Triumph

Photo by PalFest

It was harder than she expected. Some of the patients at the women’s clinic refused to give Intisar their full medical history, as though it were gossip she might turn loose around the refugee camp. They reported only their immediate ailment or injury, scoffing at her clipboard. It’s only a headache—just give me something for the pain.

They were guarded and suspicious, calling Intisar “amarkaneeya,” though her Arabic was sound. Her parents had made sure of that. Sunday school at Izzadeen Mosque in Chicago until she turned fourteen, Miss Sawsan standing at the front of a small classroom, a ruler in her hand, pointing to words on a whiteboard:

/sa-bah/morning /layl/night /kut/cat

She knew it would take time before the women warmed up to her. They would see how she hadn’t given up after five months and returned to the States, how the mass of hopelessness that had formed in her throat the first week after her arrival had now hardened into a lump in her stomach. The clinging stench of the sewers, the burning heaps of garbage outside cinder-block shacks, and the pro-Hamas graffiti smearing retaining walls and storefronts no longer shocked her.

Every morning, the women clamored behind her when she unlocked the clinic door. More than one had pulled her aside and in a hushed tone asked if Intisar could help with a delicate matter: I want to pull it down. What am I to do with another child?

At first, Intisar had not comprehended; then her face flushed, and in a low voice she told these young women that the doctor didn’t do that here. They’d storm out of the clinic, weeping, children clinging to their hips. Intisar hated those days the most.

This morning was comfortable and cool. Soon enough, the heat would seep inside the unadorned building and stifle the two minuscule examining rooms and the small room for breaks. There were frosted hexagonal windows ensuring patient privacy that were never opened. The women’s clinic reminded Intisar of an animal shelter back home in Illinois.

The buzzer sounded, and Intisar checked the security camera. She watched Amal, an assistant, come through the clanging metal door, then through a slight entry, carrying a steaming paper bag. “Salam! I’m sorry I’m late!” She was a slender woman with small shoulders. Today she wore a lavender headscarf. “My daughter had a fever last night. Elhamdullilah it broke early this morning.”

Three of the meagerly compensated volunteers had come and gone since Intisar had started at the clinic in the spring. Amal was the best one they had. She knew most of the women in the mokhayam, and they respected her. Her husband was being held at Nafha Prison in Israel, had completed his second year of confinement without a trial. Amal had been pregnant at the time they raided her home and dragged him out in the middle of the night. He hadn’t seen their firstborn, had missed his daughter’s akeeka, when the imam blessed the baby and the extended family ate from platters of broiled lamb and yogurt-soaked rice. Once a month, Amal traveled a half-day between checkpoints and detours to visit him. The drive to Nafha alone could take up to five hours each way.

Intisar had soon discovered that the third question on a form she fastened to the clipboard for new patients was necessary, if not surprising: Is your spouse or any member of your family in prison?

The second question was Has your spouse or any member of your family been killed? It was as casual a question as the seventh one: Do any congenital diseases run in the family? If yes, please list them.

Intisar found Amal’s sense of optimism boundless, her smile never faltering, as though the absence of a husband and father was not the worst thing to happen to a family.

It made Intisar ashamed of her own father, living in the States with...