the bombing of Gaza.
We watched in silence as Palestinian women and children screamed and panicked and died. I wanted to get up and say, "Okay, re Gaza. You Israelis, you Germans. Does anyone want to share?" The Israelis were crying bullets, the people of Gaza were dying, the Germans silently sipped their beer. Nothing to do with them, these murderous Israeli tears. It wasn't their fault.
Still, one thing was very clear: whatever or whoever had driven them to it, the Israelis had gone completely insane.