A Little Piece of Ground (25 page)

Of course! They'd got him, with a bullet in his leg! And then, at the worst moment of his life, Jamal had miraculously appeared, had rescued him and brought him to the hospital!

He turned his head to the right. Beds stretched down the long ward, with the humped figure of a patient in every one. A couple of nurses were putting screens around someone at the far end and a woman in the white coat of a doctor was walking up the ward away from him.

What did they do to me? Karim thought. Have I had an operation? He could remember nothing after they'd wheeled him into the emergency room.

Gingerly, he twitched his left foot. The movement hurt, but it was bearable. He lifted his head and looked down. He could see the shape of his leg under the thin blanket. It looked enormous, muffled in swathes of bandages, but it was still there. He gave a deep sigh of relief. They hadn't had to take it off.

A sound from close by made him turn his head. Jamal was slumped in a chair beside the bed, his head thrown back and his eyes shut. He was snoring gently.

A tear welled out of the corner of Karim's eye and ran down the side of his face into his ear, tickling him.

He came and found me, he thought. He was out in the curfew on his own. He saved me. He could have been killed, easily.

Jamal's mouth was falling open. Karim rubbed the irritating tear out of his ear and grinned, assessing the distance to Jamal's gaping mouth.

If I had a pea or something, I could lob it right in there, he thought. That'd get him going.

As if Jamal had sensed a threat, he suddenly woke up. He gave a mighty yawn, poured out a glass of water from the bottle beside Karim's bed and took a couple of little sips.

“Woken up at last, huh?” he said lightly, handing the water to Karim, who had suddenly realized how thirsty he was.

Karim drained the glass and held it out for more.

“What do you mean, at last? What time is it?”

“Nearly six o'clock. You've been out for hours and hours. Hey, go easy on the water. The hospital's running out.”

The fuzziness in Karim's head was clearing.

“What did they do to my leg? Did they take the bullet out? Where is it? Can I see it?”

“Now, how did I know that would be the first thing you'd say?” marveled Jamal.

He dug his hand into the pocket of his bomber jacket, pulled out a sharp-nosed cylinder of copper-coated metal and dropped it into Karim's hand.

“You were away in the operating room for ages,” Jamal said. “They dug the thing out and stitched you up.”

Karim held the bullet up and squinted at it.

“Wow. It's huge. No wonder it hurt so much. Is there—I mean, did they say it'd be OK? My leg, I mean.”

“Na, crippled for life. You'll never walk again.”

Jamal had been grinning, but when he saw the sickly white pallor creep over Karim's face and the shock that filled his eyes, he said quickly, “Only joking, little brother. It's a flesh wound, nothing more. The doctor said you'd be fine in a week or two. Soccer champion of the world—no problem. She says you're super-lucky, though. It missed the bone by a half inch. It would have smashed it to a pulp if it had hit.”

Karim sighed and shut his eyes. There were things he wanted to say to Jamal, and a hundred questions he meant to ask, but right now he felt immensely tired and sleep was closing in on him again.

“When can we go home?” was all he managed to say.

Jamal snorted.

“How should I know? There's a curfew on, or didn't you notice? We're stuck here till our lords and masters let us go.”

The next two days passed slowly for Karim. A strange atmosphere pervaded the hospital. No one could go in or out. The doctors and nurses who had been on duty when the curfew began were on duty still, their eyes darkened and ringed with fatigue. Water was short and was being carefully rationed.

“Don't even think of breathing in when I walk past,” the nurse who'd first met Karim joked, whenever he came near to take Karim's temperature or change the dressing on his leg. “You'll pass out with my sweaty smell. None of us has had a shower for days and if I took my clothes off they'd walk away on their own.”

The story of Karim's adventure and Jamal's heroic rescue had passed along the ward and both boys basked in everyone's admiration. Though food supplies were running low and meals were getting smaller, the nurses kept Karim's plate full and offered Jamal whatever there was to spare. Embarrassed, he took a little, but stood up and stared out the window whenever Karim was eating.

“Honorable wounds!” the old man in the bed opposite would cackle, every time Karim hobbled past to the toilets, which, without water, were beginning to smell disgusting. “I'd show them, if I was still young like you!”

Relatives of other patients, like Jamal, had also been trapped in the hospital by the curfew. They slept where they could, on trolleys or in emergency beds, at risk of being turfed out whenever a Red Crescent ambulance, its siren blaring, was allowed to bring a fresh emergency case through to the hospital.

Jamal borrowed a pack of cards and, as Karim's strength returned and he was able to sit up and move about, they passed hours in game after game, arguing over points and watching each other suspiciously for any sign of cheating.

Bit by bit, Karim told Jamal what it had been like in the car, how he'd managed to pass the time, how scary the tank had been and how the cats had kept him company. He said nothing about the soldier who'd looked so like his brother.

I probably imagined it, he told himself, and anyway, Jamal would think I'd gone soft.

They were nearing the end of an absorbing game, which had passed two whole hours of the afternoon, when Karim said suddenly, “I thought I was dreaming when you called to me out there. I'd sort of given up. I was going to let them just come and find me.” He threw down the last card, conceding defeat to Jamal's superior hand, and looked sideways out the window. “I haven't really said thank you, not properly. You saved my life.”

Jamal picked up the pack of cards and let them flip through his fingers.

“I did have to think about it.” His teeth showed white in his dark face as he grinned. “I mean, look at it my way. I'd have inherited your entire collection of soccer posters, not to mention getting back my toy racing car which you stole from me when you were five years old.”

