Although consciousness had returned some time ago, Ahmed refrained from opening his eyes. He was vaguely aware that he was lying on a blanket on the floor of the Al Shifa hospital. Pain was returning to his right leg. The pain was bearable… pleasurable even. It was a pain that held the fantasy that the doctors had been able to save his leg. Were he to open his eyes, that fantasy might dissolve into a bitter reality of loss. It was better to savour the illusion a little longer.
He could hear the encroaching sound of the other patients around him. Some moaned quietly while others sobbed. The hospital was barely functioning. Half of it had been destroyed in earlier bombings. There were no hospital beds and clean, well-functioning wards. Just harried doctors and nurses and the floor where the overflow of the living and the dead were laid out along the corridors. During moments of lucidity, before he had been operated on, Ahmed had seen how the medics’ triage functioned. He knew that some of those lying further down the hallway, where a deathly silent shroud hung ominously over them, would neither moan, nor sob. He knew too that one of those silent mounds was his sister.
He wasn’t emotionally equipped to face more loss. The grief of losing his sister was already too painful to bear. Too many within his community had lost loved family members, or lost limbs making life even more intolerable. Gaza was full of people who had lost arms, and legs. Sometimes they lost one, or sometimes it was both legs that had been ripped away by sniper fire or drone strikes.
Leaving havoc in their wake, the hideous, insect like machines, would swoop down and terrorise everyone around them. There were no safe hiding places from these mechanised monsters. He thought bitterly of how life in Gaza had been reduced to mere survival. There was little joy to be had. Life was about surviving one day to the next.
He felt a deep resonant despair flood into his senses making it no longer possible to contain his mounting rage. When the scream came, it was other-worldly… not something that sounded human, or that he would ever have attached to himself.
Immediately a figure crouched down beside him. He heard concern in the soft-spoken words of a woman who took hold of his hand. “It’s okay habibi. You’re okay.”
The thought ran through his head; ‘I’m not okay though, am I. Nothing is okay.’ He opened his eyes and gazed at the slim figure in the blood-spattered, white coat. A stethoscope hung loosely around her neck… her face was strained, and her eyes were filled with a heavy tiredness.
“My leg… did you take my leg?”
The doctor hesitated. He saw pain sweep across her face. “Yes, my love. We had to remove your right leg from just below the knee.”
“I don’t want to live.”
“I know, habibi.” She brushed away the hair from his eyes and stroked his forehead with her free hand. “It’s normal to feel that way… at first.”
The sound of a rocket soared overhead, followed by an explosion not far from the hospital. Her grip tightened on his hand. “It’s okay.” It seemed she was reassuring herself as much as she was reassuring him. The hospital had taken direct hits in the past week and medics were operating using flashlights and improvised equipment. Anaesthetics were in pitifully short supply. Patients loosing consciousness during amputations became a blessing and curse. However, the risk of them going into shock was always there, along with the risk of infection.
Ambulances screamed in the distance and Ahmed heard the sound of panicked voices, rattling trolleys and running feet.
“How do we beat them?” He asked. “Look what they’ve done… are doing to us.”
The doctor gave a long weary sigh. “We beat them by continuing to live. For me saving lives where I can… one patient and one day at a time.”
“I want to die.” Ahmed’s voice was more insistent.
“I know habibi. I know. But so long as we refuse to die they cannot win. This is our resistance.”
“I no longer care about resistance. My father was in the resistance and now he’s in prison. They have taken everything from me… my father… my sister…our home.”
“You have your life. There are still family that care about you that are alive. Your mother was here all night. You will see her soon.” Her voice was strained. He could see she was near to tears. “And not only will you live, you will learn to thrive.” Her voice became more defiant. “That’s our revenge. You will look at yourself in the mirror and say, ‘not only did I live despite everything they have done to me, but I have continued to live my life to the best of my ability.’”
*****
When Ahmed returned home he lay on the foam mattress which had been set out in the far corner of the tent. Several days passed without him barely moving. The crutches his uncle had improvised from old boat paddles, remained untouched, propped against the tent wall. His mother encouraged him to eat with mouthfuls of rice she fed to him on a spoon. If he hadn’t loved her, he would have refused. Swallowing the rice caused him to gag, but he forced himself to make it go down. He wanted to die more than anything… to join his sister in a world that had to be better than this one. Oblivion was better than despair. But, despite that longing, he clung on to life because he understood what the pain of his death would do to his mother.
