I wished I could share that moment and that thought with Rebecca, or with Zahira.
On a large monitor a few blocks from the cathedral, an anchorman was discussing a story about a famous female singer who sang for soldiers at an American base on Christmas Eve. Below it the scrolling font displayed: INSIDERS PREDICT “ANY GIVEN SUNDAY” WILL WIN HOLIDAY WEEKEND BOX OFFICE…
I followed the crowd entering the cathedral and powered off my cellular. The interior had long white pillars that curved at the top to form a ceiling that reminded me of the New York mosque’s dome. White lights looked like the snowflakes from the nighttime sky, and the blue glass windows were like the daytime sky. Although it wasn’t midnight yet, members of the church wearing white robes that looked like the class men wear in Qatar were singing in the front in Latin. There were no open seats, so I stood in the rear and closed my eyes and listened to the singing for several minutes. Of course it was a foreign language, but it was simultaneously not foreign at all.
The rest of the service was a combination of music, reading from the Bible, and rituals with candles. I imitated the people around me, and different religious ceremonies usually follow similar classes of algorithms and procedures, and although I looked different, I believe I merged well with the Christians, except when they launched the ritual of communion and I remained in the rear.
When I left, it was snowing more heavily and the frozen ground looked like a clean tablecloth. I didn’t want to ruin it, so I walked only in the paths other people had produced.
I woke up on the morning of Christmas and remembered I had powered off my cellular. I had two messages.
I was surprised to hear my father’s voice on the first one. He sounded volatile and all he said was to call him back ASAP. The next message was also from him and provided a different number.
I called, and a female voice answered “Hamad General Hospital,” and my lungs inhaled air too rapidly.
It took me several seconds to ask for my father. In a minute he was on the telephone.
“There has been an accident with Zahira,” he said.
I could not speak. My brain produced a series of images similar to the ones from the bad dreams I sometimes have about her.
A small bomb had exploded in a trash bin in the Mall early in the morning, he said, and Zahira was there. The bomb did not hurt her, but the explosion knocked her against a wall and she hit her head. She had a concussion and was taken to the emergency room.
“Is there any serious damage?” I finally asked.
“Not from the concussion,” he said. “But the doctors say they found something abnormal with her blood and are running additional tests.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“I do not know,” he said. “The way they speak, it is impossible to understand. We are allowed to talk to her in a few hours.”
I didn’t know what else to say. So I asked, “What was the reason for the bomb?”
He spoke slowly. “They say it was a group here that is protesting the development of new malls in Qatar.”
“Did anyone—” I paused. “Did anyone else get hurt?”
“A few other people had minor injuries,” he said. “But there was a boy standing between Zahira and the trash bin.”
“What happened to him?” I asked, and immediately I wished I hadn’t.
His voice became very quiet. “I think he was taken to the burn unit.”
We were mute for a while. I asked him to have Zahira call me at her earliest convenience.
I disconnected, then sat up in bed and looked out my window. The Schrub monitor displayed: MERRY XMAS…BRONCOS VS. LIONS 4:15 P.M. KICKOFF…MIX OF FREEZING DRIZZLE AND LIGHT SLEET THROUGH DAY…I watched for several minutes, but there was nothing about the bombing.
My eyes moved up to the neon-green Schrub hawk against the gray sky. It was strange. I always thought of it as setting down the S and E, but now it looked as if it were picking them up in its talons.
The solitary positive was that Zahira was too young to remember which hospital it was.
I didn’t leave the apartment because I wanted to certify Zahira could reach me. I prayed, but not for Zahira’s health, because I know that only frustrates you when it fails. Finally my cellular rang in the afternoon.
“It is me,” Zahira said when I answered it. She sounded exhausted.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’ve felt healthier,” she said, “but I’m okay.”
“Father said they were running tests,” I said.
“That is why I am calling,” she said, and again my stomach rotated. “They think I have something called ulcerative colitis. It’s a disease in the colon. I have been losing weight for several months, and this is why.”
I closed my eyes with force. “How serious is it?”
“Because they found it early, they’re going to put me on medication, and they believe it will help,” she said. “If they had discovered it later, it could have required removal of the colon.”
I opened my eyes again. Three of the chairs at the table were in order, but the fourth one was out of line, and the asymmetry bothered me. “What causes it?”
“No one knows,” she said. “It’s just poor luck.”
“Maybe you have been losing weight because you have been studying so much. When I work hard I sometimes forget to eat well.”
“No. I have been eating less because everything I eat makes me feel ill,” she said. “I did not tell anyone what was happening to me because I was humiliated.”
“You should get a second opinion,” I said.
“Three different doctors here all agree.”
“Still, doctors are sometimes wrong.”
“I have it!” she said. “All right? I have it.”
I aligned the fourth chair with the other three and sat in it. “This is not right. It is not fair for you to get this.”
“Stop it, Karim. Don’t make me sad about this.”
“I’m not trying to make you sad. I am upset for you.”
“Well, don’t be!” she said. “I’m trying to see the better side. It could have been worse. They could have discovered this in six months and I could be preparing to lose my colon. Or the accident could have been worse. I could have been that boy.” She stopped.
“I am going to fly home tomorrow,” I said.
“No,” she said. “I can handle this. They say I am anemic and require a blood transfusion and they want to observe me here for a few more days. The visiting hours are short and there is no need for you to miss your last week of work if you are already coming home on the 31st.”
I hadn’t told her that if I signed a new contract, Schrub would therefore probably extend my stay beyond my initial departure date. We argued more about it, but finally I said I would call her each day. Then I asked, “How is father?”
“Haami and Maysaa are with him now,” she said. “It is hard to tell with him. He has been very quiet.”
Before the nurse made us disconnect, I asked, “Zahira, why were you in the Mall?”
“I was buying a gift,” she said.
“Who was it for?”
She paused. “It was for myself.”
It was difficult to continue talking, but I said, “I have missed our conversations.”
She said, “So have I.”
At night I called Rebecca. “We have family friends over, so I can’t talk long,” she said.
“Okay,” I said.
She talked about the activities like cross-country skiing she had done with her family and the many milkshakes she had consumed and a class of cheese she enjoys that she consumes there. “I may even need to set foot in a gym to shed these 30 new pounds,” she said. I didn’t respond, and she laughed and said, “That’s an exaggeration. I’ll never go to a gym.”