The Mirage

63

I should have felt relieved and vindicated. But instead, my strength suddenly gave out on me and I collapsed onto the nearest chair, then sprawled my legs out and nearly fell asleep. The only thing that happened during the waiting period that followed the doctor’s departure was that Madame Nazli and Sabah went rushing to the deceased’s room and proceeded to weep and wail at the top of their lungs. I glanced over at the small parlor, where I saw Dr. Amin Rida pacing the floor with slow, heavy steps while the policeman sat on a chair at the reception room door.

At twelve-thirty the doorbell rang. The policeman got up and opened the door, and the district attorney came in followed by a clerk and another policeman. My heart pounding with fright at the sight of the government officials, I rose to my feet and walked up to the man, then raised my hand in greeting. He asked about the deceased’s room, then proceeded there right away followed by the clerk. Not having the courage to follow them there, I waited outside, and a few minutes later they were back. The man glanced around him, then went to the reception room with me close on his heels. He sat down on a sofa, while the clerk sat down on a nearby chair and spread his papers out on a table. After asking me my name, age, and job, he asked me to relate whatever information I had about what had happened. I complied with his request and the clerk recorded every word I said. Then he called for Dr. Amin Rida, who came in looking stony-faced and pallid. He allowed him to sit down in front of him, then addressed himself to me, saying, “You’re free to stay if you’d like.”

There was something in his tone of voice that sounded more like a command than an invitation. In any case, I was dying to be there for the interrogation. So, filled with dread and anticipation, I sat down on a chair next to the sofa the interrogator was sitting on. The man began by asking him general questions, such as his name, his age, and his occupation.

Then he said to him, “Can you tell me how you first became involved in this situation?”

Without hesitation, Dr. Amin said, “I was called upon to visit the patient at around nine this morning, and I found her in a great deal of pain. When I examined her, I found that the peritoneum was inflamed and needed immediate surgery. So I decided to perform the operation in order to save the patient’s life. I gave her mother my opinion and she agreed to allow me to proceed, so I performed the operation right away. However, it happened that the membrane was punctured in such a way that my efforts to save her were in vain, and she died.”

“Had you treated the patient at any previous time?”

“No.”

“Not even in connection with this final illness?”

“No. However, I learned that she’d been ill in bed for one night and that they thought she had a cold.”

“Has this family been in the habit of calling on you when one of its members falls ill?”

“This has never happened before. However, I’ve only been practicing medicine for a little over a year, and I don’t recall anyone in the family having fallen ill during this period of time.”

“Do you think that if any of them had fallen ill, they would have called on you?”

“The fact is that they did call on me the first time they were faced with this situation.”

“Don’t they know what your specialization is?”

“Yes, they do. However, the seriousness of the patient’s condition caused the mother to seek out my help due to the fact that my clinic is nearby, and because I’m her relative.”

“I don’t see anything in these circumstances that might influence one’s choice of physician. Besides, how could you yourself agree to treat a pathological condition that you knew to be outside your area of expertise? In such circumstances, don’t doctors generally recommend that the appropriate doctor be called upon?”

“I thought it most fitting to answer the call right away. Consequently, I went with the idea that it was a case of fainting, a severe stomachache, or something of that nature, and which wouldn’t be difficult for any doctor to treat. I believe this is what the people who called on me were thinking as well.”

“However, you found the situation to be more serious than you had expected. So what did you do?”

At this point the doctor refrained from answering. Instead, he lowered his head in embarrassment, as if he were pondering the matter.

“Why didn’t you recommend that a surgeon be called?” asked the interrogator.

“The operation needed to be performed without delay.”

“Had you done any surgeries prior to this?”

“In medical school, of course.”

“I mean, since then.”

“No.”

“I can hardly imagine your having undertaken to perform this dangerous operation!”

In a slightly altered, irritable tone of voice, Dr. Amin said, “I told you that the patient’s condition was critical, and that it required that the operation be performed without delay!”

“And how did you obtain the necessary medical instruments? Were they in your clinic?”

For the first time, the doctor hesitated before replying.

Then he said, “No.”

“How did you get them, then?”

“From a colleague of mine.”

“A surgeon?”

“Yes.”

“And why didn’t you bring the colleague himself?”

“He was scheduled to do other work at the same time.”

“Who might this doctor be?”

He hesitated again. Then his pallid face flushed and in a low voice he said, “The fact is, I brought them from the hospital, from the Fuad I Hospital.”

“Aside from the question of whether this behavior was sound from an administrative point of view, wouldn’t it have been more appropriate for you — since you must have realized that you’d have to spend some time getting the instruments in an illegitimate manner — wouldn’t it have been more appropriate for you to call a surgeon, especially in view of the fact that calling him wouldn’t have taken any more time than it would take to bring the instruments?”

