Shehla H. Naqvi
Alec, a doctor who volunteers to help the victims of Israeli oppression in Gaza, negotiates a dark space with his interpreter Ayman.
The earth-shaking blasts stopped. Alec glanced at his watch. One hour had passed. During the bombing, time had seemed to stand still. The tinnitus in his ears ceased and he shamefacedly emerged from under the staircase where Ayman had shoved him to shelter with children, while Ayman stood in front as if to block any incoming bullet or shrapnel with his own broad chest. Alec pulled out his ear plugs and the sounds that he had been aware of now hit him with tenfold intensity: children’s terrified crying, women’s wailing, men’s voices speaking Arabic, variously lamenting, reassuring and ordering.
Alec roused himself to reality and turned towards the emergency room. People were carrying in wounded children and babies. Two volunteers were using a broken door as a stretcher to carry the injured. Young women in headscarves and blood-spattered white coats went from one injured to the next to triage them, based on the stability of vital signs and the severity of the injury. All emergency room tables were now occupied and new arrivals were being laid on the floor.
Before coming to Gaza, Alec had spoken to several doctors and nurses who had returned after working there. What he heard prompted him to smuggle morphine in his shaving kit. When Alec administered it to the injured, their relief brought overwhelming gratitude from their families. Now the morphine was all gone and Alec had instead learned to promptly amputate crushed limbs before the injured could regain full consciousness.
Alec didn’t know Arabic and Ayman was his interpreter for the locale, language and culture. When Ayman first saw this blond young man with a large backpack, casting his eyes around for help with boxes of medical supplies at his feet, Ayman hoisted the boxes on his shoulder and escorted Alec to the Director of Surgery. Ayman was then assigned the job of interpreting for Alec. He further appointed himself as Alec’s protector and ensured Alec was fed and had a place to rest. Most men in Gaza were displaced, and subsequently jobless, but knowing English had allowed Ayman to get this job of interpreter. He considered it a stroke of luck.
After Ayman was hired as an interpreter, he had married Lena. Once Lena became pregnant, Ayman’s heart whispered to him, now you will never die.
In the deadly months of bombing, anyone with a foreign passport had left Gaza as soon as possible, while others were paying thousands of dollars to be smuggled out. In contrast, Ayman saw with admiration that Alec had bravely come to help the injured. When he noticed that Alec had difficulty eating after he saw starving Gazan children, Ayman counseled him: “Eat, then you will be able to help more of them.”
Now, Alec had been working for three hours with other doctors and nurses to treat the new casualties. He was used to working meticulously to reconnect nerves, ligaments and arteries in order to save limbs, followed by antibiotic therapy and nutritional support to optimize the outcome, then months of physical therapy to return limbs to full function. Now Alec felt as though he was performing World War I field surgery.
Needing fresh air, he gingerly picked his way out between patients, relatives and exhausted workers sleeping on blankets spread on the lobby floor, still sticky with blood. Mothers sat with babies sleeping in their laps, leaning against walls on which the IV bottles were hung, tubes snaking to the children's arms. Alec knew that meals were now being served in a back room with preference for doctors and nurses over the local staff. Cars were haphazardly parked in the plaza due to the rubble of destroyed buildings. He leaned against one of those cars, lit a cigarette and gazed at the grim exterior of the hospital. The lights were shut off to save generator fuel, some rooms were lit by candlelight instead. Alec recalled stitching up a patient under the light of Ayman’s smartphone. Outside the hospital there was only the pale light of a gibbous moon. The surrounding ruins were bleached skeletons in the moonlight. Alec took a drag on his cigarette. He had been in this besieged, starving land for only two weeks. He and five other foreign doctors and nurses had come of their own accord. Everyone else here was a prisoner of their fate.
Occasionally Alec would overhear conversations and ask Ayman for translation, even when not medically necessary. What he heard stayed with him:
“My brother was martyred today. Maybe it will be me tomorrow “.
“I went to buy cookies for my son and when I returned, I had to dig his body out of the rubble.”
Alec had seen pictures and videos of the ongoing war before he came, but the reality was much worse. As he had crossed into Gaza from Egypt, a reporter had asked Alec why he was there. He had answered simply “because I am needed here.” But now he was asking himself the same question. Of course, Alec empathized with the people of Gaza and their struggle. But living with all the comforts of his European lifestyle he had felt a desire to accomplish something larger than himself. Like mountaineers who go to climb Everest, Alec had come to Gaza to test his surgical skills. He looked up at the sky and recalled his last vacation when he had visited Lapland to see the midnight sun. It was summer, yet some of the fields were still covered in snow. Herds of reindeer grazed in the distance. Under a glass roof, before a roaring fire with a warm drink in his hands, Alec had watched the midnight sun. It’s pale light fading the colours of Northern Lights. He planned: If I survive this war, I’ll go to see the Northern Lights in winter.
