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the Fatah Movement was a continuation of that same young man, but different from him in every way. You’ll speak to me of the older man you became, the one dreaming of a new betrayal, because one has to begin somewhere.
    Where were we?
    Did you know that all this sitting in your room has made me incapable of concentrating? I jump from story to story, I lose the thread and forget where I began.
    I was telling you about Amna. No, but Amna wasn’t the point. I was telling you how they brought you to the hospital half-dead. We carried you into your room and put you on the bed. Your eyes were closed, and you were shivering with fever. They slipped an IV into your right hand, tying it first to the edge of the bed so the needle wouldn’t rip the artery, you were shaking and twitching so much.
    I stood there not knowing what to do. Alone in the room, I was listening to the nurses’ voices in the corridor, taking in the smell. That was the first time I had really taken in the smell of Galilee Hospital. Why don’t they clean the place? And why hadn’t I noticed the smell before that day? I came to the hospital every day – it’s true that I didn’t really work, refusing the demotion from doctor to nurse – but I’d never smelled that horrible smell before. Tomorrow, I’ll clean everything.
    But the next day I didn’t clean everything, and another day passed, andafter it another without my taking action. It seems I’ve gotten used to it. The smell is not a problem. Smells work their way into us, we absorb them, which is why they only exist at the beginning.
    Let’s return to the beginning.
    I left your room in search of Dr. Amjad and found him sitting in his clinic, smoking, sipping his coffee, and reading the newspaper.
    He invited me to sit down, but I remained standing.
    â€œPlease sit down. What’s the matter with you?” he asked.
    I asked him hesitantly about you.
    â€œBlood clot on the brain.”
    â€œTreatment?”
    â€œâ€˜No hope for a stroke,’” he recited.
    â€œI can’t believe it.”
    â€œIt’s in God’s hands,” he said. “Leave it, Dr. Khalil. It’s over. I wouldn’t give him more than seventy-two hours.”
    â€œWhat about a blood thinner? Didn’t you give him a blood thinner?”
    â€œThere’s no point. We did a scan on him and found that the hemorrhage has spread to more than half the brain, which means it’s over.”
    â€œAnd the fever?”
    I asked as though I didn’t know, even though I did. It’s amazing how one can become ignorant. Standing in front of Dr. Amjad, I forgot all my medical training and found myself behaving like an imbecile, as though I knew nothing.
    I stood there asking and asking, and he answered me tersely, impatient with my questions, as though I were keeping him from something important.
    Dr. Amjad explained that you would die within three days and asked me to contact your relatives about arrangements for the funeral, but instead of trying to get hold of Amna I returned to your room and began my work.
    You have brought me back to the medicine that I hated and had forgotten. Don’t be afraid of the fever. My opinion is that the clot occurred somewhere near the area of the fever in the brain, and the pressure is interfering with your body temperature, which means that the fever will disappear once the blood is drawn off.
    Don’t be afraid.
    I disagreed with Dr. Amjad when he said that the shivering was your death tremor. You were shivering with fever, and the fever would go. As you see, I was right. But do you remember what Nurse Zainab did? She started massaging your chest. When I asked what she was doing, she said that she was helping your soul escape from your body.
    â€œDon’t you see how his soul is shaking?” she asked.
    â€œThat’s fever, you idiot,” I shouted, and chased her out of the room, locked the