Leila Aboulela - The Translator

She should go back home. She should get off the bus at the next bus stop, cross the road and catch another bus going in the opposite direction. To encourage herself, she used cunning, ruses. ‘You can go to him another day,’ she told herself, ‘when he is more recovered. Maybe Yasmin could come with you or even Diane (somehow she doubted that), the other students then, the Algerian lady, then it would look more respectable, people from work coming to see him. It would seem natural then.’ She said to herself, ‘There is nothing wrong with admitting that you have acted rashly in coming out like this to see him. It is actually wiser to admit a mistake and retract, than to stubbornly go on. So at the next bus stop get out, stand up now and walk to the door so that when the door opens you can get out straightaway.’ But bus stop after bus stop came and went, and she continued sitting, pushing her way to Foresterhill.

The bus stopped in front of the hospital, the automatic doors swished open. She was so slow getting up from her seat, that the doors started to close as she passed through them. They hit her on her shoulder, swung back open again and the bus driver scowled at her through his rear mirror, muttered under his breath.

A glass door to push in order to get inside the building. The heaviest glass door in the world. Her shoulder felt bruised. There was a gift shop in the foyer: stuffed toys, flowers, a shop which sold newspapers and sweets. Lifts to the different wards. She suddenly realised that she did not know which ward Rae was in. This realisation came as a relief. If she could not find him then it would be a sign that she should not have come and she would go away, convinced. If she found his ward, she would ask if he was well enough for visitors, if not, she would go away without leaving her name. If he was asleep she would go away before he woke up. She felt better now. She had sorted everything out.

‘I want to visit someone but I don’t know which ward they are in,’ she said to the nurse at the reception. The nurse asked her questions, a man or a woman, what did he have, when was he admitted, his name. She checked what looked like computer printouts and gave Sammar a ward number.

‘Is he well enough for visitors?’ Wide eyes.

‘You will have to ask at the ward itself. They’ll tell you.’ An impatient smile.

Many people were waiting for the lifts. Near the lifts was a Christmas tree and a café busy with people drinking and eating. Others sat on settees, chatting and reading newspapers. The bustle reminded Sammar of airports. It was hard to believe that people suffered within these walls.

At the ward, she gave his name to the nurse. The nurse had a young pretty face, clear blue eyes. She was so thin that her stomach, held in by the wide red belt of her uniform, looked concave.

‘There he is, fifth bed on the right.’ The nurse pointed her finger down the ward but Sammar did not look to where she was pointing.

‘Is he well enough for visitors?’

‘Oh yes, he’s fine.’ Surprise in the eyes of the nurse.

The nurse hovered a little and Sammar had to start walking away from that look of surprise. Head down, eyes down, grey linoleum, count the beds by counting their legs. One, two, three. She looked up and her eyes took in the whole ward. Straight in front of her, a Christmas tree near a large window. A row of beds either side of a long aisle. Some of the beds had green curtains around them, their occupants hidden away. The rest was a sea of ill men on beds with white sheets, their faces blurred together, indistinguishable. She saw him before he saw her. He was sitting up, not connected to machines or drips. He looked so strikingly familiar that she caught her breath. Here he was, someone that she knew from somewhere else. She knew him better than anyone else here did. She knew him separately from this place. Here he was, someone that was connected to her. So that the first words she said to him did not belong to the rational world. ‘Rae, why did they bring you here?’ He said her name, then his voice got louder, ‘I am so pleased to see you, it’s great to see you.’ He kept repeating himself and his voice was so loud that she became embarrassed imagining that the ward was shifting, its people turning and looking at them. She wanted to bend down and put her arms around him, say to him, lower your voice, you’re speaking too loudly. Instead she put her hands in her pockets and sat on the chair that was next to his bed.

He looked older than she remembered, or maybe she was noticing only now that there was white in his hair. Greasy today, longer than usual, shine on the skin of his forehead and nose. He was wearing grey pyjamas, crumpled and with one of the buttons missing, a black T-shirt underneath. He smiled at her, his lips almost blue and there was a darkness too on his cheeks, the tips of his fingers. He looked happy to see her.

She said, ‘Your voice is very loud,’ and looked anxiously across at his neighbour. He was an elderly man asleep on his side facing them. He looked like he wore false teeth when he wasn’t sleeping. On the other side of Rae, was a bed with a green curtain wrapped around it, across the aisle a young man was reading a newspaper.

Rae did not answer, only smiled and kept looking at her. She looked away. Welcoming her had made him wheezy. He coughed, one small cough, but it was a horrible sound, worse than any time she had heard him cough before.

‘What happened, tell me.’

He shook his head and said, short of breath, ‘In a while… you talk.’

She did not know what to say, what to start talking about. If he would not look at her, it would be easy to talk.

‘Do you want to know how I found out that you were in hospital?’

‘Yes,’

She told him, at the same time twisting the strap of her handbag, which was on her lap as if she was ready to get up and leave at any minute. Her handbag reminded her of her aunt’s letter and she became conscious of it, lying unopened inside her bag.

‘You look nice,’ he said.

This was sudden and made her feel shy. She said, ‘It’s my new coat, I got it half price at the Sale.’

He laughed, his laugh trailed off into another cough. He pressed his thumb against his chest, grimaced and said, ‘This hurts.’

She thought, ‘I must not say anything that could make him laugh. Laughing makes him cough.’ They were quiet, neither of them speaking. Time passed. She felt like she had travelled miles to get here, struggled, pushed her way through fog and quicksand. Now that she had arrived, she felt settled, her heart and mind settled, no swishing thoughts. Everything was here now, filling up the silent time. Minute after minute and the smell of disinfectant. Hospital sounds: footsteps, trolleys, people’s voices, the ringing of a telephone far away. A telephone that had nothing to do with them. She stopped twisting the strap of her handbag. She smiled at him and looked away. It was not a dream, her eyes and ears were calm, missing nothing.

‘What is that on your hand?’ she asked. He had a plaster on the back of his left hand.

‘I’ve been getting amoxyillin through an intravenous drip, but from tomorrow I’ll be getting it as pills to swallow.’ He seemed more able to talk now and he told her how his chest had got worse in the last few days, how the drive from Stirling to Aberdeen had been a nightmare ending in the biggest asthma attack he had ever had.

‘I drove straight to the GP and he referred me here. I haven’t even gone home yet. I still have all my things with me.’

‘You should have seen a doctor in Stirling; you shouldn’t have driven back if you were feeling so ill.’

He didn’t answer her and instead said, ‘I just remembered I have something for you, right here with me now.’