War, Alec let the bitter taste of the word spread in his mouth. This was not a war between the armies of rival countries. This was a modern air force dropping bombs on trapped civilians. This was army tanks rolling through city streets, their shells ripping through residential buildings. Alec wondered if bloodshed was like an addictive drug. He shook his head to rid himself of the thought of beast-like tanks chewing children in their jaws. The cigarette singed his finger. Startled, Alec threw it away. He was reminded of his burnt patient and hurried back to the hospital.
Before his present assignment, Alec had been working at the Al-Aqsa hospital until it was besieged by the IDF. Snipers had taken positions on the surrounding buildings. When had Alec tried to step out, like today, Ayman beseeched him not to go out in his scrubs. “They are targeting medical workers,” Ayman had warned him. As Alec seemed unconvinced, Ayman offered to get him regular clothes. These are strange people, Alec thought. They bury their own child one day and begin tending to an orphan the next. Even children were taking care of those younger than them, showing responsibility beyond their age.
That day, while transporting Alec to his present hospital, Ayman directed Alec’s attention to a residential building with a two-meter wide tank shell crater in its side. Ayman pointed to a heap of rubble, recited a prayer and grimly stated: “this is my family’s mausoleum. I could only dig out two of them. Five members of my family are buried here.” The sounds of gunfire and the occasional tank blast followed them. They passed a recently demolished building. A man stood near the rubble covered in gray-white dust, shaking it off of him. Out of concern for Alec’s safety, Ayman did not stop to help.
Ayman then thought back to the day he had pulled himself out of the debris of his home. The moment he realized he was alive, the ecstasy of survival coursed through his body with his heartbeats. The next instant, Ayman was calling for his mother, father, brothers and sisters. No one had answered. He had found the bodies of his brothers under the balcony, but the family members inside could not be excavated from the mountain of pulverized concrete. Ayman buried his brothers in a mass grave with fifteen other martyrs and left behind the only home he had known to join the Gaza volunteer civil defense force.
As Ayman worked in this arena of death, life called out to him. Death and life after death are topics often contemplated in Gaza. Remaining alive in Gaza was by chance. Why did his brothers die? Why did he survive? He got the answer to his second question in a few days.
Ayman had responded to a bombed building. He was afraid of disturbing the equilibrium, which could cause a sudden collapse that might crush any survivors. Ayman and other rescuers held their ears to the mountain of broken cement, twisted steel and pulverized plaster to discern any sound indicating life. A muffled call for help to God or man. A moan when that was all someone could muster.
Ayman heard Lena’s voice and dug a narrow tunnel to her with his bare hands, then handed her a water bottle and flashlight. She was protected from the collapsed ceiling by a leaning door. Lena emerged from the ruins to learn that she was her family’s sole survivor.
Ayman felt that he had been allowed to live to protect Lena. Her survival was a shaft of daylight in his eternal night of loss. After Ayman was hired as an interpreter, he had married Lena. Once Lena became pregnant, Ayman’s heart whispered to him, now you will never die.
Alec could scarcely sleep despite his exhaustion. Night passed and morning came with the news that due to an imminent IDF attack, the US had secured permission for American medical staff to evacuate through the Rafah Crossing. Some of the American medical staff avoided the eyes of the colleagues they were leaving behind, while others hugged and wept while taking their leave. Someone remarked, “Dr. Saleh, you are American, so why are you not leaving?” Dr. Saleh let out a laugh. “Yes, my passport is American, but I am Palestinian. Take Alec with you. He is white; no one will stop him.”
But Alec didn’t leave. He had intended to stay for a month and there were still two weeks left. He would conquer his Everest. That day was peaceful, but at night fire rained down on the tent encampments. The bombs missed the hospital. Alec stepped out on the darkened street, shadowed by Ayman. He was going to a nearby building to check on his recent amputees. By now they must have realized that their limbs were never coming back. Alec’s heart sank; he realized that he only heard the anguish in their voices, while Ayman had to be burdened with their words as well.
This thought was interrupted by an explosion. Alec struggled to breathe beneath Ayman’s motionless body, soaking in Ayman’s warm blood, Alec looking up as a midnight sun filled his eyes.
Shehla H. Naqvi MD is from Karachi where she has been on the faculty of Medicine of two Universities. Presently, she practices Pediatrics in New York. She has published a book of Urdu poetry, Nakhle Marium and a collection of short stories in Urdu, Avazon ka Shor.
She has translated Italo Calvino’s novel, Invisible Cities and K.A.Abbas’s autobiography, I Am Not an Island in Urdu.
Waleed Zaman is an abstractionist who strives to hone his skills in the traditional arts of painting and illumination. Educated at the Beaconhouse National University, Chelsea School of Art & the King's Foundation School of Traditional Arts at London, Waleed has blended his classical training with a passion for abstract expression.
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