Two broken-hearted, sickly women in a hospital in Cairo, find themselves getting ready for the rest of their lives.
Nahla Karam
Translated from the Arabic by Nada Faris
“And who benefits from binding and beating me up? Is this how they treat women?”
I’ve only started waking up when I hear her voice. It takes me a few moments to realize that it wasn’t coming from a dream but from the bed in front of me. I remain frozen in place, pretending to sleep, worrying that if I move my body she might notice and stop talking. I want to know who tied her up, but she is taking a while to recall an old movie she wants to use as an example of her mistreatment: a film about infidels torturing Muslims.
“Are we in the movie There Is No God but Allah,” she says, “or in Mohammed Is Allah’s Prophet, or …”
After trying to remember the film, she abandons her story. A female voice on speaker tries to console her, but she persists, “It’s what I’m owed!” Latching on to this statement, she repeats it over and over. Once I believe that she will no longer resume her story — regardless of whether I moved — I stretch my arm in search of my phone.
Usually, at this time of day, I would be sprawled on my bed, twisting left and right, not terrified of the duvet touching my face — this duvet, the one that Dr. Mohammed had glanced at when he first walked into our ward before asking sarcastically, “They couldn’t find anything better?” And although he left without choosing another one, he returned with four blue nitrile gloves and tied each corner of the duvet with a glove to ensure that the cover and the insert stayed firmly in place. When he was done, the bed looked fuller, so he placed an aged and flattened pillow on top. As I watched him work, I had only one thought: how I could lay on my back without jolting on to my side, which meant I had to figure out how to still my thoughts, dreams, and fears for a single night!
It is still seven. Rasha ends her call with the woman on the phone and dials her daughter. The voice, which only a moment earlier sounded pitiable, now morphs into an aggressive tone as she commands her daughter to wake up her brothers so they can study. Before hanging up, she insults all her children. Then, silence prevails. Rasha, who was sitting crossed-legged, now stretches the length of her body on her bed. I infer from her behavior that she has no one else to call, and since her bed stands next to a wall with a window open to the sky, I glimpse her moving her hand in front of her eyes as though she were waving to someone outside.
I struggle to decide whether to remain lying in bed or to get up because I fear that Rasha is bound to talk to me now. After all, the day is still long enough to be filled with chitchat, but when I finally take a deep breath, I ask myself if I’m truly anxious about her chatter or if I’m more worried about what I might find in the toilet.
It took my immunity three years to fail, but in those years, it was calm, treating my platelets with kindness — so what was this new development that made my immunity turn against me? Was it sadness? For three months, I was happy. I couldn’t believe that I had found love at first sight. A whole week of romantic dates. My heart didn’t stop beating. My lips didn’t stop smiling. Conversations poured out of us without a break. Everything was perfect. Phone calls, text messages, and sharing minute details throughout the day assured me that the distance separating the two countries would not become a reason for him to release my hand after his departure, which is what frightened me the most — that somebody holding your hand would, suddenly, let go.
A dopaminergic rush had flooded my body all at once. Did my immunity consider this substance a foreign agent? When my immunity decided to attack the happy hormone, my joy receded, which probably confused my body, and finding nothing else extraneous to attack, my immunity must’ve turned its attention inward toward my platelets — my only source of mending wounds. Is this why my heartache hasn’t yet healed? But if my immunity was abruptly attacking a part of me and treating it as though it were alien how could I blame somebody I didn’t know for treating me, after getting close to me, like a stranger too?
I was preoccupied with our sheer amount of contact, our calls and texts that only gradually became less frequent, so I didn’t notice my platelets receding as well, perhaps even issuing a warning through the bruises and rashes that began appearing on my body. Although I noticed them, I thought they were just marks caused by bumping into things. I refused to believe that they might have been caused by sadness. Because … why should I be sad? Sadness means that the hand has definitely let go. It would mean fear, and I was happy, avoiding any thought that cautioned me against something going wrong, something that would remind me of all the times my hand was released without any explanation. I avoided all these thoughts and memories and, instead, allowed my fantasies to run wild.
