Sabra Zoo Read Online Free PDF

have questions for the doctor?’
    â€˜Thank him for me,’ the man said. He sounded very tired.
    Going down the stairs to the lobby I heard shouting and was surprised to see that it was Asha. She was addressing a white male doctor who was with a group of new medics, gesturing at the families of refugees camped in the lobby, whose number had been growing daily since the PLO evacuation.
    â€˜These people have every right to be here,’ she was saying. ‘This is their hospital, not yours, it doesn’t belong to the doctors and it isn’t for you to tell them they shouldn’t be here.’ The medics exchanged raised eyebrows. ‘You’re not lording it over the natives here, nor do you have the same dubious status you may have back in London.’
    The hospital administrator bustled into the lobby – a fearsome woman who disapproved of my presence in her hospital. I was only tolerated on site because of John and Asha’s insistence that I was useful.
    Asha continued in forced moderation, her voice quieter. ‘The infrastructure has collapsed … Imagine if one day you woke up and the government had packed up and left. That’s what’s happened here.’ She pulled a young refugee girl to her, who looked scared, which wasn’t surprising since Doctora Asha’s interest in people usually involved pain. ‘This girl’s father has left, been forced out, and these people are worried, they are no longer protected. They don’t feel safe.’ Asha stopped, letting her shoulders droop. The administrator was leading the group of puzzled-looking medics away, saying something about it having been a difficult summer in which they’d been short-staffed.
    Welcome to Sabra, I thought. Asha was left standing in the lobby holding the girl’s hand. The girl was trying to work herself free. Asha looked at her in surprise, apologised and let her go. She spotted me and came towards me. Her eyes were filling with tears.
    â€˜I can’t be seen like this,’ she said, her voice low and cracking. I walked with her out onto the street. I could see Samir laughing with the official interpreter and the BBC TV film crew. Having asked Asha to wait at the entrance, I walked up to him, pulling on his sleeve.
    â€˜I need you to drive Asha home,’ I said in Arabic so the others couldn’t understand.
    â€˜Now?’ he said, frowning at the interruption. A group of kids had gathered round the cameraman shouting, ‘We show you bomb, you photo bomb!’
    â€˜Listen, these people are from the BBC . They want to do a story about one of the kids in the hospital. I told them about that boy Youssef you mentioned,’ Samir said.
    â€˜This is not the time,’ I said, pointing at Asha. The kids tugged at the cameraman’s sleeve and trousers.
    â€˜The thing is,’ said an English woman to me, as if I’d been part of the conversation all along, ‘that we want to try and get one of the kids flown to the UK for treatment, make a story of it, something the British public can identify with.’ She was wearing a safari jacket with lots of pockets; I assumed she must be the producer or director.
    â€˜You’d need to ask Youssef and his aunt,’ I said. I pulled again at Samir’s sleeve, muttering in Arabic, ‘We need to take Asha back.’ The cameraman was trying to swat the kids away. They were now asking five lira to show him their bomb. They may have been the same boys who suckered another journalist into filming a Coke can they’d painted yellow, claiming it was a cluster bomb.
    â€˜The thing is,’ continued the producer, exchanging a fleeting look with the official interpreter, ‘I understand this Youssef boy might be ah … a bit difficult and may not come across well on TV but that the girl with the prosthetic might be more suitable ah … from a visual point of view.’ The girl in question was