Hijab

by Guruprasad Kaginele

  I asked Powell, ‘Who told you?’

  Powell said, ‘Amoka is not a big town. The police chief here is my brother-in-law. He is the one who arrested Kuki. The higher-ups of his department have asked him to send Kuki to Minneapolis somehow or the other. There is a warrant for arrest against Kuki in Hennepin County. But this guy is here. If we pack him off to Minneapolis, our job is done. Then the “higher higher-ups” will investigate. Even my brother-in-law does not know if it is the police, or someone even higher, who will be investigating Kuki.’ He gestured with his fingers and wrote FBI in the air when he mentioned ‘higher higher-ups’, as if confiding a secret.

  It was not clear if this was all cockamamie bullshit or if there was some truth to what he was saying. He sounded excited knowing that a person wanted by the FBI was in our hospital. He winked at me when he was writing those letters with his fingers. He appeared to be in a state of mysterious thrill.

  ‘I’ll do my job as a doctor. Moreover, I don’t think Kuki has any serious illness. Let us see,’ I slipped away from Powell and his questions. For a moment I was not sure if I was practicing medicine.

  I went to Kuki’s room to talk to him. Kuki was busy, continuously texting on his phone. The police officer who had brought him said with unconcealed petulance, ‘Doc, it looks like he is sending messages to all his friends. And our legal system will not allow us to seize his phone either! I am trying to get hold of my chief. No success there. When asked to stop texting, his excuse is that he is texting all his family members to inform them that he is in the hospital. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if our criminals have more rights than us.’

  I asked him, ‘What’s happening, Kuki?’

  ‘My chest hurts, doc.’ He did not even try to look at me. He continued furiously texting on his new Samsung phone. I was surprised at his texting speed.

  I was not in the least convinced about Kuki’s complaints much less its seriousness. Arrested criminals locked up in jail need a pretext to come to the hospital. A complaint such as chest pain usually warrants an ECG, blood test and other sundry tests. This can easily keep them away from jail for at least about three hours. Till I certify that they are healthy, the arresting police officers cannot take them back to jail. And in his case, they have tased him too, which adds an additional layer of entitlement. The police, therefore, were more careful. They were in no hurry to take him back to jail. The police officer pulled a chair and sat next to him.

  I looked at Kuki and asked him, ‘Kuki, how long have you had this chest pain?’

  Kuki did not change his stare, ‘Since these bastards tased me. The folks from Amnesty International say tasing is torture. I’ll sue your ass till your last penny.’ He looked up at the police officer.

  I told him, ‘Kuki you should not speak like that. They are doing their job. I heard that there was marijuana in your car?’

  ‘Doc, they found two plants; for my own use. No big deal.’

  I looked at the police officer. The officer gestured to me to step outside with him. Once we were out of the room, he told me, ‘Doc, I’m not officially supposed to disclose all these to you. Yes, we did find only two plants; but each one was like a small Christmas tree. I wonder where he grows them. Why don’t you okay him and release him? I’ll take it from there.’

  This police officer seemed to be ignorant of the plans of Amoka’s police chief to banish Kuki to Minneapolis. Their way of working clearly showed that the left hand does not know what the right hand is up to. It made me clueless about what to do next.

  I told the police officer, ‘You stay here. I’ll go in and talk to Kuki,’ and went inside.

  Kuki was still busy messaging. ‘Kuki, if this messaging is that important to you I’ll come and see you later. I have other work to do.’

  ‘Just a minute, doc.’ He pressed the send button one last time and switched off the phone.

  ‘Ok. Where exactly is your chest hurting?’

  ‘I have angina, doc. It starts in the left side of my chest and goes to the left side of my neck, left shoulder, and arm. It gets worse with exertion and becomes severe if I walk for some time. I also get shortness of breath. I can feel the heart thumping loudly. I start sweating a lot. I have both high blood pressure and diabetes.’ It sounded like he was reading the lines from a medical textbook—as if he had memorized all the symptoms of the disease and blurted them out.

  We were both aware that everything he said was a lie. Yet, this was a game between us. Kuki knew the right words to say to buy him an admission to the hospital. I knew exactly how to deal with people like Kuki. I looked at him and smiled.

