‘OK?’ He sits down on the edge of the bed. ‘Just take this and go back to sleep.’
‘What is it…’ My voice creaks out, sounding foreign and thick. ‘What…’
‘I don’t know,’ he says with a hesitant glance at the door. He looks back at me anxiously. ‘I couldn’t find anything in the bathroom or the kitchen, and your neighbour gave me these. She said they’d help.’
‘No…’ I can barely get the words through my chattering teeth. ‘What happened to me?’ I whisper, but I know. I can feel my forehead throbbing and burning at the touch of his hand.
‘You have a high fever, Bazi,’ he says fearfully, ‘really high.’ He turns his hand over and moves it down to feel my cheek, then lingers on my neck. ‘Come on, before you fall asleep again.’
His arm supports my back and my head plunges onto his shoulder. He slowly trickles water down my throat. ‘My God, you’re shivering so much,’ he murmurs, holding me against his heart, ‘I’ll get you another blanket.’ He goes to the wardrobe and I watch, trembling, as he opens and shuts the doors. Charlene’s bag which I packed for Hillsdale sits on the floor. At first it seems as though I dreamed all that – the petrol station, the horrible fight, the yelling. I remember being seized by an urge to destroy, to shatter, to crush us with my own bare hands.
He comes back and stands over me. ‘Where do you keep extra blankets?’
‘You came back.’
‘What? Back where?’
‘I heard you.’ My jaw trembles, clenched against the shivering. ‘You left.’
‘I just went down to give Andrew the key.’ He furrows his brow and looks at the floor. ‘Now sleep,’ he commands sternly, and takes his hands off me, ‘we’ll talk about it afterwards.’
I dream that I’m running. I run down Sokolov Street in Tel Aviv, near the basketball courts, past the high school gates, fleeing to the orchards. There’s a boy with me, five or six years old, who’s been hit by a car. I carry him through the trees, crouching under the branches. I can hear him breathing heavily, groaning, and he looks at me with a pale face, flushed and sweaty. He’s going to die in my arms any minute. I wrap him in more and more blankets, bury him under my coat and run. He feels very heavy, banging against my ribs, sobbing from inside me like a baby. I see frightening death notices hanging on the tree trunks – cot death, they say, the police are searching for the kidnappers. The earth is loose, swampy, turning into a steep staircase. I climb further and further up, holding onto iron stumps that protrude from the walls. It’s an unfinished building, with exposed grey concrete, the apartments still bare. I hear myself pant as I climb up. I hear the voice that erupts when I sigh – a metallic, almost mechanical voice echoing between the floors. I lean over the stairwell and see flashlight beams in the dark and silhouettes of policemen. I bend over and the boy plunges down: our child, just a fetus, so tiny and shrivelled, how could I let him fall…
‘Open your mouth.’ It’s Hilmi. My head pounds. ‘Open up.’ His fingers put the pills in my mouth. ‘Wait a sec, stay upright.’
I cannot open my eyes. My head is exploding, tilting up in a daze to the glass he holds to my lips. The comfort of the water, the coolness of the glass on my parched lips, the weight of his fingers on my throbbing forehead. I drink a very small amount, very slowly, helplessly enfolded in his arms. I wake up for a fleeting, gloomy moment before my head sinks back into the pillow.
I dream that the red rose I got tattooed on my shoulder when I was backpacking in Thailand after the army has spread all over my back, neck and arms. I show it to a woman who seems to be in charge of the clinic, a tall black old lady, and she nods gravely and announces over an intercom: ‘Tattoo rash. We must act quickly, before it damages any essential organs.’ I want to ask how they’ll remove it and if there are side effects, but a terrible weariness overcomes me and my tongue feels too heavy to speak. Then the door opens and they lay me on a gurney and wheel me through a tunnel, past the train station under Eighth Avenue. We get to a treatment room that at first looks like a barn, and then like my grandmother’s bathroom, with the same blue tiles, but instead of a bath there’s a stove full of smouldering stones. The air is damp and dark, like in a cave. The old lady covers me with army blankets and animal furs. ‘Warm enough?’ she asks.
