Chicago

by Alaa Al Aswany

  “That’s because I’m lucky.”

  “I had made up my mind not to come to your apartment until we went out one more time, but I lost my resistance suddenly.”

  I planted a kiss on her forehead and said, “You’re my wonderful princess!”

  “You’re obviously experienced in bed even though you’re not married. In Egypt, are you permitted to have sex outside marriage?”

  “We permit ourselves.”

  It was a lame answer, but I wasn’t ready for any serious discussion at that moment. Wendy laid her chin on my chest and looked at me. She extended her finger and stroked my lips as if I were a child and then exclaimed playfully, “Come on, tell me all about your romantic liaisons with Egyptian women!”

  I felt her breasts on my chest emitting unbearably soft warmth. I pulled her gently by the arm and she moved in such a way that she was on top of me. This time I kissed her gently and slowly and then we made love again. I had got to know the contours of her body, so I conducted the second time around in an unhurried and focused manner until we peaked together in a blaze of passion. She savored her ecstasy for a long time and then came to and jumped gleefully out of bed. She took a small camera out of her handbag and said as she readied it, “I’m going to take a picture of you.”

  “Wait ’til I’m ready.”

  “I’d like to take your picture in the buff.” I was about to object but she was quicker. The flash lit several times as she took pictures from different angles. Then she laughed and said, “One of these days I’ll blackmail you with these photos.”

  “That’ll be the most beautiful blackmail in my life!”

  “I hope you’ll still think like that always. I’ve got to go now.”

  “Can’t you stay a little longer?”

  “Unfortunately I can’t. Next time I’ll plan to spend a longer time with you.”

  She went to the bathroom and soon came back, having put on her clothes. Her face was rosy, radiant with a smile of gratitude. I was waiting for her, having also put on my clothes. She said, “Please don’t worry about escorting me.”

  “I’d like to.”

  “It’s best if I go alone,” she said in a calm, decisive tone. I was somewhat surprised but I respected her wish. I embraced her affectionately and said, “Wendy, I’m happy I met you.”

  “Me too,” she whispered as she looked at my face and ran her fingers through my hair, then said, “Where’s that documentary movie you promised me?”

  I was embarrassed, but she laughed loudly and said as she winked, “I was on to you from the beginning but I pretended to believe you.”

  “When will I see you again?”

  “That depends on you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s something I have to tell you. I don’t know how you’ll take it.”

  She had opened the door and left it ajar as she got ready to leave. Then she said simply, “I’m Jewish.”

  “Jewish?”

  “Are you shocked?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Perhaps I was wrong. I should have told you from the beginning. But you’d have found out anyway. No one can hide their religion.”

  I remained silent. She pulled the door to close it behind her and said with a mysterious smile on her face, “Take your time thinking about our relationship. You can call me anytime. If you don’t, I’ll still thank you for the wonderful time we had together.”

  Chapter 19

  When instructor Karam Abd al-Malak Doss found out that he’d failed his MS exams for the second time, he went straight to see Dr. Abd al-Fatah Balbaa, chair man of the department of surgery at Ain Shams Medical School. It was a hot day in the summer of 1975. Karam went into the office drenched in sweat from the heat and agitation. When the secretary asked him why he wanted to see the chairman he said, “It’s a personal matter.”

  “Dr. Abd al-Fatah Bey went to perform the midafternoon prayers at the mosque.”

  “I’ll wait for him,” said Karam defiantly and sat in the chair facing the secretary, who ignored him and went back to reading some papers in front of him. A whole half hour passed before the door opened and Dr. Balbaa’s hulking figure, balding head, crude, stern features, thin beard, and the amber prayer beads that never left his hand appeared. Karam stood up right away and approached his professor, who scrutinized him with a suspicious glance then asked him as if in alarm, “Yes, khawaga?”

  Dr. Balbaa used the khawaga as a term of address when speaking to all Copts, be they professors or messengers. He used this seemingly jocular term to disguise his profound contempt for them. Karam gathered his courage and said, “I hope you have a few minutes, sir, for a subject that concerns me.”

  “Come on in.”

  The professor went ahead and sat at his desk and motioned him to sit down.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like to know why I failed the exam.”

  “Your grades were bad, khawaga,” answered Dr. Balbaa right away, as if he had expected the question.

  “All my answers were correct.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I verified them myself. Can we review the answer sheets? Please, sir.”

  Dr. Balbaa played with his beard, then smiled and said, “Even if all your answers were correct, it wouldn’t change your result.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “My words are clear. Passing the exam alone is not enough for success.”

  “But this is against the university rules.”

  “The university rules are not binding on us, khawaga. Not everyone who answers a couple of questions is allowed to become a surgeon with control over people’s lives. We select those who deserve the degree.”

  “On what basis?”

  “On important bases which I am not going to share with you. Listen, Karam. Don’t waste my time. I’ll tell you frankly: you were admitted in the department before I became chairman. Had it been in my hands, I wouldn’t have approved your appointment. Think carefully of what I am saying and don’t get angry. You will never be a surgeon. I advise you to save your time and effort. Try another department. I’ll personally intervene on your behalf.”

