54
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Sorry about that. I know you have grown fond of her." He
observed me through a small cloud of smoke. "She must be suffering
like hell. Isn't it possible to spare her this agony?"
"I don't know what more I can do for her."
He nodded .
"They say a doctor is half God," he said.
A big fly buzzed in through the window facing the sea and hit
the wall. Major Golan shifted his gaze from me and watched the fly
until it found its way out. He returned his eyes and observed me si–
lently. Suddenly everything fell together. I stood up with a start. So
that's why he stopped by. I looked at him in disbelief, no longer able
to take the smell of his pipe, the smugness of his clipped mustache.
"Did you really think you could get me to do that?" I could
barely control my voice. "She scares you that much?"
Major Golan plucked the pipe out of his mouth. He watched
me with lips tightly pressed, eyes a hard metallic blue. The scenario
was clear to me now. I tried it out.
"We pull out tomorrow. The UN takes over. They start nosing
into everything that went on here. Muna thinks she saw certain
things. They don't pause to think that maybe she was just hallucinat–
ing. Hell, why should they if her story can spark up their report?"
Major Golan pushed his pipe into the breast pocket of his tunic
and stood up .
"You haven't heard a word of what I said," he said calmly .
He turned to the door, stopped and swung around.
"We have nothing to hide, doctor. Not one of the former rulers
of this place did half as much for it as we did during our brief stay
here. As for your poor patient, prolonging her suffering unnecessarily
is hardly an act of charity in my book . That's all I was trying to tell
you.
If
you can't see that, then I'm certainly sorry for you."
His eyes rested on me for another minute; the aroma of his
tobacco lingered long after he had walked out.
That night Muna deteriorated sharply. I hesitated to give her
another shot of morphine ; her wasted body could not take it. From her
bedside, I could hear the explosions outside; the Engineering Corps
was blowing up military installations, and the hospital walls shook .
At dawn her pain subsided, and she dozed off. I stood by the window
and looked outside . An orange pink stripe of light glowed above the
sea, but nearby the sky was gray with smoke, and the reek of sulphur
hung in the air. In the mosque square a column of trucks lined up.
Cocks crowed . Dogs barked. I returned to my room and began to
pack .
