“Doctor-sahib,” I interrupted as respectfully as I could. “Is there a problem?”
I looked nervously to Hayal, hoping the doctor understood.
Doctor Ozdemir sighed deeply. He removed his stethoscope from around his neck and wrapped Aziz in his blanket before placing him back in my arms. I propped him up in my lap and turned my attention back to the doctor who began to speak slowly, enunciating carefully and reading my expression. His words fell heavy on my ears as I strained to understand what he was saying. Problem. That was all that had been confirmed.
“What problem? Does he need antibiotics? Vitamins?”
Doctor Ozdemir shook his head no while he repeated “antibiotic” and “vitamin,” words that needed no translation from Dari to Turkish.
Doctor Ozdemir pointed to Aziz’s chest, to his heart and repeated the one word that he had been able to communicate. “Problem. Kalp.”
“Kalp?” Another crossover word. Kalp meant heart. I felt my arms grow weak.
The doctor stood up and pulled a book from the countertop. It was a soft cover book, its binding taped together more than a few times. He began to flip through the pages to find a picture that would help him demonstrate his point, but he quickly lost patience and tossed it back onto the counter. He pulled a pencil and paper from his desk drawer and began to sketch.
I pulled my chair closer to his. He drew a heart and started to open and close his fist rhythmically. Then he drew two shapes and began exaggeratedly breathing in and out. Lungs, I thought. The heart and the lungs. I nodded, and the doctor returned to his rudimentary drawing. He pointed to the heart and again opened and closed his fist, but slower this time. Then he pointed to the pictures of lungs and began to shade in the bottom parts. Something was blocking up Aziz’s lungs. Doctor Ozdemir again started his exaggerated breathing, but this time he did so with difficulty, breathing faster and harder, his face drawn in fatigue.
I thought a baby, my baby, was too young to have problems with his heart. I felt a sense of overwhelming hopelessness. How could we possibly fix something that was wrong with his heart?
Doctor Ozdemir knew his message had gotten across. He tapped his pencil on the sketch he held in his lap. Intikal was a small town, and there was nowhere to do the things he felt were necessary. There would be no X-rays or blood test. Aziz needed a hospital and even if we were able to reach the plentiful resources of a city, I had no money to finance all that this baby would need. Doctor Ozdemir shook his head.
The doctor had reduced my world to a graphite sketch on a scrap of paper. I needed to hear Doctor Ozdemir’s grand conclusion. He rubbed at his forehead, pulled a paper pad from the pocket of his white coat, and scribbled something on it. He handed the prescription to Hayal, and between the two of them, they informed me that these medications would help keep Aziz comfortable temporarily, but that his condition would only worsen with time.
Hayal’s eyes watered. She had trouble getting the words out.
It was not language that got in the way of our communications that day. Had he spoken Dari fluently, I still would not have understood my son’s prognosis. The doctor looked at me, and in his eyes, I could see he was not surprised by my reaction. I would refuse to accept, he knew, just as so many mothers did up until the very end and sometimes long after.
I pushed aside everything I was being told and held on to what I could do. I needed something tangible to keep me afloat.
“I will give him this medicine,” I said. “How many times a day? For how long?”
They understood me. Doctor Ozdemir made loops in the air with his pointer finger, continuously. Hafta meant week in both Turkish and Dari. Every week, he motioned with his hand that the medicine should go on. I nodded.
“Return in two weeks’ time,” the doctor said. Hayal nodded, thanked the doctor, and asked him something I did not catch. Doctor Ozdemir shook his head and gently waved her off. He touched my elbow and stroked Aziz’s forehead before he walked out.
I was numb. Hayal started to usher me out the door with only that small square of paper in her hand.
I didn’t know how much the medicine would cost. We retraced our path back to the house, a quiet between Hayal and myself. At the pharmacy, I pulled bills from my change purse to pay for the bottle of liquid the pharmacist prepared. Not wanting to wait, I pulled the blanket back from Aziz’s face and pointed to his mouth. Hayal relayed my urgency and the mustached man nodded. He opened the bottle and poured a small amount into a plastic spoon. I brought the dark liquid to Aziz’s thin lips.
My child’s heart was more broken than mine. I buried the rage I felt toward my husband, for his decisions that had brought me here. So much was not his fault and I knew that when I had the strength to be rational. But other times, when my shoulders started to give under the pressure of it all, thoughts of my husband were clouded with resentment. I saw pigheadedness instead of perseverance, pride instead of principle, and denial instead of determination. The light of our marriage dimmed. I prayed for a way to love my husband in death as wholly as I’d loved him in life.
In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate, cried my heavy heart.
CHAPTER 22. Saleem
SALEEM HAD LISTENED QUIETLY AS MADAR-JAN RELAYED THE doctor’s thoughts. She maintained her composure with clipped phrases and the reassurance that the medication had already made a difference. But the truth was in the space between her words, the hollows that Saleem and Samira had grown to recognize and fear. Samira met her brother’s gaze, her face drawn under the weight of all she left unsaid.
Saleem had kept his eyes on his baby brother. Aziz was sleeping comfortably, his breathing quieter. Hakan, having heard the news from Hayal, had sighed, shaking his head. To Saleem, it was a look of pity and he resented it. He sweated in Polat’s field every day so that he would not have to be pitied. The expression on Hakan’s well-meaning face, the hand on his shoulder — Saleem wanted to run from it all.
Saleem sat on the edge of the school soccer field, plucking blades of grass. Judging by the sun’s position in the sky, the children should be coming out soon. He could feel them stirring in their seats, watching the minutes pass and anxiously waiting for their teachers to dismiss them. A lifetime ago, in a far-off land, Saleem had been the same — eager for the moment when he could stuff his papers and pencils into his knapsack and scurry out the door.
But that was a different time, a different Saleem. This Saleem longed for a school with classmates, with friends. He longed for a normal life. More painful than Kabul, the normal life was now touchably close and yet unreachable. The longing brought him here, to the shaded, grassy field of the schoolyard. He passed the school every day on his way to the truck stop. It was a constant reminder of how things could have been different.
Saleem had arrived at the farm earlier in the day and let Polat know he would need to leave early. He mumbled a half-truth about his brother. The farm owner had grumbled, and Saleem knew to expect a cut in his wages. But Polat had few options for labor, and Saleem knew he would be welcomed back tomorrow.
If he couldn’t live a normal life, he would watch it. He wanted just a few hours with his feet cooled by the grass. He wanted an afternoon just for himself, away from the backbreaking work.