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lungs but you couldn’t understand a word. I tried to calm him down. I sat him down and gave him a glass of aniseed tea. I led him to his bedroom, but when he saw the bed he went into a frenzy, and I ran in circles after him. He opened the front door and tried to leave. Look at my shoulder, my body’s covered in bruises. No, he didn’t hit me, but he was as strong as a bull, and I was running around after him in tears.”
    â€œOkay, okay, Amna,” I said, and I tried to get past her so I could go to the hospital, but she blocked the way with her hand.
    She said she’d been alone with you and that you’d scared her. She’d knelt down in front of you and beat her chest with her fist. She said you calmed down when you saw her kneeling. You looked at her as though you didn’t understand, then fell to the ground.
    At that point, I slipped between her hand and the door and went out.
    Amna followed me, panting and talking, but I didn’t listen. And at the hospital door, she said that doctors were bastards and that I was a doctor too and had no pity in my heart and that she’d waited for them to come, alone with you, until evening.
    I went into the hospital and ran to the nurses’ room so I could put on my white gown and go to you. Amna ran after me and said God would never forgive us. Then she disappeared.
    You’re upset with Amna because she doesn’t come to visit you. Don’t be angry with her. She doesn’t know that you can hear and feel and are sad. She was convinced you’d died, so why should she come?
    Who is Amna Abd al-Rahman really?
    Is she a cousin of yours, as you told me? Were you in love with her? Why didn’t you talk about her?
    The fact is, my friend, you should tell me something about your women. You’re a man surrounded by women, and there’s something strange in your round pale face that inspires love; it’s the face of a man who is loved. You always described yourself as a lover, but I think you hid your lovers. You only spoke about one woman, and even that one you only would talk about a little. Piecing the glimpses together, I turned it into a story. But you mentioned love only in passing. You jumped over the essential story as though it were a pool in which you might drown. Once I plucked up my courage and asked you where you made love with Nahilah. I didn’t say her name, I just said “her,” and you smiled. You were in a good mood that day. Your eyes shone, you raised your right hand in a vague gesture and said, “There. Among the rocks,” and fell silent. It fell to me to collect your asides and mutterings and work them into a story to tell you.
    Now you can’t shut me up. I can say whatever I want and tell you that it’s your story. My goal isn’t to make one up. I’m only half a doctor awaiting death at the vengeful hands of Shams’ family.
    I promised I’d start with the ending, and the end will come when you’ve left this coffin of a bed. You’ll get up, tall and broad shouldered, walking stick in hand, and you’ll return to your country. You will go first to the cave of Bab al-Shams. You won’t go to Nahilah’s grave, as everyone expects. You’ll go to Bab al-Shams, enter your village of caves, and disappear.
    This is the only dignified ending to your story, which you’ll never betray.
    I know what you’ll say and how you’ll roll the word betray around in yourmouth, before announcing that you had no choice. Your life was a series of betrayals. You’ll say that in order for us not to betray, we have to change – that is, to betray.
    You’ll tell me how the adolescent you were during the sacred jihad alongside Abd al-Qadir, * God rest his soul, was related to the young man you became in the Arab Commando Brigades, and then in the Arab Nationalist Movement.
    You’ll say that the man you became in the Lebanon Regional Command of