Published 18 Jul 05

Life in London after the 7/7 bombings

by Leah Kaminsky
Special to World Defense Review

There's a busy square in London where I eat my hummus and cucumber sandwiches. It's called Russel Square and it is bizarrely idyllic in contrast to what took place a block away in Tavistock Square just over a week ago. A flower-covered outdoor café sits near the entrance, a stone's throw away from a fountain in which children play. People lie out on crumpled blankets, feeding pigeons. The hum of traffic fades to a lull and 9-5 worries peel away.

I used to come here between classes at IES [formerly known as the Institute of European Studies, renamed in 1997 the Institute for the International Education of students], the program through which I studied abroad last semester. When I arrived in January, it didn't take much time for me to fall in love with the city, with Westminster lit up at night, Indie rock n' roll clubs, world-class museums, Indian food on Brick Lane and the tireless friends with whom I shared it all.

I even loved my daily tube journeys - the awkward glances between attractive people, the varied range of absurd to clean-cut clothing, and my own theories on who all these people were, where they were going and where they had come from. It was things like these that inspired me to stay on here to work through August, and things like these that have felt the most threatened over the past week.

On the day of the attacks I was in the suburbs where I live. My flatmate and I watched the TV in shock, not only from the news itself, but also from the fact that this was happening as we watched it, that as we sat there in safety, people we regularly saw in the daily crush were living all of our worst nightmares.

This wasn't the Middle East. This wasn't Fallujah or Jerusalem. These were our streets, our tubes, our buses. This was our London. As American students having lived through 9/11, it was inevitable that one word would run through our minds – "Again?"

The week following was full of questions like this, as well as teary phone calls, pleas from our parents to come home, and nerve-wracking rides on the now severely disabled tube network. As during 9/11, I was overwhelmed with feelings of love and compassion for the innocent victims, as well as those of guilt and inadequacy for the fact that I could not – in a direct way – share my emotions with them, that I couldn't run around the hospitals hugging all the injured victims and bringing them chicken noodle soup like the overbearing mother I'll inevitably one day become.

Like a true American, I coped with my grief and unrest by consuming; managing to spend £75 in two days on food and music. I lay on my bed and listened to my CDs on repeat, wondering how long it would take for it to be safe to travel back into central London, for the cafes to buzz with chatter, for my London to become my London once again?

A week after the attacks, on my first rush-hour tube trip back to my part-time job in central London, I continued to wonder this. Over the week, I had met up with various friends, and the conversations were all the same: Were you there? What can we do to prevent further attacks? Are we to blame? Is it over? It could have been us.

I thought of these things as I rode back into London, but was also surprised that my newfound fear of the tube quickly turned into one of empowerment. I was overwhelmed with the conviction that my life would return to normal right along with everyone else's.

During my lunch break I wandered down to Russel Square to see how the atmosphere had changed. The streets were uncharacteristically quiet. One lane was cordoned off with police tape and plastic sheeting to cover the site of the Tavistock explosion. Policemen in neon-green vests stood out against the cement and brick buildings, lining the street down to the Square.

Despite the changes, the square was much the same as I had left it. People were out in their usual numbers, eating lunch and talking casually. The only reminder of the tragic events that had taken place uncomfortably near to the park, both above and below ground, were those green vests, bomb sniffing dogs and a distinct vacuum of noise left by the relatively quiet streets.

As I sat on a park bench and ate my hummus and cucumber sandwich, I thought about the difficulties of coping with tragedy. We want to come to conclusions, take action, fix the problem, but it doesn't happen like that. There are no easy answers, no quick fixes, no simple ways to make everything alright.

What does "alright" even mean in a situation like this? Over the past week, so many friends back home have asked me if everything in London is now "alright," and I've never known how to respond.

No, of course it's not alright.

Our lives, our culture, our mental and physical well-being have been threatened, and that's not something you can just get over in a week. But what I can say is that things will get better. It may not have been alright a week ago. It may not be alright a week from now. But for the present, there is a city to love and life to live.

There's a shady square in which I can eat my hummus and cucumber sandwiches, and if I can't appreciate that, well, there isn't much that I can appreciate. Despite what's going on anywhere else in the world, this moment in Russel Square is reserved for my sandwich and me.

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Also by Leah Kaminsky: Fear and defiance in London [24 Jul 05]

Leah Kaminsky, a student at the University of Rochester (N.Y.), spent last semester studying in London through the IES program. She is spending the summer living in London and working in Surrey.

© 2005 Leah Kaminsky

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