The director of the government hospital did not let anyone know he was starting his nightly rounds. He went into one of the rooms and found that a male nurse had a female patient on the floor and was lying on top of her. The nurse said to the director in a welcoming tone and without stopping, “Do come in, doctor.”
The patient had closed her eyes out of shame or pleasure, or maybe she had fainted. The nurse noticed the director’s look of astonishment, and said without stopping, “There’s no need to wonder. Unlike many others, I don’t like beds.”
The director left in shock and went into another room, which was larger and lined with metal beds painted white. He was surprised to see that many patients had surrounded a young man of twenty and were setting on him with slaps and blows, saying the whole time, “Talk! Admit it!”
But the young man was crying without shame, letting tears flow down his face and swearing in a pleading voice that he was suffering from cancer, that he was going to die in four weeks and had nothing to hide or confess. The patients then informed the director that the young man was not sick but had been planted by the police in order to spy on them and discover their political leanings. Puzzled, the director left the room, only to see in the corridor two female nurses who had pinned to the wall a young doctor with fair complexion and blond hair and were feeling him with wanton fingers. One of them said to the frowning director, “This poor fellow is a patient who hasn’t said what’s wrong with him, and we’re examining him.”
The director muttered some vague words and hurried down the corridor. He went into the first room he chanced upon but was immediately struck by a strong and disgusting smell that came from an old man who was lying motionless in a bed, his eyes glazed in a fixed stare and his ashen face contorted by a searing and unbearable pain. The doctor hurried out with frightened steps. He did not finish his rounds and wanted to scream in reproach until his voice went hoarse. He went into a room set aside for physicians, but found four doctors drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.
They did not stand up out of respect, nor did they seem to have taken any notice of him but kept staring avidly at the television. He stood a few moments in a state of speechless confusion. Then he sat in a chair facing the television set and, with eyes wide open, he saw the most modern jet fighters dropping huge sacks full of wheat and sugar on top of ancient mud houses scattered over a barren landscape. Every time a sack landed, it brought the roof down on its dwellers and buried them in rubble covered with mountains of wheat and sugar. The jets hit their targets with precision, and the doctors cried out in admiration at the skill of the pilots while the director muttered “God is great!” in a subdued and terrified voice.