The Distance Between Us by Masha Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page B

words. “There’s been a clash with some settlers. Two teenagers and a child are on their way in right now, Ahmed. Another child. This one eight years old. Bullet wound to the leg. Decent chance of survival. But without painkillers, the boy may tear at his wound. Infection and death could follow. Needless death .” He sighs. “You know this, Ahmed.”
    “In Allah’s name, look at her,” the younger doctor says.
    The senior doctor looks at his colleague sadly but from a great distance, as though mourning a son’s obstinate refusal to learn. “ You can invoke Allah,” he says. “But I have to allot the supplies.” He hands the chart to the nurse. “I’ll return in two hours. Let me know if there is change before then.”
    The child is no longer crying. She stares at Caddie with stunned eyes that hold fear—though surely, and please let this be so , she is too young to comprehend the sentence just pronounced on her. It must be the possibility of more pain that frightens her. Not the promise of nonexistence.
    The first doctor has his back to her; he is already moving on to the next patient. “Excuse me,” Caddie calls. “I’d like to talk to you about the medicine shortages.” He turns. For the briefest instant, she sees a flicker of interest in his eyes. Then he looks her up and down, and scowls. “We can talk as you work, if you’d like. Or I’ll wait.”
    “You are—who?” the doctor asks in English.
    “Newspaper reporter.”
    “Which country?”
    “America.”
    His frown stiffens. “You aren’t allowed in here. I have nothing to say to you.”
    “I heard you talking,” Caddie says.
    “You heard? And in what language did you hear?”
    “My Arabic is fine,” she says, slipping back into that tongue.
    “Mistakes are easy to make when it is not your language.” The doctor continues to speak English. “Not your people.”
    “I might be able to help.”
    “You think we will get more money because you write that a bomb-maker’s sister suffers? If it were so simple, you think our own would not have already achieved it?” He shoves his right hand into his pocket and tilts his head. His look turns suddenly softer, appraising. “You want to help? Go to an Israeli hospital and bring us back the medicine we need.” He steps toward her. “But go quickly. The child can’t wait.”
    She could do it. Get in her car and zoom back to Jerusalem. She might be able to persuade some leftist-peacenik doctor to give her the morphine, the penicillin, whatever is needed. For a little girl, a few supplies to ease her pain. Maybe even save her life.
    Caddie rubs her right wrist, remembering the leather band Marcus wore at his. It was a gift from a woman whose demolished home he photographed, whose coffee he drank, whose children he admired. He’d given her back her dignity, the woman told him, so she gave him the bracelet. They called each other habibi , friend.
    Caddie had scoffed. “A story is a story,” she’d told Marcus later. “These people aren’t our friends. We don’t share theirlives in any sense of the word. We slip in, dig up what we need and move out, fast. All that buddy-buddy stuff is only worth it if it gets you a better photo.”
    “Bullshit,” he’d answered. “You want something more, too. Something to make us more than friggin’ voyeurs.”
    “Us? I know better.”
    Now, watching her, the doctor’s stare slowly grows hard. “I’m very busy,” he says, and turns away.
    Caddie studies his long, narrow back. She imagines a series of interview questions. Have you ever been so tired you dispensed the wrong medicine? Have you ever made a mistake that cost a patient his life, and then lied to the family? She watches him leave the room. She can no longer see him, but in her imagination, he blushes.
    Still, it’s difficult to leave. The girl’s family has not yet returned, and she is watching Caddie with eyes that pull. It’s as though she’s waiting for an answer to a