  A heavy silence fell on the room and suddenly Karam cried bitterly, “You are being unfair to me, sir, because I am a Copt.”

  Dr. Balbaa fixed him with a stern glance, as if warning him not to go any further. Then he got up and said calmly, “The meeting is over, khawaga.”

  ~~~~~~~~~

  THAT NIGHT KARAM COULDN’T SLEEP at all. He locked himself in his room and opened a bottle of whiskey he had bought from a store in Zamalek. He drank nonstop and whenever he finished one glass he got more tense and stood up and started pacing up and down his room, thinking. How could he abandon surgery? He had enrolled in medical school and worked hard for years to fulfill one dream that consumed his life: to be a surgeon. He couldn’t change to another specialty. He would never give up surgery come what may. He knew that Dr. Balbaa’s authority was absolute, that his word was like irreversible fate. He had told him explicitly: Save your time and effort. You’ll never be a surgeon.

  If he persisted in trying he would fail him repeatedly until he got expelled from the university, and Balbaa had done that more than once to other doctors. Jesus Christ, how can Balbaa permit himself to destroy the futures of others so easily? Didn’t he feel any pangs of conscience whatsoever when he did such injustice? How can he stand before God and pray afterward?

  The following morning Karam took a warm bath and drank several cups of coffee to overcome fatigue and the hangover, and then he headed for the American embassy, where he applied for immigration. In a few months he was leaving O’Hare Airport to tread on Chicago’s soil for the first time. From the earliest days he came to grasp several truths. First, being a Christian was not a plus for him in American society, for to Americans he was, first and foremost, a colored Arab. Second: America was the land of opportunity, but it was also the
land of cutthroat competition. Therefore, if he wanted to be a great surgeon he had to exert a tremendous effort to be at least twice as good as any American colleague. Karam fought valiantly for many critical years: he passed many exams and studied very hard. He would start in the early morning and go on until midnight without complaining or grumbling. He got used to contenting himself with four or five hours of sleep, after which he got up, alert and energetic. He spent days on end at the hospital, working all the time until he earned from his colleagues and professors the nickname “Dr. Ready” because he immediately accepted any task to which he was assigned. Every day he would be present at operations, attend lectures, and study his lessons. His great capacity for work surprised his professors and earned their admiration. When he got tired, the moment he felt he couldn’t go on anymore, Karam Doss would close the door and kneel before the cross he kept above his bed. He would close his eyes and repeat in supplication “Our Father who art in Heaven,” then pray to God to give him strength and patience. He spoke to the Lord as if he saw him in front of him: “You know how much I love You and believe in You. I’ve been wronged and you will give me back my rights. Bless me and don’t forsake me.”

  The Lord answered his prayers, and he moved from one success to another. He completed his MS and MD with flying colors then got a position as a surgeon. He got the most important break in his life when he worked, for a full five years, as an assistant to one of the greatest legends of heart surgery in the world, Professor Albert Linz. That was the last step before the top for Karam Doss, and after this he became, as he had dreamed, a capable and famous surgeon who performed operations three days a week at the renowned Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Dr. Karam would arrive at the hospital at exactly 6:30 a.m., greet the workers busy cleaning the floor and exchange lighthearted words with the old black woman receptionist. He would put on his face that reassuring smile he’d acquired during his training as he answered the patient’s family’s anxious questions. Then he would take off his clothes and put on surgeon’s scrubs, and rub his arms, fingers, and fingernails with the brush and sterilizing solution. After that he would stand erect as the nurse wrapped the operating gown around him and tied it in the back, and then he would extend his hands, which she would fit into the gloves. It was only then that Karam Doss got rid of his ordinary day-to-day existence and acquired a mythical dimension, as if he were an imaginary person or a hero in an epic. He would become unique, lofty, invincible, using his will to control everything around him. He would become the embodiment of the famous saying “A true surgeon has the heart of a lion, the eyes of a hawk, and the fingers of a piano player.”

  It’s cold in the operating room; floodlights are trained on the chest of the patient lying there awaiting his fate. The sound of his breathing in the machine and his heartbeats, which are amplified dozens of times, compound the awe of the situation. The surgical team comprises the nurses, the anesthesiologists, and the assistants. Dr. Karam greets them then tells them a joke or something funny at which they laugh in an exaggerated manner to disguise their tension. He follows them as they work, with a scrutinizing look, not without affection, as if he is a maestro watching his musicians playing and awaiting, in accordance with a mysterious internal rhythm, the moment he joins in. When that moment comes, Dr. Karam extends his hand forward with the scalpel, as if inaugurating the show. He turns the scalpel in the air to the right and the left, and then brings it down to the patient’s skin, touching it gently several times as though testing it out. Then suddenly he pounces on it, plunging the blade into the tissues with one deep cut, almost lustful and unbelievable. The blood bursts profusely and the assistants’ hands hurry with suction tubes and dressings. Dr. Karam works slowly, confidently, and calmly with an amazing concentration that makes him the first to warn the anesthesiologist about an almost invisible blueness on the patient’s face, or to notice the eruption of a microscopic drop of blood a full ten seconds before his assistants notice it. During the surgery, everything is done with strict precision: the patient’s heart is taken out and the patient is connected to the artificial heart machine. Then Dr. Karam replaces the patient’s clogged arteries with other ones taken from the leg and tested well outside the body. Then he attaches the new arteries and ultimately he resumes pumping the blood to the heart that he has fixed with his own hands. The operation lasts many hours, during which his hands don’t stop working while the eyes of the assistants are hanging on to the slightest gesture from him, to act upon it immediately. They often understand what he wants before he opens his mouth. With long experience they are able to read his face behind the mask, and so long as he is working in silence it means that everything is all right. If his hands stop working, it means something is wrong. His hoarse voice soon reverberates around the room in a warning dramatic tone as if he were the captain of a ship about to go down—“Operate auxiliary suction,”

  “Give him something to raise the pressure,” or “I’ll need another hour.” They all obey him at once; he is the professor, the surgeon, and the experienced skillful leader who shoulders the responsibility for bringing this sleeping patient back to life. The fate of a whole family is now hanging on his ever-moving fingers.

  Karam Doss was a truly great surgeon, and like many greats, he was eccentric. For instance, he would always take off his underwear and wear his scrubs directly on top of his naked body, giving him a sense of freedom that also gave his mind clarity and focus. Ever since he headed the surgical team ten years ago he started performing his surgeries listening to Umm Kulthum’s songs, whose voice reverberated in the operating room from speakers that Dr. Karam ordered to be installed in the wall, connected to a stereo in the adjacent room. The scene, though strange, became familiar: the listeners on the tape applauding and shouting so that Umm Kulthum would repeat a phrase of “Inta Umri” (“You Are My Life”) or “Ba‘id ‘Annak” (“Away from You”), saying how great the Sitt was, or screaming in ecstasy when Muhammad Abdu played one of his incomparable solos on the qanun. Dr. Karam would hum softly with the music while busy suturing an artery or cutting more skin and muscle with the scalpel to give himself more room to finish the surgery. He would say that Umm Kulthum’s voice helped calm his nerves while he worked. Amazingly, the American members of his team began to enjoy Umm Kulthum’s voice, or perhaps pretended to in order to please him.

  One time, two years ago, an assistant surgeon named Jack joined the team. As soon as Dr. Karam saw him he realized from his long experience in America that he was a bigot. Not long after Jack joined the team, silent skirmishes, intangible, wordless quarrels began to take place between him and Dr. Karam. Jack never laughed at Karam’s jokes and fixed him with long, cold, scrutinizing stares. He also followed his instructions reluctantly, carrying them out in a deliberately slow manner as if telling him, “Yes, I work under you; I’m just an assistant and you’re a big-time surgeon, but don’t you forget that I’m a white American, master of this country, and you’re just a colored Arab who has come from Africa and we have taught you and trained you and made a civilized person out of you.”

  Dr. Karam ignored Jack’s provocative gestures and took pains to deal with him in a formal and neutral manner. One day, however, he was surprised to see him come in a few minutes before the operation while he was sterilizing his hands and arms. Jack stood next to him and greeted him curtly then said in a voice choked with confusion and hatred, “Professor Karam, please stop playing those depressing Egyptian songs during surgery, because they prevent me from focusing on my work.”

  Karam Doss remained silent, finished the sterilization carefully, and turned toward Jack with his hands raised and his frowning face flushed with anger, looking more like a wise Coptic priest about to dumbfound the wicked with the truth, and said calmly, “Listen, son, I’ve worked very hard for thirty years so that I can have the right to listen to whatever I like in the operating room.”

  He advanced a few steps in a manner fraught with meaning, then pushed the door leading to
the operating room with his foot and said before disappearing behind it, “You can find a place in another surgery team if you like.”

