As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow (89)

“Listen to me very carefully,” Khawf continues. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he sounds anxious. “It means this hospital isn’t safe anymore. The hospital will be the first place they attack. Either with foot soldiers or bombs. You know hospitals are always targeted, and the clock has run out on yours.”

The veins and capillaries in my hands constrict.

“It means you need to leave right now or else—” He pauses, sussing out my reaction, but I don’t move. My heart is racing as I try to understand why he’s acting like this. Something about him, about his tone and the way he’s looking at me, feels different. It’s almost as if I’m talking to someone whose soul isn’t extracted from mine.

He groans, his jaw twitching. “You never learn. Fine.”

And he snaps his fingers.

Dr. Ziad’s office shifts, morphing into a graveyard. In front of me are four cracked slab stones crowning four hastily made graves. Mine, Kenan’s, Lama’s, and Yusuf’s. The backdrop is my hospital, flattened.

The scenery changes sharply before I can comprehend. I’m standing on the shore, with a gray sky lining the horizon, watching a boat filled to the brim with refugees sail away. Waves crash over the sand, soaking my sneakers, and the salty sea air burns my nose. Behind me the sound of falling missiles thunders against my eardrums, and the sky glows a lustrous orange-red, swallowing the dreariness. Trees catch fire and the cries of the injured rise with the smoke.

My future is on the sea, disappearing.

“Wait!” I scream at the boat, lunging forward through the winter-cold water. The iciness of it makes me hiss.

A bomb falls, and the force of it obliterates everything in its path, creating a hot current of wind that pushes me to my hands and knees, drenched in the Mediterranean Sea. Trembling, I glance over my shoulder to see the outline of another missile dropping.

It’s seconds away. I open my mouth to scream again and—

I stumble, my back hitting the wall of Dr. Ziad’s office, and I slide to the floor, sobbing quietly into my sleeve. I bite into the fabric as my chest heaves. Khawf crouches in front of me.

“Death will take over this hospital,” he whispers. “Do you remember what the soldier said? Think, Salama! Think!”

The military won’t make it here. We need to buy time until they—

My heart is about to burst—I know it will. Khawf’s face breaks out with a relieved smile and he nods. There are hidden words in his eyes he refuses to say but expects me to know.

When I blink, he’s gone. I clamber to my feet and grab my hijab.

“Kenan, wake up,” I say, my voice raspy. I can still taste the acidity of the smoke in my throat.

He sits up, eyes wild. “Wha—what happened?”

“Nothing.” I pull my lab coat firmly over me. “We need to get out of the hospital.”

He rubs his eyes. “What?”

I hoist my backpack on. “No time to explain. Get Lama and Yusuf and meet me outside. We need to leave now.”

I open the door and see the doctors and patients starting their day. I hurry to look for Dr. Ziad. Thankfully Kenan doesn’t argue and follows me.

My heart beats painfully and with each passing second I’m sure we’re closer to our deaths. After frantically searching through a couple of rooms and the atrium, I find him in the stockroom.

“Doctor!” I gasp. “We need to evacuate the hospital.”

He starts. “Salama! Are you all right? How are you—”

I zoom past him and snatch Panadol and amoxicillin packs from the shelves, then shove them into my pocket. “Doctor! Grab whatever medications you can carry and let’s leave!”

His confusion deepens.

My desperation is making it hard for me to string my thoughts into a coherent sentence. “We must—there’s probably going to be—all the other hospitals—”

He raises his hands in an attempt to calm me. “Salama, slow down.”

I inhale deeply, holding it in my lungs, and in a forced calm voice say, “If the military was able to get into the hospital, it means they’re already at our doorstep. One of the soldiers yesterday said something about buying time until the military did—I don’t know what. It might be a bomb. It might be something else. But we need to leave.…”

I can’t explain it. Something’s about to happen. Khawf is right.

Where would you go?

Everywhere.

Dr. Ziad’s face is stricken, but he doesn’t move. We don’t have time.

“I haven’t been able to contact the FSA for the past three hours,” he says.

My stomach falls. “We have to go.”

He nods, grabbing a stray cardboard box and shoveling the medications inside. “Salama, tell everyone to evacuate right now.”

I don’t waste another second and run through the hallways to the atrium.

“Everyone!” I yell, and all the faces turn toward me, recognition flickering in some. “Leave the hospital now! It’s not safe!”

For a few precious seconds, they glance at one another with unease.

Frustration builds inside me. It’s because I’m a teenager. They’re more reluctant to listen. It’s not easy for some of them to move, because they’re missing limbs, and others are hooked to IVs. Many are children and elderly.