The Italian Doctor
By Mohamad Alarechya
Translated by Azza Hasson
“I failed to cut my nails today, my hand wouldn’t move, and I was out of cigarettes. I couldn’t stand up to pray or go out. I even lost the ability to think straight. Memories of the war made me vulnerable, and the roar of the planes and bullets set me adrift. My memory gasped at the moans of the wounded and at summoning the faces of the dead—dismembered bodies with flies swarming over them. I couldn’t sleep. I imagined so many things, it was as if Death were a person wearing a mask, chasing me from one room to the next. I packed my bag to run away to a place that would soon slip into the realm of oblivion.”
The old man was about to add something else, but he fell suddenly silent. He kept an eye on a cat pacing warily atop a house’s outer wall. It jumped to the other side, where it scared off a flock of pigeons.
He said: “I still remember the day I went with my father to Sirte to help him treat the wounded. On that trip, I discovered that the medicines he used were words of solace and glances of compassion, which he poured over the wounds until his reservoir of patience was exhausted. At that moment, his tears fell, dripping slowly over his thumb and forefinger. I was eager to give him a hand. I imagined myself in his place, a nurse with words that did more healing than bags of medicine.”
Children’s voices rose. Sobs, too. They were mingled with the barking of dogs. The old man leaned on his elbow while he looked down. He seemed very agitated.
“The daylight hours had passed. We took a dusty, deserted road that wound beneath the starry sky. After that, we entered a demolished school. My father said:
“Forget tomorrow what you have seen today.”
“’Is it true that the medicines the Italian doctor uses are mixed with poison?’ I asked.
“He gave me a hard look and didn’t say a word. He pushed the school door open and stepped inside. I was bewildered, and a bit hesitant to follow him. Since that day, death has been carved into my memory, as if the scattered bodies I saw around the schoolyard were buried under my eyelids, holding my sight hostage. Nothing is left in my memory except the memory of the foot my father carried to the cemetery, where he buried it. I could not sleep that night, as I was haunted by the foot with its cracks and its long, dirty toenails; it was covered with scratches and dried blood and smelled terrible. I thought that the owner of that foot must have been an ugly man. I dreamed he was a scary ghost that hopped on one leg and shouted. I saw him in another dream, digging up graves in search of his leg.”
A group of children entered and started chasing each other, which caused a commotion. The old man pointed a finger at them and said:
“Get out! Play outside.”
He fell silent for a while, then said:
“My father wore that look of sorrow till the day he died.”
He stood up laboriously, walked slowly toward his bag, and rummaged through it. His hand was shaking. He came back, but after each step, he stood still and rested for a while. He headed toward his son, who was leaning on his elbow against a shadowy Cypress tree, making circles on the ground.
“I remember that the sky was the embodiment of fear. It was gray and sullen like the dreary days of Sirte, and the planes were bombing ceaselessly. Once, when we ran along with the Italian doctor, a bomb fell right behind us. We kept running until we reached the Old Souk. Several buildings caught fire, and smoke filled the sky. A plane flew low over our heads, so we ducked behind a red rock. Here, I noticed that the doctor’s face had a scar that stretched from under his left eye to the tip of his chin. He looked at me. He seemed exhausted, and his face was pale. He wiped the sweat with his arm while listening to the bullets and planes roaring, then he stood up and crossed the road. My father held his bag and said:
“’Don’t go anywhere! Stay here!’
“My father crouched next to me for a while. He put his hand on my head and said:
“’When it gets dark, run to the stable.’
“He hugged me, then left me alone, face-to-face with fear. I saw a tank approaching me like a dancer, firing frantically. I cried, but my tears didn’t bring the darkness any sooner. I looked around, and I saw my father and the doctor holding up a wounded soldier. It was difficult enough to move under falling bombs, and the wounded soldier was screaming and squirming in their grip. A sudden roar from some cannons rose up into the sky. Silence. Tumbling buildings. The doctor ran, and my father followed. My eyes caught the tanks, and my breath sank when I saw a soldier holding a shotgun and anxiously approaching me. Suddenly, he stopped. Stood still. A few Italian soldiers appeared next to a tree, and the soldier aimed at them. One of them was killed, and the others fled. The soldier approached me, but he passed by me in a hurry, without even a glance. The fire from the tanks was like a series of deadly signs. When I heard shots nearby, I held tight to the rock, and, at that moment, a plane flew low overhead. I was transfixed, unable to move my head, as if I was stepping into a dark abyss. Then, I was about to run away, but the canons fired even more heavily, so I held the rock more tightly. An Italian soldier appeared from nowhere, waved his hand at shoulder level, then fell face down. The planes stopped, but the cannon kept firing non-stop.”
