Khan Al-Khalili

34

The truth of the matter was that, even since the middle of December, Rushdi had been feeling a pain that boded ill. One day at the bank he had had a terrible fit of coughing. He had taken out his handkerchief in order to spit into it, and had been terrified to see that it was bloody. The whole thing had sent him into a panic, and he had hurriedly put the handkerchief into his pocket in case anyone else found out. Leaving the bank, he had gone to a specialist on chest diseases. He had sat in the waiting room, absolutely terrified, staring at all the wan faces with their thin bodies hacking away. Had he fallen victim to that dire disease, the very mention of which made anyone shiver in fear? He had heard a friend of his once say that tuberculosis was a disease with no cure, and his heart pounded as he recalled the occasion. He had never had any serious illness before, and it worried him that this fatal disease might be the first really bad experience he would have. His panic only intensified as he sat there waiting to go into the consulting room, but he was patient until his turn came.

As he went in, he was making a mighty effort to control his terror. He took a quick look around at all the equipment and machinery and lastly at the doctor himself, who was leaning over a small sink washing his hands. He stood there waiting, while the doctor dried his hands and then turned toward him. He was short and thin, and fine featured; his head, however, was large and bald. His eyes bulged, and he had a sharp stare. Rushdi greeted him by raising his hand to his head.

“Welcome,” said the doctor in a loud voice, “please be seated.”

Rushdi sat down on a large chair. The doctor walked round to his neat desk and sat down behind it. He took out a large notebook, opened it, and started asking questions: Rushdi’s name, profession, and age. Rushdi responded to all of them and then gave the doctor a traditional, inquiring look.

“I need you to check my chest,” he said.

No sooner had he said this than he had a violent coughing fit. The doctor waited until he had stopped and could breathe properly again.

“Have you had a cold?” he asked. “When?”

“I had influenza over two weeks ago. It was a bad case. I obviously went back to work before I’d fully recovered. I’m still feeling tired. Then I started coughing violently like this, and my health’s gone downhill ever since.”

Rushdi described how much the coughing hurt and how much weight he had lost.

The doctor interrupted him. “When did your voice go hoarse?”

“At least a week ago.”

The doctor told him to strip to the waist. The young man stood up, took off his tie, then his jacket, shirt, and undershirt. He looked lean and emaciated. The doctor put his stethoscope to his ears and started placing it at the spots on Rushdi’s chest and back where he was tapping with his finger. Rushdi noticed that he went back several times to one particular spot at the top of his chest on the left. The doctor now told him to get dressed again.

“Have you been spitting blood?” he asked.

Rushdi’s heart leapt, and he paused for a moment. “Yes,” he replied in a lowered voice, “I’ve noticed it two or three times.”

The doctor brought over a blue vial and told him to cough heavily and spit into it. A short time went by as Rushdi stood there breathing heavily, like a defendant awaiting the verdict to be delivered.

“I suspect that there is something wrong with your left lung,” the doctor said. “There’s no point in stating anything definite at this stage. But you need to go and see Dr. So-and-so immediately so he can take some X-rays and you can bring me back the results.”

The doctor warned him not to do anything that required effort. Rushdi stood where he was with a frown on his face. He was feeling utterly miserable.

“I may be wrong,” the doctor went on. “But, even if I’m right, it’s not serious.”

He went to the other doctor to have X-rays taken, then waited in agony for days, worried out of his mind in addition to all the pains of the coughing. Normally he was not by nature someone to give in to fears and anxieties, but now he suddenly found himself at the mercy of a deadly illness. The very word “illness” had a very bad effect on him.

Taking the X-rays he went back to visit the first doctor. The latter looked at them carefully and then turned to his patient. “Just as I thought,” he said. “You can call it a slight lesion or a surface infection, if you like.”

His hopes began to fade, and his honey-colored eyes had a desperate look about them. He stared blankly at the X-rays, not understanding what it was he was looking at—“a slight lesion or a surface infection”! Was his entire life now going to be hostage to such apparent trifles?