I had never imagined myself as a mother. It always shocked me when women explained that they wanted to get married only to bear children. I wondered where that parental longing came from until it bloomed inside me a short while ago. It was as though this desire had been assigned by mistake to another woman all these years before it realized that, in fact, it belonged to me. It returned to me in the middle of the night while I was fast asleep and surprised me in the morning. From then on, my eyes began to water at the sight of a child, and I would compare my imaginary son or daughter to them.
For months, whenever I menstruated, I placed my hand over my belly and thought about the moment I’d be filled with a baby instead of blood. Maybe I went too far in my fantasies. Sudden disappearances. Sudden bleeding. All throughout the first five days of my period, I thought it was the blood of my normal cycle. But on the sixth day, I became confused. And on the seventh, I felt excruciating pain. It was only after I bled red clumps that I began sensing any relief. But then I saw an eye in one of the clumps and what resembled a mouth in another. The baffled sonographer told me, as he pressed on my belly, that he had never seen anything like this. Because I was still heavily bleeding on my seventh day, he explained that I might continue to lose even more blood, although he didn’t know why this was happening. I knew; it was because of my fantasies, but I didn’t tell him. When I left the sonar room and went to the toilet, I found another clump with a mouth. Since there were two of them now, I figured they must’ve been twins.
Rasha asks me for my home address and seems genuinely surprised when I tell her. She says that because of the way I looked, she assumed that I was a resident of Al-Maadi or one of the fancy residential compounds — not another densely populated, working-class neighborhood. She becomes more comfortable afterward and shares her problems with her finances and her four children.
Breakfast is then served, but apart from a single egg, its baldhead poking out of the shell, there’s nothing else I can eat. I start yearning for home and the omelets I make. I usually crack four eggs into a pan before adding mushrooms. But now I try to force the boiled egg into my mouth and convince myself, as I chew, that I will return to my house, my bed, and my favorite coffee and breakfast — to everything, in other words, I hadn’t counted as a blessing until I saw the baldhead of this soft-boiled egg. When I offer Rasha the remainder of my meal, she thanks me, and smiles, but as soon as I return to my bed, she mentions that I haven’t eaten enough and suggests I take her egg. I explain that the egg is the most important ingredient of the meal and rattle on about the benefits of eating eggs daily for adults and children, but she abruptly cuts me off and says, “Eggs cost £6.” I think of our current whereabouts, and I keep my mouth shut.
Rasha resumes her conversation about her children. One of her sons, particularly Mohammed, is a nonverbal 14-year-old who needs expensive speech therapy, which costs £100 a session. Her complaint reminds me of the Botox treatment I had last month. I begin to calculate the number of sessions her son would’ve been able to get with the price of a single Botox appointment and end up feeling guilty and upset.
I needed to raise my eyebrows when Rasha told me that her husband got a second wife while still married to her. But my genuine shock was blocked by the Botox in my forehead, which froze my facial expression in mid-astonishment. I deliberated how her husband, who couldn’t afford his son’s speech therapy, was able to marry another woman until she said, “He’s the reason I’m sick.” Rasha confessed that she’d experienced a mental breakdown at her father-in-law’s funeral and that the intensity and suddenness of her cognitive impairment had landed her in bed where, for three months, she had been unable to move a single body part. When she did move again, a cloud of darkness descended over her left eye. Two weeks have passed since then. Rasha has been spending them in the hospital, where she was receiving daily doses of prednisone to heal her eye.
“I am getting better,” she said to her husband. “When you came in yesterday, you looked blurry, but now I can see you.” She moved her hand in front of her eyes. “I swear I’m getting better. I’m leaving tomorrow because I can’t stay here any longer. Oh God! I want to go back to my kids!”
I now understand why she was waving at the sky in the morning. This was how she reassured herself every now and then that she was healing. When I walked into the hospital room yesterday, she was sitting with her husband who, after greeting me, had said that he was happy because his wife finally had company. It made me think about comfort: how I had someone to ask me, every moment what I was up to, what I ate, what I drank, when I was going to the gym, and which exercises I was planning on doing that day — but now I’m in the hospital, and he doesn’t even know I’m ill. Yesterday, I smiled at the happy man who felt my company would comfort his wife. But now I realize he was the one who caused her pain in the first place. This makes me think that it doesn’t matter whether you have known someone for a few months or many years, and there’s no difference between struggling with your monthly cycle or with four children. I almost ask Rasha, “Where does safety come from?” but her phone rings.
