by Bina Shah
My father accepted the official version of events. I was sure it wasn’t true. She would never leave me like that. They probably knew she’d refuse to take another husband and quietly eliminated her, stole her life from us as if she were their property. She had no more moves left, so they checkmated her, and left us to live with it forever.
I often relive the moment when I found my mother in the bed, face down, clad in one of her afternoon robes, a flowing blue kaftan slit high up the legs to afford her freedom of movement. I wait to see her head move, her legs shift, the usual signs of her waking up.
I wait and wait and wait.
Then I touch her hand, shocked at how cold it is, and I begin to scream.
An alarmed neighbor calls the emergency line. When the ambulance arrives, the paramedics cannot pry me away from her body. I’m clinging to her, begging her to wake up. “I’m sorry, Mamma, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! Please wake up now.”
I lay in bed for countless nights after she died, half terrified, half hoping that I would see her in my dreams; she might be laughing and happy in them. Sometimes I was afraid to fall asleep and sometimes I couldn’t fall asleep because I believed that she’d killed herself because of me.
Hissing, a soft beeping, a low hum from deep somewhere—inside me or outside?
Is it morning already? I should get up, they’ll be waiting for me.
Hearing muffled sounds, like being underwater. Rising, rising, the surface not far above my head … Sharper now. That’s a door opening. Closing again. Opening. But why? … doors in the Panah never make any noise.
My mouth is dry. My throat hurts—
I’m cold, so cold. Shivering—
A tube snaking out of my nose, smelling strangely anti-septic, delivering the purest air I’ve ever breathed, a cool breeze whistling into my lungs.
I move my hands instinctively to pull out the intruding tube, the prongs scratching at my nostrils. At the same time, darkness starts to lift, brightening to red, then orange, and pink. A sunrise behind my eyelids.
But where—
My eyes snap open. Nausea claws its way out of my stomach. I retch and try to sit up but the muscles of my abdomen won’t tighten, as if everything is disconnected from my very core. Then I notice the throbbing, aching weight all across my belly.
I flop over weakly to the right and retch over the side of the bed. Nothing comes out. I’m clutching at my belly with my hands. There are starbursts of white heat when I twist. I press my forehead into the cold railing at the side of the bed and groan with each stab of pain.
“Wait, wait, wait!”
In an instant an unknown man is at my side, holding a metal pan to my mouth. “Easy, easy. We don’t want you to burst your stitches. Well, they’re not really stitches, we just call them that out of habit, but we still don’t want anything rupturing after we’ve done such a good job of fixing you up.”
I barely hear him. My abdomen still throbs, the sensation that someone’s rummaged inside me. I whimper softly, and he pats my back, his hand calming against my spine.
“I’m sorry, I know it hurts. I can give you more medication for the pain. And the nausea. It’s a common effect of the anesthesia. Luckily the gels we use to knit your skin together after …”
I raise my neck to try and look down at my stomach, but the smallest movement draws a gasp from somewhere shallow in my chest. At once his hand is behind my head, cradling it until I sink back down on the pillow.
His hands on my head and back are gentle and firm, holding me where I need support the most.
“Where am I?” I whisper.
He falls silent, moving away so I can get a good look at him. I stare at him, trying to recognize this tall, thin man with blond hair and blue eyes. I’ve never seen him before, but he seems more familiar with my body than I am right now.
I glance around uncomprehendingly at the darkened room, with only a glowing light on in the corner. The large displays that run all along the wall to my left are switched off. Only a small machine beeps softly from an alcove. I look up at the ceiling and see small twinkling lights, arranged in tiny constellations.
For a moment, I think I might already be dead.
“You’re in hospital,Mrs. Faro,” he says and looks perturbed when I give him another blank stare. “That is your name, isn’t it? Mrs. Faro—that’s what it says on your records.”
My records? I don’t have any records. I don’t exist, officially speaking. “Am I still in Green City?”
His sudden smile breaks the tired shell of his face, giving way to a young boy’s friendly gaze. “Yes, you are. You’re in Shifana Hospital, the best in Green City. And I’m Dr. Asfour …” He pauses. I realize: he’s in complete control of me. For all I know, he could be the reason why I’m lying in this hospital bed, wires running from my fingers like snakes, this flower of pain growing from my stomach.
A small chirp emits from the monitor. I flick my eyes to the display and see that the numbers on it are rising, matching the drumbeat of my pulse beating faster in my ears.
The man glances over at the machine, then at me. “I’m Julien,” he whispers. “I’m a doctor here. You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I nod at him, as if there could be nothing more logical than for me to wake up in a hospital, my insides aching. I open my mouth to tell him that my name isn’t Mrs. Faro, it’s Sabine, but the pain momentarily leaves me mute.
“Why am I here?” My voice scratches against my throat. “What happened to me?”
“Do you mind if I sit down?” Julien pulls up the chair next to the bed and perches on its edge. He puts his head to one side, like a bird, his blue eyes growing brighter and his gaze more pointed as he allows me to watch him.
