Londoners Grappling With Pervasive New Foes: Fear and Suspicion
By SARAH LYALL
Published: July 26, 2005
LONDON, July 25 - It's a new geography for a new London. This city, which prides itself on its imperturbability, which managed to hold itself together until last Friday, has slipped suddenly into a state of nagging anxiety. It is no wonder that an editorial cartoon in The Sunday Telegraph depicted a redrawn London Underground map with newly named stations: Panic and Fear leading to Doom; Dread and Worry leading to Cold Sweat.
So strange is the mood, so convoluted are people's expectations, that even the definition of a successful subway trip has changed. Now it is one in which you are neither blown up nor shot. As Jason Fanti, 20, nervously positioned near the door on an eastbound District Line subway train, put it Monday, "You come out, and it's like, 'Thank God nothing happened.' "
Fear follows passengers around the subways. A number of stations and the entire Circle Line are still closed after the July 7 bombings, a fact announced every few minutes by a disembodied voice on the public address system. Huge posters visible everywhere depict the grainy photographs of four suspects in the failed July 21 bombings, a reminder that four would-be bombers are still at large.
In the two weeks since the July 7 attacks, there have been 250 security alerts on the Underground, causing trains to stop, stations to be evacuated, lines to be closed down and passengers to worry, always, that some new terrible thing has happened.
Anxiety wafts around above ground, too. The sound of police sirens, fire engines, ambulances, the odd helicopter overhead - all these raise the tension. The ear attunes itself to listen for what's next. One emergency vehicle whining past and fading away might be O.K.; five sirens, one right after the other and stopping nearby, is not so good.
Radio call-in shows debate the pros and cons of shoot-to-kill policies on the Underground. Visitors' bags are searched at movie houses, West End theaters, museums and galleries. Officers with guns are patrolling the streets. "It does feel different," Paul Sutton, 50, a credit controller, said Monday. "I suppose we feel a bit unsafe."
Mr. Sutton had stopped in to Tavistock Square Gardens to sign a book of condolence for the victims of the July 7 bombings. The garden is devoted to peace. Its centerpiece is a statue of Gandhi. There is a monument honoring conscientious objectors - "all those who have established and are maintaining the right to refuse to kill," the inscription says.
On July 7, the No. 30 bus blew up as it passed the edge of the garden. Fifteen people were killed, including the bomber. The blood that spattered the British Medical Association headquarters opposite the garden has now been cleaned up, and the body parts that were propelled into the trees have long since been removed, by cherry-pickers, residents say. But people here are still jittery.
Mr. Sutton never got to work on July 7. He got to the subway at 8:15 a.m., made it to Victoria Station, got on a train that broke down, was rerouted to a bus, got off the bus when service was canceled, tried to go somewhere else, walked for a while, and finally got home at 4:30 p.m.
Last Friday, his train was behind the one in which Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian electrician, was shot and killed by a police officer who mistook him for a bomber. The train was stuck in the tunnel for perhaps an hour, he said, while an elderly woman en route to a hospital for an operation frantically paced up and down the car, telling everyone not to panic.
"The driver kept telling us he didn't know what was happening, but that an ambulance had been called, and the police," he said. "The fact that he was talking to us at all was very helpful."
Mr. Sutton said he felt mildly comforted by the fact that there were more police officers around, even if they shot the wrong person. His father died last Wednesday, and when he ran to catch the train, he was stopped by an officer who asked him what he was doing. "Fair enough," he says now.
For people too spooked for the subway, there is always the bus. "But even buses are strange now," said Antony Marko, 20, interviewed as he rode on the top deck of the No. 2 in Stockwell. "The only reason I'm on the bus is, my car broke down."
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