A STARLESS, BLACK NIGHT falls over Islamabad. It’s a few hours later and I am sitting now on the floor of a tiny lounge off the corridor that leads to the emergency ward. Before me is a dull brown coffee table cluttered with newspapers and dog-eared magazines--an April 1996 issue of Time; a Pakistani newspaper showing the face of a young boy who was hit and killed by a train the week before; an entertainment magazine with smiling Hollywood actors on its glossy cover. There is an old woman wearing a jade green shalwar-kameez and a crocheted shawl nodding off in a wheelchair across from me. Every once in a while, she stirs awake and mutters a prayer in Arabic. I wonder tiredly whose prayers will be heard tonight, hers or mine. I picture Sohrab’s face, the pointed meaty chin, his small seashell ears, his slanting bambooleaf eyes so much like his father’s. A sorrow as black as the night outside invades me, and I feel my throat clamping.
I need air. I get up and open the windows. The air coming through the screen is musty and hot--it smells of overripe dates and dung. I force it into my lungs in big heaps, but it doesn’t clear the clamping feeling in my chest. I drop back on the floor. I pick up the Time magazine and flip through the pages. But I can’t read, can’t focus on anything. So I toss it on the table and go back to staring at the zigzagging pattern of the cracks on the cement floor, at the cobwebs on the ceiling where the walls meet, at the dead flies littering the windowsill. Mostly, I stare at the clock on the wall. It’s just past 4 A.M. and I have been shut out of the room with the swinging double doors for over five hours now. I still haven’t heard any news.
The floor beneath me begins to feel like part of my body, and my breathing is growing heavier, slower. I want to sleep, shut my eyes and lie my head down on this cold, dusty floor. Drift off. When I wake up, maybe I will discover that everything I saw in the hotel bathroom was part of a dream: the water drops dripping from the faucet and landing with a plink into the bloody bathwater; the left arm dangling over the side of the tub, the blood-soaked razor sitting on the toilet tank--the same razor I had shaved with the day before--and his eyes, still half open but light less. That more than anything. I want to forget the eyes.
Soon, sleep comes and I let it take me. I dream of things I can’t remember later. SOMEONE IS TAPPING ME on the shoulder. I open my eyes. There is a man kneeling beside me. He is wearing a cap like the men behind the swinging double doors and a paper surgical mask over his mouth--my heart sinks when I see a drop of blood on the mask. He has taped a picture of a doe-eyed little girl to his beeper. He unsnaps his mask and I’m glad I don’t have to look at Sohrab’s blood anymore. His skin is dark like the imported Swiss chocolate Hassan and I used to buy from the bazaar in Shar-e-Nau; he has thinning hair and hazel eyes topped with curved eyelashes. In a British accent, he tells me his name is Dr. Nawaz, and suddenly I want to be away from this man, because I don’t think I can bear to hear what he has come to tell me. He says the boy had cut himself deeply and had lost a great deal of blood and my mouth begins to mutter that prayer again: La illaha il Allah, Muhammad u rasul ullah.They had to transfuse several units of red cells-- How will I tell Soraya?Twice, they had to revive him--I willdo _namaz_, I will do _zakat_.They would have lost him if his heart hadn’t been young and strong--I will fast.He is alive.
Dr. Nawaz smiles. It takes me a moment to register what he has just said. Then he says more but I don’t hear him. Because I have taken his hands and I have brought them up to my face. I weep my relief into this stranger’s small, meaty hands and he says nothing now. He waits.
THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT is L-shaped and dim, a jumble of bleeping monitors and whirring machines. Dr. Nawaz leads me between two rows of beds separated by white plastic curtains. Sohrab’s bed is the last one around the corner, the one nearest the nurses’ station where two nurses in green surgical scrubs are jotting notes on clipboards, chatting in low voices. On the silent ride up the elevator with Dr. Nawaz, I had thought I’d weep again when I saw Sohrab. But when I sit on the chair at the foot of his bed, looking at his white face through the tangle of gleaming plastic tubes and IV lines, I am dry-eyed. Watching his chest rise and fall to the rhythm of the hissing ventilator, a curious numbness washes over me, the same numbness a man might feel seconds after he has swerved his car and barely avoided a head-on collision.
I doze off, and, when I wake up, I see the sun rising in a buttermilk sky through the window next to the nurses’ station. The light slants into the room, aims my shadow toward Sohrab. He hasn’t moved.
“You’d do well to get some sleep,” a nurse says to me. I don’t recognize her--there must have been a shift change while I’d napped. She takes me to another lounge, this one just outside the ICU. It’s empty. She hands me a pillow and a hospital-issue blanket. I thank her and lie on the vinyl sofa in the corner of the lounge. I fall asleep almost immediately.
I dream I am back in the lounge downstairs. Dr. Nawaz walks in and I rise to meet him. He takes off his paper mask, his hands suddenly whiter than I remembered, his nails manicured, he has neatly parted hair, and I see he is not Dr. Nawaz at all but Raymond Andrews, the little embassy man with the potted tomatoes. Andrews cocks his head. Narrows his eyes.
