Everything we heard and saw until the dead rose was false

Everything we heard and saw until the dead rose was false. COBRA, the state agency for control of imagination convened in a bunker under the parliament buildings a moment after the first bomb, some say a moment before, and authorised the implementation of the play that had been written for the occasion of the inevitable attack.

The first lie authorised was that it was only a power surge in the underground. Next they shut down all the mobile phones. After the next bomb members of the government came on television to say how well prepared they were. The television crews interviewed some people, some a little sooty, who had emerged from the stations. They were very attractive people. But behind one, several ambulances rushed by and a fat man came out covered in blood.

The media sought out a new cliché. They found an enraged couple who had been caught in a subway car for several minutes. They had considered breaking a window and said that the other passengers were uncomfortable. Everyone hates the tubes. No one likes minor officials. There hasn't been enough investment.

A woman in glasses behind the angry couple had a bandage. The interviewer turned to her. People did scream, she confirmed, but then they became quiet. It all sounded right. Then she added: 'We settled right down when we heard those people in the next car.'

We didn't hear from her again but the complaining man was played for about half an hour.

The chief of everything said after an hour and after another two bombs that people should not move and that the situation was controlled. There were no troops on the street.

By now the city knew what was happening. Traffic emptied from the centre and gridlocked on the periphery. Hundreds of thousands walked silently from offices and shops towards the river, or past the parks or to the north. They were not silent because of any self-consciousness. They were silent because everything was obvious. Some of the silent walkers went over bridges without traffic under which floated empty tourist boats. There were some troops. They were on TV and outside my window.

On television more sooty people were still talking of dark, some small panic, and routine rescues. But several deviated from that image. One spoke of a fifteen minute walk in a dark tunnel after leaving a screaming car. There had been a bang first. The tunnel was dust-filled.

She came to a station which was lit. Naked people, all black, hairless and burned came towards her the other way. They all went up stairs together to a station where police asked them to sit. After half an hour they were put in a bus and taken to a hospital. After a while she was given a pamphlet and released. She asked the television man: 'What is going on?'

My own orientation was by now completed. The bus blown up had been in front of my son's university. He was to be there to get his marks but wasn't. His friend is missing and is missing still. My love was impressed into a team to do trauma counselling. The first ambulances had just arrived.

A new complainer was on TV. He didn't like it that the firemen had led him out past the bodies. He could have been taken another way. He was weeping.

The hospitals would not speculate on casualties. The purpose of all their spokesmen was to convey how rigorously scientific they were. They would only admit to things confirmed. They would confirm only what they could of what statistics were authorised, how many ambulance trips for example. They would not confirm how many had walked in. They could confirm the number in theatre. Objectivity was spreading like a panic. In front of bombed stations the police could confirm that no one was still in the station, nothing else could be confirmed. This left a silence. How many were underground? It turned out later that they had meant no one intact was left in the station. No one alive was left underground.

An expert came on the television to fill time before the Prime Minister spoke. He would sum up the situation. In the background clips from an hour ago were playing with the caption 'Live'. The expert surprised the cameraman with a visual aid. The shot blurred and cleared. He had brought along a diagram of the pattern of body part dispersal in a bus bombing in Israel. Another diagram showed disintegration of the brain from pressure. He was replaced in a few seconds, the next sequence of a doctor. The bus had exploded in front of the medical association offices. The door was blood splattered. It was where statistics were compiled. He could not confirm casualties. A woman behind him shouted a question: 'How could they do this to my daughter?'

The prime minister spoke. He particularly wanted to point out that the terrorists were trying to disrupt his important meeting. He called on everyone not to change their lives. He would return to his meeting. He was very upset. He later made two more statements. They were more eloquent. One had at least three world leaders, maybe more, who some considered to be terrorists standing behind him expressing solidarity. They seemed grim. The other statement was more eloquent in iambic pentameter. He was alone. No one mentioned the war.

In the hospital of my loved one the children's ward was emptied of its present occupants. Small pyjamas were laid out on the empty beds. The city children did not come. They had already been in school. They had survived. The mayor pointed out that the attack had not been on world leaders but on ordinary people on their way to work.

One man in parliament mentioned the war. He was called a serpent with his tongue in a poison pool. That seemed excessive. A placard at the parliament building linked the bombs here with the bombs there.

The spokespeople sought for a cliché to organise the images around. Returning to normal was a good one. The brave city goes on as usual was another. Clips now showed shops opening. The stock market was rallying.

Emails and text messages were read out on the news. They all were sympathetic and brave. The event had great significance. One sounded awkward. It said: 'Everyone enjoys terror.' Phone calls came to me from abroad. They wondered about the bodies underground. But there were no more bodies underground. Everyone had been objective about that. There were only parts in their patterns.