“So let’s call it what you want,” he told the doctor. “My question to you is: does this mean that it is a case of incurable tuberculosis?”

The doctor gave him a disapproving look. “Don’t let the word ‘tuberculosis’ alarm you,” he said. “Forget about all those kinds of fear. They have no basis in truth or science. You’ll certainly recover if you follow the instructions I’m about to give you.”

The doctor paused for a moment of reflection.

“People say,” Rushdi said anxiously, “that there’s no cure for tuberculosis.”

The doctor shrugged his shoulders in contempt. “I reject such ideas,” he said. “You should know that I had the disease at one point. Even so, you must only eat the very best food, take a complete rest, and live in clean, dry air. All those things you can find at the sanitorium. Get to Helwan as soon as you can.”

“How long will the cure take, do you think?”

“I’d say, six months at the most.”

Rushdi’s heart sank. He was sure that a period as long as that would mean that he would lose his job. If this piece of news got out tomorrow and reached “the neighbors,” he would lose his girl as well. For both these reasons the idea of the sanitorium did not appeal to him at all.

“What if these conditions were also available at home?” he asked.

“Where do you live?”

“In Khan al-Khalili.”

“As far as I know, that’s a very damp area. The sanitorium is by far the best place for you to be. And don’t forget that you’ll need the very best care as well.”

He began to warm to the idea of a home-cure system; that way, no one would find out his secret. He would be able to keep his job and his girl.

“What if I can’t go to the sanitorium?” he asked.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders again. “In that case you’d have to take extra special care in the house, particularly where rest and food are concerned. You’d have to stay in bed, of course. I’ll describe the medical process to you.…”

While the doctor was busy writing out the medical protocol for him, Rushdi suddenly thought of a crucially important question. “I’ve just thought of another issue,” he said after a brief pause. “Can I … I mean, when can I get married if I have this kind of disease?”

For the first time the doctor smiled. “I would hope that, with the necessary care, you’ll be cured in about six months,” he said. “You’ll have to stay under observation for a full year after that. Then it would be a good idea to wait another six months.…”

Once again, he advised Rushdi to go to the sanitorium if it was at all feasible and then recommended that, if he could not do so, he should certainly come to see him from time to time. Rushdi went home bearing with him the entire weight of his misery. To him, everything now seemed like a terrible dream; his ears, in fact his entire world, were filled with that dreadful word — tuberculosis. Should he believe what everyone said about it, or believe what the doctor had told him? Had the doctor decided to tell him the truth, or was he trying to allay his fears? He had told him quite frankly that he had suffered from the disease himself, so Rushdi saw no reason to disbelieve him. Yes indeed, six months was a long time, but he would have to put his trust in God and endure it patiently. Had he been free to do what he wanted, he would certainly have preferred going to the sanitorium, but two things stood in the way: his job and his beloved. What was he supposed to do?

His health, which he had never even bothered about until now, was in imminent danger. Before today he had never had occasion to look back with nostalgic regret on his health. It had never occurred to him that health might be something that could vanish or change drastically. But what was the point of being healthy if he lost his job? What purpose did it serve if it placed a roadblock between him and the girl with whom he was so in love? The best thing would be to stay at home, get accustomed to looking after himself, and take his medicine without anyone finding out about his secret. That way, he could get better without having to give away his secret or lose both his job and his beloved.

That is the way his thought processes developed. What made it much easier for him to convince himself was that he still had his basic functions in place and was able to move around. While keeping his condition a secret, he had in fact begun the prescribed routine, until quite by chance his brother had come into the bathroom; after that his secret had been no more. The truth is that he was not sorry, not only because his elder brother was so much a part of himself, but also because the process of keeping it hidden away was preying on his mind, so he felt a sense of relief when his brother found out. He unloaded all his sorrows on to Ahmad, except the part involving the sanitorium, about which he still felt a need to be a bit cautious.…