Chapter 12

I stepped toward the man and he backed up a few paces.

“What goes on here is the business of the wives of Hassan and none of yours,” I said, my voice flat and menacing.

His eyebrows jogged up and down and his face became redder.

“I am al Hassan so it is my business, now get off my property,” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.

I regarded him coldly, resisting the urge to throttle him for all the evil he had perpetrated.

“No you are not Hassan, you are Fayez bin Faisal, the lying, conniving Palestinian with a family in Jordan. Go back to your other life Faisal, you no longer have any business here,” I said, the last with the vehemence and revulsion I felt for him.

He backed up another couple of steps, seemingly driven back by the fury in my voice. Fatima moved up to stand at my side. I guess she wanted to extract her own revenge, because in a voice laced with venomous loathing, she let him have it as she clung to my arm.

“Yes, it is time for you to leave you lying Shaitan (Satan) go back to your Jordanian sharmuta (whore) because we have a real man for a husband now,” she spat out.

Hassan/Faisal glowered at us, but spun around as if to walk away. I started to follow him when he spun around with a small pistol in his hand.

We were all frozen for a second, just long enough for him to scream. “It is you who are the sharmuta, barren, faithless tramp.”

Too late, I lunged towards him. The pistol went off with a report that seemed much too loud for its size. He was able to fire one more shot before I reached him. I felt the white-hot heat of the bullet plow a furrow through the skin on the left side of my head, right above my ear. That shot was his last living act, as I grabbed him and spun him around. I clamped him in a rear stranglehold take down and pulled him backwards. His neck snapped as we hit the ground.

I stood up and wiped at the blood running down the side of my head. I looked around when I heard a keening wail that penetrated the loud ringing in my ears. When I turned around, I experienced a moment of vertigo as I saw Fatima lying on the ground with Kalila hovering over her. The high-pitched, eerie wailing was coming from Kalila. I pushed her aside gently and knelt by Fatima’s side.

I worked the graveyard shift in the Emergency Room back home for eight days of every month, plus I had been a combat medic, so I was familiar with gunshot wounds. Even before I started tearing off Fatima’s abaya I knew her wound was bad. She was wounded in the lower right chest and her breath whistled through the hole in the classic sucking chest wound manner.

She was looking at me, her eyes filled with that fearful look I had seem hundreds of times in the ER and on the battlefield. Her lips were flecked with bloody saliva. I gave her my most professional reassuring smile and patted her hand.

“You are going to be fine, Honey, just breath as slowly as you can. I’ll make it easier to catch your breath in a few seconds.” I turned to Kalila. “Looks like you are going to start your nurses training earlier than we thought. Calm yourself and find me a few of the bags you used for the hashish resin.”

Kalila took a couple of deep breaths, then scurried over to one of the long potting tables. As soon as she jumped up, the greenhouse door banged open and Basheera burst in with her AK at the ready.

“Safe your weapon, Basheera, and come here, I need your help,” I called out loudly.

Tahani rushed in with the AKM at the sound of my voice. Both of them were shocked at seeing Hassan, his face set in a death mask rictus, lying on the floor. Tahani looked the most squeamish, so I sent her for Jamilah and all my medical supplies. I had Basheera kneel down and help me finish ripping open Fatima’s abaya.

When we had Fatima naked to the waist, I checked the entrance wound below and to the right of her breast then gently rolled her over. She groaned at being moved, but it couldn’t be avoided. I heaved a sigh of relief at the sight of the exit wound in her side, an inch from her back. Fatima was lucky from the standpoint of the trajectory of the projectile, but an open chest wound was a potentially fatal injury, regardless. The .32 caliber copper jacketed round had held together as it passed between her ribs, front and side. At least she was spared the pain of me digging out the bullet.

Kalila arrived with a stack of the heavy-duty plastic storage bags. I handed one to Basheera and showed her how to hold it over the exit wound to make the bullet hole airtight. I did the same on the front wound holding the plastic in place with my hand, so that her chest would be temporarily sealed. The hiss of air entering her lungs stopped and Fatima’s breathing leveled out some, as she did not feel so desperate for air. Jamilah came running in then, carrying my small aid kit, surgical set and baggie of meds.

I had Basheera remove her plastic and quickly wiped the wound with a clean piece of gauze. After a quick visual inspection, I cut one of the plastic bags into a couple of four-inch squares, using my bandage scissors. Basheera held the new seal in place as I taped it off with waterproof adhesive tape. We repeated the process to the front wound, except that I only taped off three sides of the seal. When Fatima breathed in, the untapped side allowed her inflating lung to push air out of her chest cavity, when she exhaled the bag sealed to her chest preventing air from reentering her chest. The more air that was pushed out of her chest cavity the more her lung could reinflate. I kept reassuring Fatima, trying to keep my voice soft. It was hard doing that, because I could barely hear from my left ear and my head was ringing.

