Bitter Paradise

by Ross Pennie

  “They might if you play your super-specialist doctor card and put the fear of God into them. Tell them if they’re not completely truthful with you, that woman is going to stay on a breathing machine for the rest of her life. And the blubbering sister is going to be next. And their kids, if they have any.”

  “Are you serious, Szabo?”

  “Not quite. But it is time we played a bit of hardball, Hamish. The polite, light-touch approach hasn’t got us anywhere. One way or another, we have to find where that goddamned Parvo-W is coming from.”

  Chapter 37

  Shortly after nine o’clock on Wednesday morning, the receptionist buzzed Hosam into the intensive care unit at CUMC. He’d slept poorly last night, but that no longer mattered. Now his heart swelled with the familiar thrill of being part of a medical community. He was not a surgeon here, of course, but yesterday they had awarded him official status as the Arabic interpreter for both Jamila and Mo. He was cautioned to share medical information only with bona fide family members and warned that the patients’ charts were strictly off limits. The charge nurse suggested that if his efforts proved satisfactory, the hospital would call on him in future to interpret for other families. As a volunteer, he knew there would be no money in the work, but that did not matter. He would be part of the hospital team and treated to a fly-on-the-wall view of how medicine was practised in Canada among the sickest of the sick.

  He peeked first into Jamila’s room. She was still connected to the ventilator and sedated to the point of unconsciousness. As no one was visiting her, there was no reason for him to linger. He headed toward Mo’s room where a few paces short of the open door he heard a man and a woman arguing in Arabic. He could not catch everything they were saying, but it sounded like the woman was offering an ultimatum rather than sympathy and encouragement.

  The last words Hosam heard the woman say were “end up like that stupid barber, you will keep your mouth shut.”

  “Hey, it’s my doc from Aleppo,” Mo said when he spotted Hosam standing at the door. Mo’s gaze darted nervously around the room. “Come in. Saramin was just leaving.”

  Saramin threw Mo a dirty look then eyed Hosam up and down as if expecting to find something she could criticize.

  “The nurse wants to change my dressings,” Mo said. “I told her she had to wait till you got here.”

  Hosam gave Saramin a brief nod then stepped into the room. He gestured to Mo’s bandages. “Have you . . . um, seen your fingers yet?”

  “Shit, no.” Mo’s face was drawn, and whoever had shaved him this morning had done a poor job of it. They had probably used an electric razor with a dull cutter head and missed half his whiskers as a result.

  Saramin drew close and leaned into Hosam’s ear. “The Caliph has another job for you. Be prepared for tomorrow night.”

  He looked around Mo’s room. Its walls were mostly windows and glass panels on three sides. Doctors and nurses were striding by in a never-ending stream. This was a strikingly public place that felt secure.

  “Sorry,” he said, surprising himself with his boldness, “the barbershop will be reopening tomorrow. After ten hours on my feet, I will be exhausted. Too tired for a night job. I would not perform well for you.”

  “Listen to you,” Saramin said, her voice full of contempt. “You seem to think you have a choice.”

  “As I said, not tomorrow night.” He had no idea how long he would be able to fend off the Caliph’s demands. But this was a start, and it felt good.

  Saramin scowled and threw back her hair. She was on the point of jabbing his chest with her index finger when they both sensed movement at the doorway.

  She lowered her hand and pretended to look for something in her handbag.

  “Hello, nurse,” Mo said. “This my doctor.”

  Hosam touched his palm to his chest and told the nurse, “I am not his doctor. I am his interpreter.”

  The nurse — blond, freckled, and trim — consulted a folded piece of paper from her pocket. “Mr. Khousa?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Mo was insistent that you be here when I unwrapped his dressings for the first time.”

  “He worries about his fingers,” Hosam told her. He lowered his voice and added, “He is terrified he might not be having any left.”

  The nurse smiled awkwardly and turned to a side table on wheels where a dressing tray was waiting for her.

