Elias Khoury - Gate of the Sun

Father, I don’t know Shahineh’s story well enough to be able to tell it to you. The stories are like drops of oil floating on the surface of memory. I try to link them up, but they don’t want to be linked. I don’t know much about my aunts. All I can tell you about is the husband of one of them, the one with the bald patch that looked like it was polished with olive oil. I’ve already told you about him, so there’s no point in repeating it. I hate things that repeat, but things do repeat, infinitely.

Would you like to hear the story of my father and the Jew?

I’ll tell it to you, but don’t ask about the details. You can ask my grandmother tomorrow — I mean, a long time from now when you meet over in the other world. You should ask her because she knows it better than I do, she’ll tell you the story of the rabbi with all the details. All I know are the broad outlines, which I’ll try to tell you.

*One dollar is equivalent to approximately 1500 Lebanese lira.

*Head scarf, usually black and white.

*On the night of April 9, 1948, Begin’s Irgun Zvei Leumi and the Stern Gang surrounded Deir Yasin. The residents were given 15 minutes to evacuate before the village was attacked. Approximately 250 people were killed.

*Aziz literally means beloved, or dear.

I APOLOGIZE.

Again, I return to you with apologies. I’ll give you your bath now and feed you, and then I’ll tell you the story of the rabbi. Tell me you’re comfortable — your temperature’s gone down, and everything’s back to normal; all that’s left is this small sore on the sole of your left foot.

Tell me, what do you think of the waterbed?

If Salim As’ad, God send him good fortune, did nothing else in his life but come up with this mattress for us, his heavenly reward will still be great.

I was apologizing because I had to attend to other matters. I just witnessed a sad scene, but instead of crying I burst into laughter. Something like tears were flowing inside me while I was laughing, and I could only settle the matter the way Abd al-Wahid al-Khatib wanted it settled.

Do you know him?

I doubt it. I didn’t meet him until his son put him in the hospital a month ago. He arrived in a bad state; he was suffering terribly. I examined him along with Dr. Amjad and suggested having him transferred to al-Hamshari Hospital in Ain al-Hilweh so he could have X-rays taken. We don’t have any equipment here — even the lab has closed. We’re more of a hotel. The patients come, they sleep, and we provide them with the minimum of care. Nevertheless, we continue to call this building suspended in a vacuum a hospital.

So Abd al-Wahid came, and I examined him. My diagnosis was liver cancer. But Dr. Amjad disagreed, as usual. He said the man was suffering from the onset of cirrhosis of the liver and prescribed some medication. I suggested to his son to take him to al-Hamshari to be sure. Father and son left with Amjad’s prescription and my advice, and it seems that after a few days of Amjad’s medication, they decided to go to al-Hamshari Hospital. There the man underwent exams that showed he was suffering from liver cancer. They came back to me carrying the report. They’d undoubtedly read the report and discovered the case was hopeless, since it ends with the recommendation that the patient be taken home to rest with strong painkillers.

I read the report while the two men sat in my office, their eyes trained on my lips. People are strange! They think doctors are magicians. What was I supposed to do for them?

“You must take the medication regularly,” I told the sick man.

I told the son he could phone me if there were any developments.

The son made a move to go, but Abd al-Wahid didn’t budge and asked me, with trembling lips, “Aren’t you going to put me in the hospital, Doctor?”

“No,” I said. “Your condition doesn’t warrant it.”

As he spoke, he bit his lower lip; he was wrung with pain, and his eyes were tearing. I don’t know what the eyes have to do with the liver, but I could see death like a bleariness covering his eyes. And the man with his red face, his little potbelly and his sixty years didn’t want to leave the hospital.

“I don’t want to. No. I’ll die,” he said.

“How long we live is up to God,” I said. I didn’t hide it from him that his case was serious because I believe the patient has a right to know.

“How much time do I have?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably not much.”

“Why won’t you treat me here?”

I explained that we didn’t have the means to treat him and that, anyway, his case didn’t require a hospital.

He said he didn’t want to go home: “You’re a hospital, and it’s your duty to treat me.” He looked at his son for support, but the son stood in silence and looked at me with complicit eyes, as though. . I won’t say he was glad his father’s end was near, but he was indifferent.

I stood up to mark the end of the consultation, and then, without any preamble, the son began abusing me. He said he wouldn’t take his father because it was the hospital’s duty to care for difficult cases, and he threatened me, saying he’d hold me responsible for any harm that might come to his father.

I had to explain our situation again and tell him how, since the Israeli invasion of ’82 and the massacres, blockades, and destruction that had come with it, we no longer had the necessary equipment.

“Why do you call it a hospital?” screamed the son.

“You’re right,” I told him. “But do you want to change the name of the place now? Go and take care of your father.”

The son took his father and left, and I forgot about the incident. I didn’t even tell you about it.

Yesterday there was a surprise. I was in your room when I heard Zainab scream. I went out and found myself face-to-face with Abd al-Wahid. He had come to the hospital barefoot and in his pajamas. I saw the man standing there and Zainab on the ground, pulling her skirt over her thighs while he mumbled incomprehensibly.

Zainab said he’d shoved her and tried to go up to the rooms.

From where he drew the strength when he was already in the jaws of the angel of death I don’t know. I only know he ran into the hospital and started climbing the stairs to the rooms. Zainab, running after him, tried to ask him what he wanted, and he responded with an incomprehensible babble, almost a howling, and when she tried to stop him he shoved her to the ground.

When he saw me, he ran toward me shouting, “I beg you, Doctor, put me back in the hospital.” He grabbed my hand and tried to kiss it, saying he didn’t want to die.

“Don’t treat me if you don’t want to,” he said. “But I don’t want to die. People don’t die in hospitals. I implore you, Doctor, for pity’s sake, don’t send me to die at home.”

It was then, Father, that I burst into tears inside but started to laugh. I was laughing, Zainab got up, and the man was trembling. When I asked Zainab to prepare him a room, he seemed to fly with joy. I saw him climbing the stairs behind Zainab, in his dirty white pajamas, his feet hardly touching the stairs, as though I’d saved his life or promised him a place in Paradise.

Believe me, I never saw such joy in all my life. Naturally, nothing changed. His joy disappeared when he lay down on the bed and the pain renewed its onslaught. His son’s wife came to be with him. I think he heard his wife ask me when he would die and then start grumbling when she heard me say she had to take care of him and give him his painkillers regularly.

“Regularly!” she exclaimed, not having expected to hear this word. “You mean I have to stay here all the time?” she said, gesturing in my face.

“Of course,” I said. “Everyone knows that here it’s up to the family to look after the patient.”