MY LEGS MOVE ON THEIR OWN, MAKING A BEELINE toward Am, who’s still yelling for help. The scarcity of the medical staff plays in my favor. He’s pressing a dirty shirt against the girl’s neck with one hand, but the blood is soaking through the material and onto the child’s yellow shirt. I need to act fast before I lose her.
“Follow me,” I call, and his eyes focus on me. We run between the sprawled screaming patients, finally finding an old operating table.
“Put her down slowly.” I sound so emotionless I almost don’t recognize my voice.
Quickly, I rip out gauze and press it against the gaping wound on her neck while checking for a pulse. It’s there, but weak. The bullet must have missed her artery by millimeters. I can do this. I can save her. I’ve done it before.
But my arms don’t move, the horrid idea in my mind keeping me still. I look around to see if Kenan is near, if he’s taping, but I don’t see him. If I play this out right, no one will notice.
“What are you doing?” Am demands, practically hissing, when I keep on pressing on his daughter’s neck. “Save her!”
“Give me a boat,” I say in the same emotionless voice.
“What?”
“Give me a boat or… or I remove my hands.” I can’t believe the words coming out of my mouth.
His eyes widen and his eyebrows are in danger of disappearing into his hairline. His limbs shake with anger, and he advances on me but I don’t flinch.
“You—” His face contorts with fury and turns purple. “How dare you?
You call yourself a pharmacist? You would let her die?”
It’s getting hard to hear over the sound of my heart galloping. “You’re wasting her breath being angry. She doesn’t have long.”
I’m bluffing. I know that, but he doesn’t. I need to risk her life a heartbeat longer more to save Layla’s and her baby’s. My niece. To keep my promise.
His daughter jerks under my hands, about to reach her limit. My eyes fly to Am and then to the people all around, but no one gives us a second look, each engrossed in their own world.
“Fine!” he yells, tears pricking his eyes. “Fine! Please save her.”
I can feel Khawf’s satisfied smile on the back of my hijab. Immediately, I start working, thanking God this is my thousandth neck suture so I’m able to make it quick and without wasting a huge amount of blood.
Am strokes back her hair. “I’m here, Samar. Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine.”
Nour walks past me and I yell for her to bring me the makeshift blood- donating device.
“Finish her stitches,” I tell her when she gives it to me, and she takes over.
I inject the fine needle into my vein while the other goes inside Samar’s.
My skin is translucent enough for the veins to appear without poking around and so is hers. I watch my blood crawl through the thin tube all the way into Samar and pray it’s enough to heal her. To make up for the ugly thing I did. And the ugly thing I’m about to do.
“All done,” Nour says, wiping her hands on her lab coat. “She’ll live, insh’Allah.”
“Thank you,” I say, but she doesn’t hear me, already off to help another doctor.
My head begins to feel dizzy, so I take out the needle before I collapse.
I’ve learned the hard way when enough is enough.
I turn to stare at Am, who’s watching me curiously. His dislike for me is still there, but there’s something else. Gratitude. Even though he’s trying his best to hide it.
My mouth feels dry, but I force myself to speak. “You will get a boat for Layla and me. And it’s not going to be four thousand dollars.”
He barks out a harsh laugh. “What makes you think I’ll keep my word?
You’ve already saved her life. Unless you’re thinking of slashing her throat.
But then again, it wouldn’t surprise me after what you did. What do you think Dr. Ziad would say if he knew about this?”
My chest hurts at the thought. I shove Am’s insults down into the darkest corners of my heart. I’ll be a coward if it means Layla makes it out alive.
I nod to the stitches on his daughter’s neck. Her black hair is matted, sticking to the blood on her forehead. “You need medications.”
He lets out an incredulous laugh. “And you’ll only give them to me when I secure you a boat.”
“We’ll be providing you with enough antibiotics to keep the infection away, but there’s only so much Panadol we’ll be able to give. Everyone around here needs it. I can give you more than the hospital will. And believe me, Samar will need them. That pain will not disappear easily.”
I’d have to sacrifice the two Panadol boxes I’ve been saving for Layla and me. But as long as we get to Germany, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.
His jaw tightens, his expression still sour. “You can’t just have two free seats. Money is needed for the journey there. I’ve told you we need to bribe every guard on the tens of borders from here to Tartus.”
I take a minute to think about it. He’s right. The road is scattered with borders where the soldiers stationed there can drag anyone away.
I stick my chin out. “I’ll give you a gold necklace along with a thousand dollars. The necklace is worth about a thousand dollars. Will that work?”
I was with Mama when we bought it as part of Layla’s dowry.
He purses his lips, mulling it over. “Yes.”
On the bed, Samar’s breaths wheeze out slowly, and I check her heartbeat to find it returning to normal.
“My blood runs through her veins now,” I say in a low voice. Nausea is tight and heavy on my tongue. A side effect of giving my blood. “I’m a part of her. You owe me.”
He sits down heavily on the plastic chair and takes Samar’s tiny hand in his rough one. “Be here tomorrow at nine a.m. with the money and gold.”
He pauses and looks at me, half disbelieving. “I shouldn’t have underestimated you, Salama. You’re more vicious than you look.”
I press my hand over the puncture in the crevice of my elbow. “No one knows about this.”
“Obviously.”
“Stay here. I’ll go get you the antibiotics.”
He laughs humorlessly. “I’m not leaving my daughter, Salama. Not when her life is in your hands.”
I walk away, quickly wiping the tears forming in my eyes, and press my
shaking hands to my chest.
What did I do?
Before going back to get the medications, I wash my hands. I scrub until the red isn’t from blood but from rawness as my skin protests with discomfort.
Then, alone in the tiny stockroom, I clutch my stomach and sink to the ground. My trembling doesn’t stop, and the tears, spurred by my mountain- sized guilt, blur my vision. What would Mama say? Hamza? My brother, who was going to be a resident at this hospital?
I used a little girl’s life as collateral. I risked her life.
“You did what you had to do,” Khawf says behind me. “And it worked.
Hamza would understand. And even if he didn’t, these are dangerous times.
You need to live.”
“Samar could have died.” I hiccup. “I was going to have an innocent girl’s murder on my conscience.”
“But she didn’t,” Khawf points out. “She’s alive, and you have your boat. Now get up, wipe your nose, and give Am his antibiotics for today.
This is all for Layla, remember?”
Layla. Would she understand? Or would she be filled with horror? I can never tell her.
Khawf taps his foot. “You have to leave. If word of this gets out, what do you think Dr. Ziad would do? Your reputation will be sullied.”
When I hand Am the antibiotic pills, he shakes his head at me like he still can’t believe what happened. Neither can I. I feel like a spectator hovering outside my body, watching my muscles move on their own.
I scurry back to my stockroom, passing by Dr. Ziad, who smiles, and my shame deepens. I shouldn’t be allowed here. I shouldn’t be trusted with people’s lives.
Alone in the refuge of the musty stockroom, I sob quietly as I stack the rest of the medications.
“Daisies… Da—daisies… sweet… sweet smelling—” My voice breaks
and tears drip on the floor beside my feet as a horrible realization dawns on me.
I may escape from Syria. My feet could touch European shores, the waves of the sea lapping against my shivering legs and the salt air coating
my lips. I would be safer.
But I won’t have survived.
