GIDEON TELPAZ
45
"What are you going to do with her? She can't stay here. That's
against orders."
"I know what the orders are, Sergeant. Any other comments?"
He looked away. "Well then," I told him, "why don't you begin to
organize the place so that we can get to work?"
The orders were to clean out the hospital and prepare it for
casualties coming in from the front further south. But by the next
day we knew that our casualties were light. I sent north all the
wounded who could make the trip. The Arab girl Muna was my
only serious case. The lab up north sent me the results twenty-four
hours after receiving samples of her blood and bone marrow. They
tallied with what was written on her chart, which I located in the of–
fice the following morning: eighty percent of her marrow was leu–
kemic .
Shortly after my arrival I received an invitation from Major
Golan, the Military Governor, to drop by for a get-acquainted chat .
Before leaving, I went into Muna's room. She lay motionless, her
face averted.
"Can I get you anything?"
She made no answer.
"What's that?" I pulled a book from under her pillow.
It
was
Pride and Prejudice.
"So that's how you pass the time. Are you a Jane
Austen fan?"
"She is one of the authors I have to read," Muna broke her
silence, still avoiding my eyes .
"Where are you studying?"
"At the university. In Cairo."
"English literature?"
She nodded.
"So what brought you to this town?"
"I came to see my family."
"They live here?"
"They used to . They left for Cairo just before the war. I was
supposed to join them as soon as the doctors finished their tests."
Then she said, "My father had a shop on the main street. You can
see it, if it's still there."
"Why shouldn't it be?"
"The night before your troops arrived, the retreating soldiers
passed through and looted the shops. I saw them from up here. I saw
them break into my father's shop."
"Nobody tried to stop them?"
