Nagy put the newspaper aside and joined his friends. Amani sat across from the corridor to the doctors’ offices, while Yehya leaned back against the wall, trying to stave off the pain by staying still as much as possible. He’d grown used to standing in the queue for hours on end, and now could stay like that for a whole day without his feet tiring or troubling him.
When Tarek arrived, he was as flustered as Sabah had been; he hurried toward them and then stopped in front of them, clearly nervous. He didn’t reach out for a handshake until Amani did.
“I’m Amani, a colleague of Yehya’s,” she said, offering her hand. “I brought him here when he was injured.”
Tarek gave her a quick smile, one that was not welcoming, and led them to his office. Nagy signaled that he would stay where he was. Tarek asked Sabah to bring them tea, and then firmly closed the door behind them.
“Yehya, hello. How are you feeling?”
“I’m good, Doctor, the wound is healing, but it still hurts. It feels like the bullet is moving around in there.”
“They haven’t done the operation yet? You must be here with authorization from the Gate, then, so we can schedule a suitable time?”
“Well, actually, I’ve finished part of the procedure — I submitted an application to the Booth with all the necessary paperwork, and now I’m just waiting to be granted the permit.”
Although she was annoyed by how formal and unfeeling the conversation was, Amani joined in with a sweet, pleasant smile, and a tone she tried to make as friendly as possible.
“Dr. Tarek, do you think we could start preparing for the operation while we’re waiting for the permit? Everything’s in order, we just have to go through the motions now.”
“I’ll be completely honest with you,” Tarek said. “I’ve done everything I can, and Yehya knows that, but we simply cannot take any steps that have any connection to the operation without proper authorization.”
Amani’s smile became strained, and she leaned forward in her chair as if by moving closer to Tarek she could convince him.
“But from what the doctors at Zephyr Hospital said, and from what you yourself told Yehya right here, he’s in real danger. The longer he waits, the more likely the bullet might tear through his intestines, and you wouldn’t be able to stop the bleeding or do anything about it — isn’t that what you said?”
“The matter is out of my hands, I’m afraid — if I could have done the operation, I would never have postponed it in the first place. The new laws and decrees state that one must have authorization, and it’s impossible to act against the official instructions we receive from the Gate. You both know how it is.”
Amani’s smile evaporated. She raised her voice, reminding him he was a doctor, that his first priority was to help the sick, and he shot back that helping the sick was subject to the law, too; it wasn’t just every man for himself. Yehya intervened before things developed into an all-out shouting match, and gestured to Amani to calm down before turning to Tarek.
“It’s no problem at all, Dr. Tarek. Hopefully I’ll be back here with the authorization in a few days. If I could just ask you for the X-ray you took — when the Gate opens, I’ll probably need it as proof of my situation.”
Just moments before, Tarek had been able to defend himself with a logical explanation that they couldn’t argue with, but now his voice caught in his throat. Here it was: they had finally arrived at what had kept him awake through countless nights, but still he hadn’t figured out what he was going to say. He stood there, backed up against the desk, stuck there with no way forward and no way out. A sudden thought flashed into his mind; he could say no X-rays were performed in the hospital that day, but then he realized that he had told Yehya everything he’d seen in the X-ray himself. True, the notes he had written down had now vanished, and the X-ray technician no longer had any evidence because the negatives had been seized. And true, no specialist would have had time to write up an independent report due to the chaos and crowds that had engulfed the hospital that night … but Tarek himself knew it had been performed, that it had been here in Yehya’s file, and that Yehya had a right to see it.
He couldn’t lie so brazenly, even if he wanted to. He couldn’t deny what had happened and stand by it. He may have been weak and a coward, but he wasn’t a liar. He’d failed at dealing with problems like this his whole life, though he saw his colleagues doing it all the time, inventing a lie here and another one there, weaving thoroughly fabricated excuses. They often offered to help him do the same, to get out of a predicament or shirk responsibilities, but he never could.
He decided to tell them the truth, and whatever happened, happened, but two knocks on the door interrupted his tumultuous thoughts. Sabah entered the room carrying tea, and before she left he suddenly found himself telling her to bring Yehya’s X-ray from the head nurse. It was no innocent request; the head nurse had gone on a long vacation, and her absence provided a plausible opportunity to postpone the whole situation. It would give him a bit more time to think things over again, when he wasn’t under such pressure, and come up with a plan. Amani was making him nervous, and the two of them would likely be back. Tarek knew how important the X-ray was for Yehya, and he didn’t want to end the matter so much as he wanted to find a solution whereby no one would get hurt. What exactly should he divulge now, and what should he hide, without being forced to resort to a barefaced lie?
Everything went relatively smoothly. Sabah returned and, with a glance at Tarek, said the head nurse wasn’t in, she was out on some errands. Amani grew tense at the hackneyed excuse and pursed her lips, while Yehya maintained his composure, his calm expression tinged with a hint of frustration. Tarek (who for his part had strived to put on a believable performance) appeared just as surprised as they did. He let out an apologetic sigh and mustered an expression he hoped conveyed disappointment. He didn’t know whether he’d managed to convince them, but after a moment he truly did feel sorry for Yehya.
Perhaps it was the air of despondency that descended upon them, or the tension that threatened to ignite an argument between him and Amani all over again. Whichever it was didn’t matter; the quandary in which they’d found themselves forced him to keep thinking until he found the perfect way out. He remembered that when patients were transferred to other hospitals for further treatment, copies of their X-rays and medical tests were automatically sent with them. If Yehya’s had been sent to one of the government-run or military hospitals, getting it from there would certainly be difficult, but it was worth a shot. He cracked his knuckles and declared that there was no need to wait for the head nurse, it was better for them to act now. Worst-case scenario, they could try to find a copy of the X-ray in the Department of Personal Medical Files at Zephyr Hospital, which he’d heard was in the basement.
Yehya shook off the sense of apathy that had settled over him, and interest flickered across his face. He stared at Tarek for a moment. “The basement?” he asked. He’d heard it mentioned before. Yehya leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Memories of his first trip to the Gate with Nagy played in his mind, the task they hadn’t managed to accomplish because at the time neither of them had known how things were done. He’d been told that in order to submit an application for a permit, he first needed to go to the Booth, a small structure on the side of the Northern Building. There he needed to hand in his paperwork and state the purpose of his request. The official there would check that his papers were in order, file the application, and give him a stamped receipt as confirmation. Only individuals who had gone to the Booth to register and inform the Gate of their purpose were entitled to wait in the queue. The Booth itself was able to process certain preliminary paperwork, like applications for Certificate of True Citizenship, but decisions on permit applications could come only from the Gate and only when it opened.