There’s someone else there, but I can’t identify him through the clouds of vapour. He pours buckets of water on the coals, and the room fills with more and more white steam. Then I realize: they’re steaming off the tattoos, like dry-cleaning for my skin. Condensation drips from the walls, the mirror over the sink is steamed over. I feel the heat seep into my body and my eyes are weak. I can just about make out the old lady, who is now sweeping the floor and talking on the phone. ‘I think it’s starting to work,’ she whispers. Then I fade away, turning into a giant puddle of murky light in the quiet ripples of steam.
At night my fever spikes again. For a long time I squirm in a thirsty, feverish state, making sticky strangling sounds. My shirt, my hair, the pillow, everything is damp. I listen to my breath going in and out, whispering in the dark. I hear his footsteps in the hallway and sense his whispering shadow above me. ‘I’m turning the light on.’
I throw my arm over my face protectively, like in a horror film. But the piercing light invades even through the screen of my fingers. It’s 3.20 a.m. He makes me drink lukewarm water and says I must eat before I take any more medicine. He’s made me a soft-boiled egg. ‘It’s good, it’ll give you some strength.’ He brings the dish over from the dresser.
I grimace at the repulsive smell. Pieces of dark bread float in thick, yellowish-white liquid. The teaspoon keeps slipping through my fingers. I grumble, my shoulders shake, and I let him feed me. He rounds his lips and blows, but it’s still too hot. He tries again, and I push the dish away in disgust. I feel angry at his devotion, at his efforts, and disgruntled by my needing him. Tears come to my throat and they taste like egg blended with the nauseating flavour of illness. He looks at me and asks whether I want something else: ‘Maybe oatmeal?’ I am overcome with a wave of despair. Huge, hot tears stream out and roll down to my neck. ‘Mum,’ I wail bitterly into the pillow, ‘I want my mum.’
But Hilmi doesn’t give in. Patiently, he stays at my side. His eyes, which gazed at me before with pity and sympathy, watch gravely now, and approvingly, as the teaspoon fishes out pieces of egg-soaked bread from the dish.
‘Good.’ He licks his thumb and dabs at my chin. ‘Good girl.’
How very sorry I feel. How very remorseful and ashamed, embarrassed by the way he pulls back when my stomach suddenly surges and a chilling spasm, both draining and piercing, makes me vomit everything up in one sour wave.
Temperature of 104, vomiting and dizziness, muscle aches all over my body. In less than twenty-four hours the list also includes swollen tonsils, a granular red rash on my neck, spots on my chest, and yellow eyes. Dr Goan, the private doctor who examines me on Monday evening, says I must have picked up a virus. Deborah Wiggley, from next door, asked him to make a house call. ‘He’s an old friend,’ she tells Hilmi when she comes back with more painkillers and a hot water bottle, ‘and an excellent doctor.’
I hear them move further away to the living room, speaking in hushed voices. The door opens and shuts. The intercom buzzes. Dr Goan, short and greying, feels my pulse and takes my blood pressure. He has quiet, slanted eyes, remnants of an Asian accent, and his hands are small, smooth and soft like a woman’s when they palpate my neck and armpits. I open my mouth and he inserts a stick and looks deep into my throat. He shines a light into my pupils.
‘Cough, please,’ he says, and listens with a stethoscope, sliding the cold metal disc up and down my back. The touch of his fingers is so gentle and light, but I double over in pain when he presses my abdomen. ‘That’s your liver,’ he says, and asks me to breathe deeply, ‘and this is the spleen.’
Hilmi stands in the doorway the whole time, biting his lower lip. When our eyes meet, a smile comes to his f
ace. He winks at me behind the doctor’s back, then makes a funny face, sucking in his cheeks and crossing his eyes, imitating a fish.
The doctor ties a plastic band around my arm and asks me to make a fist. ‘What is that? You’re taking blood?’ I panic when I see the syringe. The needle causes a new wave of shivering and perspiration.
Hilmi comes over and sits down next to me. My breath stops, my fingers dig into his shoulder, but the prick of the needle, like the doctor’s warm fingers, is barely noticeable. Only by seeing Hilmi’s narrowing eyes do I realize the needle is in my vein.
