Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

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

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