Fiction by Yusouf Mohammad

A Birth in Sharjah

by Yusouf Mohammad

You call them sister. They were midwives, but this is what you called them, a figure of speech that must have dated from a time and a place when Catholic nuns did the work. The sisters rather look like nuns, in fact, in their drab shifts and averted eyes, head coverings that bring to mind the wimples of Medieval women. Once this occurs to you, the mind wanders, playing the usual game of free-association: this hospital is spectacularly Medieval, you think, both in practice and decor. Few of your thoughts are kind.

You've entrusted the dark sullen man¡ -- who wouldn't acknowledge you for almost a minute¡ -- with fifteen-hundred dirhams for a private room. That's almost five-hundred dollars, but you'll get some of it back if your wife only stays the one night. Inshallah. That's what the man said. In an Arabic-English dictionary this means God willing, but outside, in use, the word means maybe or fat fucking chance, depending on the context.

The money bothers you, somewhat, but it's cheaper than a private facility.

The American Hospital charges twenty-thousand dirhams, which is outrageous. You hadn't realized, until it was too late, that it wasn't covered by insurance. It had never even occurred to you that this was a possibility. Your wife is afraid here, at the government clinic, because no one speaks English and the staff is unfriendly. They don't put on a smile or use supportive language, like American nurses do. You tell her there's nothing to be scared of.

You wonder if she believes you.

On the ward, an old woman stands in the hallway, gawking without shame. She has the look of an old-time peasant from another era, perhaps from Romania before the war. She looks ancient, her brown face covered with deep lines and hollow places. Her glasses must have been picked out of a relief parcel, something unloaded from a steel truck covered with a canvas tarp and painted with a red insignia. She has the look of someone whose natural decay has never been corrected by modern nutrition. From Yemen, you guess. You've lived here long enough to sort this out, to distinguish her by the clothes: a long blue scarf, tied with a white clasp, cloistering her face; the robe is thick, coarse and shapeless, like industrial curtains. This makes you think of The Sound of Music, a ridiculous analogy that elicits a fleeting smirk. The old woman is inert, her face expressionless. She leans against the wall as if she owned the corridor, a moral guardian staring after you.

On the way in, you recall, there had been another guard, an official. He wore a military uniform, a worn and vaguely ad hoc-looking arrangement, like something from amateur theatricals. Or, as you recite fearfully to yourself, like something quickly pieced together by the troops of a very young and uncertain nation. He was not clean-shaven. He also carried a rifle slung casually around his shoulder as if it were a handbag, but it's the uniform that gives pause.

"Where going?" the soldier had asked.

This surprised you. Not that his English was slightly broken, or simply that he'd said something, but how quickly the man had emerged from a tiny room just off the main entrance from which trailed a sickly yellow light and the stench of dead cigarettes. The locals almost never hurried.

"Maternity."

"No. Close now. No enter. Sorry for."

"You don't understand. My wife's going into labor. She must be at four centimeters by now."

It seemed unlikely that the degree to which your wife was dilated would make a difference to this man, yet the discourse seemed to change direction.

"Ward?"

"Nine."

"Room?"

"I don't think there's been a room assignment yet."

"Okay. As you like."

With this, the man had stepped aside, retreating back into his yellow room. You feel as though you're inside one of Kafka's parables. You have absolutely no idea which of your answers was correct, which opened the symbolic door. You miss the enterprise, design and predictability of America.

The sisters, who are from poor countries, take care of your wife. She is labeled, measured and instructed. Later, a young Muslim woman in designer footwear, who says she's the doctor, comes in. Because her shoes have a highish heel, you wonder if she's ever slipped during a procedure. Your wife asks about the drugs, which can be hard to obtain here. She's deeply concerned about this.

"An epidural? Let me check, please." The doctor leaves. After a period that seems too brief, she returns. "No. I'm sorry. Anesthetist is out. Cannot do. Sorry very. Not available on Ramadan nights." Your wife cries. Her contractions have become more violent, her screams unearthly.

"Let me see again. Just second more, please." Again, she leaves and returns quickly. You're reminded of the conversations between a car salesman and his manager, the ones that never really happen. "Yes. coming now. Only. Only she wants you to knowing very clear. She is not skilled at this one procedure. She may take five, six time to get epidural in. Okay, so you know? Five, six time, maybe. Or maybe okay. But. So you know that she is not so skilled."

"Yes, please. Give me the epidural. I understand."

Your wife is exceedingly lucid regarding this point. Nevertheless, the doctor repeats her bit about the unskilled anesthetist.

