The Attack

The narrator, Amin, is an Arab-Israeli surgeon at a hospital in Tel Aviv. He meets with Ezra, the hospital director, who helped Amin find a job when he was a young doctor and recently-naturalized Israeli citizen, looked down upon by his young Jewish classmates. Entering Amin’s office without knocking, Ezra invites Amin to his club, but Amin declines: His wife Sihem is due home after a short vacation. After Ezra leaves, Amin calls Sihem but cannot reach her. Kim, a female colleague and friend, enters and talks to Amin; she reminds him that the roads will be busy due to the holiday. 

Ilan Ros joins Amin and Kim in the canteen, telling Amin about a possible real estate deal he has found. Sihem loves the sea, so she and Amin have been searching for a beachside holiday home. However, he worries about the cost. An explosion rocks the canteen. They rush to the window, someone noting that it had to have been “a terrorist attack” (9). Amin and Kim run through the hospital and, unable to find out more information, they prepare to receive the victims. Ezra organizes a crisis management team; this is not the first terrorist attack to his Tel Aviv. A suicide bomber has blown themselves up in a restaurant; many are dead, many more are wounded. Ambulances begin to arrive, bringing in injured women and children. More than a hundred people arrive, turning the ward “into a battlefield” (11). Amid the screams and convulsions, one man refuses to be treated by Amin as he would rather die than be touched by an Arab. Amin helps him anyway. The man glares at Amin with hate-filled eyes as he is taken away to the operating room.

Amin leaves the surgery unit later that night, unable to remember how many operations he has performed. Among the 19 dead are 11 schoolchildren. As Amin walks through the lobby, relatives beg for information about their injured family members. Amin slips out, heading for home. He drives through Tel Aviv, the city already having returned to normal. Amid the busy bars and packed streets, Amin passes the site of the attack and ponders the seemingly unimaginable violence of the blast. Amin is stopped by police officers and his car is searched; Amin complies as the officers call into headquarters to verify everything Amin tells them. After five minutes, Amin is allowed to leave. By the time he arrives home, he is exhausted. Four police patrols have stopped him, each having “eyes only for [his] face” (15). 

Exhausted, Amin enters his house and notices that Sihem is still absent. The house cleaner has also not arrived. Amin is not perturbed; Sihem often takes long trips to her grandmother’s farm. As he changes clothes, Amin thinks about the various tragedies that have befallen Sihem; she worries that “the smallest thing would be enough to shatter [her happiness] forever” (16). When they first married, they were poor but have since moved to an exclusive middle-class neighborhood. Amin showers and readies himself for bed, taking a sleeping pill. He is woken at 3 o’clock in the morning by a ringing telephone. Amin scrambles for the phone and hears Navid, a senior police official, on the end of the line. Groggily, Amin tries to listen to Navid, who demands Amin’s presence at the hospital. Amin agrees, on the provision that Navid call his officers and tell them not to stop Amin’s car. 

Amin parks his car and enters the hospital, where he is met by Navid. Amin remembers performing an operation on Navid a decade ago, treating his leg after a traffic accident. Ilan Ros is with Navid. It is revealed that Amin has not been called to the hospital for medical reasons, but both men shuffle uncomfortably when Amin asks for more information. Eventually, Navid asks about Sihem. Amin insists that she is at her grandmother’s farm. Navid reveals that there is a body and “we’ve got to put a name on it” (20); Amin needs to make a positive identification of his dead wife. Amin almost collapses. He is led to the morgue and looks beneath the blood-stained sheet at the shredded body with his wife’s head. Amin faints.

Amin reflects on the aftermath of losing a patient, particularly telling the deceased’s relatives. On this day, it is his turn to experience that blow. He sits in his chair, his mind a vacuum. Few people talk to him, much less offer their condolences. An exhausted Ezra finally arrives and hugs Amin but even he cannot find anything to say. Navid and a police captain visit Navid to show him a search warrant. They reveal that the injuries on Sihem’s body “are typical of those found on the bodies of the fundamentalist suicide bombers” (22). Amin struggles to process these words. Navid confirms that the police believe that Sihem was the bomber. 

Amin is wedged into the back seat of a police car between two officers. He repeats the revelation in his mind, knowing that it will “haunt [him] for the rest of [his] days” (23). The sun is beginning to rise and the city is waking up. Amin is led into his house and, once he has opened the door, the police officers rush inside. The police captain takes Amin aside for a talk; he acknowledges that Amin is still in shock while wondering how Sihem could have given up such a luxurious home. The captain accuses Amin of knowing about his wife’s “little project” (25). Amin denies this; neither he nor his wife were even religious. He still believes that this is a terrible misunderstanding but admits that Sihem had been at her grandmother’s farm and that he had not talked to her for three days. The police take Amin’s patient files and his computer. The captain’s repeated accusations infuriate Amin, who leaps to his feet and shoves the captain. As he fervently denies his wife’s involvement, Amin is told to sit. Amin collapses onto a sofa, exhausted and despondent.

Amin is kept awake for 24 hours, the police taking turns to interrogate him. Hungry, thirsty, and in pain, Amin must be carried to the toilet when necessary. He collapses on the table and cuts his forehead. A witness reveals that Sihem never made it to her grandmother’s farm; Sihem’s grandmother and brother say they have not seen her for nine months. The interrogators change and ask the same questions. The police captain reveals that nothing of note was found in Amin’s home. Amin denies any suggestion that his wife was the bomber. The police cannot comprehend how such a well-liked, wealthy, and well-integrated woman could carry out the bombing, but they are sure that Sihem was the perpetrator. Amin is finally overcome by his tiredness and falls asleep. 

After three days of interrogation, Amin is released. He collects his possessions and steps out into the light of “an enormous sun” (33). Navid is waiting in a car and offers to drive Amin home. Amin asks whether they have uncovered the real identity of the suicide bomber; because he has been released, he reasoned, the police no longer believe that Sihem was the bomber, but Navid assures him that she was. Amin will have to pay the knass, a fine paid by the relatives of the bomber. Amin refuses Navid’s offer of a lift. Later, Amin wakes up in a public space beside the sea. His clothes are stained and he has little memory of how he arrived in this place. Amin listens to the sea and begins to cry and then to shout at the sea with a crazed madness