He thought for some time. Then, obviously unsettled, he said, “I was so upset over the patient’s condition, I didn’t think about that.”

“It would be more logical to say that precisely because you were upset over her condition, you should have thought about it. Supposing what you say is true, why didn’t you take the patient to the hospital, where there are plenty of specialists?”

“Her mother wouldn’t agree to have her taken to the hospital.”

“Wouldn’t this have been less dangerous than placing her in the hands of someone with no experience? However, we’ll leave this issue aside for now.…”

The interrogator spread out a piece of paper before him and scanned its contents.

Then he sat up straight and said, “What do you think of this? I’m reviewing the medical examiner’s report, which asserts that an inflammation of the peritoneum doesn’t call for the kind of haste you’re talking about. In other words, it’s different from situations such as certain cases of appendicitis, for example. What do you say about that?”

The doctor fell into a deep silence, while the gleam in his eyes revealed his disquiet and the intensity of his thoughts.

The interrogator went on, saying, “The report also says that this operation takes several hours to prepare for, during which time the patient is generally given an enema. Were you not aware of these basic principles relating to the art of surgery?”

“I learned that the patient had been given an enema yesterday evening, and that she hadn’t eaten anything since that time.”

“Was she given the enema in preparation for the operation?”

“No. It was given to her based on the fact that she was thought to have a cold. As for the idea of the operation, it didn’t come up until after I arrived this morning.”

At this point I began paying even closer attention, and I was amazed that no one had mentioned to me that my wife had been given an enema. I remembered how she’d been kept in this house despite the fact that she could have come home, if even in a taxi, and an ominous sense of uncertainty and confusion came over me.

Then the interrogator said, “What I have here is an operation that was performed with maniacal speed for no known technical reason, by a doctor who isn’t a surgeon and who could, no doubt, have called on a surgeon with the proper qualifications. What is the meaning of this?”

The interrogator cast the doctor a cold, penetrating look. I looked back and forth between the two men with a sense of growing anxiety and a strange sort of fear, and I was in such turmoil that I tensed up all over.

Then I heard the interrogator say, “I’m wondering why it was deemed necessary for you in particular to perform this operation, and at this particular time?”

He remained silent for some time, then continued, “And what was the cause of death?”

“A puncture in the peritoneum.”

“The medical examiner states otherwise,” rejoined the interrogator coldly.

“What might the cause be, then?” asked an indignant Dr. Amin Rida.

“That’s a question you’d best answer for me yourself!”

In the same tense, nervous tone of voice, the doctor said, “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I’ll clarify the matter for you, then. The medical examiner states that the peritoneum was, in fact, punctured, but that there was no pathology or inflammation to be seen in it. In fact, he states that it required no treatment of any kind, much less surgery.”

“But I performed the operation myself!”

“You performed no operation whatsoever with the exception of puncturing the peritoneum.”

His voice trembling, the doctor said furiously, “Do you mean to say that I punctured the peritoneum for no reason? What’s the meaning of this?”

“You punctured the peritoneum and killed her!”

“In the course of performing the operation.”

“I assure you, you did not perform an operation on the peritoneum.”

“Are you accusing me of pretending to perform the operation in order to kill her?” shouted the doctor in a rage. “Are you accusing me of murder, sir?”

“Yes, I am,” replied the interrogator. “And before long you’ll come around to my point of view. You’ll see for yourself, without any need for my advice, that nothing will be of any use to you but complete honesty and candor.”

The doctor’s face turned pale and gloomier than ever, and he appeared to be in a miserable state of defeat. Casting a final glance at the medical examiner’s report, the interrogator continued, “Why did you make this deadly puncture in the peritoneum?”

In a morose, almost despairing tone the doctor replied, “I answered this question before!”

“You’d be well advised not to act stupid, since you’re undoubtedly an intelligent young man. You punctured the peritoneum in order to create an apparent, ‘legitimate’ cause for a death you believed to be inevitable.”

The doctor lowered his head in silence like someone who’s confessing and giving up the fight.

Then the interrogator went on, saying, “You were, in fact, performing an operation on another part of the body. Then a perforation occurred by accident in this other part and, given your lack of experience as a surgeon, you thought that this perforation was bound to lead to the patient’s death. So what did you do? If the true cause of death were known, the illegal operation you were performing would come to light. And it was at this point that your disturbed mind led you to resort to a maniacal ruse, namely, to puncture the peritoneum so that it would be thought that this was the cause of death. Now you claim falsely that you were performing an operation on the peritoneum, and in this way you conceal the crime of having performed the illegal operation. If you had caused a patient to die by accident, this wouldn’t be considered a crime according to the law. However, contrary to what you may have thought, the patient didn’t die from the first perforation. Rather, you killed her when you made a hole in the peritoneum.”

