I know it’s a great hospital, and I have family who worked and trained there, but my visit was very different. The only place I had to wait for Ezi while he did his MRA in a trailer across the street, was the hallway of the surgical building in Soroka, because there was almost no place to wait in the basement office of the health clinic to which we don’t belong. There are a minimal number of seats there – perhaps because the visitors seem to come in enormous clans, mostly close-cropped young men in jeans and black t-shirts. The tiny cafe in the back has no seats at all, and doesn’t seem to have any customers except me and Chanita who came by to keep me company for a few hours. I stayed there, even though the air seemed thick and unclean, because it was cooler than the outside, even though Chanita and I were the only ones wearing masks. But late in the afternoon, I found a bench outside that was partially in the shade, and I sat down in one corner.

I kept my eye on the entrance to the parking lot because I couldn’t reach Ezi and I couldn’t be sure that he had received any of my messages as to my whereabouts, so I did nothing but watch my surroundings.

There was a colorful prayer rug in the other corner of the bench and as I wondered who could have forgotten a carpet so beautiful, a young man in a black shirt and ragged khakis came by and lay the carpet out for prayer. When he finished, he took a nap on the carpet. In the mean time another guy came by and began his prayer on the other side of the bench. He had no rug, and I imagined he came with someone to the emergency ward. Soon I was surrounded by sleeping men. A breeze had come up and my bench was far more convenient than the hospital, so I continued to sit there alone. Much later, Ezi called, and I ran to the gate to meet him, but when I pointed out to him where I had been sitting among the sleepers, there was no one there. It was as if I imagined the whole scene.

Ezi has had numerous MRAs, always in Tel Aviv, and always in the middle of the night. They usually last a few hours and the only disturbance is that we sleep late. But today was a day trip. We arrived home in the evening – having spent the second longest day of the year waiting.