“No, you don’t understand. When you leave the hospital, when you are in that situation for which you underwent this augmentation, you need not be afraid. The great English sha’ir, Wilyam al-Shaykh Sebir, in his splendid play, King Henry the Fourth, Part II, says, ‘We owe God a death … and, let it go which way it will, he that dies this year, is quit for the next.’ So you see, death comes to us all. Death is inescapable. Death is desirable as our passage to paradise, may Allah be praised. So do what you must, Mr. Audran, and do not be hindered by an undue fear of death in your search for justice.”
Wonderfuclass="underline" my doctor was some kind of Sufi mystic or something. I just stared at him, unable to think of a damn thing to say. He squeezed my arm and stood up. “With your permission,” he said.
I gestured vaguely. “May your day be prosperous,” I said.
“Peace be on you.”
“And on you be peace,” I replied. Then Dr. Yeniknani left my room. Jo-Mama would get a big kick out of this story. I couldn’t wait to hear the way she’d tell it.
Just after the doctor went out, the young male nurse returned with an injection. “Oh,” I said, starting to tell him that earlier I hadn’t meant that I wanted a shot; I had only wanted to ask him a few questions.
“Roll over,” said the man briskly. “Which side?”
I jiggled a little in bed, feeling the soreness in each hip, deciding that both were pretty painful. “Can you give it to me someplace else? My arm?”
“Can’t give it to you in your arm. I can give it to you in your leg, though.” He pulled back the sheet, swabbed the front of my thigh about halfway down toward the knee, and jabbed me. He gave the leg another quick swipe with the gauze, capped the syringe, and turned away without a word. I wasn’t one of his favorite patients, I could see that.
I wanted to say something to him, to let him know that I wasn’t the self-indulgent, vice-ridden, swinish person he thought I was. Before I could speak a word, though, before he’d even reached the door to my room, my head began to swirl and I was sinking down into the familiar warm embrace of numbness. My last thought, before I lost consciousness, was that I had never had so much fun in my life.
Chapter 13
I did not expect to have many visitors while I was in the hospital. I’d told everyone that I appreciated their concern but that it was no big deal, and that I’d rather be left in peace until I felt better. The response I usually got, carefully considered and tactfully phrased, was that nobody was planning to visit me, anyway. I said, “Good.” The real reason I didn’t want people coming to look at me was that I could imagine the aftereffects of major brain surgery. The visitors sit on the foot of your bed, you know, and tell you how great you look, and how quickly you’ll feel all better, and how everybody misses you, and — if you can’t fall asleep fast enough — all about their old operations. I didn’t need any of that. I wanted to be left alone to enjoy the final, straggling, time-released molecules of endorphin planted in a bubble in my brain. Sure, I was prepared to play a stoic and courageous sufferer for a few minutes every day, but I didn’t have to. My friends were as good as their word: I didn’t have a single, goddamn visitor, not until the last day, just before I was discharged. All that time, no one came to see me, no one even called or sent a card or a crummy plant. Believe me, I’ve got all that written down in my book of memories.
I saw Dr. Yeniknani every day, and he made sure to point out at least once each visit that there were worse things to fear than death. He kept dwelling on it; he was the most morbid doctor I’ve ever known. His attempt to calm my fearful spirit had absolutely the wrong effect. He should have stuck with his professional resources: pills. They — I mean the kind I got in the hospital, made by real pharmaceutical houses and all — are very dependable and can make me forget about death and suffering and anything else just like that.
So as the next few days passed, I realized that I had a clear idea of how vital my well-being was to the tranquility of the Budayeen: I could have died and been buried inside a brand-new mosque in Mecca or some Egyptian pyramid thrown together in my honor, and nobody would even know about it. Some friends! The question arises:
Why did I even entertain the notion of sticking my own neck out for their well-being? I asked myself that over and over, and the answer was always: Because who else did I have? Triste, mm? The longer I observe the way people really act, the happier I am that I never pay attention to them.
The end of Ramadan came, and the festival that marks the close of the holy month. I was sorry I was still in the hospital, because the festival, id el-Fitr, is one of my favorite times of the year. I always celebrate the end of the fast with towers of ataif, pancakes dipped in syrup and sprinkled with orange-blossom water, layered with heavy cream, and covered with chopped almonds. Instead, this year I took some farewell shots of Sonneine, while some religious authority in the city was declaring that he’d sighted the new crescent moon, the new month had begun, and life could now return to normal.
I went to sleep. I woke up early the next morning, when the blood nurse came around for his daily libation. Everyone else’s life may have gone back to normal, but mine was permanently doglegged in a direction I could not yet imagine. My loins were girded, and now I was needed on the field of battle. Unfurl the banners, O my sons, we will come down like a wolf on the fold. I come not to send peace, but a sword.
Breakfast came and went. We had our little bath. I called for a shot of Sonneine; I always liked to take one after all the heavy work of the morning was finished, while I had a couple of hours before lunch. A drifty little nap, then a tray of food: good stuffed grape leaves; hamid; skewered kofta on rice, perfumed with onions, coriander, and allspice. Prayer is better than sleep, and food is better than drugs … sometimes. After lunch, another shot and a second nap. I was awakened by Ali, the older, disapproving nurse. He shook my shoulder. “Mr. Audran,” he murmured.
Oh no, I thought, they want more blood. I tried to force myself back to sleep.
“You have a visitor, Mr. Audran.”
“A visitor?” Surely there had been some mistake. After all, I was dead, laid to rest on some mountaintop. All I had to do now was wait for the grave robbers. Could it be that they were here already? I didn’t even feel stiff, yet. They wouldn’t even let me get cold in the tomb, the bastards. Ramses II was shown more respect, I’ll bet. Haroun al-Raschid. Prince Saalih ibn Abdul-Wahid ibn Saud. Everybody but me. I struggled up to a sitting position.
“O clever one, you are looking well.” Hassan’s fat face was resting in its shabby business smile, the unctuous look that even the stupidest tourist could spot as too deceitful by half.
“It is as God pleases,” I said groggily.
“Yes, praise Allah. Very soon you will be wholly recovered, inshallah.”
I didn’t bother to respond. I was just glad he wasn’t sitting on the foot of my bed.
“You must know, my nephew, that the entire Budayeen is desolate without your presence to light our weary lives.”
“So I understand,” I said. “From the flood of cards and letters. From the crowds of friends that mob the hospital corridors day and night, anxious to see me or just hear word of my condition. From all your many little thoughtfulnesses that have made my stay here bearable. I cannot thank you enough.”