door and sat down, not knowing what to do.
During those first days I despaired. For three days I didnât leave your room. I changed your IV and put antibiotics in it; Dr. Amjad made fun of me, telling me that the fever had nothing to do with any inflammation.
But I wanted you to live â not because Iâm a nonbeliever, as Nurse Zainab had thought â but because I donât want you to die in bed.
Do you remember what you told me when I visited to offer my condolences after Nahilah died? You received me calmly and offered me an unsweetened coffee. I asked you, as people offering condolences usually do, about the circumstances of her illness and her death, but you didnât give me any details. You said sheâd died in the hospital in Nazareth. Then you started murmuring some verses by al-Mutanabbi. *
You recited the poetry as though youâd composed it yourself, and you said youâd never die here. Youâd go and die over there.
âAnd if I die here, try to bury me over there.â
âAs you wish, Abu Salem,â I said.
But then you looked at me strangely and said it was impossible, because you knew that your end would be a grave in the camp that would become a soccer field a few years later. You were talking about the mass grave of thevictims of the 1982 Shatila massacre, where children now play soccer and trash is scattered all over the place. Then you went back to al-Mutanabbiâs verses:
We make ready our swords and our spears
And the Fates destroy us without a fight.
We bury each other and the remains of those who came first
Are trampled on by those who came later.
That day â do you remember? â that day I suggested to you that you go to Deir al-Asad immediately and you said the time hadnât come and that youâd return when you were good and ready.
For three days I did the impossible to save you in your room. Youâd open your bloodshot eyes, and Iâd close them for you, because leaving them open endangers the cornea. The eye is not a mirror, itâs a network of mirrors that must not be exposed to the air for too long or itâs ruined. I focused all my attention on your eyes so that you wouldnât lose your sight. Because in those early days, I was certain that you would awaken from that sleep.
The strange thing is that, on the fourth day, when your temperature fell and you were lying quietly, I felt very afraid. I was certain the drop in your temperature would begin your return to consciousness. But stabilization led to lethargy. Now you never open your eyes. Iâve taken to opening them myself and passing my finger in front of them, but the pupils donât respond. Glaucoma has begun. The redness has been replaced by a bluish whiteness.
âHeâs entered a state of lethargy,â said Dr. Amjad.
âWhat does that mean?â I asked.
âI donât know, but heâll stay like that until he dies.â
âAnd when will he die?â
âI canât specify the hour, but he will die.â
Dr. Amjad decided to substitute a feeding tube for the IV. At first I objected, but then I realized that he was right, the tube will put life back into your guts.
And I started to prepare your food for you myself. I replaced the hospitalâsready-made yellow potion with bananas, milk, and honey that I mixed for you. For the last three months, youâve been eating nothing else, like a baby.
Is it true that newborn infants are as happy as they look, or are they like you, opening their eyes in pain, refusing to take part in the life weâre forcing on them? Youâve changed my thinking about being an infant. All the same, and despite the pain, I dream of having one, because a baby gives you the feeling that youâll live on through other people, that you wonât die.
âThatâs a delusion,â youâll say.
There, I agree with you, but I told Shams when I fell in love with her that I