Rasha curses her daughter because she hasn’t yet roused Mohammed from his sleep to study. I have become more familiar with the range of her vocal tones: her meekness and despondency when she speaks with someone with whom she feels vulnerable, and the vitriol and screaming she unleashes on her children — the only people she controls in her life. I plan to return home and do exactly what I’d read in Google, which is to spend an hour a day at the sauna melting away my Botox. I will keep doing this even if people tell me that it won’t dissolve my filler, and that I will have to endure its effects on my face for the next three to four months, because I will do anything to bring back my natural smile and my ability to look surprised. Once I return home, I will …
“You and I will leave tomorrow,” Rasha says. “I have to! Because I cannot stay here any longer.” She waves her hand in front of her eyes and asserts that she feels even better than she did in the morning, which means that tomorrow she will definitely be released. I nod and tell her, God willing, she will return to her home and kids. Then, I wonder how she was able to stay here for 14 days. I was admitted only yesterday and cannot wait to escape.
“As soon as they release me, it’s payback! He married someone else! Then tossed me in the hospital like a dog! If I lose my eye, it’s because of him! I swear to God I’ll get what I’m owed!”
Rasha’s conversation with one of her relatives pulls me away from my worries, and I begin to wonder how she might avenge herself if she doesn’t ask for a divorce. I sit quietly until she gets off the phone then ask her what she does for a living. Rasha tells me that she has never worked a day in her life because she can neither read nor write. Despite being illiterate, she’d love to launch a business one day, although she doesn’t know what to focus on or how to raise the funds needed to even start. I help her brainstorm some options but we keep circling back to the same point: she doesn’t have any skills or interests. As she was getting off her last phone call, Rasha said that the only thing she wished for in life was for her son to learn how to speak. She now tells me that she will let me hear his voice when he wakes up, and that he’s really smart and capable of so much. However, because he was bullied in school and kept coming home depressed, she had to transfer him to a private academy and pay exorbitant fees.
When a new ringtone on Rasha’s phone begins to play, she answers it and says, “I love you more than all the letters in the names of lovers put together!” And I gather from this effusive display that she must be conversing with her husband. After telling him she misses him, she asks when he plans to see her. I want to raise my eyebrow, but the Botox keeps my forehead transfixed mid-astonishment, which makes me curse the moment I was weak enough to alter my features and become flawless for him. I just wanted eyes that neither looked wide nor tired … I just wanted to be clear-eyed…
Once Rasha gets off the call with her husband, her phone begins to play the regular ringtone, so she picks up and immediately starts lecturing a young lady about a nightgown she had purchased for her. She tells Miriam to open her wardrobe and look at it. “What a steal! Doesn’t it put Laila Alawy’s whole closet to shame?” Rasha then tells this girl, who turns out to be one of her daughters, that she will get herself a nightgown just like it as soon as she is released from the hospital. “Oh God, you just watch what I’ll do to him then!”
My stomach twists in knots. It’s the same ache I get when I bleed, but I know the pain can’t be caused by my cycle. I am still preoccupied with Rasha’s mood swings and keep thinking about how rapidly her feelings toward her husband’s body switch from craving vengeance to craving pleasure; from a wounded voice pledging violence to a flirty one accompanied by giggles and suggestive remarks. I wonder if this has anything to do with the side effects of hormone treatment. For two weeks, she has been taking high doses. And each dose lasts at least four hours. That must be it … the thought of how steroids will change me now frightens me.
“I’m worried about my kids. As long as I stay here, they won’t study. They won’t do anything at all!” Rasha’s comment snaps me out of my own worries and drops me into hers. So, I try to assure her and say that she will return to her family once she heals. She replies that she will for sure, for sure, for suuure be released tomorrow! Then she waves her hand in front of her face again, and stresses, “I swear I’m better. Why else am I taking all these shots? I must be healing.”