  “Time for me to split,” Saramin said in English. “I’m no good with blood.” She gave Hosam a piercing, cold-hearted look the nurse could not see, then said in Arabic, “The Caliph will be in touch. Like I said . . . be prepared.”

  After readying everything on her tray and donning a pair of sterile gloves, the nurse wheeled her table next to Mo’s bed and motioned for him to put both of his hands on a sterile drape. She forced a nervous smile and asked Mo which hand he would like her to start with. Hosam translated the question and Mo’s reluctant answer: the left.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, Mo winced several times and swore loudly in Arabic as the nurse gradually removed layer upon layer of gauze from his left hand. When she stripped the final piece of Vaseline-impregnated netting away and revealed the flesh beneath it, Mo’s face turned white and his eyelids fluttered. Hosam gripped the poor fellow’s shoulders to steady him. If the guy had been standing, he would have fainted.

  Despite himself, Hosam swallowed hard. What remained of Mo’s left hand was a blistered thumb and the sutured stumps of the four other digits. His fingers had vanished beyond their second knuckles.

  Embarrassed by the tears brimming in his eyes, Mo bit his lower lip and looked away.

  The nurse remained silent as she continued her task. Hosam said nothing. The hand was speaking for itself. With practice, Hosam figured, the hand could be reasonably useful. But there was no way that Mo could see that now. All he could see was the devastation left by the high-voltage spark that had run up that axe handle.

  The nurse soaked Mo’s hand in a basin of sterile saline and wiped away as many crusts of dried blood and debris as Mo could tolerate. Even the lightest touch against his wounds caused him to wince and swear. The nurse offered him a dose of intravenous morphine, but he refused it. She patted the wounds dry, spread on a thick layer of white ointment, and applied a new set of bandages.

  Before the nurse started on the right hand, Hosam convinced Mo to accept a shot of morphine. The nurse’s generous dose slowed his heart rate on the cardiac monitor but did nothing for the terror in his eyes. Hosam eased into position beside Mo on the bed and put his arm around his shoulders. He gripped Mo with the same intensity he had held Farah and Omar during those horrifying bombing raids on Aleppo. It was strange to think that in his arms was the same hard-hearted thug who had seemed on the point of shooting him through the head two nights ago.

  By the time the nurse removed the last of the gauze from Mo’s right hand, it was clear that the thing — and that is was it was, a thing — would never be much use. The thumb and fingers were missing right down to the palms. The hand was nothing more than a club.

  Mo’s body tightened beneath Hosam’s grip. His heart rate shot up on the monitor. His face glowed blood red as a torrent of curses stormed from his mouth.

  The nurse jumped back in fear and surprise, nearly knocking her bowl of saline to the floor.

  Mo’s torrent ended as abruptly as it had started, and the three of them froze in position as if hoping that what lay before them was no more than a bad dream.

  Hosam broke the silence. “It is okay, nurse. Please to not worry. He is not being angry at you.”

  When the nurse’s posture made it clear she was reluctant to finish her task without a security guard by her side, Hosam added, “One must admit his hand does look rather bleak.”

  She lifted her eyebrows and took several deep breaths. Examining her own gloved hands, she cautiously
approached her work table once again. “You’re right,” she said softly. “Poor guy. This is nasty.”

  The nurse injected a second dose of morphine into Mo’s IV then resumed her task.

  Perhaps it was the morphine, but as the nurse redid the bandage, layer by layer, Mo became surprisingly chatty.

  “If you’re smart, Doc,” he said, speaking in Arabic, “you’ll keep clear of the Caliph.”

  Hosam wondered how that would be possible. He may have put Saramin off for a few days, but like Satan, the Caliph would come calling sooner or later.

  “Have you ever met him?” Hosam asked, his arm still tight around Mo’s shoulders and sensing every time the fellow winced.

  “The Caliph?” Mo said. “Nobody meets him. Not even his enforcers. We only meet Saramin.”

  Hosam pictured a troop of rough guys like Leo and Ghazwan. And, of course, Mo himself.

