Then Saturday came, and starting from very early in the morning, a number of his patients gathered in front of the door to our building, along with their children. Little by little, their number grew, until our narrow street and the stairs leading up to our fifth-floor apartment were occupied, reaching almost all the way to our dining table. By eleven o’clock in the morning, my father was still locked in his office, responding neither to our appeals to come out to them, nor to Thurayya’s threats to call the police to drive them all out.

I stood in a corner of the balcony behind the flowerpots, stealing glances at the crowds massing underneath our apartment. With their coal-black faces, their tear-streaked cheeks, their dirty, worn-out clothes, and an anxiety that silenced the many children standing small and frozen among their parents, they could have been illustrations for stories about misery and wretchedness. Why don’t you go out to them like usual, Father? Why do you leave them alone like this, clustered together and waiting? Aren’t you afraid your wife will go out to curse them and drive them away? The doorbell rang. I heard Thurayya shout to Mary, “Don’t open it, no matter who it is!”

“It’s Mr. Kevork,” Mary replied, leading the visitor through the salon and from there to my father’s office.

Among the few residents of our building, only our Armenian neighbor Kevork had acquired my father’s favor and won his company. My father liked his mixed origins, his charming accent, and his passion for reading history, something my father didn’t have time for. I attributed my father’s harmony with him to his being a widower. His wife, Fahineh, had passed away from a chronic illness, which is what first brought my father, the doctor, into Kevork’s life. His two sons had emigrated to the United States to pursue their education and had decided to remain there. After my father came home in the evening, he and the Armenian would sometimes meet in his office to discuss the state of the world as they played chess or smoked a pipe. Kevork was the one who introduced my father to the ritual of pipe smoking by buying him the necessary gear, including the gift of a rosewood pipe. Then he began training my father on how to inhale and exhale, until the two of them shared the same habit.

Kevork suddenly appeared through the office window next to the balcony railing. “The doctor is sick,” he called down in a loud voice. “He cannot receive any patients. Come back another time!” Those gathered below raised their faces to him as he spoke, and then, without a sound, the crowd dissipated. They didn’t even wish him a speedy recovery, I thought to myself. They were too sick to wish a speedy recovery even for themselves.