Jamil was fatter than before, and his moustache was big and grey. Jamil was thinner, hair slicked back with pomade. He stared at Midhat.
“Excuse me sir,” said an English nurse. “You cannot be in here.”
“What did she say?” said Abu Jamil.
Jamil shrugged.
“Midhat, what did she say?”
Midhat grinned—he couldn’t help it—and croaked: “You can’t be in here.” He had not spoken in days.
“Forbidden,” said a Palestinian nurse, striding forward. “You must leave immediately.”
“That is my nephew. That one. We want to take him out.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“He is a patient, he …” Her voice fell into a whisper.
“Majnun!” Abu Jamil burst out, opening his fingers from his mouth, as if throwing the word at her, “You are majnuna!”
Three more nurses and two uniformed men appeared. Jamil caught Midhat’s eye and winked, and then the crowd of staff escorted him and his father out. Abu Jamil’s voice still carried from the hall, however, where it was clear they were making a scene. A chorus of rustling bedsheets indicated the other patients turning to listen. Midhat’s heart pounced; he thought he discerned Wasfi’s voice, and then Um Jamil’s thin fast chatter. Next came Teta’s wailing: unmistakeable, dramatic. After that, a silence. The man to Midhat’s right gave him a questioning look. The ceiling pressed down. Midhat gripped his fists on nothing.
“Put your slippers on.”
It was the matron. She was standing beside his bed. The angle magnified her jaw and the black cavities of her nostrils.
“I said, get up.”
Midhat eased himself upright and followed her out of the ward.
Abu Jamil, Jamil, and Wasfi stood along the far wall of the corridor. Wasfi was wearing a bright red tie. They stood erect as Midhat entered; Abu Jamil puffed—“Ho ho!” Jamil opened his mouth, then took a deep breath and grinned; Wasfi punched the air. Two veiled women stood beside them—Teta and Um Jamil. Teta rushed towards Midhat and her gown, separating from the outline of Um Jamil’s, revealed a third woman behind.
“And now that we have agreed on the transfer,” said the matron, “please all of you leave the vicinity. Show them where he can change his clothes.”
“Fatima,” said Midhat.
Slowly, Fatima raised both her arms. But Teta had already reached for Midhat’s face, and was moving her thumbs across his cheeks. “Your wife is very clever,” she whispered. “Abu Jamil give me the bag. Suit, shirt, socks, shoes, tie. Yalla habibi put your clothes on.” As Midhat stepped towards his wife, Teta patted his arm. “You’ll see her after. Go.”
The nurse took him to a small room containing a narrow medical bed with a cross on one wall and a chart of numbers on the other. A long spotted mirror rested between a chair and a dusty glass-fronted cabinet, and he saw, beneath the window, a pair of scales. The latch clicked. This was the room where they had weighed him when he first arrived. Here, he had surrendered his clothes. He remembered this thin, sheeted mattress, where he had laid his trousers and arranged his socks. He looked across at the mirror and saw a gaunt unshaven man with longish hair, and hairy arms and ankles sticking out of a green gown. A reflected section of window showed an empty road.
“Abu Taher.”
The door was open. Before he saw Fatima he smelled the scent of her body; the scent of their home. When she didn’t move, he pulled her across the threshold by the arms.
“Please,” he said. “Sit.”
She did not sit. She kept to the spot where he had let go of her, staring at the chart on the wall. Her eyes were large and shining.
“Please take that off,” said Midhat. “Let me see you.”
For a moment he thought she would refuse. Then she flipped the veil back from her temples and walked into the light. Instead of the fear he had come to expect he saw a face folded with distress, and though he could not see tears the muscles around her eyes were so strained she must be keeping them back.
“How is the shop?” he said at last, and heard, with regret, the wound in his voice.
Fatima covered her eyes with her hands, tapered like a pair of wings, heavy-veined from the heat. Midhat took one wrist and her body followed, and she pushed against his chest.
“Oh no no,” he said, touching her quivering hair.
She separated herself, wiping her eyes with the knuckles of her forefingers. “You need to dress.”
“I missed you,” said Midhat. “Why did you never come to see me