  “Some guys don’t last too long,” Mo continued. “Like Ghazwan. He went too far at the barbershop. And . . . well . . . now the idiot’s at the bottom of the friggin’ lake.”

  Hosam’s stomach tightened as Mo confirmed his fears. “Saramin told you that?”

  “A warning. To remember to keep my friggin’ mouth shut.”

  Hosam looked at Mo’s newly bandaged hands. “Is the Caliph going to look after you now that . . . ?”

  “Guess again, Doc.”

  Ya Rab, thought Hosam, what was going to become of Mo? The guy’s English was rudimentary at best. He had been living in the shadows and at the mercy of the Caliph. Probably barely eking out a living. And now, all he had was half of one hand. What had he been doing for a living in Syria before the war turned him into a mercenary? Had he ever learned to read and write Arabic? Yes, he was a thug. But every thug had once been his mother’s little boy.

  “What is her story?” Hosam asked.

  “Saramin’s? Shit, who knows? The word is she ran off with a Canadian guy who was visiting her island down south.”

  “Saint Lucia?”

  “Could be. Anyway, the husband brought her here then turned jihadist and went to Syria to fight for al-Nusra. He didn’t last long. Got himself killed after a few weeks. When it was clear he wasn’t coming home, she wanted revenge and fell in with the Caliph.”

  “Because he was ex-al-Nusra? I heard he fought with them for a few years then landed here as a refugee.”

  “He’s no friggin’ refugee. He snuck in by some back door.”

  “And now the two of them have joined forces with the Italians . . . the Scarpellinos?”

  Mo made a face but did not argue. “You can’t make a friggin’ living stealing copper from churches and baseball diamonds. The big money is in racketeering and the odd mob hit.”

  Hosam looked around to make sure no one was in earshot.

  Mo raised his arms, stared at his bandaged hands for a long moment, then turned and heaved huge sobs into Hosam’s shoulder, soaking his shirt.

  Half an hour later, after another dose of morphine, and long periods of awkward silence, Mo fell asleep. Hosam took his leave.

  As he was passing the nursing station on the way out of the ICU, he noticed a whiteboard listing the names of the patients admitted to the unit. Vent was written in brackets after Blessica’s name, presumably because she was on a mechanical ventilator. He examined the list for the names of potential Arabic-speaking patients for whom he might act as interpreter. By the time he reached the bottom of the list, he felt physically ill. He grabbed for the counter bordering the station, certain he was going to pass out.

  The receptionist saw him wobbling and rushed to his side. She took hold of his arm and handed him a face cloth. “Yes,” she said, “some of these cases are heartbreaking. Especially these younger people with polio.” She gestured toward the other side of the counter and said, “Come with me and sit down for a few minutes.”

  “No, no, miss. I am fine.”

  “But it’s my job to keep an eye on you, sir.”

  Oh my God. What does she know? “Let me assure you, miss, there is nothing wrong with me.”

  “Don’t feel embarrassed. This often happens when our interpreters come here for the first time. They get quickly involved with the patients’ lives and take everything to heart.” Her grip on his arm was surprisingly strong for a young woman. “And a lot of what happens in this unit can be hard to stomach.”

  Alhamdulillah! She has no idea. “Whatever you think is being best,” Hosam told her meekly and allowed her to lead him to the chair. He was glad of the face cloth and wiped the ocean of sweat from his forehead.

  From the chair, he had a clear view of the whiteboard. In addition to Jamila’s name — and Mo’s — there were four names on the list that he recognized. And each had the word vent written after it.

  They were not common names. There was no reason for him to recognize them except . . .

  While no one was looking, he eased Jamila’s phone from his pocket and snapped a quick shot of the board. He would show it to Leila, but like Mo’s devastated hands, the names spoke for themselves. And what they were saying filled him with horror.