“Hey, Karim! It's your mother on the line again!” the patient in the next bed called out, waving his cell phone at the brothers.

Jamal leaned across and took it from him, then passed it to Karim, and for the next few minutes Karim listened to his mother's barrage of questions, answering them as best he could. Lamia had been calling every two hours since Jamal had called her with the good news of Karim's safe arrival at the hospital. In the friendly atmosphere of the ward, cell phones that still worked were generously shared between the patients.

“She says she's heard the curfew's going to be off after tomorrow morning,” Karim said, passing the phone back with a smile of thanks.

Jamal yawned and stretched.

“Thank God for that. If I don't eat a decent meal and get to sleep in a decent bed again soon, I'll go completely nuts.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

In the end, it was another day before the curfew was finally lifted. The tanks rumbled away with the darkness of night, leaving the city just as the sun rose. Almost before the first rays had hit the dusty windows of the ward, Hassan Aboudi appeared at the end of Karim's bed. Karim, who had just woken up, smiled sleepily. “Baba?” he said. “
Alhamdu lilah!
Thank God! Thank God!”

Hassan Aboudi took Karim's hand and pressed it warily, as if it was something precious and fragile that might break at his touch.

Karim sat up and threw his arms around his father's neck.

“It's only my leg that's hurt, Baba. It's much better now. The doctor dressed it again last night. She was really kind. She's given me a pair of crutches. I'm really good at using them. She said I could go home as soon as the curfew's lifted. Did you bring the car to take me? Can we go now?”

The smell of home which floated towards Karim through the open door as he swung on his crutches up the last flight of stairs pierced him with a pang of incredible sweetness. Lamia had run out to the shops as soon as she was sure the tanks had gone, and by the time Hassan Aboudi and his sons arrived home, a magnificent breakfast had been spread out on the table. A rich mixture of hot bread, frying eggs, honey, fresh orange juice and thick olive oil hit Karim's nostrils. Combined with the familiar wafts of shower gel from the bathroom and the wax his mother always used on the floors, it made up a unique, wonderful aroma which he had never really noticed before.

Lamia hardly let him take a step inside. She swept him almost off his feet in a crushing embrace, her chest heaving with sobs.

“Oh,
habibi
! Oh, my darling! I thought I'd never see you again. Thank God, thank God you're home again!”

Then she led him to the sofa and sat down beside him, patting his hand and stroking his hair until he leaned away from her, though at the first moment the feel of her arms around him had made him want to cling to her and cry too. He had an odd feeling, as if he'd been away for a long, long time, as if the boy who'd come home was a different creature from the one who'd gone out to play soccer so many days ago.

Lamia made him prop his leg up on the sofa and brought his breakfast to him.

“So tell us. Tell us everything,” she commanded, putting a plateful of fried eggs into his hand.

He fended the questions off as best he could, using his full mouth as an excuse, answering as little as possible. He'd tell her all about it one day, perhaps. It had been hard enough explaining everything to Jamal.

The telephone kept ringing. Lamia, reluctant to leave Karim, waved at her husband, who took the phone into the other room.

“I had no idea you were so popular,” Jamal said, lounging over to the sofa and snatching a tidbit off Karim's plate. “The whole of Ramallah's been calling here every five minutes, apparently, not to mention Grandma, who's been going frantic in the village. Everyone's heard the whole story by now, plus all sorts of extra bits, probably, that would amaze us both.”

“That was Joni,” Hassan Aboudi said, just as Karim put the last bite of bread and honey into his mouth and pushed his plate away.

“Joni?” Karim said eagerly. “I'll speak to him.”

“I told him you'd call back later,” Hassan Aboudi said, not meeting his eye.

“What? Why?”

An awkward silence had fallen. Into it broke the voice of the news announcer from the TV in the corner of the room, which no one was bothering to watch.

Israeli tanks fired shells into a crowded building in Rafah last night, killing nine people and injuring ...

Karim barely heard. He was looking around the table at the troubled faces of his family.

“What's the matter? What's going on?”

“They're going,” Farah said, bouncing in her seat, pleased to be the one to break the news. “Joni's family. All of them. They're moving to America.”

“Not America.” Jamal scowled. “Amman. Jordan. Though that's bad enough.”

Karim was staring at him, open-mouthed.

“Joni? He's moving? He's
going
?”

“Look, darling,” Lamia said. “We were going to tell you later, when you'd had a chance to recover a bit.” She shot a dark look at Farah. “George and Rose have been talking it over for months now. They've decided they just have to go. For the good of the family. They're lucky, really, that they've got the chance. They called to tell us last night.”

“They're leaving
Palestine
?”

“Temporarily only.” Hassan Aboudi heaved a sigh. “That's what George keeps telling me. His brother Elias is in Amman. There's a partnership waiting for him in the business. A good school for Joni. He hasn't taken this decision lightly. I mean, the Boutroses—they've lived in Ramallah and Deir Aldalab forever, just about.”

“When are they going? When?”

Hassan Aboudi shrugged.

“As soon as possible. George is arranging for a cousin to take over the shop here. It'll all be done in a couple of weeks, probably.”

The sofa, the room, his parents, the whole apartment and all its contents, seemed to heave in front of Karim's eyes. Then a thought struck him.

“They can't go. Not till the summer, anyway. Violette's got her school-leaving-certificate exams.”

“She can do them from Jordan,” mumbled Jamal.

He got up and went over to the window. He stood looking down, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched, his back eloquently expressing romantic misery.

Karim reached for his crutch, stood up, picked up the phone and started to hop towards his bedroom.