be flippant about violence, but it was hard not to be in the face of her mother’s surfeit of worry.
In the end, Leila got her mother to tell her father about the new hospital job. Umm Naji had a way of wording things that made Tamir agree with her, a by-product of thirty years of marriage. When Leila went to bed that night, she slept well for the first time in weeks.
She had an old bicycle that she would use to get to work in the mornings. The hospital was a long walk, but to take a car was impractical, as the al-Ghani family owned one vehicle at present and it would be unfair to commandeer it all day, every day. Pedaling along, Leila took twenty-five minutes to arrive at Al-Razi Hospital and she walked in the double front doors at eight fifty-eight. Perfect, she thought to herself.
“Pass, please,” said the security guard at the reception. She handed over the pass from the day before. “Go ahead.”
Leila had no trouble finding the pharmacy for the second time. Dr. Musrahi was waiting for her there.
“Miss al-Ghani. You are very prompt.”
“Yes, Dr. Musrahi.”
“Today, you meet Sayyid, your fellow technician. He arrived early this morning,” said Dr. Musrahi.
“Aha,” said Leila. She noticed a fresh-laundered lab coat folded on a shelf. “Is this for me?”
“Yes. Just pin your name tag on the front, and you’re set. Sayyid will show you the routine. Today I must go to the Al-Zawahwiri Hospital, as they received the latest donated shipment of drugs and will be distributing them from there. But it is Sunday, so it should not be too busy today.”
“Right,” said Leila, unsure of what to do next.
“Sayyid?” Dr. Musrahi called.
A young man emerged from behind the metal shelves. He was of medium height and build, with dark eyes and a ready grin. “Doctor, sir?” Then Sayyid noticed Leila, and his eyes flicked across her, his grin broadening.
“This is your new colleague, Leila al-Ghani. It is her first day, so you can teach her the routine while I am at Al-Zawahwiri,” said Dr. Musrahi.
“Greetings,” said Sayyid. “Asalaama.”
“Good day,” Leila replied, keeping herself formal.
“I must leave you now,” Dr. Musrahi said. “I will be back in late afternoon, if all goes well.”
“I’ll take care of things here,” Sayyid said, hopping from one foot to another. He gave the impression of tremendous energy, almost uncontainable.
As soon as Dr. Musrahi left, Leila was left standing in the back room of the pharmacy with her new coworker. “So,” she said, “what now?”
“Do not worry. I will show you everything,” Sayyid said. He was almost purring the words, and Leila paused—had he intended some perverted double meaning or was this his natural manner? “Today we must fill the list of prescriptions,” he continued, and Leila decided she had imagined the tone. “Once they are in the bags and labeled, we pass them through the glass to Mrs. Turahi, who is the dispensary.”
“I understand,” Leila said.
It was not a difficult job, finding the boxes of pills, measuring out the doses with the flat metal bar on the table, and putting them in the small white paper bags. Some of the pills looked like candy, such as the pink-tinted amoxicillin. She and Sayyid worked in silence for the most part, and he spoke only to give directions. She hoped that would be the extent of their working relationship, though she did detect his sidelong glances at her. As with Abdul the night before, the proximity to a strange man’s eyes gave Leila unpleasant tingles.
She let out a long breath. Would she always be a woman before she was a doctor?
Chapter 4
It had been one month since Leila began her job at the Al-Razi Hospital pharmacy. One month, and every day was worse than the one before it.
She did not want to seem ungrateful. She knew she was fortunate to have a job at all, and this one paid quite well. Dr. Musrahi was a good boss who explained things in clear terms and was understanding of the issues of supply shortages and power cuts. Leila had no cause to complain, aside from the big, pressing, panting problem: her coworker Sayyid.
On her first day at work, Leila had been relieved to not make small talk with the young man. She was not interested in becoming his friend, she was interested in becoming a doctor. Sayyid, however, had other ideas. The second day had been fine, and so had the third and the fourth. But on the fifth day, Sayyid asked her about her family. How many brothers and sisters, what did her father do, what neighborhood did she live in? Leila politely answered the questions in as vague a manner as she could.
Sayyid was a typical male. The miniscule encouragement, the paper-thin crack in Leila’s demeanor, had bounced his expectations sky-high. He grinned at her. He chattered to her. He did chores that belonged to Leila, hoping to win points with her. Worst of all, he insisted on doing the difficult aspects of the pharmacy job, thinking in error that Leila wanted the easy tasks. This annoyed Leila to the point of grinding her teeth: she wanted to prove herself capable of the most complex jobs so that she might earn a promotion. Instead, Sayyid always beat her to it with a toothy, smarmy smile.
So it was that one month into her job, Leila was counting pills on the counter for dispensary, and next to her Sayyid was labeling a new shipment of drugs donated from a company in Switzerland. She thought about saying something to him about letting her do the hard work, but even their small conversations were too much for her. She could go to Dr. Musrahi, but Leila did not want to sound petulant, and most of all she did not want to add proof to the myth that men and women could not work together professionally. She was in a delicate situation.
“Do you like baklava?” Sayyid asked. He inched his steadying left hand along the counter closer to Leila.
She took a tiny step away from him. What a stupid question, “do you like baklava”! Everyone liked baklava. It was like asking if you enjoyed breathing. She did not grace him with an answer and just shrugged.
“Have you ever heard the song ‘Hauolou’?” Sayyid tried again.
Leila held back a cough. Again, everyone had heard the popular song. “This one is ready,” she said, finishing the count of pills and folding the paper bag once over to staple it closed.
“Sinnah al-ah nemye-ee…” Sayyid sang softly, tilting his head back and forth, his eyes fixed on Leila.
She stared. This could not be happening. Sayyid gazed at her, singing his heart out in soft, intimate tones. She glanced around, desperate for Dr. Musrahi to come in, but he was making rounds of the wards, taking note of which antibiotics and anesthetics to order. He would be at least another hour.
“Uymde al-e ha naaa!” Sayyid stood, and took a step toward Leila. “You don’t like this song?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t like it.” She moved away.
Sayyid looked behind him. They were alone. He put down his writing pen and ran his hand through his side-parted, longish oily hair. “Come on, Leila. We are friends. You like me, right?”
She bit her lip, looking anywhere but his fervent eyes. Her space felt invaded with each breath Sayyid expelled. “This is inappropriate behavior, Sayyid,” she said. “Dr. Musrahi will not approve.”
“The boss doesn’t have to know,” said Sayyid.
Then he did the unthinkable: he touched her. He put his hand around her waist and yanked her close. It was the ultimate indiscretion, forbidden by Quran and society alike. He had no right, and Leila bit back a scream. “Let go of me, Sayyid,” she said, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. “I don’t like you. Let go of me, if you want to keep your job!”
“Leila,” Sayyid whispered in her ear. He did not smell nice; like onions and hair