  Chapter 38

  Zol pulled the minivan into a vacant parking spot on Sydenham Street and killed the ignition. He grabbed the packet from the drugstore and struggled to cut through the tough plastic packaging with his nail-clipper keychain. Finally, he removed the bottle and gave the lotion a sniff. As soon as the smell of DEET hit his nose, “Hakuna Matata” from the Lion King soundtrack boomed in his head. The band and singers kept their lively number going until he’d rubbed a generous amount of lotion over on his exposed skin and put the bottle in his briefcase.

  It felt strange applying insect repellent this early in the spring. The mornings and evenings were still cool, and he hadn’t seen a mosquito for months. The bug season didn’t usually start until later in May. As he stepped out of his vehicle, he checked his watch: it was coming up to nine fifty.

  He was soon standing in front of Blossoms by Tiffany. The lights were on, but when he tried the door handle, he found it was locked. The opening hours posted on the window said the place opened at ten. He rapped firmly and peered inside. He gave a friendly wave when the woman behind the front counter looked up from her paperwork. Instead of waving back, she shook her head, pointed to her watch, and went back to her papers. He pulled his Ontario Public Health photo ID card from his wallet, held it up, and rapped once more. She looked up again, made a face to let him know she would indulge him but was moderately annoyed, and came to the door. She didn’t open it. He pointed to the ID card and raised his eyebrows. He smiled and lifted his palms to let her know he was looking for a favour, not a confrontation.

  The woman pulled the door partway open and stood in the entrance. She had long, dark, wavy hair tied back in a ponytail, an arching nose, and a slim physique. Zol thought she was probably about Tasha’s age. Early thirties at most. She took his ID and studied it. “Is this some sort of inspection? If it is, I’ve never heard of such a thing. My business license —”

  Zol held out his hand, quickly introduced himself, and said, “This isn’t an inspection, ma’am. I’m hoping Ms. Fonseca can help us with an investigation we’re carrying out at the Health Unit.”

  “I’m Tiffany Fonseca,” she said sharply and handed him back his card. “What kind of investigation? I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Feeling ridiculous standing on the sidewalk like a rebuffed Jehovah’s Witness, Zol said, “May I come in and explain it to you?”

  “Look, I’m extremely busy. I’ve had a heck of a time arranging childcare and there’s a ton of things I need to get done before I open the shop.”

  Why, he wondered, was everyone reluctant to help with this investigation? The woman had given him no choice but to drop the bombshell in her lap. “We’re afraid something in your flowers may be playing a role in the polio outbreak.�
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  “Oh my God. You can’t be serious. I know my nanny’s in ICU, but she couldn’t have gotten sick because of my —”

  “Ms. Fonseca, if you let me come in, I can describe the situation to you before your customers start arriving. I don’t think you want them hearing what we’re saying and coming to conclusions of their own.”

  Her face had turned from annoyed to anxious. “Well . . . okay, I guess,” she said and stepped aside to let him in.

  She locked the door and returned to her stool behind the counter. “I suppose you’re here with news about Blessica? My life is hell without her. How soon will she be up and about?”

  “I’m sorry, I have nothing to tell you about Ms. Velasquez’s condition. That needs to come from her doctors at Caledonian Medical Centre. I’m sure they would be happy —”

  “So . . . why are you here? What can my flowers possibly have to do with Blessica’s illness? I mean —”

  “Why don’t I start with a few simple questions, Ms. Fonseca? And then together we might draw a clearer picture of how this outbreak came about.”

  “I don’t know a thing about polio.”

  “But you do know a lot about flowers.”

  Suddenly, he was hit by an intense floral scent. Lily, perhaps, or something more exotic. To fend off what he knew would come next, he pinched his nose and held his breath. It didn’t work. Seconds later, Drake was in his head singing “Passionfruit” at full volume. It was a terrific number, another one of his favourites and at the top of the charts, but the timing was terrible. This woman, already irritated by his unexpected presence, was going to think he was having some sort of fit unworthy of the region’s medical officer of health.

  He fumbled in his pocket for a Kleenex and made a show of blowing his nose.

  “Allergic to flowers, are you, Doctor?”