Chapter 11

When I woke I was moving through another corridor. A bearded, balding doctor was looking down at me. I could see a tiny version of myself reflected in his round glasses.

“Shalom. I don’t want you to move. I’m going to ask you some questions. Two blinks for yes, one for no. Do you understand?”

I blinked twice.

“Good. You speak Hebrew?”

Two blinks.

“Good. That will make things easier.” A medical chart was passed across me. He scanned it, turned to quickly consult someone behind him in words I could not hear. “We need to get you into surgery right away.” The gurney picked up speed, the doctor walking swiftly, purposefully beside it.

Another set of doors opened into a white surgical room. The gurney stopped by an operating table covered in green cloth. “Going to move you now. On three –”

My body slid sideways onto a green surgical table. The pain was coming back, throbbing through me. The doctor leaned over me.

“It looks like the staff in Gaza have done the best they can, but you’re still bleeding internally. We’re going to have to put you under. You’re in excellent hands now.”

The world slowly became dark and grainy, like watching an old film noir. A sense of numbness crept up my extremities, flooded through my torso.

I was a single point in an eternity of darkness. And then even that light was snuffed out.

The world came back into focus. I saw a pattern of ceiling tiles, moved my eyes until I found a line, recognized it as the intersection of two planes, and followed it to another wall. I looked down.

I was a collection of hoses. Two came out of my chest, another from my abdomen. The tube in my throat was still in place, now fed by a machine that pulsed and pushed air into my lungs. A clear tube fed an IV drip in my left arm.

My right arm was in a sling. Everything ached. Huge blue-black bruises spread across my torso like thunderclouds. My throat was unbearably scratchy. There was a persistent ringing in my right ear. But I was alive.

I looked to the right. On a chair in the corner of the room, a red-haired nurse was reading a gossip magazine.

She caught the fractional movement of my left arm and rose to her feet quickly. “Shalom. Let me call the doctor.” She leaned over me, pressing a button above my head.

I heard a door open, and the balding doctor walked into my line of sight. “Welcome back,” he smiled. “Do you remember our signals?”

It took several seconds to remember. Then I blinked twice.

“Good.” He checked some readouts above me. “You were in surgery for a little under an hour. There were some complications, but you’re doing fine. Nothing we couldn’t handle.”

I moved my left hand up slowly, pointing to the trache. “That’s got to stay for now.” His voice held a businesslike note of apology. “Lungs are still clearing; you can’t breathe by yourself yet. It should be out tomorrow. But first... “ He took a penlight from his pocket and leaned close over me, flicking a beam of light into both eyes. “Good.” Moved down to the end of the bed, rolling up the covers, and slid something sharply pointed down the sole of each foot. “Feel that?”

Two blinks.

“Very good. We’ll give you a better way of communicating in a moment.” He tapped some notes on a pad. “I’ll come by tomorrow to talk to you about your condition. What you need to know right now: you’re alive, you’re in one piece, and you have some very determined people waiting to see you.”

My view of him was exchanged for the nurse.

“We use this for our trache patients,” she said, wheeling over a small screen. “You’ve used a smartphone? Text?”

Two blinks.

“Good. This is just like that.” She slid a small pillow under my forearm. “You’ll tire quickly, so don’t try to type complete sentences.”

It took work. Each letter was an individual, concentrated effort, and the predictive text tended to assume I had finished sentences early.

Thank you.

The nurse smiled. “You’re welcome. Are you okay for a visitor?”

Yes.

“Good. Emergency alarm is right here.” She pointed at a red alert button on a cord, draped over the side of the bedframe. “Press it if you need us. I’ll leave you be.”

A moment later, Yael slammed through the door, running to the bed.

“You promised – you promised you’d stay safe –”

I tried to smile around the trache.

Sorry. Forgot to duck.

Her hands rose; for a moment it was unclear if she was going to hit me or hug me, and unsure whether it was safe to do either. Finally, she placed her hands on the pillow, leaned forward, and kissed my forehead hard.

“What were you doing in Gaza?” she said, her face over mine.

I typed.

You know. I can’t. Tell you. Hear attack on the news?

She nodded.

Sorry.

“Don’t be.” She wiped her cheeks. “Joshua, I was so worried...”

I squeezed her hand gently.

I’m fine.

“You’re not! Why weren’t you wearing something? A vest, a trauma plate –”

Because I thought I was invulnerable, I wanted to say. Instead:

Work I do. Trust is everything. Go in armoured. No trust.

“Joshua, they shot you.”

Don’t know. Who. “They” are. Yet.

I squeezed her hand.

Long day. Tired. You should go home. Rest.

“I’m staying here.” She spoke if there was no question of any alternative.

Yael.

“I’m staying here.” Her eyes blazed.

Okay. Okay.

I squeezed her hand in surrender.

“I’m going to arrange a bed to be brought in.” She stood up. “You sleep, okay?”

Will. Do.

I closed my eyes, and was unconscious immediately.

When I woke up moonlight was shining into the ward from the east.

Very carefully, I turned my head sightly to the right. Yael’s figure was just visible under the white sheets of a bed that had been pulled up next to mine. I waited, feeding on air pumped into me, until I was assured that she was deep in sleep.

I turned my head gingerly back to face the ceiling. The clock on the wall said it was a little after 1 AM. I was, for the moment, alone with my thoughts, until exhaustion pulled me under again.

Like walking on a floor scattered with broken glass, my mind crept slowly back to the attack. My memories were fragmented: some sharp, vivid flashes of recollection, other moments concealed forever in shadow.

But I remembered being shot. And I remembered commanding the jihadi to stop. How had he been able to squeeze the trigger? The man had been only a few feet away: even with the noise of the battle, he must have been able to hear me. And I was certain my voice had the correct intonation. The command should have left him frozen in his tracks.