My eyes are clearer now; I can see the faint blond stubble on his jaw, the slight bags under his eyes. He’s tall, almost spindly, with elongated wrists and a pronounced Adam’s apple at his throat. His long legs stick out from beneath his doctor’s coat. Life hasn’t yet etched its scars on his face; his forehead is smooth and unwrinkled.
“You’re … too young to … be a doctor,” I say, as scornfully as I can. But my words come out a pathetic mewl. The tube in my nose makes it hard to speak clearly.
He laughs, a short, explosive sound, as if he’s been sucker-punched. At the same time, his skin turns a shade of scarlet I’ve never seen before. “That’s a great way of saying thank you.”
Thank you for what? “It’s true. You look younger than … than me.”
“I’m twenty-six.” His color stays high and bright.
I frown. “It’s still … not right.” The words aren’t coming easily to me. If only I can just lay my head down on the pillow and go back to sleep. Just drift away, back to the dark water from which I’ve emerged, where there’s no pain, no nausea, no strange man talking to me as if he’s my friend.
His expression remains pleasant, relaxed. The blue eyes keep searching me for clues. I avert my eyes. “Tell me why I’m here, before I get sick again.”
He leans back and sighs. The beeps begin to issue faster again from the monitor, and he frowns momentarily, before beginning:
“Someone dropped you at the doors of the hospital early this morning. You were unconscious and in shock. We had to take you to surgery immediately.”
“I had an … operation?” That explains all the pain, and his earlier talk of anesthesia and nausea.
“We found that you had suffered an ectopic pregnancy, which had ruptured in your left fallopian tube. Do you know how long you were pregnant?”
Pregnant? The word ricochets in my head, bringing out beads of sweat on my forehead and under my arms. The small machine begins to beep faster still.
My hands go instinctively to my stomach, but my fingers only find gauze, not the reassuring feel of my own flesh. “That’s impossible
! I don’t understand. What are you telling me?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Faro …” He reaches out and holds my wrists away from my body. “Don’t, Mrs. … Please. You’ll hurt yourself. I don’t want you to feel worse than you already do.”
I struggle, resisting his hands for a moment, then go limp in his grip.
“Didn’t you know?” he says, gently. His eyes widen with dismay when he sees my face crumple.
Mortified, I begin to weep. He releases my wrists and sits forward on his seat, watching me cry. He doesn’t move or make a sound.
The racking sobs hurt my stomach too much, so I push them under the surface again. No words, no thoughts, just silent despair. How could I possibly be pregnant?
The small lights shine overhead, some switching on, others off, changing the constellation above our heads. The hospital around us continues to hum, although we seemed to be shielded from the sounds of activity outside the door of this room.
He waits. He’s patient. Perhaps ten minutes pass until I let out a deep sigh. He interprets it correctly: I’ve prevailed over my private misery, for the moment.
“I can see what a shock all of this is for you. I’m sorry.”
I’m beginning to notice some of the things that they—he—has done to me. I don’t understand what’s really happened, but the feeling of a wound in my lower stomach, the pulse monitor attached to my finger, and the soreness in my throat mean he can’t be lying.
“So, Mrs. Faro. Let me explain what happened to you. If you don’t understand something, please just ask me.”
Someone else has baptized me with a fake name, Faro. I haven’t chosen to come to this hospital, to have things cut out of me. Was I really pregnant? It might all be a lie, designed to get me to confess who I really am, and where I’ve come from. There’s a name tag around his neck that confirms Dr. Julien Asfour is a member of staff at Shifana.
I know I’m not thinking straight, but in a moment of sullen irritation, I mutter, “Call me Julia.”
He looks down; he knows I’m not telling him my real name.
“All right, Julia. So. An ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilized egg gets stuck somewhere it shouldn’t be. Usually it travels down to the uterus, where it implants itself in the uterine wall.”
I have a vague idea of all the things he’s telling me, from my classes in school. Still, everyone uses devices when talking about medical procedures, giving directions, holding a lecture. This Julien Asfour has no device anywhere on his person. How odd, I think. Am I really in a hospital after all? Or am I dreaming and I’ll wake up in my bed at the Panah now? Maybe I’m dead and have yet to realize it.
Lin’s face flashes across my mind. How will I get in touch with her? How will I tell her what’s happened when I don’t even understand it myself?
The room starts to spin around me. Julien is still talking, oblivious to my state of mind.
“But in your case, the egg implanted in your fallopian tube, and from there, it began to grow bigger. And we think it was there for about five weeks, before it got too big. Then the tube burst. You began to lose blood and you went into shock. I had to operate on you right away. We couldn’t wait to obtain the consent of your Husbands …”
He glances at me, but I stay mute.
“So we had to perform an emergency procedure to remove the embryo and your ruptured fallopian tube. And we gave you blood transfusions. You’re out of danger now.
“The good news is, it was just the left side. Your right tube is unharmed. You can have children in the future … What is it, Mrs.—Julia?” He leans closer to me with new concern. “Are you in pain?”
I shake my head, but my face tells the truth. Julien leans across the few inches between us, and puts his hand on my shoulder. The palm of his hand feels warm to my skin, as if he’s transmitting safety and security, or perhaps friendship, in the only way he knows how. The physical contact, made without demand, merely meant to comfort me, draws fresh tears to my eyes. I turn my head aside and give in to them.
