New Short Fiction from Sudan: Abdulmajid Olesh’s ‘The Doctor’

A man is feeling dizzy, and goes to visit a doctor.

The Doctor

By Abdulmajid Olesh

Translated by Nassir al-Sayied al-Nour

There was only a little time left to get there, as the dizziness and light buzzing sensation started all at once. They told me there was a clinic, and I moved slowly and cautiously, to avoid falling.

I stepped into a narrow lane. The walls of its old houses loomed high above me, and I began to search for any sign indicating the clinic’s location. Up ahead, I spotted a faded painted sign with an unreadable name.

I stopped in front of an old house with a metal door and knocked with my right hand while my left rested on my head. I peered at a locked window and another that was half-closed. It seemed to me there was a sound leaking out past the fastened wire.

I knocked again and waited, then turned away. But after two steps, I heard the sound of the metal door’s lock being pulled away. I stopped, retreated two more steps, and I heard person’s voice along with the rolling of the lock.

I looked into narrow eyes in a round face, which had a bushy mustache shot through with age. I heard a thin sharp voice ask what was the meaning of all this noise, regardless of whatever I was feeling?

-Didn’t you see all the clinics back there?

My dizziness and the buzz in my head increased. My body grew heavy and my belly growled, and I wanted to retreat. But another commanding bark announced the result of my test:

-Come in.

He outpaced me as we walked down a yet-narrower corridor, talking continuously. I saw him head into the toilet. He left the door open, stopped for a pee, and repeated his cry:

-Come in!

I stopped between two old, mismatched rooms, and my eardrums were pierced by his sharp tone:

-Come in. 

It happened, by coincidence, that I had come across such a tone before, but my situation didn’t give me a chance to pinpoint it. I found myself in a poorly lit room from which he had come. It was dark, save for a light from window leaf and another from a TV screen, where a news reader’s voice rose. It reeked of smoke, the pervasive smell of dusty piles of books and newspapers, and the smell of clothes scattered between the chair and a partner that no longer existed. Beside the chair stood what looked like an angareb, the sort of wooden plank used to carry bodies to their graves. I turned around, my hand still resting on my head, and saw a computer on the desk with plastic parcels beneath. I felt suffocated by the mix of smoke and dust, but when I tried to back up a step, I found him right behind me.

He gestured to a section of the room, as if this were a clinic for the diagnosis of patients. In front of me, I found a photo of his graduation certificate hung on the wall, and next to it a doctor’s white lab coat. I stopped between this and a table covered with white pieces of paper sloppily thrown over it.

He lit a cigarette, then pulled a blood-pressure cuff from the table’s drawer. As he began to wrap it around my arm, his voice seemed to come from far off:

– How did you know how to find this clinic? Who sent you?

– The dizziness started with a buzzing sensation and….

– Really? I moved from my previous location to get here. And here you come, knocking on my door while you don’t and will never know what I’m doing, what’s bothering me, and what’s happening in my mind.

– Sometimes, when the dizziness and buzz get worse, my whole body shakes. And I vomit.

-What’s that supposed to mean? Let’s say you’ve vomited up all your blood, what does that mean? Fear! You’re being controlled by fear! Do you understand? You understand nothing, but the inside you is fear!

He gave a scornful laugh as ash fell from his cigarette.

-I really don’t know why you insist on struggling to survive. What do you have to do for a living?

-I have a pain, I’m feeling it…

-Yeah, yeah, cheat yourself and then lie! I’m a doctor! Nothing can cheat me; I have a grasp of scientific Marxist methodology. No one cheats me, as I possess the mystic secret of the soul. If you knew, why would you bother me?

Dozens have been killed and injured. They’re escaping what I already know, but don’t tell them. Collapse is imminent. The World Health Organization has reported that women are seeking out what their husbands fail to do. All men are helpless, which is a sign of return of the Left in Europe. I’m a doctor! This was a planned imperialist conspiracy, but the Soviet Union and socialist bloc will back it. The women will come right here, and I can do whatever I like with them. The reports said your wife is among them. It is the end; the time has passed.

He brought his face up close to mine. As he examined my eyes, the clean air seemed to leave his face through his pores. I looked at his photo inside the frame, and it seemed as if his body had been poured into that ancient frame.

– It’s nothing, just low blood pressure. If you understood anything, you would’ve taken a pinch of salt from any canteen, plus a cup of water, that’s all! You came to the doctor just so I can promise you that you’re not dying! Tell whoever sent you that I knew what was wrong at first glance.

-And the buzz?

He looked at me with eyes full of unlimited hatred, as if he’d know me since what had happened, happened.

He stretched out a paper as he moved away.

-What’s this?

-It’s not important to know! You spent your entire lifetime without any knowledge. And we spent our lifetimes trying to inject a little awareness into your minds, which are full of snot. Now you come up, with all your noise, to ask me?

I could hardly follow as he walked into the other room. I watched as he started watching the TV screen with its rising sound. He lit a cigarette.

-How much do I owe you for the examination?

He waved his hand; he was busy watching the TV screen. I repeated my question, then heard his answer.

-You can pay whatever! If you don’t have it, or don’t want to pay, then go on. We’re done, go!

Abdelmagid Oelsh was born in 1963 in Omdurman. He graduated from Ahlia University’s English Department and took up work as a short story writer, translator, and journalist. He has since worked extensively in the fields of journalism and cultural activities and has written many books in Arabic, including the Diary of Islamic State, and Mansour Khalid: Statements and Questions without Answers. His creative publications included short stories and novels: the short-story collections Hassan Roksy, Al-majals, and A Portrait and a Frame. In addition to that, he has published two novels: A Sudanese (2014) and Khartoum 56 (2018).

Nassir A-Sayeid Al-Nour is a critic, author, and translator.