"I get it. Please. Drugs."

"As you like."

Everyone will bend, no matter how adamant: the guards, the doctor. The anesthetist comes later. She has been sleeping downstairs in one of the empty rooms. That she is not pleased is a popular song that plays on every station of her face. She scowls contemptuously, as though you've insulted her mother, Allah, someone like this.

"You know the risks? The complications? Also, it may take several tries, okay? You're aware of the contraindications in some cases?"

"Yes."

Your wife spits out the syllable with more clarity than ever. You notice that, with each rung of the institutional ladder, you get someone with better English. You picture a world-renowned linguist in princely vestments sitting on top of a mountain called Hospital.

The anesthetist shrugs. "As you like."

It occurs to you that they probably do this every time, enact this absurd imposture.

A man walks into the room. He is called Ahmed. It becomes clear, the way he argues loudly with the others, that he is a technician of some sort. You had seen him downstairs earlier and assumed he was a cigarette machine repairman, something. He's still wearing street clothes, no mask or rubber gloves. He wheels in a machine, astonishingly old, from which dangles a half-dozen cords and hoses, like a man on life-support. You've never seen rusted hospital equipment. You assumed they grew obsolete before they could wear out, like PCs.

It occurs to you that Ahmed shouldn't be in the room, as your wife's veiny left breast lies exposed, its dark nipple now big as a dog's snout. Men never treated women, or saw them like this. It was haram¡ -- unclean, forbidden, religiously unacceptable. Yet here he is, Ahmed, looking like he's just walked in off the street, and maybe he has, wearing tight jeans and a strange velour top. You find it hard to tell whether he's retro or just out-of-style.

The anesthetist, Sana, is only nice afterward, when she touches your wife's arm and asks her name. She did a good job. The catheter slid in the first time without much pain, which is more than you can say about the last time, with your first child, in America. They jabbed her like a bull until she wept.

Moments before delivery, new midwives arrive. The old ones leave. No one said this would happen, but you're not surprised. Your wife whimpers painfully, gripping your right hand. She asks for a mirror.

"Mum?"

"A mirror."

"Yes, Mum. Understand. But why?"

"To see. The delivery. My husband will hold it." She points to an area by her open legs, which have been readied in stirrups.

The sister is embarrassed, turning her face away with an obscure smile.

"No, Mum. Can't do."

Looking? No. You seem to have offended a sense of modesty deeply embedded within her sensibility. Your being here is enough. The Arab fathers wait outside, chattering on mobile phones or reading the Qu'ran. You shouldn't even be in here.

During the delivery, your wife bites the meaty part of your hand. Her wails are unbearable. She wasn't in nearly this much pain last time. You let her pinch your arm until it bleeds, because you know it makes her feel better. You think of the time when you were in the hospital, the psychiatric ward. The woman in the next bed screamed relentlessly. She must have been eighty years old. They were trying to insert a catheter, but she thought she was being raped. Kept screaming for her husband, Harold, wondering why he just sat there, doing nothing. Harold was there, by her side, and he was crying. You put a pillow over your face so you didn't have to hear any of this.

"Sister. More epidural. Up it."

"No, Mum. Almost there. Keep push."

"I can't. More. Please." You've never heard such desperate plaints. "Sister," you say, "the doctor said she could have up to fifteen. She's only on ten."

"Keep push. You be okay."

The baby is pushed out. You're relieved, mostly for your wife. Later, the pediatrician will tell you that the epidural had been cut with saline. She wasn't getting ten; she wasn't even getting one. You discuss suing the hospital, but this isn't done here. In the Emirates, you have no authority.

Afterwards, the head sister is friendly. Healthy baby, she says.

"What is your good name, Sir?"

You tell her, then ask hers. She is surprised.

"Lucy Philip."

"You're from Kerala then?"

"Yes, Sir. Yes." She smiles widely, tilting her head to the side the way Indians do. You've been here long enough to know she's from Kerala, because of her name. They're Christian there. When they get married, they take the husband's first name as their last. It's almost always an English name: a common one, from the Bible.

Sometimes it feels as though you've always lived here. You can't remember what it's like where you came from.

To get your wife discharged, the next day, you have to fill out some forms. You're sent downstairs to a small morose office that connects to the main vestibule where they sell Arabic magazines and bottled water. No one's manning the desk, so you wait impatiently in a vinyl seat. The cushions are torn. Stuffing spills out along the tears like blood from an open wound. You read a form that's lying on the desk:

Discharge Status
- Delivered
- Undelivered
- Deceased
- Absconded

The first thing you wonder about is the difference between the second and third categories: if the child is neither delivered safely nor born dead, then where does it go? what kind of provisional existence does it face? Undelivered. Is there a dead letter office for babies? Afterward, you think about the last term, absconded. You let it dissolve slowly on your tongue. Such a wonderful word, but does it really happen so often that an extra box is necessary? Should you be worried? Will someone abscond with your new daughter?