Hilmi takes care of me while I am bedridden for more than ten days. I sleep almost constantly, day and night. The antibiotics cause profound, murderous exhaustion, and I lose all sense of time. Hilmi sleeps on the couch to avoid infection. He goes out to buy supplies at the pharmacy, the vitamin store, the organic market near the university, and comes back with rustling bags full of powders and jars, celery root, ginger, honey and lemon.
One morning he goes to Brooklyn to bring some clean clothes and underwear for himself. He wakes me up a few hours later when he bursts into the room with a gift-wrapped package from K-Mart. His nose is flushed from the cold and his curly hair is still damp. He rips off the wrapping paper to reveal a folding wooden tray, the kind they use for hotel room service. He steadies the pair of feet and stands it on the bed in front of me, delighted at the find: only $9.99.
I hear him bustling around the kitchen, with the television that’s been on in the living room for hours still in the background. He cooks white rice, a big pot of chicken soup with noodles, steamed vegetables, semolina porridge with cinnamon. He serves me countless cups of green tea, and freshly squeezed blood orange and grapefruit juice. Upon the recommendation of someone at the health food store, he prepares a hot and sweet concoction of onion, garlic and date syrup, which makes me sweat even more profusely.
He runs a hot bath, helps me bathe and washes my hair. Then, wrapped in a robe, I sit on the edge of the bed and he dries my hair with a blow-dryer. He helps me get dressed and changes the sheets again. One evening when I try walking, the hallway swirls and dives under me, a flock of black birds takes flight and circles in front of my eyes, and he rushes over in a panic and carries me back to bed. He instructs me to call him whenever I need to go to the bathroom, and insists on accompanying me. He found a squeaky rubber mouse in Franny and Zooey’s basket – the high-pitched squeak makes him smile every time he tries it out – which he places on the nightstand next to half-empty packets of aspirin and antibiotics and jars of vitamins, for the next time I need him.
I lie in bed alone with my eyes closed. He’s out there in the living room, busy with something. Drawing in his sketchpad, surfing the Web, playing computer games, reading a book. A news network chatters softly on TV. He found a paperback thriller among Dudi and Charlene’s books, and sometimes, when he comes into the room, his finger is holding his place.
‘Aji, aji, habibi,’ he says to the cats, who follow him, shooing them out of the room. ‘Wain inta? Yitla min hon.’
He shuts the door behind him. But the rustles of the apartment and the TV still penetrate. Another news update drones meaninglessly in my ears. I hear the announcer’s theatrical tone, and a man answers her authoritatively. I recognize the cadence of reporters in the field. I hear bulldozers, helicopters, a dramatic musical note replayed over and over, whistles and explosions, the clamour of commercials. Water runs in the kitchen sink. I can smell a whiff of his cigarette smoke. I hear the fridge door open and close, the microwave buzz. The phone rings again: a joyful chirp from the cordless extension in the living room, followed by the answering machine in the study. A few seconds of silence, then someone either hangs up or leaves a message.
Joy says she looked for me at the library all morning yesterday, and again today. She left her mobile in Hillsdale, but she’ll call again in the evening. Eran and Doron, a couple of friends from Israel, announce cheerfully that they’ve bought tickets to New York and will be here in three weeks. Andrew calls and waits for Hilmi to pick up. ‘Are you there? Hello? Pick up, man.’
The distant sounds seep into my sleep and flutter through my dreams. I hear Hilmi talking in English, in Arabic, walking around the apartment. His All-Stars squeak on the hardwood floor. ‘Just a second, I’ll see if she’s…’ He lowers his voice and stands in the doorway. ‘No, she’s fast asleep.’
When I wake up again, it’s dark outside. ‘Liati?’ My sister’s voice comes from the study. ‘Liati, it’s me, honey. I hope you’re feeling better. I talked to him last night… Hilmi. He said you’re a little sick. Well, I wanted to hear your voice, but now he’s not picking up and I have to go out soon. Anyway, he sounds lovely. Really lovely. We talked a little, about all the craziness going on, and how they’re giving out gas masks. And yesterday I thanked him for being there and taking care of you, but say thanks to him again from me, OK? All right, I’ll call later, I hope you’ll be awake.’
