Alva and Irva - Edward Carey [2]
have been heard of abroad, was reported on many of the lunchtime television news shows across the world, but was unfortunately not to be found on the evening news; by then a war had broken out somewhere which had succeeded in ending the lives of fifty-two people and in halving a moment of fame for us. This incident is perhaps one which many people from Entralla would rather not have had broadcast at all, for it is not likely to improve the world’s impression of us; rather, in fact, the reverse. In this incident, which is still talked about now, a woman died of a heart attack whilst on a trolley bus but the trolley bus driver refused to stop the bus until his route had been completed; he had orders, he said, and they could not be disobeyed. So the dead woman remained on the trolley bus until it had journeyed several circuits around the city and finally returned to the trolley bus station. Little did the passengers that day know that this journey was to become one of the two concrete incidents for which Entralla may be internationally known. Little did the dead woman know that her journey on the trolley bus would be her last and that her death would become, briefly, world news. Little did the bus driver, a certain Andrius Chapin, know that his refusal to stop the trolley bus with the dead body inside it would result in his becoming, briefly, internationally famous, and locally famous forever. Now whenever he gives his name, at a party or at some public meeting or other, people always ask him, ‘Weren’t you the trolley bus driver who refused to stop the trolley bus with the dead body inside it?’ And Andrius Chapin always begrudgingly says, ‘Yes’, and the person who met him goes home that night and tells his incredulous family that he has actually shaken hands with the former trolley bus driver who had refused to stop the trolley bus with the dead woman inside it. This incident made the news because the world apparently found it shocking. A person dying in this way touched their imagination, they have buses too and they feared for themselves. There was something extraordinarily riveting and comprehensible about an individual dying in a bus and being driven in circles around a city, unable to get off; it was far easier to understand, for example, than thousands of lives ended in an earthquake. In Entralla, however, most people found the news tragicomic; in fact, many people still find the incident amusing today, and such fun has been had from it that there was even a story going around that a statue would be made of the trolley bus driver or that the trolley bus in which the dead woman had sat for three hours without being removed would be exhibited in the main hall of our principal art gallery. Such stories are mere mischief making. Certainly no one is going to make a statue of the trolley bus driver. But, as fate would have it, a statue is to be made of the woman who died in the trolley bus. The reason for this statue is not to form a permanent reminder of the lamentable death of this woman but as a celebration of her life. For us, the residents of our city, the incident inside the trolley bus was made doubly appalling or amusing, depending on your viewpoint, because the woman who died on the bus was indeed a famous person from Entralla and the international media refused to refer to her in any terms except for ‘the dead woman’. For them only her death was significant. For us her life was of enormous importance and her death, at the young age of thirty-four, was unworthy of her. The dead woman was one of the twin sisters, one half of Alva and Irva.
The publication of this story, in English, is timed to coincide with the unveiling of a statue, in one of our many city squares, of the dead woman from the trolley bus and of her sister. At their feet, also to be sculpted in clay and cast in bronze, will be a model in miniature of the central portion of Entralla, that portion which holds our most significant pieces of architecture.
So soon, when our precious foreigners come to visit they will see this new statue and wonder if these