Another man walks into the room. He says hello, in Arabic, then sits in a matching chair along the opposite wall. His white robe, the dishdasha, is older and less clean than most of the local men. His beard is longer and more unkempt as well. You wonder if this is because you're in a government hospital, where the service is nearly free. You think about his beard, too.

It hangs low and uneven but the mustache is thin. All the men here have beards, but most are kept very short and neat. It gives them a stream-lined, modern, almost European look. This man has the appearance of a religious scholar or holy person, a serious and traditional, a conservative, look. You wonder if there's something intrinsically zealous-looking about shaggy beards, or if you just associate the look with religious ardor. Maybe it's just idle presumption? Have you seen men like this shifting prayer beads and reading the holy book, bent in half on thin pious rugs? You find it hard to sustain the image of neat, short-bearded men on Al Jazeera, the Arabic station, arguing about Islamic jurisprudence and Qu'ranic exegesis. No, these forums are always paneled with scraggly beards, old robes and a certain type of facial expression. These images must have seeped into your consciousness, guiding your interpretation of the things you see. It's not instinct, but a deeply embedded conditioned response. You're living in a world-sized Skinner box, you think.

Before these canine meanderings can multiply, a middle-aged woman sweeps in, greets you in Arabic, and sits down, furiously adjusting her shailah so that you only get a glimpse of her hair. If she were truly religious, you think, she would clasp it more tightly, but the local women always seem to be folding and refolding their silk robes. The woman scowls and mumbles, as if in prayer. She's probably pretending to have been doing something holy, like pray. You could always do this, if you were a local. Get out of work by feigning piety. It was Ramadan, which meant it was especially difficult to get anything done around here. The woman extends an impatient hand. You offer the slip of paper you've been given: it's covered with an intricate Arabic script that you can't understand.

"Sorry. Finance office close today. No refund today. Office close ten minutes ago."

"But I was here twenty minutes ago."

The woman makes a gesture signifying that, while she might be sorry, there's nothing she can do. "No refund until Eid starts."

"That's four days from now."

She makes the gesture again. The word cipher appears on your tongue. It's repeated, loudly and more resolutely, sneaking into every corner of your mind, like the harsh foreign sound of call-to-prayer. Zero, a non-entity, something that has no weight or value. The word resonates in other directions as well, like the call as it bounces from the minaret, across the square, and into your bedroom, waking you up in the morning: a method of transforming text so as to conceal its meaning; an encoded message. You think of the obscure significations all around you, a language you can't speak, runes you can't identify, an arcane culture whose meaning you cannot penetrate. An Arabic numeral. You had almost forgotten this meaning. It emerges from a remote corner of your memory.

You laugh. Cipher is the perfect word, uncanny in all of its associations. This slight amusement seems to be the only thing that education has bought you, though you thought it would be worth more. Like a devalued currency in an unstable country, your education has become all but worthless here, where the signs you've been taught don't match up with the meanings you seek.

"The first days of Eid, everything closes. Time of celebration after the holy month."

The woman tries to soothe. You are disappointed, which happens often enough these days. Their intransigent religiosity you find difficult to accept. It's something your people gave up a long time ago. The Puritans, you think, searching for a New Jerusalem among the severe New England winters, were our last gasp of religious fervor. Now we have psychics and sit-coms and everything runs on schedule. Because of the Enlightenment and efficiency experts, we no longer break routine to honor a Saint's Day or a coronation.

Once the discharge papers are in order, you return to the ward to get your wife and the new baby. You wish you didn't have to come back here for the refund, but there's nothing you can do. The old Yemeni woman is still propped up against the wall, a sentry, eyeing everyone with intense scrutiny.

"Uhr, uhr," she begins, searching for words or gestures you will understand, "baby? Baby comes, no?

"Baby girl. Yes." You smile and nod. Her English is much better than your Arabic.

The woman smiles. "Mabruk."

Welcome: you've been here long enough to know what this means. You search frantically among the few words of Arabic that you know, hoping to find adequate words of response.

Yusouf Mohammad teaches at Zayed University in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He is the poetry editor of Arabia Review, and his work has appeared in The North American Review and other journals.