The nurses bring our lunch trays to our room. Plates include grilled chicken, steamed rice, and an array of vegetables on the side. I offer Rasha my meal, but she refuses and says that it’s delicious. She must’ve assumed that I offered her my meal because I was feeling nauseous, so I try to explain that I didn’t need it because my sister was bringing me a homemade meal. I also lie and tell her I don’t actually like chicken. Her face lights up when I hand over my tray again. She removes the lid from both plates and devours the contents of the first. I wonder how many chickens a family in her financial condition can afford each month. Guilt surges through me when I remember how much I spent on my facial treatment.
Then, a team of medical fellows and top students enters our room. They’ve been examining different cases and delivering messages from the chief physicians to patients. When they gather around my bed, a female fellow informs me of my test result — something I had already figured out before their arrival, namely, that my blood cells have responded well to the steroids. She then delivers the head physician’s recommendation, which I had also already anticipated. They want me to continue my treatment while gradually decreasing the dose until I no longer need it. However, she never mentioned any of the medicine’s side effects — like how it would cause my face and stomach to bloat or trigger severe and long-lasting mood swings. I ask if I could leave the hospital without a doctor’s permission, even if I were to take full responsibility, but she says to wait until she consults with the doctor in charge. Everything in this hospital moves at a snail’s pace, which frustrates me. The medical fellow might get back to me tomorrow, but that means spending at least another day or two trapped in here.
The group then moves toward Rasha, who is eager to hear them tell her about her inevitable release. I leave the room to call my mom and share my test results. When I return, I find Rasha weeping and pleading with them. At some point, she even says that she’d rather die than let them stab her neck, and that nothing will make her spend another day in the hospital. The female trainees appear dumbfounded. I gather that Rasha’s prednisone treatment has been ineffective and that her only option now is to allow the doctors to stick in a cannula. Rasha keeps crying, “I won’t let a needle anywhere near my neck!” The group just stands there quietly as she sobs. Finally, one of them declares they will have to consult with the head physician before getting back to her.
When they leave, I try to comfort her and even ask for more information, but she’s inconsolable. “Over my dead body!” She repeats over and over again. I continue to press her for more details until she finally admits, “They said it could be a nerve-related matter, but they aren’t really sure. What does my left eye have to do with them sticking a needle in my neck? They don’t know what they’re talking about! I swear I’m going to leave this place. I don’t care if I never get to use my left eye again!”
She begins dialing her relatives, one after the other, repeating the whole story from the beginning. “Can you believe what happened to me? Can you believe it? They want me to remain another month with a needle stuck in my neck! I swear to God I won’t let them do it.”
Within minutes, my feelings change. I was initially frustrated because I was told I had to continue taking steroids, but now I suddenly feel grateful that my blood cells have responded well to the medicine and that I haven’t heard the phrase, “Your treatment has been ineffective.”
From her numerous phone calls, I gathered that Rasha’s own mood is fluctuating as well. Sometimes she had angry outbursts, where she screamed that she would not remain in the hospital another day. But she also wept and hoped to retaliate against her husband, reiterating her desire for vengeance and always concluding with this ominous phrase: “Just wait until I leave.”
Rasha lies on her bed after finishing up her last call. I want to comfort her, but instead of glancing my way, she keeps gazing at the sky until we hear a knock on the door. Her husband walks in, smiling, and greets us. I reply without a smile and watch him closely as he makes his way toward Rasha’s bed. She doesn’t smile at him either, but she slowly gets up, and he kisses her forehead, which makes her smile for the first time since receiving the news. She asks her husband reproachfully why he didn’t pick up when she called him. He gestures to the plastic bag in his hand and says that he was buying some things for her. She beams when he gives her the bag and happily scatters the contents all over her bed, exclaiming over each item, “You got this for me? I love it!”
When she recounts the events of her diagnosis, she omits the parts about swearing vengeance and seduction. He pats her on the hands and tells her that she is going to be all right. Feeling like a third wheel, I put on my shoes, grab my phone, and leave the room while pretending to make a call. I linger near the door, where I overhear her telling him she has saved him some chicken. I remain standing outside until I see him leave, then go back in. Rasha sits cross-legged on the bed, looking upward, waving her hand in front of her face while muttering, “I am going back to my husband and children, even if it means seeing them with one eye.”
