the scorching sun, prepared to be entranced by the book.
It was 11:55; I know because I had just checked my watch to see how much time I had before our planned lunch at one. I would enjoy this hour alone. As I began to read—”She woke at midnight. She always woke up then without having to rely on an alarm clock,”—there came in successive waves from all directions in the streets below, a sound whose horn-like crescendo made me think of a battle cry. It was the clamouring voices of men, the marauding bellows of invaders riding on horseback over the desert, surrounding the city, and descending upon Cairo in a moaning tide of agony and elation to take its citadel and rejoice in its women.
I realized that the sound was in fact the rising call to prayer from all the mosques in the city, the chorus of voices amplified up on the terrace, their elation swelling inside me, drawing me forward. As I looked at the clear blue sky, containing only a single cloud, and as the call gotsteadily louder, I imagined the mosques filling, the muezzin’s call herding the sleepy market traders and toiling farmers, rescuing its lonesome slum dwellers. At that moment, the lone cloud passed before the sun. I sat up straight in my lounge chair and took the occlusion as an ominous sign, and suddenly felt smug in my skepticism among these believers.
Three minutes later the sound was gone. I put down
Palace Walk
with a hunger in me that felt like a weapon. I wanted to find something that would take me out of myself, out of my marriage, out of this thing that was sharp and hot and grinding inside me. I walked out into Cairo’s streets.
Now, I make my way through the stale, pale hospital corridor in search of her again, feeling blunt, harmless. I find her room, pause, then enter.
She is bald.
I put my briefcase down on the floor beside the door and go to her. My wife is sitting up in the bed. Her hospital gown is the tint of a faded asparagus fern, and she is now a shaven captive of Ontario’s sandy soil, not the dark banana-leaf princess I first met.
“It’s fine,” I say, stupidly, as I lean down and kiss her cheek. She hasn’t asked me, hasn’t even indicated that the baldness is an issue for her. She pats my hand. There is a small bubble of skin at the nape of her neck that I have never seen before and it reminds me of a wet, shivering animal.
Rosie, the Filipino nurse that Fred arranged for, comes in to take Anna’s blood pressure. She has been carefully monitoring every one of Anna’s vital signs and has given her the final Hunt and Hess assessment. This scale is the neurological indicator of the severity of the condition based on the patient’s symptoms. It allows the doctors to prepare for the operation; to know how they will deal with the aneurysm and the pressure on the brain as a result of swelling. Anna is at Grade 2-, which is a good sign. She has not suffered paralysis, although she seems to have a stiff neck. She is alert, aware of her surroundings, and her speech is not any worse than it has been in the last week.
“Feed the dogs,” she says to me and pats my hand again. I stare at her. We haven’t had a dog since our family retriever, Miko, was run over on Highway 12 almost fifteen years ago.
“I will.” I return to my briefcase, which has fallen over. I set it right and consider getting out the pad, a fresh piece of paper, as I’m not ready yet to show her the one I’ve been working on. A creeping foolishness wakes me up. Who do I think I am kidding? What did I think I would accomplish with this little gesture? My absolution? This is possibly the most cowardly act of all. I should have completed that letter, written down the exact words, and been a man while I awaited the consequences. At the very least I should have strung together those snippets of words in the drawer and tagged on the appropriate conclusion: forgive me.
“Stop it,” a voice says behind me, and it’s Charlottespeaking to Sasha, who is
It was 11:55; I know because I had just checked my watch to see how much time I had before our planned lunch at one. I would enjoy this hour alone. As I began to read—”She woke at midnight. She always woke up then without having to rely on an alarm clock,”—there came in successive waves from all directions in the streets below, a sound whose horn-like crescendo made me think of a battle cry. It was the clamouring voices of men, the marauding bellows of invaders riding on horseback over the desert, surrounding the city, and descending upon Cairo in a moaning tide of agony and elation to take its citadel and rejoice in its women.
I realized that the sound was in fact the rising call to prayer from all the mosques in the city, the chorus of voices amplified up on the terrace, their elation swelling inside me, drawing me forward. As I looked at the clear blue sky, containing only a single cloud, and as the call gotsteadily louder, I imagined the mosques filling, the muezzin’s call herding the sleepy market traders and toiling farmers, rescuing its lonesome slum dwellers. At that moment, the lone cloud passed before the sun. I sat up straight in my lounge chair and took the occlusion as an ominous sign, and suddenly felt smug in my skepticism among these believers.
Three minutes later the sound was gone. I put down
Palace Walk
with a hunger in me that felt like a weapon. I wanted to find something that would take me out of myself, out of my marriage, out of this thing that was sharp and hot and grinding inside me. I walked out into Cairo’s streets.
Now, I make my way through the stale, pale hospital corridor in search of her again, feeling blunt, harmless. I find her room, pause, then enter.
She is bald.
I put my briefcase down on the floor beside the door and go to her. My wife is sitting up in the bed. Her hospital gown is the tint of a faded asparagus fern, and she is now a shaven captive of Ontario’s sandy soil, not the dark banana-leaf princess I first met.
“It’s fine,” I say, stupidly, as I lean down and kiss her cheek. She hasn’t asked me, hasn’t even indicated that the baldness is an issue for her. She pats my hand. There is a small bubble of skin at the nape of her neck that I have never seen before and it reminds me of a wet, shivering animal.
Rosie, the Filipino nurse that Fred arranged for, comes in to take Anna’s blood pressure. She has been carefully monitoring every one of Anna’s vital signs and has given her the final Hunt and Hess assessment. This scale is the neurological indicator of the severity of the condition based on the patient’s symptoms. It allows the doctors to prepare for the operation; to know how they will deal with the aneurysm and the pressure on the brain as a result of swelling. Anna is at Grade 2-, which is a good sign. She has not suffered paralysis, although she seems to have a stiff neck. She is alert, aware of her surroundings, and her speech is not any worse than it has been in the last week.
“Feed the dogs,” she says to me and pats my hand again. I stare at her. We haven’t had a dog since our family retriever, Miko, was run over on Highway 12 almost fifteen years ago.
“I will.” I return to my briefcase, which has fallen over. I set it right and consider getting out the pad, a fresh piece of paper, as I’m not ready yet to show her the one I’ve been working on. A creeping foolishness wakes me up. Who do I think I am kidding? What did I think I would accomplish with this little gesture? My absolution? This is possibly the most cowardly act of all. I should have completed that letter, written down the exact words, and been a man while I awaited the consequences. At the very least I should have strung together those snippets of words in the drawer and tagged on the appropriate conclusion: forgive me.
“Stop it,” a voice says behind me, and it’s Charlottespeaking to Sasha, who is
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