Khan Al-Khalili

39

Without wasting any time Ahmad followed the instructions of the doctor who had been treating his brother and immediately started making arrangements to have Rushdi admitted to the sanitorium. A bed had become available at the beginning of March because the patient involved had completed his treatment. It was therefore decided to take Rushdi to the sanitorium on that date. Only a short wait was involved, but during that period the family suffered all manner of emotions, a mixture of worry and hope.

Rushdi’s coughing was causing him a great deal of pain and making it difficult for him to sleep. His parents sank into a deep depression, the serenity of their life totally destroyed; the expressions on their faces were a mixture of hope and anxiety.

Now Ahmad fell victim to all his pent-up anxieties, feeling gloomy and worried all the time. Kamal Khalil Effendi came to visit and assured Rushdi that fluid in the lungs was nothing to worry about. Sitt Tawhida and her daughter, Nawal, also called in when Ahmad was not at home. The mother told him that his insistence on staying so thin was what had made him so ill; with a laugh she assured him that, once he got better, she would make sure that he got fatter. With Rushdi’s parents listening, Nawal did not know what to say; even he could not risk looking at her all the time. Even so, they managed to exchange fleeting glances that communicated messages of love, thanks, and silent sorrow.

Rushdi was very happy that they had paid him a visit, the kind of happiness he had not felt since he had taken to his bed. When mother and daughter had both left, he shared with his mother his fears that the true nature of his illness might become public knowledge, but the poor woman managed to reassure her son that it would remain a secret known only to the people who loved him the most.

On the first of March a taxi took the two brothers to Bab al-Luq Station. The last thing Rushdi heard inside his parents’ home were his father’s prayers; the last thing he saw were his mother’s tears.

“If the cure takes a long time,” Rushdi told his brother on the way, “I’ll be fired for sure.”

“Even if that happens, heaven forbid,” Ahmad replied confidently, “it’ll be easy to get your job back. The only thing you should be worried about is getting better.”

They got on the train, which soon left for Helwan. They sat side by side. Ahmad remained silent, his thin face a mirror of deep anxiety. Rushdi coughed from time to time. Ahmad was struck by the string of bad luck that had afflicted his family. They had already lost one child, and now here was Rushdi afflicted with a very serious illness. He himself had been set up by fate for a series of failures and missteps. If only fate had made do with him alone, that would have been tolerable to him, but unfortunately it had not. Glancing at his younger brother, he was shocked to see how thin he was, how scrawny his neck looked, and how bleary his eyes were. Where was that bright, mocking gleam that had once been there?

“O Lord,” he prayed silently to himself, “will this tragedy ever end? Will I ever be able to open my eyes and not be confronted by specters of memories long past?”

Staring out of the window, he watched as a long line of buildings and villas went flashing by. The train then took them through lush, green fields and captivating rural scenery, before finally approaching the beginning of the endless, barren desert, fringed on the horizon by lofty hills. The progression of buildings, fields, and desert made him feel sad, and he found himself once again sliding into a deep depression.

The train reached Helwan, and the two of them left the train station. The journey had exhausted Rushdi, so they took a taxi to the sanitorium. It went down a deserted road, until the sanitorium loomed in front of them at the foot of the mountains, like some forbidding castle. Both brothers stared at it, their hearts beating fast.

“Let us pray,” said Ahmad, “that our Lord will take you by the hand, bestow a cure on you, and let you leave this place fully restored to health.”

When they got to the sanitorium, they took the elevator to the third floor, where the nurse showed them to the room they were looking for. It consisted of two beds, on one of which a young man of Rushdi’s age was lying down; he looked just as thin and pale as Rushdi. They all exchanged greetings, and Rushdi sat down to recover his breath. With his brother’s help he changed his clothes and lay down on the bed. Ahmad sat down on a comfortable chair, then pointed to the other young man in the room.

“I’m sure he’ll be a good companion for you,” he said. “You’ll be able to help each other kill time and avoid feeling lonely until you both get out of here, hale and hearty, God willing!”

Ahmad spent some time chatting with his brother and the other young man. He discovered that his name was Anis Bishara; he was a final year student in the School of Engineering. However, it was obvious that the journey had exhausted Rushdi — he simply lay there on the bed in a kind of stupor — so Ahmad chatted with them both for a bit longer until he was sure that Rushdi was settled in, then he stood up to leave. As he clasped his brother’s hand to say farewell, he could feel tears welling up inside him and had to grit his teeth to stop them emerging from his eyes. Once he had left the room, it occurred to him that Rushdi had also been on the verge of tears when bidding him leave. He was on the point of going back, but rejected the idea and continued on his way out of the building. Walking down long corridors with patient rooms on either side, he shuddered as he noticed ghost-like human beings all wearing billowing white garments. On his way back to the station he kept looking back at the imposing sanitorium building and muttered yet another prayer.

The Akif family spent a miserable evening together. The father looked totally distracted, and the mother wept so much that her eyes were red. Ahmad tried to make things easier for them by talking in hopeful terms, but the fact of the matter was that he too needed someone to lighten his own burden of misery.