  He did not smile back. ‘Doc, don’t you laugh. You have to do an ECG and do some blood tests. One ECG isn’t enough. Can’t people having a heart attack have a normal ECG? Admit me to the hospital, doc. Check my enzymes. Don’t you guys do that enzyme test several times? If that doesn’t do it, then I need to have that stress test. If I can run on that damn treadmill, then I get to go home, right?

  ‘By then you would have got hold of a lawyer who will have you released from the hospital. Are twenty-four hours enough for your lawyer to do his job?’

  ‘Doc, are you going to admit me to the hospital or not?’

  ‘No. There is nothing wrong with you. I’m going to discharge you. Go with the police directly to the big house.’

  Kuki said immediately, ‘Doc, my pain is getting worse.’

  ‘Oh, is that so? Let’s do one thing. I’ll send you to a cardiologist in Minneapolis right away. If they determine there is nothing wrong with you, they’ll discharge you.’

  Kuki’s expression changed. His face paled with fear. ‘Oh No! You can’t send me to Minneapolis.’ I immediately remembered Powell’s words: ‘The marijuana was just an excuse for his arrest. He was, in fact, arrested for investigating the Sanghaali suicides. Send him to Minneapolis for some medical reason. The higher-ups will take care of him.’

  In fact, the thought of transferring him to another hospital had never occurred to me, but seeing his fear of going to Minneapolis, I couldn’t help thinking that what Powell said may have some truth to it.

  I sat next to him and said, ‘Kuki, let’s do another ECG after an hour. Then once we get your blood report, let’s think about what to do next.’ I entered some orders in the computer and looked at him, ‘Would you like to watch TV?’ He said yes, and I switched on the TV. Channel 12 was airing a program on the Sanghaali suicides. I had not expected Channel 12 to come on air when I switched on the TV. It was weird to both of us. I stood there watching without switching off the TV. Kuki did not speak at all. He sat there watching the program wide-eyed without batting an eyelid.

  After about five minutes, I could not keep quiet anymore. ‘Kuki, what is your opinion on all these incidents at Amoka, Minneapolis and all of Minnesota?’

  Kuki did not speak.

  Sometimes, in my profession, the treatment of a patient goes beyond the conventional pills and shots approach. There is a popular saying with a ring of truth to it that some light banter can cure half the disease. In fact, even in places like the emergency department where we are supposed to ‘treat and street’ the patients, physicians ‘small talk’ them out of their ailment. For instance, I throw in a comment like, ‘The weather in this town sucks’ to a patient who has come in for flu in the middle of winter. Or I say ‘Sometimes this damn black ice can be tough to deal with’ to a patient who has broken his leg after rolling his car into a ditch. I listen with practiced patience, dripping love story of a patient with gonorrhea, or a lecture on economy by an alcoholic stockbroker. These conversations veer around the relevant and the irrelevant topics of both the patient and the disease. I indulge in these conversations motivated by my imagination that my words can be enablers for their cure.

  ‘Isn’t the act of suicide considered haram in Islam?’ I asked not knowing why I did so. That was only an attempt to keep the conversation going.

  Kuki glared at me for a minute. I was a lit
tle terrified and looked towards the closed door. The thought of the police officer outside comforted me.

  ‘Doc, are you a Muslim?’ He looked at me with his sharp eyes. Kuki had a strongly built imposing physique.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yet you know that suicides are haram in Islam?’

  I did not speak.

  ‘Doc, can we have a chat? You got no patients, right? Who the fuck comes to this hospital anyway?’

  I looked at his face passively.

  ‘Sorry doc, scratch that. Do you have any idea why we Sanghaalis came to America, to Minnesota? Any idea how we live?’

  ‘There is a civil war in your country and many of you have come here as refugees. Right?’