星光黯淡的黑夜降临在伊斯兰堡。过了数个钟头，我坐在走廊外面一间通往急诊室的小房间的地板上。在我身前是一张暗棕色的咖啡桌，上面摆着报纸和卷边的杂志——有本 1996年 4月的《时代》，一份巴基斯坦报纸，上面印着某个上星期被火车撞死的男孩的脸孔；一份娱乐杂志，平滑的封面印着微笑的罗丽坞男星。在我对面，有位老太太身穿碧绿的棉袍，戴着针织头巾，坐在轮椅上打瞌睡。每隔一会她就会惊醒，用阿拉伯语低声祷告。我疲惫地想，不知道今晚真主会听到谁的祈祷，她的还是我的？我想起索拉博的面容，那肉乎乎的尖下巴，海贝似的小耳朵，像极了他父亲的竹叶般眯斜的眼睛。一阵悲哀如同窗外的黑夜，漫过我全身，我觉得喉咙被掐住。
我需要空气。我站起来，打开窗门。湿热的风带着发霉的味道从窗纱吹进来——闻起来像腐烂的椰枣和动物粪便。我大口将它吸进肺里，可是它没有消除胸口的窒闷。我颓然坐倒在地面，捡起那本《时代》杂志，随手翻阅。可是我看不进去，无法将注意力集中在任何东西上。所以我把它扔回桌子，怔怔望着水泥地面上弯弯曲曲的裂缝，还有窗台上散落的死苍蝇。更多的时候，我盯着墙上的时钟。刚过四点，我被关在双层门之外已经超过五个小时，仍没得到任何消息。
我开始觉得身下的地板变成身体的一部分，呼吸越来越沉重，越来越缓慢。我想睡觉，阖上双眼，把头放低在这满是尘灰的冰冷地面，昏然欲睡。也许当我醒来，会发现我在旅馆浴室看到的一切无非是一场梦：水从水龙头滴答落进血红的洗澡水里，他的左臂悬挂在浴缸外面，沾满鲜血的剃刀——就是那把我前一天用来刮胡子的剃刀——落在马桶的冲水槽上，而他的眼虽仍睁开一半，但眼神黯淡。
很快，睡意袭来，我任它将我占据。我梦到一些后来想不起来的事情。有人在拍我的肩膀。我睁开眼，看到有个男人跪在我身边。他头上戴着帽子，很像双层门后面那个男人，脸上戴着手术口罩——看见口罩上有一滴血，我的心一沉。他的传呼机上贴着一张小姑娘的照片，眼神纯洁无瑕。他解下口罩，我很高兴自己再也不用看着索拉博的血了。他皮肤黝黑，像哈桑和我经常去沙里诺区市场买的那种从瑞士进口的巧克力；他头发稀疏，浅褐色的眼睛上面是弯弯的睫毛。他用带英国口音的英语告诉我，他叫纳瓦兹大夫。刹那间，我想远离这个男人，因为我认为我无法忍受他所要告诉我的事情。他说那男孩将自己割得很深，失血很多，我的嘴巴又开始念出祷词来：惟安拉是真主，穆罕默德是他的使者。他们不得不输入几个单位的红细胞……我该怎么告诉索拉雅？两次，他们不得不让他复苏过来……我会做祷告，我会做天课。如果他的心脏不是那么年轻而强壮，他们就救不活他了……我会茹素……他活着。
纳瓦兹大夫微笑。我花了好一会才弄明白刚才他所说的。然后他又说了几句，我没听到，因为我抓起他的双手，放在自己脸上。我用这个陌生人汗津津的手去抹自己的眼泪，而他没有说什么。他等着。
重症病区呈 L形，很阴暗，充塞着很多哔哔叫的监视仪和呼呼响的器械。纳瓦兹大夫领着我走过两排用白色塑料帘幕隔开的病床。索拉博的病床是屋角最后那张，最接近护士站。两名身穿绿色手术袍的护士在夹纸板上记东西，低声交谈。我默默和纳瓦兹大夫从电梯上来，我以为我再次看到索拉博会哭。可是当我坐在他床脚的椅子上，透过悬挂着的泛着微光的塑料试管和输液管，我没流泪水。看着他的胸膛随着呼吸机的嘶嘶声有节奏地一起一伏，身上漫过一阵奇怪的麻木感觉，好像自己刚突然掉转车头，在干钧一发之际避过一场惨烈的车祸。
我打起瞌睡，醒来后发现阳光正从乳白色的天空照射进紧邻护士站的窗户。光线倾泻进来，将我的影子投射在索拉博身上。他一动不动。
“你最好睡一会。”有个护士对我说。我不认识她——我打盹时她们一定换班了。她把我带到另一间房，就在急救中心外面。里面没有人。她给我一个枕头，还有一床印有医院标记的毛毯。我谢过她，在屋角的塑胶皮沙发上躺下，几乎立刻就睡着了。
我梦见自己回到楼下的休息室，纳瓦兹大夫走进来，我起身迎向他。他脱掉纸口罩，双手突然比我记得的要白，指甲修剪整洁，头发一丝不苟，而我发现他原来不是纳瓦兹大夫，而是雷蒙德?安德鲁，大使馆那个抚摸着番茄藤的小个子。安德鲁抬起头，眯着眼睛。