When he comes home he tells me about the war that did eventually break out while I was sleeping. He says the US army and coalition forces invaded Iraq five days ago, and Baghdad is burning. The presidential palace is occupied, tanks surround the airport. He talks sadly about the empty streets he recognizes on the news, places he knows well from the years he studied there, now destroyed, desecrated, full of soldiers and jeeps and wailing ambulances.
During the attacks of shivering and nausea when my fever goes up, throughout all the bouts of vomiting and the fragile moments of lucidity that come when the fever goes down, all the sweaty awakenings and the long hours of succumbing to sleep – Hilmi is with me. He brings things in and takes them out. Serves tea, clears dishes. Takes my temperature, makes me take my antibiotics every six hours, and vitamins. Or just sits on the edge of the bed talking to me, distracting me, sometimes even in the middle of the night, until I dive down again.
He does what needs to be done without hesitating. Naturally, calmly, refusing to make a big deal out of it. When I throw up again, for the first time in three days, he laughs and says maybe I am pregnant after all. He flushes the toilet, follows me when I hobble over to the sink, and mimics my groans and sighs in a mock-feminine voice. I wash my face and brush my teeth. When I look in the mirror my eyes are sunken, with dark circles, and my face is pale yellow and bruised. But he peers over my shoulder to examine my tortured expression, and declares that I’ve never looked more beautiful.
He also refuses to get too excited about the dramatic expressions of gratitude that gush out of me in my feverish state. I am completely undone by the antibiotics, and a desperate surge of gratitude for his tenderness and generosity washes over me with a flood of love. When I hold him one day, feverish and weeping, regretting everything I said that night at the petrol station, begging him to forgive me, he just snorts, embarrassed by the pathos.
‘OK, calm down, it’s all right.’ He pats me on the back. ‘Everything’s OK, calm down.’
When I hang on his shoulder and swear that I’ll never forget this week, sobbing that I’ll be in his debt for ever, he gets impatient and pulls away from me. ‘OK, enough, come on, stop it. You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?’ He gets up irritably and stands over me. ‘If I was knocked out like this, wouldn’t you do exactly the same thing?’
I nod furiously, deeply convinced.
‘Then that’s it, khalas, enough crying.’
One night I wrap myself in a blanket and drag myself out of bed. The blanket trails behind me in the dark hallway. In the living room the television flickers soundlessly, its blue light reflected on the walls. Newspapers, CDs and coffee cups litter the table alongside leftovers from lunch. Hilmi is asleep on the couch, flat on his back, the remote control still in one hand.
Mute pictures flash on the screen. Glowing green night shots of flying balls of fire, military helicopters circling over pillars of smoke. Dusty black and white fighters with helmets and flak jackets, swaths of scorched land, bare desert expanses
, cities of mortar, mosque turrets, dark-skinned children dressed in tatters, with even smaller children riding on their hips. A fuel truck on fire, a charred tank, a ripped portrait of Saddam Hussein.
I carefully extricate the remote control from Hilmi’s fingers and press a button to banish the images. The screen turns off with a sizzling whisper and the room goes dark. I pull the blanket over his exposed knee, lean over and flutter a kiss on his forehead, and remember a hallucination I had one night: his murmuring voice faded away and his face, hovering palely above me in the dark, gave way to my father’s face, and for a moment I was at home. Hilmi was there with me, and so was my sister and Micah and the kids, and his whispers had turned into my father’s soft, emotional voice as he blessed us, his daughters, before the meal on Friday night, with his hands on our heads: Yevarcechah adonai ve’yishmerecha – May the Lord bless you and protect you. My mother stands behind him watching. Yaer adonai panav eleicha veychunecha – May the Lord make His face shed light upon you and be gracious unto you. And I am filled with yearning for that whispered benediction, for his caressing hands. I spread my own hands out over Hilmi’s sleeping head and silently bless him: Yisa adonai panav eleicha, veyasem lecha shalom – May the Lord lift up His face unto you and give you peace.
All the Rivers Page 20