Memories of what had happened played over and over in his mind. Without their father’s income after he had been imprisoned, Ahmed and his younger sister, Fatima, had been forced to go to the food banks. Sometimes they were lucky and would return with a sack of flour or a bag of rice… at other times they would make the long trek back home barefoot, with nothing more to offer than their cheery faces.
Fatima had died in the double drone strike that had robbed Ahmed of his leg. He should have insisted that she not come with him. Early on he had tried, but Fatima wasn’t someone to be put off. Even though she was only eight years old, she was courageous and had developed her own sense of responsibility and dignity. The first few times he left, she followed him anyway. There was no preventing her from coming with him.
They rigged up a cart from an old orange crate with wheels they had salvaged from a rubbish tip. When the cart was empty… as it often was … they would take it in turns of pulling one another along. When they were not heading for the food bank they would give their younger siblings rides… placing all three little ones in it at once.
Ahmed was only two years older than Fatima, but as the oldest sibling it was his duty to take care of the family while his mother tended the children and tried to scrape together meals that were barely edible. The younger siblings were far too little to take on anything more that scavenging around for cardboard and sticks. Inadequate as the fuel was for producing a consistent high heat, it was all their mother had for the makeshift fire she used to boil water and cook food.
Had the drone taken both his legs in place of his sister, Ahmed would have given the second leg gladly. They had been queuing for food when the first drone swooped down. It wasn’t as though they hadn’t heard the irritating whining, wasp-like sound. It was a sound they had learned to live with day and night. The quadcopter drone had swooped down suddenly. Its explosive impact flung his sister high into the air as if she had no more substance to her than a rag-doll. Even though her small body had been shredded beyond human recognition, Ahmed had instinctively run towards her. When the second drone hit, it had torn into his thigh leaving him in intermittent pain as he passed in and out of a lurid consciousness.
Were he to die along with his sister, he knew that would destroy his mother. The voice of the doctor in the hospital came to him; “So long as we refuse to die, we win.”
*****
His chance to find that inner resilience came when his school friend Khaled came round to visit him. Khaled was on crutches. His left trouser leg was tied in a knot just above the knee.
“Habibi, what are you doing lying around and creating extra work for your poor mother? Isn’t she tired enough already?”
Ahmed turned his face away. Khaled’s cheerfulness was like an assault on his senses. “Go away.”
Khaled didn’t go away. Setting aside his crutches he set himself down somewhat clumsily, onto the low mattress. “You know that I’m not going to go away.” Much to Ahmed’s growing resentment, Khaled laughed.
Khaled persisted. “Remember when our old schoolmaster forced me to write; ‘I shall not twang my ruler on the school desk lid when the teacher is talking.’” Despite his determination to ignore Khaled, Ahmed did recall the memory. Khaled continued. “You immediately twanged your ruler on the desk as well.”
Despite his irritation, Ahmed was unable to prevent his lips from expanding into a smile.
Khaled wasn’t to be put off. He could see he was gaining traction in getting Ahmed’s attention.“And we devised a system whereby you wrote half the sentence, passed me the paper, and I wrote the second half. It was faster that way. And our old schoolmaster, even if he did suspect that the handwriting was different, allowed the lines to be submitted.”
Despite his initial intention to push Khaled away, Ahmed turned his face toward him as he slowly became engaged. “He was okay, was Dr. Muhammed Khalili. I think he liked it that I had joined you in the punishment.” Ahmed paused as a further thought occurred to him. “It was rumoured, that he’d been an old revolutionary and admired friendship and loyalty above all else.”
“Exactly,” grinned Khaled. He shifted round and leaned down over Ahmed’s face so even if Ahmed still wanted to ignore him it wasn’t possible. “So to the real business of my being here.” Khaled’s voice rose in excitement. “My uncle passed on his old moped to me. I’m having difficulty riding it properly. Without my left leg, when I corner a bit fast, I lose my balance.” Khaled’s laughter was increasingly infectious. “I land in the road like a sprawling octopus… although with not so many legs.”
Khaled became more serious. “I notice it’s your right leg you’re missing. You have a left leg.”
Despite his earlier reluctance, Ahmed found his curiosity was fully roused.
“Well,” continued Khaled, “between us we have two good legs… a right one and a left one. If we were to ride the bike together we would be balanced. We could take it in turns of being in the front.”
Ahmed pulled himself up on the bed.
“After all, said Khaled, “no one says that when riding a moped the legs have to belong to the same person. When it comes down to balance, a leg belonging to you is the same as one belonging to me. We complement each other. Two friends, two legs.”
*****