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tales of orontes river
bloke never stopped, honestly
– he crept around from house
to house, secretly treating the
wounded . . . He almost got
caught by the security forces
a few times, but luckily he was
spared.
Anyway, this one particular
time, we heard someone
knocking on the door in the
middle of the night, and it
turned out to be our neighbour
Abu Ahmed, whose wife was
in labour. The poor woman
had been in excruciating
pain for hours and hours and
hours already, she was really
having a very tough time of
it – there were complications,
something was clearly wrong,
it seemed like maybe the
baby was stuck. Well, it was
the middle of February, half
two in the morning, and the
city was on lockdown, under
curfew. And there was no
doctor or midwife anywhere
to be found – not even a
nurse to help Om Ahmed,
poor thing. There simply was
no one to deliver the baby.
And ya haram, her husband
was beside himself! He could
see her life slipping through
his fingers as he just looked
on, utterly powerless . . .
So Abu Ahmed came round to
ours, and your grandad said
to him: ‘Your only option is Dr
Mukhtar. I’ve been informed
that he’s hiding near here at
one of our friends’ houses. I’ll
get my son to jump from roof
to roof over to their place, and
get him to come and see her.’
Well, that prospect wasn’t
easy for Abu Ahmed. How
could he let a man examine
his wife? Over his dead body!
No way, not for a thousand
swords . . .
And so of course we all
started begging Abu Ahmed