Basma Aziz - The Queue

No matter what happened, Amani never changed. Yehya knew she was guided by her emotions and never considered things rationally. He knew she waited for her dreams to magically come true and never took obstacles into account, even if she was aware of them and how difficult they would be to overcome. He dealt with her optimism by trying to make reality match it as best he could, but this time was different. She’d been drawn into the incident herself. He pulled her close to him, putting an end to her inspection and wishful thinking. He kissed the top of her head and then her lips, but he couldn’t hold her as he wanted to — the pain shot through his left side mercilessly, and he sat down, telling himself that there had to be better days ahead. She sat with him for a few minutes in the living room, then went to the kitchen and returned carrying two teacups and the cake she’d baked to celebrate his thirty-ninth birthday. He reflected with wry humor on the fact that it was the first birthday he’d celebrated with a bullet lodged in his guts.

She didn’t have any candles in the apartment, and neither of them felt like acting out the usual celebrations anyway — it was enough just to be together. She poured them tea and cut the cake into generous helpings, wishing all the while that the bullet would simply disappear. She kissed him on the forehead and handed him his plate, but he couldn’t eat with her; the stabbing pain had spread into his whole stomach and down his thighs. He lay down on the sofa and closed his eyes, and she brought him a glass of water and sat in a chair next to him, not daring to touch him. She was distraught. It tormented her to see him sprawled out like this, weak and defeated, and she felt so stupid and powerless. She knew that a glass of water wouldn’t do anything to help. Yehya fell asleep and Amani wandered through her memories, pausing in front of the Northern Building where Yehya stood impatiently every day, waiting to enter. She’d seen the Northern Building often, but only ever from a distance: a strange crimson octagonal structure, slightly higher than the concrete walls that extended from it on either side. The main entrance to the building was the Gate itself, built into one of its eight sides. It had no visible windows or balconies, only barren walls of cast iron. If it weren’t for the people who’d once entered it and told of all the rooms and offices inside, anyone gazing up at it would have imagined it to be a massive block, solid and impenetrable.

Yehya didn’t sleep long. He was concerned when Amani fell silent and began to watch him attentively; she was counting his exhalations and synchronizing her breathing with his, so she would notice if anything changed. He gathered some strength and shifted on the sofa, and his face regained some life. It saddened him that they couldn’t find anything else to talk about, just this bewildering mess that had become their sole subject of conversation from dawn until the ominous hours of the afternoon. He woke up and fell asleep and walked and ate and drank, and deep inside his body was a bullet that refused to leave him.

Yehya sat up, and when Amani saw this, some of the concern lifted from her face. She suggested they visit Tarek if there was still time; she was sure she could appeal to his sense of duty as a doctor and win him over, especially since things had changed since their last visit. Yehya had begun the necessary procedures: he had a place in the queue and would stay there until he received the permit. It was simply a matter of time now, nothing more, so maybe Tarek would show a little compassion and agree to help Yehya before all the paperwork was finished. There was no time for delay, or for adherence to arbitrary rules that weren’t helping anyone. Yehya nodded, took a small bite of cake, and slowly stood up, clutching his side.

They were nearly out the door when the telephone rang, and Amani hesitated a moment before returning and picking it up. Nagy’s baritone sprang out of the receiver, and he was pleased to hear her voice — it had been a long time since he’d seen her, maybe not since Yehya had been injured. He’d just finished his errands and was returning to the queue, and offered to walk Yehya back, but Amani asked him to meet them at the hospital instead. It was a chance to meet up after not having seen each other for a while, even if the place itself held bad memories for all three of them. Yehya took the phone from her to remind Nagy to be on his guard and watch his words if he arrived before them, to say nothing to Tarek about the other people waiting in the queue or why they were there. As Amani and Yehya walked down the stairs, she reminded him about the letter she’d sent him through Um Mabrouk; Yehya hadn’t told her what he was going to do about the suspicious doctor who’d dropped by the office where they worked. Yehya realized with surprise that he’d completely forgotten about it. Her vague letter had confused and worried him when he received it, and he’d meant to ask her to explain what had happened. It held only one real piece of information: Zephyr Hospital, the place the man worked. Nothing aside from that, no name or rank or even his job title. The doctor hadn’t asked her to do anything, not even to inform Yehya that he had come — he’d just asked Amani a brief question and then left. Although this enigmatic message was the reason Yehya had left the queue to visit Amani, it had evaporated from his memory, its place filled with pain. But again they put the discussion aside: it was getting late, and they hurried to catch Tarek.

Nagy took the quickest route he knew to the hospital. The streets practically looked like a carnival these days; ever since the Events had ended, they were overflowing with street vendors selling all kinds of food, drinks, clothes, and an array of everyday items. He enjoyed the lively, bustling atmosphere. Most important for him, it was a gold mine of books and papers. He noticed a wooden birdcage covered in a pile of newspapers and magazines in a dimly lit corner, and a man sitting cross-legged next to it, half asleep, his head drooping onto his shoulder as if he were about to wake at any moment. Nagy scanned the headlines, searching for something in particular. Without waking the man he left money for a copy of The Truth and a magazine — in theory a quarterly but now published only as often as its editors could manage. Hunger stirred in the depths of his belly, and he paused in front of a cart where sweet potatoes were roasted and sold. But the smoke rising from it brought back memories of those recent unsettling events. He stood there, frozen for a moment, and then quickly walked on, empty-handed but for the newspaper and magazine.

Examinations Conducted, Visible Symptoms, and Preliminary Diagnosis

The patient is conscious, alert, and aware of his surroundings; blood pressure and pulse are normal; visible symptoms include: signs of choking and disruption of the nervous system, bleeding around entry and exit wounds caused by a [redacted], sign of recent abrasions and bruising on the back, pelvis, and forearm regions, [redacted; injury written above it] penetrating the pelvic region along with profuse bleeding, deviation of the wrist. Procedures conducted include [long sentence, redacted] .

Required follow-up: Complete blood workup; kidney and liver function analysis; ultrasounds of the abdomen, pelvis, and chest; X-ray of the right forearm .

Tarek read the document again and again. Each time, he flipped the page over to check the other side, and each time he found it blank. He was searching for the detailed description he’d written and signed off himself after seeing the X-ray, but it wasn’t there. There were pages missing; he didn’t know how they had disappeared, but some other hand had clearly been meddling with the file. All the useful information had been crossed out and replaced with a superficial report; not even a fresh graduate would write something this worthless, and he hadn’t any idea who had altered it.