“You’re very tired. You should get some more rest. We can talk more when you’re feeling up to it.”
He’s looking at the monitor now, tapping on the display. I hear a beep, then a fresh wave of drugs enters my system, killing the pain and pushing me backward again.
I’m asleep before he finishes speaking. I close my eyes just as I see the blush spread across his face when he withdraws his hand from my shoulder, and his fingers are wet with my tears.
Reuben
The coordinates of Sabine’s location were buzzing in Reuben’s device, his cup of tea still cooling on the bench in his garden as he drove his car fast into the City. Far safer for him to go than to send someone; in matters of discretion, he trusted only himself. And nobody would question where he went, or why.
It would take him twenty minutes to get to the side of Green City where Joseph lived. Reuben wasn’t worried that his car would show up on the Agency registers at the electronic checkpoints. Reuben could stop traffic anywhere in Green City, shut down any of its elevated roads or underground intersections. He’d never be questioned by an impertinent young man in a uniform, brandishing a weapon that Reuben was most likely responsible for issuing him. The Agency watched everyone, but its higher-ups insisted on complete privacy, autonomy, and impunity for themselves. Their unlimited freedom kept everyone else in line: they needed absolute power to guarantee absolute civic order.
He hoped Lin had obeyed him and gone back to the Panah. She was not one for obedience; yet it was he who obeyed her plea and was making this mad dash to save Sabine from whatever danger she was in.
Oh, Lin. What could he say about Lin that he hadn’t told himself a thousand times before? He couldn’t refuse her. He never could. Since they’d begun their affair, she’d ruled him, and he’d enjoyed it. She conquered his body with a skill or a magic that had taken him prisoner from their very first night together.
Green City survived on hierarchies: the rich over the poor, the strong over the weak. And high above them all, the Leaders, watchful hawks circling over a society in crisis. Reuben wasn’t religious, but sometimes he wondered what force had overseen his meteoric rise to power. Which god ensured that he stay at the top, eluding his enemies, gaining more strength year after year?
Maybe it was the god of war he had to thank. Reuben had always been fascinated by the idea of war. He paid close attention in school to the lessons of how the first leaders of the new Green City took power swiftly, stepping into the vacuum brought about by the chaos of the Final War.
The phrase “Final War” was a misnomer; it referred not to just one conflict but to a series of wars across Asia, from the former Levant all the way to the former subcontinent. From Sham and Iraq to the old Religious territories along the sea to the monarchists in the new Religious territories along the northern coast of Africa: the history texts chronicled the desperate days of mass migration, the dissolution of old boundaries, the bloody unseating of old kings and dictators.
In university, Reuben studied the War carefully, making special note of how the seemingly unshakable structures of power crumbled under multiple heavy forces, both from within and without. These forces came under what the historians called the three waves, knocking the foundations of society down not all at once but over decades of slow collapse.
In Green City, the first wave came from the east. The middle of the twenty-first century saw devastating climate change in South Asia, bringing floods and unprecedented torrential rain for months on end. Mudslides and avalanches in the northern territories damaged so much infrastructure that the locations of certain nuclear facilities became compromised. Militants took hold of the weapons and launched them at each other, destroying much of the subcontinent.
The shock waves juddered both eastward and west, claiming not just lives, but also millions of acres of arable land and drinkable water. The seco
nd wave destabilized the economies of all the countries in the region, shutting down major trade routes that stretched from China to Europe, as if a part of the world was simply amputated from existence.
Every student knew what the third wave was, hearing about it straight from the mouths of their parents and grandparents, when the women of Green City began to die, and Green City started to sink into anarchy. Groups of young men roamed the city’s streets in packs, committing violent crimes—robbery, destruction of private property, assault, and rape. Murder rates climbed. Common custom in the City was to leave one’s front gates wide open, denoting a welcome to anyone who needed shelter. Reuben’s father told him he knew Green City had changed forever when he drove down its streets and beheld one locked gate after another.
Reuben’s father was never invited to join the Agency, or the Perpetuation Bureau, or any of the Leaders, when they declared the Emergency over Green City. The security directives came to him like everyone else; he had to obey the 7 p.m. curfew designed to keep the men off the streets, even though he was never one of the criminals.
Throughout his childhood, watching his father obey notifications and fear the Agency, Reuben grew hyperaware of who was powerful, who was weak, and who was so insignificant that they never mattered to anyone. His father belonged in the second category; Reuben swore to never join any but the first. Not for him the humiliation that his father endured. Reuben decided to never marry, but to concentrate on his upward trajectory into the elite. He had a vision of what his life would look like when he was rich and powerful; he obsessed over its contours and details with a focus that other boys around him gave to their toys and games. When they were playing, he was reading the works of the Leaders and memorizing their famous speeches. When they beat him on the playing field or in exams, he doubled down on his practice or his studies and eventually showed them up. He had the discipline and stamina of an adult, a man’s control over his emotions when he was a boy, and his friends were only children squabbling in the playground.