Fatima seemed better now that her lung was sealed back up. I knew she was in some moderate pain, but I couldn’t give her anything for it yet. I rolled her gently onto her injured side, so her good lung could work freely, then turned towards Basheera. I told her what we needed to make a stretcher. She quickly dispatched Kalila for blankets, while she went for some six-foot sections of pipe. I was turning back towards Fatima when my world grew black around the edges. I fought to stay conscious as Jamilah tried to steady me.

“You are hurt badly also, Neeko, there is much blood on your head and neck,” she said worriedly.

I gulped a couple of calming breaths. I knew I was more in shock than injured.

“It is not as bad as it looks, Jamilah. When I have finished treating Fatima, I will have you tend to it.”

I held Fatima’s hand and explained what I had done so far and what else I needed to do. She smiled weakly and nodded her understanding.

“I am not those things Hassan called me, Neeko,” she said, her voice thin and reedy. “I would never be unfaithful, and even now, your child grows within me.”

Fatima’s revelation would have been great news at any other time but now. Although the bullet wound was nowhere near her womb, the shock of the injury might cause her to spontaneously miscarry. I squeezed her hand again.

“That’s wonderful, Fatima, I am very happy. Now you have two reasons to do as I say so you can get well.”

Tahani arrived then with an armful of blankets. Basheera and I quickly fashioned an expedient litter, while Jamilah covered Fatima with another blanket. We soon had Fatima on the stretcher. Tahani and I took one end, Kalila and Jamilah the other. We carefully maneuvered towards the house, while Basheera stayed behind to deal with Hassan’s body. I felt badly for leaving her with that gruesome chore, but she insisted on doing it. I think for her, it was actually cleansing to be able to finally put Hassan to rest.

We hauled Fatima to the house and set her up in the large room that had been Hassan’s bedroom. We made her as comfortable as we could, and I gave her a couple of ibuprofen for her pain. Tahani and Adara stayed with Fatima while I went to the bathroom to check myself out in the mirror. Jamilah, Kalila and most surprisingly, Zahrah came with me, all clucking around like mother hens. As I stood there in front of the mirror, it struck me again how odd that in a house with seven women, there was only the one small mirror.

Jamilah and Kalila wet washcloths with warm water and gently cleaned up my face. I stripped off my shirt so they could get me clean. The wound was about three eights of an inch wide and three inches long. It started right before and above my ear and ran back at a slight upward angle. The bleeding had mostly stopped and there wasn’t much more we could do for it right now. I had Jamilah put some Neosporin on the cut and cover it with gauze before wrapping it turban style with cloth strips Zahrah found.

When I was together as I could get, I sent Jamilah out to get me a couple of aspirin. Her mission was contrived so I could talk to the sisters.

“I am sorry for what I had to do to your father, but he left me no choice. I believe he would have killed us all to keep his secrets,” I said.

Kalila laid her hand on my cheek. “He was already dead to us, Neeko. His coming back would have been Shaitan rising from hell. You were foolishly brave, my husband, to attack an armed man to save us.”

I turned to Zahrah, relieved that at least my wife was okay with what I’d done.

“And you, Zahrah, what are your feelings about this?”

“I have only loathing for him, I did not wish him dead, but I will not mourn his death. His only concern for either of us was the dowry we might bring him.” She said angrily.

I pulled both of them into my arms. Zahrah accepted my embrace as readily as her sister.

“Zahrah, you are a free woman, I will support whatever you decide to do with your life. You are not obligated to me in any manner, I will make that clear to Basheera tonight,” I said.

Zahrah thanked me and said she had much thinking to do before she made any decisions about her future. I meant what I’d said from the bottom of my heart, I cared enough for her to let her go.

After my talk with Kalila and Zahrah, I went back in to sit with Fatima. Tahani was already there, holding her hand, and Kalila was waiting to help me. I was in a quandary as to the next action I should take. The seals I placed over the wound were already allowing Fatima’s lung to reinflate. I could tell that simply by watching her chest rise and fall. The size of Fatima’s breast made them a perfect gauge. I simply compared how high the nipple on her injured side rose compared to the uninjured side. So with the seals, I had taken care of pneumo-thorax (air in the chest cavity) now my concern was blood in the chest cavity (hemothorax) along with infection.

It was much harder to check for hemothorax without medical equipment I didn’t have access to. Moderate hemothorax required a chest tube, a special tube with a one-way valve at the end that is inserted into the chest cavity. I didn’t have a chest tube, but could make one of sorts if necessary, but that presented an entirely new set of challenges. In the end, I decided that the best I could do was to keep a close watch on her and if her breathing became labored again I would fashion the chest tube.

I cut an amoxicillin tablet into three pieces and gave one piece to Fatima. She was able to take the pill and a sip of water by only raising her head slightly. I made sure I had an epinephrine injector and some Benadryl handy, then nervously waited an hour to see if Fatima was allergic to penicillin. I was frustrated that I had to practice field medicine on my wife. Especially since all a field medic was supposed to do was stabilize a patient and evacuate them to the rear as soon as possible. I didn’t have the luxury of being able to medivac Fatima, as the nearest medical facilities were fifty miles away through unstable territory.