The Clinic

The three men stopped in front of the uncovered cart being pulled by a donkey. On it was a sick man, and two women and a young boy were walking behind the three men. The tears the women were shedding mingled with the rain that was falling gently from the sky. They kept sobbing, while the boy shivered in the cold. The donkey kept trying to shake the rain off its drooping ears.

“Let’s carry him on our shoulders,” the first man said.

“How can we do that? He’s in pain.”

“We can try pulling the donkey through the swamp,” the third man suggested.

“I know that stupid donkey,” commented the first man. “He’ll never go through the swamp, even if we kill him.”

The three men paused for silent thought. The clinic still seemed a long way off, surrounded as it was by mud and filthy water. The door was closed. Just a single window was slightly open, big enough for a human head to fit through. It was the only clinic for about ten thousand people who lived in the villages and districts of the region. That’s why getting there was considered such an endless trek.

“Try to help me,” the first man said. “Spread his legs apart, and I’ll put him on my back.”

Now it started to pour. The wind was bending the trunks of a few short, tender trees so much that they nearly snapped off. Beneath the raincoat that covered him you could hear the sick man’s feeble moans. Whenever he let out a groan, the boy started crying and clung tightly to his mother’s dirty clothes.

“Is he going to die, Mama?” the boy asked.

The mother didn’t answer. She reached for the raincoat and pulled it over the sick man’s body. When she did that, some of the rainwater caught in the folds of the raincoat splashed off. The first man tried to catch his breath. He turned his back to the cart, and the other two put the sick man on his back. He could feel the weight, but still managed to straighten up and bear the extra weight. But he was soon out of breath again. Meanwhile, the two women busied themselves fixing the raincoat over the sick man’s head.

The group now started crossing the swamp. The men hitched their clothes a little above the knee, but the women didn’t raise them that high, which meant that their clothes got wet. Every time the men tried to hitch up their clothes a bit higher, more of their fat, hairy thighs showed. The sick man’s body nearly slipped off the first man’s back, but he reached up with his hands and pulled him back.

“I hope the nurses are there,” the first man said.

“I wonder how they manage to get across the swamp to reach the clinic.”

“They don’t have to cross the swamp. They live there.”

The rain was coming down harder, but nobody noticed. The sick man was the only one who responded to this natural phenomenon, with his non-stop and monotonous moaning.

“They’ll be able to treat him, and he’ll get better.”

“If we want them to take good care of him,” the second man said, fumbling around in his pocket, “we’ll have to bribe them.”

“Right.”

They walked up a few steps to the clinic and gathered at the top. The man carrying the sick man was exhausted. He turned his back to the wall and tried to ease him down gently, but his strength gave out. The sick man fell to the hard ground like a sack. He gave a loud moan, then fell silent. The two women bent over him and tried to lean him against the wall.

The second man began to knock on the cold iron door with his fist. It took a while for anyone to respond.

A short female nurse looked out first, then came out to look at the sick man. “What’s the matter with him?” she asked.

“We don’t know.”

“He’s complaining of aches and fever,” answered the third man.

“Carry him inside and follow me,” the short nurse said. “The doctor only comes on Thursdays.”

The sick man was carried inside. Once they reached a room with long benches, they tried sitting him up, but couldn’t. The nurse disappeared into another room. She and a male nurse were the only people there. The male nurse was looking at her.

“Another dead one?” he asked, still lying on his bed.

“Maybe.”

“When are we going to put an end to this way of life?”

“When we get married.”

“You dream a lot. They’ve exiled us here to this district. I dream of one day returning to my own city.”

“Then we’ll get married.”

“Marriage, that’s all you think about.”

“What’s a woman like me supposed to think about?”

“Go and give that dog some pills before he dies.”

He wasn’t even looking at her, but kept on smoking contemplatively. He watched the rain falling and pelting on the windowpane.

The nurse went out of the room and looked at the sick man’s face. She took his pulse and put her hand on his head, but she couldn’t diagnose his illness. She pretended to be concerned, and returned from a back room with a box of syringes. “Don’t worry,” she said. “He’ll be fine.”

The group wrapped up the sick man in the raincoat and carried him outside. The donkey could be seen in the distance, moving his hoofs and shaking his head and ears. Once again the men and women hitched their clothes up above the knees and started wading through the muddy water. Meanwhile, the female nurse joined her fellow-nurse and snuggled up next to him in bed.

“I’ve some jewelry,” she said. “I can sell it, and we can get married.”

“Are you tired of abortions?”

“How long are we going to live like this?”

“Give me the ten dirhams you got from them.”

“I only got five dirhams. I swear.”

She pulled out a five-dirham bill and gave it to him. Just then they heard a loud cry, immediately followed by others. She got up, looked out the window, and saw a woman slapping her face and splashing it with water in the rain. She also saw two men who looked as though they’d lost consciousness, rolling in the swampy water.

“Oh my God!” she said, as she came back to the middle of the room. “He may have died.”

The male nurse stood up, walked over to the window, and watched the drama taking place in the rain. He had a strange feeling and started walking slowly around the room. His eyes stared restlessly at the floor, then into the other nurse’s eyes. But there was nothing he could say.