Naguib Mahfouz - Khan Al-Khalili

The feast arrived during the very first days of January 1942. The family, indeed the whole neighborhood, gave the occasion a joyful welcome. The table was piled high with meats of various types and sizes. What was amazing was that Rushdi stuck to his new regime even for the feast; truth to tell, he would not have had the strength to match his desires even if he had wished to do so. Ahmad spent most of the holiday at the Zahra Café, but he did not succumb to the temptations that Boss Nunu put in his way, namely cajoling him bit by bit into paying a return visit to Aliyat al-Faiza’s house. How could he ever forget the way that hellish night had ended?

The fourth morning of the feast came, and something happened that Ahmad would never forget. He had woken up at eight-thirty and made his way to the bathroom as usual. There he found Rushdi bent over the sink, coughing so violently that his entire skinny body was shaking. Ahmad moved forward and stood beside him. As he stretched out his hand to clasp his brother’s shoulder, he happened to look down into the sink. There was a red smudge! His hand froze where it was, and his heart leapt violently.

“O my God!” he exclaimed, his voice quavering.

He stared at his brother in a panic. Rushdi had stopped coughing, but he still seemed in a daze; his chest was moving up and down, he had trouble breathing, and his eyes were red.

Ahmad waited until his brother had recovered his breath somewhat.

“What’s that, Rushdi?” he asked, pointing at the red smudge in the sink.

Rushdi gave him a desolate look. “It’s blood,” he replied in his hoarse voice.

“O my God!”

Rushdi looked utterly depressed. Totally losing control, he burst into tears. “I’m ill,” he said in a barely audible voice, “and now it’s all over!”

“Don’t say such a thing!” replied Ahmad pleadingly.

“That’s the bitter truth, brother,” Rushdi said despondently.

Ahmad turned on the faucet to wash away the blood, grabbed his brother by the arm, and took him back to his — that is, Rushdi’s — room. He went over to the window and shut it. Rushdi sat down on the bed, and his brother brought over a chair and sat directly facing him.

“What can you tell me, Rushdi?” he asked, swallowing hard. “Tell me the absolute truth!”

“Finally I went to see the doctor,” he replied softly. “He told me that I have incipient tuberculosis in my left lung!”

The truth of the matter was that, even since the middle of December, Rushdi had been feeling a pain that boded ill. One day at the bank he had had a terrible fit of coughing. He had taken out his handkerchief in order to spit into it, and had been terrified to see that it was bloody. The whole thing had sent him into a panic, and he had hurriedly put the handkerchief into his pocket in case anyone else found out. Leaving the bank, he had gone to a specialist on chest diseases. He had sat in the waiting room, absolutely terrified, staring at all the wan faces with their thin bodies hacking away. Had he fallen victim to that dire disease, the very mention of which made anyone shiver in fear? He had heard a friend of his once say that tuberculosis was a disease with no cure, and his heart pounded as he recalled the occasion. He had never had any serious illness before, and it worried him that this fatal disease might be the first really bad experience he would have. His panic only intensified as he sat there waiting to go into the consulting room, but he was patient until his turn came.

As he went in, he was making a mighty effort to control his terror. He took a quick look around at all the equipment and machinery and lastly at the doctor himself, who was leaning over a small sink washing his hands. He stood there waiting, while the doctor dried his hands and then turned toward him. He was short and thin, and fine featured; his head, however, was large and bald. His eyes bulged, and he had a sharp stare. Rushdi greeted him by raising his hand to his head.

“Welcome,” said the doctor in a loud voice, “please be seated.”

Rushdi sat down on a large chair. The doctor walked round to his neat desk and sat down behind it. He took out a large notebook, opened it, and started asking questions: Rushdi’s name, profession, and age. Rushdi responded to all of them and then gave the doctor a traditional, inquiring look.

“I need you to check my chest,” he said.

No sooner had he said this than he had a violent coughing fit. The doctor waited until he had stopped and could breathe properly again.

“Have you had a cold?” he asked. “When?”

“I had influenza over two weeks ago. It was a bad case. I obviously went back to work before I’d fully recovered. I’m still feeling tired. Then I started coughing violently like this, and my health’s gone downhill ever since.”

Rushdi described how much the coughing hurt and how much weight he had lost.

The doctor interrupted him. “When did your voice go hoarse?”

“At least a week ago.”

The doctor told him to strip to the waist. The young man stood up, took off his tie, then his jacket, shirt, and undershirt. He looked lean and emaciated. The doctor put his stethoscope to his ears and started placing it at the spots on Rushdi’s chest and back where he was tapping with his finger. Rushdi noticed that he went back several times to one particular spot at the top of his chest on the left. The doctor now told him to get dressed again.

“Have you been spitting blood?” he asked.

Rushdi’s heart leapt, and he paused for a moment. “Yes,” he replied in a lowered voice, “I’ve noticed it two or three times.”

The doctor brought over a blue vial and told him to cough heavily and spit into it. A short time went by as Rushdi stood there breathing heavily, like a defendant awaiting the verdict to be delivered.

“I suspect that there is something wrong with your left lung,” the doctor said. “There’s no point in stating anything definite at this stage. But you need to go and see Dr. So-and-so immediately so he can take some X-rays and you can bring me back the results.”

The doctor warned him not to do anything that required effort. Rushdi stood where he was with a frown on his face. He was feeling utterly miserable.

“I may be wrong,” the doctor went on. “But, even if I’m right, it’s not serious.”

He went to the other doctor to have X-rays taken, then waited in agony for days, worried out of his mind in addition to all the pains of the coughing. Normally he was not by nature someone to give in to fears and anxieties, but now he suddenly found himself at the mercy of a deadly illness. The very word “illness” had a very bad effect on him.

Taking the X-rays he went back to visit the first doctor. The latter looked at them carefully and then turned to his patient. “Just as I thought,” he said. “You can call it a slight lesion or a surface infection, if you like.”

His hopes began to fade, and his honey-colored eyes had a desperate look about them. He stared blankly at the X-rays, not understanding what it was he was looking at—“a slight lesion or a surface infection”! Was his entire life now going to be hostage to such apparent trifles?

“So let’s call it what you want,” he told the doctor. “My question to you is: does this mean that it is a case of incurable tuberculosis?”

The doctor gave him a disapproving look. “Don’t let the word ‘tuberculosis’ alarm you,” he said. “Forget about all those kinds of fear. They have no basis in truth or science. You’ll certainly recover if you follow the instructions I’m about to give you.”

The doctor paused for a moment of reflection.

“People say,” Rushdi said anxiously, “that there’s no cure for tuberculosis.”