Trembling violently, the doctor shouted at the interrogator like a madman, “No! No!! She’d already died when I punctured the peritoneum!”

With a faint smile on his lips, the interrogator looked triumphantly at the doctor. As for the latter, he closed his mouth in dismay. Enraged and desperate, he looked up twice at the interrogator, and as he did so, he reminded me of someone who’s been knocked prostrate by a blow from the enemy. However, my mind was in a state of such heated turmoil that I paid him no attention. An illegal operation? The operation on the peritoneum had been nothing but a ruse to cover up a crime? Either I was crazy, or these two men were crazy! She’d already died before he punctured the peritoneum? Lord! I was nearly beside myself, and I almost started raving like a lunatic despite the presence of this daunting interrogator.

However, he broke the oppressive silence, saying calmly, “So we agree. And I think the time has come for you to confess that you in particular, out of all the doctors in Egypt, were chosen to perform an abortion!”

And he didn’t stop there. He went on talking. He may have mentioned, among other things, anesthesia and its effect, or something of that sort. And the other may have said a few words as well. However, I was no longer aware of a thing being said. My mind stopped at the word “abortion” and refused to go a step further. I fell on the word and it split me in two, then ripped me to shreds. It rang in my head till I was oblivious to everything. The three men disappeared from before me, the room disappeared, and I saw nothing but a terrifying, red and black void where terrifying specters of memories and thoughts danced. An abortion. So Rabab had been pregnant! The letter. This young doctor. Satan could undoubtedly have woven the tale of a horrific crime out of these disconnected facts, mocking both the suspicion that had, at one time, driven me to spying, and the peace of mind in which I’d mistakenly taken refuge at another. The interrogator was doing his utmost to expose a medical crime, but along the thorny path leading there he was going to stumble upon a crime far more heinous and inhuman. Hadn’t my heart perceived the catastrophe from the beginning? Might the doctor be the person who had written the letter? Or had they called on him due to the fact that he was a relative and could thus help them keep things quiet? The mother must have known everything … everything about my married life, and about her daughter’s slip-up. Perhaps she’d wanted to wipe out evidence of the scandal through the operation, only to have death ruin her plans. Ah, Rabab! We deserve every tribulation we’re afflicted with in this world, since we give ourselves over to it heart and soul when, in reality, it deserves nothing but loathing.

I was roused from my thoughts by the voice of the interrogator as he called out to me, “Hey there … wake up!”

I looked up at him, trembling, and little by little I recovered my awareness of my surroundings.

The man said, “I’m asking you: Hadn’t your wife spoken to you about not wanting to be pregnant? Hadn’t she told you of her desire to have an abortion?”

I cast a quick glance at Dr. Amin, thinking to myself: He knows the entire secret from beginning to end. In fact, he may know far more than I know myself. It pained me to lie and expose myself to another insult.

“No,” I muttered.

“Did you think she was happy to be pregnant?”

In a listless, doleful tone I said, “It’s only now that I’m finding out that she was pregnant.”

The interrogator raised his eyebrows so high that they appeared above his spectacles, and I fixed my gaze on his eyes as he ruminated.

Then he asked me, “How do you explain the fact that she was hiding the matter from you?”

His question shook me to the depths of my being. All I had to say was one word, and my secret would become the butt of everyone’s jokes. Feelings of rage and the desire for revenge tempted me sorely to reveal what I’d striven so mightily to keep hidden so that I could likewise expose the secret that had been kept hidden by my depraved wife and avenge myself on the criminal. I wanted to say that there was nothing in the past year or more of our married life that could have led to pregnancy so that the interrogator could put his callous hand on the wanton trespasser. I was sorely, sorely tempted to do so, and the words were almost on the tip of my tongue. However, I didn’t say a thing. Instead, I was stricken with a total paralysis that I couldn’t explain. Could shyness influence me even in a situation like this? Was my desire to conceal my impotence so great that it overrode my longing for revenge? I wasn’t able to utter the decisive word, and with every second that passed I grew more helpless and resigned to defeat.

“I don’t know,” I muttered breathlessly.

And before I knew it, Dr. Amin had jumped to his feet and taken two steps back, folding his arms over his chest in pompous defiance.

Then in a confident, supercilious voice he said to the interrogator, “You’re asking him something he knows nothing about. She was a wife in name only, and I’m responsible for everything from beginning to end!”