The old man went silent. He opened his hand and looked at it thoroughly, then said:
“I hurried through dead-silent stretches of land until I reached the stable. The moon was bright. There, I found my father laying on the ground, and the doctor was silent. There were bodies in dark uniforms drenched in blood. The night had passed under the thunder of the cannons, and, during that time, the doctor stood up. From a tumbledown corner of the stable, he gazed at the moon. I watched him, fearfully, over my father’s shoulders. My father turned toward me and said to the Italian doctor:
“’He thinks all the Italian are killers…’
“The doctor didn’t reply. For a while, he kept looking at the moon. Then he said:
“’Mi non piace Mosolini.’
“I looked at him. My father smiled and said:
“’He says he does not like Mussolini.’”
The old man rose heavily and walked around his bag. He glanced feebly at the bare sky then went back to his son and said:
“When we returned home, rumors were spreading and hatching behind the village’s closed doors. When I heard them, I felt I was hearing the sounds of wailing and crying. At the crack of dawn, I listened intently to the lies that were spreading: ‘He’s a murderer.’ At that moment, I felt that I should investigate after the Italian doctor. I went through his stuff, rummaging through his leather bag. I found nothing but some medicines and a hazy photo of the moon. One night, as my father was sitting in his heavy cloak by the fire and feeding it, he was approached by a group of village men. At their head was a bulky man with a pointed tooth between his lips. It was a tooth no fierce dog in the village had. The man sat and said:
“’We came for the Italian.’
“My father looked at him, studying his face, then said:
“’He is not a solider or an armed man. He is just a peace-loving doctor. You came for the wrong man.’
“The man sprung to his feet and said:
“’No, he’s the one. We should kill him, not the English.’
“Then he crouched and added:
“’Let us kill him and we will help you overcome the loss.’”
The old man took a drag or two from what was left of his Rappan cigarette, squashed it in the dirt, and carried on, saying:
“My father spat, covered his spit with dirt, and stood up. The next morning, we found the Italian doctor savagely butchered. He was lying on the ground, his knees bent, his leather bag in his hands, and the blood streaming on the ground from the slash across his neck. My father looked crushed and closed his eyes. He crawled on his knees toward the doctor’s body, then returned to where he was sitting, buried his face between his knees, and cried. A huge crowd arrived and hovered around the body. A sound of sobbing came from the house. Suddenly, my father stood up, turned around, then ran off until he was out of sight. The doctor’s body was covered with an old jard[1] and carried to the cemetery on the back of a donkey. There was a storm of controversy and disputes over the burial rites, and a fight was about to break out when people heard a roaring sound. They turned around and saw my father standing at the cemetery gate. He was holding a shotgun and pointing it at them. He cried:
“’Get away from the doctor’s body and leave…’
“He fired in the air and cried again:
“’Move! This is your final warning!’
“The roar of gunshots disturbed the silence. Men stood still around the doctor’s body, each one looking at the other. Then, the gunshots got closer to their heads. My father aimed at them angrily. The crowd dispersed after one of the men kicked the doctor’s body, and the cover fell off the pale face that was facing the sky. I ran toward my father, but he yelled at me:
“’Go straight home!’
“At that moment, I noticed a glare in his eyes. It was an anxious glare, like the one that appears in the eyes of wounded animals. He looked sideways at the corpse. It was dark, and no rain-heavy clouds hid the moon. He slowly put down the shotgun, wrapped the doctor’s body, hefted it on his shoulders, and disappeared behind the tombstones. I spent the whole night waiting for him, but he did not come back. In the end, I realized that my father and the Italian doctor met the same fate; they had gone to be part of an unknown and mysterious world, a beyond that neither my body nor my mind could fathom.
Mohamad Alarechya born in 1966 in Sirte, central Libya, is a writer known for his contributions to poetry, short stories, and novels. His literary career includes several notable works, such as The Disappointed Sand (2005), a collection of stories published by Al-moatamar magazine in Tripoli, Libya. He further established his reputation with the novel The Last Days in Allaj (Al-Farabi, Lebanon, 2006), the poetry collection A Woman from Oia (Al-Farabi, Lebanon, 2007), and a collection of stories The Big Man’s Party (Al-Farabi, Lebanon, 2010).
Azza Hasson is a Syrian translator, writer, and book reviewer. She has a diploma in translation and Arabization and an MA in linguistics. With over thirteen notable translations to her name, she has contributed to the literary world by translating novels, studies, and poetry. Among her most recent translations The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (Al-Mada, Iraq, 2023) and Nightcrawling by Laila Motley (Fawsel, Syria, 2024). Additionally, she is a constant contributor to several Arab publications such as Al-Akhbar, Al-Nahar, The Weekly Publisher, and Al-Sharjah Al-Thaqafiya. Her international contribution includes translating Fajr Yaccob’s The Note of Darkness (Al-Hadroon, Canada, 2019) and writing and translating for American literary journals like Inventory (Princeton University, New Jersey) and Porter Gulch Review (Santa Cruz, California).
[1] A traditional Libyan robe worn by men for special occasions. It was associated with the symbol of the resistance movement, Omar Al-Mukhtar, as he was wearing this robe when was arrested and executed.