London

Two of the four al-Qaida bombs struck Bloomsbury, the heart of intellectual London. Russell Square was my tube stop the last time I stayed in London. It’s between the British Library and the British Museum; across the street from University College, London; a hundred yards from a little plaque to T.S.Eliot. I can almost understand why al-Qaida would set off a bomb at Liverpool Station--that’s in the financial district, the City. But Bloomsbury? At first, I thought, al-Qaida simply made a mistake--why would they attack the poetry and the mind of Britain? But, then, remembering their Islamic persecution of Rushdie, I decided that the target was intentional. Why steal someone’s gold when you want to stab their heart?