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zaher omareen
he started to examine him.
Your auntie was so worried
about her son that she was
actually in floods of tears, she
was in a right state, bless her
. . . and suddenly she cried
out, ‘Doctor, for God’s sake,
what can you see?’ Of course
she was too upset to notice
how she said it, but honestly
it sounded exactly like what
women say when someone’s
reading their coffee cup –
and sure enough the doctor
went straight into this perfect
mime: he narrowed his eyes
and looked down at the
affected area with the exact
gesture of someone staring
into a cup of coffee grounds
held out at arm’s length, like
this, you know? And then he
said to her: ‘Well, Hajja, there
are two paths ahead of you:
one is open, and the other
is closed.’ She found this
language totally weird – was
he joking with her, or blaming
her? He looked over at her,
and then he teased her even
more: ‘What’ve you done to
this boy’s backside? It’s turned
into a cup of coffee – who told
you to do this abominable
thing?’ And we all laughed our
heads off.
–Uh-huh, and what else did
he do?
–Well he’s a brilliant doctor,
he can treat anything. I
honestly can’t remember
anymore what he specialised
in, originally – maybe he was
a urologist and nephrologist,
you know, treating kidney
and bladder stuff? But your
grandad always used to take
us to him, no matter what was
wrong with us: belly aches,
headaches, diabetes, blood
pressure – he’s a proper all-
rounder, that one.
And during the Events that