I did an about-face, walked quickly to the door and thundered, “Doctor!”
I repeated the summons until he came from the other end of the house, his face white as a sheet. He entered the room with a meekness that ill befit his usual pompous bearing. Feeling a hatred and bitterness toward him that would have filled the earth itself, I said to him, “The Madame tells me that you performed the operation that killed my wife. Now, would you care to tell me what prompted you to take it upon yourself to perform a dangerous surgical operation when surgery isn’t your specialization?”
With a distressed expression on his face, he shot Madame Nazli a strange look that brought to mind the way she had looked at Sabah, and I nearly exploded with rage. I’d begun to get a vague feeling that they were hiding something critical from me.
“Answer me!” I screamed at him savagely.
He turned to me with a furrowed brow, then remained silent for a moment as though he were consulting his lost dignity.
Then he said in a low voice, “She needed an urgent operation.”
Clapping my hands together, I said, “So why didn’t you call me to come? Why didn’t you call for a surgeon?”
“There wasn’t time!” said the mother nervously.
“But there was time to kill her!” I screeched.
The woman stared into my face as though she’d lost her mind, then she began to repeat, “Kill her … kill her … kill her!”
Then she lost her senses and exploded suddenly, slapping her cheeks uncontrollably. Wanting to come between the woman’s hands and cheeks, Sabah came up and tried to stop her. However, she struck the servant in the face with such force that she reeled backward in terror. Then she stopped slapping herself, turned toward us and screamed in our faces — the doctor’s and mine — in a voice that sounded like a roar, “You’re the ones who killed her! Get out of my face!”
The doctor then slipped out the door and I remained alone, eyeing her with a cruel stare that had no regard for her outburst. “You’re the ones who killed her!” The woman was talking nonsense, and I would have no mercy on her. I wouldn’t rest until I’d done something that would send people reeling. I was faced with a crime. And unless it was merely a crime of ignorance and stupidity, he would pay for it dearly. The meek submission of an entire lifetime had now given birth in me to a devastating eruption, a fiery rage, and impending wickedness. I forgot the corpse and my grief and demons appeared before my eyes. To hell with the criminals!
Filled to saturation with the woman’s obnoxious wailing and Sabah’s incessant sobbing, I suddenly turned away from them and left the room without looking back. Then I rushed outside as though I were fleeing for my life.
61
The whole world looked bright red to me, and I was filled with a hellish determination, the likes of which I’d never seen in myself before, to commit any sort of wickedness as a way of releasing what I felt inside. I doubted that I’d be able to achieve any sort of result that would actually quench my thirst for revenge. Even so, I didn’t hesitate for a single moment. I hailed a taxi and instructed it to take me to the public prosecutor’s office. Entering the place without any particular plan or explicit accusation in mind, I found myself in the midst of a stifling crowd and my ears were bombarded with a din like the roar of the sea. I stood there uncertainly for a few moments until I caught sight of a policeman. I came up to him and asked him to tell me where the district attorney’s office was.
“On the second floor,” he replied gruffly.
I went up the stairs and found my way to the room with the help of an employee. After receiving permission to go in, I saw before me a desk behind which there sat a short, slender young man who was poring over some papers in front of him. He looked up when I came in, eyed me with a penetrating glance and said, “What do you need?”
Shocked by this simple question, my mind went blank, and I stood there in a daze as though I didn’t know exactly why I’d come.
With a questioning look on his face, the young man repeated his query, saying, “What do you need?”
I had to speak no matter what it took. So, letting my tongue lead the way, I said, “My wife … has died.” I nearly said, “has been murdered,” but fear held me back.
Furrowing his brow in bewilderment, he said, “What does the public prosecutor have to do with that? And who are you?”
I took a deep breath and found my fear gradually leaving me. I introduced myself, then said, “Here is my story, Your Honor: This morning I left my wife at her mother’s house, since she was feeling ill. Two hours after leaving the house, I went back and found her dead. They told me she’d suddenly begun to feel much worse and that they’d called a doctor who is a relative of her mother’s. This doctor was of the opinion that her condition required immediate surgery, so he performed the operation, and she died.”
I gulped, then stood there looking at the man for a long time. Seeing that he wasn’t satisfied with what he’d heard, I went on, saying, “The fact is that this doctor is a specialist in reproductive disorders. So, is it permissible for him to perform a surgical operation? And if the operation performed has led to the patient’s death, is he not to be held responsible for it, and shouldn’t he be brought to justice?”
The man was silent for a moment, then he asked me, “Was she taken to a hospital?”
“No. The operation was performed in the house where she now lies dead.”
“Who was it that called the doctor?”
“My mother-in-law.”
“And how is it that she called on an obstetrician with no connection to your wife’s illness?”
“I asked her the same question, and she told me that he was the nearest doctor. She also said she thought that regardless of what a doctor’s specialization happens to be, he’ll be familiar with all kinds of illness.”
“Is he the one who advised that the operation be done?”
“Yes.”
“And is he the one who performed it?”
“Yes! I asked him how he could have performed a surgical operation even though he isn’t a surgeon, and he told me that my wife’s condition called for immediate surgical intervention.”
The man thought for some time, then asked me, “Are you leveling a particular accusation at this doctor?”
Not understanding what he meant, I looked at him uncertainly without saying a word.
So he asked me, “Do you have reason to accuse him of premeditated murder?”
My heart aflutter, I shook my head in the negative.
Then he asked, “Do you suspect that an error occurred during the operation, and that this led to her death?”
“That’s very possible, Your Honor,” I said. “And it wouldn’t have been simply an error. Rather, it would have been the error of a man who has no experience as a surgeon. Hence, there’s no doubt as to his responsibility in the matter.”
He thought again, then asked, “I can’t make a judgment until the medical examiner has examined the body and clarified the causes of death.”
His words filled me with fear and gloom, since I couldn’t bear the thought of the doctor’s tampering with my beloved’s body.
In a pained voice, I asked, “Couldn’t you call the doctor to interrogate him first?”
Disregarding my objection, he picked up the receiver and dialed a number. Then I heard him speaking to the medical examiner. He asked me for the house address, then asked the doctor to go there to examine the body and write a report on the cause of death.
After hanging up, he turned to me and said, “If it’s determined that there’s criminal liability, I’ll come to conduct the interrogation.”