  ‘Yes, doc. There is a war, alright. Who the hell are we fighting? I was very young when I came to Minnesota. I have no idea how my mom and dad look like. They used to write letters sometimes. I am from a small village near Dahir-Bar. It was a hellhole, doc. Bullets whizzing through our windows from who knows where, bombs from above—we were right in the middle of this war. For some reason everything stopped one day. No bullets, No bombs. People started to get out of Sanghaala. Some came to America. Some went to Germany, England and France. But my folks decided to stay back. I came to Amoka with my uncle. I went to school here. I worked here, right in this fucking hospital. Then as you are aware, I served in the military. I went to Afghanistan, doc—Afghanistan, when all these little white boys stayed here all cozied up with their families. I didn’t stay there long. When I came back, my uncle told me that he hadn’t heard from my parents. I will tell you one thing, doc, when shit hits the fan, our people know how to get out and live out in the desert. I assumed that something like that has happened; but when I didn’t hear from them for one year, I decided to go there and check them out.

  ‘I don’t know how much you know about Sanghaala. There is no government there. Everyone carries an AK-47. There are some folks whom America calls Warlords. When you give guns to some gangbanger, how hard is it for him to become the lord, doc? Only god knows where the hell they get these guns from. They always blew up food trucks and planes of America, the United Nations, the Red Cross and what not. They would bring down planes carrying food to our hungry people. They would attack trucks and steal all food packets, milk powder bags and drinking water. These motherfuckers kept my people hungry and terrified. America started bombing them and called it the war on terror. There were bombs everywhere, dropped randomly from the sky. Cities and towns were gone, poof, just like that. The bomb doesn’t know who you are. It kills you no matter. You could be a killer or you could be a baby. Yes sir! You could be an imam or a hooker. Everybody was gone. Those who lived got a free ticket and a visa to America, Italy or England as refugees. They were told that they can start new lives. Those who were left behind started their own gangs. When “war on terror” killed one gang, another looting gang in the next street called themselves terrorists. They name themselves, Al Tewagi. They are no terrorists. Bunch of gangbangers, I would say.’

  I couldn’t help but smile at Kuki’s hypothesis of how Al Tewagi, the notorious terror organization of Sanghaala was born. But his argument had some meat in it. ‘Kuki, if refugees are brought here and given jobs, isn’t that better than being in the middle of a war in your country?’

  ‘That’s how it looks for you, sir. Look at our people. They don’t know English, they got no skills. Do you know where they work? Have you seen the jobs they do? They work in paper mills, on chicken farms, at fucking McDonalds, doc; almost half the janitors in the Minneapolis airport are from Sanghaala.’

  According to his logic, America starts internal strife and civil war in Sanghaala, gets the survivors here on a visa and puts them on menial jobs like slaves for its own benefit.

  ‘Kuki, you are not making any sense at all. Think about the difference between how it would have been there and how it is here. Your people get green cards more easily than any of us. Think about your next generation. Do they have a better future here or in Sanghaala?’

  ‘Agreed. Yay to us, considering what kind of a shithole Sanghaala is now. But do you know why this happened? Let me tell you another story. You seem to be in the mood today. As I told you earlier, I had visited my town in Sanghaala, a few days after I came back from Afghanistan. When I went there, I noticed that my town, my house, my father, and my mother were all gone. Fucking rubbles, sir. Everything was wiped out clean by bombs and grenades. In that garbage, I found Pepsi bottles and “Made in America” grenades, doc. They said that was the work of a gang in Dahir Bar. How the fuck could a gang get a grenade? Now, nobody knew who the enemy was and who the friend was. The people who were fighting America were doing that using grenades made in America. If they used them, it was terror, if America used them it was war. Nobody knew if America was helping us. Doc, let me tell you, when I was still in the country, the war started and it was hell again. I’m an American citizen, right? When I went to the American Embassy for protection, they opened gunfire on me. I was in full military uniform. But the motherfuckers at the embassy didn’t let me in. I escaped to Kenya in a small coracle. The embassy there also did not let me in. They gave an excuse that Sanghaalis tried to sneak in by wearing a military uniform. I was shocked. I had no idea who I should I be angry with. My entire town was destroyed, and no one knew who did this. I worked for the American military but when I tried to seek help, our embassies tried to kill me. Imagine if I had died, I would just be another number. May be not even that.’