  ~~~~~~~~~

  THERE IS NOTHING IN KARAM Doss’s life except surgery; it is his job and his great pleasure at the same time. Very simply, he is a workaholic. He has a few friends that he rarely has the time to see. His only pleasure, next to surgery, is a few glasses of whiskey and a good book. He is over sixty and is still unmarried because he doesn’t have the time for all that.

  He told his students (when they complained about working long hours) his story about the beautiful Italian woman he met twenty years earlier. They had gone out more than once and they had a good relationship, but it so happened that whenever he was about to sleep with her, he would be called for an emergency. Then there was that one night when things were proceeding as well as could be hoped for: he went with her to her apartment, where they had dinner, had a few drinks, took off their clothes, and actually started to make love. Suddenly his pager emitted that abominable buzz. Karam jumped up, getting off her, then started putting on his clothes in no particular order and began to apologize to her, using moving language about it being his duty to save the life of a person who needed him right away. But he was surprised that she hurled a whole dictionary of Italian insults at him and his parents. Then she got so angry that she started chasing him like a furious, ferocious tigress, which made him run for his life as she threw everything in the room she could lay hands on at him. Dr. Karam would laugh heartily whenever he related the story, but his face would turn serious again as he advised young surgeons, “If you fall in love with surgery, you won’t be able to love anything else.”