Elias Khoury - Gate of the Sun

“You can work,” I said, “but without these antics.”

“Whatever you say, Doctor,” he said, selling me another bottle.

“I have to sell all the bottles before moving to my new job,” he said.

He took five thousand lira and said he would come the next day. And he came. He worked here for about a month and turned the place upside down: He stole medicines and sold them, he flirted with Zainab, he told anecdotes, and he went into the patients’ rooms and sold them medicines he’d made himself from herbs that he claimed were more effective than the ones we used.

I knew all about it but was incapable of reining him in. He had amazing powers of persuasion and claimed that what he was doing was in the patients’ interest.

“There’s no such thing as illness, Doctor,” he’d say. “Half of all illness is psychological, and the other half is poverty. I’m treating them psychologically. Leave me alone, and you’ll see the results.”

I left him alone because I didn’t know what else to do about him.

“What does a patient need? I make them laugh; they die laughing. What’s the problem?”

He even tried to joke around with you, so I explained to him that such things stopped here, at the door to your room, and to Dunya’s. But he didn’t want to understand, or rather, he understood as far as you were concerned, and he stayed away from your room, but it was different with Dunya. He’d go into her room and do his act and sell her mother weird and wonderful things. She was happy and said that her daughter had finally smiled.

“It’s the first time she’s smiled, Doctor. Please don’t stop him from coming to her room.” She said Dunya responded to the medicine Dr. Salim prescribed for her.

“Dr. Who?” I asked.

“Dr. Salim. Really, he’s better than all the other doctors!” said the mother.

When I asked him about the amazing medicine he’d made for Dunya, he looked at me from behind the mask of the old man I’d seen in front of the mosque.

“Leave me in peace. You don’t understand.”

And I didn’t.

If I’d understood, I wouldn’t have been taken by surprise when he disappeared. He stayed about a month before disappearing, and I never saw him again. I don’t think he went back to doing his play in front of the mosque.

Zainab said he’d said he wanted to go to the Ain al-Hilweh camp, where he planned to marry his cousin.

“What will he do for a living there?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “He’ll act the old man there. He’ll find a new audience.”

“No,” she said. “He’ll live in his father-in-law’s house. He told me her father works in Saudi Arabia and sends them dollars, and he was going to live like a king there.”

*Rayyis: president, or boss.

*Uprising of the Palestinian people, launched in early December 1987.

*Battle for control of the hotel strip in West Beirut in October 1975.

HAVE YOU accepted my apology?

Salim As’ad bewitched me with his stories and his play and his white hair. He bewitched me and made me forget you. You will, no doubt, appreciate what a battle I got into with Dr. Amjad over creating a job for him. Amjad refused, saying that the budget wouldn’t cover it and that Salim As’ad would turn the hospital into a circus, but I insisted and won.

I won, meaning I lost, because he didn’t want to work. He worked for a month and then left without saying goodbye. What did I do to him? Nothing at all. I let him do as he pleased, just forbade him to go near your room. That was all. But he’s a louse — really a louse — who doesn’t want to work. He’s gotten used to being unemployed and putting on a show and bullying people into giving him money. What more could I have done for him than I did?

“This isn’t a hospital.” Every time I made any comment about his behavior, he’d look at me in astonishment, shrug his shoulders and say, “This isn’t a hospital.”

Once he came into my office.

“What, Salim?” I asked.

“I have some bottles, Doctor. Haven’t you made up your mind yet about changing the color of your hair?”

“Get away from me. Leave me alone so I can work.”

“Work!”

“Yes. Please leave me alone.”

“Work, Doctor? You think you’re working, but you’re a fool (sorry, Doctor, I say whatever pops into my head). You’re a fool, and you’re cheating everybody by making them believe they’re in a real hospital. You sell them things you don’t have. I’m better than you, I sell them the real thing, the white-haired man who gets rid of his white hair and feels like he’s become young again. But you give them nothing, just a continuation of the lie. Stop lying, please; stop lying and let people get on with their lives.”

Is it true, Father, that I deceive people?

Have I been deceiving you?

You, too, would prefer things to be solved by Salim As’ad’s methods, with a little bottle containing a liquid made of soap and herbs. But where am I going to find a liquid that will restore consciousness to your paralyzed brain?

No, no, don’t believe Salim.

Salim is just a game, just a play, just a show. The real thing is hiding here, in these two rooms. You’re here, and Dunya’s there. Dunya’s dying, and you’re dying. She can no longer tell her story, and you can no longer stand yours since Nahilah’s death.

And I’m a play actor.

I’m the real actor, not Salim. I’m acting out your story, and Dunya’s story, and Salim’s story. I’m acting out all your stories.

If Salim had understood what goes on in this room, he wouldn’t have gone away. I’m convinced that the story about him marrying his cousin isn’t true; I bet he’ll come back the first Thursday of every month to perform his play in front of the mosque so he can purchase an imaginary old age with his youth to help him face these times.

Salim left, and I didn’t look for him.

I’m here, and I have a lot of work to see to. I’ve returned to you, as you see. I’ll come three times a day and spend most of my time in your room. I’ll supervise the distribution of morning tasks before coming back here, just like before. I’ll tell your story, you’ll tell mine — and we’ll wait.

I’LL TELL YOU everything, from the beginning.

We’re back at the beginning.

At the beginning, I see my father. I see him and I don’t see him, for Yasin Ayyoub died before I could set eyes on him. I see him as a photograph hung on the wall, a big photograph with a brown frame. He stands in the frame, against the wall, looking into the distance. His tie with its vague intertwined patterns hangs down like a long tongue. Above it are his stern face, his sculpted chin, and his tired eyes. I’d like to ask him about his death. My mother went away and never told me, and my grandmother died before I could find out.

Why did they kill him in ’59? Why did they throw him down in a heap in front of the house, after his white hair had become stained with blood?

That was when everything came to an end: The civil war that had set Lebanon on fire in ’58 had subsided, the reconciliation was concluded between the Christians and the Muslims, the U.S. Marines withdrew, and the commander of the Lebanese army, Fouad Shehab, was elected president of the republic. Everything went back to the way it had been before, except for us. Everyone was celebrating peace and life, while my grandmother celebrated the death of her son!

You’re the only one who knows his story, so why don’t you tell it to me?

Before you — that is, before this endless illness and coma of yours — I wasn’t interested in him, I didn’t love him. I’d look at his picture without seeing it, and if my grandmother hadn’t been so obstinate, the picture would be dead.