“How do you propose to retrieve your hand?” Khayal asked. “Do you think Afreet-Jehanam is going to give it back to you? And what good will it do? You cannot reattach it. Be not a fool, Sitt Fatima. Come with us.”
“I must have my hand.”
“But it is the devil’s hand, and the devil has it now. An unnecessary appendage.”
“It is the devil’s hand, and it is also mine. And I must take it back.”
“Do you know what the Prophet said about left hands?”
“Stop pestering me. I know my religion. I want my left hand so I can wipe my butt.”
And Jawad handed her the yucca staff. “May God, the merciful and compassionate, be your guiding light.” And Fatima descended into the hole.
A starchy nurse jiggled into the hospital room in white pants and white sneakers. “Who’s going to be getting a bath now?” she announced jovially.
My father was glum, his face furrowed. Seeing his nephew as one of the bey’s lackeys had enraged and disoriented him. I glanced at the board on the wall to read the nurse’s name. With a red felt pen, she had written “Nancy” in a hippie script and had drawn a smiley face, but one eye had gone missing. She was full of inept cheer. She kept up a steady stream of chatter, more river than stream. She began to undress my father, and remove the electrodes, the white and the blue pads that transmitted his vitals to the nurses’ station. With a postcard smile that showed a large overbite, she said, “This is private. Don’t you think?”
I had only to look at my sister’s face to realize something was amiss. My father sat on the bed, back slumped, legs dangling above the bright, sterile floors. When he turned toward me, I saw defeat. He tried to smile. “Don’t you have better things to do than hang around here?” he asked, his voice frail.
“Here, Salwa,” Lina handed the stethoscope to her daughter. “You’re better at this.”
“You don’t have better things to do, either?” my father asked my niece.
Salwa, almost nine months pregnant, looking about to explode at any moment, sat behind him on the bed. She moved the stethoscope along his back, as if playing an imaginary game of solitaire checkers. She closed her eyes, and her face sagged, strangely serene. “I hear water,” she said.
My sister sighed. She hesitated for an instant before regaining her stage persona. “All right,” she announced to the room. “We’ll have to get more Lasix.” Tin Can was on her mobile’s speed dial. She spoke machine-gun style, her voiced pitched high. “Done,” she said. “He’ll call the nurses. We’ll get rid of the water.” She walked around, then abruptly left the room. She returned with a nurse, who proceeded to inject the diuretic into one of the intravenous tubes.
And my father began to pant. He still had not urinated an hour later. His laborious inhalations gurgled. Shallow breaths. He cracked feeble jokes. He tried to move, but just getting his arm to behave was arduous. Breathe in. Breathe out. Wheeze. Gurgle. He wilted in his bedding, drooped before our eyes. Lina tried to appear composed, but she did not fool anyone.
Salwa held my elbow and walked me out of the room. “He doesn’t want you to see him in this condition.” I started to go back in, but she held my arm. “Just relax,” she said. “He’s having a fit of pique. He doesn’t want anyone but my mother to see him suffer. He doesn’t want me in there, either. He thinks my seeing him will distress the baby.”
From the doorway, I could see the lower half of his body, the tension in his legs below the hospital gown, the curling of his toes with each breath.
Fatima felt weak and moved gingerly. It did not take long for the light to dissipate. She realized she had no plan, no weapon, and no energy to speak of, but the one thing she lacked and needed most was a torch. The ground was uneven, but not dangerous, descending at a reasonable angle. She proceeded into the dark until she could see no more. Blind, she became more careful. One tiny step followed by another. The staff tested where her foot was to land. Quiet was the rule of the place. Quiet until, “I believe you might need this, madame,” and then there was light.
“It gets more treacherous from here on down,” the red imp said. He sat on a protruding burnt-orange rock, four or five times his size — he was no larger than a boy of three, a miniature jinni, with hooves dangling above the ground. He held out a tiny kettle-shaped oil lamp. “Come. Take it.” He grinned. “I will not hurt you.”
“I would not know how to carry it. I cannot walk without this staff, and I have only one hand. Look,” she said.
He jumped off the rock, pranced up to her with no little animation. She jerked her handless arm away. “I just want to see,” he said.
She extended her arm. “You can look, but do not touch.”
The little demon stared at her wound. “You need a healer. May I remove the bandage?”
She shook her head. “I need my hand.”
“Reattaching it might prove to be a problem,” he said, laughing. “But let us see if we can figure out a way for you to carry the lamp.”
“You can be my light,” she said.
“Oh, no. Not where you are going. You received the call.” He circled around her. The top of his bald head seemed to move up and down with each step. “We cannot tie it anywhere on your clothes. Oh, but I can slip the handle onto your finger, and you can hold both the lamp and the staff. Here, try this.”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because you need help. Bring down your hand. I cannot reach that high.” And he slipped the lamp onto her forefinger. “With this ring, I thee wed.”
“It is the wrong finger, and you are the wrong species.”
“And you are dying.”
“I have not given up yet.” She looked ahead.
“I hope you will,” said the imp. “Now go. You do not have much time. I must wait here. And when you die, remember me in your prayers. Call me Ishmael.”
She marched, the lamp illuminating her descent, until the walls, ground, and ceiling converged on a circular gate. She approached, held up her staff to see the gate better, swept the back of her hand against it. It was black agate. She pushed against it, but it would not budge. “Open, Sesame,” she said. The gate did not respond, but there was movement in the shadows.
“My name is not Sesame.” The imp was the same size as Ishmael, and just as red. She noted that both had horns but no tail, which she took as a good sign. “It is Isaac,” the imp said. “Ishmael is my brother.”
“I seek entry,” she said.
“And I seek payment,” Isaac replied.
“I can pay.”
“I know that.” He flicked his hand, and the gate creaked open. “I am nobody’s fool. You are top-heavy with money. I will lighten your load. I will take fifty gold dinars.” He had the same silly gait as Ishmael.
“I will give you ten.” She walked through the gate. “You should have asked when you had a better bargaining position, before I came through. I will not overpay now.”
“Fifty.” He clenched his fists, tensed his stomach, and jumped twice. “Not one dinar less. I do not compromise. Everyone will make fun of me if I do. I was told you are carrying fifty. That is my price.”
“Whoever told you I had fifty gold dinars was lying.”
“Why do I get the troublemakers? You are dying, and with your last breath you haggle. You must be Egyptian.”