Elias Khoury - Gate of the Sun

So things were moving along.

I’d managed to get things under control to a certain extent, and that was my mistake, because when things are under control we discover what’s wrong — and here everything is wrong. There’s no medicine, no serums, nothing. It’s as though we aren’t in a hospital, and, in fact, we aren’t. We’re in a white building suspended in the air, and I’m its head nurse and its director. As I attempt to organize things, I am becoming more and more aware of the impossibility and precariousness of the task. When I accepted my new duties, I thought I’d find a solution to my problem, but now my problem has become part of the hospital’s.

Hamdi, the Egyptian, was shown the door. Dr. Amjad threw Hamdi out without warning and replaced him with a Syrian youth called Omar. Poor Hamdi was crying as he got his things together.

“What are you crying for?” I asked him. “Go and look for work. You barely earn enough to eat here.” He said he’d gone back to Egypt and that they’d thrown him out because he didn’t have a work permit.

“I don’t have a work permit either,” I told him.

He explained that he’d been here three years and that he’d come to Beirut through a smuggler in Damascus since Egyptians don’t need a visa to get into Syria. He’d coughed up seven hundred dollars for the Syrian smuggler who got him to Beirut. He’d thought that Beirut would be a stop on his way to Germany. He said he didn’t want to leave because he needed two thousand dollars to procure a visa for a European country from which he’d then slip into Germany. Now he’d be deported back to Egypt and return to his village penniless, so how would he get married?

The Syrian, Omar, talks to no one. He’s supposed to work as a guard and custodian but he doesn’t guard anything and he doesn’t clean. He has a little car that he traipses around in all day, and he returns to the hospital only to sleep.

Dr. Amjad told me to leave him alone.

“Don’t bother him. He’s free to do what he wants. You must understand, there’s no need to explain these things. We have to accept them and that’s all. They made me get rid of the Egyptian and dug up this fellow to keep an eye on the hospital. So you’ll just have to keep your mouth shut and swallow the rest.”

“The rest” means that we live in a place filled with security services, each of which is keeping an eye on the other, and we’re supposed to deal with them as though we don’t know. I don’t have any dealings with Omar, and practically speaking it’s Kamelya who guards the hospital at night. She stands at the entrance, lets people in, writes down their names, and that’s all.

We don’t need much of a staff. True, we have fifteen patients, but their families take care of everything. They change the sheets, bring food and clean the rooms. I don’t understand why they bring anyone to this hospital; they’d be better off at home. But they feel safe here, or they use it as an excuse to get out of the house. All we offer is free medicine; any cure is in God’s hands.

I’ll spare you the details of this strange world that I find myself in because you’re tired and need your rest.

I’ve come back to you now, and everything’s going to be as it was. Your condition isn’t great because of the ulcers. Zainab looked after you while I was away, but she didn’t do everything I used to do. She gave you a bath every two days, which is why the ulcers on your back have gotten so bad. Don’t worry, they’ll go away in less than a week, and you’ll be my spoiled child again. I’ll bathe you twice a day and won’t forget your ointment — everything will be fine.

Will you forgive me?

I swear you’re better company than any of the others. I see them roaming and muttering as if they were dead. We aren’t dead though, we’re seeking the aroma of life and are waiting.

I know you’re waiting for the end, but I assure you, as I have in the past, that the end can only be a man disappearing into the cave of Bab al-Shams.

I’m optimistic, Salim As’ad has promised to find a waterbed for you. By sleeping on water, you’ll find that your body will return to you.

I forgot to tell you about Salim As’ad.

The kid is driving me insane. I met him by chance, and now he’s coming to my office every day asking for work. He’s a good-looking guy, and strange, always on the verge of flying away. When he gets up to say goodbye, I feel that he’s not going to walk away but fly off. He stands in front of me holding out his hand; I hold out mine, shake his quickly, and then step back.

“Any work, Doctor?”

“I’m not a doctor, and I don’t have any work.”

He smiles, stands up, shakes my hand again, gets ready to fly off, and leaves.

The young man fascinates me, and I’m prepared to do anything to find him a job. What do you say I appoint him to look after the records? We need someone to put the hospital’s files in order. I know Amjad will never agree, but I’ll make him give in, in spite of himself.

Why am I telling you about Salim As’ad?

Because he dumbfounds me and has convinced me that anything’s possible?

Salim As’ad has taught me that deception is life.

Listen. I was in my office (I now have my own office and a telephone) when Zainab came and announced that there was a group of foreigners asking for the doctor. Amjad, as usual, wasn’t around. I told her to bring them in. Why not? Foreigners wanting a doctor, and I am one.

There were three of them, two men and a woman. They spoke to me in French, so I answered them in my Chinese-English, so they switched to French-English, and we understood one another.

The tall, bald one, who seemed to be their leader, said they were a group of French artists who’d come to Beirut to visit Shatila. They said they’d met Abu Akram, the Popular Front official in the camp, who’d advised them to visit the hospital. They wanted to learn about the camp.

Zainab offered them tea, they lit cigarettes, and I was caressed by the toasty aroma of French tobacco.

Their leader said they were members of a theater troupe and were getting ready to put on a play by a French writer called Jean Genet — Quatre heures à Chatila . Before starting rehearsals they’d decided to come to Beirut to acquaint themselves with Shatila. He introduced me to the French woman, who was going to be the sole actress in the show.

“It’s a monodrama,” he told me.

The woman smiled and said her name was Catherine. She had light skin and her short black hair could hardly keep still on her head. Everything about her seemed to be on the verge of coming apart, as though her limbs were joined together artificially. She shot glances at me, and all around her, with dancing eyes.

“The actress,” said the tall bald guy.

“It’s a play with just one actor,” he said, pointing at Catherine. “She tells the story alone on the stage.”

“A play without actors?” I asked.

“Just one. We wanted to preserve the spirit of the text; we wouldn’t want to do violence to the work of Jean Genet. You know Genet, I’m sure.”

I nodded, though it was the first time I’d heard the name.

“He’s the French writer who lived with the fedayeen in Jordan and wrote a beautiful book about them called Un Captif amoureux . Did you ever meet him?”

“No, I never met him, but I’ve heard a lot about him.”

“Have you read his books?”

“No, I haven’t, but I know the sort of thing he wrote.”

“He’s a great writer,” said the bald man. “He wrote a stunningly beautiful text about the Shatila massacre.”

“I know.”

“And he was a supporter of yours.”

“I know.”

“So that’s why we’re asking for your help.”