  ‘Kuki, I agree that you have been wronged. But then so are many others. However, what is the relationship between that and the events in Amoka?’

  ‘There is a relationship, doc.’

  I looked at him.

  ‘Doc, are you a vegetarian?’

  ‘Kuki, what has that got to do with what we are discussing here?’

  It seemed this way of going around the topic is the characteristic of these Sanghaalis. I was reminded of Mohammad Mohammad who also had a story for everything.

  ‘Are you or are you not?’ He wanted an answer.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Do you get your Indian spices in Amoka?’

  ‘No, I get them delivered’

  ‘How does it make you feel if the government tried to force you to eat a hamburger every day?’

  ‘The government cannot do any such thing.’

  ‘You have come here on a visa, so it should not be a problem. Our people are here as fucking refugees, can they force us to live in a certain way?’

  ‘Who is doing that now, Kuki?’

  ‘If we are brought to this country and are made to feel grateful for everything America did for us, or if such conditions are created back in Sanghaala which would make it impossible for us to go back, could they force us to live in a certain way?’

  ‘How can that happen? It is our fundamental right to lead our life the way we want.’

  ‘Hah, is it your right or does your religion tell you to do that?’

  ‘My religion?’

  ‘Yes, doc. Like, does your religion ask you to be a vegetarian?’

  ‘I do not know anything about that, but I have been a vegetarian since childhood and I’m one to this day.’

  ‘That’s fine, doc. If eating a fucking hamburger is considered haram in your religion, isn’t it easy to refuse to eat it by saying your religion has forbidden it? No one can force you. Not even the government.’

  I found it hard to follow Kuki and where he was going with his reasoning. I just said, ‘Possibly Kuki.’

  ‘Doc, if we follow our beliefs even in little things like what we eat or what we drink, there is nothing wrong with expecting our children to be born in a certain way. And especially if that is what our religion says.’

  ‘What is that supposed to mean? Is it wrong if children are born by Cesarean sections?’

  ‘What if it is beyond fucking wrong? What if it is haram?’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning, if the
se women are unable to deliver babies normally and they have to get their tummies cut to deliver their babies, it could mean haram to them. Isn’t it possible that many religious minded women may have thought of choosing death over doing any such thing?’

  ‘Are they thinking like that?’

  ‘I don’t know, doc. I was only saying that if you are a believer, you would know if it isn’t worth dying for, it isn’t worth living.’

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was scared for a moment. Is this a religious war of clashing faiths?

  Kuki continued, ‘If more and more Sanghaalis are born here, who would suffer more? Sanghaalis or Americans?’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘When we were growing up in Sanghaala, it was common for a family to have ten to fifteen children, doc. So, if our Sanghaalis here in America wish to have many children, then that cannot be wrong according to our faith. Right doc?’

  ‘If women go on killing themselves, how can you have more children, Kuki?’

  ‘To keep a mother who can have ten kids alive, mothers who can only bear two kids must make some sacrifices, doc.’

  ‘Do you also believe that if women deliver by Cesarean sections, they cannot have ten kids?’

  ‘Can you or your friends guarantee that they can?’

  I could not continue this conversation any longer. Is Kuki trying to bullshit his way into generating a public outcry if Fadhuma and Rukhiya’s deaths are given this spin, whatever may have been the actual reason behind their deaths? If these women really wanted the media’s attention why would they die such anonymous deaths?

  Why in Amoka of all places? There are larger cities like New York and Chicago. They would get way more publicity there. Or, just because they are dying in Amoka and no Sanghaali is talking to the media, is there any dearth of publicity?

  Kuki’s blood results were back. As I had anticipated, everything looked normal. Kuki hadn’t had a heart attack.

  I asked Kuki, ‘In all of these events, what is your role?’

  Kuki looked at me and laughed, ‘Doc, our women are good mothers. All they do is get pregnant and raise kids. Don’t try to teach them how to deliver their own babies. If you say that they do not know how to make babies and pop them out, they can even give their lives to prove you wrong. Nobody knows if there is such a thing as religion. Nobody knows if there isn’t. But they think you are directly challenging their motherhood.’