Normally when patients were well enough to leave the hospital, those doctors and nurses who had cared for their health acknowledged their leaving as a rite of passage. If they were important people, some of the staff lined up in congratulations, wishing the patient continued good health and fortune. But everybody knew, without even looking at the handcuffs that tethered his wrist to the armrest of the wheelchair, that Bilal would be getting no such reception. Only Yael came to the door of the men’s surgical recovery ward to wish him good-bye. She stood at the window of the ward and watched him being wheeled into an ambulance to be driven to police headquarters, where he would be processed, arraigned by a judge, remanded in custody to await a trial hearing, and then shipped off to prison. She prayed that, for the sake of his mother and father, he’d plead guilty so that his trial and the awful evidence that would doubtless be presented would be over quickly. When the ambulance disappeared from the hospital grounds and into Jerusalem’s frenetic traffic, she returned to writing up patient notes for the three operations she’d performed that day, showered in the doctors’ rooms, and prepared for her dinner with Yaniv.
